Part 6 (1/2)

Perrnodt whimpered a little, but pressed on, the trail moving west, ever west, past the town of Exchange Pledges, bustling with the business brought to it by the V'ornn strip mines to the north. In the dense smoky depths of the Borobodur forest, the pain brought her low. Her chest constricted, she labored to take a breath. Through lips that could barely move, she invoked Crossed-Wrists, a Venca defensive spell. The cessation of the pain made her weep with relief, but within moments it was back, more agonizing than ever. She was obliged to cast ever more powerful spells, but even with that the periods of relief became shorter and shorter.

That confused and frightened her, for she felt certain that it was the Dark League that had turned their collective face in her direction in order to keep her from finding the abbey's Ramahan. The lens of the opal had turned opaque. No matter what she tried, it would not clear. From what infernal source were the sauromicians drawing their energy? She had heard stories-whispered, clandestine even among the Druuge-of the alleged power of necromancy, but, of course, that was impossible. Even the sauromicians would not dare to keep the dead from their cosmic fate.

She invoked Dragonfly in an attempt to use the opal to reveal to her the source of the sauromicians'

newfound power. The opal began to shudder and shake as if it were trying to shatter itself against the sorcerous barrier it had come up against. And, then, all at once, the lens revealed to her a flash so horrific her mind could barely contain it. She saw the corpses of young Ramahan priestesses. Saw the look of fury frozen on their faces. In a frenzy, they had turned on each other.

Pain exploded, a searing fireball in her head, bursting nerves and blood vessels alike. She fell onto herback, her mouth working silently. Her heart thudded heavily in her chest. Her eyes were full of blood, and a blackness engulfed her that, gradually, she realized would not dissipate.

4

Return to Axis Tyr

Kurgan had been shadowing Nith Immmon for ten minutes along stone-clad corridors, through waiting areas flagged with agate tiles, down green-onyx and cor-blood-red-porphyry staircases, across abandoned skylit plazas, studded with obsidian plinths that had once held the trembling bodies of animals sacrificed to the Kun-dalan G.o.ddess Miina.

Kurgan, making a decision purely from intuition, had not walked out of Receiving Spirit after concluding his interview. Instead, as Nith Immmon had glided down the corridor away from him, moving deeper into the labyrinth the V'ornn had made of Receiving Spirit, he had hurried on silent feet after the Gyrgon.

Nith Immmon's gait now shortened, and Kurgan saw that he was approaching a heartwood door bound in bands of thick bronze incised with Kundalan runes. It was fitted with a complicated lock of Gyrgon manufacture. Nith Immmon put his palm against the lock, which opened with a sigh to reveal a s.p.a.ce of utter blackness. Nith Immmon vanished through the open door, and a moment later it began to swing shut. Kurgan sprinted to it just in time to throw himself sideways through the opening. The door clicked shut behind him.

Pressing himself against the closed door, he scarcely dared breathe. Where was Nith Immmon? The question was soon answered as a pool of lambent blue light illuminated a corridor composed of rough stone blocks, white as the facade of the building. Up ahead, he saw the origin of the light, a glowing ball that hung suspended in midair just above Nith Immmon's cupped hand. The Gyrgon was moving away from him.

Kurgan, following Nith Immmon, made his cautious way down the corridor, which, unlike those on the other side of the door, was cramped and low-ceilinged, the sides sloping inward as they went up. The utter silence pressed in on him, as if even the sound of his breathing was being m.u.f.fled.

Presently, the corridor made a ninety-degree turn to the left, and Kurgan came to a halt. Thrown upon the far wall was a ruddy glow, dim and flickering. It reminded him of something, but he could not immediately think of what. Nevertheless, he felt a crawling in his belly, as of insects stirring to life. It was then that a shadow flitted across the ruddy glow, and he knew where he had encountered this before: the sphere Nith Na.s.sam had led him past on his way to Nith Batox.x.x's laboratory.

He craned his neck, peering around the corner. The corridor ended a short way farther on, debouching onto a spherical chamber, lit by a series of fusion lamps exuding the reddish light. It had a metallic floor that was smaller than the chamber itself by perhaps three meters. It was connected to the corridor by a narrow walkway that spanned the waterless moat. The floor contained a number of horizontal chambers shaped like laaga sticks connected by photon lines to what he thought must be Gyrgon fusion engines, though they did not conform to any design he had ever seen.

Nith Immmon, his helm held in the crook of one arm, was standing before one of them. He had a long, mournful face and small ears that rather comically stuck out from his skull. The lobes glowed with implanted biocircuits, and there was a small germanium stud above each eye winking to the rhythm of his pumping blood. He was looking upward and, when Kurgan followed the tilt of his skull, he saw a great shadow descending from near the top of the sphere where another set of chambers hung in an ion stasis field.

As the shadow dropped into the ruddy light, Kurgan saw to his astonishment that it had wings, which folded as it alighted in front of Nith Immmon. Kurgan could see that the figure was carrying something in its arms, but he was for the moment too fascinated by the creature itself to take heed.His astonishment doubled, for it was as tall as Nith Immmon, the hairless conical head clearly V'ornnish, the amber hue paler but, again, distinctly V'ornnish. But the eyes, large and expressive, had in the center of their black irises pure white pupils. Then, his breath was taken away by another detail. A string of Gyrgon biocircuits spiraled up the skull. What is this thing? he asked himself.

He s.h.i.+fted slightly in order to better his field of view. From there he could see that the creature was naked. Its b.r.e.a.s.t.s marked it as a female, but then, as he lowered his gaze, he saw the distinct outlines of V'ornn male tender parts.

”Are we ready?” Nith Immmon asked.

”As I said.” The creature had a voice both silky and throaty. The sound of it set the insects in the pit of Kurgan's lowest belly to scrambling again, as if an unconscious part of him recognized it.

The creature set down its burden, which, Kurgan saw, was a male child. He looked somewhat like a V'ornn, but there were differences, subtle and otherwise. For one thing, he had hair on the top of his head.

”Show me what he can do,” Nith Immmon said.

The creature took the child by the hand and walked him to one of the chambers. Kurgan could see that the creature had very long, dextrous fingers. A wave of the creature's hand and one of the chambers opened. It helped the male child in, and the lid came down, sealing the child within.

”Will an exposure of three minutes be sufficient?” the creature asked.

”At what concentration?”

”The goron wave simulates that encountered at h.e.l.lespennn.”

”h.e.l.lespennn, when the stars fell.” Nith Immmon was racked by a shudder. ”Commence.”

Sound like a knife caused Kurgan to slam his hands to his ears. His eyes began to tear.

When the sound ceased, the door to the chamber opened, and the creature helped the child climb out.

Unlike Courion, he appeared unharmed by the terrible radiation.

Nith Immmon held out his hand, and the child walked toward him. He was almost there when his pupils and irises vanished, and he collapsed.

”Another failure,” Nith Immmon said sorrowfully.

”This is the longest one has survived,” the creature said. ”I see progress, not failure.”

”That is because we have different priorities,” Nith Immmon said. ”I seek to prepare us for what is to come and you ...”

”I create,” the creature said.

”Of course. You are Breeder.” Nith Immmon put on his helm. ”Still, it is a mystery to me, Gul Aluf, that you are comfortable being outside the Temple of Mnemonics without your ion exomatrix.”

She smiled. ”No. The real mystery is why you lie to me, Nith Immmon, about these experiments.”

”Do you doubt my loyalty to the Comrades.h.i.+p, to this very Swarm?”

”Not at all.” Her wings flashed up and down once. ”But I also know that once these experiments work you will wield almost unlimited power among the Comrades.h.i.+p. Nith Sahor. Nith Batox.x.x. Our stewards are gone. There is disunity among the Comrades.h.i.+p-and worse, the beginnings of internecine warfare.”

”Worse still, we suddenly are directionless. And why is that? Nith Sahor was betrayed and murdered by Nith Batox.x.x and his cabal. Nith Batox.x.x was possessed by a Kundalan archdaemon of great power-a power we neither foresaw nor can understand no matter how much we try. Here on Kundala are forces we neither control nor comprehend. Do you not consider the possibility that Nith Sahor was right about how special Kundala is?”

”No. We are V'ornn. The Kundalan are nothing more than animals.” ”You see?” Nith Immmon said.

”This is why the Comrades.h.i.+p is at an impa.s.se. And for us-at this juncture in our history-any impa.s.se is dangerous.”

Riane, Eleana, and Thigpen arrived in Axis Tyr in the evening of what had been a bright brittle early-spring day. The chill was returning to the air, a reflection of winter's grip, but the sysal trees were so bursting with incipient buds that the gimnopedes felt safe flitting through the k.n.o.bby branches.

The trio had slipped secretly into the city via the network of tunnels the Resistance had spent years digging. Riane could see right away why they needed Eleana. For security reasons the Resistanceperiodically filled in tunnel entrances, dug others in different locations. It was difficult work, time-consuming, backbreaking, but it saved countless lives. They emerged more or less in the heart of the spice market, which at this time of day was thronged with buyers, sellers, idle onlookers, and others bent on illicit deals.

They had flown on the back of the fulkaan, the enormous avian with which Riane had been connected in her former life. The fulkaan had let them down in a dense copse of ammonwood within five kilometers of the city walls. From there, Eleana had led them on foot to the hidden entrance to one of the Resistance tunnels that honeycombed the surrounding area.

They pa.s.sed the glowing windows of Spice Jaxx's, where Looorm and Deirus congregated in their off-hours or, in the Looorms' case, off-moments between acrobatic s.e.xual liaisons with wealthy Bashkir clients. It was also where members of Resistance cadres sometimes met to exchange information and to eat heartily before the dangerous trip home to the hillsides north of the city. The Deirus presence guaranteed that Khagggun and inquisitive members of other castes would give it a wide berth. It was comfortable, a hushed and low-lit establishment, the better to accommodate the clandestine nature of its clientele.

Thigpen curled across Riane's shoulders, hidden beneath her voluminous travel cloak as they wended their way through the milling crowd, immersed in the babble of voices, the singsong trills of the spice merchants hawking their wares. Laughter was pa.s.sed around small groups of V'ornn as if it were ludd-wine, and a heady mix of spice dust sparkled in the dusk. Long shadows sprang up as lanterns were lighted. A Kundalan male haggled with a dealer on behalf of his V'ornn master, a Tuskugggun put a fingertip to her mouth, deciding between two grades of cinnamon. A patrol hoverpod, weapons bristling, droned by overhead, making contact with a pair of Khagggun, who had all at once materialized like spectres from a fogbank. The travelers continued in their dogged way to the edge of the market, whose demarcation was a scraggly line of Kundalan with lost or maimed limbs, scarred faces, and hopeless eyes.

Riane stopped to speak to each one, crouching down, touching their outstretched hands, murmuring Venca prayers that would initiate auras of healing around them. As she signaled Eleana to fetch some water, she felt Thigpen's tail curling around her neck.

”This is not perhaps the wisest course of action.” Thigpen's whiskers twitched beneath Riane's cloak.

”Consider the heightened Khagggun presence.”