The Persistence of Memories - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe (66 page)

A tear escaped his left eye.

“Damn it,” he whispered, and answered the
call. “Poe here,” he rattled.
Goddess,
he thought.
I even
sound like shit.

“Alec!” the female voice at the other end
gushed, howling into his ear. “Oh, thank the Goddess you
answered.”

“Uh...” he managed.

“Alec, it's me, Kai!” she said. “Are you all
right?”

He cleared his throat. “I'm…not sure.”

“Stay where you are,” she said. “Goddess, I
can sense you from
here
. Hold on, okay? I'll be there in a
few seconds.”

She disconnected before he could get out
another word.

“Goddess...” he mumbled.
What the hell is
happening to me?

fffssssSSSSSHHHHT—

He felt the air displacement behind him a
fraction of a second before he heard it.

“Alec?”

Akaina,
he whispered within, relieved.
The pain in his head began to fade, replaced with a cold sweat.
Blood back to the brain. The rumbling of energy faded and
dissipated. Sounds receded into the background and he was standing
now in the quiet of a nearly empty street corner. He didn’t
question it. There were a lot of things he didn't want to question
right now. Her presence had calmed him, spiritually and physically.
He turned around, clearing his scratchy throat.

“Alec?”

“Taftika, Akaina. I’m sorry, I…”

Her first response had been of relief, then
of love. He could feel the joy emanating from her heart, aimed
directly at him. She wanted to run to him and take him in her arms
and never let go, and he desperately wanted, needed the same. He
stopped as soon as she did when that joy bottomed out, replaced by
complete shock.

“What —” she began, scanning his body.
“You...?”

“Kai,” he said as softly as he could. “I'm
fine now. Nothing's wrong. I know who and what I am now.
Everything's all right.” He stuttered to a halt again, catching the
whites of her eyes. She was terrified. What had Crittiqila done to
him? What had she taken away from him to make him so hideous?

With a sickening chill, it dawned on him that
the secret of his cold spirit had finally been revealed, showing
its true form.

Here lies fate, my friend,
he thought.
Here lies fate.

“You're...” she whispered. Slowly, painfully,
she lifted her eyes to meet his. “You're an Elder.”

“Yes,” he said as quietly and evenly as
possible, trying to calm her. “I'm kiralla, Kai. Please, don’t fear
me. Just…talk to me. Tell me what your spirit is saying.”

“I...” she started, visibly shaking.
“Goddess...” she began sobbing. “I knew it was going to be an
Elder, but I never knew...”

“Knew what?”

She shivered again. She was fighting her own
instincts to embrace him. She desperately needed to take hold of
him, to bring him back to his apartment, to forget about the world,
forget all of this...but reality had chosen otherwise. She had lost
a part of him somehow, an innocence that she wasn't ready to let go
of just yet. He was no longer the scruffy, ARU investigator with a
lot of social quirks. He had access to all the knowledge he could
ever want now, just by closing his eyes and reaching directly into
his sehna lumia without stepping into Light. Something Kai still
could not do.

“Akaina,” he said. “I haven’t changed at all.
I still love you. I'm still the same person you've always known.
Everything I do is my own choice, Kai. You haven’t lost me.”

“No...” she said, taking a step back.
“You're...you're
kiralla,
Alec.” She dropped her head and
cursed. “Damn it! I should have seen this a long time ago! Damn it
all!”

He took a step towards her, but did not reach
out. “Talk to me, Kai. Explain it to me.”

Her eyes were filling with tears. “I should
have seen it, Alec! I'm so damn stupid not to see it!”

“You're
not
stupid,” he said. “If
anyone here is...”

“No,” she sobbed. “I should have seen it,
Alec. Your spirit signature is the way it is because you’re
kiralla, and I should have sensed that weeks ago! I haven't sensed
a kiralla in so long I'd forgotten what it felt like. And now...”
She covered her eyes with her hand and held herself as close as
possible, sobbing and turning away.

“Akaina,” he said softly. “Listen to me. You
don't have to tell me right now. I have to go in and face Farraway.
He's known all along that I'm kiralla, that Caren was Protector,
and Denni was the One of All Sacred....he brought you and Ashan in
to keep an eye on us, to make sure we stayed true to our fates. I
don't fault you for that, I really don't. It’s been an honor to
work with you, and a pleasure to know
you
, Akaina. Sa’im,
sa’im
shadha, Akaina. I say this with my heart and my
spirit. You were my anchor throughout all of this, and I'm grateful
for it. You are my shadhisi, and you always shall be. Please...talk
to me.”

Gradually, her sobs gave way to slow, shaky
breaths. He felt a barrier break down and disappear, and all at
once he felt it again: her spirit was calling for his. He stepped
forward and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her gently.
She slowly leaned back and into his embrace. She let out a breath,
two of them, and twisted within his arms until she was facing
him.

“Nyhnd’aladh,” she said softly, wiping tears
from her eyes. “This is the truth that terrifies me: you are the
deciding factor. Whether or not the Shenaihu or the Mendaihu win.
When you walk into that warehouse tonight, all of our fates are
sealed.”

“Seriously?” he said. “The fate of Gharra
rests on whether or not I walk through a damned
door
? Does
Denni know about this?”

She nodded. “She's the one who told me to get
you. She wants you there, and I believe I know why. If a
cho-nyhndah walks through that door, the balance remains, and
there’s no knowing who will be victorious.”

“That’s one hell of a prophecy,” he said. “If
I'm the one to walk through that door, then it's my fate to do so.
But then it's completely up to the Mendaihu and the Shenaihu to
decide whether or not they want a skirmish or a bloodbath. Or
nothing at all. Such a fate shouldn’t rest on one person alone,
Kai. It rests on the souls of everyone.”

She smiled at him. “I shall be there with
you,” she said, and moved closer, until their foreheads were
touching. “I have to head back. Denni knows you're okay now, so…”
She was gazing directly into his eyes, those dark irises of hers
mesmerizing him, pulling him farther into her own spirit. If he
could go that far, he would go willingly.

“I love you,” Kai whispered. “My
shadhisi.
”

“My
shadhisi,
” he answered.

I shall never lose you, my
cho-shadhisi,
he whispered within.
I do not want to lose
you, not ever again.

He felt a chill flow through her body,
quickly replaced by a warmth, a radiance of which he'd never
experienced before. An inner radiance of spirit, burning brightly
with the fires of a love borne anew. He knew it at once:
cho-shadhisi.
He'd pledged his love to her over the ages and
the universes...and she'd accepted. She moved ever closer, until
their lips met.

My cho-shadhisi,
she said to him from
within.
Forever.

“You're an Elder,” Farraway said, leaning
back against his desk and looking at Poe with all the pride of a
boss whose training of his employee had finally paid off. It shone
through in his smile, and he wasn't ashamed to show it. “I always
knew you were kiralla, Alix, and a damn strong one at that. But an
Elder? Didn't see that one coming at all.”

Poe adjusted the collar of the leather duster
he wore. He'd grown so accustomed to the shape fitting bodysuit
underneath that he'd completely forgotten it was there. It was not
confining at all. It felt like a second skin, like the kind a
jacker would use to fully integrate with their VR environment. It
conformed to all his movements, never binding or chafing. He could
get used to this.

“Didn't see it myself,” he said, letting out
a small laugh tinged with a hint of bitterness. “Tell the truth,
Dylan...you expected a lot out of Caren and I, didn't you? You knew
what was coming.”

“Only as much as I could see,” he said
soberly. “Not everything, but some.”

“You worked with Kindeiya Shalei,” Poe
said.

Farraway nodded. “I've known him for years.
He's a phenomenal reality seer, Alix. He just wanted to make sure
that everything went according to the plan of the Goddess. Now
before you interrupt, I'm still not the proselytizing sort, but
there are things even hard-nosed Mendaihu like me will go down on
bended knee for.”

“So you're saying...” Poe started.

“We've known about this for at least five
years,” he said sheepishly.

Poe shivered.
Five years...
He crossed
his arms and glared at him. “Aram and Celine knew about it, then,”
he said evenly. He kept himself as calm as he could, but he felt
his cho-nyhndah anger and his kiralla ferocity bubbling up within.
He held himself close, close enough that no one, not even Farraway,
could sense his growing anger.

“After the fact,” he nodded.

“What do you mean?”

Sensing his growing aggravation, Farraway
chose to stand up and casually walk around to the other side of his
desk. He sat down heavily and gestured to him to take a seat
opposite him. By habit he took the right chair, the left one empty
since Caren was still at the warehouse. She needed to hear this
truth, not him! He promised to remember everything he'd say about
her parents, so he could tell her when the time was right and she
was ready for it.

“Aram and Celine Johnson were on a case
involving a Shenaihu nuhm’ndah named Benassi Kaalen, bent on
finding those who would have strong ties with the One of All Sacred
in the future. Kaalen was a faulty reality seer, as strong as
Kindeiya, though once a concrete possibility entered his head, he
was convinced
that
was the true path the future would take.
He'd psychically attacked fourteen kids and five adults, two with
fatal results, before he'd found a boy and a girl whose spirit
signature showed they would be future Followers of the One. He’d
abducted the two kids and brought them to an abandoned apartment
building near Branden Hill Park, and that's when Caren's parents
caught up with him.

“Mind you, Caren found out about all of this
the hard way, digging into files she knew were confidential, and
suffice it to say it didn't sit well with her. Once she found out,
that's when she took that medical leave of absence and started
soulhealing therapy.

“But I'm getting off the subject. Now, from a
Mendaihu perspective, Aram and Celine saw this man as a serious
threat to the Mendaihu and to the lives of those in Bridgetown.
This
was what they were trained as Mendaihu to do. So they
didn't know...”

Poe frowned. “Didn't know what?”

Dylan sighed heavily again. He didn't want to
relive this again, and Poe could sense it.

“That the Shenaihu was actually someone else,
someone stronger. And working with Natianos Lehanna at the
time.”

“Saisshalé,” Poe spat. “Damn him!
He
killed them!”

“No, Alix,” he said quickly. “You must
believe me, it was not him. We know this for a fact. The man who
killed Aram and Celine was an extremist Shenaihu nuhm’ndah who took
Saisshalé’s history and perverted it to his own ends. Saisshalé is
no saint, I know, but Kaalen was a nasty piece of work. But the
truth of it…” He exhaled, looking away. “The truth of it is, Aram
and Celine knew what they were getting into. They knew that their
daughter was the One of All Sacred. Probably knew the moment she
was born. They were willing to go that far to protect her.”

Farraway let Poe sit in silence for a few
moments to let it all sink in. There was more to the story, there
had
to be.

“Kindeiya Shalei has his prophecies and his
divinations,” he continued. “But what he does best is reality
seeing. He's amazingly precise nearly all the time. But Benassi
Kaalen was…he was that one exception. He was a man Kindeiya could
not understand, no matter how hard he tried. He couldn't see any of
his timethreads, and Kindeiya's reality seeing went all out of
whack whenever the man was involved with anything. Wherever Kaalen
was, chaos would ensue.”

“You’re saying Kaalen knew who they
were.”

“Yes,” Dylan said quietly. “He did.”

Poe sensed his pain, laid bare for all to
sense, while his heart remained hidden behind a thick, impenetrable
wall. “He was hoping to capture Caren and Denni.”

“Yes.”

“And Aram and Celine knew already.”

“Yes.”

“And didn't tell anyone?”

“They didn't think it was wise,” he said.
“Alix, I've been cursing myself ever since for not sending backup
despite their refusal.”

That's not your fault,
Poe said
within.

Dylan shuddered, but flashed a half-smile at
him. “Well...” he resumed, shaking off his momentary sorrow.
“Kindeiya looked deeper after that. He started watching Caren and
Denni, close enough to observe yet far enough away that he wouldn't
be noticed. And that was when he realized how close a Shenaihu had
gotten to destroying the One of All Sacred. As soon as he'd sensed
Denni's spirit signature, there was no denying it: she
was
the next Dearest.”

“The Ninth,” Poe said from behind hands he'd
steepled in front of his mouth. “You did a damn good job of
covering that up when you brought Caren and me in here the night of
the Awakening. I wouldn't have seen it then, but now I do. You're a
damn good deceiver when you have to be, Dylan. I'll give you
that.”