A Division of Souls - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe (12 page)

“You are most welcome,” Ashan said. “Oh —
and Alec...”

Poe arched an eyebrow at him.

“...faith, my friend. Remember to have
faith.”

He shook his head in exasperation. “Yeah,”
he said flatly. “Sure thing.”

Kai touched him on the shoulder. “At least
trust us.”

“Oh, that I do.” Poe smiled briefly at her,
nodding. Again, Poe knew enough of the Mendaihu to trust them when
asked. It was the
feeling
he got from them. At least that
was how he would describe the sensation. They practically radiated
this trust at him. It was a guarded trust, the only kind he knew,
but it was trust nonetheless.

“Before I go, I just want to say this one
thing,” he said, and stepped closer to the both of them. “I'm still
not sure where the hell it was you took me today, but you have my
word. I trust you not because the two of you have an impeccable
record. And I'm not trusting you simply because you're Mendaihu.”
He paused, letting himself come up with the right words. “Let's
just say I trust you because, while we were off in that...that
otherness
, I could read the two of you, as clearly as you
can probably read me. And what I saw, what I felt — I knew I could
trust wholly. You don’t need words or an oath, or anything else for
that matter, to gain my trust. You have it now, without question.”
He nodded graciously to them, a smile on his face. “Dehndarra Né
hra nyhndah, eicho d’eichi. Peace, love and light to you both.”

The shocked look on Ashan's face was
priceless. “...and to you, Agent Poe,” he managed, eyes wide.
“I...I didn't realize you followed the One that deeply.” Kai
giggled at him; apparently he’d left an impression on both of them
as well.

“There's quite a bit people don't realize
about me, Ashan,” he grinned. He turned and left.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Nehalé

The last time Nehalé Usarai sensed this much
excited energy in the air, he’d been a young Mendaihu in training,
running through the training fields and the emptied outpost towns
deep in the Wilderlands. He must have been no older than maybe
twelve years, and it had been his first training session away from
his family. He and a dozen other kids had been brought by their
sehndayen-ne
to an abandoned town far west of Bridgetown for
two weeks of real life experience. After three straight years of
theory and heavily monitored practice, they were now to live the
real thing, monitored only from a distance. Nehalé had been a
natural at leadership, and had managed to get the rest of the kids
involved in creating a miniature society of their own. He’d
assigned each kid according to their own ability and strength, and
within three days they were functioning as a living town of pure,
positive cho-nyhndah energy of both Mendaihu and Shenaihu. They had
passed the test with high marks, the highest for an Earth-based
test in decades. He would continue his training for years more, but
he would never forget the thrill he felt when they’d got that town
up and running, and that purity. It felt
right
somehow...he’d never felt that lovely balance before or since. It
had become his life’s aim to recreate that.

Nehalé had been listening carefully to the
spirits of Bridgetown for the past day and a half, focusing on the
changes in the air and the music that was the song of the soul. He
was desperate to witness the outcome of his Awakening ritual,
desperately hoping that he had done the right thing. He’d played an
extremely dangerous game with Fate that night…a Declaration of
Awakening of that magnitude had certainly upset the natural
harmonies of that music, creating dissonance and confusion. That
spiritual balance had nearly lost its way, nearly falling into
chaos. Only now, after it was all over and his head had cleared,
did he realize just how close he’d come to destroying that balance
and turning it into something worse than anything the Shenaihu
could have created. Only his strength, patience, and commitment to
finishing the ritual properly had kept that from happening. If it
were any other time, any other situation…any other
place
than Bridgetown, a mass awakening ritual would not have been
disastrous…it was only now, in this time and place, that such chaos
would be present. He wanted to think of it as an evolution, the end
of one cycle and the start of another, when the energies at play
were at their most sensitive, easily influenced by whatever wind
came by.

The spirits had found their voice again,
minutes after he’d completed his ritual. The silence that would
have followed, if the declaration had not worked, would have been
more painful, more torturous than if it hadn't been performed at
all. For if they had not sung…all would be lost. There would have
been no guardians to watch over this beloved planet. No balance of
Mendaihu and Shenaihu, only chaos.

Yet beyond all expectations, the Song
continued on. The overwhelming silence of sleeping spirits had
ended. It was
all
music now, filling every corner of the
city, every atom in the air. Spiritual energy once dissonant became
harmonic, the souls of the city reacting and interacting with each
other fluidly, and they were aware of it now. Every one of them out
there, they finally understood.

He had done the right thing after all,
despite his fears.

Nehalé pushed himself up and walked to the
edge of the apartment roof to get a better view of the city, and of
Branden Hill Park below him. At this time of day, he could find
many of the students from nearby Spender College enjoying a break
in their studies, and older neighbors sitting on the concrete
benches and enjoying the warm weather with a book or a picnic. A
few younger kids played ball in the field off to his left, where
the park made its slow arc down to Ormand Street. A young couple
lounged halfway up the hill on a blanket, leaning in close and
laughing quietly, gently touching each other like lovers would. A
few students gathered in a circle closer to the subway station near
the far south corner, having quite the animated discussion. Nehalé
laughed to himself, amused by the show of such positive energy from
everyone. He could feel it from here, warming him and beckoning him
to join in.

His lifted his head to face the Mirades
Tower. By sight, the dark monolith stood rock still and lifeless,
perhaps a reaction to what he’d put it through. The tower had a
magnificent barrier borne out of a network of intertwining energy
shields, created twenty years previous to protect those within from
any outside harm, physical or otherwise. This had been one of the
deciding factors on where to perform his ritual. While those within
may or may not have been affected, the barrier had definitely
shielded them from any further damage.

What he hadn’t expected, however, was the
change in the spirit song just outside the barrier.

Earlier today he’d heard the mesmerizing
refrains of that song of the spirits, clear as a lifted veil.
Otherworldly voices had swirled into his range of hearing, praising
the light and the life they had been given. The souls fed off the
light of that sun, just as the physical state craved nourishment;
the energy of that light replenished the soul, empowered it. The
potential for the soul to reach out and become more than itself
grew with this power.

They are the Gharné — the true ascendants of
Trisanda.

He closed his eyes and listened to the
thousands of spirit voices of this otherwise quiet neighborhood of
Branden Hill. They were all there, young and old, strong and
invalid, each one of them affected by his ritual. They were as yet
unaware of its true strength, only that they had woken up the next
morning feeling somehow refreshed. Many had simply written it off
as having had an especially restful night’s sleep. This positive
vibe had continued well into the next day, and it was of course
welcomed without question. All that time, Nehalé listened as the
energy of compassion and understanding ebbed and flowed through
each person, lifting them ever closer to an enlightenment they did
not know they deserved.

A whisper of air moved past him, sending a
shiver through his body. Someone was awake! Nehalé latched onto
that one breeze, that one thread of energy, brighter and keener
than any other energy surrounding him, following it as it surged,
spiraling in towards the Tower, and then up — the Tower acting as a
transmitter to the universes — and exploding into the air above it.
Regardless of the evil that might be hidden within those walls,
regardless of its unreflective black polycrete and glass, the Tower
served its intended Mendaihu purpose, filtering the souls' energies
with its surface, swirling together in a confluence above the
city.

The Rain of Light.

He dared not look with unveiled eyes…its
brilliance would blind him permanently. Instead he closed them and
faced skyward, and let the sensations speak for themselves. He felt
the Rain falling back down onto him and everyone around him like a
refreshing spring shower, washing away tension and frustration. He
reveled and embraced this Rain, the energy given up then given
back. Anything sent up into the stream came back revitalized and
multiplied by the light and energy of the sun and the universe.
Nehalé smiled, knowing now that his ritual had truly worked. The
Rain of Light washed through him, exciting every fiber, every nerve
within him. This is what he had awakened that night, more than any
other spirit in this city…he had awakened the Rain of Light, given
it motion and life.

And yet...he still felt the cold, and he
knew from whom it came.

The silencers remain,
he thought. He
breathed slowly, the affirmation calming his growing unease. The
cold…the imperfection in the Rain, the poison in the Soul, had
always been there, and always would be. The imbalance remained,
even past his cleansing, casting its own dark clouds.

It is time to congregate,
he thought,
letting out a sigh. He stood on the edge of the tenement building,
looking out over the Branden Hill neighborhood.

Listening, all was peaceful.

All is Light…

He stepped off the edge, into midair.
Stepped off midair into nothingness —

*

— and stepped back out of the nothingness
into midair with an almost inaudible snap of air, landing midstride
onto the sidewalk of Ormand Street in the McCleever District, still
west of the highway. Not that much of a distance from where he’d
been, perhaps a few miles at most. He found the pace of the
sidewalk crowds and wove himself through at a decent clip, sensing
and listening to the spiritsong within each person he passed by.
The mood was jovial here, expectant…these people knew what he’d
done, even if they hadn’t yet figured out he was now among them,
and they were eagerly awaiting the next phase.

Many had chosen to congregate in this
neighborhood, at the Sacred Church of Saint Patrick just down the
street. Once a disused house of worship nearly a century ago,
Followers of the One had resurrected it as a communal church for
the polytheistic believers of the Sprawl. As the Followers knew and
sensed their kind, and their practices were not restricted to
houses of worship, they had no spiritual claim on the building,
other than to retain its intended use. Those ostracized from their
own congregations, the spiritually curious, or those simply wishing
their own religious freedom were all welcome. Those who came
lately, however, were those deeply entrenched within the realm of
the One: the Warriors, the Prophets, the Elders, the Protectors,
and the Listeners, Nehalé included.

The awakened presence was strong here. The
church loomed before him, placed tightly in between two modern
office buildings. It was by no means grand architecture and had
been renovated and rebuilt many times over its history. But as one
of the few original churches left in the Provinces to survive
nearly seven hundred years of weather and human events, and thus
outlasting even recent Meraladian history, it was a rare vision of
the past and retained its simple beauty. The artistry in its
arches, the gentle reach of the spires, the dozen statues of saints
lining the walkway leading up to the front stairs, the ornately
colored glasswork depicting scenes of religious fervor…all of it
negated the sleek design of the utilitarian offices and tenements
surrounding it. It was beauty out of place.

He strolled up the walkway, climbed the
short stairs and stopped under the front portico to take in the
view. It was no more than thirty yards long and about twenty wide,
paved with concrete and lined with cobblestone accents. He
calculated by sight how many people could comfortably fit on the
front walkway, and came up with the absurdly low number of a few
hundred. He shook his head…no, this would be too small for what he
had in mind.

He opened up the heavy doors and stepped
into the narthex of the church, a dark yet warm presence enveloping
him in the wide and dimly lit front hall. Instantly he felt the
dizzying swirl of energies of the spiritsongs flooding the air, and
the sounds of the city outside fading to a muted hum. He took in a
deep breath of warm air and incense, and smiled.
Trisanda...
He closed his eyes. For a brief moment, he felt homesick for the
planet he had never set foot on. Trisanda, a paradise where all
souls were equal in the eyes of the One of All Sacred. The
homeworld where the Mendaihu and the Shenaihu were in perfect
balance with each other. He knew of no one who had actually been
there in his lifetime, and yet the ancient spiritual memories of
the Meraladhza were strong in each and every person here on this
planet. Trisanda, the ancestral homeworld of all here on
Gharra
. They would understand that, soon enough.