Darkness Risen (The Ava'Lonan Herstories Book 4) (28 page)

Du’jidi appeared, lugging the wooden chest behind
him with his de’siki looped through one of its handles.

“Now!” he yelled, and threw the pearl in his hand
into the chest as he jumped away, his arms spread, to throw the other four into
the av’tun.

The explosion behind them was so intense that there
was no sound, only a blackness of light that shredded the av’tun about them as
tissue on the jagged edge of Av. The smallest warru reached out with av’rita,
trying to hold the disintegrating tunnel of light together. They all tumbled
out onto a hard surface, where darkness was the only thing to be seen, felt, or
heard.

the light,
scalded and aching, turned...

Dariaku sat musing over the turn’s events. The
intervention of the Deities had everyone talking, but he preferred to think
quietly, to muse over the happenings by himself within his own mind. But the
Goddesses stepping in - it was almost too much to fathom, and he found his mind
shying away from the implications. So he turned to work, losing himself in the
perpetual backlog of reports and scrolls that awaited his attention.

Then, as Av lazed in the weste, he felt a faint tug,
as if being summoned by - something. He stood from the Trade work he was
reviewing on his low desk and followed the call, wandering the halls of T’Av’li
- until he found himself outside the First Voice’s suite. The doorway curtain
was drawn, and the outside drum had a silk cloth draped over it, silently
indicating a wish for privacy. He lifted the cloth and tapped on it anyway.
Luyon himself came to see who was outside his door, his face hard and
expressionless as stone.

“Dariaku,” he said, his voice as colorless as his
face was expressionless, “what can I do for you? I am - occupied, so if it can
wait...”

“Whatever you are doing - you need my help,” Dariaku
said. Luyon stilled, looked at him steadily, his posture asking the question.

“I know you wish for privacy, but I was called
here,” Dariaku elaborated. He pulled out the j’tal of the Goddess Ag’ko. “I - I
think I can help.”

Luyon stared at the medallion for a long, breathless
gran, then stood aside and held back the curtain. Dariaku stepped in, took in
the circle of five unconscious warru and six slumbering felines, then centered
on Han’vonda.

“What is going on?” he asked softly, not missing the
special earring j’tal that marked the cream of the High Queen’s investigative
warru. They looked the worst for wear, as if an av’tun had exploded around
them. “Why are they here?”

Luyon looked at him impassively for a moment, then
at the five sprawled over his couches. One moaned and stirred, his slightly
blistered hand clenching.

“They were trying to track that corrupted pearl that
eats av’rita, find out where it came from.” Luyon went to the man who had
moaned, who opened his eyes without another sound. The First Voice raised him
up and gave him water from a gold-rimmed, polished calabash. “They av’tunned
here in what seemed to be an explosion, maybe half a san’chron ago.”

When I felt the call
, Dariaku
thought.

“I had not expected to hear from them so soon,”
Luyon continued, helping the man sit up. “This is Ikan’be. Report.”

Ikan’be looked askance at Dariaku. “A Voice who is an
initiate of Ag’ko?” he glanced at Luyon.

“Go ahead,” the First Voice nodded. So Ikan’be told
of all that had happened since they had been called to the field of death,
starting at the beginning. Of the ambush of the search egwae, of finding the
Temple, of following the trail to a garden of abominations. By the time he
finished, one of the other warru was awake and being tended to by Luyon.

“Is this related to the conspiracy against the High
Family?” Dariaku asked, sitting down to mask his shock. His eyes were
inexplicably drawn back to the attractive younger warru woman.

Ikan’be and the small warru turned their eyes to
Luyon, search-lights to a target. They had not been privy to this information,
nor had the leader had time to apprise them.

“Not that we can prove,” Luyon said, “but in all
likelihood, yes. With the attack on the egwae - I have no doubt, but my
personal feelings cannot be brought to a Court.”

“What will you do next? Trying to follow all the
leads on those aberrant av’tuns will take too much time and only let the trail
grow cold.”

“We must wait for the others to awaken and plan our
next move,” Luyon said with finality.

Du’jidi was the third to come back to consciousness.
He opened aching eyes slowly, stared up at a beautifully molded ceiling.
Wanting nothing more than to close his eyes again, he instead looked to the
side, to see Ikan’be and the unnamed warru staring at him. There was not any
concern in their expressions, but there did not need to be. They were joined by
the First and Fourth Voices of the High Queen.

“Good,” he croaked, pushing himself up painfully.
None of them moved to stop him. He saw that he had been lying on a sumptuous
couch, and that not far away N’mbu’yi and Han’vonda also lay on similar
couches. “How are they?” He gestured to the two prone warru.

“They will live,” Ikan’be replied, sitting back.

“Good,” the warru leader said again, trying to
ignore the headache that sprang up behind his eyes. He cocked his head slightly
at Dariaku’s presence, but asked nothing. “The first disrupted av’tun led to a
dead end. We need to start at the head of the Dio’gin pearl Trade.”

“Why not use the list of names that the Doan gave us
as the starting point?” Dariaku asked. “See if they are tainted.”

“That could only work if one has the sight of Ag’ko,”
Du’jidi said in a casual tone. He raised an eyebrow.

Dariaku felt an ironic smile tug at his mouth.
So
that is why I was called!
he thought, wanting to shake his head. “Yes. I
need to know what the shadow of the taint looks like.”

Before Du’jidi could answer, Han’vonda moaned and
moved. Dariaku again felt his gaze drawn to her, like a flower drawn to dawn,
and she opened her eyes and returned his alert attention. He stood and came
forward, held out his hand for the plush pouch that held her crystal av’tun
map, that she had not let go of, even in senselessness. She blinked and raised
it slightly, did not protest when he took it gently from her hand. Then she
sagged back. She was still weak.

“May I?” he asked. At her nod, he opened the pouch
and let the half-globe slip into his palm, luminescent as one of the moons in
mid-eve. Pale fire blossomed from within the frosted representation of half of
the world of Alona. He turned his intent gaze to the semi-globe, moved to the
curving marble wall of the suite amid the stares of the others, and flipped the
globe at it. It turned its flat plane to the wall and stuck, and the map
bloomed from floor to ceiling around it in ghostly radiance, showing the
network of av’tun potentials almost as Han’vonda saw it. The new, warped,
deviant av’tuns showed also. He stepped back to study it, his Goddess-Sight
making everything stand out clear in rainbow-shattered relief. The others
clustered around him, intrigued.

For a quarter of a san’chron he gazed at the map, in
which time N’mbu’yi awoke and was tended to. He stood still, his arms folded,
his eyes roving over the pearly-translucent map. When he spoke, his voice
startled the darkness.

“There is a place on this map where av’tuns do not
go,” he said.

the light turned...

Jarisa paced round and round her suite, trying not
to wring her hands, caged in a bower of mid-eve. It had been turns and turns
since she had taken the Kwabanian Record scroll. Surely someone had found the
Priest and novice she had injured, by now. Surely someone had found the broken
ground, noted that the scroll was missing. But there was no outcry, no frantic
search, no Priestesses flurrying to the High Queen and her Voices, trying to
steal a gran of time to tell of the taken scroll.

She paused by the veranda arch, peering around the
edge, without showing herself, in the direction of the Temple.

And are they keeping the theft quiet?
she wondered,
trying not to worry at her lip with her teeth.
Do they have some secret
means of finding the scroll, and are just waiting, waiting until after the
answer to the challenge to come for me?

Movement at the Temple caught the corner of her
vision and she scurried back, letting the beaded curtain fall, then cursing her
own stupidity. Surely the movement of the curtain was like a clarion call to
those searching. Surely they were on their way to question her, now, to make
her confess.

And what
is
the punishment for stealing sacred
texts? Will I be Outcast for all time? Or will they merely think me insane,
driven mad by physical contact with the scroll?

It pulsed suddenly from where she had hidden it, in
the secret cache in the floor of her suite. She turned and saw the hunched
figure that had led her to the scroll crouching over the cache, pawing at the
floor above it. The rich carpet that concealed the edges of the thick block
covering the cache was casually ripped to shreds, and the soft marble
underneath scoured with shallow furrows.

“No,” she hissed, surging forward and waving the
half-seen thing away. “No, don’t do that, you will block the opening if you do
that, and then we’ll never get it out!” she knelt and pressed the lid of the
cache. It grated and screeched and reluctantly opened, revealing the scroll and
the precious things it lay on. Gathering it up, she looked around frantically
and snatched up a carry tube, stuffed it inside to conceal its wavering,
dancing light that pulsed in time to her pulse. She knew, though, that the
leather scroll tube would not hide it for long.

Jarisa put the strap of the tube across her body,
and looked around. All the servants were out enjoying the festivities of the De’en’nu
celebration. If she left now, no one would notice until Av’dawn.

She began to pack feverishly, trying to think of all
the things she would need for a long journey and failing, ending up with a
motley assortment of half-folded clothing, some coins and jewelry, a single
comb, a few toiletries, her old j’tali of service gone by, her favorite bow,
and a few other things that came to hand with barely her notice. She put on the
three ill-matched travel packs, took one last look around at the mess she had
made, and started to build an av’tun when she realized that she did not know
where she was going.

*:Este,:* the hunched figure, observing her actions
without helping, grated in her mind. It shimmered away.

Este was as good a start as any. She av’tunned away.

the light
turned...

Soku sat at the head of the oval table. Seventy
other Queens, all Lesser Queens of small Border or near-Border Lons, sat facing
her. These were her sisters in peril, Tribes that would be annihilated by
larger Tribes in the Ottanu’s bid for power.

The lain was sealed. Not even the light of Av
penetrated, nor could air, even, pass through the barriers in place. Not
whispered thought, or a spying word. The lain was as secure as rites and oaths
could make it, as were the occupants secured; they had even sworn ancient
blood-oaths, that would be deadly if broken.

“Sisters,” Soku said, looking each of them in the
eye, “we are here on common purpose, a purpose begun at the Bolorn’toyo, and
now nearing flower. All are agreed in this?”

“Yes,” Zydoba sul Asanti said, sitting at her right
hand. “You have lived up to your oath-claim, sister Doan. Each and every one of
us had been approached in some way - overt, subtle, cajoling, threatening. We
have been told of being isolated by our neighbors, ostracized, cut off,
consumed by larger Tribes. But these threats have no bite - with our Port
arches, we are not limited to local Trade anymore, and cannot be intimidated
into capitulation. And our neighbors cannot ignore us, for they will want use
of those arches themselves. Our new Yakan’tsu has protected us well.”

There were nods and smiles all around.

“You have all been given preliminary approval to
begin mapping out a site for your Port Arches, and, pending investigation into
our private and public Trade records, we are approved to begin construction. I
foresee, however, the next line of attack will be against those self-same
records, and against our households and families; either Voices or Heirs or
consorts, or all of these. Steps have to be taken to protect the records - that
is the purview of the Trade Circles and their administrators, and they have
enlisted the help of the Gadayi to keep them inviolate. We, however, must take
our own steps to secure what is ours.”

More nods, but of comprehension and understanding,
in addition to agreement.

“You will be a primary target yourself,” Iani sul
Gaido said suddenly, “as the head of this Yakan’tsu.

“Yes,” Soku acknowledged, “and I intend to be a very
tempting target, as a matter of fact. I anticipate our enemies will use - most
unsavory means to turn my allegiance, too. I have plans, in that event. “