by Ann Maxwell
I’sNara’s expression was so bland and untroubled that it had to be an illusion. “The Liberation clan hall.”
Silently, the Yhelles turned and walked toward the grim building that was girdled by a decaying street. Kirtn and Rheba followed.
The closer Rheba walked to the hall, the more uneasy she became. Gutted of every illusion, the building sagged inward. Its timbers were dank and moldy. Its roof was in fragments. Long runners from an invading vine quested for new strangleholds on the walls. An ambience of foreboding and despair transformed sunlight into shades of gray.
All in all, Rheba had seen more comforting places.
Neither she nor Kirtn wanted to follow the illusionists. There was something hostile about the clan hall’s appearance. Nor did they want their friends to enter the crumbling building alone. Reluctantly, dancer and Bre’n walked along the rutted, curving street until they saw the hall’s main entrance.
I’sNara and f’lTiri waited on the steps. Their illusions were so thin that Rheba could see through to the frightened Yhelles beneath. She realized that if the building’s aggressive ugliness oppressed her, it had all but destroyed her friends. Unbidden, a memory of Deva’s last moments twisted through her, smoke and ashes and screams.
Because she was touching him, Kirtn caught the painful images. He brushed his hand across her cheek and buried his fingers deep in her restless hair. Comfort flowed from his touch. Memory faded, leaving only the echo of screams.
In silence, the four of them mounted the steps into the Liberation clan’s headquarters. The interior of the building was no better than the exterior. Holes in the roof let sunlight trickle through. Connectors that joined the building to Serriolia’s machinery had been ripped out. Ordinary fluorescent strips had been sprayed along the floor. The job was haphazard. Obviously it had been done in great haste when more conventional means of lighting were disrupted.
Whatever had happened to the clan had not taken place overnight. There had been enough time for patchwork repairs and hopes that had eventually curdled into defeat.
“This way,” said i’sNara hollowly, leading them over the wreckage of something that could have been furniture. Without illusions, it was hard to tell pieces of a table from fragments of a cupboard. “Watch the yellow moss. It leaves blisters.”
The illusionist spoke in a monotone, like a primitive machine.
Rheba wanted to help, because she knew how much it hurt to pick through the rubble of a dream. But there was nothing she could say to comfort the Yhelles, so she said nothing at all. Fssa keened softly in her ear, Bre’n laments in a minor key.
A ring of tables stood in what had once been the center of the building. Some were broken now, mirror tops smashed to bright fragments. Others were intact, but cracked and blurred by dust. On one of them was a group of crystals the color of greasy smoke.
I’sNara cried out. At the same instant, Rainbow brightened. Beneath her skin, Rheba’s akhenet lines began to glow. She walked toward the crystals.
“No.” F’lTiri pulled on Rheba’s arm, then let go in surprise. The dancer’s lines were hot. “Stay away.”
Rheba’s hair moved restlessly, loosening itself from the coils she had imposed on it and drifting in the direction of the crystals. When she spoke, her eyes stayed on the sullen stones. “What are they?”
“Worry stones. Ecstasy Stones gone bad.”
Rheba looked at her Bre’n in silent question. She saw that Rainbow was brighter. “Don’t get any closer,” she said quickly. “Rainbow might steal some.”
Kirtn looked down, saw Rainbow’s quiet interior glow, and stared at the table where stones grew like warts on the mirrored surface. “They don’t look like Rainbow’s type. The ones it swiped on Onan and Daemen were beautiful.”
“I don’t trust Rainbow,” said Rheba flatly. “It has a mania for collecting crystals.”
Fssa whistled a soft disclaimer. “Rainbow is just trying to rebuild itself. Replacing lost or broken components isn’t really stealing.”
She frowned and glared at the Zaarain construct hanging around Kirtn’s neck. She and Fssa disagreed on the desirability of having Rainbow around. Yet the Fssireeme defended it so eloquently she usually gave in. “Stealing or not, I don’t want Rainbow near those crystals.”
Her voice was hard, brooking no argument. Fssa knew the value of discretion. He murmured soothingly and vanished into her hair.
“Is this what you were looking for?” asked Kirtn, gesturing toward the worry stones.
“In a way, yes,” said f’lTiri.
“In what way?” prompted the Bre’n impatiently. He was in no mood to play guessing games among the ruins.
With an effort, f’lTiri looked away from the stones. “If even one member of the clan were left—if there were a clan at all—the central illusion would have been intact.” His glance went back to the circle of shattered mirrors. “But even our Ecstasy Stones have changed. Worry stones.” He shuddered. “They bring only craziness. There’s nothing here for us.”
Rheba knuckled her eyes. The maddening itch had returned, making it impossible for her to follow the conversation. She moved restlessly until she was within reach of the stones. As her akhenet lines glowed, the itch faded. She bent closer to the stones, intrigued by their cool energies. Before she had time to think better of it, her hand closed over the biggest crystal.
Her lines heated, expanding until there was very little bare flesh left in her palm. The stone remained a dark, uneven crystal whose facets refused even to reflect the incandescent gold of her akhenet lines. Indeed, her hand seemed to dim, as though the stone sucked up light and warmth.
Vaguely, she heard i’sNara scream at her to drop the stone. But i’sNara’s voice was far away, not nearly so urgent as the cold blackness in her hand . . . a crystal hole in reality into which everything would drain forever until . . .
Dancer.
Kirtn’s voice spoke within her mind. The world returned in a bright rush of warmth, his hands on her shoulders, his breath stirring her hair, his strength dividing her from nightmare. Tendrils of her hair curled around his wrists in a dancer’s intimate caress.
It’s all right.
Her reassurance reduced the fear driving him. His grip lightened and their small mind dance ended.
“This stone is a power sink rather than a power source,” said Rheba in Senyas, the language of precision and measurements. “It surprised me. I was expecting the opposite.”
Kirtn eyed the stones with displeasure, particularly the one still in her palm. “Zaarain?”
“I don’t think so. They’re similar, but more . . . delicate. Zaarain cores always feel like a short course in damnation until you get them under control. If you can. The last one I tangled with nearly burned me to ash and gone.” She peered at the stone, but failed to see herself reflected on its dark surfaces. “The crystal is powerful, though. No mistake about that.”
He bent to look more closely. Rainbow swung out from his neck with a bright flash. Rheba leaped away.
“No you don’t!” She closed her hand around the stone. “This one is mine, you thieving construct.”
“Put it back,” said F’lTiri tightly.
Rheba’s eyes itched, distracting her from the urgency in the illusionist’s voice. “Does the stone belong to someone?” she asked, oddly determined not to let go of the ugly crystal.
I’sNara made a strangled sound. “No. Who would want them? I don’t even know how they got here in the first place. No master snatcher would bother with them.”
Rheba looked from the stone in her palm to the stones on the cracked mirror. “No one owns these?”
“No one.” F’lTiri’s voice was clipped.
“Then I’ll take them.”
Kirtn looked from her to the stones. “Why?”
“Their energies are unique.” Then, stubbornly, “I want them.”
He hesitated, knowing that dancers’ tastes were as unusual as their gifts.
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nbsp; I’sNara did not hesitate. “Unique? That’s one way of saying it,” she retorted. “Another way is to say that they’ll drive you crazy.”
“Can you shield them?” asked the Bre’n, his voice that of a mentor waiting to be convinced.
Rheba concentrated on the large stone in her palm. Gradually, tiny filaments of light curled up around the stone, lacing and interlacing until there was a delicate shell of golden light around the stone. When she was finished, she handed the crystal to her mentor. “Try it.”
Kirtn took the crystal, rolled it around in his hand, then touched it to his forehead. He grunted. “I can’t feel anything. I’sNara?”
The illusionist looked at the crystal as though it were a trap set to spring at the least touch. “If it were anyone but Rheba,” she muttered, extending a cautious fingertip. When there was no reaction, she became more confident, finally even taking the crystal into her palm. “What did you do?”
“I—” Rheba realized that Universal had no words to describe what she had done. She suspected that Yhelle had no words either. “I caged it,” she said, shrugging like a Bre’n.
“How long will it last?” asked i’sNara, returning the crystal to Rheba.
“As long as it’s close to me,” she said absently, sorting through the stones remaining on the cracked mirror surface. “My energy field will feed it.” Crystals clicked together. When she was finished, there were two piles. “Those are dead. No energy at all, positive, negative, or stasis/neutral.”
She built a fragile, flexible cage of light around the living crystals. As the cage closed, the room appeared to brighten and the air seemed less oppressive. She felt an acute sense of relief and delight that was like nothing she had ever experienced.
The feeling was disconcerting because it was unexpected. The stones had never worried her to the point that she should feel any particular relief that they were no longer unshielded. Nor was it Kirtn’s emotion. She knew the textures of his relief; they had been in and out of danger so often lately that his responses were as familiar as her own. Frowning, she sealed the odd crystals into a pocket of her scarlet shorts.
The illusionists drew a deep breath and stretched like people coming out of a long confinement. Apparently they were peculiarly susceptible to the worry stones’ negative effects.
I’sNara and f’lTiri looked around the room. Empty of its last illusion, the Liberation clan hall was humid, crumbling, inhabited only by memories. The ambience of total despair was gone. It had vanished with the stones into Rheba’s pocket. Even so, the hall was a melancholy place.
F’lTiri turned toward a rear exit. “All that’s left to check is the message wall.”
There was neither door nor illusion of one, only a rectangle of Yhelle’s steamy sunlight. A rough board wall leaned askance but still upright. The wood was bare of illusions. A list of names spiraled in toward the center of the board, each letter burned in wood. In silence, the Yhelles read the names.
“What is it?” asked Rheba finally, sensing that something was wrong.
“Names,” sighed i’sNara.
“People who have vowed to liberate Ecstasy Stones,” f’lTiri said. “Our names.” He pointed toward the beginning of the spiral. His finger cut toward the center where the last names were burned in. His voice roughened. “Our children’s names.”
“Where are they now?” asked Kirtn. “Loo?”
“We don’t know,” whispered i’sNara. “They might have succeeded.”
F’lTiri made a strangled sound. The state of the Liberation hall spoke eloquently of failure, not success.
“Someone will know,” said i’sNara, touching f’lTiri’s arm. “Clan Tllella?”
For a moment his illusion slipped, revealing a man caught between rage and despair. “Do you really want to know? They’re either dead or slaves—or worse!” Then his exterior became once again that of an alien scout as he hid behind illusion. “Clan Tllella,” he said flatly.
Rheba watched them walk out into Yhelle’s moist gray sunlight. “What could be worse than slavery on Loo?” she asked softly, looking sideways at her Bre’n.
“I’m afraid we’re going to find out,” said Kirtn.
Rheba’s akhenet lines ignited in reflexive response to the danger implicit in his words.
He was comforted by her reaction. Not for the first time since their flight from Deva, he congratulated himself on Choosing a dancer whose gifts were dangerous as well as beautiful. “I just hope we don’t find more trouble than you can burn,” he said, giving her a fierce Bre’n smile.
VI
The illusionists left the hall more circumspectly than they had come. They were little more than blurred shadows sliding down the stairway and up the street. Kirtn and Rheba fidgeted at the top of the steps, having promised that they would not follow the Yhelles too closely.
“Wonder what kind of trouble they’re expecting,” said Rheba, measuring nearby shadows with cinnamon eyes.
“Wonder how they’d recognize it if it came,” the Bre’n said sourly. “Fssa, do your Guardian memories have anything to say about Yhelle?”
The Fssireeme’s sensors gleamed beneath a glossy wing of Rheba’s hair. He spoke in Senyas. He usually did, when he had bad news. “Yhelle has changed since the Eighth Cycle.”
“Eighth! Is that your most recent memory?” asked Rheba. She knew that each Fssireeme had a Guardian who imprinted his (her? hir?) memories on the young snake. The Guardian’s memories also included that Guardian’s Guardian’s memories, and so on all the way back to the first Guardian. Thus Fssa’s memories were much older than he was.
“The Eighth Cycle is my most recent Guardian memory of Yhelle. I myself have never been to Yhelle.”
“Welcome to the Eighteenth Cycle,” Kirtn muttered.
“Thank you,” hissed Fssa.
Rheba said something under her breath that the snake chose not to hear. They set off after the illusionists.
“The Tllella clan members are mostly traders,” offered Fssa in oblique apology. “At least, they were in the Eighth Cycle. They probably haven’t changed. It’s a tenacious profession.”
“Maybe it would help if we knew how Yhelle has changed since the Eighth Cycle,” suggested Kirtn.
The snake was unusually succinct. “More illusion. Less reality.”
“No help at all.”
“No help,” agreed the Fssireeme. “Perhaps Rainbow knows something. A fragment of knowledge is better than nothing at all.”
“No,” snapped Rheba. “We’re not that desperate yet.”
Fssa, knowing the agony his communications with the fragmentary Zaarain library caused her, said no more on that subject.
“Can you see the illusionists?” asked Kirtn. “I lost them when I blinked.”
Fssa said, “They’re waiting at the veil.”
“You’re sure?”
“They’re keeping their illusions simple so I can follow.”
Rheba stepped up the pace. Even outside the Liberation hall the atmosphere was oppressive to her. She felt she was being watched by nameless shadows growing out of the ruins. “I’d hate to be here at night,” she muttered.
Kirtn said nothing, but his repeated glances into the shadows told her that he was as uneasy as she was. “I’ve got a feeling we’re being watched.”
“Itch behind your eyes?” she suggested hopefully.
“No. Just a feeling. By the Inmost Fire, I wish I could see through illusions,” he said in fervent Senyas.
“Hurry,” said Fssa. “They’re having trouble controlling the veil.”
Kirtn and Rheba ran toward the veil. Before they could see the destination symbol, they were yanked through by invisible hands.
Rheba stood dizzily for a moment, then shook off the effects of passage through the force field. “Where are we?”
“Tllella clan boundary,” murmured a glossy white cat striding alongside Kirtn.
Rheba blinked, then decided the cat must be i’sNara.
“What was the problem with the veil?”
“It only wanted to take us to the Redis hall,” answered a man who appeared in the cat’s wake.
Rheba could not help staring at the tall, thin stranger who must be f’lTiri. His hair was hip length, the color of water, and thick. It took the place of the shirt he did not wear. His pants were as tight as snakeskin and made of interlocking silver links. His lavender skin was the same suede texture as Kirtn’s. She ran her finger down the illusion’s arm and made a sound of pleasure.
F’lTiri turned and smiled at Rheba’s open-mouthed admiration. “A simple illusion,” he whispered.
The silver links of his pants rubbed over each other musically, making a liar out of f’lTiri. It was a complex illusion, beautifully realized. As was i’sNara’s; she even threw a small, cat-shaped shadow.
“I feel naked,” said Rheba plaintively to Kirtn.
The Bre’n smiled but knew what she meant. Yhelle was a complex place to live. It was even worse to visit. He hoped they would not be here long.
Tllella’s boundary streets were well populated . . . or at least appeared to be. On Yhelle, it was hard to be sure of anything. Rheba tried to see through various entities that might or might not be illusions. So did Fssa. After a few minutes, they just decided to enjoy the show without worrying about tangential concerns such as reality and illusion.
Kirtn, with a poet’s special pragmatism, had already decided that the distinction between the two was artificial and unaesthetic. He simply watched and appreciated what he could.
“Is it far?” asked Rheba. Then, almost as an afterthought, “I’m hungry.” As she spoke, she realized that the air was full of enticing scents.
“Not far,” said the cat’s husky voice. “Serriolia isn’t very big. It just seems that way.”
They were passing what seemed to be a marketplace. Laughter and wonderful food smells drifted out from fantastically decorated houses. The cat’s very long whiskers twitched in the direction of a small café that seemed to be constructed of moonlight floating on water. The subtle play of light and aroma promised coolness, pleasure and peace. And food.
