Guardian of the Storm (13 page)

He was not. The turmoil such thoughts caused him was why he could not focus as he needed to. He could not clear his mind because of the fear that he could not banish that he would return and find her gone.

The minute that thought came to the fore of his mind, he felt coldness wash through him, a sense of urgency that made him feel weak and sick. Rising abruptly, he abandoned the sacred fire and strode purposefully along the path that he had followed to the summit. He would bring her with him, he decided grimly. If she was close, if he was certain that she was safe and nearby, then he would be able to focus on the ritual.

Chapter Eleven

At first Tempest wasn’t certain whether it was her imagination or not. There was no doubt in her mind that it was some sort of mechanical device, but it didn’t look like anything she was familiar with—only vaguely similar.

It began to hum as she neared it and a thrill of excitement surged through her as she moved closer to study it. It had been built in a crescent shape. As she stepped up to the open end of the crescent, a light from the ceiling formed a beam on the floor. She chuckled as she saw the shape of two feet etched into the stone. That must be what triggered the hologram display, she decided, glancing around at the tiny lights dancing over the structure as she moved inside and walked carefully around the highlighted area, studying it.

She waved her arm under the beam, wondering if that would be enough to trigger the system. Nothing happened. Shrugging, she stepped cautiously on the stone, peering down at the image and discovered she had stepped onto it backwards. The feet were pointing the other way. As she leaned down to look, however, something stung her on her hip. Yelping, she jumped off of the stone and looked down at the injury.

A crescent had been burned on her hip.

“Shit! What the hell is this thing anyway?” she murmured out loud, glaring at the machinery that surrounded her.

It wasn’t a damned computer! Rubbing her stinging flesh, she avoided the spot on the floor and vacated the machine she’d mistaken for a computer. Losing interest in everything except her wound, Tempest rushed from the room and headed for the fountain. Cupping her hand beneath the fine spray, she captured a handful of water and splashed it over her burn.

She was twisting, trying to get a better look at her injury when she heard the doors open. Whirling, she stared guiltily at Kiran, who stood on the threshold, staring at her as if he’d never seen her before.

Tempest was still trying to think up a believable excuse for her behavior when Kiran, looking at her as if stunned, slowly moved toward her.

* * * *

Panic washed over Kiran in a terrible tide as he reached the campsite where he had left Tempest and found her gone. Disbelief filled his mind, even though he had feared just what he had found.

She could not be gone, he thought, turning to look around him, trying to absorb the completely unacceptable truth—that she was, indeed, gone, might be anywhere, might be many days away from him by now.

Fury borne of fear descended upon him as the thought flickered in his mind that the Mordune had simply circled around and returned, that they had found her and taken her. For several moments he was so filled with rage and thoughts of vengeance that he could think of nothing else.

It was the grat that brought him to his senses before he could act upon the crazed thoughts that ricocheted back and forth through his mind. It landed in the clearing where he stood, stared at him balefully for several moments, and then lifted its head, sniffing. Lowering its head after a few moments, it began to sniff at the ground, searching in ever widening circles and finally trotted off,
up
the path that he had followed down the mountainside.

Frowning a little doubtfully, Kiran watched the grat until it disappeared. After glancing down the mountain and scanning the terrain as far as his eyes would allow, he turned to follow the grat, abruptly certain that the animal was in pursuit of Tempest.

He was less certain of that when they reached the plateau, scanning the empty area with a mixture of frustration and doubt, but the grat seemed to have no reservations. It trotted briskly across the plateau, heading toward the temple.

Kiran followed the grat, jogging a little faster as a sense of dread began to move through him the closer they came to the temple.

Tempest was nowhere in sight. If she had come this way, then there was only place where he was likely to find her.

His worst fears were realized when the grat trotted up the steps to the temple and sniffed along the stones until she reached the doors. After nosing around it for a few moments, she trotted off and dropped to her belly on the cool stones, clearly waiting for Tempest’s return.

Kiran stared at the grat, struggling with his reluctance to approach the scared temple. His need to find Tempest quickly overrode his uneasiness about the temple, however. He strode toward the doors, wondering even as he approached them how he would get to her if she had, as he feared, gone inside.

To his shock, the doors swung open as he neared them.

The sight that greeted him stunned him immobile, brought even his thought processes to a halt.

* * * *

“I can explain,” Tempest said quickly.

As if her words had released him from a spell, he surged forward. “None are allowed to enter the sacred Temple! No one!”

Tempest gaped at him. “I didn’t touch a thing .... Well, hardly anything.”

Grasping her by one arm, Kiran hauled her back toward the entrance. He stopped jerkily when the doors opened, but after that brief hesitation, he strode outside, dragging her with him.

“What have you done?” he demanded angrily when he released her.

“Done?” Tempest echoed, stalling for time.

“How did you enter the sacred Temple?”

Tempest frowned at him curiously. “The same way you did. The doors opened. I went in.”

Kiran studied her angrily for several moments and noticed that she was absently rubbing her hip. Catching her wrist, he pulled her hand away. The blood left his face in a rush as he stared at her hip.

Tempest felt a little faint at his expression. “Is it that bad? It hurts like hell, but I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“I do not understand,” Kiran said, his voice strange.

“That makes two of us! I thought it was a damned computer. Then, out of the blue, this laser goes off and burns the hell out of me. What possible use could they have had for a thing like that?”

Kiran stared at her. “It is the mirror of my own. The symbol of the Guardian and the Storm.”

Tempest gaped at him. “You’ve got a burn like this?”

Kiran shook his head. “It is a mark I was born with.”

Tempest looked him over. “Where?”

He turned, pushed his loincloth to one side to expose his leg. On his upper thigh, Tempest saw what looked like a birthmark. Bending, she examined it more closely. It felt smooth to the touch. It looked like a birthmark, except for the fact that there was nothing irregular about it. A series of dots and lines formed a perfect crescent. When Tempest stood upright once more, she realized that it was, indeed, an exact mirror of her burn, in position anyway.

She frowned. There was only one explanation if, as it appeared, Kiran had never been near one of those things.

He’d been genetically encoded.

Kiran shook his head as if waking from a dream. “I do not understand this.”

Tempest empathized with his confusion. “I don’t understand either, but I can tell you one thing. This is no Temple, sacred or otherwise. It’s some sort of repository of knowledge … a library, maybe, or hall of records.”

Kiran turned and studied the facade. “It has been accepted as the sacred Temple to Zoe for generations. How could you, an Earthling, know this?”

She studied him a moment and finally took his hand and led him to the edge of the porch, gesturing toward the paved courtyard. “This isn’t natural. It was made, by Niahians some time long ago.”

Kiran nodded. “This, I know.”

“Do you know how?”

“No.”

“I studied it before I decided to go inside to explore. It’s absolutely, perfectly flat. It wasn’t blown away by any sort of primitive explosives and then ground down. There are no markings that would indicate that. It was cut, smoothly, by something like a laser.”

He merely looked at her and Tempest felt a touch of frustration. Kiran was no fool, but the technology that had been a familiar part of her world wasn’t at all familiar to him.

“Like something we used at the colony.”

Kiran nodded. Plainly, he still had no idea what she was talking about, but evidently the Niahians had discovered far more about the strangers among them than vice versa.

“You didn’t think we were gods, did you?”

Kiran gave her a look that told her he found that insulting. “We understand that you are much like us—only from another world. The Keepers of the Memory tell of such things.”

A thrill of excitement went through Tempest. “They know about traveling to other worlds?”

He nodded. “They have told of many strange things, some that we don’t understand. It is the Keepers of the Memory who told of the prophesy. The coming of the star people was the first sign. My birth the second. Even now the stars begin to align for the great darkness, which we were told comes but once in a thousand years. That will be the final sign. Before that, I must find the Storm. Together we are to find the secret valley where lies the temple Zoe built to summon the waters, to cleanse Niah and return the world to a place of growing things.”

Tempest frowned thoughtfully. “It’s some sort of emergency plan. That must be it!” She glanced back at the building they’d just left. “I don’t suppose you know how to read?”

From his expression it was clear enough he had no idea what she was talking about, but she grasped his arm and led him back to the statue, pointing at the plaque. “Do you know what that says?”

His brows rose. He squatted to look at it more closely, studying it. “I have seen these signs before. Not exactly like these, but similar.”

“It’s the written word,” Tempest said, trying to tamp her disappointment. “Maybe not your language, but a language that was once spoken on this world. Each sign represents a word, or a part of a word.”

Kiran shook his head and rose, staring up at the statue. He should have felt surprise, he supposed, but he did not. His heart quickened as he studied the image captured of Tempest in stone. Certainty settled inside of him but no surprise. He had been given a sign, he realized. He had simply chosen to ignore it.

He was not certain if it was his desires that had blinded him, or it if was simply a reluctance to accept that there would be no great revelation. He thought it was possible that his hunger for Tempest had distracted him. However, he realized that it was his own expectations that the prophesy would unfold with a great burst of wondrous magic that had truly blinded him.

It was not the Mordune who were wrong. It was
he
who had refused to see and accept what was right before his eyes all the while.

He had gone to find
the Storm
and he had found her as foretold, but he had expected a goddess and had refused to accept the little Earthling as anything more than a nuisance.

He did not want to accept it now, he realized. “It is your image.”

“It just seems to be,” Tempest objected, “because the Mordune dressed me to look like the statue.”

Kiran glanced at her and shook his head, feeling absolute certainty settle inside of him. “The face is yours. And, at her feet, the grat you call Kirry.”

An uneasiness crept over Tempest. “It’s just a coincidence.”

“It is the prophesy. I refused to accept that you were
the Storm
, even when you told me—even when I saw that the grat obeyed you as if it knew you—because I had expected that
the Storm
would be a warrior.”

“A lot of weird coincidences—look, you were looking for signs, because of what you’ve been taught to believe. Just because some of the things that have happened could be interpreted as part of the prophesy, doesn’t mean they really are part of it.”