Triangle

by Sara L Daigle

  “You need to take care of yourself, too, Mer.”

  “I will,” Merran said. “I will,” he said with more emphasis as Greg gave him a disbelieving look.

  “How effective are you going to be negotiating treaties when your head is somewhere else?”

  Merran scowled, irritation rising through him. “As soon as I finish up this agreement with the Dorbin, I’ll take some time off. All right?”

  Greg frowned at him. “Okay,” he said. “As long as you promise.”

  “Yes, yes. I promise. Now will you tell me what you’re planning to do to help the Atherans so when the Council finds out you went to Ather, I can make sure I’ve got something to present to them as to why I allowed a Healer under my jurisdiction to go to Ather and risk his life? I need the Council to back me, or the Healer Conclave, who is technically in charge of all Healers on and off Azelle, will have my metaphorical head for letting you go.”

  “You don’t have to explain yourself, Mer. I’m going as a private citizen, and you can no more control a sacred Call from patient to Healer than you can stop the sun from rising, but I’ve got an idea about how all the political mess can be avoided.” Greg replied.

  “Good. Tell me, then. The political mess is what I want to avoid.” As Merran listened to Greg’s plan, he was grateful to be distracted with other thoughts, at least for a while.

  That night, in the hush of late evening, Merran stood at his office’s huge window, staring out over what was not actually the view he normally looked at from his office windows. When upset or disturbed, he liked to look out over the holographic projection of Azelle that he’d commissioned some years back. To the uninitiated, the endless waves of red sand hinted at the harsh solitude that Azelle offered. For any powerful psi worker, however, the holographic panorama induced a peaceful Zen-like state. The silence and solitude were restful—the sand absorbed sound and even thoughts, a meditative haven for those who knew how to access it.

  He stared out over the dunes, thinking about his past, remembering the strong voice of his mother, Pelera. Curious and brave, she’d left the outer caves at seventeen, determined to find out more about the world she lived in. The urro-ken habit of sharing their psyche with another being was the overt reason the umanaarya on Azelle found the urro-ken distasteful, but over a thousand years, their isolation and exclusion from the rest of Azellian culture had become an institutionalized prejudice. The urro-ken lived in poor conditions, compared to the rest of the population of Azorantxl. Caves sheltered them, as caves sheltered the city of Azortantxl itself, but the urro-ken caves lacked any type of amenity enjoyed by the other inhabitants. Dark, dank, isolated, lacking running water and artificial lighting, the outer caves were known as Azorunt, which meant “place abandoned by beauty” in the harsh, ugly jygar dialect. There was much truth to that: Azorunt was a place with hardly anything that was beautiful about it. Yet, after his mother returned with her young son to Azorunt, Merran had grown up with little comprehension of the poverty of his circumstances or the lack of beauty in his surroundings.

  Scrabbling for what he wanted, taking it and holding it with all his strength was just the way to get things in his world, and he’d gotten good at it, dominating the other children with a compelling combination of personality and persuasion. His mother had told him of another way of living, and he had youthful impressions from when his father had been alive of a different way, but he had little care for something that seemed so far away and fantastical. He’d listened, but it hadn’t been until much later, after her death, that he’d been tempted to leave Azorunt. Merran closed his eyes, remembering his mother shortly before she died as she told him about the hostility she’d faced—and the shelter she’d found with his father.

  “The merging leaves a residue in our psyche, but I thought that because I had not yet merged, I would be able to hide who I was when I went to Azorantxl,” Pelera said to a much younger unAwakened Merran, as he crouched on the floor by her pallet, covered by a thin, threadbare blanket that barely provided any sort of warmth in the wet, humid cave they called home. A fire burned in a fire pit, throwing elongated shadows on the cave walls, generating a little warmth, but it did not stop the shivers that jarred through her thin frame. She had called him in from the usual day’s routine of roughhousing, fighting, and negotiating with his peers, insisting he sit by her as she told him of his father. He stared at the woman who lay in front of his eyes, dying by inches.

  He’d heard various parts of the story his entire life and could remember the man who’d had such a brief but strong impact on him and his mother, but there was an urgency about her now that caught his attention and brought the information to him in a totally new way.

  “But it did not work. They speak differently and they act differently, even without the residue of merging. We are not the same as they are, little Mero. They are umanaarya. We are urro-ken. And the umanaarya knew what I was. They rejected me. I found shelter with a sympathetic boy about my age, but he could do little to protect me, so I found someone stronger. Someone who had the political clout to be able to prevent them from harming me. Your father. Jarid Memaxthal Corina. His mate had just died, and he was willing. Even though he had two adult children from his mate, he loved me enough to agree to conceive you.

  “When you were little, he died, and you and I had to flee to Azorunt again. But before he died, we got to live in the most incredible luxury, Mero. I want that for you, my beautiful boy.” She coughed, the hoarse spasms wracking through her body, and spit bloody sputum into a bowl by her bed, reaching a shaking hand out to take his. He gripped her cold fingers tightly. “You deserve better than what I have given you, my son. So much better. You deserve to be everything you can be … even Leader. Promise me that you will try to do better for yourself, my little Mero. Promise me you will leave this pit and make something of yourself. When I die, go to the umanaarya. Force them to accept you. Prove to them that you are every bit as good as they are. Promise me.” She tightened her fingers on his.

  “Yes, Mama. I promise.” Merran stared at her, the implications of what he was hearing hardly registering as she clung to his hand. She’d always told him to live in the moment, not to worry about the past. But even as she struggled to breathe, her breath wheezing in and out of her lungs in short spurts, the story spilling out of her in pieces that matched her breathing, he knew his world would never be the same again.

  Pelera’s death came not two days later, and with it, his world changed irrevocably. Hard on the heels of his mother’s death, Merran stumbled into Awakening with a vengeance, his psi roaring to life with a ferocity that no urro-ken understood or knew what to do with—his umanaarya High Council empathic talent forcing him to sense everyone around him whether he wanted to or not, isolating him from his fellow urro-ken, who did not share his abilities and did not understand how to help him manage them.

  Almost immediately after an uncomfortable, unpleasant Awakening, one of the urro approached him, asking him to merge. Seeking surcease from the hell of his psi’s Awakening among people who did not understand, he agreed. Non-corporeal and genderless, filled with an ancient awareness that knew more about psi than he could have imagined, the urro who picked him indeed blunted his empathy with a perspective far beyond his, providing much needed relief from the pressures of his psi. His meynsur—his urro partner—tried to convince him to permanently mate psyches. Sorely tempted, but remembering his promise to his mother, and knowing that if he accepted the urro, he would never be accepted by the umanaarya, he refused. By nature highly independent and consumed by curiosity over what his mother had told him about the other half of his heritage, he left the urro and sought out his father’s family instead.

  Merran returned to Azorantxl and quickly found his half-siblings. That memory could still make him wince. His older brother, Junian, had not handled the knowledge of a younger half-caver brother well at all. His older sister, Alerra, was much friendlier and open, but stinging from Junian’s harsh rej
ection and drowning in the fury, hatred, and resentment his older brother threw at him through their shared empathic talent, Merran fled to the High Desert. An aarya found him kneeling in a sand dune, like the ones in the holographic projection outside his office window, as he prayed for release from the hell of his psi’s Awakening and his brother’s rejection.

  Merran slowly became aware of the shimmering, non-physical presence beside him. The aarya said nothing, communicated nothing to him, just rested beside him in gentle, accepting presence, but suddenly Merran heard the rush of life that roared in and around him, and felt the deep, slumbering presence of the very planet itself. He touched the edges of that awesome, overwhelming presence and felt the warmth of inclusion, a deep spreading calm that poured through him, soothing back the meaningless emotional upheavals of his life. Nothing seemed to matter as a result of the serenity he suddenly felt—not the pain, not the fear or the upheaval—all fading into a peace that seemed unbreakable. It felt almost identical to the perspective the urro had offered, but there was a difference. The peace welled from within and was not controlling him from outside. Somehow, rather than give it to him, the aarya guided him to this sense of peace, and the difference was powerful and lingering.

  Drawn by the power of that meeting, Merran went to the Temple, where the aarya lived. Staying at the Temple allowed him to explore the depths of his being, finding a joy in living in the moment that he’d known before in the caves, but had lacked the experience to appreciate at the time. He enjoyed his newfound awareness and rejoiced in his physicality, surrounded by others who not only understood his psi, but shared it. He might have stayed with the aarya, choosing to live his life as a Keeper, one of those who share the aarya perspective and live among them on a daily basis. But, once again drawn by his promise to his mother—because, in their way, the aarya are as isolated from the rest of the galaxy as the urro—after about a year he walked away from that as well, seeking resolution with his father’s family.

  Merran’s time in the Temple helped him reconcile the fact that his older brother resented and hated him, a combination of prejudice for Merran’s urro-ken upbringing and resentment of the place Merran’s mother had taken in Junian’s father’s life after the death of Junian’s mother. Junian never accepted Merran—he still didn’t—making Merran wonder sometimes how much of his drive now was his promise to his mother and how much was an unspoken need for a paternal figure in his life. That need translated into a desire to have his unresponsive, hostile older brother tell him he was proud of him, something that Merran could now admit was hopeless, but still drove him anyway. Whatever pushed him forward—and he acknowledged it was a combination of things—the restlessness inside would not leave him in peace.

  Merran raked a hand through his hair and rubbed his eyes, seeing nothing but the memories continue to roll by. After he returned to his family, his much older half-sister, Alerra, took him in, gave him a place to live, and provided him with sanctuary through the tumultuous years of his adolescence and further exploration of his psi. He met each one of the band that came to be called Merran’s misfits—his niece Charina, who was Alerra’s daughter, and Justern, her cousin on her father’s side. Through Charina, he met her friend Mellis, and through Mellis, Alarin, and through Alarin, Idara and Greg. They explored their psi with each other, those who weren’t too closely related also sharing their physical bodies, enjoying the freedom of being young and alive.

  More importantly, his band of friends gave Merran a place where he could truly be himself, without restriction or judgment. They knew of his past and truly didn’t care, which gave him a haven against those who did—and there were plenty who tried to torment him over his past. His ability and willingness to fight, learned thoroughly during his childhood in the caves, prevented most people from taking it very far, but he still felt it, that judgment and resentment, the prejudice, the whispers that circulated among his peers who were not his friends.

  His childhood in the wild streets of Azorunt gave him more experience at physical confrontation than most of the umanaarya had, blessing him with a set of valuable tools to resist the pressures and prejudices of his peers. Using a balance of violence and diplomacy to effectively keep hostility at bay, he learned to cultivate the attitude that most High Council Azellians learn from birth. As he began to act more like them, ruthlessly changing his urro-ken mannerisms and accent, the frequency of torment from his peers faded and he took his place among them, his promise to his mother slowly taking shape. Over time, though, the peace and joy he’d experienced while seeking refuge with the Temple called to him and he chose to return to the Temple, to formally become an acolyte, learning to see things as the aarya did. His friends supported his choice, and he maintained contact with them through the years of his acolyte training.

  Though he’d told Ki’i that his calling was to come to Earth to become ambassador, the truth was a bit more complicated. While what he’d told the Dorbin certainly was true, the reality of it had been a little less smooth. At the Temple, he’d fallen in love with another acolyte. For two years, he reveled in being in love, and in general lived life to its fullest with Kaelynn at the Temple and his friends outside of it. Then, two years after starting their affair, Kaelynn left the Temple quite abruptly, heading to Earth. He followed her, scrapping the three years of acolyte training and his friends. Although she welcomed him at first, she quickly disabused him of any idea he had that she shared his sentiment, breaking his heart and openly fleeing from him once again. At the time he blamed his urro-ken heritage for her abandonment, but he realized after a while that it had truly been for the best.

  Using his acolyte training and perspective, he pulled himself clear of his broken heart and began to take interest in his surroundings, seeking out his next step in his promise to his mother. Loving the rough and tumble environment of human politics, facing the end of his visa if he did not find a job, he inveigled his way into the Azellian ambassador’s good graces, negotiating a spot onto the ambassador’s staff. With his powerful empathic abilities and careful strategizing, he managed to get himself invited to some very delicate treaty negotiations between the humans and Azellians. When the ambassador died during one of those negotiations, Merran brazenly continued the effort, using skills he’d developed as a child in Azorunt to cover up the ambassador’s death so skillfully, no one noticed the ambassador was no longer alive.

  Leaning on those talents developed during his childhood even further, he managed to win some very important concessions for Azelle, fully using his native charm and persuasiveness—and more than a little of his psi. When he returned to the Council on Azelle to report what had happened, Merran’s role in successfully negotiating the treaty despite the ambassador’s death meant the Council readily awarded him the ambassador position.

  Merran grimaced at the projected image of endless sand dunes in front of him as the internal movie continued to play out. After becoming ambassador, he’d convinced most of his fellow misfits to come to Earth and be exchange students. It had been wonderful at first, but rapidly began to fall apart. Justern had been accused of rape and deported, taking Mellis back home with him. Greg had remained on Earth, as had Alarin, but Merran’s relationship with Alarin was in shambles because of this bond they both had with Tamara. Had his walking away from Tamara rescued his relationship with Alarin? He couldn’t be certain, and though he knew he’d done what was necessary for himself and his two friends, the idea that he might very well have damaged his relationship with both of them hurt far more than he would have expected. Reaching out, he turned off the holograph to reveal instead the brightly lit Denver skyscrapers.

  Staring out over the lighted windows of the downtown area, he thought about his emotional turmoil. On Azelle, he would have gone for a walk into the High Desert, reaching into that unfathomable peace deep within the heart of the planet. He didn’t have that option here, although Earth, too, had a deep thrumming energy that fed and supported its inhabitants. It wasn’t t
he same, though. He rubbed his temples, suddenly longing for Festival, the Festival that would reestablish his connection with Azelle, drawing him back into the song of the aarya and their gentle guidance. It would come around again, as soon as the winter storms ended on Azelle, but until then, he had to use alternate methods to shift his mood.

  A sudden restlessness gripped him. Despite the lateness of the hour and blowing snow, he made his way out into the streets of Denver, calling a cab and having it drop him on the 16th Street Mall. The mall was surprisingly busy, even with the cold winds and continuing snowfall. Although it was almost midnight, people were walking, window shopping, and paying no attention to him. No one seemed to recognize him or even care, and Merran could feel the depth of their disinterest.

  The impersonality of the city’s aura soothed, in some odd way, the emotional pain that had been dogging him ever since he told Tamara that they had to go their separate ways. Greg had helped him block the remnants of their link, and since then he hadn’t felt a thing from Alarin and Tamara. No sexual energy reached down their link, either because they weren’t doing anything or because he couldn’t feel it anymore. His feelings about losing the link were mixed. He missed the sense of sliding into Tamara completely, a lovemaking that involved mental as well as bodily release. Yet, blocking their connection had been the best thing to do. It meant he was now free for the first time in months, alone in his head, and he had to admit that felt wonderful.

  Almost unaware of his surroundings, he wandered off the outdoor mall and walked past a small, hole-in-the-wall bar with an old-fashioned sign out front that read Roger Tolle’s. It glowed neon blue, red, and green, designed to catch the eye and draw attention to the open front door. Laughter spilled out from the interior of the bar, loud music impinging on even his distraction here on the street. The feel of the place was friendly and open, willing passersby to enter. Drawn by the possibility of stretching out his escape from the weight of the world and his own thoughts, Merran stepped into the interior of the bar, his coat draped over his shoulder.