The Persistence of Memories - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe (43 page)

Yeah,
she thought to herself as she
left the smoker’s deck.
We all know what happened last time
someone interrupted. You damn near got killed.
She shook that
memory out of her head as she waited for the elevator to
arrive.

“Honestly, Sheila,” Caren said. “I really
don't know where Denni is right now. I can sense her presence, but
that's it. I don't think she's even in Bridgetown. She may have
returned to her lumisha dea again.”

Sheila frowned at her. “You say that as if
you're used to it.”

“By now, I should be...” she trailed off,
nodding. “She’s been gone so much lately.”

“Spending all your time in the past won't
help today's problems, Caren,” Sheila said. “We've got to get her
back here.”

“Believe me, I’ve tried, but I can't,” she
said, a hint of sadness to her voice. “I can't connect with
Trisanda, not yet. My connections are here, on Gharra. Believe me,
if I could I'd bring her home myself this very second. But I
can't.”

“So what do we do, then?” she grunted. “Why
does Matthew need Shirai, anyway?”

“It’s an addiction with him,” she said in
disgust. “He’s had access to her for so long, he’s having
withdrawal symptoms. Maybe he’s expecting her to help him escape
holding. Why don't you go down and interrogate him? You can get
answers out of him, you just need to keep prodding and wear him
down.”

Sheila nodded with reluctance. “I've only
dealt with him a few times. You know how he is with people he
doesn't know.”

“Oh, he'll know you,” she said. “He knows
everyone.”

“That’s what bothers me.”

“Don't worry about it,” Caren said, and
placed an arm around her. “You'll do okay. Just remember to stay in
charge of the conversation. Stay one step ahead of him at all
times, and you’ll do just fine.”

Sheila laid her head on Caren's shoulder.
“Goddess, this doesn’t get any easier, does it?” She stayed there
for a few seconds more before pushing herself off the desk.

Twenty minutes later she managed to talk one
of the guards into letting them use one of the empty Questioning
rooms for a private interrogation, and that a confidential
recording of the questioning would be on file. She shoved the heavy
door open, letting a quick rush of outside air slip into the room
before she entered it. She thought about the last time she’d been
here, back when she'd witnessed the attacks on St. Patrick's
Church. Now wasn’t the time to be afraid; she shook that memory
right out of her mind and stepped inside.

Matthew was already sitting at one of the
tables, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee, looking a little
haggard but otherwise at ease with being incarcerated. He lifted up
his chin and smiled at her as she entered. “Agent Kennedy,” he said
with that odd hoarse voice of his. “Nyhnd’aladh. My sincere
apologies for coming on a little too strong.”

Sheila bristled, but forced herself not to
get angry at him this early in the questioning. “Apology accepted
and appreciated, edha Davison.” She sat across from him and folded
her hands on the table. She took a calm, deep breath and smiled
back at him. “Unfortunately, we’re unable to contact the One of All
Sacred at present. Oh — and by the way, I'm very close to making
those 'unwanted and unwarranted spiritsensing' charges stick, so
don't fuck with me right now, understand? Don’t go pulling any
bullshit with me because you’re not going to like the result.”

“Understood,” he said with a smirk. “Again,
nyhnd'aladh, Agent Kennedy. I was too forceful.”

“We can let that go,” she said. “You need to
do now is tell me what the hell you believe is happening here in
Bridgetown. Did you know that your boss called me two days ago to
do some spiritsensing? Something any number of qualified Mendaihu
agents could do in their spare time. But edha Shalei called
specifically for Agent Slater and myself. And he’s called again
today and expects us there in a few hours. Why do you think that
is?”

Matthew said nothing but offered a smug grin,
a shrug and a shake of the head. Sheila looked away, forcing back
the temptation to belt him one across the face. There were other
ways to getting answers out of him. There were even some she'd have
to erase from the confidential record later on. She had to keep her
wits and her patience about her.

“Okay,” she said evenly. “Let me ask you a
different question, then. You go out of your way to tear a hole in
my brain pleading that I have to get the One of All Sacred to team
up with Shirai. And when I ask why, you give me a runaround, saying
that I wouldn't understand, that it's above me. So tell me,
Matthew…what is it specifically that makes
you
understand
what's happening between the Shenaihu nuhm'ndah and the Mendaihu
Gharra? Are you an Elder? Are you an exceptionally strong Mendaihu?
Are you kiralla? Honestly — I want to know.”

The question took Matthew by surprise, and he
nearly let go of his impassiveness, lifting an eyebrow ever so
slightly and a hand curling tighter around the coffee mug. His
mouth opened to speak and shut just as quick, again without a
word.

“Fine,” she sighed. “Have it your way.”

She took a deep breath, then another, and
mouthed a short prayer in Anjshé. Matthew had to learn that it was
well past the time for playing games. And even if this little
experiment of hers ended up a disaster, at least she would finally
have his full attention. Maybe he would even give her a little bit
of respect.

One last breath, and she closed her eyes.

Matthew Davison,
she said within,
voice forceful but not loud. Just enough to get her point across on
multiple levels of sensing.
I speak to you now from within where
one cannot lie. I speak to you with urgency and with care, because
I am Mendaihu Gharra. I respect all lives that inhabit Gharra,
including your spirit and those you hold dear. I call on you,
however...I plead that you take part in this conversation. Although
I cannot say for sure, I gather that you are Mendaihu Gharra as
well. My apologies if I am wrong.

We are at a crossroads, dear sehnadha. Most
of us here at the ARU have either taken basic Mendaihu training or
are already practitioners. The rest comes with experience. I am
lucky, Matthew. I was born with this, and now, thanks to the
Awakening of the One, I am slowly beginning to 'remember' what it
is that I am, and what I can do with what has been given to me. The
same goes for most of the agents in this building, especially Alec
Poe and Caren Johnson.

In that respect, we Agents, we Mendaihu
Gharra, are able to recognize the nuances and the dualities that
make up this reality. If you have any reason not to tell me why I
should hear the truths you believe, then please inform me.

So I ask you once again. Why is it so
important that Denni Johnson as the One of All Sacred connect with
the quasi-soul of Shirai, the AI at the Mirades Tower?

...and with another deep breath, she opened
her eyes, confident that her point had been made.

Matthew was staring back at her with barely
restrained anger. Inside he was fuming, a hot rumbling wave of
energy slowly seeping out of him. He truly had not expected her to
speak from within like that, let alone do it so professionally and
within the Code of the Elders. He had no other choice but to answer
in kind or continue his silence. She had just forced him to reveal
his own position.

“You leave me little reason to doubt your
strength,” he said finally, wiping sweat from his brow. Sheila had
purposely neglected to tell him how stifling it got in these rooms
when stress levels rose. “And you leave me little choice. But I
warn you...you may not like the answer.”

“I will take what I can get, Matthew,” she
said quietly.

Finally he showed a bit of an honest smile.
“Let it be known, I'm telling you. You can tell whomever you wish
after that...but I will only tell you, and you alone. I can't
reveal anything to anyone else because they have already become
pawns in this game. Alec, Caren, Kai, Ashan...me...we all have a
role here.”

“Even me, huh?” Sheila smirked.

He nodded. “Yes, even you.”

“Why?”

Again, with the annoying smirk. “Well...I'll
tell you after I give you the story, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Okay...” he said in a voice that lacked
assurance. She could have sworn he was going to add
don't say I
didn't warn you
, but to her surprise he didn't. “We need to
speak within from now on.”

“Of course,” she said, lifting up her hands
in a gesture for him to stop delaying and get to the damn point
already. “Confidential recording stop,” she called out into the
air. “Confidential personal recording commence.” Then she nodded to
Matthew. “The floor's all yours, kid.”

“Taftika,” he responded.

...and so it begins,
he continued from
within. He bowed his head slightly and closed his eyes, taking a
number of deep breaths, the next one slower than the last. He was
centering himself, finding his own anchor in this world while he
began to traverse into another. He was channeling somewhere she did
not know, but it was a safe assumption that when he connected, it
wouldn't be the Matthew she knew and tolerated.

Sheila Kennedy
, he said.
What I am
about to say to you has not been uttered to anyone in years. This
message was given to me from my father, Gregory Davison, as soon as
I became a Mendaihu Gharra. I now give it to you.
His voice, no
longer hoarse, had the deep resonance and timed pace of a man who
was much older than he appeared, who was far wiser than he let on.
This was not the Matthew she knew.

This was someone else entirely.

I am what some might call a Messenger of the
One. And I come to you, Sheila, with a message of importance. It
was given to my father by the last incarnate of the One of All
Sacred, and it is now up to you to pass it along to Denysia Shalei.
There is a chaotic imbalance roaming this city as we speak, and I'm
sure you have sensed it. Its name is Saisshalé. Popular myth is
that he is a vengeance deity, dating back to the days before our
ancestors came to Gharra. He was a favorite of the spacefaring
clans, as he exacted his vengeance on any hostile alien that
attacked their fleets. His strength then, as it is now, was that he
could tear spirit by way of draining its inherent energies from the
host. It would render them unconscious yet alive, and recuperation
was slow and agonizing. This was of course what Saisshalé has done
to Gordan Milainikos and elsewhere…and nearly attempted on me the
other night. Imagine such power multiplied, emha Kennedy: imagine
the possibility of Saisshalé pulling the soul out of not just a
single man, but an entire fleet. It was a rare event, but it was a
real one. Soon the offending alien races, most now a peaceful part
of the Crimson-Null Foundation, came to fear the Trisandi race, and
especially their deity, Saisshalé.

But Saisshalé grew overconfident, proud of
his strength and his prowess over those who would dare offend him.
He began to attract followers, the Shenaihu nuhm'ndah. He gave them
that name, the nuhm'ndah. They'd been abandoned by the Mendaihu
when they left Trisanda for Gharra. And they were proud of being
the ones to stay and continue to cultivate their homeworld. They
would rather be the forgotten than to forget their roots.

Of course, eventually a good number of
Shenaihu left, meeting up with the others on Mannaka and then on
Gharra. And that is how we as humans came to be. Trisanda became
the quiet, peaceful homeworld we know as astral travelers
today.

But what of Saisshalé? He no longer had the
spacefarers to protect. In this age, we have our own weapons
against any potential threat. He no longer had his Shenaihu
followers, for they were down here on this backwater planet.
Eventually, he was forgotten and fell into obscurity.

Which brings us to today. Saisshalé appears
as a Meraladian male, walking the streets of Bridgetown and
attacking random Mendaihu. At least that is what we see, as humans.
We never question. We only see a madman we can't catch, a deity we
cannot subdue. But it is worse than that, sehnadha. It is much
worse. Why? Because Saisshalé isn't a deranged killer; he's a sane,
intelligent being. He's still the vengeance deity, and he needs an
outlet. The Mendaihu have become that outlet, for the simple reason
that they have the upper hand in Gharné life. The Mendaihu are the
watchers, the protectors, the saviors. And what of the
Shenaihu?

They're the keepers of the ethereal: the
mind, the heart, and the soul. Saisshalé knows this, Sheila, and
for over two hundred years, ever since the Meraladians dropped down
on this planet, he's been trying to reclaim that. During every
Season of Embodiment, he stages another game between the Mendaihu
and the Shenaihu. But he does it as the Goddess would, from afar.
He influences events, and people to orchestrate these things. He
does often take part, though not until well into the game. This is
only the third time that he's actually taken on a physical form,
out of all the Embodiments we've had here on Gharra.

And so here we are, in Bridgetown, watching
as he toys with us, attacking a few random Mendaihu supposedly
because they are crossing a perceived line of action. He never
kills them, only puts them out of commission for the time being.
Why Bridgetown? No long-winded answer, really. It's simply the same
place that the Meraladians touched down all those years ago, and
deities embrace their point of origin. This area has the largest
concentration of Mendaihu and Shenaihu in the world, though since
Denysia's recent Awakening ritual, that number has risen
exponentially around the globe. She's only given herself and
Saisshalé a wider playing field. So far, however, he's only
attacked in select places on the eastern seaboard, despite having
gone elsewhere. We should consider ourselves lucky in that
respect.