“Alumus was right,” Diana muttered. “She is a witch.”
The elderly man put up his right hand, and the flame leapt from her palm to his. Immediately Nitya’s bluish aura declined in intensity. She looked around at Diana and Greghar, and they saw the Nitya they knew again.
“Thank you, Nitya,” said the elderly man. “You did very well, better than many who have spent long years in the Great Ice Range honing their powers. Your father gave you a good start, but you have taught yourself more than I would have believed possible. You maintained the link with me faithfully and opened the portal so wide that coming through was effortless. I wish all my transits were this easy.”
Nitya smiled, glowing with the praise.
“She is not a witch,” continued the elderly man to Diana. “She is talented, she is dedicated and hardworking, and she has mental powers, but she is not a witch.”
“Who are you?” asked Diana with more confidence that she felt. “And why am I here? If this theater was meant to frighten me, it hasn’t.”
“You are Diana Tragina,” he smiled. “And you are never afraid.”
His look was as kind as it was in her dream, and it made her relax.
“I am Vasitha,” he said. “I am one of the Yengar immortals. The Yengars have tried to forget me, for I rebelled against their patriarchy. Unfortunately, the patriarchal system is almost as strong among Yengars as it is among other peoples of New Eartha.”
He paused and looked at them with a benign expression, as though he were just another elderly man speaking to them in a tavern.
“My father said you were a legend, a myth,” said Nitya.
“He was probably told that by his father, who was told by his father before him. When I had my earthly form, I crossed a threshold that was not supposed to be crossed. But you know the legend…you can tell your companions.”
Nitya looked from him to Diana and Greghar. She marshaled her thoughts and began.
“When the Zon first arrived on this planet, the Yengars were a worldly people allied to King Larax. They were with him when he fought skirmish after skirmish with Queen Simran and her huntresses who shielded the frightened band of Zon priestesses and commoners on the Long Trek. After a night of confused action, the queen became separated from her personal squad of Guardians and was surprised by Vasitha, who managed to disarm her and take her prisoner. She asked him to hear her out before turning her over to Larax, and he grudgingly agreed. She told him the story of the Zon, and her narration of the sufferings of the women on Eartha so resonated with his own experiences on Tarsus that he began to doubt the justice of his cause. By morning, her tale, her urgings, and her beauty had converted him. He renounced Larax, crossed over to the Zon, and used his local knowledge to become their guide. He told Simran of the impregnable Great Vale and led the Long Trek there.
“Love grew between them, but it was a forbidden love of secret trysts and stolen moments. When she became pregnant and ascertained that it was a boy, she flouted the Male Abortion Law. With great difficulty she managed to conceal the birth and deliver the baby to Vasitha to bring up.”
“That was the last time I really saw her,” said Vasitha, taking up the narrative. “Parting with my Simran was the hardest thing I have ever done. But I knew we had no future together and that it was best for her that I leave. I raised our son in obscurity, concealing his identity to protect him from the wrath of Larax’s heirs. I taught him all that a good Yengar father must, and in time he became the progenitor of a proud Yengar line.” Here his eyes met Nitya’s, and he saw that she knew.
“On my son’s majority I came here, to the Great Ice Range. I undertook decades of meditation, privation, and denial of self, the spiritual regimen of a devout Yengar male who had completed his worldly duties. All I wanted was to die in peace and to achieve unification with Lord Moksha, the Yengar perception of God. But I was Chosen, and I arose as a Great Spirit, an independent immortal. I gave up my earthly clothing of flesh and blood. I have consciousness of the world but almost no tactile connection to it. I have power, but it is to be used only with the greatest of caution. Where humans cannot even imagine the Almighty, we immortals at least exist within the realm of the infinite.
“Why am I here, you ask.” He smiled again, but it was a sad smile. “I did see my Simran one more time after I gave up my earthly body. I appeared to her on her deathbed. To me she was as lovely as ever, perfection, irreplaceable. But she was in great pain, and I asked her if she wished it relieved. No, she said. I ask nothing for myself. But my time as shepherdess is over. Watch over the Sisterhood for me. Promise me you will do that. I promised her. And I have been true.
“But recently Malitha, another of the Great Spirits, has been seduced by the prayers of barbarians seeking the destruction of the Zon. They feed him with worship, penance and reverence, and this causes his power to grow. He became my equal in power, and I feared for the safety of the Sisterhood. I decided to create an earthly counterpart, an alter ego that would work in the real world complementing my unknown, unseen efforts from the spirit world. Someone as dedicated to the survival of the Sisterhood as I.
“Simran had insinuated me into the Repro Repository, so it was a simple matter of patience to find the most appropriate mate and then lead her to my earthly vestiges in Repro.”
He stopped. He had Diana and Greghar spellbound. Diana intuitively knew what he was going to say, but she still waited with bated breath.
“Yes,” he continued, stepping down from the throne and approaching her. He put a hand on her cheek. There was no sensation of touch; it felt like a warm breath of air. “My seed lives on in the greatest of Zon warriors, the Shieldmaiden of the Sisterhood. That was why Malitha tried to destroy you all those years ago. I saved you that day, and I have kept him from you since. But Shobar feeds him, and together they grow stronger. Malitha is now so strong that he closes the portal against me so that I cannot gain admittance to your world without great effort on your side,and that too only at particular times and in specific places. Soon I fear I may be sundered from you forever.
“I have come to give you warning. The recent war with the Hilsons and Shobar was only the beginning. For Zon and barbarian alike, the everlasting struggle between light and darkness will continue. The four of you are the best hope of the forces of light. Nitya knows what you face. Be guided by her.”
“Four?” asked Diana.
“Caitlin d’Orr. She is Simran’s legacy as you are mine. You must be ever vigilant, for now evil grows everywhere, even where you least expect it. But your choice remains the same as Simran’s: climb or die.”
He fell silent. Diana spread her hands out. Greghar and Nitya each took one and held tight. Vasitha smiled at the three of them.
“Sing for me, daughter,” he asked.
So Diana sang, and her magnificent voice filled the Throne Room of the Immortals with a haunting melody, joyful yet filled with an indescribable longing.
As the final bars died away, there was the telltale hum, and he was gone.
The Empire of the Zon Page 75