She slipped out a side door.
“Where have you been?” Phillipa hissed, pulling Prynn out of the cluster of mourners milling around the agricultural buildings. She had remained inside waiting for Prynn as long as she reasonably could before deciding that she, Vretha, and Thia should leave. Ever since they’d come out to the plaza, she’d been searching for Prynn, but the darkness had complicated matters. With most of the mourners hooded and cloaked, distinguishing one individual from another was nearly impossible. From one end of the keep’s front plaza to the other, she’d searched hundreds of faces, hoping that one would be Prynn. At last, results!
Dazed, Prynn blinked, looking at Phillipa as if she were a stranger. “What?” She clutched her white caftan as if she didn’t know what to do with it. “Oh. I’m sorry. I came straight here when I heard the summons. I hope you didn’t wait too long.”
“Never mind. You’d better get ready,” Phillipa said, indicating the robe Prynn had tucked under her arm. “And where’s Shar?”
Pulling her caftan’s hood over her head, Prynn said, “He should be along shortly. But he’s not walking with us.”
“What does that mean?” As they walked across the plaza to join the others, Phillipa activated the pale beacon on a handheld lantern and passed it over to Prynn; Thia and Vretha already had theirs.
“I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out,” Prynn said absently, hanging the light over her wrist.
Prynn seems lost, Phillipa thought, though she couldn’t discern why.
When they met up with Vretha and Thia, only Vretha acknowledged them with a slight nod. Thia was a ghost of her former self: sullen, distracted—moving like a wisp that could be swept away by the wind in a blink. Phillipa feared for her. With their group assembled, Phillipa fixed her mourner’s mask—a solid scarlet red with no embellishments—over her face, pulled up her hood, and waited for the processional to begin.
Hundreds of wrist lights flashed on the sooty, metal-gray keep walls as more mourners crowded into the waiting area. Even the windows of the guard halls in the keep wall were darkened in consideration for the solemnity of the occasion. Beneath the weathered skulls mounted along the tops of the walls, towering relief sculptures of gorgonlike creatures seemed to follow them with their hollow eyes; Mireh would have nightmares. Phillipa looked forward to moving outside. Presently, she had her wish.
Wind, scented with wildflowers and highland marsh grass, flooded in as the two story steel gates groaned open, bellowing protest with each meter. Phillipa, Vretha, Thia, and Prynn hustled to get out of the way as a platoon of security guards established a throughway for the processional. A drumbeat started, establishing a slow, steady rhythm.
The keep bells sounded again, signaling the arrival of the bier. Heads swiveled back as Thriss’s coffin, like a palanquin on poles resting on the shoulders of six shrouded bearers, was carried out of the studded interior fortress doors and down the staircase. Silently, the crowd looked on as four mourners, clad in the traditional garb, walked at the head of the coffin. Phillipa understood the four mourners to be the First Kin, each representing one of their mythological forbearers. The First Kin were accompanied by a robed figure in tawny brown wearing a resplendent gold mask: the priestess of the Earth Guardian, Thriss’s protector. Following behind the coffin were three masked mourners that Phillipa presumed were Thriss’s parents. As the First Kin passed close to them, Phillipa startled with surprise, looked hard—narrowing her eyes—and realized she hadn’t been wrong. “Shar is with Dizhei and Anichent in the First Kin,” Phillipa whispered to Prynn. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
From the expression on Vretha’s face, Shar’s appearance as First Kin had apparently shocked her as well; she waited expectantly for Prynn’s answer.
“Because I didn’t know,” Prynn said under her breath. “It all happened too quickly.”
Phillipa could see that Vretha had more questions, but there was no time to ask them. As the coffin passed, the crowd filed in behind, walking to the drumbeat rhythm. Phillipa, Vretha, Prynn, and Thia settled into place several rows behind the palanquin.
Stepping out into the rugged, barren land outside the keep, Shar became Thirishar.
The night felt cold and vast and absolute; he accepted his utter insignificance as one small life walking beneath a canopy of watchful stars. With his own strength and ability, he could do nothing. He could not create light as could a star. He could not waste mountains as could the angry earth. He could not command the power of the oceans. He could not lay waste, as could fire. But with zhen, thaan, and shen beside him, they could bind their natures together and, in becoming One, challenge the powers of the universe.
Moonlight frosted stones upon which they walked, keeping the drum rhythm. Save the whispering grasses, crackling and hissing with each wind gust, they walked silently.
He raised his gaze to Tower Hill, saw the obsidian table upon which they would offer Thriss to the Star Guardian. He looked at Thantis, who carried the crystalline Cipher created from the Rite of Memory, which she would use to send their beloved. The winding pathway through the grasses and brush was not long. He moved forward, closer to the end of the only life he had known. He clung to the remnants of that life, reaching for Dizhei and Anichent.
The priestess sang of the beginning of the Whole, when all life was One. Her plaintive song stirred Shar. His mind retreated to childhood. Memories of the liturgy flowed into his mind and he mouthed The Tale of the Breaking as the priestess sang it, her words being carried on the winds.
Behind him, a choir of mourners sang with her.
Each step toward Tower Hill brought them closer to the place in the story when Uzaveh broke Thirishar into four. Now Shar grieved as he fully comprehended what was lost. His steps grew heavy. He looked up at the final twists and turns of their road, feeling too weak, too sorrowful to make it. He sagged.
Anichent lifted him.
Dizhei lifted him.
With shared strength, they walked until the last curve was rounded. They stood atop Tower Hill, surrounded by earth’s offering: the fragrance of fresh soil, green grasses, and mounds of trailing flowers. The First Kin stood at the head of the table as the shrouded bearers placed the palanquin on the obsidian table.
Soon, the mourners filed in around them, their white clothing unifying them in common purpose. Thirishar saw many masks—personal expressions of grief—many bowed heads and covered faces; heard the muffled sobs. When the last row of mourners joined them, the priestess assumed her place opposite the First Kin.
“Who comes, seeking safe passage for Shathrissía?”
Together, the First Kin said: “We, her Whole, do.”
The priestess opened her arms to the sky. “As we return Shathrissía to you, the great Guardians of the Night, we plead for her safe passage to her next life. From you, Mother Stars, came the substance of her life, which you poured into the vessel of her parents to give her form. To you, Mother Stars, we return her. Who will send Shathrissía home?”
Thirishar expected Thantis to step forward, for she bore the Cipher. She remained fixed where she stood beside him, unmoving. He could sense her pain and touched her arm reassuringly. Raising her masked face to Thirishar, she pressed the Cipher into his hands. He knew without being told that she was incapable of finishing the ritual: her grief was too great.
For one long moment, he gazed upon Thriss for the final time. Memories deluged his mind, raising an emotional torrent that threatened to swallow him. He imagined he could hear her voice in his mind, the music of her laugh, feel the touch of her skin against his, and he knew he would miss her as long as he drew breath.
And he needed to let her go.
“I, Thirishar, hold the Cipher, and will send Shathrissía,” he said, willing his voice to sound strong and clear—for the sake of the First Kin who stood behind him.
Shar fitted the Cipher into a notch carved into the table just below the head of the coffin. When he felt the Cipher locked
into place, he gave two hard turns to the Cipher and stepped back with the First Kin.
At first a low crackling sounded from deep within the table. With a burst like a rush of wings, a soaring pillar of blue fire ripped out of the table, burning with the brilliance of captured sunlight; the hilltop glowed like midday.
Staring deep into the flames, Thirishar watched Shathrissía vanish. Where once there was one that he knew and loved, there was no more.
The flames raged on: crackling, leaping, flowing.
And a voice, clear and pure, sang out. A mourning hymn, a song of loss and grief so poignant that none within hearing could doubt that the singer knew suffering. Thirishar joined the crowds in searching for the singer, and saw no one. The crowds parted, admitting a slight, white-robed mourner to the inner circle around the table. Her hood fell back.
Thia.
Opening her arms to the sky, she continued singing her pleas for Uzaveh’s mercy. A halo of fire light had fallen around her and she glowed. She sang as if she knew Uzaveh, as if she believed he had the power to save her.
Without knowing why he did so, Thirishar, holding the hands of his bondmates, stepped toward Thia. Neither Anichent nor Dizhei resisted. They could not bear that she grieved alone. Welcoming Thia into the circle of their arms, they joined their voices with hers and continued singing Thriss on her journey to the Stars until at last, the fire dimmed. The obsidian table was empty. The mourners departed.
Slipping away from Phillipa, Prynn huddled into the granite hollow beneath the summit of the hill, waiting for the last of the mourners to begin the trek back to the keep. She wanted to be alone, needed to be. Once again, her world had realigned its orbit and she needed to understand how to live in this new place.
Deepening had come and gone. The darkest hours of night were yet ahead of her. She was not afraid of being alone in the darkness. She had spent most of her life battling the middle-of-the-night nightmares on her own; Vaughn had always been on assignment, Ruriko often summoned away to San Francisco for meetings at Starfleet Command. For one brief moment, she’d believed that she had someone to endure the darkness with her. Not yet.
She heard her name being called, but chose not to answer. He would find her soon enough without her help. She thought about what she would say when she saw him. For him, she felt joy. He would have the chance he believed had been taken from him. More than that, he would choose the shelthreth. Without Vretha. Without Thantis or a computer or some governmental institution choosing for him. He hadn’t yet discovered that he had the choice, but he soon would. For him, at this time and place in his life, choosing his birthright was right for him. She knew this.
She wouldn’t stand in his way.
Shar hiked up the steep, grassy slope toward her. She was still taken aback at how handsome he was in his warrior’s clothes, his long hair blowing loose. Tonight, he had transformed before her eyes; she loved the person he had become. She was sorry that their journeys would separate here: she would have liked to have been with him from the beginning of his new life. Perhaps someday, there would be a place where their lives would rejoin.
“Prynn,” he said, breathlessly. “You didn’t go back with the others.”
She shook her head. “I wanted some time to myself. Before I have to leave.”
“That’s not until tomorrow. Come with me now. We can walk together.”
“I’m not done yet. I’d like to stay a bit longer.”
Shar took in her view. “This is beautiful.” In the distant horizon, beyond the endless rise and fall of the foothills, they saw gashes of lightning dancing on the ocean, illuminating patches of night sky. Mists rolled in off the waters, crawling into the grass, slowly blanketing the hills; by morning, Tower Hill would be bathed in fog. “I’ll stay with you,” he said, moving to stand close to her.
“No, you’re needed back at the keep,” she said softly. “Anichent and Dizhei will be looking for you. And…and Thia will be looking for you too.”
At first he looked puzzled; gradually, understanding illuminated his face. “No, Prynn, you are the only—”
She touched her fingers to his lips. “No. No words. I understand. Honest I do. And I’m prepared to be very selfless and tell you to go to them. But if you stay here much longer, I might not be able to let you leave. Go to them. Go now.”
Gentle as a whisper, he kissed her fingers. She closed her eyes; felt his fingertips brush her cheek.
When she opened her eyes, he was gone.
Epilogue
Phillipa held a hand up to her eyes and squinted out across the lagoon where schools of swimmers clustered around a floating grass-roofed bar, then surveyed the beach. While there weren’t many sunbathers, the glare off the ocean made it difficult to make them out. She stepped off the shaded veranda, out into the sand, and beads of sweat instantly erupted on her forehead and nose. Trudging through drifting sand mounds, she circumnavigated a ruffled sun umbrella and a pile of wet, sandy towels before detouring down closer to the water where the lazy tide had compressed the sand, finding the passage much swifter.
At first, Phillipa wasn’t sure she’d found the right person, considering how many humans and near humans with whip-thin bodies and tanned skin soaked up the Andorian sun. But the bright orange surfboard painted with yellow orchids planted in the sand was a dead giveaway.
Hair still wet and water beading on her upper arms, Prynn had stretched facedown on an oversized towel, arms pressed tightly to her sides. Her tan looked positively brown against the white stretchy tanktop she’d pulled over her bikini. Phillipa wasn’t surprised that she sunbathed alone, but she’d privately hoped that Prynn might have found a new friend or two over the last few days that she could at least gossip and carry on inane conversations with. Nursing freshly inflicted emotional wounds would be part of her life for many months to come—a temporary reprieve would have been a healthy escape for her. Tomorrow, they would be on the transport headed back to Deep Space 9—without Shar.
Rolling over onto her back, Prynn pushed up onto her elbows as Phillipa approached. Sunglasses dropped down her nose, she looked at Phillipa. “I have a swimsuit you could borrow.” She dove into a loosely woven grass bag and sorted through a tangle of a towel, a chrono, a few padds, and what Phillipa guessed, based on the scent rising off Prynn, was a bottle of coconut-frappé sun-protection lotion. She tossed over a wad of skimpy scraps of cloth.
Phillipa examined the bits of string and fabric. You call this a swimsuit? “And lose the chance to wear this old thing?” Phillipa said, indicating her uniform. She threw the suit back to Prynn. “Wouldn’t think of it. Besides, if that bikini you’re wearing is any indication, I doubt your suit would make it over one of my thighs.”
“Suit yourself. But I think you’d look quite fetching in red polka dots.” She sighed. “You’ve come to take me back?”
“You have a few more hours of sun. Then we could eat dinner out. I read in one of the brochures that there are a few nightclubs that feature magicians and singers.”
She pushed the sunglasses back flush against her eyes. “I’m kind of tired. I’ll go out if you want, but I might just replicate something. This resort has a great in-room selection available. Lots of fruity drinks with umbrellas in them.”
“You can’t hide forever.”
Prynn retrieved her towel from the ground and wrapped it around her waist, sarong style. “That sounds like something a counselor would say.”
“You’re allowed to wallow for a few more days, but then you’ll have to start figuring out how you’re going to make it.”
“Make it without my almost-boyfriend, you mean?” she said, resignedly. “How is he, by the way, and his new bond?”
“Probably the only fact relevant to his current relationship that I’ll share with you is that Dr. sh’Veileth received permission to use her gene-therapy treatment. Since the group wasn’t pre-matched, this could be a test to see if reproduction can be made viable among freely chosen bondma
tes.”
“Lucky them. They get to have each other, make babies, and make history. Not a bad package.”
“Prynn—”
“I know. I know. You don’t have to tell me. But you have to know that I’m investigating any and all religious orders that mandate celibacy. I think it’s my destiny.”
Seeing that there was no reasoning with her, Phillipa decided that now was as good a time as any to do what she’d come here to do. She reached into her jacket and pulled out a small, wrapped giftbox. “Shar said something about how you liked things wrapped up in bows.”
“He remembered,” Prynn said, amazed. She took the proffered gift from Phillipa.
“I’m going to leave you alone to open it.”
“It’s not that big a deal. You can stay.”
“Nah. I need to get out of this uniform and into something more appropriate for the beach.”
“The offer of a suit stands.”
“Pass,” Phillipa said, and left Prynn for her moment with Shar.
She found a private sitting place on a sun-warmed boulder above a tide pool. Through the glassy green waters, she saw waddling crustaceans, the feathery fingers of anemones, and the vivid-hued sea plants fanned out like peacock feathers. Breakers slurped, slapped, and hissed below, and for a long moment she was lulled into stillness by the rhythm.
She undid the bow—an azure blue satin—and tied it around her wrist like a bracelet. Peeling back the folds of the wrapping paper, she shook the contents—a tarnished pewter box—into her palm. Caught between apprehension and curiosity, she studied the box for a long time before unfastening the latch.
Ignoring a slip of hardcopy tucked into the lid, she looked at the shapla. The painfully tight weight in her chest released and the tears came. She unfolded the slip and discovered a single word.
Someday.
A slight tremor in her hands made opening the shapla clumsy. Inside, she discovered a lock of white hair.
Worlds of Star Trek Deep Space Nine Page 38
