Part 11 (1/2)
”You shall not sleep through the warping of s.p.a.ce-time, not sleep until the moment comes when you shall set the machineries of death in motion.”
”I shall not sleep.”
”You shall not sleep even should the hyperdrive fail, and you be forced to fly the lonely journey in real time.”
”No, I shall not sleep, for I am the thanopstru.”
”The force that shall fuel you will be cold hatred, and hatred shall run in your veins instead of blood, and hatred will animate your every thought.”
”I shall hate.” He drank again.
”You are the emissary of fate.”
”I am fate itself.” He drank.
A strange coldness seeped into his limbs. Two guards lifted him up by his arms-a slip of a child he was, frail and impa.s.sive as the power of the fortified peftifesht took hold of him.
”Are you forgetting?” the s.h.i.+van-Jalar said softly.
”I am forgetting,” said Artas, his voice settling into a strange monotone.
”Do you have any last wishes?” said the s.h.i.+van-Jalar. ”Soon you will speak no more.”
”My mother,” he said. ”Couldn't she-couldn't she be happy?”
The Holy Father clapped his hands. Almost instantly, they brought his mother to him, carrying her on a perfumed bier; though she wore the insignia of the prost.i.tutes' caste, she was appareled in such luxury she could have been a queen, or a demiG.o.ddess.
”Taruna esSarion,” the guard announced.
”Let this be the last time you are called by that name,” said the s.h.i.+van-Jalar, raising his...o...b..high. ”For now you shall be called Taruna Batar Thanopstratis, the Mother of the Star of Death. Your image shall be placed at the entranceway to every Mnemo-Thanasium and High Temple in the world. And with this ritual deathblow”-he gave a command, and a guard rushed toward her with a scimitar, and pretended to decapitate her-”I end your former life, and bring you to a rebirth as a member of the high caste of Errolam.”
The people around them gasped. Errolam was one of the highest of all castes, reserved only for the concubines of the highest religious authorities. Artas could see, through the veil of peftifesht-induced confusion, that his mother was in a transport of emotion. Perhaps she was to be the consort of the s.h.i.+van-Jalar himself! Vaguely, he could sense the excitement of all around; but the peftifesht was dulling his mind-he was already withdrawing from the world of the senses.
”Taruna s'Errolam,” said the s.h.i.+van-Jalar. ”Are you content?”
”Yes, my lord,” she said as she prostrated herself from her position on the bier.
”And your son,” said the s.h.i.+van-Jalar, ”shall be my daughter's consort, for I see they are already much taken with each other.”
”You do my family prime honor,” said his mother, and placed her folded palms to her lips in a gesture of grat.i.tude.
”Then kiss your child farewell.”
Taruna descended from the litter. She took her child in her arms. Artas wanted to embrace her warmly, wanted to crush her to him, show her how much he loved her, how he had done this for her, not for any personal glory-but the drug was working fast now, and consciousness was becoming murkier moment by moment.
”My son,” she said softly.
Mother! he cried out in his mind, but she could not hear him.
But five thousand years thence, another woman did hear. A woman not his mother, but who had felt his mother's feelings-her elation, her bereavement.
Who are you? he cried out in his mind.
A single word, incomprehensible, reverberated in his head: Troi, Troi, Troi.
And the other woman called to him through the chaos of s.p.a.ce-time: Artas, Artas, do not weep.
Chapter Twenty.
Devivement ”THIS IS APPALLING,” Deanna Troi cried, and Picard, watching the spectacle unfold on multiple screens on the bridge of the Enterprise, could not have agreed more.
Picard said, ”Counselor, perhaps you should withdraw.”
”No,” she said. ”Captain, I have to experience this until the very end. I can't a.n.a.lyze this situation with only half the information.”
”Dr. Crusher?” Picard said.
”It's taking its toll,” said Beverly. ”But her vital signs are still-viable.”
Picard said, ”Counselor, I'll leave this to your own judgment. I know that you will pull out of this cybernetic melding if you sense too much danger to yourself.”
But Deanna did not respond; she had already re-submerged herself in the ancient story.
There were steps to ascend; hundreds of steps, and hundreds of high officials in their robes of state. The smaller sun had crossed the face of the larger; the heat was almost unbearable. Artas, now clothed only in the translucent Cloak of the Invincible, was being carried up the steps by eight guards on a boy-sized golden s.h.i.+eld. He lay as though dead.
Indhuon, walking beside him, knew that his brother was not yet dead. There was still some human consciousness left in him, but soon that would be gone as his mind was joined to the greater consciousness of the thanopstru. Next to him was Ariela. He could scarcely believe he had gone from his humble origins to the consort-elect of the s.h.i.+van-Jalar's daughter, but Artas's supreme sacrifice was already bringing his family some of the greatest rewards one could achieve in this world.
Above them, the sh.e.l.l of the thanopstru glittered against the face of the double sun, almost blinding; on the first step beneath it, the devivement cylinder, in which Artas would go to immortality. Once he entered the cylinder, the boy would be considered a G.o.d.
And he would be brother to a G.o.d-and one of the most sought-after men on the planet.
Indhuon watched as a doorway opened in the cylinder. The honor guards lifted the s.h.i.+eld up, and then the four nearest the cylinder knelt down so that his brother could be slid into the tiny cavity inside. Within, Indhuon knew, coma-inducing gases seethed. Once his brother was completely sedated, tendrils of silicon-based pseudolife would begin to invade his body, slithering up into his brain, sharing his ident.i.ty, stealing his soul and reprogramming it with nothing but the desire to kill.
Now, according to the ritual formula, the relatives of the G.o.d would have to turn their backs on the boy, one by one. There were only two relatives present, of course; Indhuon knew that a man who gives a prost.i.tute a child would never acknowledge such a thing, and so there was only his mother and himself, no band of weeping, proud relatives.
He gripped Ariela's hand, and broke away to stand beside the s.h.i.+eld. His mother was there too. She had descended from her litter, and was standing over Artas's face, resolutely holding back her tears. Her new robes of the caste of Errolam s.h.i.+mmered in the suns. A coronet of light swathed her luxuriant hair. My mother is truly beautiful, Indhuon thought. It was the streak of sadness in her, accentuating the darkness around her eyes, the hint of worry at the edges of her lips, that made her all the more beautiful.
The turning of the back ceremony was to happen in order of age; therefore, Indhuon would be the last creature of flesh and blood to lay eyes on his brother's face. After that, the cylinder would be closed, as a coffin was closed before being consigned to the Mnemo-Thanasium. The former Artas would be dead and the G.o.d would be born.
How must his mother be feeling? Indhuon thought. His mother-my mother.
Deanna could hear Taruna's thoughts, as clearly as if they were speaking face-to-face. She was thinking Yes, yes, I will be consort to a demiG.o.d now, it's what I've always wished. I'll try to forget the one I hugged, the one I sang to sleep-I'll try to forget but I know I'm going to be haunted by it, oh G.o.ds, I remember the blast of blinding pain when I knew he was emerging from me, he was such a difficult birth, I remember holding him and he wouldn't even cry, wouldn't even make a sound, as if he already knew he wasn't going to stay with me very long, as if to say Mother, Mother, don't be too close to me-how I love you, my Artashki, my angel, my pride.
Though Deanna's body was still in the heart of the comet, connected through Data and the dailong's monstrous network of links to this distant events, her mind was right there in the ancient world; she could see the vibrant, colors of the city, double-brilliant and double-shadowed by the dance of its twin suns, she could see, through Taruna's eyes, the boy, his hands folded across his chest like a Pharaoh about to be mummified; his eyes were still open, unblinking; they were windows into a yawning emptiness.
And Taruna turned away from her son's face, and now it was the brother's turn. Indhuon stroked his brother's face; already it seemed to have grown cold.