Chapter Eleven

 

            Ysaulte flinched, her pallor leaving her face bare to the mercurial storms in her irises.

 

  “Ysaulte?”  Jim felt her bone-deep dread and caught her by the shoulders.

 

"Forgive me,” she apologized to him, and the Muuyeans.  “One might suppose this just one more shock among many, but this truly astonishes me.  Say you, you are directly descended of talSherea’s line?”

 

“We are,” Silivia answered.  “In this manner the royalty of your world connects to ours.  You should know, Ysaulte, you stand within the Cradle of the Hidden, which is a valley of kings.  Nusaar, the former Negus, was my son, and Ryu Gnaur is__”

 

“Laaru’s brother,” Jim divined out of nowhere, drawing several surprised eyes.

 

“Yes.  Both sons of Nusaar, and heirs to the ul Nru.  I tell you again, you are still welcome,” Silivia assured, puzzled by Ysaulte’s reaction.

 

“Thank you, Silivia.  It isn’t who you are to Ryu Gnaur,” Jim felt driven to explain, since Ysaulte was momentarily beyond offering explanations.  “I think it’s who you are to talSherea.”

 

“Your pardon.  Yes, I am… startled,” Ysaulte rubbed her eyes, trying to push away a subtle sense of sure damnation.  “I should acquaint you with my reasons.”  Hah!  Reason had nothing to do with it.  They were being maneuvered by forces reaching out of shrouded time.

 

“On the world of my birth, there is no position of more might than that of Zaltana du Khyn.  To the Zaltana goes all power.  Her Talents the beneficence of our Mother Za, and given whole… the whole hers.  There has been no Zaltana since talSherea, and she only the third Zaltana in the six millennia before her.  Beloved, the one, and a source of much legend of her own, for talSherea ruled ZaworthIa during a time of great trial.  Ceded the one her crown, though.  She created the Circle and named Zariel K’intohrza on the loss of Iananthe am’ahdEva in the Rihannsu wars.”

 

“’am’ahdEva’?”  Silivia wanted translation, stirred by the sadness in the ZaworthIan’s tone.

 

“In my mother’s tongue, ‘always remembered’.  The one was long missed, long mourned.”

 

“But Iananthe was not lost, Ysaulte, although talSherea had no way of knowing it given what happened.  Iananthe found heart-call in these mountains, and chose to stay.  The one lived well.”

 

Silivia caught one of Ysaulte’s hands, which the younger woman had been practically wringing.  The truth came to her with magnificent clarity.

 

“Child, you yourself are descended of talSherea.”

 

Ysaulte allowed the elder’s fine-boned fingers to wrap carefully around hers, and wondered how it was that Jim was always right.  They were meant to be here.  She was meant to be here.  She would have come, somehow, somewhen, someway.

 

“Yes, of course.  I am of Zariel’s line.”

 

“Then of course, I forgive your… astonishment.”  Silivia took a deep breath, reminding herself to be patient.  She, at least, had had several hundred years to anticipate the possibility of telling Iananthe’s story to one of her Sisters, although who in the three worlds could have blamed her for having believed this day would never come?  “As blood kin, you are due the legacy of your ancestress Iananthe,” she could not help but add, aware from the lift of the ZaworthIan’s chin she disliked having her duty pointed out.  Silivia expected that was a rare occurrence.

 

“I do not disagree the story due, elder Sister.”

 

Silivia wished she knew where Ysaulte’s disagreement lay, then, but set herself to tell the tale.

 

“Generations ago, Muuye almost fell to alien invasion, having been discovered and coveted by an army of renegades, outcast from their own world.  Reaching impasse with all his efforts to dissuade these forces, the Lord of the ul Nru, the Negus Ilyuuron, chose to exercise an option only rumor would have work.  He sent a call using his power of mind, and begged the sha’deh du Khyn of ZaworthIa aid.

 

“So invited, the Sisters of Za undertook covert mission and throttled the invasion of Muuye.  War shifted shore, as the renegades, finding a fairer prize, sought to pry ZaworthIa from her children.  This was not permitted.  Conflict returned to Muuye, while those few of the aliens who might be thought of as leaders were persuaded even further.

 

“Fighting continued within the ul Nru.  One last tyrant kept his power against even the sha’deh du Khyn and the Negus Ilyuuron.   He was a thoughtmaster, this tyrant alien, declining to leave with his fleet.  Once he ‘conned the ul Nru, he declared there could be nothing finer nor more satisfying to him, not on the twin worlds suggested by the Sisters.

 

“Their armies met in battle, deep within these mountains held dear.  He who coveted the ul Nru, Kirin RazSaman, and he who was bred to them, son of their shadow, the Negus Ilyuuron.

 

“The Muuyean had no hope to win, though win he must, for this was his world, his home… but the fact of it was, Ilyuuron was near helpless before the thoughtmaster Kirin until he took to wive a Lady of Za.

 

“Sent in answer to his plea, the sorceress Iananthe arrived, a daughter of the Zaltana talSherea herself.  Iananthe found heart-call in the Negus, making him hers, and she his.  Bound as they were, none could stand against them.  Together they cleared Muuye of all remaining outworlders but she, and Kirin razSaman.  That one was tied to the ul Nru in some way, even as Ilyuuron.

 

“Legend holds the battle then raised by mind, and taking seven turns of the world.  Ilyuuron’s defenses were backed by she who loved him best, yet even Iananthe was incapable of killing Kirin outright.  So she chose to bind the renegade’s soul into the stones of d’han geaa, the quiet place.  Ensorcelled Iananthe’s will the ul Nru themselves, demanding they walk to her command and hold forever the mage of razSaman.

 

“To ensure Kirin’s eternal sleep, Iananthe lived out the remainder of her days within the Beeyt ul ku Tuura… and so Muuye invaded still.  An irony not lost on Ilyuuron, who in the history of this world has also been called the Witchlord, the thirteenth Negus ul Etumuuyea.  His debt the peace of the system, may it endure.”

 

Silivia heaved a sigh, unused to making speeches.  The ZaworthIan didn’t give her much time to catch her breath.

 

“How came the telling of the prophecy?”

 

“The last words of the e’Negah Iananthe, on the occasion of her death.  I regret to inform you, daughter of Zariel, the one was slain by Kirin’s blood kin, but not before she bore Ilyuuron three children.  One son and twin daughters.  As I told you, the one lived well.”

 

“How__ Why was the one’s Sisters never told?”

 

“Iananthe… burned out her Talent.  Her price for imprisoning Kirin.”

 

“Sah’des ka.  I see how it is,” Ysaulte whispered, sick with the enormity of Iananthe’s sacrifice.  There was no denying the Muuyean elder spoke the truth.  In its own way, it was as bitter as Ryu Gnaur’s varying recitation.

 

“Legend instructs me to ask, should this moment ever come to pass, your forgiveness for the e’Negah’s desertion of her Sisters and her Mother Za.”  Silivia’s voice was unsteady, shaken by Ysaulte’s open grief.  Only now, after all these hundreds of years, did she understand why Iananthe had sworn her request into legacy.  How Iananthe herself must have mourned loss!  “You will forgive her?”

 

“Hath the one need, forgiveness hers, always.  Was no other way for her, given what she had with Ilyuuron.”  Ysaulte couldn’t look at Jim.  She thought maybe she understood her late, expatriate Sister too well.

 

As for Jim, he’d kept quiet long enough, and he still had questions.

 

“Lady Silivia, I heard another version of this story from Ryu Gnaur himself.  There are a number of discrepancies.”

 

“Are you in some doubt as to whom you should believe, Captain?”  Laaru inquired pointedly.  Jim considered his answer, particularly since Ysaulte was regarding the councilman with a gaze just as sharp.

 

“Lady Silivia,” Jim repeated patiently.  “There are things we have not told you, because we did not want to discuss them in front of the boy.”

 

“And your sentiments do you credit, young lord, but they are not needed.  Dyer will be Negus someday.”  Silivia informed them with a half-nod at the child, who ducked his head in unwonted shyness.  “Better he learn all the warts, as you Terrans say.  Besides, I have already concluded it was Ryu Gnaur who betrayed the Lady Ysaulte.”

 

Marking their absolute lack of reaction, Silivia cleared her throat.

 

“You are suspicious of me, for which I sorrow.  I hope you believe me when I tell you, Ryu Gnaur does not know every thing.”

 

“Ryu Gnaur is Negus ul Etumuuyea,” Jim reminded the elder impatiently, an argument seconded by Ysaulte’s doubtful question.

 

“How can that be?  To be brother to Laaru__”

 

“It is another story, James, Ysaulte.  The brothers were raised as strangers, apart.”  Silivia lifted the ZaworthIan’s hand, which she still held, and stared into her glittering irises.  “I expect you to believe me, Sister of Za.  In all the galaxy, no one knows truth like the sha’deh du Khyn.”

 

“Well, Terrans take a little more convincing,” Bones announced irritably, having reached the limit of his endurance, and disapproving Ysaulte’s continued pallor.   “If you’ll forgive me, Madam, this whole thing sounds like it has all the makings of an insurrection!  What makes some four thousand year old legend more important than your grandson the Negus, because that’s what you’re really sayin’, isn’t it?”

 

“Kai the doctor,” Jim heard Ysaulte think in Klingonaase, which surprised him into laughter.

 

“No, Bones, I’m not laughing at you.  I want an answer to the question, actually.”

 

“And you, James, require the assurances now.”

 

“Maybe.”  Jim held his palm open to Silivia in silent demand, wanting her to release Ysaulte.  “Maybe I do.”

 

“Come with me.  I want to show you something.”  Deliberately misunderstanding him, Silivia placed her free hand in his.  She rose, steadying both Jim and Ysaulte as they stood with her, and led them all to the rear of her house.  One room opened onto a garden.  Windows and skylights angled to catch the bright morning sun.  Empty of furniture, it was full of plants and one other item.  “Please understand, now, why the ul ku Tuura believe so strongly in “four thousand year old legends”.”

 

A life-sized, framed portrait in oils dominated an entire wall, almost a mural.  It depicted a family together in the artist’s imagination, as they could never have been together in life.  Jim realized right away who they must be.

 

Three men, three women, all but one possessing irises that shifted even while stared at; a marvelous testimony to the painter’s skill.  The men were lean and proud, the women slender and beautiful, with Ysaulte’s classical bone structure.  Two of the women were dark haired and tan, but not the one standing in the center of the picture.  She demanded their attention and held it.  By some trick of the light, her irises sparkled in emeralds and diamonds, fair skin warmed by a blaze of coppery hair.

 

“That’s the Zaltana?”  Jim heard Bones marvel, without being able to answer him over Ysaulte’s astounded delight… which initial reaction was instantly replaced by a spasm of pure terror.

 

“Ah, James, who are we to be involved in this?  May the Elements help us and the All sustain, to be mixed in talSherea’s doings__”

 

Jim tore his eyes off the portrait, hardly aware of pulling free of the elder’s grasp (although he was as careful of her fingers as if they were first in his mind, Silivia noticed, quick to release the ZaworthIan’s hand and step back).

 

“Ysaulte.  It’s all right.  It will be all right.”

 

“James.”

 

She permitted herself no more than her fingertips against his folded arm, as they stood beneath the painting, full under the sun.

 

“The resemblance is… remarkable,” Jim said out loud, as prosaically as a tourist idling through some museum’s halls.

 

“Yes.”  Ysaulte kept her voice just as toneless.  She’d be damned if she was going to betray herself to every person in the room!  “How can the colors remain so?  I should have thought the sunshine would fade them.”  And take that, Spock, Jim heard her add silently, daring the Vulcan to fault her behavior.

 

“The e’Negah herself painted it,” Silivia had the presence of mind to explain.  “It is said Iananthe poured into it the last pieces of her magic, so we might always remember.”

 

“I recognized it as Iananthe’s work,” Ysaulte admitted with such serene composure Jim wanted to hold her up against the effort.

 

“How so, Lady of stars?”  Dyer wondered curiously, very much admiring the ZaworthIan’s demeanor in the face of an obvious shock.  “A lesson to be learned here, yes, Mother?”

 

Silivia nodded at his silent question, waiting to see how Ysaulte would answer.  When the ZaworthIan didn’t speak, the elder decided some prodding was due.

 

“That is Iananthe, at left, with Ilyuuron.  At right, your ancestress Zariel, with her bondmate Yachne.  And yes, Doctor McCoy.  At center, talSherea, Zaltana du Khyn, with Yrik, the Mavre Sidr… the Sorcerer King.”

 

Ysaulte’s fingers clutched on Jim’s arm, a reaction he covered with his other hand.  He couldn’t do anything about the reflection of her shaken disbelief, colored in the crystalline brilliance of ZaworthIan irises.

 

“You’ve never seen a likeness,” Jim realized, unaware he spoke her thoughts out loud.  “But you know it’s them.  You feel it.  So can I.”

 

“James, talSherea forbade her image reproduction, lest… lest…”

 

“Say it, Ysaulte.”

 

“Lest her image be used to impel or coerce.”

 

The ZaworthIan turned that blasted gaze on Silivia, who set herself behind shielding out of reflex.  There was, indeed, a great deal of legend handed down on this world, and not all of it favorable, regarding the power of the sha’deh du Khyn.

 

The colors stilled in Silivia’s eyes.

 

“Ysaulte,” Jim warned, not sure what he was warning her against.  She knew what he meant, anyway.

 

Lowering her gaze, Ysaulte seized emotional control, covering everything except her genuine regret at having frightened the older woman.  As a truth, it stung…  and yet, truth was her only, best defense.

 

“I accept this, for hangs there today in my Sisters’ Hall one other work in this fashion, wrought by mind.  Iananthe’s work.  It speaks in visions.”

 

“Then you know how the process is managed?”  Silivia asked, stepping up to stroke the smooth wooden frame.  The oil hues brightened visibly, almost glowing.  “It has always been believed only one of the sha’deh du Khyn could do it.”

 

“I can… manage the process,” Ysaulte said reluctantly, sparing a quick glance at Jim, who nodded.

 

“We can.  Unless you’re going to try to talk me out of this.  Just don’t tell me it’s too complicated for my limited human intelligence.”

 

Spock’s eyebrow shot up, making Jim aware, this time, that he’d been speaking his thoughts out loud.

 

“Ysaulte, are you sure you__”

 

“Leonard, I am.  I am all right,” Ysaulte assured the doctor, irises emerald with the effort James was making not to look at Spock.  “The message is ours, whatever the method of sending.”

 

Those irises washed over in a sheet of gray so enveloping the ul ku Tuura elder felt it ice along her spine.

 

“I must confess, elder Sister, I am sore afraid of hearing this.”

 

“Child, only one without feeling is without fear.  It must be noted, I have never seen these colors so brilliant as when you stand beside them.  How can you fear something that responds to you so?”

 

“It is not the messenger,” Ysaulte replied rather cryptically to everyone but Jim, Spock and Bones.

 

Silivia inspected her depicted ancestors with new interest.

 

“How did Iananthe do this, Ysaulte?”

 

“A Talent of Za, and rare.  The art of working will into memory and memory into will, through art.  Near magic, even for us.  Iananthe’s work tells the story, an that one listen… as we can.”

 

The ZaworthIan laid her free hand against the sunwarmed canvas.

 

***

 

Flashes like lightning blinded them, squeezing their eyelids shut.  Once opened, all perspective changed.  With weird double vision, Jim saw them all in two places; him and the landing party, standing with Dyer, Laaru, and Silivia in the elder’s sunroom… and standing on a plain at the edge of a mountain, swept by a wind that smelled of war.

 

“The ul Nru?”  Jim asked, unsurprised in the face of the connections anchoring him to this altered reality.

 

“Yes, a’shas.  The ul Nru of four millennia ago.”

 

“Are we there, exactly?”

 

“I regret, I cannot explain it, exactly.”

 

Jim, concentrating, felt the energy Ysaulte was expending to carry them into this supernatural projection while ensuring their individual psionic barriers, enabling them to each interpret Iananthe’s will.  Even the ul ku Tuura were sourced in Ysaulte’s force of mind, and Jim wondered if they knew it.

 

“We do know, Prince of stars,” Silivia answered, hearing the question in the Terran’s thoughts.  “I can only admire your Lady’s Talent.  That it goes beyond mine, I accept, for she is of Za, one of the sha’deh du Khyn.  As a child, I imagined their power, standing in body where we stand in mind, at this place, where Iananthe joined the ends of the ul Nru ranges.  Will to move mountains.”

 

Bones, in two places, was shaking his head, Jim observed.

 

“Problem, Doctor?”

 

“Well, it’s__  Ysaulte, can you do something about this here/not here feeling?”

 

Not permitting herself the startled pleasure she felt that Leonard would even ask, Ysaulte strengthened his sense of control to a level the independent Terran could better tolerate.

 

“Thanks, Ysaulte.  That’s more… solid.”

 

“Well done, Lady of stars.  Do you still maintain you cannot explain this?”  Laaru inquired, but Ysaulte waved him silent.  The inward/outward sense of her gesture rippled over them all.

 

“Our duty now to listen,” Ysaulte advised them quietly, content to fall silent to Iananthe’s summoning.  Her long-dead Sister commanded nothing but respect… although Ysaulte had to wonder how many of the attendant listeners would appreciate the motives of one so far from life.

 

“What do you mean, Ysaulte?”

 

“We are called to witness, beloved__” and another voice began to speak.

 

“Know ye, Sister, and know ye none else.  Done wast done on mine own will, guilt mine.”

 

A figure materialized beside them, standing straight and slender.  The image from the portrait as if alive.  Iananthe.  Jim heard her words, carried on an agonizing, diminishing hope.  How could he sense it so clearly?

 

“Her will worked, James.  Iananthe’s Talent.”

 

“Canst be said, I welcome thee, beloved.  I despair sometimes of any Sisters seeing me.”  The image of Iananthe confessed, holding out her hands to them, irises murky.  “Ilyuuron lives without his ul Nru, his world thinks me dead with Q’rin.  Price paid, unresented… yet I am troubled by dreams.  Words come to me in warnings of ill ahead.  My thought, I shalt not leave this world alive.”

 

Ysaulte gasped audibly, stopping an automatic reach for Iananthe’s likeness, which went on with remorseless honesty.

 

“I despair sometimes of being trapped in war, trapped by these mountain ranges which surround me… trapped by bond.  Add ye last chain, Sister, and know I bear my Lord Ilyuuron a son.   Shall I forsake my duty to the father of my child?  Free my will, go home, and raise my son to Za… and sentence Ilyuuron to the loss of his home?”

 

"What choice, what choice,” Ysaulte lamented under her breath, comprehending several details as they fit into the reality Iananthe created.  In all things, the daughter of talSherea had served her bond companion, as should.  However, as an expectant mother, she could not have slain the renegade razS a’Man had her lover ordered her to.  She could not, at risk to the child.  “Sah’des ka, a’sha’deh he’Ra__”  I see how it is, my Sister/friend.

 

The sad little voice went on.

 

“I despair of failing Ilyuuron.  Q’rin cripples his world still, and I… I bear a child not of Za, to a world not ours.  My Lord Negus needed a warrior, not an artist.  Ah, Zariel.  An thou couldst hear me!  Wast ye less met in Yachne, wouldst thou so grace Ilyuuron.  He deserves one far stronger than I__”

 

“Never so, beloved,” Ysaulte heard herself swear in a voice not quite hers.

 

“I despair, for I fail, and condemn my children.”

 

Ysaulte cursed, because she could not reach back into the past and free the one of her haunting sorrow.  What was, was…

 

Perspective wrenched into another change, dissolving the scene into a new resolution.  Mountains thundered and roared about them with ponderous fury, torn from their relentless moorings.

 

“Well, look at this,” Jim murmured, equally riveted by remembered vision.  For once, fact diverged from popular legend.  Huge clouds of dust shot up around them, obscuring the sky, while the ground twisted and heaved underfoot, and none of it took their attention from the drama being enacted.  A man Jim recognized as Ilyuuron stood over another man’s body… not a human man.  A Romulan.

 

“Walk ye, I command it!  As Lord of the ul Nru, I, Ilyuuron command it!  Walk!”

 

“God, Ysaulte.  He did it through her!”

 

The mountains closed in on them, circling, blinding with a backwash of psionic energy.  Jim felt Ysaulte shield them all.   She balanced the mental surges, while he balanced her… and inner vision cleared to show yet another picture.  The Beeyt ul ku Tuura, hardly changed in four thousand years.  It appeared like the island of serenity found in the eye of a hurricane.

 

“That was a test.  We wouldn’t have lived through that if you__”

 

“The message meant for Sisters, James, that’s all.  The one held strength, as a daughter of talSherea.”

 

The image of the e’Negah took shape before them again, and Jim allowed it to distract him from the realization he'd made.  If Ysaulte didn’t want it common knowledge, fine, but he knew.

 

This version of Iananthe was a bit older, a lot wiser, with eyes that might have sparkled, once.

 

“Done wast done, Sister, and forgive the trial.  Mine younger self most formidable, neh?  So dramatic, but the one deserves her voice.”  The apparition shrugged, conveying a certain rue.  “Look, ye.”  She presented the valley, where in the meadow he’d created; Ilyuuron played with a child.  “My Lord honors me, Sister.  Cedes he his crown to his blood kin, to live here with us.  And ye ask me, am I pleased in living?  I am, yet I miss my Sisters, and long for my Mother Za.”

 

The simple honesty in Iananthe’s tone touched them all.  Jim saw (and felt) Ysaulte’s fingers tremble as she wanted so badly to reach through more than memory.

 

“My life limited to this world, and with all that I am, I keep it safe for the sake of him, and his… and mine.  Honor the intent, if not the outcome, Sister, for comes the time ye see this, and ye must see a need for a more permanent solution.  Forgive me.”  Iananthe smiled at them, her irises lightening to that impossible, turquoise, ZaworthIan blue.  “Need ye cause or consent, then so hath ye same, for these of mine I name du’Mes Ilya’ar sha’deh.  So naming, thou art charged with their lives as free people, Sister.”

 

Ysaulte groaned, and Jim had just enough time to realize his Lady had been expecting this announcement before their surroundings melted into the here and now.  Looking around, he wondered if everything had been as clear to his officers as it had to him… then he noticed their stunned expressions and decided it had.  Even the Muuyeans seemed startled.

 

“I take it we’re in deep shit now,” Bones remarked.

 

“Well.  I am, Leonard.”

 

“We are.  Don’t argue, Ysaulte.”

 

The ZaworthIan sniffed, shaking one bruised fist at the painting.

 

“Argue, paugh!  How can I, with either thee, Leonard, or my Sister Iananthe?  Well wrought, Sister!  Well worthy!”

 

“Look on the bright side, Ysaulte.  This ought to take care of the Prime Directive,” the doctor pointed out.

 

“By what possible logic have you arrived at that conclusion?”  Spock asked, finally driven to a question.

 

“Face it, Spock.  This goes beyond Federation law, all right.  Iananthe says the ul ku Tuura belong to ZaworthIa__”

 

“I am familiar with the implications, however__”

 

Ysaulte tuned out the burgeoning disagreement, seeking a moment’s mental sanctuary in the thoughts of her beloved.  What she really wanted to do was throw herself on the floor and scream, because her hands had been so very neatly tied.  She was out-maneuvered, sure enough, manipulated by just about everybody concerned.  Her Sisters, the Empire, Ryu Gnaur, the shocked silent ul ku Tuura…

 

“Not me?”  Jim asked, following her silent tantrum.

 

“Never thee, a’shas.  Thou art the only one with my interests at heart.”

 

“And that’s why I’m here, isn’t it.  Somebody’s got to keep you safe.”

 

The smile in Jim’s mind went a long way toward removing that ‘handled’ feeling from Ysaulte’s.  She forced herself to relax.  It was an effort.

 

“So, Lady Silivia.  You did not know the whole of Iananthe’s sending?”  She finally asked.

 

“No, child.  I… do not have your reach.”  It surprised Silivia when the admission failed to hurt.  “Thank you, Lady Ysaulte.”  The elder waited until faint color fingered its way over the ZaworthIan’s cheekbones, provoked by Silivia’s gratitude.  “Come now, and eat.  Your strength is not without limit,” she reminded Ysaulte again.  At the younger woman’s nod, Silivia led them back into the main room, where Melila, Tiisch, and breakfast waited.

 

Once they were all seated, Silivia ate a bit from her plate and then switched it with Ysaulte’s.  Laaru repeated this action with Jim’s plate, as the councilwomen did for the doctor and Spock.

 

“Feel free to scan the meal, Healer.  I will not be offended,” Silivia insisted to McCoy, who did exactly that before nodding to Jim.

 

“Now, I absolutely forbid another spoken word until we eat!”  The elder ordered.

 

“I admire a woman who has her priorities straight,” Ysaulte overheard Leonard thinking so loudly she knew he’d meant her to hear.  The ul ku Tuura must have heard him too, judging from the number of grins between them.

 

“Here, Ysaulte,” that voice she loved best.  James neatly hand-fed her a mouthful.  “It is meatless, isn’t it?”

 

“Seems to be.  I am quite capable of__”

 

“I know you are.  Don’t spoil my fun.  We’re scandalizing the good doctor.”

 

“More than poor Leonard, surely.”

 

“Poor Leonard?  Just think of the lecture you'll get if you don’t finish at least half.”

 

“James T. Kirk, resorting to petty threats.”

 

“Petty, Madam?  Better not let Bones hear you say that!”

 

Jim kept right on teasing, prodding, and cajoling Ysaulte to eat, aware of how badly she needed to restore some energy.  He figured Silivia understood, knew Spock would, and couldn’t care less what the council’s reactions were to his lack of dignity.

 

“Enough, beloved.  I am stronger.  Tend thine own.”

 

“All right, Ysaulte.”

 

Anxious to reassure him, Ysaulte completed the entire serving, her attention drifting from one person to another as they ate in wordless silence.  After a time, the elder caught her eye, reaching out in mind.

 

“You are newly come to bondage, are you not?”

 

“A matter of hours.  Perhaps a Standard day.”

 

“A great Teacher on my world once said ‘A thousand years is as a single day’.”  Jim told them both, revealing how closely he watched his Lady.  It came as no surprise to either woman.

 

“I did not ask the question as a criticism, James.  The ul ku Tuura seldom measure time, ourselves.  A result of our heritage, I suppose.  I appreciate your concern, but I promise you as who I am, your Lady is safe alone with me in conversation.”

 

“As who you are, Silivia, you should realize.  My Lady is never alone.”

 

How, or why, his words turned into a warning, Jim wasn’t certain, but there it was.  As Jim wondered who he thought he was to caution Silivia (and then thought about just whom he was), the elder startled him by chuckling out loud.

 

“Point taken, Prince of stars,” she said aloud, and if anyone wondered what his point had been, they didn’t ask.  “I know how weary she is,” Silivia added silently, appreciating the Terran’s concern.  “I want to show her something else the e’Negah left for us.  Another gift.  It will make her well.”

 

“Will you be far?”  Jim caught himself asking Silivia as the elder got to her feet and held out a hand for Ysaulte.  Jim had to help the ZaworthIan up.  She pretended to move easily, but he recognized the effort it took.  Grace under pressure, maybe…  but so Romulan, to pretend no pain existed.

 

“As near as a shout, James.  Laaru, we go to the springs.”

 

The councilman nodded as if he’d been waiting for this.

 

“Dyer, go to…  ah, Riane is of a size.  Ask her for a change of dress for the Lady.  Something blue, if she has it.  Take it to Mother at the lifepool.”

 

“Yes, Laaru,” and the boy was gone, quick as that.

 

“Ah, no offense, Lady Ysaulte,” it occurred to Laaru to add, prompted by the captain’s irritated glare.

 

“No offense given, Councilman… to me, anyway.”

 

Ysaulte’s wry humor drew Jim’s gaze off the Muuyean man.  He much preferred the emerald light in his Lady’s eyes.

 

“Do you want to go?”  He asked her silently.

 

“If you approve.”

 

“Are you sure you’re all right?  You’re letting me decide.”

 

“Who else?  Command yours, as was the suggestion that my judgement overproud and biased by my father’s blood.  I would not behave… imprudently, my Lord,” Ysaulte told him with a faint smile.

 

“Why change the habits of a lifetime, my Lady fair?”  Jim raised one slender, battered hand to his lips in the most fleeting of kisses, smiling to himself when Ysaulte’s irises washed over amber.

 

“There’s nothing wrong with your instincts,” he murmured into her mind, releasing her into Silivia’s care.  Eyes down, Ysaulte followed the elder out, and Jim’s friends were polite enough to ignore his lingering grin.

 

***

 

Sunshine lay warm on the valley, full with the promise of midday heat.  The heavy scents of growing plants made the air feel thick and humid, only occasionally stirred by a weak breeze.

 

Silivia deliberately kept a slow pace.  Ysaulte noticed, and didn’t let it bother her.  The long peace in the land moved through her, making the ZaworthIan glad of the opportunity to see more…  A land created out of the pure force of love for a man.

 

The elder led her along a trail that snaked down a hill and paralleled the creek, where silvery fishes struck stars in the swift water.

 

“This land, and the lifepool were gifts from Iananthe,” Silivia noted quietly as they passed around a bend.  The path split to lead to the water’s edge.  A stony outcrop twisted up from the ground to form a small pond, separate from the creek.  Steam drifted off the blue-green surface.

 

“A hot pool?”  Ysaulte asked hopefully.

 

“Yes, a spring, where the heart of the ul Nru meets the heart of the world,” Silivia said.  “They are healing waters, Lady Ysaulte, intended to sustain the ul ku Tuura.  Please, daughter of Zariel, allow them to sustain you.”

 

“How can I refuse?”  Ysaulte shrugged painfully.  “If you will assist me, elder Sister.”

 

“Of course…  Child, you are fortunate in living,” Silivia observed, easing the ZaworthIan’s coverall down to expose a number of mottled bruises mantling Ysaulte’s back and shoulders.

 

“That belief shared,” Ysaulte admitted, hooking her toes behind her heels and prying off her boots.  The elder balanced her while she stepped out of her clothes, unselfconscious.  To the ZaworthIan Sister, the ul ku Tuura Lady met as peer.

 

“The doctor spoke of other injuries,” Silivia remembered as she crouched to unwrap the bandages around Ysaulte’s calves.  “Worse than these?”

 

“In a manner of degree, yes.  Less… superficial.”

 

“How have you survived, then?”  Silivia swallowed.  “I could not say this earlier, nor even think it, because I did not wish to… frighten… your Prince of stars, but nammle, when he chooses to kill, is near indefensible.  You know this, yet I perceive it as the least of your recent trials.”

 

“My thanks for your silence, Sister.  As who I am, I mark the trials by mind of greater import.”

 

“And you have suffered these of late as well,” Silivia realized.  The ZaworthIan made no reply, picking her way along the stony rim of the basin to test the water’s warmth.

 

“Feels perfect,” Ysaulte announced, stepping in to wade and finally immersing herself to the neck.  Beyond the marvelous heat, there was an ‘otherness’ to the flow, some magnetic natural rhythm.   “True healing waters.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Silivia sat so she could soak her feet, amused by the younger woman’s open enjoyment.

 

 “The lifepool keeps us well.  I suppose you have healing waters on ZaworthIa.”  Just speaking the name still sent tingles through Silivia’s mind.

 

“Even so…  and thou the world address as thy Mother Za, for so she ‘waits thee, daughter of Iananthe.”

 

“That is a hope the ul ku Tuura have never entertained.  This is our home, and we are bred to the ul Nru, Ysaulte.”

 

“In this life, elder Sister.  Consider the next.”

 

Ysaulte leaned her head against the edge, close enough to touch, which Silivia did, reaching out to stroke that fiery hair.

 

“The lifepool generally leads to questions about the alternatives, child.  If in some afterlife I see the world of our ancestors I will only be grateful.”

 

Ysaulte decided Silivia was laboring under some misconceptions regarding how said afterlife worked for descendants of ZaworthIa… then she quit thinking at all and openly drowsed, feeling protected under the elder’s watchful gaze.  The aches in bones and muscles washed away, vaporizing with the steam into the clear sky above.

 

As at a distance, Ysaulte sensed Dyer’s approach.  The child bore a bundle of blue cloth.  Silivia motioned him into silence.  Ysaulte elected to shift her perception from these peripheral matters and searched in mind for that presence she needed most.

 

“James.”

 

“Ysaulte.  Where are you?”

 

She presented him with a mental picture, and trembled with his wish to be there with her, alone… no landing party, no ul ku Tuura, and no Romulan Fleet approaching.

 

“Only me, with you, a’Tohrza,” she heard him promise, his thoughts as hot inside her as the water on her skin.

 

“Thou, beloved,” answering in kind…

 

***

 

Silivia shooed Dyer away, commending him as he left for his quick and quiet obedience.  Agreed, he had conducted himself very well, and yes, she certainly appreciated his many questions, but now was not the time to disturb the ZaworthIan.  The Sister walked in spirit.  Silivia had known this was possible.  It was an ability alluded to in all those ubiquitous legends… but it was one more thing the elder had never reckoned on seeing first hand. 

 

Concentrating on not eavesdropping, despite temptation, Silivia unfolded Dyer’s bundle, smoothing each article of clothing and laying it on the ground beside her.  Blue, as requested, proving Laaru had absorbed those legends too.  The e’Negah Iananthe was said to have favored the color... and Riane, unselfish child, had chosen her best.

 

Some minutes later, Silivia felt Ysaulte come back to herself__ there was really no other way to put it.  The ZaworthIan sighed, and stretched, pulling herself out of the hot springs with obvious reluctance.  The elder pointed her across the rocks to the running creek.

 

“Jump in.  It will refresh you,” Silivia instructed, laughing with Ysaulte when the chill forced a shriek from the unwary Lady.

 

“Aieee!  Wonderful, elder Sister!”  Ysaulte exclaimed, surprised to find she almost felt that way.  Paddling a length or two, she realized her soreness was almost completely gone.  A nagging sense of psionic fatigue persisted, attributable to the nullifier, the ZaworthIan supposed.  “My thanks, Silivia.  Truly, the waters heal,” she remarked, climbing out when she began to shiver.  “A gift, indeed.”

 

“Due you, daughter of Zariel.  Your health is all the thanks I need.  Do you believe your Terran Doctor will be satisfied with our care?”

 

Ysaulte could not suppress a smile.

 

“One hopes,” she said, accepting a toweling cloth from the elder and bending to inspect her calves.  “James is, at any rate.”

 

“Then so are we,” Silivia responded faintly, wondering if the ZaworthIan intended the double entendre.  “Permit me.”

 

The elder helping, Ysaulte got into the native wear.  Dark blue leggings went on first, covering the remaining evidence of the animal’s attack.  The lacerations were now a series of fine, fading pink scars, rickracking her calves and painless, even when the ZaworthIan tugged on her boots.  Silivia added underslip and tunic, both in silky turquoise hues, then an overblouse that fell to mid thigh, colored an icier blue.

 

“Riane’s clothing fits you well, Ysaulte,” Silivia noted, hoping the starship captain would appreciate Laaru’s fine eye.  “One more thing,” and bless Dyer, for somehow knowing to bring this.

 

“Lady Silivia__”

 

The protest died in Ysaulte’s throat as the elder unwrapped a last, long bundle, revealing a linked-chain hip belt wrought in a silvery metal.  She had presumed herself past any more shocks; consequently, the shock could not have been greater.

 

“A’drei ‘khar mis’du ve’hwor S’as!” she swore involuntarily (the worst invective in her first spoken language; it roughly translated into begging for help out of the collective protein waste products of the entire galaxy).  “I cannot be seeing this.  Hold thou d’KamarIa!”

 

“Yes, I know, Ysaulte.  I know what it is.  Handed from mother to daughter, given to Iananthe by talSherea.”

 

“And believed lost with the one for these thousands of years, Silivia.  To find it here__”  Ysaulte shook her head, unable to take her gaze off the rippling length of woven chain.  “She who was Zaltana wore d’KamarIa in defense of our Mother Za.”

 

“I knew this too,” Silivia replied mildly, moving toward Ysaulte with the belt.

 

“Oh, no,” Ysaulte backed up until stopped by the water’s edge.  “I am far from worthy.”

 

“You err, Ysaulte.  It is yours by rights, being a thing of your world, and besides,” Silivia succeeded in fastening it on the ZaworthIan, ignoring her flinch.  “Iananthe wore the KamarIa when Ilyuuron battled Kirin.”

 

Ysaulte barely heard her, much less the implications.  Running her hands over the curiously warm metal, she could feel it echo in her mind, and no need of legend to tell her how much power was enjoined in the shimmering rings.  Even so, legend, on this subject, fair sang.

 

With a start, Ysaulte realized Jim was impatiently demanding to know what was going on.  Of course, her surprise had alerted him.  She shook her head again, got a grip on herself, and promised them both they’d hear it all.  Now.

 

“I must say, it suits you,” Silivia said, appreciating the younger woman’s distraction.  The KamarIa only enhanced the wild glitter in those variant ZaworthIan irises.

 

Jogged by the elder’s remark into the present, Ysaulte finally found her voice.

 

“In talSherea’s day, d’KamarIa bore a sword.”

 

“Radomil.  It may still exist.  It is said to bar the door to Kirin’s soul-chamber, deep within that place where the mountains were met.”

 

Ysaulte’s breath hissed out in a long sigh, conclusions coming to her perceptive reach.

 

“It is what remains of Q’rin razS a’Man himself that is the nullifier, then.  The thought-binder,” she explained to Silivia’s puzzled stare.  “The source of the power field around this valley.”

 

“No.  That is a natural effect of the minerals in the ul Nru mountains__”

 

“You are mistaken.”

 

Silivia paled, awarded her portion of unbelievable information… yet she could not disbelieve, when Ysaulte herself said it.

 

“The mage’s spirit more than endures.  It increases,” Ysaulte warned, the truth falling into her mind and out of her mouth.  She was as suddenly aware of Q’rin as she was of Jim, feeling will move in a palpable ebb and flow.  “By legend, is there a task to perform that will remedy this?”

 

Disregarding the ZaworthIan’s question, Silivia gestured at the sky.

 

“I have been off planet, and I have never sensed this nullifying field you speak of!”

 

“You are born of this world.”

 

The ul ku Tuura elder considered Ysaulte’s gentle reply, forcing herself to put away her pride, which was ample.  She was a daughter of kings, descended of world rulers and a leader of her people for three hundred years…  and in this, she was almost incidental.  She could make the realization a bitter one, or she could accept it as who she was, and do anything to help.

 

As who she was, Silivia chose.

 

“Sister of Za, you have heard Iananthe’s words, and her Endwords.  The interpretation is yours, but I am thinking, given what I know, you must free the valley of the influence of the thoughtmaster.  We would then, perhaps, be capable of defending ourselves from the Empire.  No doubt Ryu Gnaur will view this as usurpation.  Are you sure__”

 

“I am sure of nothing, save uncertainty,” Ysaulte remarked dryly, one eyebrow on the rise.  “However, you bear the proof of Q’rin’s tightening grip on the ul Nru.  The people here near to barren of Talent.  Q’rin throttles you and yours.”

 

The ZaworthIan fell silent, turning to look across the water.  Silivia felt the shiver crawling along her spine…  their spines.

 

“How will you do this thing, Lady Ysaulte?”

 

“I do not know.  It does not matter.”  Ysaulte cleared her throat and mentally apologized to Jim.  “I know where my duty lies.  Q’rin razS a’Man now mine.”

 

End Chapter Eleven