The Age of Light (The Ava'Lonan Herstories Book 1) (23 page)

“In you the Supreme One smiles upon us all.”

He had reacted too late. The light boomed around
them, blooming in soft magma bursts and harsh white streaks. They both glowed
like the lovely, deadly
av’lak’ka
fire bird
in the height of heat. He would have run, but the light entered his being and
burned away all sensation of his body, filling his eyes, his mind, his soul,
transfixing him. He would have screamed, but his voice had become white sound,
ineffective in a world suddenly gone color negative. Living things leaped out
as blazing sculptures of light, the morn-star a patch of brightness in a
colorless sky. He would have tried to make sense of what was happening to him,
but his mind was afloat on a sea of color.

“I take your blessing and your love,
Shalgo
.
We are one.” The voice of Jeliya filled his immaterial ears. He was no longer
corporeal, but a being half of radiant darkness and half of blinding light.
Such was his soul, but what it meant, he did not know. And before him Jeliya -

Jeliya was a being of pure light, pulsing with life,
a star amongst fireflies, a thing born of
Av
. She turned to him and
smiled; he felt the warmth of her smile like a river of gold through him,
filling him to bursting with joy. He moved across the distance separating them
and at the same instant she moved toward him, and they met in the middle, two
odd, yet perfectly matched parts of a whole. They embraced in this timeless
place of ethereal things of living light, knowing no past and no future, only the
present and the perfection of the instant of their joining.

And it seemed that he began to lose a part of
herself/himself to her, that part that was of light - but the darkness pulled
him back, kept him whole, withstood the pull of her that would surely engulf
him sweetly, totally, absolutely and irrevocably...

They parted strangely, each seeming to leave a piece
of self with the other. His body slowly reclaimed him, the world losing its
luster, the prison of flesh closing with finality upon him. It had not been
this way with Jenikia. It had not been this - intense...

A deliciously warm mouth slid silken-smooth upon his
own. Arms were wound tight about his neck. Her lush body moved against him, and
he held her as if his very life depended on its nearness. For a moment longer
she was wondrously yielding in his embrace.

Then she stiffened and resisted, struggling a bit in
his arms. Reflexively he held her tighter, her body still communicating
reluctant furor. She gave a small whimper and her ribcage fought to expand. He
slackened his arms. Their kiss lingered, hung suspended, as if she were not
ready to give it up either. Then she jerked away, gasping, her confusion
palpable.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, pushing away
from him before he could stop her. Her legs crumpled beneath her, weak from
disuse. He caught her in a bruising grip, lowered her to the ground.

“I - I’m sorry,” he murmured, having no way to
explain their moment of passion. He settled painfully to the ground,
lu’mari
forgotten. “I - don’t know what came over me.”

Jeliya was very still. She watched him settle,
feeling his pain in her legs, then realized with a start of fear that she was
seeing the false image of herself through his own eyes, so sharp, so clear,
that she might as well have been seeing through her own. And if the image was
that sharp, if the sensations were that defined, then something had happened to
strengthen the link between them. Something had happened...

Memories, disturbing memories, memories that could
not possibly be real paraded across her vision, telling the impossible. The
cold shock. The light of
Av
pouring molten
in her... and a blazing soul that touched and mingled and separated again from
hers. The joy at the union...

“What happened?” she said in a voice as cold as
death’s touch, the implications chilling her. Surely not - surely they had
not... But his eyes looked at her, then looked away, and she felt his
reticence, a dreadful, silent confirmation of her worst fears.

“What happened!” she thundered, letting it echo down
their link. He winced and actually drew back.

“What happened - what happened is... that... I
brought you into the light of
Av
, as you
requested, Jeliya. You went into
lor’den
last eve
and I did my best to keep you warm, and then I brought you out into the light
of
Av
as soon as it rose.”

Cold dismay rolled down her throat and settled, vile
and green, in the pit of her belly. Sweet mother of wisdom, if what she thought
happened had in fact come to pass...

He was not unconscious. She did not feel his
personality as a part of her own, she had not absorbed him into herself.
Perhaps indeed, they had not committed that utmost violation, that ultimate
sin.

But he had survived a similar experience with her
great grandmother. And as his emotions washed crystal sharp over her she knew
that he was hiding something, holding something back, she could feel it like a
wave of sick, tepid water. His silence was as damning as a shouted confession.
She waited for him to continue, to bring to light her worst fear. But he said
nothing more.

“What else happened?” she whispered hoarsely.
“Please, tell me what else happened. I must know, you must tell me!”

“Jeliya, I-”

“Tell me,
Kwabana
damn you,
tell me!”

And, his voice welling like pooling blood, he told
her.

“You began to glow. You became a being of living
light. I also glowed. You turned and touched me...”

His voice drowned in a roaring that filled her ears
and her thoughts shattered against the vile greenness in her belly that
blossomed into putrid revulsion. Her world came crashing down around her, her
life ending in a gaping hole of nothingness.

What they had done was utterly taboo, strictly
forbidden in all the sacred texts of the post
Yo’teng
epoch, for all knew the tragedy of Jenisa and Darmad, the doomed lovers who had
shared the Rite of
Solu
. Darmad had
been lost in Jenisa, her light overwhelming him, swallowing him, leaving his
body an empty shell. The first, last, and only couple to know
Solu’san
,
the disfavor of the Goddesses through the Rite.

And she, as her foremother, had broken the taboo.
She was damned, the eyes of the Supreme One turned from her forever.

Sick and dizzy with revulsion, guilt and despair,
disgust and fear, she slumped to her side and wept openly.

“...We almost became one,” his voice said with awe.

“Say no more,” she choked, wishing the earth would
swallow her. “Say no more!” She did not feel his startlement in the welling
cage of her anguish, did not hear him urgently call her name.

“Mother, forgive me!” she wailed, hysteria slipping
on like a comforting
de’siki
. In blind
despair she pressed her face to the sweet warm earth and tore at the grass,
moaning.

“Supreme One, forgive me!” she cried to the green
curve of heaven above her, lifting her arms in pleading. “Do not cast my soul
into the Eternal Dark!
Ya’kano
have mercy
on me!”

He touched her. She flinched away, striking out at
him. She did not feel his desperate fear.

“Do not touch me!” she shrieked, clawing at the turf
to move away. “We are damned, we are both damned! Again you have brought the
darkness upon my Tribe!”

Her words cut like a razor-sharp spear. He turned
away, considered leaving her to herself for a while - but the hunting howl,
nearer, too near, brought him up short. He moved closer to his charge, made a
move to touch her. She screamed at him to keep him hands off her. He paid her
words no heed, his fear that the hunting pack was at this moment homing in on
their position overshadowing all else. He had no weapons save his spear-hook.
He could not fend off a whole pack with just that. He looked around with fear
widened eyes, tried again to make a grab at her. She lashed out at him, crawled
ever closer to the edge of the bank overlooking the stream.

I must quiet her, we are in danger!
he thought
frantically. He caught her up and held her while she kicked and screamed, held
her till she wore herself out trying to get away. Finally she stopped
struggling and merely wept bitterly against his shoulder. Her misery hit him
like a boulder, staggering him, crushing everything else from his mind. The
lu’mari
were nothing compared to this death of spirit.

He stroked her hair, his dread forgotten in the face
of her despondency, crooned to her, noted with absent curiosity that tears
coursed down his face too.

“Please, Jeliya,” he murmured, rocking her, “please,
don’t cry.”

But the soul-wrenching sobs continued, reverberating
though him, each a stab to his heart. How, he did not know. All he knew was
that what had transpired was destroying her soul, that slowly her despair would
consume her, leaving only an empty husk. And he was powerless to stop it.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said to the air, to
the water and the earth, to no one. He knew a despondency all his own. He bowed
his head and listened to her weep, his heart stone. Shifting shadows flitted
among the trees, and a low laughing sound echoed from many throats. The
lu’mari
pack was upon them, circling a prey that could not escape, and was not even
trying…

...Presence
. A profound presence washed over him, a
vast thing of warmth and benediction. The low laughter turned to anguished
whines of dismay, and then yelps of pain that moved away quickly. Silence
descended like a misting shroud, hushing the forest. He looked up.

She appeared to be young, a woman of glowing
countenance and silent steps that did not seem to touch the earth. Her presence
awed him, though it brought no fear, and dimly he realized that he had not
heard her approach.

Her gentle smile lightened his heart and her
depthless eyes, shimmering, ethereal white, were a match for his of spangled
black.

She soothed without speaking, in a voice of
velveteen light. She moved forward with a step so flowing that she seemed to
dance to some hidden, divine rhythm. She laid a luminous hand of mahogany and
onyx upon Jeliya’s brow and murmured soothingly. Jeliya relaxed so suddenly
that he had to act fast to catch her weight.

The glowing one told him that Jeliya would sleep and
remember nothing, as she removed her hand.

He gazed up at her, blinked. Her fingers brushed his
cheek, her touch a glory of light. He gasped.

Her luminous eyes queried that he still wept.

His tongue was frozen, weighted with the words, but
they would not come. He could only plead with his eyes.

Understanding.
He was afraid that Jeliya did
not share his feelings in return? He bowed his head, and a small, benign,
golden laugh touched his mind. She spoke.
:Time is the answer, dear half-one.
She fears what she feels, fears that it is in conflict with her
responsibilities as Heir. The weight of duty presses heavily upon her. But as
with her foremother, what is shared between you is blessed. It will be. It must
be.:

“Will I...” his tongue began to work again, but
without the benefit of his brain’s guidance, spilling his deepest fear before
he could stop it. “Will I lose her... too...?”

The hand cupped his face. His eyes went wide, a mild
rapture taking hold of him as the presence touched the very core of his being.
The almost too real fingers wiped his tears away.

A wordless caress of reassurance flooded his mind, a
smile of promise. It was not a concrete answer, but it was enough. It would
have to be.

She stepped away. He followed her with his eyes,
asking a question. Her eyes warmed even more as she smiled.

*:I am sometimes called
Ya’kano
.:*

“Thank you,” he whispered, looking down at Jeliya.
Her face was beatific in slumber.

“Thank you,” he said again, more fervently, raising
his head.

She was gone.

the
light turned slowly toward mid’morn...

He gathered the abandoned
desi
around Jeliya and cradled her in his arms, before dragging himself to his feet.
The after effects of the Rite still echoed within him, leaving him disoriented
and dizzy, as if he had stayed in the light too long.

He made his way back to his abode, his hooves
finding the path for themselves. He thought he heard the hunting call again as
he carried Jeliya beyond the
lu’mari
territory,
but it stayed at a distance, sounding frustrated and full of anger. Finally he
reached the border of his own land, right around zenith. The protective rite
opened for him. He stumbled up the path and over the door-sill into the dark,
cool interior. Automatically he moved to the bedchamber to lay his burden
down, then sank painfully to the floor, his skin feeling slightly roasted.