A Division of Souls - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe (50 page)

“Each province and settlement has one or
more Rains, spirits who have passed from this plane but have not
yet ascended for one reason or another. Some are lost souls that
have forgotten their way, but eventually they remember their True
Fate and move on. Most Rain spirits, however…they are here
permanently, by choice. Normally they are there to assist those
still on this plane.”

“How do they assist?” Caren asked. “And how
long have they been here?”

Kai reached out and touched her on the arm.
“They’ve been there for as long as humans have been on Gharra. It’s
only been recently, with the arrival of the Meraladians that we’ve
been able to recognize them. I believe our heightened consciousness
in spiritual matters — the Mendaihu and the Shenaihu, for instance
— has something to do with that. However…I think we’ve
underestimated the Rain of Light this time out.”

“We?” Caren said. “You mean Nehalé.”

“I mean
all
of us,” she answered,
waving her hands wide. “I mean the Gharné, the Meraladhza,
everyone. I personally thought these sentient spirits were always
benevolent. These kinds of spirits usually are.” She paused,
looking upwards at the lighter cloud cover. She sensed that these
outer clouds were simply condensation gathered up by the Rain,
harmless in their being and action.

“Something may have disrupted them,” she
said. “I believe the Rain has been…
injured
somehow.”

“The nuhm’ndah?” Poe offered.

“Perhaps…” Kai shrugged. “Although I don’t
know how the Shenaihu could possibly have had a part in it.
Unless…” She stopped in thought.

“Unless that was his reason for the
Awakening,” Caren said. “He must have tried to get Denni — I mean
the One of All Sacred, to Awaken as protection from something the
nuhm’ndah had done. Or was going to do. It’s not the first time,
right? This must be…” She shook her head, angry and exhausted at
the same time. It sounded so easy, they should have figured this
out that first day! This had been the missing motive all along, and
they’d just been too blind to see it.

“This
is
the same thing,” Kai
finished. “The Rain of Light must not be meddled with. Deliberate
disruption of spirits in Rain manifestation is dangerous…some
spirits could be easily swayed towards chaos, especially the lost
ones. Very much like stirring up a hive. If one spirit is pushed in
the wrong direction — say, as a slave to the Shenaihu or to the
Mendaihu, to pit against one another — there’s a
very
high
probability more will sway to its side. That may explain
yesterday’s attacks, to some extent.”

Goddess,
Caren shuddered. Did that
man even know what the hell he was doing when he set off that
ritual?

“Sure…but ordinary people?” Poe said. “These
were B-Towners attacking the church. Not ethereal spirits!”

“They must have been directed somehow,” she
said, frowning. “Spirits have been known to cohabit with the
original in its body. Citizen or not, innocents were used and
slaughtered by twinning souls. It’s been done countless times
before.”

“Who would do that?” Caren winced in
revulsion. “Who in their right mind would even
contemplate
doing that?”

“The Dahné, Natianos Lehanna,” Ashan said.
“The leader of the nuhm’ndah here in Bridgetown. No one knows quite
what he has in mind, but there’s no doubt he could pull this
off.”

“And?”

“…and I personally believe he’s twisted
enough to do it. He knew who was behind the…um…” he faltered,
averting his eyes from Caren. “I’m
certain
that he knew who
killed your parents, Karinna. He must have been the one to request
the case be shut down unsolved.”

Goddess…even you?
Caren seared her
anger into Ashan, regardless of the psychic pain he’d received
earlier.
Who else knows more than I do about my own parents? Why
have I deliberately been kept in the dark for so fucking
long?

Chief Inspector Farraway. That bastard
had
to have known all this time.

Ashan winced and shied away, but spiritually
he was of stone.
Many know, though I cannot say I know who they
are, just that they kept quiet to protect Denysia and yourself,
Karinna. Believe me when I tell you this: you would
not
have survived had you known when it happened. You were not yet
ready…though you are more than qualified now.

Damn you!
Caren squeezed her eyes
shut tight and fought the urge to release the windstorm of anger
that welled inside her. It billowed and ate at her, consuming her
own will, and it had begun to scare her. She felt the tears rolling
down her face, realizing they were not tears of rage but of fear.
She recoiled from her own fear, sought the solace of the here and
now…

…
Denysia…

…and brushed off the hand that Kai had
extended. She would not accept, nor ask for a soulhealer, not now.
She had had enough of running from that past. She would finally
face this pain once and for all.

Denysia…gods, please! Please, be safe,
Den…

“No,” she said to Kai, as quietly and evenly
as she could. “Thank you, but no.” Then, to Ashan: “I do apologize,
my
eicho
. That will not happen again.”

Ashan accepted her apology with a silent
nod.

“Well…” Kai said eventually. “I think I know
what Poe had in mind. Although I can’t say whether or not it will
work. The hrrah-sehdhyn could act like a barrier for the Rain, if
there were someone or something grounding it. What Nehalé had in
mind was the awakening of the Rain. The nuhm’ndah had planned to
keep it within those five points, thus keeping it all within a
confined space. We’d need a spiritual link — the four of us, two on
either side of the pentagon border. Two to go in and act as the
conductor, two to act as the ground. The best we can hope for is to
contain the cloud in the area. Our goal would be to drain it of
energy.”

“It’ll work very much like a lightning rod,”
Poe said. “I’ve heard about it…never seen it done, though.”

Kai nodded with a smile directed at him, and
proceeded to explain the steps they would have to take within the
next hour or so, if they were going to stop or at least calm the
storm. Caren listened with the rapt attention she gave her ARU
position. The Alien Relations Unit certainly had its share of
spiritual cases outside of its normal interspecies workload…but
this, in Caren’s eyes, had to be some sort of crowning
achievement.

Denysia…
Caren pursed her lips and
tried hard not to let the tears well up in her eyes as she focused
on her sister. She so desperately wanted to be with her right now,
to be there when she needed her help the most. If it meant going in
to uncertain territory…if it meant facing something she did not
fully understand let alone trust…she would do it for her. She would
do anything for her.

“I’m going in,” she said. “It would only
make sense.”

Poe nodded. “I’m going with her.”

Caren smiled, still choking back tears, and
caressed her partner’s back.
Thank you, Alec,
she said to
him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Consequence

…Denni picked herself up off the grass.

Grass?

She was facing a line of trees bent from the
wind, set back and slightly downhill, marking the edge of an
outcropping of grass and rocks. A small footpath cut through the
brush and down towards…? She was at the Crest again. How had she
gotten up here? That’s right…Nehalé had taken her away from the
warehouse and stepped into Light. So why here? Why now? Frustrated,
she shook the jumble of questions out of her head, and faced the
city.

Above the storm front, it was clear as
day.

She caught her breath. The immense, muddy
gray clouds hovered over the city, obscuring the entirety of it
save the uppermost floors of the Mirades Tower. Its weather beacon
blinked in a steady warning pattern, almost in time with the sway
of the searchlights that tried in vain to cut a swath through the
storm. She felt an icy chill…an inner chill that dulled her senses
and made her lethargic. She stepped back, for all the good it would
do, and willed herself not to fall prey to it. She remembered her
conversation with Ampryss, and shuddered.

Denysia
. Amna was calling out to her.
Denysia…do not worry. I am only waiting.
She was close by,
though she could not tell where.

Amna? Where are you?

“She is safe,” he said behind her.

“Nehalé!” she gasped, startled by his voice.
“Why are we up here? Where’s Amna?”

Nehalé bowed his head, but it seemed more
out of shame than reverence. He was well aware that he’d been the
cause of all the events up to this point, and he could no longer
hide from the guilt. “I brought you up here, Denysia, so you can
see what is happening from a distance,” he said quietly, a hint of
anxiety in his voice. He gestured at the blanketed sprawl with a
sweeping hand. “The Rain of Light…the cloud covering you see before
you…”

“It’s consuming us,” Denni said gravely. She
bit her lip and watched the cloud cover in silence, holding her
arms tight around her in another attempt to escape the chill. It
was so ominous, so
unnatural
to her. When she was last up in
that otherwhere, this was exactly what she’d seen, knowing what it
was even before she could understand it. She’d seen thousands of
satellite clouds like this, covering nearly all the cities up and
down the coast, even in the inner Wilderlands. “I had hoped this
wouldn’t happen,” she continued. “I’d hoped I could have avoided
everything by accepting those two Shenaihu women.” As soon as she’d
said it, she knew that would not have made a difference. Something
else…something to placate the Rain of Light, to retain the balance,
had to be performed.

“That was the problem,” Nehalé said. “You
see, it was your simple act of unconditional love that took them by
surprise. The Shenaihu are not always as peaceful as the Mendaihu
may be, Denysia. The Mendaihu tribe is the spiritual manifestation,
they gather intellectually; it is their nature. The Shenaihu are
the physical manifestation of the Trisandi energy. They gather
physically, as that is
their
nature. The nuhm’ndah are
Shenaihu extremists...they gather out of a deep physical
want
.”

“I understand that now,” Denni said. She
shifted position again in another attempt to keep warm. Where was
this cold snap coming from? Outside the Rain of Light, it was a
humid eighty-three degrees and not a cloud in the sky. She eyed the
Rain again and huffed. There was something she had to do, to clear
it all, make it all good again. But how?

“Denysia?” Nehalé said. “Are you all
right?”

“I’m fine,” she said, waving him off.
“So…what I don’t understand is what’s going on now. You caused
this, Nehalé Usarai. You caused the Rain of Light to wake itself up
when you woke
me
up. But I am equally to blame now. It
reacted when I touched those two women, as mundane as that act may
be. Perhaps it resonated with my actions?”

Nehalé nodded. “I’m certain that’s it.”

“What I don’t understand is why the Rain is
acting the way it is. ”

“Here,” he said, and held out a hand. “Let
me show you.”

*

“Denysia.” Amna’s voice was clear now,
speaking aloud. She felt her hand on her shoulder as her eyes
adjusted to the brighter and sharper view. This was just like when
she was at Branden Hill, when she was up in that otherwhere. This
was Lightseeing. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you just then,” her
friend said. “Nehalé told me I’d be safer here.”

“I agree with him. Things aren’t looking…”
She stopped in midsentence as she began to turn around and face the
city below…

…and saw instead one giant, swirling spiral
of light, and the eye of its hurricane hovering over the Waterfront
Sector, specifically over the Moulding Warehouse. All was Light.
She saw the energies of the world, felt them and understood them.
Down below, in the city, the Rain of Light had condensed to such a
degree that it had become a small sun, scattered arms of Light
pulling human energies ever closer to its center. If it had not
been so close and so threatening, she would have accepted the
spiral’s majestic beauty. It closely resembled a galaxy formation,
in a way…

Galaxy,
she thought.

That’s it!
She turned wide-eyed at
the two of them, and waved her hands frantically as she fought to
speak words quicker than she could come up with them. She abruptly
giggled at herself, remembering that gesture as one of her mother’s
personal quirks, and began to pace as she spoke.

“We can contain it,” she said. “We can bring
it back to its dormancy again. All we need is someone to gather
it.”

Nehalé seemed to twitch at her suggestion.
“It’s highly unstable, Dearest One,” he said. Other words hung in
the air, waiting to be said, but he would never dare to call the
One of All Sacred crazy. “Who would have the strength to handle a
Gathering?”

“Pool our resources,” Amna said. “I’m sure
Den could handle it on her own. It’s just a matter of someone being
there to keep everything grounded.”

Denni hid a shiver by fidgeting again.
Nervous energy coursed through her body, a mixture of excitement
and intense conviction. Caren and the others were most likely
thinking the same thing, and were acting on it already. This was an
idea Poe would have come up with as well; he of all people would
understand the sheer magnitude of attempting to realign the balance
of such a force of energy.

“Protectors of the One are there for that
reason, aren’t they?” Denni said. “Caren and Alec are somewhere
down there, with Kai and Ashan. They’ll know what to do.” She
nodded towards the Waterfront. She held her gaze at the swirling
mass of Light and energy for a moment, watching its imminent threat
and impossible beauty. She could tell from this distance that its
epicenter was over the warehouse, and there was indeed precious
little time left.