Priestess of the Eggstone (32 page)

“We have only an hour to get out of the city and find a ship that we don’t even know still works? Or even exists?” Tayvis looked ready to swear.

“Hope the rain holds a few more days, then. As soon as we know where to look, you can sneak out and find the ship. And hope you don’t get caught. They will most likely poison you, which is very painful, even at a low dose. Depending on who catches you, they may keep you alive for months. Tayvis, just give me another day or two.”

He shrugged. The golden insignia on his collar caught the light, reminding me of how much I didn’t know about him.

I picked up one of the bread rounds, escaping across the courtyard that still dripped with rain. I still felt too raw from my session with the Eggstone. I knew I’d start a fight with Tayvis if I stayed. I didn’t want to fight with him, not in front of Jerimon.

The bedroom was chill and dark. Tayvis had left the screen panel mostly closed. I sat in a far corner and picked at the bread. Rain dripped on the sill outside. The Sessimoniss would come for me soon.

Time passed and they didn’t come. I went back to the main room, chilled and tired of the dark quiet. I crossed the main room, passing Jasyn and Jerimon as they sorted scrolls. Tayvis glanced up from a map he sketched on a stray piece of parchment.

I pulled the door open.

Three Sessimoniss guards waited outside. The highest ranking bowed. “You wish something, Priestess?”

“No.” The guards wouldn’t know anything about Council. I shut the door.

“They’re late,” Tayvis said.

“Maybe they aren’t coming tonight.” Jasyn stretched her long legs, wiggling bare toes.

*They do not meet during the rains,* the Eggstone said absently. It wasn’t really paying attention, not to the me in the present. It still sifted through my memories.

I slouched on one of the couches.

“Look through these.” Jasyn handed a stack of paper to me.

I flipped through them. They were all the right time period and the right Priestess, but none of them mentioned the Patrol ship. I handed them back, shaking my head. “I’m going to sleep. Wake me up if anything happens.”

Tayvis’ eyes followed me as I left the room. I wrapped the blanket around me and slept behind the altar.

The rain continued the next day. Tayvis talked over his map with Jerimon and Jasyn. I spent most of the day wherever I could find solitude. I couldn’t escape the Eggstone. It pestered me with questions, picking over each detail that puzzled it.

The pile of records grew smaller without any trace of the missing Patrol ship. Tempers grew short. Tayvis and Jerimon argued over his map and the one record we’d found.

The skitarrit brought more fish and fruit, with the pasty, bland grain on the side.

There was no Council again that night. I paced through the rooms, impatient to meet with the Council at least one more time.

Jerimon spread one of the last scrolls across his lap. “Look at this one, Dace. It has a map.”

“This one has the symbols.” Jasyn held up another sheet of parchment.

I crossed the room, reaching across Jerimon’s shoulder for his parchment. The crude map showed the city with the port marked near the center. Markings off to one side, up a narrow canyon, caught my eye. I couldn’t quite decipher the symbols. The scroll had gotten wet sometime in the past and the ink had smeared before it faded.

“I’m not sure what it means.” I traced the marks with one finger. “I can’t read it.”

“What about this?” Jasyn said as she handed me her scroll.

I read quickly through the top portion. It was the priestess again, the right time, and the summary mentioned non-clan-others and a light in the sky to the north. I unrolled it to the more detailed section.

“There was a great light in the day,” I paraphrased. “Passed to the north, settled in the canyons to the west. A ship of strange design.” I rolled it to the bottom. The text was smeared and faded so badly I couldn’t read it.

“And what?” Jerimon demanded.

“I can’t read anymore.” I handed it to him then looked back at the map.

“So there is a ship somewhere to the north and west in a canyon,” Tayvis said. “There are dozens of canyons that direction. How do we know which one? I’m going out.”

“The rain stopped several hours ago. It isn’t safe.” Something about the map bothered me.

“What difference will it make whether it’s raining or not?” He left the room, headed for the bedroom and the screen.

I followed, still carrying the map. “Tayvis. You can’t go.”

He ignored me and opened the screen. Then promptly shut it, swearing under his breath. He leaned against the screen, his face unreadable in the shadowed room. “How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“There are a dozen of them waiting in the courtyard.”

“I had no idea.” I peered through the carvings of the screen. I only saw sky and the top of the wall around the courtyard. “What are they doing?”

“Standing at attention, mostly.” He tapped the parchment in my hand. “Is that the map?”

I handed it to him, still looking through the carved screen. The clouds were breaking up. The sky overhead glowed pale green.

“What does this say?” He pointed at a cluster of symbols.

I squinted. “Something about thorns and big rocks.” I leaned closer. His breath stirred my hair. I deliberately ignored the way my heart sped up. “A warning of some sort. I can’t make it out.”

*They come,* the Eggstone said suddenly.

“They’re coming for me. I have to go. Tayvis, be careful. Please.”

He held the map to the faint light from the screens. A muscle twitched in his cheek. “You aren’t going to tell me to stay here?”

“Why waste my breath?”

*You must come. Now.*

I hurried to the altar room. The robe was oppressive, too big and heavy in the humid air. I picked up the Eggstone, opening the door just as my escort arrived. I faced over twenty warriors, from every clan, not just the highest six. All of them bowed deeply.

“Council is called,” the Dresh’Nikterrit of Kishtosnitass said.

“I am ready,” I said and hoped it was true.

They waited for me, all of the Koresh’Niktakket of all the clans in their full ceremonial dress. The Council chamber was still less than a tenth occupied. The six of the Council stood by their chairs. A different black-robed Sessimoniss sat in the place of the High Priest of Sekkitass.

My escort followed me down the full staircase to the very bottom. They flanked me, circling around the Council chairs before rejoining their own clans. I stood in front of my chair and wondered what all the ceremony meant.

The Koresh’Niktakket bowed to me, a full bow, sign of deepest respect. I returned the bow. “I have been shown great honor.” We sat.

“Council will begin.” Kishtosnitass thumped his spear on the floor. The echoes died into silence. I waited.

“We have thought much on what you have spoken,” Risskaratass spoke finally. “The truth is hard.”

“The clans will write new laws, such as the humans have.” Keristass slouched in his chair, his eyes fixed on the floor. “We will change. We must change. You have shown us that.”

“It will be difficult,” Ruskarinatass spoke up. “We wish to know what laws the humans have.”

“You pulled out all my memories,” I said silently to the Eggstone. “Help me. I don’t remember much of my civics classes at the Academy.” The Eggstone chuckled.

*Your memory recall is not very clear. I could change it for you.*

“I don’t want perfect recall,” I whispered.

“How do humans settle feuds?” Kishtosnitass asked. I took a deep breath. It was going to be a very long night. The new high priest sat very quietly through the session, head bowed, clawed hands resting quietly in his lap.

I talked most of the night, trying to explain the entire theory of government. I had no idea how much they understood, but they were trying. I stumbled to the temple and my rooms at the end of the session, head aching from the help the Eggstone gave.

I opened the door quietly. Jerimon was asleep, his head pillowed on a pile of scrolls. I blew out the deformed candle, then tucked a blanket over his shoulders.

A yellow glow from the bedroom caught my eye. I paused outside the arched doorway. Tayvis and Jasyn sat on the mattress, their backs to the door. A candle guttered on the floor near them. Jasyn leaned towards Tayvis, her eyes catching the candle light. I saw her smile. Tayvis laughed. She patted his arm.

I felt as if someone had stabbed me in the heart. I turned away, blinded by tears. Tayvis and Jasyn. I couldn’t finish the thought. It hurt too much. I wiped my eyes on the sleeve of the priestess robe.

*You are troubled? Because the other female is more attractive. But you are the higher ranking female. Neither of you are breeders.*

“I thought you’d understand by now,” I whispered as I set the Eggstone on the altar. “Humans do things differently.”

*Love is not fixed. It is something that can change.*

“Yes.”

*And you are sad because the Tayvis-male has chosen the other female. Your society does not allow multiple breeding partners. Why do you not talk with them? Tell them of your sadness. Settle the matter in the way you described tonight at Council.*

“And ruin their happiness? Jasyn is my friend. They belong together, if they’re happy. Matters of the heart aren’t the same as matters of government.” The Eggstone couldn’t understand. Sessimoniss ways were too tied to their biology and breeding status.

I dropped the robe over the end of the altar. Tayvis had never said he loved me. It was obvious he and Jasyn were attracted to each other. I could live with it. I hoped.

I curled up on the cushion and cried myself to sleep with the Eggstone in my mind, curious as ever about the strange emotions of humans.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Lady Rina was absolutely furious.” Jasyn smiled, leaning forward to touch Tayvis’ arm. “She threatened to curse Jerimon with acne for the rest of his life if he ever did anything like that again.”

Tayvis laughed. “She sounds ferocious. I’d love to meet her.”

“I’ll introduce you. If we ever get out of here.”

“We’ll make it, one way or another.”

Jasyn wiggled her bare toes, watching them curl against the stone floor. “What do you really think our chances are?”

“Not much. But with Dace’s luck, we’ll find a way back home.”

Jasyn pulled her dark hair to one side, untangling it with her fingers. “I don’t know if I miss my hairbrush or clean clothes more. Why were you following Dace? She about died when she learned a Sector Commander was chasing her. She didn’t know it was you.”

“Rank never came up on Dadilan. Does it bother you?”

She shifted away, tucking her legs under her. “You’re Patrol. You’re protected. What about us? What’s really waiting for us when we do get home?”

He sighed. “Probably criminal charges on at least half-a-dozen worlds. Disruption of trade, trespassing, fraud. Dace and Jerimon will have to answer for their actions at Viya Station. I did what I could to minimize damages.”

“Why?”

He studied her, his face a mask that gave nothing away.

She studied him in return. “You’re sticking your neck out, risking your life and your career for her. It’s more than just following orders. If you’re in love with her, you have a strange way of showing it. You’ve been mostly avoiding her. It doesn’t add up, Tayvis.”

“My orders were to do whatever it took to recruit her.” His voice landed flat, emotionless.

“Including following her here?” Jasyn shook her head. “Any time she walks in the room, you light up. Deny it all you want, but the truth is plain on your face. It’s more than orders.”

“She’ll never believe that.” His lip twitched.

“Not if you keep dodging her.”

He dropped his gaze. “It’s the Eggstone. Every time I want to talk to her, I can see it looking out through her eyes. It makes my skin crawl.”

“Mine, too.” Jasyn shivered, though the day’s heat still warmed the stones.

“She keeps me at arms’ length. She did on Dadilan and she’s doing it here.” He shifted on the mattress. “Then there’s your brother.”

“Jerimon is an idiot.”

“I’m not arguing that point. What does Dace see in him?”

“A pilot.” She cocked her head. “Are you jealous?”

“A bit.”

Jasyn smiled again. “Don’t be. They spend more time arguing than anyone I’ve ever known. Watching her with you, there’s no contest. The two of you just need to admit it to yourselves.” She stood, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders. “Good night, Tayvis.”

He sat in silence, watching the candle gutter. He couldn’t accept Jasyn’s words, though in his heart he ached to believe.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The next day dawned clear but humid and sticky. Steam rose from the wet flagstones in the courtyard. I paced, exhausted and nervous. And upset from watching Tayvis and Jasyn together last night, though I tried to deny it. I didn’t want to deal with the heartbreak.

Breakfast arrived as usual. I took a tray into the altar room. I wasn’t sure I could face Tayvis without losing control. I didn’t want to cry in front of him. I curled up behind the altar and tried to forget.

The Eggstone spent the morning prodding at my mind, untangling the emotions and memories, trying to understand.

*Your perceptions are only your view.*

“And just what does that mean?” I shredded a piece of flat bread.

*You humans are very convoluted. What appears one way may in truth be another.*

I didn’t answer. I had little experience, but the Eggstone had less. I tried to escape the pain by forgetting everything I’d seen last night. And the day before that, and the day before that.

“Dace, I think I’ve found it!” Jerimon waved a scroll, breathless and excited as he rushed into the altar room. He knelt beside me and unrolled the scroll.

My heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t deny my attraction to him. His dark hair was rumpled, one curl dangling above his eye. He glanced my way. I looked away, before he had a chance to read my expression.