Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra (32 page)

The chant died away to a whisper.

The sanctuary shimmered in sparkling silence. Yarden looked at the faces of those around her. Bathed in the soft violet light, each was a mask of intense animal expectation—relaxed and ready, features slack, eyes alert, but vacant and inhuman. Yarden turned away from the sight of those blank faces and cringed back in her seat.

She forced her eyes back to the front of the sanctuary where a smaller pyramid, radiating a pinkish light from within, rose slowly up behind the row of priests. When the radiant pyramid came to a stop, suspended in the air above the priests, a seam opened in its side and it split into two halves, scattering rays of rosy light through the smoke-drenched air of the temple.

A faint, wispy music accompanied the opening of the pyramid—less music than the sound of air rushing over the mouthpiece of a flute, or wind sounding the open mouths of empty jars. From within the luminous pyramid came a voice, deep and sonorous. It spoke as from the depths of some dark recess, echoing through the sanctuary:

“Hear your god and remember!”

The celebrants responded in one resounding voice: “Trabant be praised!”

“I am Lord of the Astral Planes. The Shikroth and Ekante belong to me.”

“Trabant be praised!”

“You who live and breathe are mine. Your hands are my hands, your feet my feet, your voices my voice. I am in you as you are in me.”

“Trabant be praised!”

“The Houses of Light and Darkness belong to me. The Seraphic Spheres hear my voice.”

“Trabant be praised!”

Although the words meant nothing to her, as Yarden listened, the words entered her. The voice took control of her mind and pulled her consciousness along with it.

She saw a picture in her head: bright, transparent orbs of light, swirling with color over luminous clouds. One of the spheres hovered in the center of the others, grew larger and larger until it blotted out all the others, and then shrank away, becoming the pupil of a gigantic eye. The eye in turn divided, becoming two eyes; below the eyes, lips formed a mouth. The mouth uttered the incomprehensible words of the voice from the pyramid.

“From Everlasting the Golim have sought me. The oversouls of the departed stand naked before me.”

“Trabant be praised!”

Yarden looked and could not keep herself from looking. The voice altered, took on a slightly higher pitch, became female. At the same instant the eyes and mouth became a female face attached to a female form. The body wore a glistening, filmy raiment and floated just above the iridescent clouds. The sky behind the figure convulsed with vibrant color, melding from red to blue to green to orange and back again almost simultaneously. The woman spread her lithe arms wide and said, “Come to me. Bring me the gift of your minds. Make your wills a fragrant sacrifice. Feed me with your desires. Put your flesh on the bones of my perfect way.”

“Trabant be praised!”

“Your praises are the liquor of sweet communion. Your bodies are the mansions of my pleasure. Come to me that you may know me as I know you. Taste the life that death steals so quickly.”

“Trabant be praised! Trabant be praised! Trabant be praised!” The voices of the celebrants rumbled in unison, escalating in volume as their features quickened. Many were standing now, reaching out their hands toward the floating pyramid. “Trabant be praised!”

Yarden felt herself rising toward the figure, her arms stretching out to the opened pyramid and its vibrating light, pangs of longing overwhelming her. In her mind the Trabant Woman looked at her with half-closed eyes, a sensual smile on her full lips.

“Come to me,” she said breathlessly. “Consummate our love on the altar of pleasure and delight. Come to me.”

The Trabant parted her lips with the tip of her tongue. Her head tilted back as her hands spread the shimmering garment and held it open, revealing full breasts, a firm, flat stomach, and shapely thighs. “Come to me.” Trabant's voice was a whispered seduction. “Come … to … me!”

Yarden felt an ache in her loins, and her hips began moving rhythmically as around her the entire congregation swayed together. Her hands played over her body and then other hands joined hers. Yarden opened her eyes and saw that a man stood before her, stripped to the waist, his skin glistening in the rosy light of the pyramid.

She moaned. The man's hands were under her yos, roaming over her body, and she felt her flesh alive under his touch. She pressed herself against him, and he embraced her. Their mouths met hungrily and Yarden yielded to the kiss, clutching at her unknown lover.

The voice of the Trabant, now husky with passion, spoke inside her head. “I am your master. Feel me inside you. I will never let you go!”

An image of unspeakable horror flashed in Yarden's mind. She saw a vast host of corpses rising from a putrid swamp, writhing as decaying flesh fell from their long bones. The corpses mingled and, began to caress one another, lipless teeth against shiny bone.

Bile churned up into Yarden's throat as a staggering wave of revulsion swept through her. The man before her, now naked in her arms, grasped her and pulled her to him. A dread as powerful and black as any she had ever known descended upon her, and she thrust the man away. He pulled at her, clawed her, his face contorted with lust.

“Give me your body!” demanded the Trabant. “Give me your soul!”

“Don't give in!” Yarden recognized the voice as her own, even though she did not know herself to have spoken. “I won't give in!” she said louder.

The Trabant became even more insistent. “Worship me and I will fill your life with pleasure. Come to me—let me satisfy all your longings.”

Never!
Yarden struck at the man before her with all her might. She caught him off balance as he pressed toward her, and he went down on his backside. Yarden whirled and pushed into the aisle, now swarming with the sprawling, convulsing bodies of men and women mingled in grotesque couplings. Stumbling over the conjoined pairs, she fought her way up the aisle to the doors where she crouched unseen and tried to push from her mind the awful ceremony being consummated around her.

Hold out,
she told herself. They can't touch you as long as you don't give in to them. Hold out!

The
last of the metal doors slammed shut behind them as Treet and Calin emerged from the debris-littered passageway that led to the Archives. Two Nilokerus sentries stood at their posts, looking bored and indifferent. Neither of the men gave them so much as a cursory glance, staring ahead, faces nearly covered by their crimson hoods. As Treet and his guide moved abreast of them, however, one of the guards stepped forward. He had a hand on Treet's arm before Treet knew what was happening.

“You will come with me, please,” said the man, pulling Treet close. “Quickly! There is not much time.”

Treet jerked back, but the man hung on. “What's going on? Let me go!”

Calin froze. “These are not Nilokerus!” she said.

The other guard stepped up, taking Calin by the shoulder. “No, we are not Nilokerus. Come with us, please. We only want to talk to you.”

“We can talk here,” said Treet, prying the first sentry's hand loose from his arm. “Start talking—and it better be good and interesting.”

The first guard signaled the other one, who released his hold on Calin. He slipped the hood back from his face. “We have information for you about your friends.”

Treet's head snapped up. “What about them? Talk!”

“We are instructed to tell you—but only if you come with us,” answered the second sentry, still within clutching distance of Calin.

“No, you have it backwards. First you tell us, then we go … maybe.” Treet put all the authority into his voice that he could muster.

“The change of guard is expected any moment. If they find us here—” began the first.

“Then quit wasting time and talk. So far you're not saying anything interesting.”

A glance passed between the two false guards, and the first one made up his mind. “Your friends are being held by enemies. We know where they are.”

“Where are they?”

“If you come with us, we will tell you.”

“What enemies?”

“Your enemies.”

“I don't have any enemies,” replied Treet. But that wasn't exactly true.
Everyone
here was a potential enemy. “Calin, what's he talking about?”

Calin stared at the sentry. “You are …
Dhogs.”
She said the word as if it were lethal.

Treet worked his mouth to speak. The first guard cut him off. “Listen!”

Footsteps echoed in the corridor beyond. “The Nilokerus are coming. You must come with us now. We can tell you no more.”

Treet still hesitated. “No. Tell me where my friends are.”

“We will take you to them.”

“You said they were being held by enemies. How can you take me to them?”

“No time to explain,” said the second guard hurriedly. He gestured to the corridor. “Come with us now!”

The footsteps sounded closer. Treet had to make up his mind. He was disinclined to go with the two men, but if it was true that they knew something about his friends—as apparently they did— if they could put him in touch with them—that was perhaps worth the gamble. “You will help me reach them?”

“Yes,” replied the first sentry without hesitation.

Treet glanced at Calin; she had overcome her initial shock. Whoever they were, the Dhogs did not frighten her. “Okay, we'll go with you,” said Treet at last.

Just then two figures appeared in the vestibule and advanced toward them. The false sentry nearest Calin put his hand under his yos and started to withdraw it. His companion telegraphed a quick warning with his eyes, and the man concealed the hand once more.

The new guards came ahead slowly.

“Go and wait for us at the end of the corridor,” whispered the first sentry. “Now!”

Treet nodded to Calin and stepped forward. The two new guards looked at each other and then stopped them. “Is all in order here?” one of them asked.

“They have the Supreme Director's authorization, Hageman,” replied the first false guard. “We have checked.”

“Then be on your way,” said the Nilokerus guard to Treet.

Treet and Calin continued on. As they reached the place where the vestibule joined the main corridor, they heard a voice utter a surprised exclamation. A sharp snap, like the crack of a whip, cut the air. A second snap sounded—an instantaneous echo of the first. Treet looked back in time to see one of the Nilokerus stagger and go down, his face smouldering. His companion, weapon in hand, was gazing in disbelief at a smoking hole in his stomach. The man toppled backward, his head cracking on the stone floor. The body rippled once and lay still.

The false guards came flying toward Treet. He stared at the two bodies and at the sooty smoke still rising from their wounds. One of the men grabbed him and spun him away. “Hurry!” he shouted and Treet was yanked along the blue-tiled corridor, his mind reeling with the horror of the violence he had just witnessed. He felt his stomach squirm and heave; he swallowed hard and allowed himself to be propelled from the scene.

Yarden felt hands reach
out to take her arms, felt herself being guided through the milling crush of bodies leaving the temple. Her eyes, soft and unfocused, stared dazedly ahead. She let herself be pulled along, unresisting, uncaring, her mind numb from the assault practiced upon it in the temple. She felt as if she had been raped.

It had taken every last grain of strength to resist the insidious presence of the Trabant. She had escaped—barely—but was exhausted, unable to fight anymore. She would return with Bela and the others to the Hage, or they would go somewhere and perform. It didn't matter. The Service—an orgy so hideous and unthinkable that her spirit recoiled from it as from the kiss of a corpse—was over and she had escaped. That's all she cared about.

They moved slowly down the long ramp, Yarden on wooden, unfeeling legs. Celebrants, sated and spent from their grotesque revelry, pressed in around her, but the hands still guided her. She turned to see who held her. “Bela?”

“Shhh, say nothing,” instructed the woman beside her. She wore the turquoise and silver of the Chryse, but Yarden did not recognize her as belonging to their troupe.

They reached the foot of the ramp, and two guides pulled her quickly away, dodging among the retreating celebrants as they hurried across the white square to the shelter of a standing row of trees. Something in their movements—so quick and furtive and sure— assured Yarden that these were not members of her troupe. They were strangers, and they were leading her away from her Hagemen.

Let them take me where they will, she thought. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters anymore. I am lost.

They came to a place along the path out of sight from those following. They stopped. “Will you come with us?” asked the foremost guide, still clutching her arm.

“I don't know you,” said Yarden, peering into their faces. What was that she saw there? Concern? These people cared about her. Why?

“No, you don't know us, but we are friends. We have been following you.”