An Abyss of Light (The Light Trilogy) (46 page)

The marine lifted his heavy bar again and again, beating Talo unmercifully. The other marine joined in after a few blows, shattering his legs and pounding his spine. They laughed at him while a gray haze rose. In the background he thought he heard someone utter a bare whisper of, “We’ll kill them. It won’t be long. Rachel is back. Sholmo says his mother saw her go into the palace last night. Wait until she …”

Talo awoke to see stars gleaming through a fissure in a roof. But his eyes wouldn’t quite focus; the world heaved in a sickening blur. Peroxide and other pungent smells filled the air of the battered building and he heard soft footsteps threshing through clutter. In a flood of panic he thought they must be marines.

“Don’t hit me!” he wept, trying feebly to cover his head with his single arm. “Don’t … don’t hit me!”

Myra leaned over him, the ends of her blue head rag touching his cheek. He gazed up blindly for a moment, then made out the massive bruises and disfiguring wounds that marred her once pretty face. He put his arm over his eyes and sobbed. They’d hurt her for trying to help him. The knowledge tore at his soul, for he knew he still needed help badly.

“Uncle Talo,” she whispered lovingly. “Quiet! Hush! You mustn’t weep so loudly. They’ll hear! It’ll only make things worse.” She glanced nervously over her shoulder. He followed her glance toward the dark socket of an empty doorway. Were they through there? The marine guards they assigned to the work crews each night?

Still, he couldn’t stop the tears that wracked his very soul. He should shove her away, force her to let him die, he thought numbly.

“Shut up!” someone shouted. “Keep him quiet. They’ll kill us all if he wakes them!”

Talo clutched weakly at her blue sleeve, shrieking, “Go away! Don’t … don’t help me.”

“Quiet!” she hissed fearfully, clapping a hand over his mouth.

Through the hard fingers, he gasped. “Rachel …?”

Myra reluctantly released her hands, glancing at the doorway. “Keep your voice down, Uncle. What about her?”

“Did I hear right? Is it true? She’s back?” He felt the same aching hope he did when he spoke of the coming of the Redeemer.

“We’re not sure. You know Sholmo’s mother, Martha, isn’t in her right mind anymore. Maybe she just mistook a sliver of moonlight for Rachel. She’s also been babbling about the coming of the true Mashiah for a week straight. Day and night, no one can stop her constant muttering.”

“He
is
coming,” Talo assured warmly. “He is.”

“I believe you, Uncle,” she said softly, but he could tell by the tone she didn’t. She hesitated, then whispered, “I’ll tell you something else, if you promise to just lie quietly and listen.”

He nodded feebly.

“We’ve heard rumors from other sources that Rachel is inside the palace. One person said she’d been alone all day with the Mashiah. But no one knows what’s happening.”

He felt suddenly feverish, his whole body searing hot. “She’s telling him to save us.”

“Or she’s gone over.”

He stared madly into her blurry, bruised face. In the background, stars glimmered like huge fuzzy torches. “No! Don’t even think that! She’ll… she’ll take care of us,” he rasped frantically. “You’ll see. She’s the tool of Epagael!”

“For the sake of God!” someone whispered shrilly. “Shut him up! The rest of us have to work tomorrow!”

“Shhh! Uncle, don’t …” Her voice trailed into nothingness, eyes widening in terror.

He followed her gaze and through the dark doorway, saw the marine. The man stood silhouetted, a black form against the dark gray background of night. In Talo’s distorted vision, he seemed to float forward like a ghost.

“Water?” he croaked at Myra. “Niece, give me some water before they forbid it. I’m so hot.”

She backed away from his bed, her whole body trembling. The redheaded marine stared down and Talo felt his soul shrivel. The hate in those cold blue eyes flooded over him like the poisoned oceans in the north.

“Water?” he asked the soldier. “I’m dying from fever. Just a little water to cool my throat.”

“Didn’t you hear the girl? She said be quiet!”

“But please, just a little. I only need—”

“Shut up!”

“Just a sip to wet—”

The marine bashed him violently on the head and Talo heard his skull crack. It seemed as though in that instant his brain oozed from its shell, for he felt a slimy wetness against his head.

He gasped, body going numb, but still he forced himself to murmur one final time, “Wa … water …”

The marine whirled in military fashion and strode haughtily through the room, screaming as he exited, “You filthy fools had better not lay a finger on him. If we find out any of you has helped him tonight, you’ll all suffer for it!”

A hum of murmuring voices laced the darkness, but in a few short moments, he saw Myra lean over him again. Her lips trembled and tears streaked her bruised cheeks. “Uncle …”

“My—Myra.” He tried to say the name lovingly, but his voice rasped like sand against stone.

His energy drained away like water through a hole in a rickety bucket. But he felt only a sense of freedom, a peaceful floating into oblivion. He let himself go, relaxing in the sweet chill of the night, dreaming.

And he found himself walking the old streets. Candles lit the windows and scents of fresh baked muffins lingered on the morning wind. Happiness touched him as he rounded the corner and saw again the stone doves who gathered before the bakery. They strutted and cooed, racing to encircle his feet, waiting for the bread they knew stuffed his jacket pockets.

Mikael snuggled under his blue plaid blanket, pulling it up around his ears. Cold fingers seemed to creep from every part of his chamber, twining out of the rock to stroke his warm body greedily. He shivered, watching his mother wearily pull a box that contained extra blankets from beneath his bed. She looked very tired, the light that used to gleam in her eyes dead and gone. Black hair hung in dirty strands over her shoulders. He hadn’t seen her in a long time. She spent most of her days, and sometimes long into the nights, talking with grown-ups. Lately, she’d taken to speaking sharply to him, “Can’t you see I’m busy, Mikael? Go outside and play.” “Are you crying again? Won’t you ever grow up to be a man?” Loneliness and fear haunted him.

“Mama?” he asked bravely. “Are we going to die, like Grandfather and Aunt Ezarin?” He’d heard people talking and knew something very bad was happening. Cousin Shilby said that big ships might come and rain violet fire down on them that would melt the rocks into pools like water.

In a violent motion, she shook out a blanket and flung it over him. “We’ll be fine, Mikael. Go to sleep. It’s awfully late.”

But Mikael couldn’t sleep. He hid beneath his covers, only his eyes showing. His breathing against the plaid blanket came back warm, filtering through his nightshirt to touch his cold chest. He felt only half convinced by his mother’s words. She’d said them with a shakiness in her voice that made his insecure world totter.

“Mama, why won’t the men leading the riots in the deserts and valleys help us?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t they like us?”

“They don’t like me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not your grandfather,” she blurted and slapped a fist into the brown stone wall.

He jumped, appraising her through dark glistening eyes. “What difference does that make?”

“To them … a lot.”

“Mama, why don’t we—”

“Stop it, Mikael! I don’t want to talk about it.”

He nervously pleated the corner of his blanket between his fingers. When she looked back at him, tears shone in her eyes. But something else glimmered there, too. Something he didn’t understand, a feeling like when his weabit—his best friend—had been crushed under a rock slide. His chest had ached and felt hollow for days.

“Are you sad, Mama?”

She paced unsteadily and in a savage voice whispered, “You’re being a bad boy, Mikael. Don’t ask me things like that. Go to sleep.”

He snuggled a little deeper beneath the blankets. The words about him being bad hurt. He’d tried very hard these past few weeks to be especially good. He never made loud noises anymore and he only played in his chamber, picking up his toys every night. He felt as though a heavy sack of grain had been laid on his chest. He couldn’t breathe very well. He searched his thoughts for something to make her feel better.

“Mama?” he blurted and suddenly sat up. The blankets coiled around his waist. “Why don’t you take me with you to talk to those men? After you, I’m the next leader of Gamant civilization. Maybe if we both went, they’d listen to us and then the Magistrates would leave us alone?”

“The leaders of the riots won’t talk to us anymore. I’ve been trying to arrange meetings for weeks. They refuse.”

“Why, Mama?”

“Because they think I’m crazy!”

He flinched at the harshness, murmuring defensively, “I love you, Mama.”

She glared at him, but soon her hard look softened and she came back to sit on the side of his bed. Brushing dirty hair behind her ears, she took his hand in hers and said softly, “I’m sorry, Mikael. I’ve been mean, haven’t I?”

“No, Mama. You’ve just been worried.”

She pulled him to her chest and hugged him fiercely. “You’re my best friend,” she murmured. “Did you know that? You’re my best friend and I’ve been rushing around so much I’d almost forgotten you existed.”

“I know, Mama, but it’s all right. Now we’ll be better.”

“I don’t know, Mikael. The whole world is falling down around our ears and I’ve nowhere to turn for guidance.”

“What about God?”

“No, I can’t—”

“Because the shadow man stole the
Mea?”

She pushed him away suddenly. “Where did you hear that?”

“Shilby told me. He said it happened the night Grandfather was killed.”

She blinked, lips trembling as she looked away. “Yes, it did. I’m sorry. I should have been the one to tell you. But I’ve been so busy.”

“It’s all right.”

“It was yours, you know? Papa said to give it to you after his death.”

“So I could go talk to God.”

“Yes.”

Mikael lowered his eyes and picked a piece of lint from his blanket, rolling it in his fingers. He’d been very sad when he first heard. Sad and disbelieving and angry.

“Mama, I hit Shilby when he told me.”

“Did you?”

He nodded, ashamed. The worst thing in the world to his mother was fighting. She hated it and had punished him throughout his life when he accidentally had to do it. But the battle with Shilby had been different. He’d hit his cousin with a stick because he wanted to—wanted to hurt Shilby as badly as his cousin had hurt him by the news. Mikael remembered painfully the dozens of times his grandfather used to dangle the object in front of his eyes. He’d watched in awe as blue light poured from the globe. He’d felt God calling him those times, like a prickle of ant feet at the back of his neck. God wanted to talk, needed to. But now he knew he’d never be able to answer the call.

“Mama? Who’s the shadow man?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe it’s Aktariel? The Deceiver. He can come in any shape he wants. Maybe he wants all the
Meas!”

“I don’t think the devil would—”

“Remember Grandfather’s story about
Indra’s Net?
Remember how he said that in the old times
Meas
filled the skies, sparkling like gems across the celes …” He concentrated. “The celestial vault and how our ancestors used to be able to take their own
Meas
and follow the gems in the net anywhere in the universe they wanted to go?”

“Yes,” she said and smiled wanly. “I remember that funny story.”

“But when the Magistrates came, they started plucking all the
Meas
from the net and putting them in a big hole at Palaia.”

She yawned tiredly, putting a hand to her mouth and nodding. He could tell she listened only out of politeness, but it had been so long since he’d had a chance to really talk with her, that he couldn’t bear the thought she might leave. He kept talking.

“Only certain
Meas
led to God, remember, Mama? Grandfather said our ancestors had to experiment to find which ones.”

“And there were only forty.”

He nodded vigorously.

“Yes, honey, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“Don’t you see?” he said excitedly, clutching her hand. “Grandfather said once that Aktariel ruled the Magistrates, so maybe he has most of the
Meas
in the hole at Palaia, but—”

“He didn’t have ours, you mean?”

“So he came and stole it! And once he throws them back in the sky, he can go through any door in the net again.”

“Yes, I see, Mikael.” She gave him a kindly smile and tucked the blankets around him. “You must go to sleep now, all right?”

“But, Mama—”

“It’s late, son. And I need to go to bed. I have a big meeting tomorrow with Colonel Silbersay in Capitol.”