thefiremargins

by Lisanne Norman

  "What makes you think they had anything to do with the Cataclysm?" asked Tayangi.

  "I'm afraid that's classified at the moment," said Raiban. "However, I can tell you that the traditional links between the Brotherhood, the Warriors, and surprisingly, the Telepath Guild appear to be closer than we ever suspected."

  "Governor Nesul," said Commander Chuz, speaking for the first time. "General Raiban's request will have to be considered an order. I consider it a matter vital to planetary defense, possibly even of important to the Alliance as a whole, that all our guilds and clans make what historical records they have available to a team of researchers to be assisted by experts in the relevant fields from our Human allies. Dr. Michaels will be one of the experts who will assist our people."

  "This is some mad scheme dreamed up by a colicky pessimist after a heavy meal!" growled Mnoeshi angrily. "Why should we open our guild records to anyone? They're our business, no one else's! What good will it do the Medical Guild to know how often we service the lighting in our streets, eh? Damned fool idea, if you ask me!"

  "If that's all your records hold, then why the fuss about making them available?" asked Dr. Michaels quietly. "We don't want your guild secrets, like how many grams of powdered cadduh shells make the purple dye for the telepaths. We need records that show major changes in areas like the political system, the population, health, wars ... that type of detail will help us build a picture of your planet's history."

  "Seems to me you've already made your minds up that that's what's going to happen," said Chekoi. "We'll cooperate, but I'll be damned if I like it."

  "General Raiban, Governor Nesul," said Khomi. "Speaking for my sub-Guild, I would like to be involved in this undertaking. It seems to me that the Department for Intellectual Development is the natural place to start recruiting your work force. I'm sure my members will be happy to work with Dr. Michaels and his people. After all, we'll learn new skills."

  "Your offer of help is accepted," said Nesul. "A committee will have to be set up to implement this project. General Raiban, you're in overall control, but I feel that as well as Councillor Khomi, Councillor Rhuha of the Environment and Guild Master Vyaku of Communications should also be involved. I suggest we schedule a meeting later this evening as the matter is urgent."

  Raiban nodded. "Certainly, Governor," she said, standing up and closing the case containing the remains.

  "Ah, before you leave, General," said Esken smoothly, "I'd like a closer look at those Valtegan bones. I'd like to be able to identify them if they turn up again."

  "Your people won't get the opportunity to visit the ruins from now on," said Commander Chuz. "They are now under military guard. No one will have access to them without permission. Archaeologists from Earth will be starting work on the most likely sites shortly. We need to find out as much as we can about these damned Valtegans."

  Konus watched Esken's expression harden and felt the faintest trace of his anger. Catching sight of his adversary looking at him, Esken quickly suppressed it and relaxed his facial muscles. "If that is your wish, then of course I'll be happy to oblige you."

  "Commander, I need a statement for the public comm nets," said Vyaku. "If you don't issue one, then the sight of armed forces personnel will create alarm."

  "A statement has been prepared," said Commander Chuz. "You'll have it at the end of this Council session."

  While Raiban was collecting the case and waiting for Dr. Michaels to accompany her, Governor Nesul called a break for c'shar. Konis took the opportunity to go over to Nesul, taking the now vacant chair beside him.

  "I hadn't realized Raiban had got so far with her plans," he said quietly.

  "Neither had I. We need Lijou in on this. Will he help do you think?"

  "I'm sure he will," said Konis. "Kusac is convinced the Brotherhood holds a lot of the pieces to this puzzle. Did I tell you Carrie and Ghyan, the priest from the temple at Valsgarth, are working on the visions and dreams that telepaths and the Brothers have experienced?"

  "No, you haven't. What do they expect to find?"

  "I'm not entirely sure, but it's something Kaid's been encouraging. Apparently he's been taking notes for years and he left them for Carrie to use."

  "Left them?" Nesul frowned. "What's happened to Kaid?"

  "Nothing. He's gone off looking for someone he used to know, that's all," said Konis, suddenly realizing that perhaps it would be better for Nesul not to know where Kaid was. "He seems to think the people who see the visions are actually seeing a replay of events from the past. If they are, this could be a vital part of the picture of our past, especially as the visions all involve the God, Vartra, and it's known He was active during the years of the Cataclysm."

  "How can they possibly be seeing a replay of past events, Konis?"

  Seeing the owner of the seat returning with his mug, Konis got hurriedly to his feet. "I'll tell you later. What about Fyak? I thought we were going to be discussing that today."

  "We are. It's next on the agenda. Commander Chuz and the High Council are meeting to discuss it tonight as well. We're going to be busy. I need you at both those meetings."

  "I'll be there," said Konis, moving away as Councillor Chaidu returned to her seat.

  * * *

  Kusac stood at their suite's inner doorway, watching the environmental force screens being installed in the lounge and the bedroom of their new home. He was aware of his father approaching— he'd been thoughtful enough to announce his presence mentally.

  Konis put his hand on his son's shoulder. "I see you persuaded Rayazou to decorate for you. She's surpassed herself," he said, looking up at the painted moonlit sky overhead. Around them, the bedroom walls had been transformed into a woodland grove where creatures of all sizes were partially concealed among lush vegetation, their eyes shining out from among the bushes even in the daylight that filled the room.

  "That's why I've been watching them," Kusac replied quietly. "I don't want the walls damaged. Rayazou actually painted most of this suite and the nursery herself as a gift for us. The murals for the whole house are her designs, of course, but her senior apprentices have been working on them." He turned round to face his father.

  "It's a surprise for Carrie. Luckily she hasn't wanted to come down to the estate since the building work began. Too much dust and noise, mentally as well as audibly, she says."

  "I'm sure she'll be delighted with the result. Your mother's going to be wanting our rooms redecorated as soon as she sees these." His tone was rueful.

  With a grin, Kusac gestured to the hallway. "They're about finished now. Shall we go over to the lab? It's the only place where we can get away from the noise and the dust and sit down. Jack's there, and possibly Garras. Unless what you have to say is private?" He looked quizzically at his father, flicking an ear in deference to him.

  "No, it's not private," said Konis, following him along the balcony to the corridor leading downstairs. "I just wanted to tell you what happened at the council meeting last night. You'd turned in before I got home." He had to raise his voice above the sound of hammering and sawing.

  "Loud, isn't it? In a couple of days it'll be finished. There's only the furnishings to be put in."

  Kusac took his father's arm and hurried him down to the ground level, the noise decreasing as they walked along the colonnades. "We spent the afternoon out at the ruins again. All that fresh air made us tired."

  "Watch she doesn't overdo things, Kusac," his father warned as they walked across the grassy courtyard to the wide arched gateway that led out into the estate gardens. "The first quarter is the most vulnerable time for females, and we still don't know for sure that it'll be a twenty-four week pregnancy."

  "We'll soon find out," said Kusac. "Vanna says her pregnancy is following the normal Sholan development. She's only got four weeks to go now."

  The wide gravel front to the house had been laid and the grassed areas cut. It was beginning to feel more like a home than a building unused for sever
al generations. Kusac turned back to look at it. Despite the rather gray sky, set with the forest behind it as it was, the white exterior seemed almost luminous. A small army of clansfolk were finishing off behind the builders. Already the windows at the front of the house were hung with the brightly colored gossamer-fine drapes that Carrie loved.

  "How could she fail to like it?" asked Konis as Kusac turned back to him and they began to walk down the pathway to the newly rebuilt estate village.

  "Because she also has an unpredictable Human side."

  "Isn't that part of what you love in her?" Konis raised a questioning eye ridge.

  "Yes, but it also drives me mad at times," Kusac admitted, albeit with a grin. "Carrie was with Ghyan at our Shrine yesterday morning. They've been collating the data on the dreams and visions experienced by many of the past new Leska pairs at the Guild Hall, and, of course, ourselves. Did you know that Lijou has been giving Ghyan information on the Brotherhood's dreams too? I suppose with hindsight it makes sense since Ghyan is the principal priest of Vartra, outside of Lijou himself. We've probably got the most comprehensive database on Shola regarding these phenomena— if you don't count the mountain folk."

  He waited for his father's reaction and wasn't disappointed.

  "What did you say?" Konis demanded, stopping dead in his tracks.

  The look on his father's face said it all. "I said, we have no records of the replayed images that we call dreams, experienced by the mountain folk, nor of the stories of the cataclysm that they pass down from generation to generation."

  Konis let out a low growl and started walking again. The lab was only a few buildings ahead of them now. "Those mountain folk are a law unto themselves," he said. "Apart from the odd person, they flatly refuse not only to be tested by the Guild, but to have anything to do with us in any way. They're almost a clan in their own right! In their own way, they're as bad as the desert Tribes."

  "I think you've closed your teeth on the problem," said Kusac thoughtfully. "Carrie said it was a shame there were no clan records for the Brotherhood, but there are, after a kind: the mountain folk themselves and their communities. A high proportion of the Brothers come from the Dzahai region. It should be possible to ask the village elders if they keep any family records."

  "This fits in with what I want to tell you about the meeting yesterday," said Konis. "My news can wait, though. Tell me more."

  "Carrie was over at Noni's again a few days ago. She was told that apparently we guild folk— meaning all the guilds— know nothing about the Cataclysm. They have tales passed down from mother to daughter. Detailed tales."

  "We need those stories, Kusac," said Konis, stopping again. "Raiban, with Chuz's support, has brought down dozens of Human archaeologists to study the ancient cities in order to discover as much as possible about our past. They're also setting up a committee to collate all the guild histories. The input from people like Noni could prove vital!"

  "I agree, but how do you propose to get her and others like her to cooperate?" asked Kusac, reaching out to draw his father onward toward the lab.

  "Vartra knows, Kusac, Vartra knows. I don't suppose you have any ideas?"

  Kusac led the way up the path to the lab doors. The medical and research center had been one of the first buildings completed on the estate. Already it looked like it had been there for decades because of the layers of dust from the construction work that coated the outside.

  "You could try a straightforward approach and just ask her," he said. "Father, you know we've been digging up at the old ruined shrine, don't you? Well, Carrie is convinced that there's something beneath the surface of the ruin. When she was at Noni's, the Healer confirmed that the same crystals that are found on our land, particularly in that hillside, are also prevalent around Stronghold. They both believe that the crystals store memories in a similar fashion to the way our comm crystals store data, which is why the Leskas at our Guild, and the Brothers at Stronghold, have very vivid dreams. As I said, according to Noni, they aren't dreams, they're actual scenes from the lives of our ancestors that we can pick up when asleep or in a deep trance."

  His father remained silent as they made their way into the building and down a corridor till they came to the lab door. Giving a brief knock, Kusac opened the door.

  Jack looked up from his bench on the other side of the room. "Hello there! To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit? Getting away from the dirt and noise again?" he grinned.

  Garras flicked his ears in greeting.

  "I thought you'd be with Vanna," said Kusac.

  "Not likely!" grinned Garras. "Vanna's recruited her brother and Sashti to help her reorganize the furniture in our house for the third time this week! I'm staying out of the way. Her nesting instinct is too damned strong now. I've seen it all before with my sisters. She'll be like this now till she goes into labor."

  Konis sat down on a stool opposite him. "I know what you mean," he commiserated. "Kusac's got all those joys ahead of him."

  "Oh, he'll enjoy every moment of it. It's the first time for them, after all."

  Kusac made a skeptical noise as he headed over to the dispenser. "Can I get anyone a drink?" he asked.

  The chorus of affirmatives was such that Garras came over to help him. Once they were all settled, Konis turned to his son.

  "Have you discussed the replays, as you call them, with Garras?"

  "Yes, he has," Garras answered for him. "I'm more skeptical than Kusac is. Not being a highlander like Kaid, I don't have his belief in what Noni says. She's a bit too manipulative for my likes. Nothing's ever simple with her, there's always got to be an underlying psychological reason for every ill or injury you take to her. Having said that, when I looked at Kaid's book with Carrie, there are an incredible number of dreams repeated word for word over the years. Too many to be a coincidence. There could well be something in what Kusac says."

  "What differentiates a dream from a replay?"

  "The very fact that it's been experienced in the same form by more than one person," said Kusac. "They also tell you something about how the world was then. You get a feel for which is which. There's definitely a cohesive picture emerging about the days of the Cataclysm."

  Konis looked over to Garras, who nodded.

  "There's a distinct story there."

  Konis took a drink from his mug. "What makes you so sure it goes back as far as then? They could all belong to another, nearer time."

  "Vartra's inextricably linked with the Cataclysm, we're all agreed on that at least, aren't we?" said Kusac, looking round the four of them.

  "Yes," said Garras.

  "Kaid's research shows that the replays depict a time of war, a time of drastic change for the people who lived then. After it, society as we now know it was set up, complete with guilds and clans, and Vartra was deeply involved in bringing those changes about. What do the stories told not only by the temple but outside by the storytellers tell us about Vartra?"

  "Exactly the same," said Konis.

  "Which came first, though?" asked Garras. "The stories or the dreams? They could each have affected the other."

  "Carrie says that according to Ghyan, it's in the records that the Leskas who had these dreams or replays, were ordered not to discuss them with anyone other than the temple priest or the head of the Order at Stronghold."

  "We could argue which came first till the end of time," said Konis. "Do we have any input from the Telepath Guild?"

  "Some," said Kusac. "Ghyan said that in the past Telepath Guild Masters have requested more information on the replays or dreams than they've provided in return to the Order of Vartra. It's as if they've been researching it themselves for as long as the Order but are less willing to share their data."

  "Why would the Guild be independently interested in religious matters?" said Konis thoughtfully, taking another sip of his drink. "Have they a secular reason for their interest, one they're keeping to themselves?"

  "Let's assume the replay
s are from the Cataclysm," said Kusac, finally remembering his own drink and taking a mouthful. "We have to have a starting point. Given that, several facts can then be assumed. The Cataclysm involved some kind of warfare, whether with other Sholans or not, we don't know, but the presence of Valtegan remains dating back that far strongly suggests it was with them."

  "Wait a minute," Garras objected. "Look at Keiss. There wasn't out and out warfare with the Valtegans there. They might have been visitors, traders even, back then."

  Kusac gave a snort of derision. "You don't believe that any more than I do. There was out and out warfare on Keiss once we arrived. Only the lack of weapons and numbers prevented the Keissians from rising before. Just assume I'm right for the moment. Now, the people in the replays are in hiding, that much is incontestable, as is the fact that a person, who may well be Vartra, is involved with a group of these people and that they're telepaths. They have to be, because some of the replays involve people who have a newly formed Leska Link." He looked across at Garras who nodded.