“They’ve left you here to rot, Dielel. Left you with me. You’re waste to them now, as ugly as me, as unwanted, as forgotten…”
“Shut up!” Dielel clapped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late. Jarn’s laughter mocked him from the grate. He only wanted a response, a hint that he was getting to Dielel, and he’d gotten it today. Damn him.
The howl echoed in his cell. He supposed it was all Jarn had to look forward to, baiting him, taunting him until he cracked. Resisting was all he had, too. Tonight, Jarn had won. He’d fall asleep trembling and listening to the aftershocks, the little chuckles that meant the devil knew he’d scared him. He’d fall asleep and dream of the dead Seer's head rolling toward him, laughing at him.
And there would be no Haftan to protect him ever again.
*-*-*
The lizard man was overly attached to his luggage. He refused to allow them to store any of it in the cargo bay, instead ensconcing himself in one of the candidate rooms and failing to reappear until they’d left the base behind and were well into their journey. Then, Shayd caught him peeking out from his doorway.
They’d be four days to Choma on the transport, and Shayd hadn’t spent any time on a ship before. Aside from trips up and down the elevator and the micro shuttles that ran between the moon base and the elevator platforms, he’d never spent any time in space at all. He belonged on Shroud, with his feet planted and the Heart singing through his dreams.
“Hey, hey,” the Shevran chanted as he passed the man’s room. “You there!”
Shayd stopped walking. He turned all the way around and stared at the green face.
“I assume there will be meals,” the man’s voice warbled slightly. “This can has a galley?”
Shayd blinked and watched the green shift toward purple. Anger. The man wanted attention. The ship was used to transport Bride candidates. Did the man believe they starved them? Then again, they’d appropriated the vessel quickly. Certainly Mofitan had the necessary crew on board, and if not, there would be rations. Rations would be simple, but far easier, more preferable to having a lot of extra hands on board. Which would Mofitan have chosen? He couldn’t guess, but the trader’s flush deepened by the second. Did the ship have a galley? Technically, the answer was simple too.
“Yes.” He turned his back on the lizard man and swept the rest of the way down the hall pursued by the soft sputtering of the trader’s ire.
A single port door led to the front of the ship, to a maintenence shaft and another doorway that would take him up a short ladder to the bridge and the common area. Shayd hurried to this in case their irritable passenger chose to follow him. He found Haftan sulking in the navigator’s couch. Mofitan had piloted them out of dock, but now let the ship’s auto functions continue the job while he ranted to a man who obviously wasn’t listening.
“Don’t have a clue about these Tolfarians’ intentions.” He pounded one fist against the arm of his chair and Haftan jumped as if he’d only just awoken. “The Summit doesn’t understand our Heart. It would make us the Galaxy’s matchmakers, some tawdry dating service for other cultures.”
“Tawdry?” Haftan’s voice drifted to their boots. His head remained down, and his attention wherever it was his thoughts drifted these days.
“They think we’d do anything to join them.”
“Wouldn’t we?” Haftan shifted his seat and looked up, skimmed his glance over Shayd without making contact. “What wouldn’t we do?”
“They think anything.” Mofitan reasserted it. “They think we’ll sympathize with the Tolfarians, and fail to object to trading in marriage.”
“And here we are.” Haftan shrugged. “Why does it bother you?”
“Bagh!” Mofitan started to stand, then gave up and slumped back in his chair. The transport bridge did not have the space he needed to rail in. “It just doesn’t feel right.”
His eyes drifted to Shayd as well, and he pinned the Seer in an entreating look. “What about you? Does this thing sit well with you? How does it look?”
Ever since they’d conspired against Haftan’s short rule, Mofitan had looked to him with more faith than was warranted. Still, the moment the man said the words, how does it look, Shayd felt the Heart’s whisper. The pulse sang in his mind. His temples warmed and he saw the face of the gray man, the blue wires twisting through the skin. He saw the darker woman with eyes like blue stones.
And she reached for him.
The bridge blurred and went dark. Shayd stood in a different place, one he did not recognize and felt certain he’d never stood in before. He stared down into those eyes, and the woman leaned in. She reached her arms up to him, and he pulled her closer, already held her in an embrace he didn’t remember initiating.
The stone on his finger warmed. The Heart sang to him. It pulsed in his thoughts, and he knew it. This was his bonding. His true mating would not happen in any ceremony on Shroud. The Heart had sent him away, not out of anger or mistrust. It had sent him to find his Bride.
“Hello?” Mofitan growled the vision away. He leaned forward in his chair, hands on knees and face expectant. He, of them all, might guess the Seer had been visioning. Mofitan had witnessed it before. “What is it? Are we off track?”
“No.” Shayd’s mouth fought with his manner. It wanted to curl up at the corners, to show his elation visibly. Were they off track? Shroud! They were exactly where they needed to be. The Heart was never wrong. He reined in the smile and nodded once to ease Mof’s concern. “It is good.”
“Great.” Haftan’s agreement sounded flat and lifeless, but he put his hands behind his head and leaned back against the wall. Nearly made eye contact, that time, almost like himself. “So we’ll pick up the Uraru Bride and her escort and we’ll deliver them to the Tolfarians, help them sort out their differences and join the Summit. What could go wrong?”
Mofitan grunted, but Shayd’s head was full of his Heart’s song. Nothing could go wrong. He’d heard his answer in Haftan’s comment. The Bride’s escort would be the Senior Priestess of Choma. Tout had said as much. The spiritual leader of the Choma-uraru would bring the Tolfarians’ Bride to him, and Shayd could think of no better match for the Seer of Shroud.
If they negotiated peaceful reconciliation for the Choma peoples, perhaps, his reward would be an alliance with Shroud, one based on the heartbond of the two cultures’ religious leaders. He let a little of the smile free, just a whisper of the joy inside. Mofitan had no reason to worry. The Heart had sent them, and Shayd placed their lives in its hands as willingly as he’d place his own future.
For their concerns he couldn’t elaborate beyond that simple phrase, “It is good,” but in his thoughts he added, it is wondrous and perfect.
Chapter Nine
Mirau was sulking about something. She shuffled her slippers against the stone floors and only glanced around the room and shrugged when Rowri led her inside. The younger priestess had asked to see her new quarters, and that she now seemed to care less set Rowri’s teeth together. Her cat rumbled for the first time since the explosion of the volcanoes.
But she didn’t want to be angry with Mirau. She’d be leaving in a few hours, taking a skipper with Omira to the nearby port. From there she’d be abandoning Choma forever, and she wanted to see Mirau smiling before that. She wanted to hear the woman giggle, to hug her once before she left.
“The bed is softer.” She poked at the mattress with one hand, bounced the coverlet and wished Mirau would look up at least. “You’ll like it, when you move up.”
Mirau sniffled. The sound filled the small room. She stifled the second one, choked on it and then burst into tears. “Oh. Oh. Rowri. It’s so awful.”
The girl streaked past her and collapsed on the bed. She folded her dark arms and pressed her face into the triangle she made, sobbing into Rowri’s new bed. Someone else’s new bed now. Her red hair spread over the coverlet, and when she looked up again, made a screen of fiery filaments over her face. “What will you do?
Oh, why did you agree to it, Rowri?”
“Mirau.” Rowri sat on the bed, and Mirau put her head back down, let out another ragged sniffle. “I saw it, Mirau. I told you that.”
“You didn’t have to tell them. You could have just stayed quiet. Everyone would have understood it.”
“Why?” She felt a prickle at the suggestion. No one lied about a seeing, and something in Mirau’s tone was less sympathetic and more judgmental than she’d expected. “What is seen must come to pass, Mirau. You know that.”
“But not like this! It’s so demeaning. That they’d even ask it…what kind of animals have the Tolfarians turned into?”
“Many cultures arrange marriages, Mirau. Our own history has examples of this.”
“What if he’s horrid? What if he hurts you, Rowri? How can you do it?” Mirau sat up and turned her tear-streaked face toward Rowri. The suspicion in her eyes matched the tone of her words, accusation. Mirau didn’t approve of the Tolfarians' request. Maybe none of the Choma-uraru did. It didn’t change the fact that Rowri had seen it. Was Omira the only one that agreed with her decision? The only one on Choma?
Or did even the Senior pass judgment on this thing?
Mirau rolled over and pulled her legs up tightly to her chest. She stared at Rowri over the tops of her knees. “I don’t want you to go. The Tolfarians are evil, Rowri.”
“Oh, Mirau.” She sat on the end of the bed and tried to quiet her cat’s anger. Mirau had challenged her seeing, but she’d done it out of fear for her friend. That much glistened in the girl’s eyes. “It’s not like you think. I didn’t just see it. I saw him.”
Mirau sniffed and blinked. “What?”
“I saw him. The Tolfarian won’t hurt me, Mirau. He’s…I…it’s supposed to happen.”
“You saw him? The one they’re giving you to?”
“Yes.”
For a moment, Mirau pondered this. Her eyes narrowed and she wiped away the whisper of tears. “You mean you’ve seen him and you liked him?”
“Well…”—Lilac skin and black hair, the scent of sweet smoke and eyes that held as much vision as hers had—“…yes. I suppose so. He certainly wasn’t scary, Mirau. It felt like any other seeing. It just felt right.”
“He wasn’t ugly?”
“No.” Rowri heard the awe in her voice and clapped her hands over her lips. Too late, Mirau’s eyes went wide and starry.
“Oh!” She giggled, fully herself again, and the sound became infectious. Mirau hugged her knees now and smiled, and Rowri laughed with her.
They let it out, let the giggles launch to the high ceiling and bounce around the arches. Rowri’s doubts flew with them, up and away. She’d seen him. Her Tolfarian husband to be was nothing to fear. In fact, just the memory of the vision made her head swim pleasantly. They had a few hours to enjoy this, the way things had been here, to say goodbye to the friendship before Rowri moved on. She couldn’t think of any better way to bid her home farewell, nor could she imagine any better future to leave it for.
*-*-*
Omira met her at the temple gates. This time Rowri had a bag with her, a duffle over a shoulder carrying everything she’d be allowed to keep from her home planet. She had her new white robes on, tied with the belts of rank. But inside the bag she had a set of traveling clothes, loose pants and a tunic that made her itch. She had a gown of finer fabric, similar to her robes but what the tailor had assured her would qualify as “secular garb.” They’d given her a book of rites and a simple set of chimes so that she might carry her spirit into space.
These things were meant to keep her centered, to keep her seeing, and, more importantly, to keep her Uraru in check. She didn’t know enough about the Tolfarians to imagine how that part would work. The cat would need to run, at least on occasion. No Choma-uraru could suppress the beast forever. Who would even think to try?
Except now one of them would leave Choma, and that one had no idea where she’d be living or how she’d find a way to run. When she thought about it, her cat paced and the hair on the back of her neck stood at attention. She had to remind herself that all of this was seen, and even then, for the first time ever, Rowri felt a tickle of doubt.
Omira smiled, wide and calm. The cat settled, curled up and knew peace. A low-atmosphere shuttle waited outside the gates, perched beside the changing huts as if it meant to leap out into the jungle and have a run of its own. The ramp was down. The time had come. Omira nodded and turned to their future.
Rowri followed her. The Senior’s hem rippled like a tide and she kept her eyes on it, watched the fabric and followed in its wake. It took twelve steps to reach the ramp, and only seven to climb it. The interior was unfamiliar, smooth and gray and darker than the shuttle of her visions. They sat on a long couch, side by side instead of facing, and watched the ramp lift slowly into position. It had no rivets, and made a humming sound she’d never heard before.
It sliced away at her view of the Grand Temple, a shrinking segment of the huge domes, a last gleam of polished stone before the door closed and the cabin fell into darkness. The engines howled and a string of blue lights flared along the wall where it met the floor and ceiling. The glow cast the couches into a cool shade. It sent her cat into a corner and made her eyes heavy.
The room tilted and they lifted off, soaring out over the jungle she’d run through only a few days prior. She’d hunted there, played there, and now they left it in the echo of their engines. Omira leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes.
They’d fly directly to Fartua. It was only a few hours to the north, and then they would board a deep space shuttle, the shuttle in fact. The one that would take her to him. Was he worth it? Could any one man be worth giving up a whole life, a whole planet, to find?
Rowri closed her eyes as well. She pulled up the memory of her seeing. It took little effort. She’d replayed the images, had stored his countenance in the forefront of her mind. She could see him, almost without closing her eyes.
The stories her parents told about the Tolfarians were wrong. The fearful whispers of the clergy at breakfast, the sad looks and hidden accusations were in error. The lilac man meant her no harm. He couldn’t. She knew it as fully as she knew she belonged to him.
The ship tipped and jogged a little, waking Omira or else jolting her out of a meditation. The Fartua port would lead to him. Rowri swallowed another wave of doubt. The Tolfarian had asked for a bride, he couldn’t possibly reject her…could he? Would the beast that dwelt in Rowri’s veins push away the man she now hoped to win over?
The Tolfarians had rejected their Uraru. History claimed they detested all things of spirit. What if the lilac man didn’t want her now? How could she return after that?
“The shuttle will be waiting when we arrive.” Omira leaned forward, shook Rowri out of her thoughts. “We’ll transfer as quickly as possible. This deal…has not been well received by popular opinion.”
“Yes, Senior.”
“I have faith in you, Rowri, and in our seeing. Don’t forget that. You saw and I saw, and that is all that matters. Our people will thank you for this when the bio-net is restored.”
“I have faith, Senior.” She had faith. The lilac man’s eyes had been kind. They’d held something, yes, but it hadn’t been disapproval.
Once she’d met him in the present, what would it matter if her people approved? Once she’d become the Tolfarian’s bride…she couldn’t see that yet. She couldn’t see anything beyond the man with lilac skin. Anything beyond that, her faith would have to carry her through.
Chapter Ten
Jadyek followed the Shrouded Consort to the landing platform with soft steps. The crater would serve their purpose perfectly and, if he’d read the man correctly, Jain Rieordan agreed with his assessment. The mining operation that currently occupied the shallow impression had run near to dry, and the miners already sought work elsewhere.
The Consort had a mercenary's build, wider and shorter than the Shroude
d. His paler hair marked him as alien, an outsider, and his skin lacked the purple of their people. He moved with the intensity of purpose of a military man, and had an obvious confidence with the skills to back it up.
It was Rieordan himself who had suggested offering a generous stipend to the stragglers in exchange for the shut down. The atmospheric equipment was already in place, and many of the facilities could easily be converted to their purpose. There was housing already, though it would need some additional amenities. The rest could be added as they went.
“The site is secluded.” The Consort took the steel stairway to the platform, looking back over his shoulder to comment further. “But close enough to the secondary elevator that we could easily arrange transports.”
“Agreed.” He’d questioned the location initially. His first suggestion had been equidistant between the elevators, the only routes on and off of Shroud. The other mine, however, was still profitable enough that Peryl had cringed from the idea of sealing it. In hindsight he could see why, though the negation had stung a bit. Even with a lesser crystal, this site would work. It would allow them to follow his suggestion, and they were taking him seriously for the first time since he’d arrived.
He’d been sent to inspect the site alongside the Consort and now, when Rieordan continued across the platform to their waiting transport, Jadyek turned and gazed out across the crater where his plans would manifest.
The depression dipped softly under the Shroud. A clear, shallow pit wider than the one that held the Palace complex, but not half as deep. The walls angled in a gentle slant, dust-yellow rock that made a blurred line where it met the thick atmosphere. The buildings clustered near the center where the deepest pits had been drilled. The domes shimmered today and reflected the blush pink of the Shroud’s current mood.
They’d have to seal the mineshafts, fill in the test pits, and clear out a lot of equipment, but Rieordan believed much of that could be used elsewhere too. There was only the one main mag-strip for a thoroughfare, but it would do. They could inlay a smaller grid close to the buildings, or else they could rely on wheeled carts inside the complex or utilize the few strips where the hover sleds had carried ores from the shafts to the processors. Maybe they could move those to better positions. Jadyek was no engineer. He didn’t even know if it was possible.
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