Twilight tdts-3

by Кристи Голдэн

  Jake ascertained that only a single pursuer was after her, though doubtless he had informed his commander that he had found the prey they sought. With nothing to lose, Jake accelerated and headed for the inhospitable planet. Perhaps she could elude them yet.

  Again the ship rocked, and despite the shields, Jake knew it had taken a solid hit. Escape pod has sustained damage to the hull. Structural integrity failing. Damage irreparable and escalating. Estimated time to complete systems failure: twenty-eight minutes, fifty-one seconds.

  A quick check revealed that if the vessel survived the crash— unlikely at best, but a possibility—she would have enough oxygen to last for ten days. After that, she could use the protective suits; that would buy her another six hours. That was, of course, assuming that the assassin did not succeed in eliminating her and the threat she posed.

  No! It must not be lost. The knowledge must not die with this protoss shell she wore. Jake refused to accept the cool mental voice coming from the crystal, telling her that she would die in less than an hour. The inhospitable planet was the only option left to her now. She sat back in the chair and reached for the khaydarin crystal she kept on a thin chain about her neck, her long fingers closing over it as she used its power to keep her mind calm and focused.

  She did not know what she was searching for. Something to keep hope alive, perhaps.

  And she found it. Her eyes flew open. There was a xel'naga artifact on this otherwise forsaken world. Was it a sign?

  The assassin was no longer firing at her, but neither was he abandoning the chase. She realized that they wanted her alive if it could be conveniently managed, at least initially, so they could make certain of exactly what she knew, how she knew it, and whom she had told.

  Unthinkable. Jake would take her own life before she would let the enemy have such knowledge.

  Grimly determined, Jake headed for the planet, targeting the xel'naga temple. The world came into view, pale and unwelcoming. She flew closer, directing the glowing, graceful pod down into the atmosphere.

  There. She could see the temple now. But even from this distance she could see that its exterior was dark brown, not the vibrant, living green a memory not her own told her it would have been had it still housed its treasure. The energy creature that had once dwelt inside it had departed for whatever glorious destiny awaited it—a destiny that not even she, who bore the knowledge of all protoss, could guess at. There was even a gaping, shattered hole in the top where it had emerged. It was for that aperture that Jake headed now. There was a good chance that, using the memories of others, she could navigate her way through the myriad corridors that were sure to comprise the chrysalis better than those who hunted her.

  She focused all her attention on the jagged entrance. She thought she could glimpse a faint glowing from within. If it had crystals, perhaps she—

  Another attack pounded her already battered ship. Clearly they were afraid they would lose her, and were trying to knock her off course. They succeeded. Jake crashed into the lip of the hole and knew no more.

  Pain...

  Sometime later, she blinked awake, pain stabbing her and a humming noise vibrating through her body almost to a cellular level. She was huddled beneath the console, and for a moment she didn't understand why. Then she realized what had happened. Her escape pod was tilted badly, almost vertically. She moved cautiously, aware that she was wounded, but not sure yet how bad it was. Her hand touched her slender torso and came away wet with blood, dark and thick and hot.

  She was dying. She was dying and soon it would be lost, all lost....

  Jake craned her neck and her eyes widened. Where she had sat was now a huge, glowing crystal. It was so beautiful, its song—for now she realized it was crystals singing, as they had once sung to Khas and Temlaa and others—so exquisite she almost forgot to be shocked at its appearance. Her pod had impaled itself—and, she realized, her—upon it.

  Somehow she reached the door, somehow it opened, and she fell down several feet and again lost consciousness as she struck hard. Impossibly, she revived a second time. Somehow she got to her feet and swayed for a moment, staring down at her bloody lavender and white robes.

  There was no indication that her pursuers had followed her down, and she knew why. There had been no reason to. They had dealt her ship a crippling blow, and the area in which the pod had crashed would be far too difficult to navigate. There was no atmosphere here, and if they had taken any readings on her physical state, they would know she would be dead within hours. Indeed, she should be dead already. Her injuries were far too great. But in defiance of what should be, the wound was starting to close, and the lack of habitable atmosphere seemed to pose no threat. Something here was keeping her alive. But for how long?

  She looked around, the pain receding in the face of the glories that met her eyes. This.. .cavern?.. .was filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of khaydarin crystals. Each one was singing, adding its own tune to the exquisite harmony that wrapped around her almost like a physical thing. They glowed blue, purple, and green, and she felt bathed in that light. Perhaps that was what was healing her and creating some sort of protective barrier against the lack of atmosphere, that, or the powerful residual life force that still thrummed throughout the now-abandoned chrysalis. There was definitely energy here; and Jake, with the memories of every protoss who had ever lived, thought she just might be able to put that energy to good use.

  A hand on her lacerated abdomen, she moved carefully around the chambers, looking for an exit. There was none. In a way, that was good, if the plan that was starting to form in her mind was to be successful. But in a way, it was not, for success hinged on someone knowing what she knew—someone finding her.

  The pain was returning, and she felt fresh wetness beneath her hand. She still lived, but not for long. Not in this broken body.

  Jake threaded her way through the crystals, leaving drops of dark purple fluid as she went. Finally she reached a relatively flat wall and trailed her hand over it. A flash of memory—Temlaa and Savassan, touching the crystals in a precise order—the ara'dor, the perfect ratio. The ratio of the shell, of the hand, found again and again on all worlds the protoss had discovered. Such a pattern had opened doors that were otherwise hidden. Would it likewise permit her to create a door where none existed before?

  Jake winced at the pain, but grimly pressed her clean hand to the wall. She could sense the energies in it still, feel it almost physically tingling on her skin. One to one point six, each print touching the other, making a beautiful but invisible spiral on the door. Then she drew the lines of the "door" she hoped to create, again measuring as best she could estimate, tracing a rectangular outline. She lifted her hand and waited.

  The chrysalis and the creature it had sheltered had been of the xel'naga. And somehow, it remembered. Somehow, it recognized this timeless ratio. Before Jake's eyes, the spiral created by her hand, hitherto invisible, began to glow. There was a sudden brilliant flash of light, and then Jake realized she was peering into the dark depths of a corridor.

  "Please," she whispered, to whom she did not know—the chrysalis, the souls of those whose memories she bore, the unknown protoss who would one day find this corridor. Jake looked around and found a small crystal she could conveniently break off. Holding the glowing source of purple-green illumination, she moved forward, following the corridor until it ended. She repeated the process on this wall. Again the spiral glowed and flared, and again a doorway she had created with nothing but the energies of this place and her own knowledge of the ara'dor's importance to the xel'naga opened for her. She stepped into the corner and turned around. How to close the door? Or rather, cause it to manifest again? On a hunch, she traced the ara'dor in the empty space and stepped back. Sure enough, the wall reappeared. She needed to leave a message, but also had to be cryptic. After all, there was a possibility that an enemy could find this place.

  Jake turned to the wall opposite the doorway, dipped a long finger i
n her own blood, and began to write.

  My brothers or sisters who have come this far—within, a secretlies preserved. To enter, think as the Wanderers from Afar would. Think of perfection.

  She stumbled and blinked. Away from the energies of the heart of the temple, her wound was worsening. Fear shot through her that she might already have lingered too long. She opened the door, closed it again behind her, then hurried back as best she could to the innermost chamber.

  She almost fell before she reached it. Faintness washed over her, gray and soothing; she fought it back determinedly. Not yet. Not just yet.

  The energies from the hatchling from a similar chrysalis had turned Bhekar Ro, a harsh world, into a verdant field for kilometers around. Perhaps what was left here would do what Jake wanted it to do. And more than any other protoss, a preserver understood how to use one's thoughts.

  She wasn't even able to reach the ship. She would have to do it here. Her body made the decision for her, her legs buckling as she fell hard. One hand reached out to grasp the nearest crystal, pulling its power and that of the temple itself into her.

  Life energy was as real as any other kind. She knew that. And now she deliberately pulled it out of her poor violated body, shaping it into a cord, willing herself to live long enough to stop time in this place of deep, deep power. She twined the glowing, golden cord that was her life around the crystal. When the time came, if all went as she hoped it would, the cord would be found and held by another— another to whom she could pass on the vital information she bore.

  Despite the emotions pumping through her system, the legacy of the primal protoss who had raged and slaughtered one another in millennia past, Jake calmed her thoughts and concentrated on the khaydarin crystal. It was warm where her hand rested on it, and she felt a slight tingling emanating from it.

  I have done all that I could. I can only hope it will be enough.

  She closed her eyes. The last thing she saw was a drop of her blood trickle down her hand and hang, poised to fall, from the tip of her finger.

  CHAPTER 11

  "I REMEMBER THAT BLOOD DROP," JAKE murmured softly. He'd seen Zamara's broken body and, moved by some deep-seated desire to show compassion even to the dead, he'd reached to touch that hand. The blood drop had stayed as perfectly formed as if it had been made out of a dark purple gemstone, then suddenly lost cohesion and spread across his palm—wet and fresh as if it had just been shed.

  Zeratul saw both versions of the same incident then—Zamara's and Jake's, as both recalled the union. Jake censored nothing—not his panic, not his pain, not his wonder, not his pettiness. Zeratul was definitely paying close attention now.

  "It is a marvel," he said finally. "That you were able to decipher the clues Zamara had left. Few would have thought that way. Few even among my people, let alone yours."

  Jake shrugged, uncomfortable with the praise. "All that matters is that I did."

  "And that you continue to cooperate, even though what Zamara has done has cost the lives of many dear to you. And may in the end claim your own life."

  "Yeah, well, the odds of that not happening will go up if you will just listen to what Zamara has to say."

  Zeratul narrowed his eyes, and Jake suddenly held his breath. Had he really said that? He meant it, of course, but he wasn't usually so... blunt. That was more like something Rosemary would say. But despite the beauty of this environment, and all those negative ions Zamara assured him were charging the air, he was getting sicker and he knew it. The headaches were almost constant now, a dull, throbbing ache that shortened his temper and sharpened his tongue when they were not hot spikes of agony that made any movement other than clutching his head and whimpering impossible. Even so, he desperately hoped he hadn't blown everything with his comment.

  Suddenly Zeratul laughed. It was a dry, yet warm and embracing sound that calmed him and somehow even made the headache more bearable.

  "Indeed, you remind me of Raynor. He was a friend to our people, as you are." His eyes suddenly gleamed brighter, and Jake sensed thatthrough the dark templar's heavy mantle of guilt and grief, there was yet a spark that could perhaps be fanned into a flame. "He thought of me as a storyteller of sorts. A riddler, a teacher who taught by asking questions and coaxing forth. I...have not felt like riddling, telling stories, or teaching, for some time now. The two of you have shared with me a profound story of the nobility of our people, and that of an entirely different species. Although I sense there is more to it than what you have shared, Zamara. Such as the identity of the ones who hunted you."

  Jake felt Zamara smile. "Indeed there is. Although I sense you have something to say before I continue."

  Zeratul nodded. "I should reciprocate with a story that is known only to the dark templar. A story of a hero. Only one, and yet more than one."

  Riddles indeed. Was Zeratul finally going to tell them what had happened—why his outlook was so bleak?

  Zeratul did not quite flinch, but the brightness in his eyes subsided for a moment. Of course, he had read Jake's thoughts.

  "Nay. I would never call myself a hero, human. Not a villain, not quite, for I have ever acted for what I thought was best. But I am no hero. Nor would you think me one if—well." He turned his face to the soft, cooling spray of the waterfall and was silent for a moment.

  "I will tell you of the Anakh Su'n—the Twilight Deliverer."

  Jake felt unease for a moment. There was so very much at stake. He didn't want to hear some dark templar folktale, he wanted to do something. Zamara, despite her own driving needs, sent him calm. Zeratul does not indulge in idle chatter. If he wishes to tell this story, you may rest assured there is a very good reason.

  Zeratul's eyes crinkled slightly. He definitely had not forgotten humor. Zamara is right, impatient youngling.

  The rebuke had no sting. Jake found himself grinning a little despite the direness of the situation and settled back on the grass to listen.

  "Zamara has the memories of the Discord. When the dark templar were rounded up like beasts, forced into an ancient ship, and expelled from the only world we had ever known. One among the protoss defended us. Adun. He disobeyed the Conclave's orders to have us executed, and instead tried to teach us to find new mental abilities and ways to control them, for our own protection. Ways that did not involve linking in the Khala, which we chose not to follow. His disobedience was discovered, but even then, he chose to do what he could to protect us. The Conclave would not consider integrating us into their society, but Adun mitigated their orders from death to banishment."

  Jake nodded. This much he knew—this much he had actually seen through the memories of Vetraas.

  "Yet even as we were leaving, violence broke out. It was Adun, again, who saved us. He called upon both light and dark powers to protect us, so that we might survive. He gave his life to save us."

  "That's not the spin the Aiur protoss put on it," Jake said. "They saw it quite the opposite way—that Adun died to protect the sanctity of the Khala, where the protoss could link and find unity and strength. What's the phrase—"

  "En taro Adun," Zamara replied.

  "We dark templar also revere him in such a way. Except we say Adun toridas.. .commonly interpreted as 'May Adun give you sanctuary,' but literally and more bluntly, 'Adun hide you.'"

  Jake thought about what Vetraas had seen, and rather agreed that the dark templar had the right of it. Adun had died protecting them.

  "But did he die?" he blurted. "I mean—he vanished, certainly, and they couldn't sense him in the Khala. But no one is sure exactly what happened to him."

  Zeratul was nodding. "That he was gone, is certain. But there was no body to give closure. No corpse to bear down the Road of Remembrance, to ritually bathe and sit with, and finally bury. Adun simply disappeared."

  Jake stared at Zeratul. "You don't seem all that surprised. What do you think did happen to him then?"

  Zamara remained silent, but Zeratul answered. "We believe he did not d
ie. We believe he simply crossed to another plane of existence."

  "Like Zamara."

  "I am not Adun," Zamara demurred.

  "No," Zeratul agreed. "But you have managed to live on in a fashion, through this terran."

  "I could not have done this on my own. I used the energies of the temple to delay death until my memories could be transferred to another."

  Zeratul gazed deep into Jake's eyes, seeing and speaking to both the human and the protoss who saw out of them. "True. It was a unique coinciding of need and opportunity. But you cannot argue that such another incarnation is impossible. You yourself, Zamara, are proof of that. Your spirit lives on...in another body. More than just your knowledge and memories are in Jacob's brain. You are."

  Jake's stomach clenched at what Zeratul was implying. Somehow, once he'd gotten over the initial shock, the fact that he carried a protoss sentience in his head hadn't seemed all that weird. Jake was always the rational man. He understood that there were things like mental energies that could be scientifically explained. He hadn't used words like "soul" and "reincarnation." Now he wondered if he should. Despite all he had seen and experienced, with his own eyes or through the memories Zamara shared with him, he wasn't sure if he was ready to accept the ideas that Zeratul was tantalizingly putting forth.

  "I had not thought of it in that fashion," Zamara said slowly. "It is intriguing. You are suggesting that something similar happened with Adun?"

  "You survived, after a fashion, by using extremely powerful energies from a xel'naga temple. You were able to put your essence into Jacob. Adun was the first to wield both the mental energies traditional to the Aiur protoss, and the darker energies of the Void that we have wielded for over a thousand years. It is not illogical to assume that, for want of a better word, both you and Adun tapped into energies that had consequences far greater than anticipated."