Merkiaari Wars Series: Books 1-3

by Mark E. Cooper

  The situation was all kinds of wrong.

  Shima remembered how proud she had been when Chailen mated Sharn deep within the protective environs of Kachina Twelve. The war had raged above them, but deep within the keep protected by the mountain’s bones, an age-old ceremony had taken place reaffirming life and Shan traditions. Kazim had been there with her, forced to leave his camera switched off and uncomfortably aware of how unusual his presence was. Mating ceremonies were private affairs for family only, but he wasn’t the only stranger there. Chailen had insisted James should come too, and to make their number harmonious had also invited Brenda—his mate. That had embarrassed Shima because using the harmonies as an excuse to invite Brenda suggested Kazim was there as Shima’s mate, which he was not. Sharn’s parents and sibs hadn’t seemed to mind the break with custom. They were delighted to meet Humans, and everyone knew Kazim. He was famous because of the broadcasts. Kazim had filmed the Merki invasion and Shima’s escape from Zuleika. His work documenting the war had assured his future would be bright.

  Shima wondered what he would do now the fighting was done. He hadn’t decided as far as she knew. She had asked him during a brief visit a few cycles ago, but he had been far more interested in her life and desires. She knew he worried for her, but there was nothing he or any Shan could do for her. Kazim had left with her question unanswered.

  The war was over; Kazim must find something else to do just as millions of others must. The fighting had raged for almost two orbits... what did Humans call an orbit? A year, that was it. The fighting had been brutal on Child of Harmony, but on Harmony—the homeworld—it had been devastating. Child of Harmony was a colony world with millions of people making their homes here, but homeworld numbered its population in the billions. The Merkiaari had smashed every population centre in an effort to kill Shan quickly and efficiently. Millions had died in the first moments, and millions more each cycle thereafter until the landings. Only then, could her people fight back and defend those left alive. No one knew how many had died altogether, but the number was high. A billion dead, two? Such numbers were too huge to wrap her mind around. Shima knew that estimates would be wildly low on homeworld because her people had lived in large cities and most of them had been hammered into nothing but holes in the ground. As a percentage, her guess would be close to 40% dead on homeworld. A terrible number to be sure, but without the Human fleet’s intervention it would have been much worse. The Shan would have become extinct.

  The Alliance had sent Tei’Burgton and the vipers to fight the Merkiaari, but it hadn’t left things all to him. It had dispatched Fifth Fleet together with huge numbers of ground troops, and that had been decisive. The Merkiaari were doomed at that point, though they knew it not. The fighting had taken time; Merkiaari did not surrender, ever, but the end result had no longer been in doubt. Both worlds were free of Merki taint now. The entire system was clean.

  Shima stood. She had been sitting for segs and her legs needed exercise. She wished she could run, but although the harmonies gave her some sense of the world around her, she could only sense live things. She couldn’t run in the city; she would be under the first car that crossed her path. Not a form of suicide that appealed. Besides, if she started running she didn’t think she could make herself stop.

  Shima huffed a long breath out in a pained sigh as blood rushed into numbed legs. She couldn’t run from herself.

  Her blindness forced Shima to live within the harmonies all the time if she wanted to function even at her current limited level, and it had caused an unexpected side effect. Her gifts had always been strong, but constant use had honed her skill to a fine edge. The harmonies could only reveal living things such as animals and people. That had always been true for everyone, but Shima had found that she could discern individual plants now as well. Before going blind, she had only the vaguest sense of life from them, like a background to the more vivid colours of other people or the animals she hunted with her father. She had never thought to try for more, never needed to separate that background into individual sources, but her blindness had forced her to use everything she had to make life bearable.

  The plants bordering the paths allowed her to navigate the grove, like a ground car used street lighting at night to follow the road. In her head, she followed a ribbon devoid of life that in the world was a narrow gravel and shell covered path that crunched pleasantly under foot. The harmonies let her “see” the plants Chailen had planted for her along the path. They were her guide. Shima was grateful, truly she was, but she grieved the need to vandalise her grove. The placement of the guide plants clashed with the natural harmony she had striven to maintain here. They stood out, they had to, but that meant they were not in harmony with her grove. The entire point of a contemplation grove was harmony, and her blindness had blighted hers.

  Shima chuffed her distress, her useless eyes burned hot with the need to cry, but she forced them not to. The Blind Hunter they named her, thinking to honour her deeds not knowing then or now how she hated the title. All of her life she had feared her growing blindness, hated the weakness that made her a cripple among Shan, and they had labelled her with it as if it were nothing. Labelled her and thought they were honouring her.

  Shima paused and took a huge steadying breath. Forced her thoughts away from the anguish and toward other things. She dropped onto four legs, suddenly feeling the need to stretch. She reached forward as far as she could with her forelegs and dug her claws into the gravel enjoying the texture of the shell and gravel mix she had chosen when they bought the house. She lowered the front half of her body, but kept her rear legs straight forcing her spine to bow the wrong way. She groaned in pleasure as her joints popped, and her tail flexed straining straight out from her. Shima straightened up and then shook out her pelt before continuing her walk, this time staying on four feet.

  Shima used the guide plants and the barren ribbon of nothing between them to wander. She walked the path, circling her gardens and the grove at its heart, and then turned aside on a whim to submerge herself into the trees and shrubs she had cultivated to please the harmonies. She avoided the few winding paths she had laid out to help maintain the garden and chose bare earth to walk upon. The trees surrounded her in peace and silence. As a general rule, the few avian species native to Child of Harmony avoided built up areas. They were rarely seen in the towns and cities, even in the parks they were few. Here, she was utterly alone and without thought, she fell into the familiar rhythm of the silent stalk. Her father’s skills were hers. He had taught her everything he knew and she was an apt pupil. She could have been deaf for all the sound she made now. The silence was complete.

  The harmonies showed her she was alone. No people, no animals of any kind, no predators, no prey. The garden was barren, like her life. Shima chuffed, the low groan-like roar of a wounded Shan, not even aware she was doing it now. How long she moved through the garden she did not know; segs certainly, but finally she returned to her starting point. She stopped at the edge of her contemplation pool, and dipped her head into the cool water for a drink and to cool her face. She held her breath for as long as she could, wishing she could hold it forever and let it all be over, but the harmonies interrupted her stupidity.

  Chailen was in the garden and heading her way. Shima pulled her head out of the water and shook. The water flew from her, and she pushed herself up onto two legs to meet her sib.

  “We have visitors, Shima. Won’t you please come inside to greet them?” Chailen said softly, almost begging her sib to agree.

  Shima wished Chailen would not beg; it made her feel very bad. Couldn’t her sib understand that her garden was all she had left? Could she not realise that without eyes, all she had left were the harmony given gifts that allowed her to sense her living surroundings? If she went inside, she would drown in darkness. She sighed. She didn’t have the strength or will to explain again. Her shoulders slumped.

  “Yes, Chailen,” she said flatly.

  Shi
ma couldn’t see her sib’s expression, but the harmonies showed her the emotions behind it. Chailen’s aura had dimmed and slowed its usually energetic motion, and the colours edged toward the darker tones of unhappiness. It made her feel worse knowing she was the cause.

  “I’m sorry, my sib. I’m so very sorry.”

  “Don’t,” Chailen said sounding close to tears. “This isn’t your fault. You’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing about this is your fault.”

  Shima flicked her ears in agreement for Chailen’s sake, but one thing about this was her fault; at least one and that was the way she had allowed herself to linger on, dragging Chailen and her mate down with her.

  Chailen took her left arm and pulled Shima toward the house. “You haven’t asked who has come to visit,” she said trying to sound cheerful.

  Shima’s tail rose and gestured a shrug before she could prevent it. She didn’t say that whoever it was didn’t make any difference to her. Instead, she tried to put a little interest into her voice.

  “Just distracted, my sib. Who has come calling?”

  “Can you not sense them from here?” Chailen teased, and squeezed Shima’s arm. “Sharn is very impressed.”

  Impressed was he? That meant the visitors were important. She hadn’t tried to sense anything beyond the garden for a long time now. The house and garden were her life, and she had tried to pretend that the rest of the world did not exist. In a way, it didn’t if she couldn’t see it. She could reach out with the harmonies and “see” who her visitors were right now if she wished. Assuming they had met before she would recognise them. Everyone was unique in the harmonies.

  “I haven’t tried,” Shima admitted. “Should I do anything?”

  “You look fine, though I can tell you were on four feet recently and not on the path. Perhaps a quick wash of hands?”

  “If you think it best,” Shima said, her brief foray of pretending interest already failing. “A quick wash first then.”

  Shima allowed Chailen to lead her into the dark.

  Once inside and thoroughly helpless, Shima decided that if she had to come inside, and it was obvious that she did, she might as well use it to advantage. She would allow Chailen to do her up right, a full and proper grooming to please and not shame her before guests. That way, Shima reasoned, Chailen and Sharn would be pleased, the important guests would not be scandalised, and she could probably get away with hiding in her garden for a few cycles afterwards without Chailen making her come inside.

  Satisfied with her new goal, Shima asked Chailen to help with her grooming in the shower room. Chailen sounded pleased. It was pathetically easy to please Chailen these days, and Shima vowed she would remember to let her sib do things for her more often, even when all she really wanted was to be left alone.

  Mindful of waiting visitors, Shima washed quickly so that Chailen could go to work on her pelt with the dryer. It was an old battery powered thing that before the recent war would have been relegated to a forgotten corner, but now had become a treasure. The city was still without electricity, and any battery-powered tech was worth much because of that. Sharn had proudly gifted his mate with it after trading with a clever male who made a living modifying such things to work with a solar cell for recharging. The hot air and brush parting her fur felt wonderful to Shima. She could try to repay her sib the favour in kind. She didn’t need eyes to groom her sib, by touch would work as if they were younglings again.

  “This is wonderful,” Shima said facing into the hot blast of air. She closed her useless eyes and let her ear tufts blow back. “Amazing how a proper wash can makes things feel better.”

  “Hmmm,” Chailen said. “At least we have fresh water here. The other districts don’t even have that.”

  “Is it very bad out there?” Shima said because Chailen expected her to, not because she cared. “How do people live?”

  “With difficulty. Most still live in a keep, but come here to salvage things to trade. Some are trying to start over. I saw them clearing streets. I swear some of them were talking about bringing machines to pull down the old buildings to make room for new ones.”

  “They would do better to wait. We need electricity here before anything else, and water to all districts of course. I remember seeing... before I mean. We fought the Merki in amongst those buildings and I saw broken water mains.”

  Chailen moved and brushed Shima’s back legs and tail. “True, but I think they plan to do that as well.”

  Shima growled in annoyance. “Snow will stop them before they can finish. Has Sharn mentioned going back to the keep for the winter with you?”

  Chailen remained silent, and Shima’s mood darkened further. He had then. No doubt Chailen had refused to go back to the keep for Shima’s sake. The keeps, refuges against the Merkiaari though they were, would be a living hell for her. Shima remembered longing to be safely under a trillion tons of rock when she’d led Kazim out of the city. Now the thought horrified her. She was barely holding on to sanity now, and she spent most of her time in the garden. Under the mountain, she would go insane, lost in the dark, a never-ending void. She couldn’t do that, she just couldn’t.

  “You should go,” Shima whispered. “It’s... it’s the right thing for you.”

  Chailen turned off the dryer. “Done. We must go down to our guests. I think keeping such important personages waiting even a half seg like this is close to insult.”

  Shima blinked. She sounded as if she hadn’t heard a word. “Chailen—”

  “No!” Chailen snapped. “I do not hear, I won’t hear. Not this!”

  Shima sighed and stood up on her hind legs. As before, Chailen took her arm to lead the way through the eternal dark to where Sharn entertained their guests.

  The harmonies revealed the room to be crowded. Apart from Sharn, there were two more Shan males and three Humans, one of them female. She recognised all of them and felt her spirits rise despite herself. Kazim was a regular visitor, if she considered a few times a season regular. She supposed she did. Varya though, he had never visited before—too busy hunting down Merkiaari stragglers. She could hardly wait to quiz him about his missions and adventures. The Humans though...

  “James!” Shima cried in delight, and his aura brightened as he came forward to greet her. Chailen stepped away, making Shima sway a little before James hugged her. “I’m so happy to see you. How is Brenda?”

  James hugged her tightly, pressing his cheek to the side of her face. “She’s fine, still busy as always. She sends her love.”

  “Take mine back to her,” Shima said, clutching him and holding on. She hoped he couldn’t tell how desperate that hold was, but he probably did. She was shaking. “What are you doing here? I thought you were still following Tei’Varyk around.”

  James stepped back a little but held her hands. “Oh yes, I’m still doing that. Not sure for how long though, now that the fighting is done. I expect the Council will give me the boot—err that is, replace me—anytime now. I’m sure the elders will be glad to see the back of me.”

  “Nonsense!” Sharn said, and Chailen agreed. “Our people honour you highly, James. You will always be welcome.”

  “Well,” James said and cleared his throat. “Yes well, it won’t be a Shan decision I’m afraid. Besides that, I’m no politician, Shima. I’m a teacher. You can’t really blame the Council for wanting a proper diplomatic mission here.”

  Shima snorted derision. “Blame them? Perhaps not, but will this diplomatic mission be as useful as you’ve been? I doubt it.”

  James laughed. “I know what you mean, but at least a proper mission will have the authority to make decisions that bind the Council. I really don’t have any at all, Shima. I can only advise and strongly suggest, not make binding agreements.”

  “Do you miss your students then?”

  James didn’t answer immediately, but then he sighed abruptly. “No, not really. There’s a very old saying among my people, Shima. It goes: those who can, do, those who can�
��t, teach. I’ve found watching history being made an addictive thing. I much prefer being part of it over teaching others about it after the fact.”

  Shima could understand that. She turned toward Kazim where he stood watching. “So, you decided to show up did you?”

  The others laughed.

  “I’ve been busy!” Kazim protested. “Besides, the last time I visited, you ignored me.”

  Shima spluttered. “That’s because you kept asking impertinent questions. I bet you have that camera in here right now!”

  “Well...”

  “You have?” Shima gasped. “You’re unbelievable!”

  Chailen laughed. “He has the camera with him, Shima, but I made him switch it off until we give him permission to use it.”

  “They always argue like this. They sound like an old mated couple,” Sharn whispered to Varya. “Do you think they will?”

  “Mate you mean?” Varya said. “Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”

  Shima’s ears heated and she turned to Varya. “Be welcome to my home, Varya. May you live in harmony. What took you so long to visit me?” She knew his reasons already, but wanted to twit him like in the old days. “Replaced me quick, didn’t you.” The room went uncomfortably quiet and Shima cursed herself. She hadn’t meant them to take it seriously. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “I know,” Varya said. “But there’s truth in your words. I did replace you, or a replacement was provided. His name is Justika, and he’s a fine warrior and hunter, but he’s not you, Shima. No one could ever replace you.”

  “I...” Shima’s voice failed and she bowed to him. “I thank you.” She stepped further into the room to greet Gina and General Burgton, but stumbled into the table. Gina was across the room in a blink to catch her. Vipers were very fast. “Thank you. My own fault. I rarely come in here now and I forgot it was there.”

  “You all right now?” Gina said in flawless Shan and still holding her. “Would you rather sit?”