For the first time she actually looked at the face of the dead goddess, and realize with a start that she recognized her. This was Dorvala, she of the moon and the tides. With the black uniform having been removed, she now wore a blue-gray dress that had once washed all about her in slow rhythm but now hung limp and lifeless as its wearer.
Moranna felt a pang of grief for the goddess’s fate, but she set it aside and got to work.
Leaning over the body, she reactivated the swirling light-blade and touched its edge ever so delicately to the iron chain. A second later, she moved it away.
Nothing had happened. The metal of the chain appeared absolutely unscathed.
Anger swelled within Moranna. She did not like to be denied anything, but in this case she honestly believed she had discovered something important—something that the others would be pleased with her for finding. Refusing to be denied her victory by this stubborn chain, she brought the light-blade down again, harder this time. As she did so, she lost her balance and fell forward, across Dorvala’s body. The cylindrical metal instrument she held thacked against the tabletop, and there came a soft thud from below and to her left.
Climbing off the body and regaining her feet, Moranna gazed down at the object that had made the strange noise as it had hit the floor. It was Dorvala’s hand. The blade had sheared it off at the wrist. There was no blood; the gods were driven forward by the Power of the Fountain, of course, not by primitive circulatory fluid. For some reason, the image passed through her mind of the hand beginning to crawl of its own accord across the floor. But it did not. It merely lay there, motionless, almost appearing to greet her.
For a few moments, Moranna merely gawked at what she had done, and panic swelled within her. Then her wits slowly returned. She thought quickly, frantically. Reaching down, she grasped the iron chain that still encircled Dorvala’s wrist and tugged at it. It slipped easily off of the goddess’s stump. She held it up, frowned at it, and stashed away in a pocket of her robes. She could worry about it later. Returning her gaze to the hand where it lay on the floor, a new idea began to form within her mind. The panic receded. Almost in spite of herself, she began to smile.
9
“You are certain the message was genuine?” asked High Seer Korvu. “It is possible that—”
“Of course I am certain,” replied Second Seer Esron impatiently. “I would not have called you here if—
“Calm yourself, Esron,” the High Seer snapped. “Do not address me with such impudence.”
A pause. Then, “My apologies, High Seer. But I believe the message was both genuine and urgent.”
“Very well.” The High Seer raised both hands in the traditional method of those of his vocation. “We shall know soon enough, I suppose.”
The two seers and four of their acolytes waited in the darkened temple, which in turn lay at the heart of a snowflake Star-City drifting through interstellar space. Together they represented the supreme spiritual leadership of this particular city. They waited and meditated and occasionally looked about and at one another, and then waited some more.
Time passed slowly, and the candles that had been arrayed about the chamber burned down to pools of molten wax. The air was mostly still, disturbed only by the faint flow of recirculated wind from hidden vents situated higher up on the rear wall. Only the faintest hum of the Star-City’s great generators disturbed the otherwise pervasive silence.
“Esron,” the High Seer said after a very long wait, “I’m afraid you have been deceived, and we are wasting our time.”
The Second Seer frowned at this and shook his head. “No—not yet,” he said. “I’m certain the message that came to me was genuine. I’m sure of it.”
“And yet,” said the other, “the goddess does not materialize. I can only conclude—”
“My children,” said a disembodied voice that simultaneously filled the room and seemed to sound only in the ears of those who heard it, “it has been too long.”
The High Seer gasped. He looked at the other momentarily, his brow furrowed, as if suspecting some trick were being perpetrated against him. Then he gasped again as a pale light shone down from overhead. He, the Second Seer, and the acolytes all looked up.
A few meters above their heads floated a circle of slowly spinning brightness. Its center billowed with clouds and a ring of fire raced around its outer edge. As they looked on, a female form swathed in slowly swirling green and aqua gauze descended through the clouds and out the bottom of the circle. A human-looking form, with blonde hair and pale skin. She remained floating there, gazing down at them with an angelic, benevolent expression, between the seers and the circle of fire.
“Great lady!” the High Seer blurted, astonished, recognizing her at once. “Lady Moranna! You return to us!”
The woman studied the High Seer’s face for a moment. Her smile warmed. “Acolyte Korvu,” she said softly. “You yet live.”
“I am High Seer now,” Korvu told her. He appeared filled with pride, with life, as though he were young again.
“Indeed?” She nodded respectfully to him, then gazed about at the others for a few seconds before continuing. “Your kind are my favorites—it is no secret,” she said, her voice louder now, so that all in the temple could hear. “Your people were old when the humans were infants; your culture rich beyond measure.”
“The humans are infants yet,” the High Seer chuckled.
Moranna smiled at this as though she and the High Seer had shared some private joke. “Yes—and thus I extend my favor to the people of the Star-Cities—to your people.”
“We treasure your favor, Lady,” the High Seer intoned, “and would welcome it—and your presence—much more often.”
Her complexion darkened slightly. “You are saying I have not visited often enough?”
The seer blanched. “I—I am—I—”
Moranna proffered him a sour look. “You will celebrate my visits when they occur,” she said, “and treat them as the momentous events they are.”
“Of course, Lady,” the High Seer said quickly, attempting to cover his embarrassment. “Of course.”
She hesitated, then, “We have had our troubles. The Golden City is not what it once was.”
The seers and acolytes frowned at this and glanced at one another.
“But—such things are not your concern,” she said. “At least—not at this time.”
“No, lady,” the High Seer replied—though his voice carried a hint of puzzlement.
The goddess rotated slowly in the air as she floated above them, curls of smoke wafting up from the dying candles and spiraling lazily around her. They stared up at her and waited, wondering, anticipating the purpose for this visit.
“To reaffirm my love for you,” she said after a moment, “I bring you all a gift. May it serve as a symbol of my patronage of your kind—now, and in the centuries and millennia to come.”
“A gift, lady?” The High Seer gazed up at her, wide-eyed, his many years of life seeming to fall away in her presence. “What—what might it be?” The others subconsciously moved in a bit closer around him, staring up at her, anxious to hear—to see what she had for them.
“I bring you a key,” she said. “A key that opens the greatest doorway of all.”
They merely waited, almost breathless.
Moranna reached into a sort of satchel that had been hidden, up until now, within her flowing robes. She drew something out and held it up. It was not what they had expected. It was something, in short, that was very strange.
The seers stared at it. They blinked. They looked at one another. They blinked again. They looked back at her.
“This is my gift to the Dyonari,” said Moranna of Those Who Remain. “I grant you the key to my kingdom.” She bent down and extended it out toward the High Seer, who was now standing.
With great hesitation and trepidation, he reached up and accepted it. He looked at it, holding it not so much with reverence as with extreme con
fusion and a hint of revulsion.
“My lady,” the High Seer said to her, speaking slowly and carefully, as though she had somehow made a terrible mistake and had yet to realize it, “this is not a key. This is a hand. A severed hand.”
“Indeed,” she said with a semi-smile. “It is a hand. The hand of a god. It is therefore also a key.”
At that the High Seer’s eyes widened in surprise and he nearly dropped the object before clutching it tightly to his chest.
“It is the way inside the Golden City,” Moranna intoned.
“You—you allow us a way inside?” the Second Seer gasped. “Inside the domain of the gods themselves?”
“I want you to have it,” she said with a warm smile. “The City will be deserted and possibly forgotten soon. There are too few of us left. Someone must remember it and cherish it. I favor you—the Dyonari. You have my blessing.”
The seers and acolytes all bowed low, and then she began to rise back up through the air, toward the slowly rotating circle of light.
“Guard it well,” she called down to them. “Use it only when absolutely necessary. Keep it safe, against the day that it will be needed—the day your people’s existence depends upon it.”
The seers chanted her name twice, thrice—and then she was gone, the circle blipping out in the blink of an eye.
High Seer Korvu had been staring up at the goddess where she floated above them. Now he lowered his eyes to the strange object he had been given. It felt not cold and leathery but soft and almost alive. He frowned at it, then motioned for one of the acolytes to approach.
“See to this,” he said. “Carefully.”
The acolyte accepted the strange object and started to carry it away, but the Second Seer stopped him. He took it from the acolyte and held it up, inspecting it closely. Frowning, he looked at Korvu. “You believe it truly is what she claimed?” he asked. His expression was dubious.
“Why would the Lady Moranna lie to us?” Korvu asked. He made the Dyonari equivalent of a shrug. “In any case, we must treat it as if it were the most valuable object in the galaxy. For it might well be.”
The Second Seer considered this and nodded. “Yes, High Seer.” He looked at the object and then around at the otherwise empty room. “Um. Can I give you a hand with it?”
10
“You invented that last part,” Mirana declared, her cynicism plainly visible.
Madalena allowed the tiniest of smiles to drift across her face. “Perhaps,” she said. “But it doesn’t invalidate the larger story.”
Madalena had finished recounting the tale of how the seers of her Star-City had come to possess the hand of a god. The others of her team were all staring back at her, wide-eyed.
“So she simply gave the seers a god’s hand?” Mirana asked, incredulous.
Madalena nodded. “I presented it to you as the seers presented it to me.” She paused, then added, “More or less.”
Mirana regarded her with a look of disbelief. “And how did you acquire it?”
“The Seer that charged us with this mission gave it to me, along with the knowledge of its origin and purpose.” Madalena smiled. “And now we have a way inside, where until now only the gods have traveled.”
“Possibly,” Mirana replied. “Although I somehow suspect our people might have found the cutting tool more useful, down through the centuries.”
Madalena ignored this. She raised the hand to touch it to the gates, but Mirana grasped her wrist and stopped her before it made contact. “Wait,” she said. “How do we know no other gods are present in the City? If even one is there, and discovers us—”
Madalena nodded at this. “Yes, but it is a chance we must take, in order to fulfill the mission.” She looked at each of the members of the team in turn; they appeared resolute and determined. Then she turned back to Mirana. “All of the stories we have heard have claimed that no god resides here any longer. Lucian was the last, and...”
Mirana nodded. “Yes, yes, I know,” she said. “But, still...”
“We have no choice,” Madalena said. “We must complete our mission.”
Reluctantly Mirana moved aside and Madalena raised the severed hand. She spoke a few words in a language none of the others had ever heard—words taught to her by the seer who had given her the hand. Then she brushed the fingers against the surface of the gate.
The others stood ready, gazing up at the towering doors set into the even-more-towering walls.
Nothing happened.
Frowning, Madalena lifted the hand again and this time pressed it hard against the gleaming surface.
Still nothing.
Madalena looked to Mirana, eyes wide. “It isn’t working,” she said, as much to herself as to anyone else.
“I cannot disagree with that assessment,” Mirana said, growing more impatient by the moment. She turned and looked around, then looked straight up, as if certain a lightning bolt from the sky was about to strike them all down.
“The Lady Moranna assured the seers that this would work,” Madalena said, frustration more than evident in her tone. She pressed the hand to the gold surface of the gate yet again.
One of the warriors under their command leaned in and whispered something to Mirana. The shorter commander listened for a moment, then moved back and looked at the warrior. “You are certain of this?”
The warrior shrugged, then offered a faint nod.
Madalena had missed the brief exchange entirely. She was still holding the hand up to the gate and repeating the phrase over and over, all the while growing more and more frustrated and agitated.
Mirana tapped her on the shoulder. Madalena nearly jumped a meter off the ground. She whirled on her co-commander. “What?”
Mirana stood her ground. She nodded toward the warrior. “He said you should wish for the doors to open.”
Madalena regarded her with an expression that managed to convey both condescension and contempt. “He believes I do not wish that?”
Mirana shook her head. “No, no. You misunderstand. I believe he means you must consciously—perhaps vocally—request it. As you touch the hand to the surface.”
Madalena appeared about to dismiss this suggestion, but then she shrugged. “Why not?” she asked, rhetorically. She kept the hand pressed to the gates and meanwhile closed her eyes and said aloud, “I want in!”
Still nothing happened.
“Gather around her,” the warrior who had made the suggestion said. He motioned for the others to move in closer. “Now—hold hands. Concentrate on your desire to see the gates open.”
“How do you know all this, Vinizan?” Madalena asked, scowling at him. “Are you just making it all up?”
“No,” he said. He continued to maneuver the other warriors into a tight circle around the two commanders and himself. “I was pledged to become an acolyte to the current seers.”
The two co-commanders looked at him in surprise. “An acolyte? You?”
“I would have been,” the slender Dyonari replied. “I was still an apprentice. But I did not meet their high standards for certain abilities. Psychic abilities, in particular.” He offered a half-shrug. “So I was kicked out of the guild and transferred to the military.”
The co-commanders took this in. “But how—” Madalena began.
“I overheard a conversation once between the First Seer and two acolytes,” he began. “They did not notice my presence, and I immediately took steps to conceal myself further.”
“That is a serious violation,” Madalena began.
“They have already dismissed me,” Vinizan replied.
“True.” Madelena noted. “And so what did you discover?”
“That they possessed a key of some sort to a great city—though I did not recognize which city—or which key—until we arrived here. And also the method by which the key was to be utilized.”
“The wish,” Madalena said, still skeptical.
“The wish, yes.”
“
So let us try it,” Mirana impatiently interjected. She looked at Madalena. “Assuming you are now satisfied with the way in which the information was acquired.”
Madalena didn’t bother to respond. She simply nodded to the others. “Hold hands, then—and concentrate on the desire for the gates to open!”
They did so. For nearly two full minutes they did so. And, at last, as they were nearly giving up hope, the gold barrier before them split in half, each doorway swinging away and leaving a path in between.
“Go!” Madalena barked. “Before it closes! Go!”
The six Dyonari warriors rushed through the gateway. Once they were on the other side, it silently swung closed behind them.
They stood together in a little circle, just inside the walls, and gazed at their surroundings in awe. Towers and halls and parapets gleamed gold and silver, many encrusted in jewels. Small fountains stood at the intersections of walkways, water spouting from them before curving down into broad pools. Everything was clean and new and perfect. It took their breath away. They gawked.
“We did it,” Mirana breathed. “We actually did it!”
Madalena nodded. “We did,” she said. “We’re in.”
They had penetrated the realm of the gods. They were inside the Golden City.
11
The six members of the Dyonari infiltration team wandered as if in a daze along the thoroughfares of the Golden City. Try as they might to focus on the mission assigned to them, they were continuously being distracted by their surroundings. In terms of splendor, glory and grandeur, the City was everything one could imagine.
“Is it just me, or does this place seem increasingly similar to a Star-City?” Mirana asked as the six more or less forced themselves to come back together as a group and remember their orders.
Madalena looked around and shrugged. “Perhaps. Not overtly.”
“It seems quite overt to me,” Mirana stated. “Right down to some of the words inscribed on the faces of buildings being written in our own language.”
The Shattering: Omnibus Page 71
