“So you want Kusac’s Lord Nayash seen as the Zsadhi?”
Ghyakulla, quietly sipping her fruit juice, nodded her head and sent him an image of Kusac morphing into the shape of a black-skinned Valtegan.
“K’hedduk must believe the Zsadhi is real,” said L’Shoh. “You must help Kusac become him.”
“And how do I do that?”
“You push him to reveal that side.”
Vartra looked at L’Shoh over the top of his glass. “You realize this could affect your influence over him after this event, don’t you?”
“This mission will be his last. After that, he will need to call K’hedduk out for a duel.”
“Why can’t you just play with K’hedduk’s mind instead of Kusac’s?” asked Vartra. “That way you could be more sure of getting what you want.”
“We can only affect our own.”
“When will you stop influencing them?” Vartra demanded, putting down the wineglass on the low table in front of him. “When will this be over?”
“As soon as the M’zullians forget their warlike ways,” said L’Shoh. “Then your geas will be over and your life will resume, when you have chosen between Ghyakulla and Kuushoi.”
Vartra got to his feet angrily. “You ask me to manipulate good people almost beyond their limits, then tell me that I have to decide which of two Goddesses to choose? You are stretching even me beyond my limit!”
He sketched an opening in front of him and instantly a portal formed, leading into a summer woodland. A thatched-roof house with a lean-to smithy stood in the center of the clearing there. Stepping through the opening, he left L’Shoh’s realm and the two Gods behind.
L’Shoh looked at Ghyakulla. “Well, that could have gone better,” he said as the portal closed.
“We are pushing them all too hard,” she said, pronouncing the words slowly as she put down her fruit juice. With a sad smile, she sketched a portal to her own realm and stepped through, leaving the lord of Hell’s realm behind.
Kuushoi’s realm
Kuushoi reached out a languid finger and stirred her viewing pool, banishing the image of L’Shoh’s comfortable living room with its fire. Instead, as the water stilled and froze, it reflected the soaring pillars and soft white draperies of her realm of ice and snow.
Beside her stood her Dzinae of dreams, Gihaf, in male form for the present.
“I have need of you, Gihaf,” she said, turning to him.
“Your will, as always, is mine,” he said. Deep blue eyes regarded her from a face of pale gray fur.
“Good. I need you to visit our little human dreamer in her caves of ice on that M’zull world,” she said. “It’s time you wove a dream of good Queens defeated by evil sisters.”
“The dream of the crown forged with the eggshells of the innocent?” he asked. “The crown that . . .”
“. . . lies in the mountain cave, kept close by the human female. Yes, that crown,” she purred, stroking his cheek gently. “Go in your female form, though, Gihaf. She will relate better to a female showing her visions of a lost past than a male.”
“As you wish, Lady,” said Gihaf, the planes of its face already beginning to lose their masculine edges and soften to curves that were echoed in the lithe body. Slowly, Gihaf shrank in height till her head reached the Goddess’ shoulder.
There had been a tinge of regret in the voice that Kuushoi had noticed.
“Worry not, Dzinae, when you have woven this marvelous dream of stolen crowns, murdered sisters and banished males, you can return to my side in your male form.”
“I exist to please you, Lady,” came her soft voice as her mischievous blue eyes twinkled up at Kuushoi.
“See you spin your dream well, Gihaf. She must know that this false male is no more an Emperor than the Captain of Ishardia’s guard was. Without her aid as a sorceress, he cannot prevail. There are always two sides to a legend, are there not?” She smiled slowly, continuing to stroke Gihaf’s cheek.
“Is it your wish that the false Emperor should win, Lady?” she asked.
“No, let the better fighter win this time,” she said, letting her hand fall to her side. “Go now, and spin your tale of deceit and power.”
“As you will, Lady,” curtsied Gihaf. With a coquettish flick of her tail, she turned and sashayed her way along the corridor to her own rooms.
M’zull, outer Great Courtyard, same afternoon
The outer courtyard was similar to the one on the Prime world, except that there were no stores and restaurants ringing it, nor entrances to the public buildings. Those had been blocked off eons ago. Instead, it was a giant turntable entrance for ships to be lowered down to the Palace parking and debarkation areas.
Kusac, flanked by Cheelar, M’yikku, and Maalash, made his way over to the far edge of the courtyard where the giant turntable ended and the regular solid ground began. There, the alien matter transformer, supported by its spindly collection of legs, sat on its transportation dais.
“Check for microphones or hidden cameras, M’yikku,” said Kusac quietly.
“Aye.”
“Does it make your eyes go all funny?” asked Maalash, trying not to look at it.
“Not so much,” said Kusac, pacing up to it. “It can distort reality if you stare directly at it. I try to look at it kind of sideways.”
“It’s clean, best as I can tell,” said M’yikku, palming his scanner.
Kusac mounted the dais and walked around the transformer. “This is only half of it. The other half was destroyed at J’kirtikk by a Watcher ship. Annuur’s ship, if memory serves. This part only duplicates nanites and lets them go. It doesn’t disperse them properly the way the upper portion would. We need this to be undamaged for the next week at least until the nanites have finished dispersing and have been able to update this device as to their status. It will then initiate the on switch, and within minutes all the nanites will be active and will carry out their appointed task.”
“So we have to keep this unharmed till then,” said Cheelar. “Looks like it is pretty robust. From the darkened areas, it appears that someone has already tried to use a blaster on it.”
“The tech is centuries ahead of what even we have,” said Kusac, reaching out carefully to touch it. He gave a sigh of relief as nothing suddenly hummed into life under his fingers. “It’s dead to us right now, waiting for the signal from the dispersed nanites to waken it up.”
“How long till that happens?” asked M’yikku.
“A week, two at the most.”
“We need more time,” said Maalash. “I may not understand most of what you’re talking about, but I understand that.”
Kusac nodded and began to walk round the device, examining it properly this time. Last time he’d seen it, it was humming with life and had overwhelmed him by its alienness. Now, it was just an interesting greenish black, semi-organic artifact, devoid of life.
“The webbed areas look the most vulnerable,” said Cheelar, pointing. “I don’t know if they are.”
“Neither do I,” said Kusac. “Maybe we can ask our friends about that, but I agree with you. There’s less mass to absorb damage, so they are most likely to be damaged first.”
“Why are we looking at this now?” asked Maalash.
“Trying to see if a bit could have been detached from it to form a weapon that melts stone,” said Cheelar.
“Since it is organic, then a piece could have budded off anywhere,” said Kusac. “When I first saw it, it opened up a hatch that grasped hold of my hand.”
“Why did it do that?” asked M’yikku.
“Long story,” he muttered. “No time to tell you now. Well, I can see places where it looks like pieces could have been taken from it, but how do we prove that without providing a piece made of the same substance?”
“Can our allies get us somet
hing made of the same material?” asked Cheelar.
“Again, that’s something I’ll have to ask them. If they are even still using the same fabrication method. It is an extremely old device.”
“Let’s get us some scientific measuring devices. You know, radiation counters, electrical current readers—that kind of thing—and crawl over it some more after I have asked Annuur for what information we can get about this thing,” said Kusac, moving back from it and turning to step off the dais onto the ground again. “Let’s at least look busy in the meantime.”
Prime world, that evening
It was getting late, but the lighting had not yet come on in the library where Gaylla was sitting behind one of the easy chairs at the back of the room, a book open on her lap. She was humming a tuneless little song to herself as she cuddled her doll and read the book. Suddenly she stopped, peering into one of the shadows where the floor-length curtains hung on either side of the windows.
“I know you’s there,” she said. “Why you watching me?”
The shadow resolved itself into the figure of a Sholan male, wearing a dark shawl around his black tunic. He held it as if he was carrying something in it.
“I didn’t want to disturb you, little one,” he said, coming closer. “Are you enjoying your book?”
“Uh-huh. Better since they gots more books from the other towns nearby, and from Shola,” she said, staring at the shawl. “Not many for us to read at first, now there is.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “You need to have books you can read.”
“It moved!” she said, pointing to his shawl. “What you got in it?”
“Me?” he asked, smiling. “Who says I have anything in my shawl?”
“I do!” she said excitedly, her still pointing hand bobbing up and down now. “It moves again!”
“Shh,” he said, putting a finger up to his lips. “You’re making too much noise, you might frighten it.”
“Show me, show me!” she insisted, doll and book both forgotten as she got to her knees to be on an eye level with the bundle that the stranger was carrying.
“Careful, you’ll damage the book, and you wouldn’t want to do that,” he said.
Hastily, she closed the book and moved it to one side. “What have you got?” she demanded, reaching out to touch the slightly moving bundle he was carrying.
“Gaylla,” came Shaidan’s warning voice from just behind her. “Don’t talk to strangers,” he said, stepping up to stand beside her.
“He has something for me!” she said.
“He’s a stranger, Gaylla. We don’t know him.”
The stranger lifted his head up from the pool of shadow it had been in, revealing to Shaidan a familiar face.
“Not quite a stranger, Shaidan,” Vartra said softly. “It’s just been a long time since we last met.”
“What happened to you?” asked Shaidan. “I looked everywhere for you.”
“Forces beyond my control prevented me from coming to see you,” he said apologetically. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”
“You knows him, so he’s not a stranger,” said Gaylla, turning round to tug on her brother’s arm. “Can I see what he brought me now? Can I? Can I?”
Shaidan looked down at her anxious face. “Yes,” he said. “Vartra isn’t a stranger. He was a good friend to me when I needed one.”
“What has you got?” she asked, all decorum gone now as she leaped to her feet and bounced up and down excitedly. “Show me!”
Vartra slowly pulled back the shawl to reveal a small white furry bundle curled up on his arm. It squirmed, and a little pointed snout and a pair of dark eyes peeped out at her. Small pink ears twitched as it let out a quiet chittering sound.
“Ooh!” breathed Gaylla, leaning against Vartra for a closer look. “What is it?”
“It’s a jegget, one of the little creatures special to our Sholan Nature Goddess, Ghyakulla.”
She reached out a tentative finger and looked up into Vartra’s face. “Can I touch it?”
“Yes, but very gently,” he said.
“Ooh, it’s so soft,” she whispered, stroking it with one finger, then her whole hand. “It’s warm!”
The jegget snuggled its face into her hand.
Gaylla laughed delightedly. “It’s got a wet nose,” she said, grinning up at Vartra, then Shaidan.
“I brought it for you,” Vartra said. “But you have to be very careful of her. She needs to be fed every day, and to be given clean water. You can’t always carry her around like I am doing,” he added, “but you can walk her once a day on a leash like this one. Do you want to hold her now?”
“Yes, please,” she said, holding out both arms as Vartra carefully passed the young jegget over to her, giving her the end of the leash to hold.
“She’s mine to keep?” asked Gaylla, gently cuddling her new pet.
“She’s yours to keep,” agreed Vartra, gently stroking Gaylla’s hair. “You’ll have to pick out a nice name for her, so she’ll come when you call her.”
“I will, I promise I will!” Gaylla lowered her cheek till it rested against the white fur of the jegget and began quietly crooning the tuneless song she had been humming earlier.
Vartra’s eyes caught Shaidan’s as he rose to his feet. “You’ll need to keep her in a cage for a few weeks till she learns to stay with Gaylla,” he said. “Feed her meat twice a day. Oh, and she’s telepathic, like you.” He laughed faintly. “No, not like you, but jeggets are the only other telepathic beings on Shola.”
“I’ll tell them how to look after her,” said Shaidan. “But why are you here? It wasn’t just to give Gaylla a pet, was it?”
“It was to let you know I am back,” he said. “Beyond that, don’t ask.” He took a step back, blending again into the shadows of the curtains.
“Vartra,” began Shaidan, stepping forward as the lights came on, but there was no one where the shadow had been. He sighed, knowing the enigmatic Sholan had disappeared again. Turning to his sister, he took her by the arm.
“We better go and tell Aunt Kitra about your jegget,” he said.
“She says she’s called Snow,” said Gaylla, lifting a face wreathed in smiles to him.
“A good name,” he nodded. “Snow is white stuff that falls from the sky in winter, and she’s white. Let’s take Snow to Aunt Kitra and Uncle Dzaka and see about getting a cage for her.”
“She doesn’t need a cage,” said Gaylla as they walked out of the library. “She says she’ll be good.”
“I think we should do what Vartra said with her,” said Shaidan. “It’s all new to her, she’s only a baby . . .”
Gaylla tutted. “Well, all right, so long as she sleeps with me at night!”
M’zull, mountain den that evening
“Yes, can get you a piece of similar construction,” said Annuur. “What you need it to do?”
“I need it to be seen as if it has been extruded from the main part of the artifact and is actually a weak blaster. You know, press a depression or button, and a spluttering stream of low energy comes out of it. If it looks like a piece is missing, so much the better. I can then say it is probably missing a power unit.”
“I can do this. When you need it?”
“Later tonight?” Kusac asked hopefully. “I need to decide where to find it tomorrow. By the way, don’t go near the matter transformer as it is being monitored by security cameras.”
“Pft, that is nothing to us. What if you find the piece loose on the transformer when you go to look at it tomorrow morning? They will maybe think your poking and prodding after their people have done the same has driven this piece loose.”
“That would work,” said Kusac, with a very human grin. “Now just assure me that the transformer is still working despite its appearance and I’ll be happy.”
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“Is working,” confirmed Annuur, “but must prevent K’hedduk from trying to explode it, or it may become impaired. Most is very strong, but some parts are more sensitive, weaker than others. Yes, it could become damaged.”
“What? There is a real risk?” groaned Kusac. “Why hasn’t it a built-in force field?”
“Because then no one trying to blow it up! Do what you can, we will monitor it and if any damage happens, will try to rectify it.”
“It’s not going to be easy to stop him from trying to destroy it,” Kusac warned. “He’s still angry about how he thinks Lassimiss walked out on him.”
“Do your best. Only have to keep it protected for two maybe three days, then all will be fine.”
“This job gets harder by the day,” he groaned.
Annuur reached up to pat his chest. “Well you are doing, friend Kusac, very well indeed. So soon now we be done forever with these sand-dwellers on this world!”
“I’ll look for the part tomorrow, then,” he said.
Annuur nodded and winked out of existence.
“Where’s Carrie?” he asked Jo as he made his way into the main chamber. “I can’t stay for long, I just wanted to see she was all right.”
“I don’t know, now you come to mention it,” she said, looking around. “Have you tried your tent? She’s been a bit withdrawn the last day or so.”
“That’s not like her,” he said, frowning. “What caused that, I wonder?”
“It happened after we went to the village the other day. You know, the day she got that headdress from them.”
* * *
Carrie was dreaming of a world that existed light-years away and thousands of years ago. She was both the participant and the observer as she watched the scenes unfold before her eyes.
Someone had had the effrontery to demand her presence outside the comfort and safety of her Palace. As the people had gathered in the courtyard, she had to show herself to them, show she was unafraid!
She dressed with care. Her robe was short, made of the softest fabric spun by insects kept exclusively in the Palace gardens for that purpose. A deep emerald green, it contrasted perfectly with the bronze body armor she always wore during any public appearance.
Circle's End Page 37
