Descent of the Maw

by Erin MacMichael

  Magnus frowned and looked down at his son who was lying on his shoulder with a tiny hand on his chest. When he kept his eyes lowered and twisted his mouth in silent annoyance, Dane slowly rose from the sofa and stepped across the room to stand next to Shilla.

  “If it helps, Mag, we all said some things we shouldn’t have when you left for Krii,” the dark-haired man declared. “Especially Dad.”

  “He told me to get out and never come back! He’s a bull-headed prick!” Magnus spat bitterly, still enraged by his father’s accusations when he’d decided to join the fleet after finishing his degree. Geir Talrésian was the leading magnate of an enormous grain collective in the Roden grasslands of eastern Andara and had expected all three of his children to move into positions within his vast conglomerate.

  “Yeah, he is,” Dane agreed calmly, placing his hands on his hips. “You two are a lot alike.”

  Magnus bristled, but deep down he knew his brother was justified in saying as much. “We’re not all cut out to run a big business like he does,” he grumbled.

  Dane’s dark features broke into a broad smile. “No, you just go off and run a starship. We heard about your promotion way out in the sticks.”

  Shilla brightened and latched onto the positive thread. “You’re the hero of every school kid in the province, Mag. I’ve even heard Dad brag about you to his friends and business partners.”

  “The man who accused me of betraying my family?” Magnus snarled, refusing to be mollified.

  “He was angry that you wanted to leave and things just came out badly,” his sister asserted. “We were all upset. None of us wanted you to go.”

  “We apparently have vastly different concepts of loyalty.”

  “We know, Mag,” Dane acknowledged with a heavy sigh. “The scope of yours is much bigger than the rest of ours.”

  Magnus glanced aside at Mara who was watching him with a look of sympathetic sadness, knowing he’d been hurting over his family for a long time. She nodded understandingly and slipped an arm around his waist while Kahl’s little hand patted him gently.

  “Look, I’m not here to excuse Dad’s crap,” Dane went on. “He’ll have to make his own peace with you. I’m here for myself, Magnus, and so is Shil. We’re proud of who you are and we’ve missed you terribly.”

  Letting out a pent-up breath, Magnus looked up at his brother’s patient face and his sister’s hopeful expression, and felt an old burden begin to ease. Sensing the shift in his muscles, Mara scooped Kahl into her arms and took a step back, giving him space to walk forward and open his arms.

  Shilla flew toward him and grabbed him around the waist, hugging him tightly before loosening her arms and looking up with a relieved smile. “I love you, big brother,” she whispered as Magnus dropped a kiss on her head and turned to his older sibling.

  Almost his height and mass, Dane’s strong arms pulled him into a tight embrace and wouldn’t let go. “By the Prime, I missed you.”

  Magnus’s throat tightened, but he managed to fight past it so he could speak. “Thanks, Dane. Me, too.” Pulling back away, he looked at his brother thoughtfully for several moments and nodded. “I’m glad you came.”

  Dane slapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “You have quite a lovely wife, young buck. We’ve had a good, long talk waiting for you to show up.”

  Turning his head toward Mara who was quietly cradling Kahl, Magnus smiled affectionately. “She’ll do,” he said, mimicking the soft lilt Mara and Al both carried from their native homeland up north.

  “We came in yesterday hoping we’d catch you on leave for the solstice,” Shil ventured. “Kahl’s such a sweetie, but he hasn’t let us hold him yet.”

  “Yeah, he’s a shy little guy,” Magnus murmured tenderly, reaching out to stroke the toddler’s downy soft cheek. “I don’t know where he gets it. She’s a hothead like I am,” he explained with a sideways grin at Mara.

  “I see you still have a healthy appetite for acquiring artifacts,” his sister remarked with a wave of her hand at the crowded shelves and cases lining the apartment. “Tell me, Mara, does he spend every penny he makes on collecting more? He’s done that since he was a kid.”

  Mara laughed and turned a fond smile up to her husband. “Well, not every penny, but it does seem to consume most of his waking time when he’s not on duty with the fleet.”

  “So how’s it going in Merope?” Dane asked conversationally.

  At those simple words, Magnus closed his eyes against the tide of smothering emotions that came flooding back in. His stomach clenched automatically and the haunting thought of millions of people trapped under bloody reptilian rule nearly brought him to his knees.

  “We lost Masala today.”

  The room fell to silence while he wrestled with his internal ballast. When he looked again at Mara, he didn’t try to hide the anguish that was burning a hole right through his middle. “And it’s really hard to deal with,” he added in a strangled voice, turning eyes full of naked vulnerability to his older brother.

  Dane’s mouth fell open and his brow furrowed as he studied Magnus’s haggard face, coming into stunned understanding of the depth of the problem. “It’s all an abstraction for us,” the Rodeni man murmured. “But not for you. You’re at the center of something really terrifying, aren’t you?”

  Magnus nodded with a hollow expression. “People die horrible deaths and I can’t stop it, Dane.”

  His brother searched his eyes with growing concern. “Mara, take this man up to the fires. He needs you—and a connection to Tarsus would do him a world of good right now.”

  Caught off guard by Dane’s abrupt pronouncement, Mara blinked and stammered, “But I thought we’d—”

  “No need to stand on social etiquette with us,” Dane insisted. “The door’s open now, right, Mag? There’ll be time to talk later, as long as you don’t—”

  “Bite it,” Magnus filled in when his brother broke off his words.

  “Always the blunt one,” Dane grumbled sardonically.

  “We’ll take care of Kahl,” Shilla declared, holding her hands out toward Mara and the baby who looked at the stranger with skeptical eyes.

  Magnus exchanged a startled look with his wife. “But he probably won’t—”

  “Don’t tell me,” Shilla groaned. “You’ve never left him with anyone, have you?”

  Mara’s brows rose in surprise. “I do research all day and I’ve always taken him with me.”

  “And there’s no one here in this entire base filled with families and kids that you could leave him with?” When Mara spluttered wordlessly, Shilla rolled right over her. “Typical first-time parents.”

  Magnus shot his sister a questioning look and Shilla went on to explain, “I’ve got three, Mag, and a husband to boot. Dane’s got twins and a really cool wife. Maybe you’ll ask us about them sometime, but for now, I think the two of you are overdue for a collision with each other and the solstice fires.”

  Mara gaped at her sister-in-law.

  “Yeah, it runs in the family, Mara,” Dane muttered with a laugh.

  Shilla walked over to Kahl and held out her hands once more, smiling calmly at the little boy. “Come here, sweetie.”

  Kahl looked up at his father for several long seconds before slowly raising his small arms to his aunt, allowing her to lift him over to her hip where he nestled his head down against her neck. Shilla rocked him gently and looked from Magnus to Mara, raising her eyebrows and nodding her head insistently toward the door.

  Dumbfounded, Mara cocked her head to the side looking at her son, but a heartbeat later she rallied and with sudden determination, grabbed Magnus’s hand and pulled him back down the hall toward the front door.

  “You’re ok with this?” he hissed in a low voice.

  “Oh, yes,” she threw back over her shoulder, hauling him out onto the front step and closing the door behind them. “Shilla’s right—I should have let go sooner. I cling to him because you’re not here and
the ache is more than I can bear.” She reached up and slid both of her hands over the sides of his face, slipping her fingertips up into his hair. “But your pain is deeper than I ever imagined. I saw it in your eyes. You’re struggling with burdens the rest of us don’t understand, but I can’t help you unless you share them with me. When you hurt, don’t stay away. Come home and tell me. I want to know—all of it.”

  Magnus leaned his forehead down onto hers and let out a long exhale, sliding his arms around her waist. “Alright. I didn’t mean to shut you out. I just didn’t want to spill this horrible despair all over you.”

  “It breaks my heart to see you so torn up inside, but we’ll deal with it, and we have incredible support right beneath our feet, especially today. Your brother’s a very astute man, love. Right now, you need the fires and I need you just as badly.” She dropped her hands down to his chest and slid them up under his jacket. “Where shall we go? Serrum?”

  Magnus grinned in spite of himself and let out a low, husky laugh. “The hills.”

  “Serrum’s on the way. We could do both.”

  Leaning down, he ran his tongue over her lips before drawing her mouth into a long, languorous kiss. “Mmm, both would be good,” he purred, running his hands down her back and over her derriere.

  Mara drew in a sharp breath and pushed away with a broad smile. “Come on—we’ll never make it to Serrum, let alone the hills, at this rate.” Catching his hand and lacing her fingers through his, she pulled him down the sidewalk toward the outskirts of fleet housing, falling into an easy rhythm beside him. “Now tell me what’s been happening in Merope.”

  With a deep sigh, Magnus launched into a description of the last few encounters with the Drahkian forces, laying it all out without glossing over any of the gory details. Before he realized it, his words were spilling out like an avalanche. By the time they reached the edge of the housing district and heard the first faint rumblings of distant drumming, he felt like the infection from some festering internal wound had been tapped and drained. Mara was just as horrified as he was about the bloody violence of the Drahks, but to his astonishment and relief, she didn’t seem to be crushed by the terrible threat the reptiles posed to the remaining free Pleiadian worlds. Al had been right about his twin—she was strong, and a new level of appreciation for his mate took hold in his chest.

  The well-worn pathways leading out into the grassy plain east of the city were sprinkled with people coming and going from the celebrations all across the far-flung sites making up Tirim Nah. The fires and drumming in and around the sprawling array of stone circles would run through the night until dawn. It had cooled down considerably since he had left the Zephyr, making it a perfect night for hot, sweaty activities.

  “This place never ceases to amaze me,” Magnus remarked when they saw light flickering between the shadowy stones of a circle up ahead. “There are so many of them. I grew up with some pretty cool sites over in Roden, but nothing like this.”

  “Same with me,” Mara agreed. “Caledon has its share of old constructs, but nothing as extensive as Tirim Nah. We could spend a lifetime exploring these,” she added with a sweep of her hand. Standing stones dotted the landscape as far as the eye could see in both directions, each circle part of an intricate pattern stretching across the plain and into the foothills of the Shardan range just east of the capital city. “Do you want to try a new site?”

  “Maybe next time. We already know the rhythms they play at Serrum. I just want to strip down and let off some steam. Oh god, listen to that,” he rasped, sucking in a quick breath. The heavy beat of drums stationed around a bright circle a short distance to the right started up, initiating a new dance for the people within. As always, the sounds hit his system like an intoxicating drug and he found it physically impossible not to move.

  He squeezed Mara’s hand and started to run. “Come on. Isn’t Serrum further south?”

  “Yes, we should hit the main pathway that leads down there just ahead,” she breathed, working hard to keep up with his long gait.

  When the colossal site came into view, they could see dozens of bonfires lighting the whole area, inside the stones as well as beyond the outer henge. Magnus slowed to a walk and they both panted for breath as they joined the stream of people moving along the path toward the northern entry point to the site.

  Crossing the causeway over the wide outer ditch, they passed between two gargantuan stones into Serrum’s interior, bordered by a ring of ninety-eight rough-hewn sarsens where thousands of people clustered in groups across the grassy expanse. Magnificent fires crackled at the center of two inner sarsen rings and rose above the heads of hundreds of people moving together to the rhythm of deep and mid-sized drums.

  “How about the far circle?” he shouted above the thundering sound. Mara nodded her agreement and he led her through the crowd, steadily making his way around the first ring and partway around the second, coming to a halt behind one of the diamond-shaped female stones where quite a few piles of clothing covered the ground.

  Magnus tore off his jacket and boots with shaking hands. The insistent pounding inside the ring drew him like a lodestone and the rest of his clothes couldn’t come off fast enough. Mara’s movements were just as frantic and when she was finished undressing, he grabbed her face for a quick, hard kiss before pulling her around the sarsen into the firelit interior.

  At least ten concentric rings of dancers moved in opposite directions around the central fire, causing the light to flicker and flash as the figures moved past across the soft grass. Magnus ran forward into the space between two dancers and motioned for Mara to slip in beside him, quickly falling in with the easy, rhythmic steps of the outer ring.

  The base drums beat in a steady throb and his body moved effortlessly with the rich, liquid sound. He recognized the pattern as the long beginning sequence of one of the standards played at Serrum, designed to build slowly into more demanding rhythms to heighten the experience for the participants.

  The music would tell him when to shift into new movements, so he closed his eyes and let his head fall back, repeating the steps again and again, giving himself to the pulsing rhythms. It was natural and familiar, ingrained in his system from the time he was old enough to walk—he could easily dance like this for hours on end.

  As he immersed himself in the sound, the built-up tension of the past several years slowly began to seep out of his muscles. It felt so good to let go of the ship and the reptiles, to feel the ground beneath his feet and the potent energy rising up through his body from Tarsus. Sweat trickled off his skin and he realized with chagrin that he and Mara hadn’t been to the fires since Kahl was born, far too long a time since he’d allowed himself this uplifting connection.

  The drum beats shifted into a faster pace, joined by the higher notes of mid-sized drums and rapid clicks of sticks on rims. Magnus stamped and spun into a new sequence of movements, syncing with the dancers in his ring moving steadily to the right. His hair flew in the air around him as he shifted his arms upward, leaned to the left, the right, shook his shoulders and swept his arms down toward the ground before stepping to the side and starting again.

  The feel of his blood racing and the cool night air slipping over his drenched skin was exhilarating. He glanced aside at Mara, watched her luscious form sway and move with the beat, and a surge of pride and heat rippled through his flesh. When she caught him watching her, she flashed him a radiant smile, her eyes sparkling with the same hunger he felt building inside.

  The drums cracked and pounded, carrying the dancers into the final round of fast-paced gyrations. As Magnus whirled and pivoted, laughter bubbled up through his chest, and when the piece finished with an intricate, dramatic flurry of sound, the hundreds of dancers inside the stones threw their arms in the air, shouting with elevated excitement.

  “Hooooooo!” Magnus howled, clapping with the rest and turning to Mara with a beaming smile. “By the Prime, that was great!”

  While the
stream of hot, sweaty dancers walked around them on their way out of the circle, Magnus stepped over to Mara and took her face between his hands. “Thank you,” he panted. “I really needed that. I feel good.”

  “Me, too,” she replied, looking up at him with eyes filled with love and quiet relief.

  “God, you’re wonderful,” he whispered, leaning down to cover her mouth with his, oblivious to the voices of people moving across the grass.

  When his tongue lingered and began drawing on hers insistently, Mara reluctantly tore her mouth away. “Mmmmm, that’s not allowed here, big man,” she said under a laughing breath. “Only at the circles in the hills.”

  “I know, I’ve got a lid on it down there. But it will be soooo sweet when we get there,” he grinned.

  “The closest one’s not that far. Do you want to go now?”

  “I’ll be good. I can wait a little bit longer.”

  A single drumbeat rang through the ring, followed a few moments later by another, signaling to the moving throngs that a new dance was about to begin. “Let’s get closer to the fire where it’s hot,” he prompted, grabbing Mara’s hand and walking toward the snapping blaze where dancers were lining up waiting for the drums to begin again.

  Within moments, the rolling sounds of Serrum’s master drummers rang through the ancient stones once more, rising on the night air as they had for thousands of years. As Magnus rode the currents of energy, he felt a renewed sense of wonder at being alive and was deeply grateful to be connected to something, someone much larger than he was.

  The walls of the great starship glowed with internal light. Kirian listened intently to the toning adepts seated in front of him and in the three other sections around Rinzen’s central chamber. The intricate chords from each specialized group wove and blended to make the wide chamber ring like a bell. As leaders of the transport group, he and Selina sat with their backs to the wall of the enclosed private room at the heart of the ship where Rinzen’s spark couple opened the gateway for the starship to connect with Lyonnae’s core.