Eternity's Mind (64 page)

The Shana Rei were tearing apart the Confederation and the Ildiran Empire, and nothing could stop them. Earth had been destroyed, the CDF and the Solar Navy decimated. And her brother Rod'h was trapped among the shadows, beyond any hope of rescue—joined now by Tamo'l. Osira'h agonized over that, but she could not help them, no matter what she tried.

For Reyn, though, she had an idea, another desperate chance.…

Osira'h said to Peter and Estarra, “I have to make the attempt. Even if it fails, I need to try. I'm going—by myself. I think maybe the Onthos can help. Their disease, his disease—different, but both are connected to the trees.”

Estarra scowled. “They murdered my sister, and they're killing the trees. They won't be inclined to help.”

Osira'h couldn't articulate her reasoning or her hope. She could only say, “I've asked everyone else. Your green priests insist on preserving the Gardeners, and the verdani won't let them die. They must have something to offer.”

She felt isolated and alone as her private flyer crossed the narrow sea to the other continent. Though she was far from the gigantic struggle taking place, Osira'h could sense great turmoil throughout the Ildiran Empire. Mage-Imperator Jora'h was under impossible strain, and his anguish was like a high-pitched wail in her mind. With her closer sibling bond, she experienced similar desperation from Gale'nh, as well as Muree'n.

Building in intensity, she felt a smothering struggle tempered by a desperate hope: Tamo'l and Rod'h were doing their best to resist the Shana Rei inside their void prison. So many wildfires of crisis building to an out-of-control blaze, so many people pulling on their last energy to make a final stand. So many …

Osira'h knew she would be on her own to help Reynald. She was cut off from the other battles against darkness, but she could fight for
him.

She landed her flyer outside the miles-wide swath of dead trees. Up to the blight's boundary, the dense worldforest seemed lush and peaceful, although she was aware of the dark disease churning beneath its surface. The Theron home guard and green priests had fought against the Gardeners, and they had begun blasting away the already-dead trees where the Onthos had built their fortress. But when General Keah had arrived announcing the destruction of Earth, King Peter had rushed back to the capital, leaving only a contingent here to contain the Onthos. The Gardeners hadn't made any further moves.

Emerging from her ship, Osira'h met a haggard-looking military commander and the green priest Zaquel, both uncomfortable with the standoff. The commander said, “They haven't tried to attack, but we know they're breeding in there. They'll infest the whole worldforest.”

Zaquel said, “The Onthos spore mothers need healthy worldtrees to reproduce. By bottling them up in the dead section, we can stop them from multiplying further—for now.” She sighed. “But the worldforest is still dying. The blight that afflicts the trees and the Gardeners afflicts the entire universe.”

“And Prince Reynald, too. We need to cure one piece at a time,” Osira'h said. “If we can.”

She walked past the barricade line, and no one tried to stop her. She stepped in among the fallen brown trees, the smashed branches and splintered wood. She picked her way carefully into the desolate area. Osira'h heard a rustle in the branches and saw that the Onthos were all around her. The smooth-skinned aliens peered down at her, seemingly frightened and angry.

“There's a disease inside you,” she shouted. “You know it. You can feel it. Why do you choose not to cure yourselves?”

The Gardeners chittered. More of them came, as she waited for an answer. Finally one of the aliens stepped forward. “The darkness is in us, and it is integral to us.”

“My friend is dying of a similar thing,” she said. “But you're not dying. How do you still function? How can I save him?”

The spokesman—Ohro, she assumed, or another just like him—said, “Would you save your friend if the cost was to let him succumb to shadows?”

Osira'h wasn't sure how she would respond to that terrible choice. “Others are fighting. You have surrendered, but the people of Theroc, the human Confederation, the Ildiran Empire, the green priests, the verdani, the faeros—” Inside herself, she felt a rush of heat, a burning urgency. She linked tightly with her siblings, Gale'nh and Muree'n both adding strength, making a clear connection … to Rod'h! And Tamo'l!

Deep inside the smothering blackness, she suddenly felt fire, a welcome blaze of light. Rod'h had done it. He had called the faeros. Osira'h gasped. The searing light raced along her mental connection with her siblings. They smashed open the floodgates and used their own special abilities to let the fiery elementals inside.

Osira'h experienced a swelling wave of triumph from both of them. She sensed what her siblings had done, and she knew they were gone in an instant. She could experience the fire, the exhilaration, the pain … and she knew the incredible blow they had dealt to the Shana Rei. She was proud of what they had done, and grief-stricken to know they were gone.

As the incandescent pain burned and broke the telepathic connection between them, Osira'h's body hunched over, as if a seizure had shaken her entire being.

The Onthos reacted as well, but their agony seemed different and deeper—and it went on far longer. Tamo'l and Rod'h had been consumed in an instant, and their psychic cry fell silent inside her mind, but the Onthos continued to gasp and hiss. Something fundamental had been ripped out of them.

They began to drop from the high branches like rotting fruit, falling from the brown boughs of the worldtrees they had killed. One struck the ground beside her with a loud thud and snap of bones. Many crashed down from great heights, while others were impaled on the broken wood they had left strewn around. Dozens lay dead from the fall, while others slid down from the trees, bleeding, exhausted. Broken.

Even as Osira'h tried to comprehend what had just happened, she listened to the dwindling agony of the Gardeners. Their wails became whimpers.

Finally, one of the creatures picked himself up, stunned, barely able to maintain his balance. “I did not think we could be cured or saved, but the shadows are burned out of us now. The blight has been extinguished within.”

Other Onthos came forward shaking and confused as if they had just awakened from a deep slumber. “We surrender,” said Ohro. “Take us back to Father Peter and Mother Estarra. We have many things to tell them.”

Though she could feel the raw wound inside herself after what Rod'h and Tamo'l had just done, Osira'h also had another urgent need. “And Prince Reynald?”

Ohro looked at her, pondered for a moment, and said, “He has a different disease, but we will see what we can do.”

 

CHAPTER

125

ELISA ENTURI

The bloaters in the cluster sparked like fireworks, their nuclei flaring bright in random signals—but Elisa cared only about the damage they had done to Lee Iswander's scout pod. She had watched him on the comm screen, heard him begging her—and then the energy burst slammed into the vulnerable craft. All his systems had failed, and now his pod drifted dark and silent, showing no energy signature whatsoever, no engines, no comm, no life-support readings.

Elisa sprang into action. She forgot her ultimatum to Garrison because none of that mattered. Iswander was in trouble! She activated her engines and raced toward the tumbling pod, hoping he wasn't dead. His life-support systems had been knocked offline, but he should be able to survive for a while at least … long enough for her to save him. She had to save him.

Even though Elisa's ship wasn't a large vessel, its cargo bay was sufficient to receive the small scout pod. As soon as she had sealed the bay doors and cycled the atmosphere, she ran to extract him from the tiny ship. His electronic systems were down, and if she couldn't activate the hatch, she would cut through the hull itself, break open the pod, and release him. She would find him inside, glad to see her, exuberant and forgiving. Together, the two of them could stand against the arrogant fools who ordered him to shut down his industries. She had devoted so much of her energy to this man, hitching herself to his star. If he failed, then she would fail. He was her last chance.

The pod's hatch wouldn't open, no matter what she tried. She pounded on it, but heard no response from inside. He should have been able to use a manual release, unless he was hurt or unconscious.

From the piloting deck, she could hear voices over her ship's comm system, people demanding to know what was happening, but she didn't have time to answer them. She had other priorities.

She ran to get a set of laser cutters and sliced into the control circuitry so she could use the external lock. When Elisa finally breached the pod's seal and accessed the manual release, she managed to open the hatch, which sighed open.

“Sir! Can you hear me?” She wanted him to help her, but she received no response. He wasn't moving in there.

She found Iswander inside, slumped and motionless. He wore no protective suit, didn't even have an oxygen mask—just his business attire, as if he had meant to attend a meeting. He must have rushed out to talk her down, and now she recalled everything he had said, how he'd commanded her to reconsider her course of action.

Elisa had only meant to do what was necessary, assuming that her edgy defiance would make Garrison back away, because Garrison Reeves, of all people, would have known that she was not bluffing.

What had she done?

She shook Iswander by the shoulders, but got no response. His skin was pale, his eyes closed, his mouth slack. She placed her ear against his chest, touched his neck and found a pulse. He was breathing, still alive—but unresponsive.

She remembered when Aelin had been caught in one of the bloater surges. He had been rendered temporarily catatonic from the neural overload, but the green priest had been connected to his treeling at the time, hence the destructive surge in his mind. Aelin had been broken afterward, somewhat insane, his head filled with delusional visions. Stray thoughts from Eternity's Mind?

She could not let that happen to Iswander.

“Sir!” She touched his face, she shook him. With her thumb, she peeled back his eyelid, but his eyes were rolled back. She pulled him out of the scout pod and dragged him to the cabin of her ship. She laid him out on the bunk, tried to make him comfortable. Her heart was pounding, desperate to do something else.

Determined, she flew her ship back to the admin hub, broadcasting a distress call. “Prepare the doctors! I need medical attention right away. Mr. Iswander is injured.” She swallowed hard. “He needs treatment—now.”

As soon as she docked and shut her systems down, the doctors hurried forward into the launching bay to take the patient. Back when a catatonic Aelin had been brought in, they had tried everything possible, and none of their efforts had worked. With Elisa following close behind them, they rushed a gurney pallet along as they attached monitoring systems and electrodes to Iswander's head.

Pannebaker also came in, deeply concerned, but from the flare behind his narrowed eyes, Elisa could see that the deputy blamed her for what had happened. “He went out to stop you, Elisa. If you hadn't been so stupid, if you'd just listened when he—”

“Shut up. While you just sat here ready to surrender, I tried to save us all. Mr. Iswander was caught in a bloater discharge, and I could do nothing to stop that, but at least I tried to keep him from losing everything.” She gritted her teeth and drew a deep breath. “And we're going to keep trying to protect this facility.”

To add insult to injury, the
Prodigal Son
also flew to the admin hub. Garrison and Orli brought Seth in with them. Princess Arita's green priest friend carried his treeling and dispatched reports of what was happening there.

Elisa gritted her teeth to see the green priest. Thanks to him, now everyone across the Confederation knew about their face-off, knew that the great industrialist had resisted these capricious demands, and now lay helpless. Rage swelled within her, and there were so many targets for it.

“It's over, Elisa,” Garrison said. “Time to make amends and try to salvage your life and your relationships. You have to face what you've done—to clan Duquesne, to Seth, to everyone else you've hurt.”

She stiffened. “What I've done to
Seth
? I only ever wanted the best for Seth.” Her own son looked at her with disappointment. She realized that only a few hours ago Seth had seen her ready to blow him up along with everyone else, just to make a point. Earlier, he had watched her threaten Jess and Cesca at Academ when she had tried to steal him away.

Elisa struggled with an unfamiliar backlash of guilt, and she turned to the boy. “I haven't done right by you. I know that, and I apologize.” Then she faced Garrison, hardened her voice. “But for you and for everything else, I had my reasons. If you'd had your head on straight from the start, you and I could have gone far. We could have been important. But you made me do it by myself. See what I accomplished—imagine what else I might have done if everyone hadn't interfered.”

“We can see what you accomplished,” Garrison said, his expression dark. “It's nothing to be proud of.”

She wanted to lash back at him, but the doctors interrupted her. “We finished our scans.” They issued their report indiscriminately, so that everyone could hear. “His mind is unresponsive. It's worse than what we saw with the green priest. There is only a very small chance Mr. Iswander will ever recover.”

Collin said, “It's like what happened to Kotto Okiah at Fireheart Station. When he connected with Eternity's Mind, it was too much for him.” He shook his head. “He never came out of it, and his body died a few days later.”