Call of the Goddess: A Bona Dea Novel (Stormflies Book 1) (20 page)

“I keep having flashing lights in my eyes,” Axandra complained, squinting as she described it. The bright flashes disrupted her vision frequently since she found herself standing outside the monument. “My stomach is upset. I don't think I could possibly eat lunch. My head aches. I feel somewhat dizzy.”

“Remove your sweater, please,” Eryn suggested first, helping her untie the sash and pull the thick knit from her arms. Then the Healer asked in her ritualistic manner, “May I touch you?”

Axandra gave a brief nod of permission, but still she winced as the Healer's hands touched her skin. Not because the hands felt cold—in fact, the fingers and palms felt pleasantly warm—but because her mind already felt battered and trampled by someone or something else. The touch only added to her discomfort. Eryn first massaged the palm of each hand briefly before moving the touch up her forearms, over her sharp elbows and onto her upper arms, each brush light and unobtrusive. The green-tinted circle entered her mind's eye and spread throughout her being like a pool of cool water. The warm hands crossed her shoulders, gently pushing away the thin cottony tunic in order to touch her skin directly. Moving further up, Eryn's hands squeezed the back of her neck near the base of her skull, the base of her pain. She moaned in protest, but noticed a moment later that the pain dissipated almost completely. In her mind, the cool green washed away the flashes of light and settled her thoughts to a still, glass-like surface. She felt her body being tipped sideways, a pillow rising to meet her head.

Rest now,
Eryn thought softly.

Axandra lapsed into deep sleep, unable to resist.

20th September, 307

Even after
a three-hour nap, Axandra still felt uneasy and perplexed about everything that had occurred on this tour. She lay in bed for almost half an hour, staring at the ceiling and trying to remember anything from the day before. But nothing was there. It was all blank.

She prodded the Goddess for any clue of why she felt out-of-touch, but the entity ignored her, crouching quietly somewhere in the back of her mind. She wondered if any of her mothers before her had distrusted the creature the way she did or if they had complied to its will happily. If she had stayed with her real parents, would she have learned to welcome it and bend with its whims? Would the transition pass more smoothly?

Finally she felt it was time to get up, before lying in bed felt more permanent. The suns already dipped behind the peaks of the mountains, shadowing the village into early twilight. From the kitchen, the aroma of dinner baking in the wood-fired oven wafted in the air. Voices and laughter met her ears. The others played a game in the main room.

Rising stiffly, Axandra washed her face at the sink in the small bathroom, then brushed through her dark hair, returning the ringlets to a more cared-for look. She employed two silver combs to draw the long strands away from her face. Before she walked out of her room, she found the sweater and slipped the plush knit over her shoulders. The wool felt comfortable against her body, and the sweater offered something tangible she could tie herself to, the very last thing she remembered before today. She received the dardak wool as a most welcome gift from her hosts.

Axandra found her housemates at the short table in the drawing room, a deck of cards strewn about among them while they played a round of gin. Noticing her entrance, they greeted her and urged her to join in the next hand. Miri leaped up immediately, ready to attend to her mistress's needs.

“Sit, Miri,” Axandra pleaded, waving the young woman to rest. “I'll get myself a glass of water.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Madam,” Miri denied, scooting off to the kitchen to take care of the request.

“You're lucky to have someone so attentive,” Suzanne observed. She sat on the floor, her long legs stretched out beneath the table, her cards held close to her breast since Sara sat behind her on the chair. Sara casually ran her fingers through Suzanne's raven hair.

“Just like I am,” Sara chimed, laying a peck upon Suzanne's head.

“Miri is very in tune with you, Protectress,” Suzanne continued, gracing her lover with a genuine smile.

“Yes, she is. Most of the time, she knows what I need before I even think of it.” Axandra eased onto the sofa next to Eryn and peeked at the Healer's cards to see if she might be winning. Eryn's meager hand offered little hope for a victory.

“I hope you don't mind, Madam,” Sara said, “but I invited a couple of friends of ours for dinner this evening, since it's your last night here.”

“Oh?” Axandra responded curiously. “I don't mind, but who are they? Did you clear it with Ty?” She said the last part as a joke, to which they all suppressed a chuckle. Axandra didn't see the Elite guards, but she sensed their alertness. She suspected they stood guard at the two entrances to the house.

“They are archeologists working on a dig nearby,” Sara explained. The councilor drew a card from the deck and instantly flipped it onto the discard pile. “One is a long time friend. I've known him since we were children. We were going to take you out to the dig, but our schedule had to change.” Sara ticked her head sideways and grimaced with disappointment.

“I do remember you mentioning that,” Axandra recalled, straining to remember the exact conversation. “That would have been more interesting.”

“Speaking of our guests, I'd better finish setting the table.” Suzanne got to her feet and handed her cards to Axandra. “Do try to win for me. I hear you have a knack for this game.” Suzanne sprang off to the kitchen, from where Miri returned with a polished metal cup of cool water.

Making an attempt to play, Axandra drew a new card, saw it suited her needs, and ended the game with a winning hand. Disgusted, Eryn tossed her cards at the table. Two of the slick cards continued their path off the far side of the table to the floor. “Again! I don't know if I'll invite you to play anymore.”

“Technically, Suzanne won,” Axandra defended. “These were her cards. I just got the luck of the draw.”

The door chimes rang musically above their heads. Sara hurried to the door, swinging it open. She immediately embraced the first man and greeted the second with a peck on the cheek. “Thank you both for coming. It's so good to see you again.”

Axandra rose from her seat and observed the interaction between friends.

“You are looking marvelous, Sara,” complimented the second entry, a tall lithe man whose head was hairless but his lip sprouted a thick gray mustache that hid his upper lip. He wore a lightweight off-white sweater over unbleached algodon slacks and freshly-wiped leather boots.

The first man possessed a shorter and bulkier build with blondish hair and a round, whiskerless face. Wire-rimmed glasses graced the bridge of his nose, though he slipped them off and into the breast pocket of his blue shirt. He wore a tan jacket in which threads of green and red blended with the golden wool for an overall rough texture. The jacket exaggerated his shoulders into perfect squares, which disappeared as he removed the coat, softening his physique.

When led to the great room, where everyone now stood on their feet, they bowed in greeting as Sara introduced them. “This is Tomas Kirk,” she said of the bald man, “and this is Quinn Elgar. Gentlemen, our Esteemed Protectress.”

They bowed again very deeply and respectfully greeted Axandra with her title, to which she responded with a short, gracious bow of her own and wore her most pleasant smile. Both men spewed excitement to be in her presence. They had been looking forward to their dinner here all day. Tomas spoke reverently when he complimented the Protectress' service so far to the people.

The other gentleman, Quinn, clenched his fists nervously at his sides and moved about stiffly and uncertainly, grinning the entire time. Even his thoughts emitted a jumble of nervous excitement.
I'm really here! She's standing in front of me! She's more beautiful than anything I've seen. Is she smiling at me?
Axandra tried not to giggle at him.

Sara continued to introduce Eryn and Miri to the new arrivals. They all returned to their seats while Suzanne came around with appetizers of baked root chips and spreadable cheese. Sara opened a ceramic bottle of wine and poured several glasses to pass around.

Tomas sat in the last available chair, while Eryn shared one sofa with Miri and Sara. This left the last cushion of space on the sofa next to Axandra for Quinn. He sat at a respectable distance and beamed a smile in her direction. His gray-blue eyes met hers, and she witnessed a dreamy pleasure twinkling through them. His youthful eyes made him appear quite boyish, though she suspected he was actually a few years older than she.

Much chatter ensued among the guests and hosts. Axandra, charmed by the blonde man's youthful exuberance, observed Quinn as he answered a question from the Healer as to why he chose archeology as his life service.

Again Quinn's eyes sparkled as he talked about his first love. “When I was young, I first read about the Ancients in a discovery journal and—well, I fell in love with the thought of finding treasure,” he said. “It turns out the true treasure is solving the puzzle the Ancients left behind. They are so similar to humans, both physically and culturally.” He spoke further of piecing together such a challenging puzzle, and Axandra could see that discovery was his ultimate passion.

“At our latest dig near here, we are finding a great deal of whole pottery and parts of metal tools, all gathered together. It may have been an altar area, where offerings were given to their gods,” Tomas explained, taking a turn in the conversation. “We feel certain we're near a large settlement buried somewhere beneath the ground.”

“Buried?” Eryn quizzed. “How does a village become buried?”

“Here, it appears a landslide or mudslide covered the entire area. North Compass itself is built on the remains of that slide. The soil here is formed mostly of dry dust and sand and shifts easily when disturbed. Once you dig down about seven meters, you are on bed rock,” Tomas described. He took a napkin-full of chips and chomped them down in short order. He leaned over to the tray to get some more. Miri hopped up again, offering to serve more hors d'oeuvres to everyone, relinquishing Suzanne of this duty. No one said anything to thwart her efforts.

Axandra noticed that Quinn took only one, and the chip remained in his napkin, untouched while they sat. He felt extremely nervous. Keeping his body stiff, he shifted away from her a slight bit more, as though afraid he might offend her if he strayed too close.
Don't mess this up,
he thought to himself. His mind opened to her so easily. His emanations practically jumped out at her because she was such the focus of his thoughts.
Act casual. You're not a little boy.

He looked right at her as he added, “An altar is a good indication of a settlement. People of this developmental stage often lived near the believed homes of their gods.”

“Dinner, everyone,” Suzanne called from the dining room. In a mass of movement, they all rose from their seats and walked to the large table with their goblets of wine.

While Axandra received the honor of the head of the long table, Sara made certain to seat her guests as she saw fit, with Quinn to Axandra's right and Suzanne at the left. Sara sat at the far end with Tomas to her left and Eryn to her right. Miri did not want to sit with them at first. She was unaccustomed to dining with the Protectress on formal occasions and had so far avoided doing so at every meal. The pleadings from everyone at the table coaxed Miri to the chair between Tomas and Quinn.

As a leafy salad rounded the table, the conversation continued to focus around the archeologists and their findings.

As she listened, Axandra carefully studied Quinn's face, for she felt she recognized him from somewhere. She could not place him definitively, but that was understandable considering the vast number of people she had seen and met over that past few weeks. The sense of him resonated in her with such familiarity, she felt certain she had spent more than just a few minutes with him before. Many of his words sounded familiar as well, as though she had heard some of his stories before. Yet she could not place him.

“I must apologize if I seem rude,” she whispered to Quinn as the others became wrapped up in talk about possible tidal floods due to the close approach of Soporus. She wished to be discreet. “But I feel as though I've met you somewhere before.”

His round cheeks pinked slightly. “Yes, Madam, you have. I was custodian at the Lazzonir Landing when you toured there many weeks ago.”

Thinking back to that day, Axandra found that his face fit into the picture. “Ohhhh. That explains it.” She nodded and forked salad into her mouth. The fresh lettuce graced the ceramic plate in a rainbow of colors—deep red, bright orange, and dusty gold—lightly drenched with a creamy dressing.

“I didn't think you would recognize me at all,” Quinn told her. “You were very distracted that day.”

How embarrassing that he had noticed! She thought she had hidden her distress better than that. “I wish that day had turned out differently,” Axandra sighed. “I regret not enjoying the tour. I have an interest in history, especially in the Journey that brought our people here. From what I've read, it's a wonder so many ships made it here, or that any ship survived the continuous dangers of space.”

So the table's conversation turned to human history. Quinn brandished his knowledge and his deep curiosity as well as his humor. He described a particularly harrowing tale in which one of the ships that began the Journey, the Orion, was lost when the convoy encountered an ion storm, the first of its kind to be experienced by human beings. The shielding on the ship collapsed under the stress of the ionized particles and the massive vessel disintegrated, flashing out of existence with all souls lost. Fault was laid with the captain of the ship. “Of course, reading history in our books and even in the data records of the ships, we find that the information can be one-sided. The victor of the war often wrote the history of it.”

“I think that our ancestors did a fine job of bringing with them a wide variety of points of view,” Axandra disagreed, sipping at her blushed wine. “The Palace Library contains literature from all walks of life and from much of Old Earth's troubled past. I've even found two works by authors who believed that telepathic abilities were a symptom of a disease and offered all manner of cures. They are troubling to read, but I do understand why our families chose to leave Old Earth behind, even though it meant they would never walk on a planet's surface again.”

“Now, that is an interesting point to bring up, Madam.” Quinn steepled his index fingers and tapped them on his chin. He finished the last bite of his salad and last sip of wine and poured himself another, fuller glass. Be careful with her. Don't scare her off. I think she's enjoying this. “The Palace library you speak of is off limits to the public. If you look into the public circulation of books, I doubt you will find those same titles or such variety.”

“QE, are you saying that the Protectresship is keeping secrets?” Sara scorned. “That seems a bit impudent, don't you think?”

“Everyone keeps a few secrets, Sara. It's human nature.” Quinn stated this fact without accusation or displeasure. To him, it was simply a fact of life.

Eryn prudently stepped in to change the topic. “Are you and your workers going to shut down the dig until Soporus passes?”

“Yes. With so many extraordinary circumstances going on, we decided to shut down tomorrow after we pack up the artifacts we've collected and ship them to Millerton for further study,” Tomas advised. “Then all of us'll volunteer where we're needed. Plus, as the temp cools, it's safer south. I'm goin' to move home in Millerton until Soporus shows us her tail.”