Darkness Risen (The Ava'Lonan Herstories Book 4) (19 page)

“You know, I am more hungry than anything,” she
said, turning to the side, managing to keep her voice from shaking only with an
act of will. The flickering little flame-torches swimming in their bowls of
sweet oil threw ugly imaginings on the marble walls. “I think perhaps I will
have my zenith meal now. I will attend devotions later. There is much that I
still must do before the turn ends.”

She turned away from the upward slope of the passage
and started back down. After a pause, the three retainers followed. If any of
the three servants thought it strange that she would put off performing the
Rite of Solu until later in the turn, and they did, none gave any indication.

And they did not comment when the devotions were
never attended to.

glaring and
writhing, the light turned...

Silonyi cast the tome from her in a rage and covered
her eyes, willing the pain and dizziness to go away. But they persisted, a
nagging, obstinate throbbing, like a hunger unfed in too long. She ignored them
both.

Three turns, three turns, and I can’t find one
simple phrase. Three turns I have been hearing it in the place of other words,
and I am about to go crazy!
Silonyi groaned and placed her head on
the cool wood of the table. She was neglecting her duties and wasting valuable
time in this silly pursuit, but that phrase,
that phrase
was pushing her
to the edge of distraction! She heard it everywhere now - in the giggling
conversations of the servants, in the orders shouted by warru officers, even in
songs sung by workers in the fields she had gone to inspect. The phrase capered
around her like a pack of unruly cubs, popping up at the most inconvenient and
unexpected times. She had heard it so much that she felt on the verge of
repeating it over and over at the top of her lungs until she could not hear it anymore!

Enough had come to enough. She had to find it,
before she did something murderous.
In desperation she had come here, to
the Library, in hopes of finding it and understanding its fiendish hold on her
- if she knew what it meant, then maybe,
maybe
she could make herself
stop hearing it. But she could not find it at first. For three turns she had
searched and for three turns she had been having the hardest time finding just
five words, five words strung together in a simple phrase, an unusual phrase; a
phrase that hounded her like vengeful lor’ugawu.

The sins of the Mother.
She had dared
not say the phrase out loud, and her rite of finding, time after time, had
turned up nothing. She had not dared ask for help, either, for the same reason
she dared not say it aloud - her mother had forbidden it and would surely hear
of it if she broke the prohibition.

But then, finally, glory be and praise the Goddess of
mercy, she
did
find it, in the oldest herstory books of the Library,
after having to go through the place stack by stack and shelf by shelf.
Three
turns of torment, to find one phrase. And if that is not bad enough, when I do
find it, I also find that some of the books have been altered, telling lies and
half-truths about the herstory of the beginnings of the Ava’dan, and events
surrounding the reigning Families of the early Realm.
Passages,
descriptions, even whole chapters had been changed from what she had learned
from her teachers and tutors and texts. And no one had even noticed the
changes.

And something even worse than
that
is going
on. Either I’m going crazy or the rest of the world is!
For she had asked
one of the proselyte Librarians to double check the first book she found that
had been changed. She had expected the girl to exclaim in surprise and anger,
for herstory texts were sacred in their way and were supposed to be proof
against tampering. And - the girl had found nothing wrong, commenting that she
had learned from a copy of that very book, and Silonyi’s own learning text on
herstory had been transcribed also from the tome she held. And when Silonyi,
after looking at the wrong words again, had asked the other to read parts of it
out loud, it had
sounded
right. But whenever she
looked
at the
columns of words,
the lies were still there
. Inaccuracy after
inaccuracy, about events at the beginning of Ava’dan. Lies about the first High
Queen. Lies even about her own ancestresses. And the sins of the Mother were
implied to be her own ancestresses’ sins.

She clenched her fists and pounded them without much
effect on the polished table-top.

Lies,
she raged.
All lies! How - how can
this be?
All had confirmed that the text was accurate. Even the Head Librarian
did not see anything amiss. And she could not, for some inarticulate reason,
say what was wrong or why. Was this some cruel joke? A symptom of some strange
malady? A result of the rotten way she was feeling? She sat staring at the
table, where her silent musings drew hideous designs in its grain. Time slipped
by and the designs flowed in and out of each other, offering diversion but no
answers.

Then a presence intruded slowly upon her thoughts.
It was not the darkness given form, but rather the silence, a silent, patient
presence that tried to soothe, politely pleading her attention. She blinked
through filmy nets of confusion and depression, and noticed irritably that the
turn had advanced rapidly toward zenith and that she still had duties to perform.
But she just could not find the energy to face those duties, not after what she
had learned, or thought she had learned. She willed and wished the presence to
go away.

But it did not. After a while a throat was politely
cleared and a soft attention-calling tap on the floor forced her to look up and
glare about angrily. One could not ignore such an overt call from one’s Voice.

Imraja stood at her elbow, holding the book she had
thrown.

“Highness,” she said diffidently, “perhaps you
should - take some time to - commune.”

The words gave Silonyi a jolt. It was a coded
phrase, meaning that she had not performed her turnings’ rites in too long, and
that she would get sick if she did not correct the oversight. And she realized
with a guilty start that for the past three turns she
had
been
neglecting her turnly devotions, almost by design, and she
did
feel sick
at heart and worn out and enervated, drained in a way that sleep could not
remedy. She reined in her temper and acceded to the wisdom of the Voice, who
smiled and took her elbow. Imraja again guided her part of the way to her place
of worship.

A shiver ran through her as she approached the
curving doorway that opened to the enclosed labyrinthine circle of hedges
surrounding the lain itself, the Chi’la’av’an, or chi’av’an, as it was called.
She hesitated for an instant, as an unnamable sensation of something like
apprehension, and something like fear, something like revulsion or anticipation
danced along her nerves. She had been coming to this lain all her life - she had
been named here. So why was she afraid? The instant became a pause as she
considered, wondering if and dreading that the
wrongness
sense would
drive her away from here.

There was no wrongness. She felt only the shiver.

Squaring her shoulders, she left Imraja and her
warru behind and went through the arched doorway, negotiated the path leading
to the Chi’la’av’an and entered it, kneeling in the bowl-like depression in the
center; the shiver grew stronger, more like anticipation but no less like revulsion.
She knelt on the cushion atop of the raised platform in the center of the lain,
and drew a breath of harvest flowers blooming out in the garden. She then
invoked the Rite of Solu that she had been performing since she was old enough
to remember the words, looking up into the diffuse, muted Av’light falling
around her, opening her arms, saying the words with a vehemence she did not
feel.

“In you there is power,” she said, “in you there is
strength. In you there is the will to do what must be done. In you, we are all
one. I call upon the Lo’chi’ndo to feed my soul’s hunger. Ashe!”

The air about her began to swirl, tugging at her pec’ta
and stirring her guinne. And with each turn the miniature whirlwind picked up
speed, and she herself began to turn, opposite to the wind. Faster and faster
she spun, until the air’s passing grated like blown sand and she felt as if she
would fly apart or burn away to little more than a wisp of smoke or air itself
- and then the air incandesced around her, filling her with energy and - with a
not-energy, a strange particle of substance that she had never noticed before.
But her appetite was whetted and she drank it in - it did not seem to be
enough, a mere crumb compared to - and she cringed, but the comparison could
not be stopped - compared to the onslaught of the Rite that the prisoner had
called down. She drew and drew upon the energy of the whirling air and the
particle energy that rained darkly upon her, and - it did not fill her as the
radiant energy from Av had. That other Rite, the prisoner’s Rite, seemed to
have created an inexhaustible space within her, a place, bottomless, that
demanded to be filled.

I need more. I have to have more!

And driven, almost whipped to a frenzy by her need,
she invoked the second order of the Rite, in vain hope of satisfaction. Somehow
she had the feeling that nothing would fill her the way that other Rite had...

“Lo’chi’ndo - I call upon the fate, to regain what
is mine.

“Lo’chi’ndo - I call upon the past, to remind me of
my path.

“Lo’chi’ndo - I call upon the age, to turn in my
favor.

“I call upon the power, to fill me with the strength
to persevere.” She stood, still turning, and threw her arms up to the crystal
ceiling. “I call upon the Mother of my Mother’s Mother, to show me the way.
Ashe!”

The whirlwind renewed its fury, roaring down to her
need, almost, almost satisfying her. So intent was she on feeding that she
failed to notice that a shimmer of darkness began to coalesce above her head,
with a faint, seething hiss. The pinprick manifestation grew, first as large as
a marble, then a pebble, then the size of a young, unripe calabash.

Part of her finally took notice of the
manifestation, while most of her continued to feed, the manifestation so like
the dawn of eve, and that part of her quailed in fear. That part of her not
consumed with devouring energy watched in terrified fascination as the thing
she had called forth took full form, swelling to the size of a young boulder,
filling the top of the lain. It spun even faster than she or the air around
her, bubbling and frothing into existence, seeming to grow in minor explosions
of thick nothingness, in all the colors of the absence of light. Finally it
settled down into a globe with an ever-moving surface, gradually slowing its spin
until it and she were moving in tandem.

:What are your questions, Daughter?:
came a voice
like the movements of mountains, the boiling of red seas.

The unoccupied fraction of her mind struggled to
comprehend what was happening; she had never invoked the second order of the
Rite before.

:Q-questions?:

:You have called upon the knowledge of your Foremothers
to show you the way,:
the voice quaked about her.
:You may ask any
question of our store of lore.:

Any question? More and more of her was turning
attention to the phenomenon. What question would she like answered most at this
moment? Well, what question had been plaguing her for the last three turns?

:What are the sins of the Mother...?:
she began
timidly.

the light turned
black...

...the light air turned black, black stars on a
white cape, fluttering around before her eyes. Sound was a faraway buzzing like
an annoying insect that would not go away. Then pain wrapped about her head, a
warm, prickly desi of wet, throbbing pain, dull and sticky, grinding with the
crunch of crushed bone.

Hands, small and faint, shifted her and the black
stars turned white...

CHAPTER
X

in a fever of ritious wrath, the
darkness turned...

“
What
is it?” Gav’av’aron asked his history teacher, Cinamar, as they both stood gazing
at the barrier of yellow-gold light that seemed to merge land and sky like
folds upon the glowing cloak of Av’o.

“No
one really knows,” she answered, stepping closer. “One legend says that when
Tru’Av’ru’Lor’ru fell, the world was to be united once more, that we should
find a paradise, but then Av’o decided against it and sent peoples forged dark
as blood copper to keep the denizens of Lor’Alona from spreading to Av’o’s
blessed lands. Another says that those on the other side set this barrier up to
protect themselves against us.”

“Those
are legends,” Gav’av’aron shook his silvered head. “What does history say?”

Cinamar
smiled in approval. “History says that there was once a group of fanatic homans
called the Order of Retrieval. They had a prophecy of a promised paradise once
the Tru’Av’ru’Lor’ru fell, and they lived at the edge of the Tru’ru for
thousands of circles, waiting. When the Tru’Av’ru’Lor’ru finally did disappear,
they crossed into the lands beyond, and indeed found a land like paradise, but
they also found those lands occupied. They made war upon those other peoples
and after a hundred circles of war, this structure, the Av’ru’Lor’ru, came into
being, presumably to repel any more invaders. Once they were pushed out, and
denied their paradise, they turned on all of us who did not help them in their
ritious pilgrimage and subsequent crusade, blaming all others for their loss.
All the peoples had to band together in that time to annihilate them, for they
fought without any thought of surrender. They fought to enslave all the ‘heretics’
who watched them fail and did not aid them, so that they could assault this
structure that we now stand before, and take what they saw was their
Gods-promised paradise. They are not spoken of, now, save by those who would
preserve an accurate history.”

Gav’av’aron
gazed at the wall of light and listened, comparing what Cinamar said to what
his mother had told him about the Tru’Av’ru and the Av’ru. Could this be the
same thing? What else could it be?

“Does
it - does it ever call to people?” he asked suddenly. Cinamar turned her whole
upper body to look at him with sharp, wise, silver-flecked eyes.

“Only
the mad or those destined for great or terrible things have claimed to hear
such a call,” she said slowly. “Why?”

“It
- it calls to me,” he said shyly.

Her
face was unreadable. Then she turned abruptly. “Come, young Gav’av’aron. It is
time we went back.”

He
cast one last look at the shimmering curtain of brilliance before trotting
after his teacher, feeling distinctly disturbed...

the light
turned...

The light of Av was just setting as Gavaron pondered
the fledgling plan to free other, fellow and sister captives and win them all
to liberation. But he had to communicate, somehow, to let them know what he
intended. The memory of his vine-made-words came to him. Yes, that might indeed
be the answer. And the av’bala, or love-vine, whose vines were thin but
flexible and tough, and which glowed faintly in the dark, would serve his
purpose. He would send it in the darkest part of eve, when there was no chance
of it being seen by the stable boys or Train’Marms.

He cast out his thoughts, down into Loro, but only
just below the surface. He reached out into the wilderness, searching, tickling
one plant after another, until one particular root resonated with his desires.
He lay curled among the filaments for a gran, then sent up a silent thought.

*:Lend me your seed-spores,:* he implored, gently
touching and cajoling. *:They will be ripened and burn bright. Lend me your
offspring. Their seed-spores will be scattered far and wide, and your success
will be assured.:*

The vine quivered and let its spores fall to his
waiting awareness. Sending thanks and prized minerals to the vine, he gathered
the seed-spores with infinite patience, as sweat broke out over his whole body
- the delicate, ultra-fine use of lor’rita was more taxing than large,
earth-shaking uses - and slowly, slowly, he moved the seed-spores to the stalls
and under the cages of key captives with whom he had chosen to communicate. He
could not av’tun his thoughts to them - their av’rita were as bound as their
limbs - but he could use the same trick he had once tried to free a big-eyed,
brown-haired girl who had long, long returned to dust. Each little seed-spore
he pushed through soil and stone, and in some cases wood, to its final resting
place within each captor’s enclosure, thirty in all. When the last had dug its
tiny rootlings into the soil of the chosen spot he rested, slumped in his
restraints, his chests heaving. His next feat would be infinitely more complex.

Gavaron waited until the two lesser moons had risen,
then coaxed the first of his messengers to germinate faster than nature would
have it. The love-vine was easy to manipulate - it grew whenever conditions
were favorable, and quite rapidly, on its own. With Gavaron’s prodding, it was
a hand span long in just a few gran, with at least fifteen auxiliary tendrils
that grew at regular intervals along the main vine, with broad leaves only at
the ends. He had given each vineling packets of water and nutrients and an
isolated place to grow without competition, and the vines responded
enthusiastically.

He took a deep breath and manipulated the first
vine, making it slither to the captive Katari in the stall not far from his.
She still showed signs of spirit and defiance, and others seemed to defer to
her, while the Train’Marms tried their best efforts to break her. He made the
vine untie her blindfold, and a harder task, unbuckle her gag. She trembled and
jerked at the plant’s touch, but did not make a sound as the blind and gag fell
to the floor. He could feel her attention on the vine.

No be afraid,
he made the tendrils spell out.

She whuffed, but did not speak.

Whisper,
he spelled, and a tendril touched her
lips. She did not bite at it, which he took for a good sign.
You see?
Understand?

“Yes,” she breathed against the vine across her
lips. “What is this? Who are you? How are you doing this? This is a trick!”

No trick,
he said, then, his limbs trembling with
effort,
I am big male, give much trouble. You see me?

“Who is your trainer?” she asked, suddenly.

The vine dimmed as he answered,
Fekniri
.

At the name she gave a low, malicious laugh. “Yes, I
have seen you. You are the silver and black coalt’m, Varo.”

Varo, yes
, he replied.

“What do you want, Varo?” she asked.

 
Freedom,
he said. He felt her teeth on the
vine, but she did not bite hard.

“Do not speak that word to me!” she hissed. “I
cannot give you freedom when I cannot even liberate myself! I...”

I give you freedom,
he interrupted,
making the vine press hard against her lips.
You, me, others, work together.
Yes?

She was quiet for a long time. A long time.

Gavaron shook with effort and waited. She was key to
his plan.

“If I refuse?”

Then I go alone,
he answered. There was another
long pause. He waited.

“How do I know this is not a trick by her Royal Bitchness?”

He was ready for that. He made one of the vines
produce acid and drew its tip over the shackles on her wrists. The acid ate the
metal like shears - but left her skin untouched. He did this with all her
bonds, until she stood totally unfettered.

You are free
, he spelled.
If you wish, I lead you
out of here. You go, no look back. But to free many, I need your help. You
choose.

She stood, free, unfettered, for a long while. He
almost expected her to bolt, or to demand that he make good on his claim and
lead her out. She did neither.

“I will help,” she said finally. “I am not quite
convinced that this is not a trap - but even if it is, they cannot do worse to
me that they have already done. And if it isn’t and we succeed...” she did not
finish the statement. “But if we try and fail - you must end me. I cannot taste
the chance of freedom and not have it. Promise me!”

I promise,
he replied.

“Good. Then let me know what you want me to do.” She
lay back down in the pose that her shackles forced on her. With patience he
reconnected them.

Tell me your name,
he asked.

Again her teeth closed on the vine. This time,
luminous liquid stained her lips like blood. The vine trembled.

“My - my name? I have no name. They - they whipped
it out of me. Now I do not remember.” Deep within, he felt the falsehood - she
did not want to remember, did not want to remember what she had lost. She had
forgotten her name on her own. It was how she had stayed sane, and kept from
breaking.

What do I call you?

“Tema.”

Be ready, Tema,
he said.
I might not be able
to give you much warning. Be ready
. He let the vine go slack. One recruit
made. Twenty-nine more to approach and convince.

the darkness
turned...

Seven turns had passed.

He had only contacted seventeen of the other
captives when Fekniri came for him. She took him, without a word, to her secret
cave, binding him before the pallet with a hard glint in her eyes. She stared
at him for a long while, obviously remembering their last encounter. Then she
slowly drew back the curtains around the pallet.

The bathing girl was again spread-eagle on the
pallet, but this time face up. Fekniri picked up her pleasure whip and
brandished it.

“You feel something for her, don’t you,” she said,
sitting on the bed, dragging the flails across the girl’s belly. The girl
whimpered. Fekniri looked sharply at him. “Answer me!” she snapped, forcing the
whip handle into the girl’s mouth.

“Yes,” Varo said.

Fekniri sprang off the pallet and began whipping the
girl in earnest. The girl screamed with orgasm after orgasm, as the whip left
welt-less stripes on all parts of her exposed body.

Breathing hard, the Train’Marm turned back to Varo.

“Tell me you are mine, to save your little bathing
wench,” she said with a clenched smile.

“I am yours,” he forced himself to say.

She lashed the girl two more times.

“Tell me you want me,” she hissed. Lash and scream.

Varo clenched his jaw.

“Tell me or I will force it into her, and she will
die of ecstasy!” Fekniri screamed, saliva flying from her beautiful mouth. She
lashed and lashed the girl, who begged and cried and screamed in succession.

“I - I want you.” The words were like filth in his
mouth. He swallowed on rising gorge.

She whipped the girl with renewed fury. The girl,
writhing in her restraints, sobbed and pleaded, but whether for surcease or for
more he could not tell.

“Mean it!” she demanded. “Say it and mean it, or I
whip her to death!”

“I want you,” he growled, and in his mind, he added
the rider,
dead. I want you dead.

She advanced on him. He held out his arms, still
shackled at the wrists. And when she was within the bound circle of his
embrace, he held her tight, trying to crush the life out of her, and he kissed
her with all the hatred he possessed, his eyes open and trained on the
quivering form of the naked bathing girl.

the light
turned...

Three more turns slid away under the dance of
darkness to light. Gavaron had contacted all the other captives that he felt he
needed for his plan to work, and now he was in the process of trying to
discover a way to break the shackles on his av’rita - he had a feeling he would
be needing it before long. This turn, Fekniri was on edge. She nit-picked at
Varo’s every fault, real or perceived, impatiently replacing his equipment when
it inevitably broke or corroded. Then, after his training for the morn, at
zenith, she had him scrubbed clean and the handlers brought out a sparkling new
set of tack, and had all the grooms not occupied dress him carefully in it.