The storm continued to brew. And in the middle -- Malaran. Clad in a black hooded cloak, she tread the ancient steps carved into the granite across the desolate gray landscape near the top of Mount Tormenta. She made her way up the peak towards the ancient alien construct known as the Crucible, one of the most important Calistite sites on Nuevo. The purple and gray clouds rumbled around her as the moist wind whipped at her cloak. Strands of her jet black hair fluttered before her jade green eyes.
Always a storm near the Crucible, but Malaran brought her own brewing storm. After five hundred years of relative peace, events had been set into motion. The Umpala, the ancient enemy of humanity, had returned. One of them had returned anyway. On a human starship. The Umpala had long ago smashed humanity’s ability to travel the stars, yet a human starship had appeared. And secretly onboard, an Umpala battle-shaman. Before the false Emperor died, he claimed that it was “just the tip of the iceberg.” A storm was brewing, but not one yet knew its nature. Malaran just knew that she seemed to be the center of the storm here on Nuevo. And she wasn’t sure she how she felt about it.
She glanced around the desolate landscape. Something didn't feel right. Even though her security detail had swept the area before allowing her to approach the peak of Mount Tormenta, it felt like someone watched her. Maybe just nerves. There had been much talk of spies and infiltrators in the weeks since the starship had been captured.
Lightning flashed in the distance as she looked up the ancient steps toward the Crucible. The odd crystalline architecture, fractal-like, seemed to glow in pink and gold hues as its strange matter vibrated beneath the dark clouds. Even a few hundred yards away, she felt the energies. More than just the tingle of electricity in the air, but a full array of forces and energies of the Void that she could feel ringing through her bones. She had studied with the Order of Calista for the last fifteen years and had learned much about the energies of the Void. Father had enrolled her in a Calistite day-school when she was five.
Father was no longer King, though. No longer alive. He died in nuclear fire just a few weeks prior. The millennia-old taboo against humans nuking humans had been broken, and so had Malaran’s world. In the end, she had slain her father’s killer. Slain the Umpala battle-shaman as well, the stress of being encased in obsidian quickly taking his life. Yet it was not enough.
Malaran paused for a moment to catch her breath when she reached a small plateau in the path up the mountain. These last five years she had lived on Nuevo's vast purple grassland, the Vastedad Morada, and wasn't used to the altitude up here in the highlands. Each breath carried the scent of rain, but so far none had fallen. She looked at the path before her. Tomorrow she didn’t know where her path would take her, but today it was the Crucible.
Nobody knew how long the Crucible had stood or it's true purpose. A dozen worlds settled by humans had an identical construct somewhere upon a mountaintop, a bizarre cathedral of crystal and exotic matter, but their makers had left no other traces. The Priestesses of the Void, the Sacerdotes Vacuum, learned long ago that these were places of great energy, but untamed, unbridled energy. Though the Order of Calista had splintered away from the Priestesses, rejecting their pacifism and embracing the arts of war, the Order still adhered to many of the traditions, including the Rite of Ascension that was performed at a Crucible site if at all possible. The Rite was the last step before Invocation — a prerequisite.
With each flash of lightning leaping between the clouds, Malaran peered into the shadows. She still felt someone out there in the twilight. She didn’t think it had anything to do with the Rite. Not directly anyway.
Kalima, Prioress Kalima Maria Varma, her teacher, had somehow talked Malaran into completing this step. Or manipulated her into it somehow. Malaran still had strong doubts about actually going through with Invocation and becoming part of the Order, but yet here she was, on Mount Tormenta walking straight towards the Crucible as a storm brewed all around her. She knew she had to do this to keep her options open for the future, but she didn't like anybody plotting her future for her. At one point she had thought joining the Order would have been an escape from all the plotting and scheming that went along with being a member of the royal family, but she, unfortunately, found that the Order had its share of plotting and politics.
And now apparently both her family and the Order had plans for her, though their plans were often in conflict. King Aadi, her brother who inherited the throne after Father’s death, and the Order of Calista had fashioned an unsteady alliance after the capture of the starship, the Menelaus, but they argued over how best to use the starship. And how best to use Malaran.
Taking one more deep breath, Malaran began walking toward the ancient steps and the path up the mountain. Then stopped. She felt something odd in the energies surging around her. An unnatural fluctuation maybe. It seemed strange, but possibly more in context with the Rite than her sense of being watched. The Rite was more ritual than true test, but there was danger in the ritual. An acolyte must stand in the cauldron of energies and not be consumed by them. Must know when to deflect energy away and when to bend with it. But she wouldn’t be surprised if there were more to the Rite than what the Order let on.
She felt another strange tingle of energy run down her spine, and suddenly the sense of being watched became overpowering. She adjusted her hood and then quickly turned, her eyes rapidly scanning the broken, rocky landscape. But she saw no one.
The Menelaus had been captured, and the crew put under guard, but there were still a lot of questions and a lot of security concerns. Many of the data files had yet to be decrypted, and many of the false emperor's inner circle were missing. There was no telling how many from the starship had been landed on the planet before the starship's capture. There was also much suspicion that spies had somehow infiltrated Nuevo even before the Menelaus had appeared. Perhaps somebody had come after her seeking revenge.
Malaran took a deep breath, focused her mind, and tapped into the dark energies of the Void. She opened a small pinprick, a tiny siphon, but did not yet draw the power. It was easy to open the siphon here near the Crucible, but more difficult to control the stream of energy once it began to flow. The ornamental bracelets around her wrists, scribed with ancient symbols and forged of smart-metal, would draw upon the siphon and spring into the form of a battle staff and small elliptical shield, weapons of the once mighty Agema.
Reaching out with her mind, invoking True-Sight as best as she could, Malaran probed the shadows, her optic nerves harmonizing with the quantum lattice crouched beneath visible reality, scrutinizing the collapsing wave functions. Her skill with the various forms of Sight had improved lately, and she was becoming more proficient invoking these abilities outside of the Oculus Veritatis chamber and its ancient technology. Not as proficient as she would have liked, but she was working on it. If she chose not go through with Invocation, she probably would never again have access to the ancient technology.
She scanned the shadows, but nothing drew her attention. If there were an intruder here, he wouldn't be part of the Rite. When the Order split from the Priestesses of the Void five hundred years ago, when they became warrior mystics rather than pacifists, they adopted the battle forms of the Agema, elite shock troops and praetorian guard of the Emperor of Man, but the Rite predated this split. The Rite was a test of the Void, not of combat.
"Malaran," said a female voice from behind her.
She twitched in shock but quickly recovered, twirling around to face the voice and energizing her bracelets as she spun, sending the coils of smart-metal weaving into battle staff and shield. She spun into the Wind Breaker stance, her shield before her and battle staff above, both exhibiting a faint, midnight-blue sparkle around the edges.
A figure stood before her, of similar height and build as herself. A dark blue cloak heavily embroidered in silvery symbols that Malaran did not recognize hid her face. Malaran couldn't believe this intruder had got so close undetected. She had to be a well-trained Ca
listite, but what was she doing here?
Just then a torrent of energy flooded into her battle-staff, her focus had wavered for just a moment, and the unbridled energies of the Crucible surged into her weapon. She couldn't control it, and at the last moment, she altered her aim as the weapon fired a large blast of the midnight-blue energy. The energy pulse missed the cloaked figure by just a few inches.
The woman did not even flinch. Instead, she let out a small laugh.
Malaran tried to control her anger as her muscles tensed even tighter. She was embarrassed enough about not being able to control her weapon, and she didn't like to be openly laughed at.
“I wish I had more time to prepare you,” the woman said softly with a sigh.
“Who are you? Why are you here?” Malaran demanded.
The woman pulled back her hood a little, revealing a strikingly beautiful face, but a face mostly foreign to Nuevo. Her large, dark eyes were almond shaped, but they were shaped by more than just genetics. She had the very distinct, deep penetrating eyes, eyes that had spent a lifetime peering into the Void. The eyes of a Calistite Elder, a Sacrator Superiore. Yet not the aged face of a Sacrator Superiore. Her face was much younger than Malaran had expected. Among the Calistites it always seemed to be the gray-haired elders who performed the miraculous feats, yet this woman who had got so close undetected appeared to be only about ten years older than Malaran, maybe thirty or so.
"You can call me Qingniao,” said the woman with a slightly amused expression on her face. She had the bearing of an Elder, a sense of calm superiority, often seeming slightly amused at the foibles of those inferior. Malaran's father had been High King of all of Nuevo, yet Calistite Elders still maintained that slightly amused demeanor even with him. Her accent seemed strange, though, not from the east coast or west coast.
Malaran relaxed out of the Wind Breaker stance and slid into the At Ease posture, her staff and shield crossed before her. She slightly bowed her head as she addressed the woman, "Sacrator Qingniao, is this part of the Rite?” She hadn't expected anyone else to be part of the ritual.
“No, not Sacrator. Just Qingniao. I was once Sacrator, but that was long ago."
Malaran raised an eyebrow at that, performing her best imitation of her teacher Kalima. She wondered what Qingniao meant by 'long ago.' Malaran still couldn't get over someone that young sneaking up on her so completely. And she wondered what she met by "was once." Malaran never heard of anyone leaving the Order once they went through Invocation. That was one of the reasons Malaran remained so hesitant about going through Invocation herself.
"The Rite matters little," Qingniao continued. "Ritual and ceremony, mostly. Not a true test." Her expression stiffened. "Not like what's coming.”
Malaran held back a sigh. She sure sounded like a Calistite Elder with the vague, mysterious foreboding. But she had said that was 'once, long ago.' Who was she now? Malaran did have a slight urge to slide back into a more defensive combat stance, but she wasn't sure that would be a good idea. If Qingniao was a threat, it might provoke a response.
Malaran tried to remain calm and alert as her mind raced and tried to figure out what was going on and how she should deal with Qingniao. It seemed somewhat unnatural for her to demand answers from those deep penetrating eyes that resembled so much the eyes of an Elder, but in that brief moment as her mind raced she could not think of any better plan. "Who are you? Why are you here?"
Qingniao's eyes seemed to penetrate her and size up her soul. "Because you enfolded the Void. Twice."
The bubbles. Malaran had manipulated the Void to form a bubble to protect herself and her friend Leela from the nuclear blast that killed Father and Mother, and she had created a bubble to snare the Umpala battle-shaman. “How do you know about that?”
"Because, my dear, your little displays created ripples in the Void. Especially so close to a nuclear denotation. Certain individuals have the ability to detect those ripples. Even light years away."
Malaran had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had taken some pride in creating those bubbles, but if what Qingniao said was true, then the ramifications could be dire. “The Umpala. Their shaman can detect these ripples?”
A weak smile formed on Qingniao’s lips. “Not just the Umpala. Lions, tigers, and bears. Oh, my."
Malaran held a sigh in. Surely if the ripples existed, the Order would know. But nobody mentioned anything to her about ripples in the Void. Nobody told her much, though. Almost never any straight answers. Even Qingniao had just spoken in terms of storybook animals instead of listing the true threats beyond the Umpala.
Qingniao continued, "There is more at stake than just Nuevo. More at stake than the old Empire of Man." Her slight amused expression became ever slightly more amused. "A rather presumptuous title for a small little civilization out here on the Rim."
"Explain it then," said Malaran. "Tell me what's truly happening."
"All in good time," said Qingniao. "If you still live."
Malaran couldn't read her expression as Qingniao said those last words, but she felt a challenge in there somewhere. She shifted her stance, turning sidewise so that she had a narrow profile with her shield between her and Qingniao, but her staff vertical, touching the ground. The Defiant posture. Defensive and non-threatening, but still ready for action.
Qingniao did not react to this change of posture. "Just remember that an enemy of an enemy is not necessarily a friend."
"The Order taught you well to be vague and cryptic," said Malaran with a sour expression on her face.
"And sometimes," said Qingniao ignoring Malaran's remark, "you can’t tell your friends from your enemies." Her expression hardened. "At times you must command the Void. Deflecting and bending will not be enough." Qingniao's deep, penetrating eyes focused on a spot behind Malaran. "Malaran Ashoka, Princess of Nuevo, enfolder of the Void, prepare yourself. The enemy is upon you."
Lightning struck very close, temporarily blinding Malaran, and the blast of thunder rang through her ears and through the hard ground and up into her body.
And Qingniao was gone. There was no trace of her.
Malaran took in a deep breath and tried to figure out what just happened. It couldn't have been part of the Rite. Could it?
Malaran turned to see what Qingniao had looked at behind her, to see if something was there or if it had all been part of Qingniao's little performance.
A figure bounded up the ancient steps, maybe a hundred yards back. Malaran could make out the green and black, the colors of the House Ashoka. Malaran sighed. Maybe she wasn't supposed to complete the Rite after all. Maybe it was a sign.
Malaran had left her guard detail a couple of miles back where they landed the flier, and she wondered if the runner brought important news. Malaran had left her comm system behind, worried that the energies here would damage the ancient technology. Maybe Aadi and the Order had come to some agreement, decided to send the Menelaus on some task. Send Malaran on some task.
Or, thinking of Qingniao's last words about the enemy being upon her, maybe another ship had been detected entering the solar system. A chill ran through her body. Aadi's military strategists expected someone to come looking for the Menelaus, but nobody knew what kind of time-frame it might be. Maybe time was up.
Lightning flashed nearby, thunder shaking the ground, the lightning no longer confining itself to the clouds. Ground strikes had begun increasing in frequency.
As the runner got near, Malaran recognized her, an athletic young woman with black hair and dark brown eyes. Leela. A flash of joy surged through Malaran. She couldn’t help but smile. It had been several weeks since Malaran had seen her.
But it didn't make any sense for Leela to be here. She had been reassigned. Her best friend, her surrogate big sister, her personal guardswoman for the last five years, had recently been removed from Malaran's guard detail. Under protest from both Malaran and Leela. Aadi had claimed Leela had become too subservient to Malaran, that
Leela had become too comfortable letting a twenty-year-old princess make her own security decisions.
Malaran was still pretty angry about it. A princess didn't have many real friends to begin with, and being a pawn in grand schemes sure didn't help. She had come to realize that all of Father's scheming probably had a lot to do with how isolated and lonely she felt at times. And now Aadi was continuing the tradition. Maybe they just didn’t want her to have friends so that nobody else could influence her.
She was sure that, if nothing else, Aadi wanted his own guards, his own babysitters, looking after the Anax-Hema, the genetic marker written into Malaran's DNA that, five hundred years after the Fall of Man, was supposedly the key to power for anyone who would claim the Emperor’s chair.
Whatever was going on, it must be important if Leela came all this way, but Malaran's racing mind couldn't figure out a good reason why Leela would be here now.
Malaran took a deep breath and focused her mind. Maybe Qingniao's sudden appearance and disappearance rattled her more than she wanted to admit, and maybe she was just paranoid. But with Leela still about thirty yards away, Malaran invoked True-Sight, using her mental training to harmonize her senses with wave patterns of the Void.
Malaran froze. As she looked at Leela jogging the granite steps, True-Sight exaggerated everything wrong in the scene -- Leela's gate, the bob of her head, the movement of her eyes, all of it. This wasn't Leela. Not the one she had known for five years.
The enemy was upon her — just yards away.