“Well, thanks,” Tamara said dryly.
Merran glanced over at her. “Alawahea, Tamara,” he said softly.
“Yeah, right,” she said, not quite believing it.
“You live on Earth, Tam. You won’t even notice.” Justern’s effort to calm her worked better than Merran’s did, and Tamara was able to relax enough to pay attention to their surroundings.
As the tunnel opened out, Tamara stopped and stared. Dappled sunlight, filtered by the high, arching crystal ceiling overhead, filled the interior of the cavern with light. Spread out in front of her was an enormous open area, covered by a soft moss-like substance that cushioned the hard stone. The sounds of life were muted by the huge soaring expanse above them, so large that it absorbed rather than reflected sound. Although it was a city underground, the city felt alive. It was a city, complete with a centralized, marketplace bazaar and people walking everywhere. The metropolis was filled with sunlight, pulsating as if it were breathing. It was breathtaking and beautiful—a city of light.
Merran’s sister’s house was not far away from the entrance to the tunnel. Up a short flight of stairs, into a cave set in the wall of the enormous cavern, Alerra and Kennan’s joyous welcome helped soothe Tamara’s nerves. Merran’s niece, Charina, a sweet girl around Tamara’s age, traded jokes and friendly insults with Justern, treating him like a sibling. Merran joked with them, too, treating Charina very much like a younger sister, but Tamara could see that he was playing a role, in the same way he always did on Earth. Underneath that role, he was not at all lighthearted.
Merran let Tamara take time to get a drink, change her clothes, and wash her face, then he urged her out of the house and down the steps, toward the big bazaar. On the other side of the busy marketplace, a huge stone building stretched up to the ceiling, its angled side revealing a pyramid shape. It disappeared into the ceiling and stopped, the top part of the pyramid truncated.
“Is that the Temple?” she asked him, motioning with her head, trying not to look like a gawking tourist, but knowing she’d failed.
“Yes.”
“Where does it go?”
“It continues above the surface,” Merran said, sounding distracted.
“Merran?” she asked, wanting to take his hand for comfort, but not entirely daring to. This was his planet, his hometown, and he was known here. Would he want to advertise their former relationship? She didn’t know and it made her wary.
“Yes?”
“What’s going to happen?”
“When?”
“At the Temple. When we go in.” He hadn’t talked to her about it, and she hadn’t thought about asking Alarin in the midst of the uncomfortable space ride through the wormhole between Azelle and Earth.
“What do you mean, ‘What will happen?’ We’ll go in, talk to the Keepers, and register the baby with them.”
“Even though she’s not born yet? And I don’t have a name for her?”
“Yes,” he said. “She will be Azellian, so she needs to know the touch of the aarya, just like all of us who are born Azellian.” He glanced over at her as they made their way through the fair, weaving in and out of people, past stalls set up with crafts and food. It looked like an ordinary Earth market, which surprised her. Except for the robes, the cave, and the alien language, it could have been a farmer’s market in Denver. “We may end up in a dream state. Don’t be surprised at anything you see or hear. It may look or feel like a dream, or it may look or feel very real. The aarya are certainly real, but they communicate with us the way we are the most comfortable, so you may or may not realize you’re speaking with one. It’s not unlike Festival in that you will be faced with your own subconscious. You may or may not remember what happens.”
He was nervous. She could hear it in his voice. That, more than anything, made her nervous, too. Merran? Absolutely calm, unflappable Merran was nervous?
“Is it dangerous?” she asked.
He looked at her more closely as they came to a beautiful, calm garden that soothed her nerves. “Dangerous? No. But you can’t be anything but utterly honest at the Temple,” he said. “And sometimes that’s more frightening than anything else.”
On that note, the doors silently swung open. Tamara gasped. Warm, humid air and dappled sunlight spilled out of the interior of the pyramid, filtered by one of the thickest forests she’d ever seen. Was this underground? Energy—life—spilled out from the open door, welcoming them to come in, inviting them to step into the interior of this odd place.
Tamara stepped across the threshold and felt the most indescribably wonderful sense of peace spill over her. The ache that followed the release of tension, tension she didn’t even know she was holding, was almost orgasmic, and it made her eyes fill with tears. Those tears spilled over to slip silently down her cheeks. Something about the peace in here, the feeling of release, dissolved her shields, but she didn’t feel at all threatened. In this state of calm, shielding didn’t matter, because nothing could hurt her. There was no need for hiding, no need for protection in this place. She turned to Merran.
He had an odd look on his face, almost panicked, as if he would hyperventilate. His shields, unlike hers, were not gone, but they looked tattered. His aura pulsed fitfully, throwing off amber darts of light against the foliage beside him.
“Welcome home,” a voice said, but it wasn’t a physical voice. It echoed in Tamara’s head, yet didn’t sound like mental speech either. It spoke not in Azellian or English, but in a form of communication that was at once all languages and none. “Why do you fight?”
Tamara stared. Walking toward them was an ordinary human being. At least it looked like a human being. But to her psi, the aura that surrounded this being was intense, far brighter than anyone she’d ever seen before, and the shape of the mind was most emphatically not human. Nor were the gentle, flowing thoughts anything human. A distant sense of wonder pricked at her. It took her a moment to realize the being was completely naked. There was no room in this beautiful place to wonder about that, and she found herself noting it and moving on.
Merran choked. Tamara glanced over to see him stop and shudder violently. “I can’t lose my shielding.”
The shining being came up to him. The woman’s head was taller than his, which made the being far larger than she had first appeared in the midst of the forest. She lifted a hand gently, tenderly, and placed it on Merran’s cheek, stroking his skin lightly. There was silence, and Merran collapsed, sobbing. Tamara’s heart wrenched at the sounds coming from him, but she didn’t dare move.
The being turned to her. “Welcome to Azelle, umanaarya daughter. Welcome to your unborn, as well. Come,” she continued, apparently ignoring Merran. “We will take you to others of your kind. You will join us.”
“What about him?” she asked, motioning to Merran.
“He will join us when he is ready for the joining,” the being said cryptically. “Come.”
She followed the woman, uncertain, but also feeling calm and safe. Nothing harmful could happen here—she could feel that. The being led her through the thick trees to a spot near a rushing river. It thundered through the space, spilling out of a hole in the distant wall to her left, going who knows where. Tamara thought it would be the most magnificent waterfall if the wall opened into a cliff face.
“It does and is,” a voice said softly, in English, surprisingly enough. Tamara looked up to see a different woman come toward her. She was dressed in formal Azellian robes, her hands tucked into her sleeves. A turban was wrapped around her head, and her olive skin was tanned dark, darker than most of the other Azellians she’d ever seen—maybe it was just the contrast between the woman’s bronze skin and the pale color of her robe. The robe shimmered in the muted light. “The underground river feeds and supports the oasis and all the animals that live on the surface. It feeds and supports those of us who shelter underground.” She smiled. “I am known as Darra. I am a Keeper, one of those who hold the histories and speak for the aarya. Come, join us f
or refreshments.”
Tamara made her way to a group of people sitting in a semi-circle around a table. There were no chairs, just thick cushions on the floor.
“Where’s Merran?” Tamara asked, looking around, jerking herself out of her thoughts, as the feeling of worry nudged at her, even despite the soothing aura in this room.
“Merran will join us when he is ready,” Darra replied quietly. “Please, sit.”
“What’s wrong with him? Is he all right?”
Darra shook her head. “He is fine. As for what is wrong, if anything, you may ask that of him when he joins us. It is for him to decide if he wishes to share.”
The answer wasn’t really an answer, but it did tell her what she needed to know, and she decided to accept it and let her concern go. She moved to an empty spot by the table and picked up a piece of fruit with her fingers. No one said anything as she ate, and Tamara found herself slipping into a meditative state quite unlike any she’d ever known. She closed her eyes.
The aarya greeted them at the door to the Temple, something the aarya very rarely did. To Merran’s acolyte vision, the aarya was little more than a shimmer in the edge of his vision. “Welcome home,” the voice said, warmth coiling in his stomach and spreading through his limbs. Merran shored up his shields, knowing even as he did, that the effort was wasted. It was possible to maintain shields in the Temple, but not in the presence of the aarya, which was probably why one had greeted them at the door—to prevent him from hiding himself. “Why do you fight, acolyte?”
“I can’t lose my shielding,” he said, his voice a croak. Not in front of Tamara.
The aarya coalesced into a body, taking on the shape of a woman. She came closer to Merran, reaching out to brush odd-feeling fingers across his cheek. Be at peace, child, she said to his mind only. She will remember nothing of this. Let go of your pain, let the healing flow through you. Surrender yourself and you will be set free.
The words caused a cascade of reaction in Merran, and all the pain he’d suppressed during these past several months, all the pain of his childhood, the isolation and fear, the child he’d created with a woman he loved, all of it came boiling up, and he fell to his knees weeping. He abandoned himself to it, sobbing all the pain, the fear and anger roaring out of him in a flood of sounds.
The aarya sat on the ground beside him as the storm subsided and Merran was left gasping and panting. It—she, this one had chosen to appear to him as a she, although the aarya had no fixed gender—sat beside him, saying nothing.
“I have a child,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I love her. Already. She’s not even born yet and I love her so much it scares me.” He looked down at his hands. “I don’t know …” he said softly. “How … how will I show her? How do I show her mother that I love her? You teach that love expresses itself organically and genuinely when we love ourselves. How do I love myself enough to cover everything that’s happened?”
The aarya said nothing, sitting quietly by him.
“I spent a large chunk of Kyarinal in her mother’s arms,” he said, after a few moments. “We are now bound by the child we have brought into being. I want to be able to show her that I love her. I want to show her mother that I love her too, but I don’t want to lose my friendship with our friend. How can all of this be?” He felt incoherent, but somehow he knew that he was asking for something and the message had been received.
The aarya looked at him through large, luminous eyes that weren’t any more real than the body it projected. Despite that, Merran could sense the force of the being behind those eyes. He could feel a sense of vast immensity, of awareness so far beyond his that it was utterly incomprehensible to a large portion of his thinking mind. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
As he breathed, the aarya spoke, its—her—voice vibrating along his skin and deep into his bones. “You have asked. Are you willing to receive what you have asked for?”
“Yes. I am ready.” He closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he was in a small room, lying prone on a cot. Tamara, looking much the same as she had when he’d first met her, no longer pregnant, hovered in the doorway of the room. Here, in this room that was only in his mind, she was naked. He sat up, feeling his body stir at the sight of her. “Hi,” he said to her.
“Hi,” she replied shyly.
Merran got to his feet. “Come in,” he said softly, reaching out to her. She hesitated, but took his hands and stepped over the threshold into the room. As she entered the room, he tugged on her gently, pulling her into his arms. She came to him easily, effortlessly. As she fit into his embrace, her warm body against his, her head against his bare chest, he could feel all the sensations from Festival come rushing back, and he abruptly knew what he needed to do. “I love you, Tamara,” he said to her as he hugged her against him, here in this place that was not real. “I love you and our daughter. I love you both so much I can’t even begin to express how much.” As he said the words, he felt a rush of energy pulse through his body. Abruptly, the image in his arms shifted and changed and became himself as an aggressive, wild child on the streets of the outer caves, the space the urro-ken called Azorunt: the place abandoned by beauty. Except it wasn’t abandoned by beauty, at least not entirely. There were the urro, and the urro-ken, and there he was, luminous and beautiful. The little boy, his hair tousled and eyes wary, wriggled free and stared up at him.
“Why did you abandon me?” the boy asked. “I needed you and you left me. I was alone. Without anyone to love me and accept me for who I really am.”
“I’m sorry,” Merran said softly to his younger self. He’d never questioned that his mother loved him, but yet somehow, in this space, it wasn’t his mother’s love that was missing. It was his acceptance of himself, of the child he had been, represented by this wary little boy. “I’m so sorry. I’m here now.”
The boy stared up at him silently, without words, measuring the truth in what he said. “Will you do it again?”
Merran shook his head. “I love you,” he whispered. “I love you.”
The boy shifted and became a young, dark-haired girl who bore his eyes and Tamara’s smile. “Daddy,” she said, and Merran gasped. “It’s me, Rashella. Don’t you know me?”
“Rashella,” he whispered, extending his hands. “Hello, my beautiful, beautiful baby girl.”
She stepped into his arms and said, “Daddy, I love you. I forgive you. Will you love me?”
Merran crushed her against his chest, holding her tightly against him as he stroked a hand through her hair. “I love you, my sweet girl. Never doubt that. I love you beyond space and time and into infinity.”
Rashella flickered and became the little boy again. “I love you. I forgive you. Will you love me?”
“I love you,” Merran told his younger self. “More than you’ll ever know.”
The image of both his daughter and his younger self dissolved and Merran found himself facing the aarya again, the same one who had greeted him. “You are welcome, child of the umanaarya. Welcome home.”
With tears in his eyes, Merran came back to his body and found himself sitting at a table. A Keeper, wearing robes and a turban, was seated beside him. “Welcome,” she said, echoing the greeting the aarya had used. “You were told the name of your child, then?”
Merran nodded. “She told me she is to be known as Rashella.”
“Rashella Carrington Corina. It is a beautiful name. Her mother joins us soon. Please, take some refreshment.”
Merran reached out for a piece of fruit, the taste of it exploding across his taste buds in an eruption of ecstasy. He smiled and nibbled on the fruit, willing himself to wait patiently for as long as he had to. Peace filled his heart and he smiled, feeling love bubble up through his entire body.
Tamara opened her eyes to see a small room. Merran lay on a small cot in the corner. He sat up as she hovered in the entryway. “Hi,” he said to her in English, his voice soft and uncertain, a tone she’d neve
r heard from him before. He smiled shyly.
“Hi,” she replied, his shyness triggering her own. She glanced down at her hands, realizing she wasn’t wearing any clothing—and she wasn’t pregnant. “Wh-?”
Merran got to his feet. He wore nothing either, and his aura shone around him steadily, a powerful glow that was almost a cloak in and of itself. “Come in,” he said softly as he reached out to her. She took his warm hands and stepped over the threshold into the room.
He released her as she entered the room. “Where are we and why am I suddenly not pregnant?” she asked, the words filled with alarm, yet her energy remained quite calm.
“You are not physically present,” he replied, turning from her to walk over to the cot. “I’m not either.”
“Then what’s happening?”
Merran took a deep breath and turned to her. “I have to talk to you. Come, sit.” He patted the bed beside him.
“What?” she asked, joining him on the cot. “What’s happening, Merran?”
He took a deep breath and looked down at his hands. “Quite a bit has gone between us.”
“Uh, you can say that again.”
“You asked me a question before.” His voice had taken that uncertain tone again.
“When?”
“When I … when we officially ended it. You asked me if I ever was in love with you.” He looked down at his hands.
Tamara put her hand out to touch his arm. “You told me that I was the one who made you come closest to regretting your life. I don’t need to know anything more, Merran. It’s enough.”
He opened his arms to embrace her. Tamara looked at him directly. Here, in this place, she couldn’t lie to him. He’d hurt her, and it loomed here, a visible thing between them, an angry energy. “I don’t trust you,” she said, pain evident in her voice. “You hurt me.”
He looked at her steadily, his physical form dissolving abruptly. She found herself staring at herself, as if she were looking into a mirror. She jerked back. “What … what’s happening?”
Triangle Page 29