Maia and the Xifarian Conspiracy (The Lightbound Saga Book 1)
Read Maia and the Xifarian Conspiracy (The Lightbound Saga Book 1) Online
Authors: S. G. Basu
MAIA
and the
Xifarian Conspiracy
By
S. G. Basu
For Loni, the light of my life
*****
Text copyright © 2013 by S. G. Basu
Cover art by Lily-Fu
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This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author's imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
US Copyright number: TXu001869027
Check out the other books in this series:
The Lightbound Saga Book 2: Maia and the Secrets of Zagran
Other works by the author:
Elementals: Episode 2-Aftermath
Elementals: Episode 3-Deception
Elementals: Episode 4-Covenant
Elementals: Episode 5-Exposure
1: The Seeker
In the dim light of the distant stars, the ship of the R’armimon looked like a colossal spider hovering in space. For a flagship, it was rather plain, ugly almost. About a hundred wrinkled sacs, dull and worn out, formed the dense clump of a body; knobby, talon-like thrusters jutted out into the endless void. A mesh of beams and bars, stained along the seams from leaks, wrapped the egg-shaped core from the stern all the way to the bow where it arched over an observation deck.
Inside, huddled under a blanket, sat the little boy, Ruche. He stared, open-mouthed, at a show of galactic fireworks dancing across the viewing windows. Blues morphed into vivid crimsons, burgundy and gold swirled and surged into fiery plumes, collapsing into showers of jade in the next moment.
With every new flare, the boy’s pale eyes sparkled, his cheeks flushed. Only a time or two, he cast a restless glance at the darkened corner to his right where a lean man stood. Neither joy nor wonder showed on the man’s face as he scanned the faraway lights—his eyes sparkled but only from the unshed tears. The pair continued to watch in silence until a searing flash of red tore through the skies making Ruche gasp.
The man stirred immediately. “That’s the end of the Ssoiffean stars,” he whispered. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“End? No . . . not again!” Ruche’s shriek shattered the quiet. His voice quickly sunk into a disappointed murmur. “I wanted to walk on land.”
After what seemed like forever, the man replied, “I failed . . . again, Ruche. We came close this time. But not close enough to save the Ssoiffean stars and . . . the Ssoiffean people.”
“How many people, Father?”
His father hesitated. A tremor crept into his voice when he finally replied, “Five fully colonized planets, Ruche. That’s a lot.”
“We’ll find the deadwastes soon, won’t we?”
“Ruche, that’s not a word we use.” The words slashed through the air making the boy shrivel for a moment. It passed quickly.
“But, they—” Ruche started to protest.
“No, Ruche,” his father interrupted. “It’s always easy to give in to anger. But you can’t. Step with care, so you can be proud of every choice you make.” As Ruche shrunk into the folds of the blanket, his father sat down next to him and pulled him close. “They’re headed to Tansi now. We have to stop them there.”
“How?”
“The Shimugien . . . we have to find her before they kill again.”
A long, distressing hush settled in. The lights continued to dance in a dizzying rhythm, reflecting off the windows of the observation deck where father and son sat unmoving, side by side, yet alone, each immersed in a world of his own.
The ship of the R’armimon lingered along the corridor leading up to the once-magnificent Ssoiffean System, watching the splendid death of the twin stars.
2: Maia
Among the dry desert plains that covered the Second Continent of Tansi in its lifeless bindings, Appian shone like a precisely cut emerald. Beautiful enough to be on a picture postcard, the settlement nestled cozily at the flat bottom of a valley surrounded by rolling hills, with a few cottages and farms peppered here and there on the lush slopes. The morning had been warm and blissful. As the day aged, the sky turned a dull and stifling gray, and the air grew thick. A patch of sunlight escaped through a crack in the clouds and fell squarely on Hen’s Beak, the tallest hillock overlooking the village.
Thirteen-year-old Maia sat hunched on a rocky platform jutting out of the sharp inclines forming the western façade of Hen’s Beak. Her dark hair was pulled away from her face into a pair of pigtails that fell a little past her shoulders. A bunch of dull brown freckles dotted the bridge of her nose with a few splattered on her cheeks. Locks of stray hair lying across her tanned forehead partially hid a frown that bunched her hazel-green eyes.
She looked away from the village—its brick houses and their brightly painted rooftops; its paved roads that crisscrossed the valley in flawless symmetry; its trees, dark and ancient, that enveloped the dwellings in their pampering shade; its pastures, trimmed and tidy, that wove a soft-hued tapestry across the dale. The tranquil beauty of Appian did little to capture Maia’s attention on this day. Today was her thirteenth birthday, a significant day for any child on Tansi, a day of feasts and celebration. But for Maia, it was far from a joyous occasion. She felt spent and utterly hopeless, sort of how she felt in the middle of winter, trapped, when the charm of the season’s first snow had long dulled and the blooms of spring were only a distant dream, and all that seemed to linger forever was the unending brownness.
Maia hugged her knees tightly and rocked herself as she stared at the weary mass of trees skirting the base of the hill. Hope was something one rarely came across around here, and Maia wondered if there was a reason left to keep trying to escape this misery.
We are a doomed lot, this planet, its people.
Maia’s hands reached for the ends of her pigtails, twirling them in a never-ending nervous rhythm. And she was more illfated than most, because she did not even have a parent.
Maia preferred not to think about her mother too often, fearing the rage that always followed. She could not even call her “mother,” but rather by her name—Sophie. She figured the woman who could abandon her infant did not deserve a loving name. At one time, Maia believed in the other possibility, the one Dada liked to talk about, that Sophie did not choose to leave her newborn child but tragically perished in the battle of Second Surrender. But the doubts barged in, and not without reason. The way Sophie disappeared felt odd, staged almost. She did not leave behind as much as a memento to remember her by, no clue to Maia’s heritage, nothing. It was as if Maia’s life with Sophie had never existed, as if Sophie had never existed either. Maia learned to accept the implication that always left her feeling hollow inside—Sophie had deserted her. And given what Uncle Alasdair had said, Maia knew Sophie was capable of such an act. Sophie had done other things, shameful things that Maia struggled to keep hidden from the world.
Sophie was, in one word, inexcusable.
On the other hand, Maia fondly wondered about her father sometimes, and in the deepest corner of her heart, she nurtured a hope that someday she would find him and maybe, just maybe, he would love her back with all his heart.
As a deep sigh coursed its way out of her, Maia realized her mistake. She had let the hurt in, once again. A painful lump throbbed in her chest and inched up her throat like thick, vicious quicksand, drowning her from inside. She gulped a few times, hoping to make it go away, but the pain persisted until the muffled clatter of approaching hooves pulled Maia out of her gloom.
“Herc!” she cried as she sat up and turned, smiling at the heavyset, gray-haired man leading Bander and Jolt, a pair of bay horses. Herecule, or Herc, as she liked to call him, was guard, farmhand, groundskeeper, and Maia’s martial arts teacher, all rolled into one. Above everything—in a world where almost everyone her age had already left for ThulaSu and its lesser-known alternates, when every other adult was overly cautious of her movements—Herc remained her only friend and confidant.
“Hullo, miss.” Herc smiled as he set the horses to graze and sat down next to Maia. “Emmy’s upset, very upset,” he said, chuckling indulgently as Maia grimaced. “Maybe you oughta run back home now.”
Maia knew Herc was teasing, but she was not amused. Her nose crinkled. Emmy, the housekeeper, always fussed over her. From the moment the tiny motherless Maia had been placed in the housekeeper’s grieving hands, Emmy had constantly worried about her ward’s well-being. She wanted to wrap Maia in a cocoon of protection, failing to understand that Maia needed her freedom. Herc, on the other hand, was different; he let Maia live a close-to-regular life. But it was a constant tug-of-war between Herc and Emmy, one that seemed to have no end.
Maia cradled her forehead in her palms and leaned forward to rest her aching head on her knees. “I’m never going to leave home, Herc, unless they find me and drag me to Ti.”
“Don’ you worry, miss, you’ll get to ThulaSu.”
Herc’s words were meant to comfort, but they did nothing to cheer the young girl. She had just turned thirteen, old enough to be drafted for the Xifarian labor camps on Ti, from which no one ever returned. Only the Clause of Scholia—the ancient honor system across the galactic settlements that included Tansi—granted immunity to educational institutions. Just like any other land-child of Tansi, Maia had hoped to take her Undertaking vows , an enrollment at a center of higher learning, before she turned thirteen. She had dreamed of joining the ThulaSuian Center, the brightest beacon of hope among the crumbling Solianese universities. She had trained in ThulaSuian arts, excelling in swordplay since she was barely eight. Two summers ago, the traveling scouts from ThulaSu were ready to have her pledged, and yet her grandfather, Dada, had steadfastly denied her permission. The following year was no different, and now that the annual caravan to ThulaSu was due to leave Shiloh in two weeks, the thought of being left behind a third time was agonizing.
“I don’t know, Herc. Dada still can’t make up his mind. Why can’t he just let me go?”
“He’s ’fraid of losin’ you, miss,” Herc replied, drawing random patterns on the dust with a stalk of grass. “You’re the only fam’ly he has left.”
Maia scoffed.
“Does he realize I’m thirteen now? And unless I take my Undertaking vows, the Clause can’t protect me. What if Xifarians find me, huh? Doesn’t he know that he’ll lose me forever then? And what’s with the show every day? Why train me if he’s not planning on letting me go?”
As always, Dada had watched today’s training session with Herc, his keen eyes studying her moves, strikes, and parries. Although Maia did not win the mock-up, she was satisfied, having taken her formidable trainer by surprise quite a few times during the fight. It was no mean feat that she had been close to besting Herc, whose stout build was nothing but a deceptive cover for his extraordinary dexterity. But then, this was nothing new. She had been repeatedly surprising Herc over the last few years. Only her grandfather never seemed content.
Maia clenched her fists, struggling to keep from screaming. No one could deny her ThulaSu. She would do whatever it took to get a place in this year’s caravan.
“Tell me about it one more time,” she pleaded.
Maia loved Herc’s stories of ThulaSu. She had heard them a hundred times over, but they never grew old; they simply strengthened her will to see the land with her own eyes someday. Once again she was mesmerized by the tales of swordplay so fast and intricate that only those with the mythical third eye could master it in its entirety, of the legends of misty mountains and forgotten lands, of mystical monks who could foresee the future.
“Time to go, m’lady,” Herc said, breaking Maia’s reverie.
It was close to sundown, and Maia halfheartedly trudged home behind Herc and his horses, along the red brick road that wound past the hilltop and climbed down toward the valley floor. A gigantic oak adorned the bulging middle of Hen’s Beak, and next to it sat the pudgy, green-roofed farmhouse that Maia called home. She was just a few steps away from the front porch when a tantalizing aroma of roasted sea-fowl drifted out through the open doors and held her in its intoxicating grip.
Her pace quickened as she walked up the porch steps, through the dimly lit sitting area to the small dining room in the back. Her stomach let out a low, pitiful growl when she gazed at the table; the sight certainly melted away all of Maia’s grievances. A handsome basket cradled freshly made bread rolls, and next to it a tray held the grand specimen of Emmy’s masterful culinary skills: a sea-fowl cooked to a perfect golden-red. Her grandfather sat next to the dinner table, hunched over a thickly bound book. He looked up and smiled as Maia stepped into the room.
“You’re back, I see,” he said in a sing-song voice. “You didn’t wait to know my answer about ThulaSu?”
Dada was a tall man with a short gray beard and wispy white hair, soft brown eyes, and a kind face. Maia knew that hidden behind his rather calm and spiritual demeanor was a fortitude that had withstood the brunt of terrible tragedies and survived the aftermath of the Scarcity. His body bore the scars of frightful times of long ago, as did his mind, yet his eyes never failed to twinkle and shine. Maia had inherited his characteristic kindness as well as his courage, and as gentle as she could be, she was neither timid nor docile.
“No, Dada,” Maia replied. Still not looking at her grandfather, she toyed impatiently with a plump teapot that sat on the painted sideboard. “I stopped hoping,” she muttered under her breath, trying her best to mask the annoyance fomenting inside.
Dada leaned back, his eyes crinkling with amusement.
“Oh, really? Well, I was thinking you could hop on the caravan this year if you wanted.”
Maia simply stared as her heart skipped a few beats. Then she took a few tentative steps forward to face her grandfather.
“I’m allowed to leave for ThulaSu?”
She flung herself on the elderly man, her trembling arms wrapping around his neck as he nodded.
“All right, all right, take it easy,” Dada said, panting between chuckles.
“Managed to convince him then?” Emmy walked in with a steaming pie, and Herc peeped through the doorway with a grin so large that it barely fit on his face.
“Yes . . . finally!” Maia yelled. Herc promptly broke into a loud, hearty laughter, while Emmy set the plate on the table and suppressed a sigh of worry.
Patting Maia gently on the back, she said in a mock gruff tone, “Hmmm . . . that’ll do. Better eat and rest up before your trip to Shiloh tomorrow.”
Until this day, the monthly visit to the neighboring town of Shiloh was the biggest event in Maia’s mundane life. But in her excitement of Dada’s announcement, she had forgotten all about it.
“I will, Emmy, I will,” Maia replied. “Be right back,” she added.
With a final whoop of joy, Maia sprinted up the stairs to her room. She closed the door behind her, twirled giddily on her toes a couple of times, then crashed onto her bed. Her eyes swept across the walls of what had been her private sanctuary for the last five years, the reassuring familiarity brought a smile to her face. The last vestiges of daylight filtered through the wide-open windows, but failed to reach the far corner of the room where a row of shelves stood lined with books thin and fat, short and tall. Next to this shelf was a small writing table that teetered with scrolls, journals, and knickknacks. On the wall above it, an alabaster rod hung from a sturdy hook, gleaming with an eerie shimmer even in the feeble light. Maia’s eyes lingered on this glow from Bellator, a gift from Dada that would go with her to ThulaSu and protect her always. She lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling, savoring the joy of a long-awaited dream coming true.