Ballis nodded slowly, eyes still squinting with suspicion, but he turned to go with Kenejil nonetheless. She was a stout woman, husked in muscle. Her expression was hard; a constant scowl covered any beauty that may have been natural to her face. She started down the corridor with a simple grunt. Lev-9 set off immediately after her, his multi-hued lights tracking back and forth in the shadows. Ballis hesitated for a moment more, throwing one final look over his shoulder, and then trailed after the mechanoid and the woman.
“The Shelezar is waiting for us this way.” Jerekiel stepped aside to reveal a door in the dimness hinged to the rock wall. The wood was warped with moisture, the metal tinged with corrosion. Aiben hadn’t noticed it there before. It reminded him of the door in his dream. Jerekiel inclined her head. “I’ll follow behind you.”
The handle was old and unyielding, but the latch clicked after a few rattles and the door ground inward. Aiben paused; his trust in Jerekiel hadn’t completely smothered his apprehension of the unknown. A firm hand from behind nudged him the rest of the way into the room. A wry smile rewarded the sharp look he gave her as she came in behind him.
The chamber was small and cluttered. Old dusty books and leaflets of parched yellow paper lay in disarray on the floor, on a small desk, and piled several feet high on the only chair in the room. Behind the desk, kneeling on the floor on bony knees, rummaging in the mess was an old woman.
The crone looked up and crumpled her face into a comical mien. Her skin looked well used, not so much wrinkled as roughened by time. Sparse strands of gray hair sprouted from her head, spots of mottled skin lay beneath. A pair of large drooping ears skewered by rows of steel rings jutted to either side of her head like old crooked satellite receivers. One eye twitched rapidly, the other was wide and wet. Strangely enough, her halifi was as vibrant as if she had had it inked that very day. She shuffled towards Aiben and spoke to him in hiliz.
“Ah yes, man from Besti. Oromgol said as much. We have been waiting. Come in. Come in.” She extracted a pair of ancient spectacles from a drawer in the desk and slipped them on top of her bulbous nose. Her wet eye bulged behind the thick lenses. She turned her arm over, imitating what she wanted him to do. “Can I see it? Come now, show it here.”
He looked at Jerekiel. She nodded for him to show the old woman. He pushed up his sleeve and bared his forearm for the ancient Shelezar. She clasped his wrist with a spidery grip and pulled his arm close to her face, almost touching the tip of her nose to the burgundy mark, despite the protuberant magnification of her glasses.
“Mmm. Yes. Come, sit down.” She pulled Aiben towards the chair, still clutching his arm. He resisted, eyeing the mound of paper already occupying it. The old woman laughed at his reluctance. It sounded like half between a cough and a sneeze. Without regard for orderliness, she scooped the entire stack into a heap on the floor. Then, as if realizing she had forgotten something, she waved her arms at Jerekiel, rocking back and forth at the waist. “Go on out now Jerekiel’kim.”
“It’s fine, she can stay,” Aiben said, as much for his own sake as for hers. He could see she hesitated to leave. “It’s not a problem.”
“What? No, no. She may be Neilemi’aaki Keazil out there,” one bony finger wagged at the door, “but in here she is my halath! Yes? Go out now!”
Aiben understood the implications of the word, halath, very well. It could easily evoke an angry response, especially when said with such condescension. Nevertheless, the look on Jerekiel’s face told him that even if she felt the same way he did, she wouldn’t show it here. Indeed, the aged woman must have garnered great respect with Jerekiel and the ilud’hi. She bowed her head and backed out the door. Soon the darkness in the tunnel swallowed her up. The door swung closed behind her, rusty hinges creaking.
“Was that necessary?” Aiben had no idea why he would defend a woman he didn’t know anything about in a situation he knew even less about.
“Sit, Besti man. Sit.” The ancient one tried to push him into the chair, and although her strength wasn’t enough to force him down, he yielded to her goading. There was something in her strength of will, if not her physical power, that reminded him of Oand-ib.
“Look, I’m not even sure why I’m here.”
“Aren’t you?” The old woman frowned at him from behind her thick glasses. He could smell damp earth and hear the creaking of her aged joints every time she moved. “Didn’t you say you were from Besti? Did you lie to me? Did you?”
“No, but…”
“Yoren-dal’s messenger prophesied that you would come, did he not? What was his name now?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aiben said, but then he remembered Yoren-dal’s face in his dream. It had been a young Oand-ib. “Are you talking about the cybermancer that came looking for im shalal before the Zenzani arrived?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, which didn’t diminish the size of her large damp one by much. “Im shalal? Yes, you know, after all. Ah yes, his name was Kemdel.” Then she droned in an almost robotic voice, “He will come from Besti with the halifi of im shalal on his arm.”
The woman’s pruned hands fumbled through several pieces of parchment on her desk until she found the one that had the design on it from Aiben’s arm. It was crumbling around the edges and old. She held it up to his face with a quivering hand. Her expression was one of great reverence despite the rote tone of her voice. After a few seconds, she filed it back under some papers on her desk and began to rub her fingers over her own halifi.
Aiben stared at his own mark for a moment, but it didn’t give him any more understanding of who Yoren-dal was or what his connection to Oand-ib was. It didn’t explain why he had been told to find Jerekiel when she didn’t even know why herself. It didn’t tell him why this Kemdel had turned his mission into prophesy among the Mora Bentians. It didn’t give him the location to im shalal, or even tell him what im shalal was, for that matter. There were so many unanswered questions.
“I see by the look on your face, you still haven’t made it all go together, have you? Yes. Not all together yet.” The old woman’s moist eye twitched several times.
“So you know about my memories?”
“Yes, yes, of course. Yoren-dal’s messenger told me everything. Oh, the others don’t know, but I do. A Shelezar has to maintain her sway somehow, eh? Secrets do that rather nicely. People tend to believe you are more mystical than you really are when you have them, yes?”
“I guess so,” Aiben agreed. He didn’t really know what she was talking about.
“Oh yes, I almost forgot. Introductions. You are Aiben that much we already know, yes? At least that is your name now. I am Jerekiel.” A toothless grin split across the crumpled up face.
“I thought that was the woman’s name that brought me here?” Aiben’s brows knit together. The old woman nodded, smirking at his look of confusion. “And that’s your name too?” Aiben asked to be sure.
“Yes, yes. A very popular name. Half of the ilud’hi try to gain favor by using my name, while the other half just curse it.” Her face faded into a scowl, then back into a smile. “You will soon know why it is popular. What it means to you.”
“So you’re the one Oand-ib told me to find?”
“Yes, yes, that’s the name he calls himself at times, isn’t it? Yoren-dal’s name on Besti.” She nodded to herself. “They are the same person, no?”
“What? How can that be? Yoren-dal lived at the time of the Haman, didn’t he? At least he’s in the memories I have of that time.” Just as Aiben thought he was making some sense of the memories in his head, the more slippery they seemed to become.
In simple reply, for the second time in the past two days, the thoughts of a master of shalal hiliz grabbed his mind and shattered his whole understanding of who he was.
CHAPTER 18
Shalal hiliz had pulled Aiben into another dream-like world. It drew his senses like a flickering flame luring a swarm of moths.
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He was in a room whose walls and ceiling were green and brown patchworks of interwoven branches and leaves. The spaces in-between were packed with a yellowish mud, the odor pungent yet sweet. There were no windows or lights, but brightness still shone from a source he couldn’t identify. It illuminated the entire interior. In the center of the room was a huge halved tree, which was polished smooth and stained maroon, swirled with veins of black. There was space left for little else save the six decorative chairs set around the large wood table.
A soft wind whistled through the thatched walls. A cool stream of air snaked up his back. Aiben shivered reflexively, pulling his cloak tighter around his broad shoulders. The handful of material told him he was once again clothed in the same green cloak he had worn in his earlier dreams. He ran his hand down the shimmering fabric, flattening out the wrinkles and feeling the silky smoothness with the tips of his fingers. It felt so real. Aiben turned, hoping to see an opening behind him, but there were just the same serene patterns of woven limbs.
When he turned his attention back to the large table, there were five figures sitting around it. The iridescent green of Haman robes adorned each of them. Their sudden appearance didn’t surprise him. In fact, he had been expecting something like this to happen. In his first dream, similar figures had occupied ornate wood and pearl chairs around another table.
Aiben stood behind one of the figures seated at the head of the table. The other four sat to either side of him along the table’s edges. They had pushed back their hoods to reveal one man and three women. Their hair was a spectrum from golden blond to obsidian black, their skin from ivory to ebony. Their facial features were just as varied, and each one conveyed a unique beauty, alluring in his or her own way. Only the figure at the head of the table kept his head obscured under the cloak’s hood.
“Iniri’ki Hegirith, I’m sorry…”
Impossibly, the voice came from behind Aiben, but before he could turn, someone brushed past him into the room and took a seat at the other end of the table. He wondered where this new arrival had come from. A glance over his shoulder confirmed there was still no door behind him. Then the man pushed back his hood to reveal the youthful face of Aiben’s anab. It was Oand-ib once again!
“Yoren-dal, my friend, I’m glad you made it,” the man seated in front of Aiben said. “I’ve become quite accustomed to your tardiness over the years, but time is short these days. I was just about to start the council meeting without you.” His voice was gentle, but laced with just the right amount of reproach.
Yoren-dal bowed his head respectfully. “Thank you for waiting, Hegirith.”
At that moment, one of the eeriest feelings Aiben had ever experienced struck him. He had felt something like it once before while dreaming. This time, however, the feeling was so hyper-extended that it disoriented him for a few moments. It was the sensation of being both the observer and the observed.
He knew he was standing behind the hooded man, watching the six people around the table, but at the same time, he also found himself sitting in the seat at the head of the table, his face shrouded by a dark hood. His awareness flickered between the two roles of watcher and watched, and sometimes the two meshed in a state of confusion that he wouldn’t have been able to explain to anyone else. It was almost as if he possessed a dual consciousness.
“As you all no doubt know by now, our experiment has failed. The Nograthi’aak have proven to be too powerful for those to whom we have given our mind meshing ability.”
Aiben was speaking through the viewpoint of the hooded man while standing behind the table listening to himself speak at the same time. It was very bizarre. He thought it was probably a trick of the dream world that shalal hiliz was interleaving into his thoughts.
“I have to take responsibility for this,” the young Oand-ib said. His eyes were downcast. Uncharacteristic for the master cybermancer, Aiben knew. “My plan didn’t leave them strong enough to resist the Nograthi’aak as I had hoped.”
“No, Yoren-dal, you can’t take the blame for this alone. All agreed that we would take this course of action. All believed in the success of your idea. How could we have known that even with the enhancements the nanoscopic machines made to their biochemistry, they still wouldn’t be able to use hyperspatial thought on their own?” Aiben tried to placate Yoren-dal with the mouth of the hooded man.
“If I wouldn’t have suggested this unsuccessful scheme in the first place, there wouldn’t have been anything for anyone to consent to.” Oand-ib’s eyes came up as he said this, and although younger, they were full of the same white-hot fire he was used to seeing on the face of his teacher.
“You have the benefit of hindsight, my friend. We made the right choice with the knowledge we had.” His alter ego tried to assure Oand-ib with a smile peeking out from underneath the hood’s shadow. “At least we’ve given some hope to those who may survive the Haman.”
“How can you say we’ve given them even a modicum of hope, Iniri’ki Hegirith? When our brothers have driven us into extinction, those we’ve enhanced will no longer be able to use shalal hiliz at all.” This came from one of the women at the table’s edge.
Aiben remembered how he had been worried that Yoren-dal’s plan would backfire on them. There was the fear that those they had given the Haman mind linking abilities to might defeat their oppressors and become conquerors themselves. However, it hadn’t turned out that way and neither had the project gone as Yoren-dal had foreseen it.
The nanomechs had indeed been successful in creating the artificial biochemical conditions needed to use shalal hiliz, but those possessing the machines were still unable to send their thoughts through hyperspace, the means by which thoughts traveled from one Haman to another. The minds of the non-Haman races just hadn’t proved powerful enough to pierce a higher plane of space-time. They couldn’t fold their minds together into their own Consciousness.
It was possible for them to use shalal hiliz only if the powerful conglomeration of Haman thought linked with them first and then used its own power to breach and traverse the highways of hyperspace for them. It seemed the other races would forever need the Haman and never be able to initiate shalal hiliz on their own. Not even two of them, standing in front of each other, could link their minds together without using the Haman Consciousness as a springboard first.
“I’ve been thinking for some time now about this dependency others have on us,” Aiben said as the man at the head of the table. He folded his hands on the table and leaned forward. “As we’ve explored our galaxy over the past several thousand years, we’ve seeded it with hyperportals. They have grown from the tip of one spiral arm to the tip of another. Think, my friends, those minds too weak to enter hyperspace can’t use shalal hiliz on their own, but maybe the portals can interact with their nanoscopic biomechanoids to do that for them. Perhaps one day, their minds will evolve and become strong enough to penetrate hyperspace, but for now, the portals and the nanomechs might do that for them.”
At first, those gathered around the table posed looks of utter disbelief and mumbled in low voices to each other. Then, one by one, as each thought about how they could do it, they nodded their heads in thoughtful assent.
A little bit of the guilt gone from his voice now, Yoren-dal said what everyone else was thinking. “Maybe we haven’t completely failed then. Our legacy will continue, if not in the way I first envisioned it.”
“Yes, it very well could continue, but we need to take one other step to guarantee that others will be able to develop their minds over the centuries without opposition.” The Iniri-ki Hegirith crumpled back his sleeve to reveal something that was bonded to the flesh of his forearm.
Aiben craned his neck to look over the man’s shoulder, his perspective now playing the role of the observer. He was clasping the device; some small, shiny bits poked out from between his fingers. Suddenly, it melted around them into a metallic pool on the table. It molded itself and hardened into a solid shape. I
t was now in Aiben’s full view and he instantly recognized its stylized shape. Its design matched the mark on the inside of his arm!
“We know the final battle will soon take place here on homeworld. I fear Nograthi’aak and Tulani’aak will meld minds together in an ultimate conflict that will destroy our race. My brother, however, will find a way to avoid such destruction. If there is the slightest chance that a few of us can also escape this fate, we must not allow the architect of this awful struggle to perpetuate his terror when we are all gone.”
The words of the Hegirith painted dark shades of dread on the gathered faces. A strange thought formed in Aiben’s mind, his mood also colored by the gloom; how could this man’s peaceful demeanor have dovetailed so far that he would suggest such a direct course of action against his brother? He didn’t know from where the thought had come, or what it could mean, until he heard what the hooded man said next. It took those paintings of dismay and splattered them with utter astonishment. Only one of the women’s canvases remained devoid of expression.
“To make sure Nograth doesn’t survive, I have created this.” The Hegirith gestured to the device laying there on the table, which he had removed from his arm. His hand was trembling slightly, the skin of his knuckles white and drawn taught. He was shaken by the confession he was about to give. There was a palpable feeling of unease in the room. “I call it im shalal.” The mind killer.
The horrific words bore into Aiben like a spinning dart. His stomach lurched and a bizarre feeling slammed him back into the viewpoint of the hooded man. His heart raced at each of the faces surrounding the table, which stared at him in utter disbelief.
They judge me for daring to break one of our most sacred traditions. Not even the Nograthi’aak have broken it. One should never do anything that would take shalal hiliz away from another.
“How does it work?” Yoren-dal dared ask. He was more saddened than shocked now. He of all people would have understood the inevitability of the Hegirith’s actions.