Saga of Shadows 1: The Dark Between the Stars (5 page)

The crew marched in an orchestrated parade, a clockwork movement that reminded Nira of the shifting patterns in a kaleidoscope. Overhead, a maniple of warliners cruised across the sky with their solar-sail fins extended, trailing silvery ribbons behind them in a spectacular skyparade. The crew flowed aboard forty-nine cutters that took off like a flock of metal birds into the sky to the orbiting exploration ship.

Nira touched a decorative treeling on the balcony and used telink to send her impressions throughout the green priest network, spreading the word that the
Kolpraxa
would soon depart for the fringe of the Spiral Arm. . . .

As she and Jora’h reentered the Prism Palace, they encountered Rod’h standing there, impatient. He was a strong and hard young man, proud of who he was—the second most telepathically skilled of her halfbreed children, after Osira’h. Had it not been for Osira’h’s success, the Ildirans would have relied on
him
to save them from the hydrogues. But he had never been given the chance.

Because Rod’h so closely resembled the ruthless Dobro Designate, seeing him sometimes gave her an involuntary shudder. Though Nira tried to love all of her children equally, regardless of what their fathers had done to her, she could not help but sense that he resented her.

Rod’h bowed with respect to the Mage-Imperator, but gave his mother only a curt greeting. “Liege, I request permission to bring a team of rememberers to Dobro. For historical accuracy, we should record the true facts of the breeding program. My father should no longer be vilified or, worse, ignored. We must not forget what he accomplished.”

Nira stiffened. Despite making peace with her past, there were still nights she wrestled with nightmares of how the Dobro Designate had forced himself upon her in the breeding chambers . . . and he had only been one of the many breeders from various kiths assigned to impregnate her. From that succession of experiments to see what sort of halfbreed child a human green priest might produce, five of the children had lived, but eight others had been such misshapen horrors that they were stillborn—merciful miscarriages.

Rod’h saw her instinctive reaction and scowled. “Everyone should know what my father did and why. Our race needed a powerful telepath like me, like Osira’h—someone who could
force
the hydrogues to communicate. That was the only way we kept our race from being exterminated.”

Nira kept her voice even, but she could not let his distortions go unchallenged. “And that excuses enslaving thousands of human colonists?”

“Yes, it does! My father did what had to be done. Humans weren’t the only ones in the breeding camps. Ildiran experimental subjects also gave birth to countless mixed-breeds in our search for a savior. And the hydrogues
were
defeated. Osira’h
did
do her duty—and if she had failed,
I
would have done it. You, Mother, should have embraced your responsibility without complaint.”

Nira felt as if he had twisted an old dagger inside of her. “How did saving Ildirans become
our
responsibility? That was done
to me
—and to the captive settlers, generation after generation, against their will. It remains a terrible shame on the Ildiran soul.” She forced herself to be calm. “We’ve put it behind us now. Humans and Ildirans repaired our relationship—but don’t belittle their ordeal.”

Jora’h stood between them, not leaving Nira’s side. “The story of the Dobro Designate and his breeding camps will remain as it is. It is best if we speak little of that sad history, so we can heal. Your request for rememberers is denied.”

Rod’h’s eyes flashed. “I would heal better, Liege, if my father earned respect for what he accomplished. Do we not owe that to history? You commanded that many sections of the Saga of Seven Suns be rewritten—are you not the one who insists the Saga must be
accurate
?”

Jora’h shook his head. “Other Mage-Imperators sealed away secrets from their reigns, hid dark activities that they did not want future generations to know. My father certainly did. I will not hide this away, but neither will I glorify it. My decision stands.”

Rod’h was so angry that he nearly forgot to make a respectful gesture to the Mage-Imperator before he stalked away.

F
IVE

A
NTON
C
OLICOS

After the
Kolpraxa
sailed away with the usual Ildiran pomp and circumstance, the human scholar Anton Colicos returned to his office in the Hall of Rememberers. Rememberer Ko’sh had gone off to far, unexplored territories, but Anton was restless here in Mijistra, feeling both the weight and exhilaration of history upon him. He had translated—and directly participated in—major events that shaped many races: not just humans, but Ildirans, hydrogues, faeros, wentals, verdani, and even the now-vanished Klikiss.

And he wasn’t done with his work here yet, not by a long measure.

Anton ate a quick meal while he organized the various half-completed documents he kept in his office. He intended to spend hours proofreading the next massive translation he had just finished—another section of the Saga of Seven Suns, which no human had ever read before. The green priests on Theroc were waiting to read it aloud to the towering trees.

So many people were counting on him! He was just a shy and dedicated scholar, at least that was the way he saw himself. He preferred that his scholarly works stand on their own merits, but already people were offering to become his interns and research assistants—even his biographer. Anton laughed off such requests, insisting that he’d done nothing worthy of chronicling. And yet when he thought back on his experiences . . .

He signaled his scholarly assistant Dyvo’sh by activating a humming crystal on his desktop. Anton considered the thing pretentious. In fact, having Dyvo’sh at his beck and call was itself unnecessary—especially someone with such a servile attitude! But Ildiran rememberers considered it a mark of respect and claimed that Anton had earned it.

The eager young rememberer appeared in an instant, and Anton fumbled to switch off the humming crystal; finally, Dyvo’sh had to do it for him. “Do you need assistance with translation, Rememberer Anton?” Dyvo’sh had a hopeful tone in his voice. (But then, he spoke in a hopeful tone even when Anton asked him to fetch a hot beverage.)

“I’m too restless for desk work today,” Anton said. “I heard that the excavators discovered a new document crypt beneath the old sculpture museum. I’m curious to see what’s inside it—aren’t you?”

The lobes on the young rememberer’s face flushed with a bluish tint that flowed into red, signaling Dyvo’sh’s excitement tinged with reluctance. “Those records were sealed away by some ancient Mage-Imperator for a good reason. Whatever is there will not be canon to the Saga of Seven Suns. We should not question his wisdom.”

“Of course we should—that’s what a scholar does. Questions are our business.”

Dyvo’sh vigorously shook his head. “A rememberer is taught to repeat and preserve only what is already known. The Saga is the only record we need in order to understand Ildira.”

“But the Saga came from somewhere. Don’t you want to see the original sources?”

Dyvo’sh blinked. “No. It is not necessary.”

Anton shook his head. “Before you preserve the words for all time, it’s imperative that you have accurate information. Otherwise, you’re merely perpetuating errors—and you
know
that has happened before. Come on, we don’t even know what’s in that vault. I’ll do this myself if I have to . . . or I can request another assistant.”

When Dyvo’sh became alarmed, his facial lobes shifted through a rainbow of colors. “No, I am assigned to your care. It is a great honor. I would not have anyone else carry out those duties.”

“Then let’s go.”

Anton marched out of his office and through the Hall of Rememberers. In the reviewing corridors, Ildiran storytellers stood before wall-sized crystal sheets that recorded every word in the billion-line Saga of Seven Suns. Apprentices muttered to themselves as they memorized the entire epic, which was ever growing but never changing once established. At least, not usually.

Dyvo’sh had been one such apprentice until recently when he had passed his test—a five-day recitation, without sleep and without a single error, of a randomly chosen section of the Saga. And Anton had thought defending his PhD thesis on Earth was grueling!

Now, thanks to the changes Anton had instituted over the past two decades, by command of Mage-Imperator Jora’h, rememberer scribes worked in a new wing of the Hall of Rememberers where they also preserved the apocrypha, restoring sections of the Saga that had been deleted or censored in times past.

For millennia, Ildirans believed that every word in the Saga was the absolute truth, set down permanently by infallible rememberers. Ildirans had never dreamed that the Saga might be inaccurate—intentionally so—but previous Mage-Imperators had changed the records to cover up their part in the ancient conflict against the hydrogues, rewriting the story for posterity. Oh, the uproar Anton had caused when he revealed that!

He demonstrated that in order to hide the censored history about the hydrogues, new stories of “bogeymen” had been fabricated—tales of terrifying creatures called the Shana Rei that devoured light and infiltrated the Ildiran soul with blackness. Supposedly,
they
were the reason why Ildirans feared the dark.

When he studied the matter objectively, Anton noticed striking differences in the passages about the Shana Rei. They were sketchy placeholders, not as rich in detail or implied veracity, and he found evidence that these sections were
fictional,
meant to hide the horrific truth of the ancient hydrogue war. To the stodgy rememberer kith, these revelations had been a greater assault on their race than the hydrogues. Later, Mage-Imperator Jora’h shook the entire rememberer kith to the core when he commanded that all ancient records be opened for thorough critical study, that all of the sacred texts be reassessed.

As Anton dug deeper, separating the tales, the reality grew more complex still. Newly resurrected records showed disturbing indications that the Shana Rei might have been
real
after all.

The confusion among the rememberers verged on insanity and despair. Their kith dealt only in absolutes, and uncertainty disturbed them greatly. Anton didn’t know what to believe anymore. He doubted the rememberers had forgiven him, even after twenty years.

His jaunty step faltered as he led Dyvo’sh along the sun-drenched streets of Mijistra toward the newly excavated document crypt. Maybe it would be wiser if he
didn’t
inspect the new records, for they were sure to cause more turmoil. . . . But if he refused to look at new records, he too would be responsible for hiding true information. He clapped a hand on his assistant’s bony shoulder. “Let’s open another can of worms, no matter how big it might be.”

Dyvo’sh blinked his large eyes. “Excuse me, sir? Why would we require worms?”

“A human idiom. I’ll explain later.”

For Anton, the
story
mattered most of all. He wanted to tell it, preserve it for posterity, and let someone else dicker over the societal implications. Though human, he felt closely tied to Ildira as the first human scholar to translate lengthy segments of the Saga of Seven Suns for academics to analyze and interpret. Anton had no interest in becoming one of the navel-contemplating breed of academics. He loved the challenge of translating new material and immersed himself in the process.

After the Elemental War, he’d spent years with his mother Margaret, the famous xeno-archaeologist, recording the chronicle of the Klikiss race—
The Song of the Breedex.
He and his mother had scrambled to preserve the remarkable story before the insect race vanished forever, leaving only the husks of discarded bodies in the bizarre ruins of their cities.

After Margaret died and her remains were buried on Eljiid, a Klikiss world where she had been studying, Anton had returned to Earth. He took a position at the university, received accolades, was named an assistant dean, and—best of all—had a light course load. He taught only one advanced class per semester, which allowed him to write a biography of his illustrious parents. . . .

But Ildira always called to him. After Mijistra was rebuilt following the war, the Mage-Imperator once again extended an invitation to him, and Anton jumped at the chance. He came back to a guest office in the Hall of Rememberers and had been here for the past six years.

When Anton and Dyvo’sh reached the construction site of the old sculpture museum, Anton watched the worker kith, artists, and sculptors who were restoring the exhibits. This restoration had the dual purpose of preserving history for Ildirans and edifying the human settlers—a handful of “Ildirophiles” who had formed their own small enclave in the capital city, where the expatriates ran traditional stores, cafés, and craft workshops.

The museum workers recognized Rememberer Anton Colicos, who was one of the most well-known humans on Ildira, even more familiar to them than the Confederation’s King Peter. Considering the uproar he so often caused, Anton sometimes wondered if the mere sight of him struck terror into their hearts. After all, his discoveries often resulted in changes and disruptions.

Anton greeted them with good cheer and asked directions to the newly uncovered document crypt. When the reticent workers talked among themselves, Dyvo’sh stepped forward. “Rememberer Anton asked a question! You know he has the blessing of the Mage-Imperator himself.”

One of the museum administrators directed the two visitors to a debris-strewn staircase that led to underground levels. Anton called for three squat muscular workers to accompany them. “And please bring your battering clubs and those Ildiran pickax things. We need to break open the vault.”

Anton saw the consternation he was causing. Ildirans had so much difficulty accepting anything they hadn’t done before.