“Urrgh,” he groaned. “Ugh.”
The women were all staring at him, grimaces of empathy on their faces. Gaea put a hand on his arm. “Aie, my Son, that had to have been—uncomfortable.”
“I felt it and it wasn’t even my arm… Ow.” Daena empathized.
“It—” He let out a hurt gust of air. “It’s not—something—I’ll be doing again any time soon. Ugh.”
“I bet,” Wren said grimacing. “Garadhyr,” she spoke the shaladen’s name. “Please allow me to touch you.” A glimmering sparked around the weapon and the blonde ascendant lifted it out of the case. She transformed the weapon into a band on her arm. “I’ll hold onto it until Sarai is awake.” Wren leaned down. “You going to be okay?”
He nodded. “Give me a moment.” He shuddered and blew out another breath. “Damn, that hurt.” It took a few moments more to master himself. “Okay, now to get back in my own body.” He focused down into himself, into the symbol of his core tracery and true essence. He twisted and squirmed, finding it hard to get free. It was like raw skin that had healed wrong. Gaea was right, he had forced things and embedded himself in this Kriar’s form. It would take more tearing of his core to get free again.
Pushing and shoving, he finally did get free with a rip that made his whole nola convulse and flicker. He immerged into the light of the chamber above Rhajgon’s body—a horrid sense of aching that felt like he was bleeding.
He looked down, the Kriar warrior Rhajgon lay in the healing cylinder. The gold-skinned male had a sharp countenance with a harsh bent evident even when at rest as he was now. Bannor understood now why people had reacted as they did. He did look mean.
A convulsion shot through his ephemeral body.
“Oh, that wasn’t good,” Wren murmured. “I felt that and it wasn’t me.”
He needed to get in a body. This couldn’t be right. He turned away and started to drift over toward his prepared body.
“No Bannor—stop,” Gaea ordered. “I know you’re uncomfortable, please wait a moment. Sen, Dulcere, secure Rhajgon’s body.”
Senalloy and Dulcere used the straps in the device to lock down the Daergon’s arms, legs, throat, and forehead. Special glowing bands were clamped around his wrists.
The goddess took the wide globe of shadow stuff that was Rhajgon’s spirit and shoved it down into the form of the Daergon warrior.
A greenish aura snapped around the Kriar, sparks rasping and clicking. After a dozen heartbeats, his back arched, and the male gasped for breath. His star mottled eyes went wide. He groaned and jerked side-to-side against the restraints.
Eladrazelle shoved the cylinder against his neck with a hissing sound.
The movements of the twisting, struggling warrior immediately slowed, and after a few more heartbeats his body went lax.
The goddess nodded to her. “My thanks.” She turned to Bannor, and beckoned with her arms. “Come to me.”
He drifted over until he was a short distance from the All-mother.
Gaea frowned at him. She made a ‘come here’ hooking motion with her finger.
Bannor leaned in closer. What did she want him to do? He wasn’t solid. Especially not now, he felt so weak. It was surprising he had enough strength to project a visible form at all.
Gaea gathered him in as though he were flesh and blood, pulling Bannor into a hug that sent a cascade of sparks through the misty essence of his nola.
“Silly, Boy,” Gaea said in a soothing voice. “Do you think I will hurt you?”
He didn’t answer. It was a relief simply for the pain to go away. Unlike other creatures, Gaea felt ‘solid’ to him as though both of them were flesh. Bannor felt the all-mother’s essence enfold and draw him in.
“You have taken so much on yourself, my Son,” Gaea said in a voice that made his whole being resonate. “The way you have persevered, adapted, and overcome, I could not be any more proud.” As she spoke, his vision and sensation grew more and more fuzzy. “Take your ease for a moment and let your Mother be with you…”
The last of her words faded out along with any sense of his surroundings.
***
The next instant that Bannor became aware he found himself in darkness with the sense of being submerged. He followed his instinct to push to the surface, rising through layers and threads of gray and black.
In moments, he felt the beat of his heart, and chilly touch of metal and composite. He took a deep breath of acrid air and opened his eyes. Everything in view was nothing but blobs of color, but he sensed others looking down at him. He swallowed and took another intake of air. He had flesh again and nothing hurt—two excellent developments.
He didn’t remember getting in the body Eladrazelle prepared. He guessed Gaea treated him.
He blinked again, taking deeper breaths, feeling the flesh waking up. After a few more moments, he was able to make out faces. Daena, Wren, Ziedra and Gaea were all looking down at him.
Bannor sighed. How many men got the pleasure of waking up to having four such breath-taking creatures smiling at them?
“Pray, what is that sigh and grin for?” Gaea asked.
“B—Beautiful,” he said, getting the word out after a second time. “All of you.”
“See, this is why he’s so popular,” Ziedra said with a smile.
Gaea brushed the hair off his forehead. “Zee and I had to work some magic on you, so be good and lay still a bit more. The injuries to your tao were not trivial. I will go look in on Sarai and Kalindinai for you.”
He let out a breath and nodded. He felt too weak to move anyway. While he experienced no pain, his arms and legs seemed as though barely connected.
The all-mother pressed a warm green hand to his chest. “Regain your strength, my Son. I will be back shortly.” She turned and walked away.
“How do you feel?” Daena asked.
“No pain,” he said. “Everything—is—fuzzy.”
“We had to fix the parts of his tao that allowed him to properly synchronize with a body,” Ziedra said, glowing magenta eyes fixed on him in empathy. “Between the sword and getting him out of Rhajgon, he was a mess.”
“As I understand it, Bannor, you need to take care of this body,” Wren said. “No Kriar joy forming, no astral travel, no nothing until you heal.”
He grunted. “I would love—love to never need to do any—any of that stuff again.” He sighed. His limbs felt so heavy and so did his eyes. “Sorry, I feel—feel so tired…”
“It’s okay, big guy,” Ziedra said, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “We understand. You sleep a little.”
Bannor nodded and let the heaviness draw him down into a thick cottony drowse…
***
When Bannor next came aware, his back felt hot and something was draped over his chest. He blinked in the darkness realizing that he was in a bed with the sheets pulled up. A female body had fitted itself to him, snuggled in close to his shoulder blades, arms twined around his torso and neck.
For an instant, he experienced an irrational panic. What if it wasn’t Sarai? How did he ge
t in a bed? Where was he?
He drew a calming breath, relishing the warmth, listening to his bed partner’s breathing. Lacing her fingers in his he sniffed her hand, breathing in the slightly salty scent.
Definitely Sarai.
Feeling a catch in his chest he disentangled himself from her, rolled over and pulled her his chest.
“Bannorrr…” She murmured, snuggling against him.
Just the sound of her voice made his heart tremble. He dipped his face into the curve of her neck and spent long moments reveling in the smell and warmth of her. Being close to Sarai, knowing she was alive, feeling her strong and vital. It made his chest ache.
“Mmmm?” Sarai murmured pulling back from him a little. He saw her glowing violet eyes open slightly in the dark. Her slim hand came up and brushed at the strands of his hair. She caressed his cheek, her thumb stroking the moisture from his eye. “My One,” she murmured. “I love you.”
His throat was almost too tight to speak. “And I you, Star.”
She pulled close, kissed his chest, and relaxed against him. In moments, she faded into sleep again.
Bannor lay in the darkness with his love snuggled against his chest. He wouldn’t have disturbed his wife-to-be for all the power and wealth in the universe. He wanted the peace and warmth to last as long as possible…
***
Something tickled Bannor’s nose. Then warm breath sighed against his closed eyelids.
“Mruh?” He grunted. It seemed like a decade since he had last slept so deeply. He realized that something heavy was on his stomach.
He blinked and realized Sarai was straddling him, her silvery hair falling down on his chest and teasing the skin of his face. She grinned at him. “Rise rise, my One.” Sarai leaned in and kissed him.
That was worth waking up for. He kissed her back. Simply seeing her smile was worth all the pain he had gone through. He reached up to pull her down, and she leaned back with a laugh.
“No, no, up!” she slid off him and pulled on his arm.
Bannor let Sarai pull him to a sitting position. He felt worlds better than he had. Dare he say—normal? He couldn’t really call it normal being in an ascendant form. It felt too good—too strong.
He looked around, Sarai had turned up the mage-lights. They appeared to be in some kind of suite, with walls of golden marble, large paintings of star-scapes and natural tableaus hung in jeweled frames on every wall. An archway led into a tiled area he guessed was a lavatory of some kind. Sprays of flowers had been set on the two vanities that bracketed the head of the large canopy bed they’d been sleeping in.
“I don’t know how,” she breathed. “But you managed to pull through again.”
He sighed and gazed into her violet eyes. “I managed because I had you to pull through for.”
She grinned, leaned in and kissed him again. “Come,” she said. “There’s a bath, let’s wash and go find out what’s going on. Unless you know?”
“I know the broad strokes,” he said. “I—mmmf.”
He stopped when she covered his mouth. “Tell me in the bath.”
She pulled him to his feet.
He stared down at her. Dressed only in the skin tight Kriar body stocking he noticed the baby had begun to show ever so slightly in her trim physique. She was still beautiful, or perhaps more so because of it. Without effort, he saw her in his nola sight, the reds and pinks of warm emotion flowing through her. Despite everything, they still had their baby and little Vhina appeared healthy and strong.
Bannor padded after his wife-to-be as she led him into lavatory even larger than the one at Green Run. The sunken washtub was the size of a small pond. It was already filled and eddies of steam rose off the surface.
Sarai stripped out of her suit and helped him out of his. Together the two of them slipped into the water, washing and cuddling as he explained what had happened during the time she was unconscious.
“You know,” she said, rinsing her face. “I can still feel Mother without the shaladen.” She paused and closed her mouth. Her voice continued in his mind, firm and clear.
“Well, Mercedes told you strong telepathy was one of the gifts of that body, you just needed to train to use it. You grew so accustomed to it with the shaladen that you still know how.” He paused and focused on her.
She smiled.
Sarai stretched and rolled her shoulders, skin glistening in the misty air. She rose from the water, grabbed a towel from a rack, and started drying off.
They dried and dressed, finding all the facilities for both among the things in the room. Sarai had just tied her hair and he’d just finished lacing up his boots when someone thumped on the room door.
Bannor opened the door expecting Wren, Kalindinai, or possibly Senalloy. Instead, it was the imposing figure of eternal Koass. The immortal was not dressed in armor, but in a button-down black and silver surcoat. His long hair which was usually tightly braided, hung loose over his shoulders.
Surprised, Bannor lurched back a step, bowing his head and saluting. “Come in, Sir,” Bannor said, stepping aside.
Sarai shot to her feet from where she had been sitting. She bowed her head and saluted. She was a Shael Dal before being a princess, and they had not yet been released from their vows.
The eternal strode in and closed the heavy wooden doors behind him, filling the room with his commanding presence. He nodded to Sarai. “Bannor, Arwen T’Evagduran—” Koass said, putting his hands behind his back. “At ease, both of you.”
Bannor relaxed—a little. Though he had worked side-by-side with the eternals, being in situations like this still made him tense. Sarai seemed the same way.
“Sarai,” Koass said. “I trust you are feeling well?”
She nodded. “I am, thank you, Sir.”
“Well, while you two have been recuperating, things have been progressing.” He focused glowing white eyes on Bannor. He thumped Bannor on the shoulder with a heavy hand. “Son, I expected big things from you when I gave you Xersis, and you have not disappointed. My thanks, and that of the Protectorate. A key part of this whole operation was finding the right door and kicking it in. Well done. It’s not over, but we’re down to tying up loose ends.”
“Do we know yet who is at the root of the whole thing?” Sarai asked. “Is there someone whose arse we can kick? Or is it going to wind up being some nebulous conspiracy?”
“Well, Marna has cornered a council member that was backing the Daergons but neither she nor I feel he was a motivating force. We believe Rhajgon’s information will be the arrow that points us to the proper closet.”
“Good, as long we get to look the foul creature in the eye before they get whatever justice is demanded.”
“I can’t promise,” Koass said thoughtfully. “I know it would be fitting, not only for you, but for Gaea and all her children.”
Bannor steeled himself. “Sir, these are things you could have shared during a general meeting. Why did you come to us in private?”
The eternal met Bannor’s gaze fo
r a moment and then looked away. He took a few steps back toward the door, his whole bearing stiff. He put his hands behind his back.
Bannor felt a chill go through him.
“Garfang,” Koass said, still facing away. “Bannor, I need to know. Is he still alive?”
He stared at the eternal’s back. “I—”
Koass turned around, glowing white eyes fixing on him. “Bannor don’t tell me you don’t know. Is he still alive or not?”
Sarai frowned and looked between them. If this were any other person she probably would have said something. This was the Advocate Eternal though, one of the most exalted beings in the universe.
“He’s still alive,” Bannor said.
Koass closed his eyes and rocked his head back. “I was fairly certain you’d say that, but was hoping you wouldn’t.”
“Sir, if you leave that creature alone, he’ll leave you alone. I destroyed the control the Daergons had over him.”
“Bannor,” Koass rumbled. “That creature nearly wiped out the Protectorate. To have it wandering around loose is pure foolishness.”
“He hates the Daergons far more than the eternals.”
“Irrelevant,” Koass said. “Bannor, I just need to know one thing.” The eternal glanced to Sarai and then back to him. “If you have to, can you find him?”
Bannor’s first instinct was to lie. Such a thing was pointless, the eternal would know instantly. “Yes—if I have to.”
Koass drew himself up. He took a breath. The answer didn’t seem to give him any comfort or satisfaction. “Good. It’s something I would rather not deal with now, but it’s one of those loose ends that we will eventually need to address.”
Bannor frowned and nodded. “Yes, Sir.”
“Finish dressing, I will wait for you in the corridor. We’re having a general assembly. Kalindinai is up and around, naturally she wants to see both of you…” He stepped out and closed the door behind him.
Neither of them said anything as they finished preparing and joined the eternal in the corridor. Outside it was a long hallway lined with dozens of other doors just like theirs.
Reality's Plaything 5: The Infinity Annihilator Page 55
