Indomitus Oriens (The Fovean Chronicles) (3 page)

             
The King nodded. Glynn grudgingly agreed, much as she dreaded the water. She lowered her head in obeisance, her long green hair falling before her face. Eldadorian ‘Sea Wolves’ sailed in defiance of the Trenboni ‘Tech Ship’ on Tren Bay. Armed with ‘Eldadorian Fire,’ they’d become the scourge of the sea and a tremendous threat to all other ships.

             
“I disagree,” D’gattis the Far Traveled said from the gallery. Also in the white robes of a Caster, his were adorned with a yellow mark down the front, something resembling a hook and a dot. D’gattis came from a family which had never produced anything but gifted Casters, himself no exception. As a member of the mercenary army, the ‘Daff Kanaar,’ D’gattis as an Uman-Chi was out of favor, Glynn knew.

D’gattis as a Caster was indomitable.
Chaheff himself deferred to him. Angron summoned him here to advise because no one else had his knowledge.

“This is the place of power.
This
is where Uman-Chi and Cheyak wards protect us, not the Bay. If it is the will of the All-Father that we should be spared, then we will be spared, and if not then there is nothing we can do to prevent that.

             
“Pretending we can circumvent His will is as ill-advised as was not letting her sing six months ago.”

             
“You speak plainly,” Angron commented. “You amaze me, D’gattis, for your association with the Conqueror.”

             
D’gattis inclined his head and spread his hands, palms up. “Your Majesty, if I am frank, then I am frank in deference to your time and your importance,” he said. “The Emperor does not dictate to me. He is a Man, and his entire life is a blink of an eye.”

             
“Perhaps he is the sliver in an Uman-Chi eye,” Chaheff said. “Because this blink has pained us.”

             
“I must agree with D’gattis,” Aniquen Demoran said. Glynn controlled the smile that begged to cross her lips, her head still down. Aniquen was young and handsome, his house a high one, and he merely five decades her senior.

More importantly, Aniquen had
personally
crossed swords with the hated Conqueror and been beaten, but survived.

Glynn’s mirth left her for melancholy.
Her brother and her father had not been so lucky.

“Remain here,” Aniquen said.
“Remember we that this is Adriam’s month. There is no pleasure in being on Tren Bay now.”

             
Angron actually smiled, an honor to them all. “It has been so long since I have been outside of the palace, that I forgot Adriam’s month was cold. Yes, let it be here, then.”

             
“Then allow me to summon the Casters, as many as we have,” Avek said. Glynn looked up to see Noir’s protective hand laid atop the royal throne. “If there must be a containment, let us be ready.”

             
“One hundred or more Uman-Chi, each acting on behalf of his Majesty?” D’gattis asked the rest. “I think we would be safer if the Conqueror returned.”

             
Angron held his mirth that time. The rest stayed quiet as well. Glynn looked from one set of eyes to the next, un-fooled by the silver-on-silver appearance. Uman-Chi saw eyes of green and blue and lovely violet, in a frequency other eyes could not see. Another sign that Uman-Chi were superior.

             
All of them shifted between D’gattis and Angron, to see if the bold one had lost more favor with the elder.

             
“You are right, and forthright, D’gattis,” the King said. He turned to Noir. “You are my heir, bring me four more.”

             
Then he turned to Chaheff, and said, “You are her mentor, prepare her for containment, if it is needed. If she must give herself to her song, see that she knows how.”

             
A lesser being would have shown her surprise. Glynn had the discipline of a Caster and a century in protocol training. Her first duty remained to her people. The Uman-Chi lived long and died rarely.             

Rarely, and not lightly.

* * *

             
“For fun?” Bill repeated. “You mean, besides all of this?”

             
Melissa smiled. “Yeah.”

             
What the hell did she even care for?
Bill wondered. This reeked of scam and agenda.

             
“Not a lot,” Bill said. “I’m not married; my kids don’t live in-state. First thing you learn in sales is that you don’t make the kind of friends you keep when you change jobs. It’s no different from here. How many people have you made friends with here?”

             
“Other than you?” she said. “None.”

             
Bill took another drag, held it, then exhaled. He hadn’t missed the ‘other than you.’ “So other than the thrill of the kill here,” he said. “Movies, football in season, I guess.”

             
“I’m surprised,” Melissa said. “I thought you would be hitting the clubs, some nice ride…”

             
“Yeah, right,” Bill said. She might be looking for a sugar daddy or just making fun of him. Either way, he wasn’t playing.

             
“Serious,” she said.

             
He checked his watch. Two minutes left. Screw it. He flicked the butt and smiled. “Back to the salt mines,” he said. “Good talking to you.”

             
“Thanks for the cig,” she said. “Think about those Marlboros.”

             
Bill smiled. “You did okay with the Lucky’s.”

             
He was in the door as she smiled up at him.

* * *

              The rest of the morning was like the start of the morning. Provocative questions to incite interest, interest means you have an opening, push the opening to get them a package out, get a committal statement to say that (a) they would read the package and (b) they would talk to you again when you called back.

             
You could be a robot. In fact, it surprised Bill that he hadn’t already been replaced by one. The sorry part was he was capable of so much more. Bill knew he had a good resume as a sales person, but everyone thought a good sales person in his fifties was a manager by then. A good sales person in his fifties didn’t have to sell any more, no matter how much he loved it, because he
was
that good.

             
Not Bill. It left him feeling depressed. When he tried to be unique and up his sales, he either ended up getting reamed by a boss or just embarrassing himself. Like they told him, “The program works. It works best if you just don’t think about it.”

             
Lunch rolled around from 12:00pm to either 12:30pm or, if you made your numbers, 1:00pm. He had made his numbers, so he logged out of his terminal and stood, planning to grab a sandwich and then listen to Rush Limbaugh for his first hour.

             
“Bill, can I see you?”

             
He turned and saw Eileen, the floor sup for his division. “It’ll just take a minute.”

             
He shrugged and followed her to her ‘office,’ a slightly larger cubicle at the end of Bill’s row. She was a slight girl with small tits, kinky blonde hair and dancer’s body, in tight black jeans and top.

             
She sat, he sat.

             
“Do you know Melissa?” she asked.

             
Bill’s first thought was that he’d said or done something no longer considered ‘PC,’ and she’d taken offense at him.

             
“I know one who bummed a cig from me at break,” he said.

             
“She’s having a hard time selling,” Eileen said. “And I was talking to her about it. I offered to set her up with someone to show her, and she asked for you.”

             
Bill shook his head. “Eileen, I’m not a trainer.”

             
“I know, but you could be,” Eileen said. “You’re really good—you always make your numbers. You aren’t some young guy who is going to be looking down their blouses, and you aren’t some young girl where they will be looking down yours.”

             
Bill chuckled. This was as nice as he had seen Eileen. Usually she just bitched about how, when
she
was on the floor, she never had a hard time making her numbers.

             
“More work, less pay,” Bill said. “And the first time one of them doesn’t make their numbers, they’re going to say I harassed them.”

             
Eileen gave him her best solemn eyed look. She had
really
missed her calling selling used cars. “We lock your pay in at your average week for the last year,” she said, “so you can never make less than you are, but you get another hundred a week and if you beat your average, then you just make more. No downside.”

             
Bill did an impressed frown. That wasn’t bad, actually, and the extra money would really help him. “And the other thing?”

             
Eileen leaned back. “Bill,” she said, and reached out and touched the back of his hand, “even
I
have had to deal with it. Everyone knows it’s crap. I won’t lie—if you’re ever seen with one of these kids outside of here, they are going to be able to get you fired, so don’t party with them and you’ll be fine.”             

             
Bill sighed. “Well, it isn’t like I am hitting the discotheques.”

             
She just laughed. “Actually, any place with a mirror ball, and you’re safe.”

             
“So when do I start?”

             
“You start now,” Eileen said. “Take her to lunch; keep the receipt and the company pays for it. You get one lunch per trainee. Find out what her problem is and then haul her ass back here and let her watch you sell. Tomorrow you watch her sell. If she can do it, let her know and, if she can’t, let
me
know.”

             
Bill nodded. He stood, turned, and there stood Melissa waiting for him with big, watery doe eyes. Why she wanted some old fart baffled him—maybe he looked just like her dad or something.

             
But she had just made him five thousand dollars more per year, and for that she could count on a hell of a training.

* * *

              Chaheff knelt before the altar of Adriam, the All-Father, first among the gods. Glynn knelt down beside him, before the goddess Eveave, the Taker and the Giver. Eveave taught the balance, and Glynn would need balance to survive the singing.

             
That is what Chaheff had told her, anyway.

             
They chose a simple room for their devotions, small with rough-cut stone walls and bare floors. They knelt before a simple altar of hand-carved wood, a statue of the austere Adriam upon it, and a similar one beside it for the goddess.

             
“Perhaps we should have Power here,” Chaheff said.

             
Adriam, the All-Father, had come first among the gods. His first creation had been Eveave, the Taker and the Giver, his perfect match. He had educated her in every aspect of his divinity, and coupled with her.

The gods Earth and Water had sprung unexpected from Eveave’s womb, and later Power and Desire.
These four had lesser aspects of Adriam’s might, and Adriam and Eveave had sought to teach them but failed. For all of their might, they were not wise like the All-Father or even-handed like the Taker and the Giver.

             
Power became a dark god who would work against the others when it suited him. “Why would we want to taint this place—?” she began.

             
“No god taints a place,” Chaheff interrupted her. “Power exists as does every other god, and has his followers and his motives, just like any other god.”

             
“Not like Chaos, Destruction and War,” Glynn challenged him. The primary sin was laying on daughter by son, and Power and Desire, Earth and Water each had done this. Chaos, Destruction and War were the sons of Power and Desire, and in the history of all things, they had done nothing but cause heartache and woe.

              Chaheff grinned. Glynn knew he tolerated her for her youth and temerity. Since the death of her father, he had tried in small ways to advise her, in ways beyond his requirements as a mentor.

             
“True,” he said, “Chaos and War, as the scriptures tell us, brought about the end of the One Place, where the gods lived. And we know War encouraged the people of Fovea to nearly annihilate each other before the Uman-Chi created the Fovean High Council.

             
“But even his presence does not defile,” he wagged a finger at his student. “People will defile themselves ultimately, and you know the Rule of the Gods.”