Consorts of Heaven (27 page)

Space Recovery
or
Planetfall
? I’m as sure as I can be, which isn’t very, that the only ships in orbit are mine and
theirs
, currently docked. I select
Planetfall.

And
Go.

I’m slammed back into the seat as the pod bursts free of the ship. On the instrument panel in front of me a blue light winks comfortingly. The text beside it says
Transponder activated
.

Oh no.
No, no, no
. We don’t want that. I reach out, fighting the gees from the pod’s ejection. I hold one elbow locked with my other hand. My outstretched fingers brush the light. Is it just an indicator or a switch? Let it be a switch, please let it be a switch. I press the light, my fingertip numb, my arm twitching from holding out against the pod’s thrust. My straight arm folds, flies back to bounce off the wall behind me. My other hand hits me in the mouth and I feel a burst of pain as my lip splits against a tooth.

The blue light is gone.

Then the acceleration’s gone too, and I’m lifting off the seat, in freefall. A larger impossible-to-miss sign lights up, flashing red
. Gel imminent: Brace and exhale

Gel? I should know what that means.

Then I find out.

Everything goes white and I’m engulfed in freezing goo. I remember, almost too late, to breathe out. The gel presses on my eyes, forces itself down my nose and throat, into my lungs.

I’m drowning, oh God I’m drowning—

No I’m not. Relax, let it in. No need to breathe. Just stay still and let it happen.

Not breathing, not moving, not panicking. In limbo. I feel movement again, in the distance. The pod lurches. Suspended in the gel, I don’t panic at first. Another lurch - an impact? Have I landed already? Too soon, surely. Or have
they
come after me, caught me and reeled me in? I’m in
their
cargo-bay now, and soon
they
’ll crack the pod and I’ll be back where I started . . . Except my gut tells me I’m still in zero-gee.

A third lurch. Now my body tells me I’m falling.

The pressure on my ears and eyes increases. The gel’s not cold any more. It’s warm, getting hot. I’m in atmosphere, but I’m not slowing down. Air too thin? No, people live here. Anyway, the ’chute should compensate. Something’s gone wrong—

Darkness presses on me, rises up inside me. Cold, comforting, safe darkness—No! Got to stay conscious, not give into the darkness. If I pass out now, then I’ll lose everything, the last of my memories, the last of me. Perhaps I won’t even—

 

—wake up.

Wooden beams, lit by a guttering flame. He was lying in a hard bed, under a ceiling made of wood, in a room where the only light came from an oil-lamp.

His name was Jarek Reen, but everyone here called him Sais. He was in a lodging house in the City of Light, and he had walked here from where his evac-pod had crash-landed.

His head hurt, though not so much that he couldn’t move it. He looked around the room. Someone was asleep in the other bed - Einon, the priest.

The last thing he remembered was Einon putting him under, hypnotising him to get his memory back - and it had worked, sort of. His past - Jarek Reen’s past - was all there. He had access to everything, though it didn’t feel quite real, not in the same way Kerin and Damaru and all the other people he’d met here felt real. He viewed his old life as if from a distance - hardly surprising, given how the memories of that life had been wrenched from him.

He knew now why he had come to this system, and what had happened to him when he got here. He knew how he had come to be on this planet.

Far from reassuring him, the knowledge terrified him.

Kerin was in the kitchen, kneading bread for Ebrilla, when Einon came in and announced that Sais had woken up and needed a drink. She wiped her hands and said, ‘I will take it to him, Gwas.’ Without waiting for a reply, she poured a mug of water from the jug.

‘He is still weak,’ said Einon anxiously, ‘and I believe his spirit is troubled. Do not vex him, woman!’

Kerin ignored him and ran up the stairs to find Sais sitting up in bed, staring into space.

‘I brought you a drink,’ she said redundantly.

He drained the mug and murmured, ‘Thank you.’ After a moment’s silence he added, ‘I’m sorry I worried everyone.’

‘Do not be; it is not your fault,’ said Kerin firmly. ‘But I must apologise to you. I am sorry for mistaking your intentions and making you the vessel for my hope. It was not your fault that I - I came to feel the way I did. And I was too proud to acknowledge that.’

Sais shook his head slowly. ‘It’s not your fault - I hated that I hurt you, Kerin. You’ve been through so much already.’

‘I am fine. Really, I am. And I forgive you. Do you forgive me?’

‘Oh, come here,’ he said, and held out his arms. She leaned down and let him hold her. It felt good: not a touch of passion, but of companionship.

She turned at the sound of a throat being cleared. Einon stood in the doorway, looking confused.

‘I should give you your room back,’ said Sais. ‘I’m sure you have work to do.’ He got up carefully. Kerin stood by, ready to assist. Einon waited by his desk like a monitor guarding treasure while they made their way out.

When Einon closed the door behind them Kerin said, ‘We left you in there because that is where you became ill. Do you remember? ’

‘Oh yes, I remember.’

Something in Sais’s tone chilled her. ‘What is wrong?

He shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

Kerin
hurrumphed
. ‘Do not tell me “nothing” when you have spent the last two days asleep and several weeks before that walking around in a daze!’

He looked at her with haunted eyes. ‘Oh, Kerin, part of me wishes I could—No, just—No. I think I should go back to my room.’

‘As you wish.’ Perhaps he would tell her later, when he had recovered fully. She shadowed him, ready to help. When he got back to the room he shared with Fychan he said, ‘I assume Fychan is still out enjoying the delights of City life?’

Kerin frowned. ‘No, he - the Cariad invoked Gras Cenadol with him at the presentation.’

‘What? You mean she - she wanted to sleep with him?’

‘I assume so. He has not come back yet.’

‘Oh shit.’ Sais sat down heavily on his bed. He muttered something under his breath that sounded like, ‘But she’s . . .’ Suddenly he punched his hands down hard. ‘I have to go,’ he announced, no longer sounding vague with worry, but driven by fear.

‘Go where?’

‘Anywhere - I’m putting you in danger by being here. It’ll be better for you, and for me, if I walk out and keep walking. I’ve caused you enough trouble already.’ He stood up shakily.

‘You are leaving? Now?’ She strode over to the door, slammed it shut and stood in front of it. ‘I think not.’

‘Kerin, what the—?’

‘Get back into bed.’ She uncrossed her arms long enough to point at the bed, in case he failed to understand. ‘Lie down. I will bring food, and send for a healer. Unless you would prefer Einon examine you? Perhaps not, given t’was his meddling that caused the problem.’

He did not move. ‘What problem?’

‘When you first awakened in my hut, you had the power of speech and you had sense, but you had no recollection of your past. Now it seems you have lost your senses as well!’

‘You don’t give up, do you? The problem isn’t that I’ve lost my senses. The problem is I’ve got them back - and my memory.’

‘You have? This is good news, surely?’

‘Not as good as you think.’

‘Why not? Tell me - are we not friends?’

‘Yes, we are. And that’s why I can’t explain. I’m trying to protect you!’

‘From what?’

‘Not what, who,’ he muttered. ‘Please don’t ask, Kerin. You really, really don’t want to know.’

‘You are the one who insisted I am so strong! Strong enough to save myself, you said - but not strong enough for the truth? Or were you lying when you talked about respect and admiration and all those feelings men never have for women?’

‘I’ve never lied to you, Kerin.’

‘No, you have not. So why will you not tell me this great and terrible secret you have suddenly discovered?’

‘Because you’ll be happier not knowing,’ he whispered. ‘Please, don’t ask me to explain. Just let me go.’

‘If you think the purpose of my life is to be happy, then you do not understand me as well as you think. And I will
not
let you just walk out without a word.’ She had never stood up to any man like this. Some of her defiance came from the knowledge that he would not raise a hand to her, but she also felt a passion of the spirit that she had no name for. ‘Tell me why you are so afraid. And if your fear makes sense to me, then go with my blessing.’

‘No, you—What can I say to convince you that you don’t want to know this?’

‘Nothing! You claim to respect me - so give me the truth!’

‘You’ll think I’m mad.’

‘Let me be the judge of that,’ she said more gently.

His shoulders sagged. ‘All right, but you’re either not going to believe me, or you’ll hate me forever.’

‘So be it.’

He sat down again and moved along the bed to make room for her. ‘You’ll need to sit down for this. Alcohol would help, but we don’t have any.’

She sat next to him, suddenly afraid. Perhaps he was right, perhaps she should let him keep his terrible secret.

He took a deep breath. ‘First off, I don’t come from this world.’

‘What you do you mean, “this world”? The world is the world - Heaven, Creation and the Abyss. If you mean you come from a distant land, somewhere beyond the mountains where life is very different, then that I can well believe.’

‘No, I mean another
world
.’ He looked apologetic. ‘I’ll understand if you say I’m damned, or mad, but you asked for the truth.’

‘Aye, I did. So what is
this
world then? I might wish the Abyss did not exist, though the priests tell us otherwise. But we can see the Mothers in the sky, every night!’

‘The stars aren’t goddesses, Kerin. They’re suns, like—’

‘No! This is blasphemy!’ She turned to go, rather than hear any more unthinkable, impossible words - but his expression, sad, almost pitying, stopped her. ‘How can you believe such things?’ she whispered, in no doubt that he truly did.

‘I believe in what I’ve seen.’ He sighed. ‘But I’ll understand if you don’t want to know.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I have to know.’ She focused on the lesser heresy. ‘You say there is more than one world. Please, explain how that can be.’

‘For a start, this world isn’t a flat plain, it’s a globe, like - like an apple. Imagine we live on the outside of a massive apple, so big we don’t know we’re on it.’

‘We would fall off.’

‘You’d think so, but there’s a force that keeps us, well, stuck to the surface.’

What a bizarre idea. ‘And what about Heaven? Is it all around this apple that we are somehow stuck to?’

‘Yes, it is - and the sun is a far bigger globe, and it shines like the light-globes outside. Our globe - our apple - goes around it.’

If this was sense, then she was a skyfool. ‘And where are the moons in this strange world of yours?’

They’re smaller than the world, your globe, but closer, and they go round it.’

‘And the globe we live on goes around the sun? How can that be when we see the moons and the sun travel across the sky?’

‘They just
seem
to, from the globe’s surface. It’s an illusion, like - like when you look down the street at night and the light-globe on the corner appears tiny compared to the one outside. And if you walk past the window with the shutters open at night and look out at the globe across the street it looks like it’s moving across the open window, doesn’t it?’

‘I suppose it does.’ Though Kerin could not imagine how these globes moved, when he described it that way it sounded plausible. And intriguing.

‘It’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s the theory. Now here’s the difficult bit.’

Despite herself Kerin laughed. ‘Oh good, it gets hard now, does it?’

‘Yes, and I’m impressed you’ve managed to keep up this far. Right. This world - this . . . apple and its light globe and its moons, all that stuff, it’s just one world. And there are many, many worlds like - like embers swirling up from a fire.’

Kerin tried to picture every ember as a tiny glowing land - no, a round world with its own sun and moons. The thought made her dizzy. Every answer prompted more questions. But he had not yet answered the most obvious one. ‘Sais, even if it is true - and I am not saying I believe you - why should remembering that the world is this way suddenly make you want to flee for your life?’

‘Because there are people out there in the sky, people from another globe, another light in the darkness, and they’re my enemies. They’re called the Sidhe. If they find I’m here, they’ll come after me.’

‘Then why have these Sidhe not found you yet? You have been here the best part of a season, and you have hardly been hiding! On the contrary, we have told people about you everywhere we have been!’

‘Perhaps they thought I was dead. The way I escaped from them was pretty risky. And once I was down here, on your world, they had no easy way to find me. Only now—’

‘Only now
what
? What has changed?’ He had merely been preoccupied and subdued until she told him about Fychan being called into the Tyr. You said “who” earlier - do you mean the Cariad? Is this about the Daughter of Heaven?’ Kerin raised her arm to trace the circle, then stopped with her hand halfway to her breast, suddenly self-conscious.

In the silence that followed, Kerin heard a door bang downstairs. Finally Sais said, ‘Kerin, I’m sorry, she’s not the “Beloved Daughter of Heaven”, or whatever title she uses.’