Call of the Goddess: A Bona Dea Novel (Stormflies Book 1) (14 page)

Staring out across the sea from the inn, Axandra still longed to see her old friends. She missed Lilsa most of all, her comrade and counselor. She missed being able to call on Lilsa to commiserate over her troubles.

Below, a flock of helpers prepared tables for lunch on a veranda jutting from the building out over the ocean. Curious onlookers gathered by a short fence that protected the border of flowers planted along the patio. They did not notice her looking down on them from her balcony, carefully hidden in the shadows to avoid attention.

A knock came at the door.

“Come in,” Axandra called, sensing her aide outside.

Miri poked her head in. “Madam, I have two visitors wishing to see you,” she said warily. “They say they are Jeanette and Dora—”

“They're here?” Axandra burst, striding in from the balcony.

“Yes. Downstairs in the courtyard. You know them?”

“Oh, yes! I'll enjoy seeing them! They're from my old village.” She dashed toward the door, her spirits rising. Miri reminded her to put on her shoes before escaping out the door. Down the open staircase, she found the two elderly ladies seated beneath a leatherleaf, out of the sunslight. The two chatted with each other and cracked open roasted nuts to snack on. Gulls swooped down to snatch their snacks, but the ladies deftly fought off the opportunistic scavengers.

Axandra hurried to them, calling their names happily.

Looking up, the two women squinted at her curiously, then jumped up to say hello. They fussed over her for several moments.

“You look so different!” Jeanette exclaimed, framing her hands in midair to better focus on the younger woman's appearance. “Even from the photos. Don't you think, Dora?”

“Feels different too,” Dora agreed. “Lovely dress.”

“Oh, yes, it just shimmers in this sunslight,” Jeanette agreed, reaching out to feel the thin fabric, a deep purple flecked with silver threads.

The friends carried on about how her overall demeanor had changed from the quiet young girl who would help them plant their vegetable gardens to the traveler, the speaker and the Protectress.

“Axandra, it is so good to see you—oh my!—I guess I can't call you that anymore, Protectress—” Jeanette emphasized the title heavily, suddenly remembering the taboo of addressing the Esteemed by her given name.

“It is my name,” Axandra insisted proudly. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Don't worry, I won't tell anyone about your slip. Please, let's sit awhile and visit. I so appreciate that you're here. I was just thinking about Gammerton.”

“Oh, as soon as we heard you'd be in Togor, we decided we'd jump the ferry and try our luck at getting an audience. We didn't think they'd let us anywhere near you,” Jeanette told her, dismissing the notion that the visit was intentional.

“Not after what happened in Lazzonir,” Dora elaborated. Her cocoa and pink hands cracked open a few more nuts and tossed the shells into the flowers. The bell nuts, named for their bell shape, grew thin-shelled and easy to crack with bare fingers.

Axandra preferred to keep the incident in Lazzonir quiet, but obviously the tale spread across the world despite her efforts. “What did you hear about that?” she asked curiously. “How did the story come out?”

“Oh,” Dora began, shifting in her seat and thinking it through. Her dark brown eyes gazed up at the lavender sky, glinting in the suns. “It's said that a young man asked to see you, but was denied. He entered the inn anyway and got pounced on by the Elite and hauled out. Some tell he was handled quite roughly. What's your side?” Dora inquired, always looking for another angle to any gossip.

“It didn't happen quite that way,” Axandra explained. Then she narrated the tale as she remembered it, with the young man sneaking through her window in the middle of the night and scaring everyone half to death. “I didn't see how the Elite handled him after the initial capture. They acted as they saw fit—believing the man came to do me harm.”

“How terribly frightening!” Jeanette exclaimed, overly dramatic. “You poor dear.”

“I'm fine,” Axandra assured. “It turned out he had no intention of causing any injury. You know, I do feel terrible for running away from the village like that.”

“Not even a goodbye from our favorite neighbor,” Dora complained.

“I just needed to go as soon as I could,” she offered as explanation. “I didn't want anyone to know until I went to the Council.”

“It's okay, dear. We forgive you,” Jeanette affirmed graciously.

“Goodbye would have been nice though,” Dora added, less forgivingly.

Axandra chuckled. They hadn't changed a bit and treated her no differently than before. The casual discourse came as a welcome change to everyone treating her so delicately.

“I don't know if you're at all interested,” Jeanette leaned close with a secretive whisper, “in what Jon's been doing since y'left.”

Of course he would come up. They saw him daily.

“I suppose I want to get it out of the way,” Axandra allowed, giving in to the temptation. She wondered for a moment if she might regret hearing about him. How would she get him out of her mind? She could see and sense that the women were eager for her to know.

“Well,” Jeanette began, “for the first few days after you walked out, we were guaranteed to find him with liquor at hand, usually at Kyle's, perched at the bar. He looked extremely upset that you left. Eyes all bloodshot. Bad mood. I don't blame him. You're such a wonderful girl.”

Axandra half-grimaced, half-smiled at the comment. Axandra felt she was being mocked, for the elder woman did not say such words as a compliment. Jon was born and bred a Gammerton native. Axandra was not. Most of Gammerton had always treated her as an outsider, and now their actions seemed vindicated. She was not one of their own. Part of her felt satisfied that he felt some grief and regret. Another part felt guilty.

“Then he became more his usual self, cooking and hanging out with the boys in town. Within a couple of weeks, wasn't it Dora? Just a couple of weeks?”

Dora agreed with a nod. “A couple of weeks. Time's gone by fast.”

“Well anyway, Jon started to woo that pretty young blonde Anna Milo, but that didn't last long. By the installation, he had moved on to a newcomer to town, a red-head. She's quite enamored with him. They're thinking about getting married.”

“Married?” Axandra almost snorted. “We never talked about marriage,” she revealed, frowning.

“Oh, sorry, dear, but that's the story. I know it was your decision to go.”

“I asked him to come with me,” Axandra said hoping to appease the old gossips. She did not need rumors spreading around that she had abandoned her former lover. So far, that gossip seemed contained to the island. “It was as much his choice.”

Miri came up behind them. “Madam, it's time for lunch. The Governor and Principal are waiting.”

“Just a few more minutes, please,” Axandra requested, flashing her eyes toward the aide with a slight curve of her lips.

Stepping back, Miri gave them more time.

“It was so good to see both of you again.” Axandra returned her attention to the ladies.

“Oh, we love coming over to Togor once in a while. We're just lucky to get to see you, too. We do miss having you around. Our new planter just doesn't have your personality.”

“She's a better gardener though,” Dora put in flatly.

“Of course. I must go. Service calls. Please write to me. The next time I come this way, I'll come to see you.”

“Oh, you won't have time for us, but thank you for the thought. Just be the good woman that you are. We couldn't ask for a better Protectress,” Jeanette praised.

“I always thought you were the Heir,” Dora claimed.

“Oh, you did not,” Jeanette chided. “Go dear. Your helper is back.”

Sure enough, Miri had returned to pull her away.

“Goodbye,” she said, then rose to go to her appointed lunch, her satiny dress swishing about her legs as she walked. She glanced back once and gave a wave of her fingers. She thought sadly that this might be the last time she would see them.

9th Hexember, 307

Ghastly news
arrived at the Palace shortly after the traveling party returned to Eastland once again. This time, the information came over a communicator piped into the Council Chamber over wall-mounted speakers.

The incident occurred near one of the fishing villages along the western coast. The Governor of Westland explained that two hundred curana beached up the rocky shore, literally pounding themselves to death on the jagged rocks.

“Assistors immediately took to boats with nets to try to hold others back from the beach, but the creatures broke through. The animals were frantic, as though trying to escape some kind of predator,” the Governor said, the signal crackling through the speaker. Apparently, magnetic interference from looming Soporus interfered with radio transmissions. The quickly approaching planet introduced a host of new atmospheric difficulties. “The Assistors were helpless to stop them from killing themselves.”

Axandra closed her eyes, pained to think of the graceful swimmers purposely breaking themselves against those rocks, scenery that she knew well. Curana possessed a high degree of intelligence. In fact, many believed the creatures were sentient beings, capable of the same range of emotions and perceptions as humans. Unlike humans, they lived in perfect harmony with their native world and had no need for cities, cars or other sedentary adaptations.

What frightened the curana so horribly to try to flee to land, that death might be a better alternative?

Two hundred easily constituted an entire pod, a large extended family of both sexes and all ages.

“
We are having to take the bodies back out to sea a few at a time and scatter them to the currents so they don't rot in one pool. I've never seen anything so devastating
.” The crackling voice faded out for a moment as he went on.

“Governor?” called Nancy Morton in to the communicator box in her hand. “Are you still there?”

“
—ll here
,” came the broken replay. “
Sig– — ry weak. We're ha— —ble—
.”

At once the signal broke completely, replaced by harsh static and sharp zapping noise that pulsed unevenly within the interference.

“Send Assistors from, uh, from nearby ports with boats to help the, uh, cleanup,” Axandra began to order, her words stuttered as sadness swelled up in her chest. She used to go swimming with those creatures. Large and bluish gray with flat wing-like fins, the gentle animals surfaced for breath from the deeper waters. When she swam, members of the pod would circle her, usually the adolescents who were still small enough to enter shallower water, and nudge her mischievously.

She drew in a deep breath through her nostrils to try to settle the flushing of her skin. “And have them patrol the waters near there, to look for anything that might have chased the curana.” She knew that few predators would attempt to hunt healthy curana swimming in a pod group, but perhaps such an animal had taken the chance. Curana were quite capable of defending themselves when threatened. Not even a large group of typical predators would make an entire pod flee like this without a fight.

“Very good,” Antonette accepted with a bow, her own wrinkled face damp with tears. “We will dispatch Assistors immediately.” The councilors on hand instantly set her request into action, quickly clustering in the center of the room with low words to each other. Axandra exited the chamber to allow them to work. They would notify her if they needed her again.

At any given time, at least one councilor from each region resided in Undun in order to take care of the business for their citizens. In between major sessions of the Council, many members returned to their homes to live life as citizens. Most councilors were able to live at home for sixty percent of the each year, depending on their given shifts and duties.

During the first one hundred days that Axandra acted as Protectress, she was introduced to each of the seventeen Councilors in service. Unfortunately, other than her installation, the representatives from the Prophets remained absent, banished since Ileanne had gone missing from their care. In the past, at least one Prophet was available to the Protectress as an advisor on the Council. The majority of the members of the Prophet clan remained under cover of the Storm and unreachable.

Despite her return, the Prophet advisors remained absent from their duties. No one could explain their choice, for few outsiders had intimate contact with any of their people. The Prophets chose to ignore the Protectress' request for a representative to appear again. Not even Tyrane answered the call. She thought that he at least would venture to see her, as concerned as he had seemed about her transition.

The Prophets were the most highly developed telepaths among the human race, and had been so since before leaving Old Earth. Their kind sought each other out and secluded themselves in a community of their own making in a remote area of Old Earth, away from the Normals. In seclusion, the people trained to control their abilities and use their powers with natural grace. Among their own kind, the conversed only mind-to-mind and communed constantly with their contemporaries.

Apart from other telepathic groups, they had built a ship intended to take them to a new star. They joined the other ships of less talented people in the last minutes of preparation. They maintained their separatism on their new world and were hailed as Prophets of the divine by the other voyagers for some of their unique talents, such as rumors of precognition and telekinetic abilities.

For reasons still unknown, the Prophets set their ship down in the center of the desert and under the Great Storm, away from the scattered populations of lessers. Little was known about their way of life, save the occasional visit to Undun. They traveled to no other parts of the world and rarely stayed out of the Storm more than a few hours at a time.

Axandra had questions she wanted to ask the Prophets about what was happening around the world. Could they tell her why the curana had committed suicide so bloodily? Could they explain why the Believers were ill and unable, so far, to be diagnosed, much less cured? And why did the Goddess exist? That was the most preoccupying question in her mind. Perhaps it wasn't one even they could answer. What was her purpose and why was Axandra's family a string of vessels housing the entity? She did not like all of these difficult questions.

+++

During the afternoon,
Axandra sat at a large desk in a small room adjacent to the Council Chamber, certifying hand-printed documents that would be placed in the Archives deep in the Palace holds. These notes were intended to be the factual depictions of the events that had occurred over the last several weeks, hand-lettered by the archivists as described in notes made by the councilors' aides and others involved.

Axandra read each, judging their accuracy as she knew it. One detailed her initial arrival to the Palace from the Council's point of view—how she had been tested and confirmed by their approved methods. The account gave no intimation of Councilor Morton's adverse behavior toward the new arrival or any of the doubts Morton had expressed about the Heir's claim. Another transcribed the details of the installation ceremony, from the dress she wore, to the words that accompanied the Gifts, to her speech. She signed her name to each of these as presented. After doing so, she realized she wasn't certain which name she should sign. She automatically signed that name which she had used for the past twenty years, Axandra Korte.

“Oh dear,” she sighed, pen hovering uncertainly.

The archivist, who placed the documents before her, raised his eyebrows curiously. “Is there a problem, Madam?”

“Well, I may have just signed the wrong name,” Axandra told him, still looking at her sweeping cursive on the paper. Axandra Korte never really existed.
Who am I now?
she thought to herself, troubled that she was forced to ask herself such a question.

No one had called her Ileanne in her presence since she was six. Or was she to sign “Protectress” or something else entirely?

“Let me summon Councilor Morton. She may be the one to help you with that,” he offered. He sneaked out of the room and into the Council chamber. He left the door of the office open as he disappeared for a couple of minutes.

Morton was not far away, just outside the chamber in the main hall where she finished a meeting with two other councilors. While waiting, Axandra began to read the next archival record, one describing the intrusion at the inn in Lazzonir. She breathed in deeply, uncertain if she wanted to relive that event at the moment. The physical and mental intrusions still gave her nightmares, even after a few weeks. She scanned the lettering, her eyes picking up the words “Believer” and “trespassing” among the description.

“You needed me, Your Honor?” Nancy inquired when she entered followed by the archivist. She scowled dourly and glared down at Axandra across a hawk nose.

“Yes. This is a bit embarrassing,” Axandra admitted with a grimace. She gestured to the papers. “How am I expected to sign my name? What name do I use?”

Morton lifted one of the ledger-sized pages and examined the signature. “Oh my,” she said with a sigh similar to Axandra's moments ago. “I'm afraid I hadn't given that any thought.”

“If I may, the Protectress has always signed her given name,” the archivist offered.

“Then I definitely defaced your work, sir,” Axandra said apologetically. “This is not the name I was given at birth.”

He took the paper from Morton and examined the signature through a pair of rimless spectacles he produced from the pocket of his shirt. “I see. In this instance, I suggest,” he said, tapping the paper gently with the earpiece of the glasses, “that you sign again, beneath your first signature. I will make note that you are also known as 'Axandra Korte.' On the approval document, the transition will make perfect sense, since that is how you were described in the body of that document.”

“Very well. But I will have to practice a new signature for a few minutes,” Axandra explained. “I've never scripted it in cursive.”

He gave her a scrap of blank paper on which she penned the name “Ileanne Saugray.” She struggled at first to make the letters flow, spelling it silently on her lips as she slowly drew it out. She had only just learned to spell her matername when she ceased to be the Heir.

Over and over, she scripted the names almost twenty-five times before she felt comfortable enough to sign officially. She decided she needed to practice further to make it feel natural.

Axandra looked to the archivist, signaling that she was ready. He returned with the documents. He had already added the footnote and additional signature line, crafted masterfully in such a short time. She signed her given name on each, still spelling it in her mind as she wrote.

“Thank you, Madam. Please continue with the rest.”

Satisfied that she was no longer needed, Morton left without excusing herself. Axandra made mental note to discuss protocol with an expert before bringing up the lapse to Morton. If she was to continue learning and developing in the office, Axandra resolved that she would need to demand respect.

Axandra read through the remainder of the archives, satisfied with the facts as written, though the written details of the intrusion gave her the shivers. Reading the details refreshed the incident in her memory. She felt her relief renewed as well reading Eryn's analysis of the intruder as harmless.

During her weeks of orientation, Axandra learned that these documents would be photographed for additional copies, then loosely bound in the vault. The books would be permanently bound when filled from cover-to-cover. Three archivists served the Palace vault, their sole responsibilities consisting of recording the events in the Palace and the life of the Protectress. The archivists hand-printed each record on linen sheets and made certain the vault remained the optimum environment for preserving the records. The photos were stored at a separate site, a backup in case something happened to the originals. These original records and the copies remained accessible to the public for review at any time and were indexed in the archive books by dates, names, key words and other criteria that would make information easy to find.

And now Axandra became a permanent addition to that record. After the archivist had gone, she sat at the desk for several more minutes, continuing to practice the signing of her given name, though she thought that it would never quite feel like her own. Twenty-one years ago, she had resolved to give it up forever.

+++

Because of the curana
beaching, the Council decided to postpone the next tour. Citizens across the continent expressed extreme concern about other strange behaviors emerging in animals. Reports by Watchers of packhounds venturing into the villages during the day came from all over the plains area. No person had yet been harmed—people tended, smartly, to get out of the way—but bustles and crowngoats and other herds were being ravaged more than the natural hunt. Many feared the animals were sick. The Safety Watch cremated the remains of the slaughtered animals and any packhound carcasses to inhibit spread of the sickness.

Astronomers offered that the approach of the sister world might be affecting the animals. The planet grew larger and brighter in the sky as the two worlds approached their nearest pass in over three hundred years. Bona Dea and Soporus revolved in orbits so similar that the planets only neared each other when Bona Dea, the fourth planet, lapped the fifth planet's orbit. This passing took almost a full year itself. The climax of the passing would occur in a few months, just as fall began. The astronomers surmised that the gravitational pull and the intense magnetic field of the planet affected all life on their small world. The humans landed after the last passing and gained no experience with those closest days.

Over the last few months, the scientists scrutinized the sister planet, calculating its expected path and observing its surface through their telescopes. Gray and dead, visible images of the surface revealed that the world once contained water and probably life. At some point, the planet lost its atmosphere and now floated dead in orbit. Slightly larger than Bona Dea, the gray world was otherwise a possible twin in composition, with a similar iron core and carbon rich mantle. Much of what the humans knew of Soporus, they had learned when the ships entered the star system and passed the orb on the way to their new home.