The Kinship of Stars

by Julie Ishaya

  The light of his eyes blurred with tears, and for a moment Kieriell couldn't find his voice. He held Adam's hand for a moment, feeling the cold life lingering therein, while Adam's face was a mask of peace, the eyes closed, lips slightly parted. Even the shift had smoothed out, having no more fury left to fuel it.

  The rage-hate came then, clear and vengeful, for Kieriell. He stood up from the cluster around his father's dying body and stepped forward. All sounds around him echoed down into nothing, and for a moment that seemed an eternity he heard only his own heartbeat throbbing with the cadence of a massive drum. When his own voice broke the rhythm of the drum, he couldn't believe the sound came from him. It carried across the quad, overpowering the hushing of the shuttle's engine and distracting the last standing fighters. The kai, too, halted in his approach and looked uncertain.

  "Kai, I'm going to burn you down!"

  The light carried completely through him once more, engulfing him, pulling him up from the ground and transmuting his body into a single mass of energy. His vision cleared, overlapping the view of the quad with the images of gridlines, thousands of them as they existed transdimensionally in ladder work patterns, crisscrossing the quad, penetrating every thing. Glowing with a golden light, they guided him forward with growing speed to reach the standing figure of the kai. Closer. . . closer. . . morphing into a beam of solid light energy.

  Until light matter met physical matter.

  The impact threw the kai over, marring the front of his armor. He lay short of breath for a moment before he tried to stand again, got only to his knees and slashed out with the blade of the cy-netic arm.

  The being that had been Kieriell alighted just out of the kai's reach and molded out the shape of his tall, young body, though it did not complete the transition to flesh. The light took on an iridescence as it contoured to the forms of shoulders and arms, torso and legs, with the icon of Kieriell's crown mane a flow of light cascading out into the air and down his back. The immediate gridlines around him revealed themselves as glistening threads reaching out into the air, forming an aura of webs, some flashing and fading from view, others fully alight and extending out to great lengths.

  Kieriell felt the void aspect of the grid consuming him, connecting him to every part of the universe, while he endeavored to maintain a conscious tie with the world in which his conflict with the kai took place. He accepted the instincts that drove him. They created a juxtaposition between his solitary consciousness and the infinite realm of the grid. In this form he left behind all ties to the Nexian shift.

  This was the true shift for him, the light shift of a transcendant.

  And he knew that the grid was forever his domain.

  To speak now took psionic concentration, and the voice that reached out was for the kai alone.

  (Kai.)

  The kai had started to his feet, holding his side and glancing down at his armor. His hair was disheveled, the breath mask dangling from its tubes and wires. His eyes, for once, were fear stricken. The yellow irises, glassy with horror, drew in, narrowing the pupils to shut out the blazing glare.

  (Kai.)

  The Shiv ruler held the buzzing blade between himself and the living light, his shoulders hunching as he prepared to attack. He said nothing. There was no true response to this, this glorious, star-lit thing, which he had once held captive.

  (You want the gridcode. I'll give it to you, Kai. I'll give you all of it and more.)

  Drawing up in alarm at this, the kai swept his blade out but only sliced the air as Kieriell allowed himself to dissolve away, finding it easier and easier to reshape himself. As solid light, he shifted into a long shaft and speared forward, a long beam that moved too swiftly for the kai to avoid its path.

  He sliced straight through the middle of the Shiv leader's head, carrying with him the vision of the void. Kieriell gripped the vaster aspect of the grid and forced it upon the kai's psyche, overwhelmed and pulled him out of himself and flung him out into the oblivion of it all. The gridlines failed to support this strange, solid being who did not belong within their realm, and Kieriell heard the kai's inner voice, his core-being, scream as it tried to claw back to the surface world where his sense of identity stood on firm ground. At the same time, Kieriell sensed everything else around him, the audience dispersed throughout the quad who saw the kai dropping to his knees. Kieriell took shape again and hovered close, reached out and gripped the kai's head. The kai screamed madly, his shoulders stiff, and threw his head back.

  Then in a final attempt to tear away, the kai forced himself up and stumbled several steps before he tripped and fell forward, his armor becoming so much chunky plating hindering his movement. Crippled by his terror, he started to throw out his cy-netic arm to break his fall, but with the elbow joint still bent, he came down on the edge of the blade, opening the front of his armor and ripping a gash across his own chest. His body jolted, and he screamed anew.

  None of the other Shiv dared step to his aid. They feared the light being that stood calmly watching the kai's last pathetic struggles. Kieriell tilted his head, and the light of the crown mane tossed and flowed.

  The kai dragged himself off his own blade and crawled a short distance more before his shoulders collapsed forward, his face in the grass. His breath came ragged, his cries collapsing into grunts.

  Kieriell waited, observed, and then seeing that his opponent had succumbed, he allowed the light shift to withdraw gradually as he lowered to the ground. His bare feet met the grass, and he balanced for a moment, comprehending, now, on the physical plane, exactly what he'd just done. As he willed back the light shift further, his skin formed and felt heavy. Each cell crawled back into place as he cast away the last clinging threads of the grid. He fell to his knees, shivering as the evening air presented a new chill.

  His breath flowed with remarkable calmness, though he felt weak, like a newborn just finding feeling in its limbs. The shuttle above drew his attention, and his head fell back to look up and watch the craft commence its landing. Much of the school ground had begun to clear. The surviving Shiv and Nexians alike were herding toward the area of the other two ships.

  His head dropped back down, and he vacantly watched the kai drag himself forward one more arm's length before collapsing flat, his cloak strewn to one side. With a strained grunt the kai heaved himself over on his back and stared up at the sky. Blood gushed from his nose and tears that appeared to be stained with blood also ran from the corners of his eyes.

  There were other voices and the greater rush of air as the shuttle touched ground. Wind moved Kieriell's hair across his back and in his face, rustled the grass around him. He slouched, cold inside, and realized the full weight of his physical form. It pulled him over on his side, and he lay limp, staring over and through the blades of grass.

  Dead, Kieriell kept thinking, is he really dead? He startled as hands gently clutched his shoulders and pulled him upright. His head lolled with his gaze still trained on the unmoving Shiv kai. He had managed, tonight, to kill several for the first time and not think much of it, and now that added weight as well.

  "Kieriell?" It was Asmodéus' voice.

  Kieriell responded slowly, turning his head until he met the eyes of Asmodéus, blue and glazed with relief. The emperor of Nex knelt in close, looked for traces of the Kieriell he had known.

  When Asmodéus removed his cloak and threw it over his shoulders, Kieriell realized that he was naked. The void had advanced him further than he had ever imagined before it birthed him back into flesh a second time. Now the physical world felt cold and gross. He clutched the edges of the cloak, pulled them around him. Looking past his grandsire, over the ground past the kai, he saw Jarren and Ahrden still huddled over his father. His voice wouldn't work, so he raised a hand and pointed.

  Asmodéus turned, saw the others, then motioned for two of his Elites. "I'll be right back," he said gently, then he stood and joined the men to go see to the condition of the crown prince.


  Kieriell couldn't move, didn't want to make himself rise and go over to find out that Adam had breathed his last. He remained sitting up with his legs tucked beneath him, his lower lip trembling. Warm mucus ran from his nose.

  Soon he couldn't see his father's body at all. Jarren and the maven had been motioned back, while Asmodéus and the two attending men were kneeling around Adam. Heads were shaking, faces were grim. Kieriell tried to distract himself by looking across the rest of the quad to see that there appeared to be only five remaining Shiv, all of them lined up and forced to their knees by the Nexian officers from the emperor's shuttle. While the prisoners were inspected for any concealed weapons and then blindfolded as an extra precaution, several of the Nexian survivors examined the condition of the Shiv vessel.

  Kieriell tried to work some moisture into his dry mouth, understanding the freedom of the grid. He thought to give himself back to it now, to feel it close around him and absorb him completely, taking him away from this low state of dread. That was why he had feared it before. Its vast, consuming reaches were not the case, but somehow he had known all along how addictive its freedom would be. He might come and go from it, pass through and out into other worlds. But weighing the pleasures and pains of the physical realm against the unhindered and painless realm of light—that was the hardest.

  He could easily disappear and decide never to emerge again. And so tempted did he feel now. Just one thought and he would be free forever. Then a noise, a soft groan and a rustle of grass brought him to turn his head toward the spent body before him.

  The kai heaved breath, his chest rose, but he did not try to stand. He coughed wretchedly, spraying blood from his mouth. His head rose, bobbing on the weak support of his neck, and he looked toward Kieriell with pleading eyes. The natural hand lifted just above the grass, reaching out, then collapsed again.

  Kieriell felt himself drawn closer by curiosity. He inched forward on his knees, the cool grass stinging his shins. He relaxed back on his legs just out of the kai's reach, and he stared at the tormented face. The kai's nose and ears were bleeding, and he shook with tiny seizures.

  "Transcendant," the kai croaked in Nexian. "I know what that means now."

  Kieriell inadvertently clutched his grandsire's cloak tighter, cringing back from the cracking voice. The hand, which extended toward him, clutched the grass but for the most part the kai lay paralyzed by his wounds. The blade had made a long slash across his ribs, opened taut gray-pink muscle and revealed blood coated bone, but the damage to his mind was irreparable.

  "I have f-felt—" The kai stopped to swallow down the blood draining into his mouth. "I have felt your mindsting. So far greater than my own could ever be. How was I to know?"

  Was that a tone of respect? Kieriell frowned, sensing the absence of any psionic ability in the dying Shiv.

  "I. . . lost myself." The kai's eyes grew dimmer, and he drew in a grating breath, wincing when his ribs tried to expand. White hair spilled down smoothly from his face. He stared as though pleading for Kieriell to help him, then he managed to pull his hand up from the grass and bring it to his side where he pried almost frantically at the beltline of his armor. Something gave a low crack and came loose, then his hand collapsed back into the grass, making a fist. Something inside him seemed to need to cling to objects around him. Tufts of grass sprouted between his fingers. His hand relaxed and moved away just enough to reveal something round and shining.

  Kieriell looked down at the disk of his school honors, the edge of the phoenix crest still pinned beneath one of the kai's fingertips.

  "Please, Kieriell. . . Shyr'ahm. . . if-fffff," he broke off and shuddered before finding the will to keep going. "S-Siri," the name came out in a slow hiss. "If you feel anything f-for her. . ." the last died away, and the kai never finished. His empty eyes fixed in place and his pupils dilated into black voids of their own.

  Bowing his head, Kieriell stared at the medallion beaming up through the grass at him. For a long time his eyes traced the outline of the phoenix's wings, though he did not touch it, did not want to move any closer to the cooling body of the last Shiv leader.

  38

  "I missed it all."

  The voice came muted to Kieriell while he stared out the tall window, sunlight falling on his face, warming him. He nodded absently, noticing how the stretches of Nall somehow seemed whiter than usual and completely divided from the blue of the sea on the horizon. The wall had been calm for the last two days, inviting pleasant weather. Even the black hull of Imperial Command seemed brightened from where it sat out on the waves like an exotic onyx bird. Kieriell easily lost himself in the peace of it all, though his core-being still troubled itself with endless questions of What if? In his daze, he still heard the tired voice behind him, but it did not register as he continued to meditate upon the distant shape of Imperial Command.

  Asmodéus had retired to the galleon earlier that morning after overseeing the arrangements for repairs to the Ariahm School's foundation and the removal of the Shiv vessel from the quadrangle. As was expected, the shields of the creature-ship had completely deteriorated, hence the organism within the shell soon died from exposure to the atmospheric pressure and environment of Valtaer.

  The Shiv prisoners had been quickly removed back through the rift to Nex to be held on Dyss until further notice from the emperor. They were kept on a mild psionic-suppressive drug, but most of them were already suffering from mental shock due to the abrupt and violent detachment from the kai's influence. They didn't seem to know that they had their own identities, nor did they really understand why they had taken part in the kai's plan to breach Valtaer. Kieriell had yet to decide how he would relate the true Shiv to the Nexian regime.

  He absently fingered his school medallion, which he had replaced around his neck. The Shiv kai's cold, dead touch seemed to linger on it, but he was determined to wear it as if to defy the events that had occurred, to find his bearing and continue. So far this was proving much harder than he had expected. Talking about it was the hardest.

  "Kieriell, are you listening to me?"

  "Uh. . ." He clung to the daystar rays on his face, wanting the light as he wanted to return to the grid. The daystar itself was his brother along with the other stars throughout the universe, in all dimensions. In all facets of space. All his brothers and sisters for the light bodies that they were. But he remained in this state, finally comprehending the chamberlain's teaching. Comprehending too late, now that so much had been lost, for Nex and for the Shiv. "It's funny," he murmured, "how I can travel as fast as light, and yet I always seem to be one step behind."

  Slowly he turned to face into the room, his vision adjusting to the interior. The white and cream marbleized walls came into perspective. The high ceiling of the room looked down on the few furnishings: a small wet bar on the adjacent wall, some cushioned chairs. His gaze first met the columns at the head of the immense, sheet-tousled bed, then he followed their decline to the figure of Adam sitting back against a mountain of pillows, a thick bandage applied to the side of his lower waist. A silver tray laid near the end of the mattress, bearing a plate of delicately prepared meat slices—these untouched since Adam had not regained his appetite—and a goblet of sweet water.

  Kieriell wandered away from the window and stood in the center room, clasped his hands behind his back and shrugged meekly. "I'm sorry. You were saying?"

  Adam was still pale. After his confrontation with the kai, he had been taken to the manse, his survival still in question. A healer had been called in to see to the wound, while Kieriell had hurried to the beach to retrieve his mother from her wait in the sun tunnel, then he and Jenesaazi found they could do little more than hold each other while the healer worked long into the next day.

  Adam's awakening had been softly celebrated, but he still had much recovering ahead of him. After hearing the story of Kieriell's transition into full light state, he kept voicing disappointment that he had not witnessed it. "I said," he started
over, "that you must chronicle the experience."

  "Oh." Kieriell dragged his feet over the carpet toward the bed.

  "You are not well," Adam stated.

  "I'm not well?" Kieriell tried to smile, but the attempt collapsed as he gestured at himself and then shook his head. "You're the one in bandages."

  Adam's hand brushed over the wound. He sighed. "You are hurting over something. Are you still afraid you put me back together wrong? The healer did run a full internal diagnostic. . ."

  "That's not it." Kieriell sat at the foot of the bed, feeling that he should stabilize himself before the storm of thoughts sent him over. His eyes darted up at his father and then down again as though he were hiding a guilty conscience. The void flashed within him, reached out and touched Adam's mind briefly and then buried itself.

  "I see," Adam said, blinking away the sending. "You used to deny the power of the grid in you."

  "Now I want it more then ever," Kieriell admitted. "It would be an easy haven for me."

  Adam leaned closer, wincing slightly and holding his side as he adjusted his weight on his torso. His uncombed hair spilled over one shoulder in a tangle, and the pallor of his face created a background against which his eyes almost glowed like sapphires held up to light. "You can live between worlds, Kieriell, and almost nothing can harm you. That is the ultimate freedom."

  "But I am alone," Kieriell replied. This sallow, self-created truth had been resting just below his consciousness. "I told Mother how the gridcode came from her, but she's not interested in learning how to use it. I wish, somehow, that I could feel that way, that I could just live happily in one world."

  "No, you don't," Adam replied. "Your Nexian nature is to roam. Why else do you think our kind has been mapping the universe for millennia? Oh, we might embroil ourselves in political duties, but in general we resist growing stale." His face hardened, adding stress to his next statement. "And you are not alone." When Kieriell looked despondently away from him, he reached a spread hand across the sheets and dropped it heavily on the mattress, jiggling the bed so that the youth looked back up. "You are not alone, Kieriell."