Chapter Fourteen
Ysaulte
awakened knowing instantly where and when she was, and with whom. It was a novelty sufficient to hold her
motionless, body and mind. Dyer lay curled
up against her left side, while Jim warmed her right, and she disturbed
neither. Rather, she took the liberty of
attending her lover’s dreams, adoring him greatly when she discovered him
dreaming of himself, with her and in vivid detail… Dream done, subconscious shifted, Ysaulte
left Jim asleep.
Farther,
she located Leonard, likewise sleeping, which meant Spock stood sentry. As if summoned, the Vulcan’s thoughts were
with hers.
“Spock. All well?”
“If you
are, Ysaulte.”
“I
am. Truth told,
I am joyful at waking here, with these of thee my beloved.”
“I see,”
Spock answered, smiling inside. “I also
hear your stomach growling quite audibly.
With my ears.”
“Huh.” Moving carefully and adding a couple of
psionic nudges, the ZaworthIan levered herself up without arousing anyone. She climbed to her feet, leaving her cloak,
since Jim and Dyer were lying on it.
Spock was
just outside, and he surprised Ysaulte by being seated. She sat next to him, receiving both the calth and a searching stare from her friend.
“Are
you well?”
“Leonard’s
been worrying again,” she concluded wryly.
“So have
we all,” Spock corrected, surprising her anew.
“Illogical
and counterproductive,” Ysaulte scolded, but she was grinning at him. Turning her gaze upward, she made a face at
the sight of the night sky, clouded.
“When did the weather change?”
“Approximately
ten point one four two Standard minutes ago,” he replied gravely, watching the
Lady’s irises lighten with comprehension.
“Must be what
woke me,” she nodded, taking a long drink from the wooden bottle.
“When
will the dawn break?”
Watching
for a gap in the cloud cover, Ysaulte espied a pair of stars and fixed the
time… ZaworthIan time.
“Soon,”
she said to Spock’s lifted eyebrow, but he let her glaring imprecision pass,
handing her the rucksack instead.
“May I
recommend the cheese as particularly tasteful. From what dairy animal is it produced?”
She
matched the arch of his brow and dared his sobriety when she said, “It is made
of haidar’s milk, their freely given gift to us.”
Spock
rewarded her with that fey half smile, which almost widened to a real grin when
she asked him silently how he thought Leonard would react when he learned.
"Certainly,
Ysaulte, he will not hear it from me,” the Vulcan waited a beat, “yet.” Delighted, she burst into open laughter,
inadvertently waking Jim.
He roused
disoriented; something she could remedy, and did.
“James,
beloved. I am with
thee.”
His mind
came to life, imagination meeting reason.
“Ysaulte. Gods, I slept like the dead. Where are you?”
“Yuck,
what a simile,” she commented mildly, wishing his thoughts clear with a gentle
push of will. “Better? Spock and I are without. Come, break fast, and greet the day with us.”
Jim managed
to rise, rubbing his face. The sky was
beginning to gray when he tiptoed out to join Ysaulte and Spock. Clouds parted, and the stars depicting Za’rai jha’Kefoa’s constellation
still glittered bright and bold, reflecting in his Lady’s upturned, matchless
gaze.
“a’Tohrza,” Jim found himself bowing at her formally. “Fair morning.”
“My Lord,
only now,” Ysaulte allowed, echoing his courtesy and lowering her head. Spock observed all this near-Vulcan restraint
with amusement. He appreciated their consideration,
but he had to wonder how long it would last, or could, here.
“Spock. You didn’t wake me for my watch. You didn’t sleep.”
“As you
know, Sir, my physiological need__”
“Yeah, I
know, Spock. Don’t overdo. That’s an order.”
“Let him try
to overdo. You do not believe he can,
surely.”
“With you
here? No. But I don’t want you to overdo either.”
“James,”
she started to protest, so Jim put his hand over her mouth and sat beside her.
“Please,
Ysaulte. Don’t tell me not to worry and
don’t try to distract me into forgetting it.
As strong as you are, you can’t control Fate, so don’t tempt her.”
“Understood,
Captain,” she said when he removed his hand.
“I must point out, the distraction incidental… yet thou art right to
command me. I mean no disrespect. Wilt thou forgive my arrogance once more?”
“Oh, I
guess. You can’t help yourself,” and
fortunately, McCoy picked this moment to appear at the door. “Bones. Have a seat.”
“Don’t
mind if I do.”
The
doctor inspected them with narrow, close regard, his eyes very cool and
professional as they settled on Jim, who had another swallow of calth nectar before handing it to McCoy.
“You
know, Bones,” he grinned disarmingly, “I haven’t had any back pain since the
day I met her,” winking at Ysaulte. “For
that reason alone, I’d have to love her.”
“The way
to a man’s heart is through his low back?”
McCoy snorted. “I had a lab
partner in Anatomy who used to say that… ‘course, Spock, in your case it’s
true,” he added to the Lady’s murmuring laugh.
Thus were
they all unprepared when a sudden burst of lightning seared through shared
vision; eyes and minds momentarily blinded.
Dyer cried out and the doctor went to check on him, while Jim grabbed
hold of Ysaulte’s arm. The one thing he
was sure of was the need to hang on, because letting her go now might initiate
some chain of circumstances they’d regret.
The ZaworthIan trembled in the grip of absolute fury, the range of which
demanded awe as his perception cleared.
“What is
it? Identify the source of this energy,
Ambassador!” He ordered in that tone
commanding instant obedience, watching her flinch against a second blast of
light in the sky.
“Matope presumes to sit the Fire Throne!” She whispered hoarsely, no composure in voice
nor thought, nor in the diamond bright glare of her
irises. “He dares! The Fire Throne not to be used so!”
“What’s
he trying to do?” Jim asked, believing
he already knew. His awareness of it
burned along his spine in a fever.
“Seeks
the one the destruction of Nahele forest, and Akilah’s murder with,” Ysaulte answered, practically
spastic with anger.
“What can
we do, Ysaulte?” Spock inquired, drawing
a little of the wildness away to drown in his control.
Held so,
long enough to bring a counterweight of better judgement
to bear, the Lady calmed with visible efforts that failed to take the ice from
her eyes. Overhead,
the lightning faded in favor of the dawning sun, beams shot through clouds,
black scotomata evidence of passage. It was an altogether riveting sight, boldly
colored in impressionistic swirls, and one Jim thought Ysaulte was still
blinded to. She was deep inside herself,
fighting to reconcile all these contradictions, all these dichotomies. Right versus wrong, good
versus evil, life versus death, ZaworthIan versus Rihannsu
(and how amazingly similar some of those reactions). She who was inheritor of this world opened
her mind to see, Talent rising, challenge met... and make no mistake,
Ysaulte mastered her will, achieving both shielding and listening so she could
hear not only Akilah but Matope as well.
“What’s
happening?” Bones asked from the door,
Dyer pale beside him.
“Tell
them,” Jim directed her steadily. “They
need to hear it too.”
“Ah,
beloved.” He
restored her rationality with the quickness, and gave her nerve to speak,
Ysaulte decided.
“Matope took the Fire Throne, and though he leaves it now,
the one is marked. Scars
for his descendant’s undoings. Bitter, this thing forsaken by its children,
abandoned to invasion… and know, Akilah seeing this too, and angry, for the
Fire Throne hers, Fire Queen, child of Fire.”
That
shattered, husky voice trailed away, ZaworthIan eyes as muddy as the clouded
sky. Jim realized they were all on their
feet and facing north, and didn’t remember standing. Too much in the psychic
wind.
“Isn’t
Akilah right in her anger?” Dyer argued
with unexpected passion, jumping in front of Ysaulte to capture her gaze. “Matope has
committed a sacrilege.”
“Brother,
pity the one with nothing left to lose, nor reason for living, and risking
insanity. Even Akilah forgives him.”
“But
Ysaulte, she’s so__”
“Well
wroth? Look beneath, Dyer. See thou Akilah’s understanding. None of this Matope’s
direct doing, yet he intends its finish in hope of freedom… and the tragedy
being, any freedom Matope might presume he lost with
his taking the Fire Throne. He is left
now with only one real way out, and that death.
Perceive, Akilah’s
anger less with Matope than his removal of her
choices.” Ysaulte taught in gentle,
measured tones, moving Dyer past reaction while sharing the underlying reality,
irises lightening.
“Show
me,” Jim entreated, wanting to see things with his own two eyes. For his Lady, there was no refusing.
“As thou
wish it,” she replied, and made it so…
***
…the
entire party spirited ridges deep into the foothills, the forest ablaze beside
and beneath them. Heat was a nosy
neighbor peering over their shoulders, accompanied by Ysaulte’s inspired curses
as she intensified psionic barriers and concealed them from both fire and
view. They weren’t alone. A few short meters away a woman stood creekside ha’limeda’s mountain
birthplace; a woman young, creamy-skinned and lean, with the surrounding flames
reflecting in her hair.
None of
Ysaulte’s companions were surprised to find her perfect features familiar.
Akilah
du’Kefirah, for it was surely she, lifted slender arms and laughed, beckoning a
breeze that harried the fires downslope. Her audience froze as she stared past them;
feeling like interlopers under the vibrant turquoise glow of her regard, and
how Ysaulte could possibly prevent her seeing them was beyond
comprehension. It was enough for Jim
that his Lady did, just, Talent ascendant.
“Early,
thou, Matope! Wouldst thou intend mine actions
premature?” Radiant in youth, strength,
and beauty, Akilah knelt to bury her hands wrist deep in the mud, all that was
left of a river’s springs. The other
children of the Fire Throne heard every word, automatically translated by mind.
“A’dia Za, a’hava d’Za, ti’sheres,” My Mother Za,
beloved bound am I within Thy wishes.
“Shalt dread consume, or personal revenge?” and Ysaulte gasped
out loud in sudden fright. Akilah called
for the Mother’s intercession, and while Ysaulte might shield them from Akilah,
there was no hiding from Za!
“Aieee!
What alternative have we but faith ourselves?” She asked and dropped to her knees, one hand
on the dirt. “Oh, Mother, protect us, I
beseech Thee!”
Warmth
stole up from the ground to hold them, a vast and curious wonder that thirsted
after their immortal souls… but not malignly.
This force possessed with love and care, reminding Jim of his first
waking moment here on Ysaulte’s planet.
Her Mother welcomed them once more, or maybe just a fragment of her
will, sent to grant the pious wishes.
Whatever, all mortally wrought defenses were set aside and replaced by
the power of the world, with a stern proviso voiced outside mere hearing. They would abandon Za’s
shielding at need, a condition Ysaulte swore silently to obey, in the
respectful reluctance deserved of such a debt.
The grand
distraction who was Akilah laughed again, and this time there was genuine
delight in the sound. Water bubbled between
the hands of the daughter of the Fire King; springs regenerating, moisture
returning to the air. Clouds thickened
overhead with another kind of lightning, and Jim understood something he’d
failed to fully appreciate.
“Literal
storms, with rain.”
“Floods
to wash bare every stone.”
“In the
middle of a forest fire?”
“Where
better? Do thou never doubt it. Of all the
Talents bequeathed her generations, none since Akilah so skilled at calling
storms, not in ten thousand years. She who lives to be Fire Queen capable of producing rain though the
world burns.”
As if to
second Ysaulte’s words, they realized the storm approaching, ozone misting
coppery on their lips__
__and the
hours slipped, impatient, timeless Za taking the present a half-turn into the
future and delivering her charges into a driving rain. The sounds of fire hissing to death were
uncomfortably near, ashes rising steam.
Everyone was soaked within minutes, the Mother imparting a lesson on
selective protection. Even Akilah stood
drenched beside what was now truly a roaring river, an inland tide designed to
crash the palace walls.
“No stone
unturned, an that she bids it,” Ysaulte whispered,
rain gleaming like tears on her pale cheeks.
“My sorrow foolish.”
“No. You sorrow for loss… as Akilah does,” Dyer
said, seeing it. He leaned against the
Lady as the wind rose to Akilah’s hand. “I don’t think it’s foolish.”
“Sweet
Dyer.” Ysaulte held him,
while Jim put his arms around them both, and if the Lady cried with her heavens
nobody knew it but her Lord of stars.
Lightning
fell to earth and crashing thunder, yet there was no muffling the voice
unspoken. Akilah threw words to the
winds, anguish vivid.
“I come, heartside to my Mother, and thou without, du Me’ereden,” she began, ritual delivered
sadly. “The days of thy life in the
world art few. I beg of thee, bow to Za’s wishes and be thou one
beloved, Matope.”
“Thou art
availed of naught, but I admire the asking,” the doomed Me’ereden
answered through space, storm, and stone barriers. “The days of my life done, child of
fire. I cannot leave.”
“Thou
need not stay,” the younger woman protested, the miraculous range of her
telepathy conveying a piteous recognition her statement wasted, and as close to
being untruthful as the voice in mind could be.
“I cannot leave thee, understand me?”
“This thy
land sickens for lack of thee. I
understand, Akilah. Wouldst that my Lord
Malik had, and all this avoided.”
“Malik’s mistakes not thine.”
“Canst
thou say this? Knowing I myself saw Malik slay Khorodon?”
Akilah
flinched, and so did all her watchers, caught by a fresh surge of angry grief.
“My
father. And my Lady mother Adia?”
“She
too.”
The winds
howled, sound carrying Akilah’s bereavement, colder
than the pelting rain. Face upturned to
the intensifying storm, she screamed out her pain at his admission.
“Why, Matope? Make me
understand! Tell it to me as it
happened!”
“How can
I?” Far below to the south, a low
rumbling gave way to a series of loud booms, and the ground moved as the Mother
shivered. Matope
sent Akilah a mental picture. “The first
wall falls… the second… with the third my life measures nigh.”
“Come to
me, Matope, and live forever,” Akilah offered
blindly, the lightning in her eyes.
“Thou doth value the land, and it doth lie
within me to teach thee love of it, and it thee.”
Akilah’s promise
cut across the thunder, producing an instant unbelievable lee in the storm,
humbling every presence with her profound and merciful forgiveness… and still Matope refused her.
“I
wouldst never doubt it, beloved Akilah, yet I cannot. I cannot forsake my family. My place with them in the
life beyond life.”
The third
wall fell, and water rushed over the palace grounds, covering the gardens and
lapping at the stone forming the palace itself, and pouring into the kitchens
through that open haidar door (the haidar long since gone).
Inside, Matope walked across the Hall to seat
himself on the Fire Throne, but the Fire Throne was dead, drowned. He sat alone, having dismissed all his
retainers to flee, and watched the waters rise around his feet.
“I will
tell thee, Akilah, when Malik laid vision on this
chair, he lost his mind,” Matope said, caressing a
wooden arm and crying openly. “Am I too
leave the one so, without center, for all eternity?”
“Perhaps
the Fire Throne better gone,” Akilah conceded, willing to cede the point. “Not thee, Matope.”
“I miss
my family, my brothers, as thou doth mourn Khorodon and Adia. Morven, even Moshe… funny to share the one’s fate,” Matope
noted with sudden wry amusement.
“I cannot
bear this,” Akilah whispered to herself.
“What of thy Lady mother? Wilt
thou take Ardra’s last son?”
“I am
dead to her already.” The Me’ereden replied, waters at his waist. At the far end of the Hall, the stones fell
to reveal hakan gate.
Matope watched its fire extinguished. For a few moments the flood level dropped,
increasing swiftly to crest chest high.
Beneath Matope the Fire Throne creaked to be
free of its moorings, edging south. He
clamped his hands on the arms of the chair and hooked his ankles around its
legs, determined to meet his end aseat the thing, for
his mad father’s sake.
“Too
late, Akilah.”
“Damn
thee, never so!” She shouted, realizing
with palpable horror that Matope’s death on the Fire
Throne would reanimate it in the Me’ereden’s
insanity… and trap Matope’s soul. “Thou wilt have no peace for all eternity!”
“Maybe
not,” Matope du Me’ereden remarked uncaring, water at his chin and the
chair scooting in earnest now. “Neither thee, Akilah.”
“Oh,
Mother, what can I do?” She asked out
loud, on her knees in the mud.
“Daughter,
doing done, and no remedy but to take him from the Fire Throne itself,” the
answer murmured up from the ground.
Akilah went ashen-faced and moaned, feeling the floodwaters tumble the
Fire Throne, submerging it in a whirlpool between a’d’Kef’dn
and hakan gate, where the walls still stood and
funneled the rushing flow. Water rushed
inside Matope’s ears, then into his nose and mouth,
and lungs__
“No! No!”
She cried, hands on her ears as she heard his spirit scream with his
body’s frightened fight for air. “Matope!” and he was gone,
soul subsumed into the Fire Throne with a pain-filled wail.
Miles
below, in plain view thanks to the denuded, blackened hills, a fireball rose
over the waters drowning a’d’Kef, growing in size
until the flood boiled on the surface of the world and gave birth to a huge
column of steam.
“Holy
Mother,” Akilah gasped, the storm dissipating instantly with her impressed
awe. East and west, the unburned
portions of Nahele forest detonated into flames,
smoke rapidly displacing steam. The Fire
Throne’s remains sailed above it all, lighting the sky like a second sun as it
arced north at a right angle to aShaiLan’s path.
“Holy
shit,” McCoy muttered in Ysaulte’s ear, thereby voicing the shared sentiments
of the entire party. A massive blast of
hot humid air struck with a fist-hard blow, the Mother’s shields
notwithstanding.
“What
will she do?” Dyer wondered, afraid
despite himself. Evidently, Akilah had
the same question. Her head drooped,
shoulders sagging in a posture Jim had never seen in Ysaulte… defeat. The daughter of the Fire King wept.
“Who left
to mourn my destruction?” She asked despairingly,
bowing her head as the fireball approached.
The audible memories of all her losses rushed through every mind. “What worth this life?” Akilah demanded, distraught, prostrating
herself in suicidal resignation__
__and
time froze at the Mother’s stated wish, that full and enormous focus squarely
on the travelers in her care. There were
no barriers capable of standing before Za’s interest;
neither intended, involuntary, nor even simple disbelief. What was, Was… and they could only listen.
“So,
daughter, see thou task set, an thou wilt,” Za said to
Ysaulte as if choice was an option.
Ysaulte
understood immediately.
“As thou
wish it, my beloved Mother.
How shalt the one be persuaded?”
“Go thou
as My will embodied.
Show her what she needs to know to fight to live, teach her Who she needs to know.
Help her, daughter,” and stricken, Ysaulte started to obey.
“Stop! Wait a minute!” Jim made his ‘voice’ as loud as he could and
forced their attention. Demonstrating
his own acceptance, he spoke directly to the planetmind. “Forgive me, Mother Za, but I have to
know. Will Ysaulte be in danger?”
“El’sulce James,” James-who-flies, “Beloved thou art, with
Talent sufficient to task. An thou wish,
thou mayst__”
“No!” The protest was multi-sourced and drew Za’s surprise.
“Ho, such
headstrong children!”
Real
amusement shot through them, gilding the layers of the Mother’s emotions…
pride, regret, sorrow, and greatest of all, love; full of faith and sure her
children would not fail her. This magnificent
confidence was its own inducement, and not easily shrugged off. Ysaulte did not try.
“Mother,
of course I shalt abide by thy wishes, yet thee I wouldst importune.”
“Speak,
Ysaulte’h.”
Swallowing
against the tightness in her throat Za created with that oddly correct
appellation, Ysaulte pled her case.
“This my
best beloved James, thine by heart and not blood, Mother. Nor these who honor me with
their friendship. Before All, I know
any one of them might lay down his life for me and not count the cost, but I
wilt tell thee, I could not see any one of them without the others… and Dyer’s
future not at question. Further, neither any of their lives fated to end here. Not even for thee, Mother. Their own worlds need them.”
“An thou
a child of two worlds, fair Ysaulte’h. What needs thine?”
“As much
as I need thee, Mother, I require his safe return to his time, with these our
friends.”
“Are you
insane?” Jim finally lost control, supernatural
forces or not. “I can’t let you__”
“Respectfully,
my Lord,” Ysaulte answered quickly, eyes watering with the pain of his grip on
her arms. “In this, I cannot be
commanded. I am sha’deh
du Khyn, James. I must obey my Mother Za,” sobbing now, with
the ache in his heart as she made him face her duty. “It may not come to ill.”
“You
don’t believe that,” Jim charged, inwardly frantic because he could sense what
she sensed; the smell of death around them.
“There is a danger.”
“A life
price due,” the planetmind confirmed, honoring him
with the truth.
“A price! Ysaulte, not you! You promised__”
“Shh,
love,” she laid her fingers over his lips, minds joined beyond silencing. “I do as I must. I am sorry, truly sorry, James. I am bound here by blood and oath to older
promises, even as thee. Thine own security sworn, with Spock’s, Leonard’s, and Dyer’s, as
well as thy Lady Enterprise.
There awaits Q’rin, yet, and what of my own
world? Shall I abandon Akilah and alter
ten thousand years of galactic history?
No family line du’Kefirah, no Zaltanas, no sha’deh du Khyn,
no School of the Way. No
one to resist the Rihannsu invasion, neither here nor
within system Etumuuyea. No
ZaworthIa as she is in our time… and might we not then disappear, Dyer and I,
leaving thee and thine marooned here?”
“Is there
no alternative to your involvement, Ysaulte?”
Spock asked for Jim, remembering that frozen look on his face all too
well.
“No. Understand me. By legend, Za came to Akilah in body.”
“Ysaulte,
no.”
“I am the
only right body for Za’s use, James.”
Her hands
went to his face and held his head for her kiss. It tasted like tears.
“’I love
thee, with all the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach… and I will
but love thee better after death’.
Art thou knowing the poem?”
“I know
it.” Jim hid his face in her hair. “I do love you, and I promised to support
you. I just don’t know if I can let you
go. Don’t ask me, please, Ysaulte.”
“I pray
thou wilt forgive me, James, but I do not ask.
Mother?”
“Thy
requirements wilt be met, daughter.”
“And the thoughtmaster Q’rin?”
Satisfaction
swirled into laughing challenge, mortal concerns vanishing in Za’s pleasure.
“Ha, bold
Ysaulte’h. An that I ask, wilt not Muuye
release the one?”
Power
surged to tremors, reflecting in a tremendous flash of energy Za directed
outward.
“There. Deed done, beloved
children. The one known in his
lifetime as Q’rin razS aMan safe now in his own homeworld’s
care.”
“My God,”
Jim whispered, unable to doubt it… and were all the
planets in the galaxy sentient inhabitants of their universes, commanding time
and space? “What will this cost
us?” He demanded bitterly.
“For thy
sake, James, no charge. All
things art possible, son of My heart.”
The
present shifted into motion, heat slapping them with the circumstances; a’d’Kef burning beneath the fireball of the Throne’s
remains, the Princess Akilah prone before it, and ZaworthIa. Waiting.
“If you
ever loved me, support me now,” Ysaulte begged, tearing herself out of her
lover’s arms to walk toward Akilah. Her
tread was measured and unafraid, although her heart hurt like it was breaking;
a million tiny pieces shattering under the weight of Jim’s grief, their
friends’ protests, and the younger woman’s depressed wish to die. Ysaulte wished herself clean and dry
automatically, bracing herself for what was to come.
Terran prose
persisted in coming to mind in snatches of verse.
‘For we wrestle
not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places. Wherefore,
take unto thee the whole armor of God, that ye may be
able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand… Above all, taking the
shield of faith’.
There was
great comfort in the old teachings, which Ysaulte accepted without faltering as
she crouched in the dirt beside Akilah.
“‘What
worth this life?’ My daughter, how is it
thou art left with this question?
Beloved, I implore thee. Thy
continued presence in the life of the body doth be most dearly desired,”
Ysaulte said to her, reaching out to stroke that coppery head. Akilah rolled over, staring into Ysaulte’s
rainbow gaze with profound disbelief.
“Who__ Mother, defend me!”
“Why, I do,
beloved Akilah. Always,” Ysaulte
assured, finding a smile for this astonishment.
“Come. Wouldst I set before thee
such as thou couldst not endure?” She
comforted, helping Akilah to her feet and stroking the younger woman’s face,
drawing away pain and apprehension as well as the mud and damp. “Fear not the things of the world when the
world thine.”
Akilah
tilted her head to one side (the gesture strikingly familiar) and regarded
Ysaulte with open suspicion.
“Thou art
thinking, perhaps thy mind lost to reason, or perhaps Matope
even stronger than dreamed. Perhaps thou
art dead already, and thy next life even stranger than
'magined. Thou
art thinking everything but the simple truth, beloved Akilah.”
“Thou
wilt permit my shock, Lady, for finding it difficult to think.”
“There is
very little time for shock, child, for thou art enjoined to task,” Ysaulte told
her, lifting one sable eyebrow. “Thou
art not insufficient, nor less than worthy,” she added, speaking to Akilah’s real fear, failure. The younger woman paled.
“How
canst thou know? Thou art unreal!”
This made
Ysaulte laugh, which surprised her more than it did Akilah, at least until the
Princess saw those irises lightening.
Then it would have been hard to say who was more startled.
“Perhaps
thou art more than real,” Akilah whispered, tracing the slant of Ysaulte’s pinna with one trembling hand. “An thou art Za,
what must I do?”
“Believe,”
Ysaulte said simply, answering this palpable doubt.
Akilah
shook her head.
“What
wouldst thou have me do?” Ysaulte asked
with patience she would not have known a Standard week ago. “Dear child, wish thou a sign? I cannot fault thee for thy caution, so wilt but
comply.”
Raising
one hand to the sky, Ysaulte motioned toward the fireball hanging in the haze
and smoke above them.
“Brother Za’ir, defend us,” she bade almost casually, calling a
breeze off the northernmost mountain peaks that pushed the smoke and heat
away. The view clarified. The Fire Throne was brilliant in its
self-contained continual blaze, and kept from them only by the Mother’s grace,
Ysaulte knew.
“The wind
comes to mine own wish. What kind of
sign is this?”
“Indeed,
what kind of sign? Wilt Za’ir answer thus to any call?”
Akilah
shrugged off the questions, inspecting Ysaulte closely. It gave the descendant an idea for another
approach to the ancestor.
“Art thou
so unnerved to find a resemblance, star-sister?
Thou too a child of jha’Kefoa
and Yrenda, soul-sourced equal to aShaiLan,
Shan ai Shuah, Za’ir, and thine own Mother Za.”
Akilah
also declined to respond to this, thought coming to mind.
“Give me
a reason making the life of this body worthwhile, and I shalt be convinced,”
she requested, death wish already gone.
“A
reason?” Ysaulte
had to smile again at this. “Many there
be, yet chief among them this. I submit
to thee, Akilah du’Kefirah, daughter of Adia,
daughter of Khorodon.
None so important to thy Mother Za as
thee. I am here to tell thee, thou art
favored in Za's sight, and while the past past, that which wast wilt be
once more, an thou wish it. No doing
beyond thee. So hath been said, all
things art possible.”
Ysaulte
could not help but look to where her Terran Lord of
stars stood with his men, although even she could not see him through Za’s protection. She
knew where he was, anyway.
“All
things art possible,” she repeated, still smiling, and neither Spock nor Bones
could bear to meet Jim’s eyes.
Ysaulte’s
face sobered, but that confident blue never left her irises as she turned back
to regard Akilah’s matching gaze.
“Look ye,
daughter, and see thy Mother’s suffering, the land covered in sickness. Healing thine. Wilt thou forsake thy Mother, Who loves and
needs thee as no other?” Ah, she had her
there!
Akilah
realized the same thing, and caught herself grinning
at this beautiful Lady who said she was Za, manifest.
“I might
accept thee, reason aside, for my spirit eased by thee as if by Healer’s
touch. So tell me, voice of Za, a method
thus by which I might free Matope of the Fire Throne,
and it of he.”
“’Voice
of Za’?” Ysaulte
sniffed, which didn’t hide her amusement.
It was an emotion as much self-directed as at Akilah. Why had she been so fearful of speaking with
the one? She could be playing at debate
with any of her Sisters or with Jim himself.
That’s how comfortable she found Akilah’s
mindset, and how comforting. Surely a gift of Za.
“Daughter,
thou wilt think of a way, I am having faith,” Ysaulte challenged her, teasing.
Akilah drew her shoulders back straight and
relaxed into an arrogant stance, holding open her hands.
“As thou
wish it, of course I shalt so do… Mother.”
***
Sectors
and centuries away, Pavel Chekov
turned around from the Science station to confirm an unwelcome development.
“Mistair Scott! Long
range sensors hef detected seventeen Romulan warships
within the Neutral Zone, heading out of the Empire into an area of unclaimed
space. There’s nothing there__”
“Och, no, laddie. I’m bettin’ there
is.” Scotty shook his head in
disgust. “D’ye
think ZaworthIa’s been the real target all
along?” He asked to the entire bridge
crew’s comprehension.
“More
tremors on the planet’s surface, Sair, and there’s
some kind of energy pulse incoming from ZaworthIa, or vere
ve tink she is. They prectically
fired it across the Romulan’s bow, Mistair Scott! The
energy barrier on Muuye is starting to fall__”
“Uhura?
Ennathing?”
“I have
the landing party’s communicator signals, but Scotty…”
“There’s
only one life form registering in the immediate vicinity,” the acting Science
officer reported tonelessly.
“Bloody
hell! Raise it, Uhura!”
“Aye,
Sir.”
***
Silivia came conscious
asking herself what kind of bugs she heard chirping in her ears, and it took
her a while to remember what was going on.
She needed a little more time to sit up; sighing with a slight headache
that got worse when she realized she was still alone. It had frightened her when Ysaulte, Dyer, and
the starmen had disappeared physically, because she
understood how reality, and unreality, worked… and she knew they were
completely off planet. So had the mage
known, but the mage was gone, pulled out of the ul Nru stone with nary a tremor, held in a loving Hand and
carried home. Silivia
had felt it happen, before that Hand had rocked her to sleep.
“Oh,
yes. Bugs.” She flipped open one of the communicators and
spoke. “I am Silivia,
of the village in the valley below that was hidden by the power field. Your Captain was with me__”
“Montgomery
Scott, commandin’ the USS Enterprise. Where is Captain
Kirk and the landin’ party now, Madam?”
“With my
great-grandson, Dyer, gone somewhere__ No.
I won’t try to lie to you,
“That
pulse o’ energy__”
“Sent to
free… my people of the power field’s imprisonment. This is what Ysaulte left to accomplish, but
they have none of them returned, and I grow worried.”
“Aye,”
Scotty breathed deeply. “I’ll repay the
favor, Silivia, and tell ye,
the Romulan Fleet is headin’ straight for ZaworthIa,
and not yer world.”
Silivia bit back a
gasp, the blood draining out of her face.
“Sir, I
tell you, if ZaworthIa falls to the Empire the galaxy is lost, and I promise I
am not exaggerating.” Silivia lifted her hands in unseen supplication. “Can you take me there? I know you cannot intervene, but my
great-grandson__”
“Say nae more. Uhura?”
“The
transporter room has the coordinates, Mister Scott.”
“Transporter
room. Energize.”
“Thank
you__
__Enterprise.” Silivia
materialized inside a column of light, allowing herself
to appreciate the cool décor before settling her gaze on the young officer at
the console.
“D'ye ha'e the lady, Kyle?” The communications station beside the
transporter controls barked.
“Yes,
Sir, Mister Scott.”
“Escort
her ta the bridge, then. Sulu, get a
course__”
“Already
laid in, Sir,” she heard another voice say.
“Sent over from the Science station, thanks, Pavel.”
“Warp
five, then, on mah mark. Take us out o’ orbit. We’ll see if we canna
beat those Romulan divils ta
Hersel’s world.”
“Aye, Mister
Scott. Warp five. Leaving orbit now,”
and the intercom went off. Silivia had to admire their courtesy in allowing her to
hear so much.
A
fresh-faced ensign entered, relieving the officer, who offered his arm.
“May I
escort you to the bridge, Madam?” He
asked in tones that echoed the room.
“Yes,
thank you. Kyle, is it?” Silivia engaged him
in light conversation all the way updeck, unaware she
was clinging to his forearm tightly enough to leave bruises. Stoic Kyle bore this all the way to the bridge,
where Uhura was informing Scotty their communications
were now being jammed.
“Huh. ‘Tisna the Romulans doin’ that. Oh, welcome aboard, Silivia. We canna let yer planet know__’
“Thank
you, Sir, that’s all right. Who is
doing the jamming?” Silivia
asked politely, thinking she already knew.
Scott had his own suspicions and sighed.
“When
we’re outside the warp field boundary, Sulu, gi’e her a try.”
“Executing
warp five… now,” but nothing happened as the helmsman
pushed one set of controls, then another.
“No response, Mister Scott.”
“Ysidra?”
Scotty called out quietly, answered when farsent
illusion took form on the foredeck; a slender woman there and not-there, with
hair as silvery as the elder Muuyean lady’s.
“Bishop
to queen’s level one, Montgomery Scott,” a disembodied voice said inside their
heads.
“Lady. Are ye sittin’ on
the warp engines, then?” He wondered
calmly.
“In a
manner of speaking, I suppose. Well met,
d’Etumuuyea. Silivia of Muuye, is it not? Once e’Negah?”
“Once. Well met, Lady Protector,” Silivia replied smooth-toned, using these stolid Terrans as inspiration.
If they could behave so easily in the presence of galactic legend, then
so could she. She hoped.
“Forgive
me for countering thine orders,
“I willna argue wit’ ye, Ysidra. This ship is under mah
command.”
“Might I
attempt persuasion? In thy minds I am
seeing thou wouldst seek Ysaulte and James here, on Za, with Spock and Leonard
and Silivia’s grandson Dyer… and because thou doth
believe it, so must I, but I tell thee on my honor, they art not within our
finding. That something happens, I
agree, for the force in our world answers not, and no one among us knows
why. Moves force to Ysaulte’s will? I cannot say.
Verily, I wish I knew. An that the one’s reach exceeds her grasp, we cannot offer
aid, nor can we protect thee. Our
attentions needed for the Rihannsu.”
“And how are
yer defenses, Ysidra?”
“What
wouldst thou have me say?”
“The
truth, ZaworthIan. For the Lady Ysaulte’s sake.”
Even in
image, Ysidra flinched.
“It
becomes apparent to every one of the sha’deh du Khyn, without our Mother Za’s voice, we say nothing.”
“Ha’e ye nae defenses?” Scott half-whispered,
shocked.
“We have
the Circle’s strength, which is no small thing, but it is limited. An that it fails, so
wouldst any means of our sheltering thee.”
Scotty
settled himself deeper into the center seat and crossed his legs, thinking out
loud.
“If the
“ZaworthIa
a sovereign world,
“I’ll
remind ye, the lass promised me a home there.”
“Oh, sah’des ka!
Is this what Terrans call ‘hard-ball’?” Ysidra surprised
them all by laughing. “Even
so. Thou art du’Mes
Ilya’ar sha’deh, and for All to witness, Ysaulte chose well. Come then, thou free-willed son of Terra. None shalt deny thee, but know the risk.”
The image
of the Lady disappeared. At Scotty’s nod
Sulu tried the warp controls once more, and this time
they worked as designed.
***
Akilah
wished, and on her Mother’s whim took them down mountain to stand on the field
of Asar, in front of a’d’Kef… near that place where Matope had found his death.
Ysaulte kept her feet, barely, and hoped Za softened the telekinetic
rush for Jim and his party. The ground
had baked to dust, leaving the air too hot to breathe; yet they breathed … so
the Mother must be doing something. Ysaulte
briefly wondered how Spock was managing with the illogic of it all.
Then events
began to move more swiftly, and she had to rid herself of every concern but the
present. The Fire Throne shifted
position too, taking a part of the sky that put it, perspectively,
equidistant from aShaiLan to its surface viewers.
The
younger ZaworthIan pointed at their sun.
“My
father Khorodon tells__ told of a time in his youth
when Nahele forest caught fire by Za’ir’s
lightning. Flames spread until no stormsinger couldst stay them, so Khorodon’s
father Khanock’k called the aid of Sabriam Yarkona. He who wast
King of ever-changing answered by becoming the fire, outblazing
the natural flames and swallowing them to naught.”
“Fight
fire with fire,” Ysaulte simplified, smiling.
“A good plan then, as now,” and how fascinating it was to finally know
why Akilah had done what she’d done.
Ysaulte also found it apt that the tal’Adares
had some influence on these vital doings.
“I am
pleased that it meets thy approval, Mother.
Perhaps thou wilt call on thy Brother aShaiLan.
Intercede for me.”
“Before I
do, tell me, beloved daughter. How then
shalt Matope fare?”
Akilah
bent over and picked up a handful of dust, letting it trickle through her
fingers.
“I
wouldst ask his return to the soil, Mother, his spirit eternal in providing new
life. Matope
deserves this, for he loved thee in his way,” she answered, blowing the last
grains off her palm.
“He loved
thee, daughter,” Ysaulte realized gently, curious about the path not taken;
choked off and occluded by Malik du
Me’ereden’s malignant insanity. “In different days.”
“Before Malik’s will fell to the Fire Throne, Matope
and I… Wast he who saw me
gone from here on that day. Matope saved my life.”
The Princess gestured around them, her eyes brighter than Ysaulte’s for
a long moment. “Let them all live. Malik, Moshe… the
whole of their line, wanting this land and paying for it in blood. Canst be done, Mother?”
“Thou
wouldst ask Me, forgive them. Take them into My
heart and make them whole.” Ysaulte
heard the Mother say through her lips, and the whole world hung on Akilah’s reply.
“I ask,
because I seek to live as one beloved, and there lacks an order in my days
needful of this. I ask, because doing
this doth be within thee, for all things art possible. I ask…” and Akilah put her hands out for
Ysaulte to hold “…because
I believe thou wilt do this for me, because I ask.”
“Oh,
indeed I shall, beloved,” Ysaulte lifted the Zaltana’s hands to her mouth and
kissed them, purified in that perfect faith and confidence.
“The
honor mine, to do this,” she admitted to Akilah, thanking Za for the privilege
of a direct role in the repair of her ancestral land; a task yearned for and
imagined in a life that already seemed more a precious, distant dream. Raising their hands to the sun, Ysaulte
finally loosed the control she’d kept so long, freeing the powers surging in
her mind. Forces fueled, forged, and
honed to focused intensity collected for the stated request, finessed to
ZaworthIa’s will and word.
“Hear me,
aShaiLan my Brother, son sourced in jha’Kefoa’s bond to fair Yrenda. Sisters we art to thee, desirous of thy
touch.”
“A’hava Za’Ia, torn from me in
form yet not in spirit. Hath thou only wish to make it so, as thou art so often
telling those thou shelter.” The words
unspoken took Ysaulte over, voice so passionate and beautiful she knew she
could not hear it and live. Sounds
without noises wrapped themselves around every nerve; colors beyond vision,
heat past light__ aShaiLan
turned her inside out with his loving whisper.
“What wouldst thou wish?”
“Comes no
wish without cost,” Ysaulte insisted on warning, thinking of Jim one last time
before all physical reality was stripped away in the rush of this supernatural
touch. “Not even for thee, Brother.”
“And when
cost due, Za’Ia, thou wilt see done,” the star
replied philosophically, glittering in descendant splendor to shame what
remained of the Fire Throne.
“Za’Ia shas du’lan’h, what wouldst thou
wish?” aShaiLan asked again, voice generous and adoring.
“A single
drop of thy beloved blood, to strengthen me and mine,” Za said, reaching with
Ysaulte’s hands.
“Is that
all, sha’deh shai?”
Giant
flares erupted on the sun’s face, great black spots darkening and fading and
darkening once more, calling forth tremors and quakes from Za’s
surface until it seemed all things must be ending, life on the world done… then part of the star seceded, falling
planetside in a comet’s blaze. Light
molten and liquid poured over Ysaulte, casting her a
statue in sunshine that vanished, brilliant and explosive__
When
human vision cleared, there was Akilah, bearing a Radomil
incandescent with soaring energies, never equaled since; drawing the power from
the Fire Throne and seeding it back into the ground. Glorious life produced: in grass, trees, flowers,
even birds and bugs. a’d’Kef
rose up from the soil like a phoenix from ashes, ringed walls reforming one at
a time. All it lacked was hakan’s fire at the gate, and Akilah remedied this by
leveling the sword at the gap, aiming her fantastic Talent.
“By thy
wish, beloved Mother!” and hakan too resurrected in Radomil’s exuberant lightning, blinding every eye, and
every mind.
***
“Oh. Ysaulte.” Jim stumbled to his feet, heart seizing with
loss and grief as he found her lifeless body lying a few meters away. “No.
Not now. Not yet.” She looked so beautiful, unmarked, skin
flawless ivory in the afternoon sun… a sun Jim didn’t have to see to know was
still aShaiLan, but younger, rejuvenated; and this
was still ZaworthIa, but the time was their own. Ysaulte’s Mother had kept Her
word, and returned him to a future that stretched ahead with the most profound
emptiness Jim could imagine… as empty as the place in his mind where she’d
lived.
“Not
yet,” he said again, lifting Ysaulte’s limp body into his arms to hold her
against him, merciful Za absorbing his silent screaming. “I’m not ready,” he whispered, looking up to
catch his friends’ sorrow as they realized what had happened, if not how, or
why.
“Jim,”
Bones began, supporting the ul ku
Tuura boy, who was openly weeping.
“Don’t
worry, Doctor. It’ll ease with time,
won’t it? I’ve got plenty of time. There’s tomorrow, and tomorrow, and the day
after that. Plenty of
time.” Jim shook his head and
stared at the horizon, hazel eyes hard and dry. “We all have plenty of time.”
“I grieve
with thee, Jim. I am sorry,” Spock
murmured gravely, tone so pained and low McCoy blinked back his own tears.
“I’m not,
Spock. Despite everything, I can’t be
sorry__ and it can’t be over.” Moving
with a speed that startled even the Vulcan, Jim knelt to lay Ysaulte on the
thick grass.
“All
things art possible, and all I have to do is
wish.” He crouched beside her, impulse
prompting his hands to her face, thumbs prying her eyelids open while he
consciously gathered his thoughts.
“My God,
Jim!” Thinking this behavior
more than a little macabre, at best, and downright unhinged, at worst, the
doctor would have pulled Jim away, but Spock stopped him with one hand.
“No,
Leonard. Leave them,” he ordered, feeling
the rightness in Jim’s palpable push of will.
Ysaulte’s Terran sorcerer chose to intervene,
and his magic was strong!
“You see
me, Ysaulte,” Jim was saying into her opacified
irises. “I know you do. You hear me,” and his fingertips caressed the
slant of her elegant ears. “You haven’t
forgotten what you said to me. ‘Live we
tied by minds by hearts forever’. Live
we, Ysaulte, or so we die. I
promised, remember? ‘Never
parted’.”
Something
shifted behind her eyes, and Jim knew he had a chance of winning back her
spirit if he could but make a case for it… and of course, he could. He also knew very well to Whom
he should plead.
“Mother
Za, please reconsider. Your daughter
Ysaulte’h should have more years in this life. There are things she has to do in our own
time. You have to know this,” he prayed,
believing with all his being there was a Listener Who cared, and because he
believed it, it was so.
“El’sulce James, hath thou a faith to humble the very
heavens,” that familiar comforting possession welled up inside of him, smiling
with pure and blameless devotion. “Thou
too Mine, and knowing things, neh? Realize ye a debt
yet due? What if she lives, without thy
reach by mind?”
“If
that’s the price of her life, I’ll pay it.
Just… give her her life, and her lifetime.”
“So bold,
Terra’s children,” the Voice murmured, laughing. “I hoped thou wouldst call Ysaulte’h,
James. The one pleases me so,” Za
confided to him and disappeared, leaving__
“Ysaulte!” Jim actually felt her soul rush through his,
returning. His Lady awakened, shocked to
be alive and forgetting nothing, least of all her ties to this existence. Heartbeat started, washing away the deathly
pallor in her skin. Ysaulte gasped for
the first breath of her new life and let it out in a shriek blasting voice and
mind.
“James! I’m not dead!
How__”
“That
doesn’t matter right now,” he interrupted, holding her tight enough to cut off
her air. Ysaulte agreed, needing him
more than she needed breathing anyway, clinging as madly while her nerve
endings overwhelmed her.
“Thank
your Mother Za. I do,” Jim told her,
pulling away just enough to stare into her glowing turquoise (living) eyes,
aware of how blessed they both were as he bent his head to kiss her, and saw
her irises lighten to gold.
“I can’t
believe it,” McCoy muttered under his breath, turning Dyer to see.
“But
Doctor, I told you so,” Spock noted with unholy satisfaction, sending his own
unspoken gratitude to whatever Presence might hear.
Dyer fed his
gaze upon the astonishing truth, finally looking around them with watery eyes.
“We’re
here… there… on Asar. Back in our time,”
he told them.
McCoy,
one of a handful of people who could have seen it, appreciated the frank
consternation on Spock’s face as the Vulcan recognized he had not noticed.
“Fascinating,”
Bones said, grinning at Spock. “Then a’d’Kef must be right over those hills__ oops, I guess it’s the Hall, now. Why don’t we go see? I don’t think we’ll be… unwelcome.”
“No, I do
not suppose we will,” the Vulcan concurred, allowing McCoy to lead the three of
them north; giving Jim and Ysaulte the privacy required to fulfill one other
promise made this ten thousand year old day.
***
“
In the
vast ‘below’, that long awaited world ZaworthIa turned in emerald splendor,
with the starship
Marlak also
knew he could find ZaworthIa (and he had, using those memories he’d stolen from
dear cousin Aesaulte’h). Next, he’d intercepted the Fleet while it was
still in Rihannsu space and ‘persuaded’ the old
Commander to change their destination (and that had been so easy, almost
a relief to drain off a bit of that festering energy that poisoned his
soul). Bypassing Etumuuyea as
unimportant, which it was, Marlak had aimed the Fleet
at ZaworthIa itself. A
pity, though, about the old man.
Ah, well. It was all Aesaulte’h’s fault. Especially the presence of the thrice-damned
“That
ship has no business here, unless, tr’Rhils, your
information is incorrect,” Marlak said with
exaggerated calm, pleased when the Empire’s resident expert in these matters
flushed an angry green.
“ZaworthIa
has no standing in the Federation,” tr’Rhils
confirmed grimly, fixing his stare on the viewscreen. “Obviously,
“As it is
so obvious, Subcommander tr’Rhils,
we have no need of you, do we?” Marlak drew his blaster and blew him into history.
“Maintain
a normal orbital approach, helm.”
“By your
command, Senator.”
“Yes,
indeed. My
command.” tr’Ahkennsai settled into his chair,
anticipating. Let the Terrans interfere.
What was their one ship against the Fleet… his Fleet.
***
“
“I canna leave ye defenseless, Ysidra,” the engineer said
determinedly. He’d given Sulu the precise coordinates for this world’s location,
finding them in his mind as familiar as Earth’s, and he wasn’t about to abandon
it, Romulans or not.
“The Rihannsu pass heliopause, soon to
orbit. Please reconsider, my friend__ Oh!”
Everyone
on the bridge heard the ZaworthIan cry out, startled, but… happy.
“Lady Ysidra!”
“They
return__ from where?
What! At the
door? They found the door? Well, well, show them in, Eyra!” The psionic conversation stuttered for a
moment, and Scotty was afraid to hope for the best until it resumed, in a more
familiar voice.
“Knight
to queen’s level two, Mister Scott.”
“Mister
Spock! I canna
tell ye how good it is ta hear ye, Sir. Are the Captain, Hersel’,
McCoy, and the Muuyean boy all right?”
“We are
all… uninjured, Engineer. Where is the
Romulan Fleet?”
“Breathin’ down our necks, the bloody lot o’ them.”
“Take the
“But
Mister Spock__”
“That is
an order, Scott.”
“Aye,
Sir. You heard ‘im,
Sulu.”
“Yes,
Sir, Mister Scott. Leaving orbit.”
“Confidence
I admire, Spock of Vulcan, although in this instance I must question it,” the
engineer was able to overhear Ysidra say, aware he
did so at the ZaworthIan’s will and thanking her for
it. “Knowing thou something I am not, I
suppose.” Ysidra’s
voice faded, and with it, Scott’s sense of what was going on.
“Course,
Scotty?” Sulu
asked quietly, his hands restless on his board.
“As soon
as we’re out o’ sensor range, all stop, Hikaru. We’ll nae go
far.” Scott sighed, patting the arm of
the center seat and wishing patience for himself and Jim’s ship. “Things are happenin’
wi’out us, lassie.”
***
“Thank
you, Lady Ysidra,” Spock bowed politely, still
surprised to find a telepath of such magnitude in what seemed a body too slight
to contain it. As he straightened, the
even older woman who had met them at the door returned with yet a third, both
walking toward them with smiles.
“Well
met, Spock, Leonard, and Dyer, is it?”
The third Lady greeted each one, searching their eyes in the bright
swirl of her own. “I am Anthe, K’intohrza. Do thou
not misunderstand me, but what in the All has Ysaulte been doing?”
Both men
felt tongue-tied in Anthe’s gaze, but Dyer, being who
he was, knew no such inhibition.
“I beg of
you, be not impatient,” the boy spoke with great and serious dignity, pinning
Anthe in his glare. “She who is
Ysaulte’h du’Zaltana walks Asar, with him her
Zaltan’ohr James.”
“What?” The K’intohrza
swallowed, and asked again, out loud.
“What didst thou say, and who art thou to say it?”
“I
believe you heard me very well, Lady.
Did you not expect it?”
Anthe
rubbed her hands over her face and wondered what surprised her more. Ysaulte, James, his loyal
“I hear,
and thou art speaking a voice I recognize.
How art thou descended of truthtellers,
Brother?” She asked, putting the other
issues aside to give Dyer his due.
“I am son
to Ryu Gnaur, Negus ul Etumuuyea, who is heir to the ruling House of our world…
which is also blood-tied to the ruling House of yours. I am descended of the Creative Sister Iananthe, the daughter of the Zaltana talSherea
herself. Ysaulte knows this for truth,”
he added a bit slowly, puzzled by the unreadable stares the three old Ladies
exchanged. Before anyone else could
speak, a fourth woman entered the room.
She was younger, calm-eyed and slim, as beautiful for her aura of peacefulness
as for her flawless features.
“Yes, a’K’intohrza?
Called thou this poor servant?”
She teased, her interested attention on the
visitors and lingering on the boy. “Why,
Anthe, this child is one of our own, yes?”
“This is a’Dme, the Circle’s peacemaker. a’Dme, I thought
you might like to see legend fulfilled.”
Anthe’s lips quirked as she bowed first to Dyer, then to Spock and McCoy.
“a’Dme, young Dyer here descended of the Fire Throne, by Iananthe am’ahdEva, Zariel’s sister… and he tells us Ysaulte is now our fourth
Zaltana, with her shaiTohr James our
Zaltan’ohr.” Anthe laughed out loud with
the words.
“You find
this amusing, Madam?” Spock inquired
frostily.
“I laugh,
Mister Spock, because I am surely relieved.
Now I can quit worrying about the damned Rihannsu.”
“What do
you mean, K’intohrza Anthe?” Spock was startled into asking. “Where is the Fleet?”
“Ysidra, didst thou not tell them? Spock,
End
Chapter Fourteen