The Dark Places (7 page)

“I left as soon as my father
transferred credits into my accounts. I bought a ship—one smaller and flashier
than the
Stardancer
. She was brand
new—fresh off the assembly port gantries. I christened her the
Fire Dawn.
” He smiled at my perplexed
look. “Don’t ask why I gave it that name, doll. I was young, and my vivid
imagination had been touched by a painting my sire had hanging on a wall in his
study.”

He glanced away, seeming to stare
into the distant corridors of his memories. “I aimed the nose of the
Fire Dawn
toward almost every system and
planet logged in the preloaded navilog flight path records that the ship
manufacturers had programmed into the ship’s comps. The years passed, and I’d
only gone back to visit my family twice in that time. Each of those two times,
my low opinion for my family remained the same, but on my second visit, I found
there was someone for whom I did care. It was my distant cousin, A’lia. She was
a girl when I left upon my wanderings, but upon my return, A’lia had become a
sweet, beautiful woman and… and I fell in love.”

My gaze stayed fixed upon Matt’s
strained expression as he stared out across the meadow. A range of conflicting
emotions battled and clashed within my soul—most of them hostile and defensive.
I took a deep, calming breath and forced my jaw to unclench.

Matt continued in a meditative tone.
“She returned my regard and we married. I settled for a while upon my home
world and devoted my time and life to her and to learning my father’s trade
business and land management. It was what he’d always demanded of me, but I’d
fought him, until then. A’lia soon carried my child, and I thought life could
hold no more happiness for me than that.”

Matt was silent for several
minutes. I dared not move nor speak. A struggle raged within me against
resentment and jealousy for my mate’s first wife.

“One day, I awakened determined to
show A’lia a bright and beautiful place I had once discovered on my intersystem
travels. Eager to please me, as she always was, my lovely, happy wife
accompanied me. She was in the seventh month of her pregnancy with our child,
but I was rash and impulsive. I wanted to show her the special world then and
there. So the
Fire Dawn
lifted and
sped toward that world, but an error had occurred in the coordinate mapping for
the system and planet.

“By the time I’d discovered the
error, it was too late to abort the flight path and landing. I don’t know to
this day if it was my fault or something inherent in the ship’s navilog comp,
but instead of the beautiful world I’d selected, the
Fire Dawn
had instead vortex-leaped to an unexplored, nameless
world in an uncharted, far-edge system with a contracting red dwarf star as its
dying sun. The
Fire
Dawn
developed a malfunction during the
landing sequence. She fell hard.”

Matt frowned down at the ground.
“A’lia was critically injured. She went into premature labor, and we were
systems away from civilization. The
Fire
Dawn
had automatically sent repeated pulses from its distress beacon, but I
knew no help would arrive for several weeks. I’d also beamed an emergency
transmission requesting help from anyone in the area. No one responded. We were
alone out there.

“I had only the ship’s medical
supplies and medi-comp to rely upon. I’d sustained a broken leg and several
broken ribs from the crash, but I spared no time to tend to myself or use any
of the supplies for my injuries. I saved everything to help A’lia.” His lips
twisted with bitterness.

I refrained from reaching out to
hold his hand.

“She lost the child. It was
stillborn. A’lia’s internal injuries were extensive. She… I couldn’t stabilize
her and stop her from bleeding…. She lost consciousness in the end and died in
my arms.”

Matt’s unsteady, deep sigh tore at
my heart, but I remained motionless, listening despite my own inner torment.

“I sat beside her a long time, in
shock, slowly dying myself. The broken ends from my ribs had dislodged in my
efforts to help A’lia and our child. Broken bones had lacerated and pierced my
lungs. I’d lost a fair amount of blood from internal hemorrhaging from my
injuries. I didn’t greatly care. I wanted to be with my A’lia.”

Matt raised his head slowly to the
sky and inhaled deeply before he turned toward me. He looked long and intently
at me. “Forgive me, Kailiri, for baring my heart’s pain before you. Don’t ever
think of it as a slight or rejection. You are as special and precious to me as
A’lia was. I was drawn to you because you reminded me of her—in spirit.
Physically, you and she could not be more different.” He smiled gently and
continued. “She was the bright-haired, fair, laughing lady who graced the
morning of my life. You are the shy, dark-haired, beautiful preserver of my
approaching night… my magical moon mistress, who comforts my heart with silver
fires of desire.” He raised a hand to smooth a dark curl from my eye where a
sudden wind gust had blown it.

My stare fell from his searing
gaze. “You haven’t been drinking Crynishan Dawns behind my back, have you,
Matt?” I moved away and rose from the stone—and his touch. “You’re speaking in
poetry again,” I said softly, remembering the night on the Sauran restaurant
balcony.

I walked away several steps. It
hurt too much to sit close to him, knowing he’d loved another. I hated myself
for feeling that much hostility.
Why
couldn’t I be sweet—like his blasted, beloved A’lia?
Disgust rose within me
at my petty emotions.

“Please hear the rest of my story,”
Matt said close behind. He startled me, for I hadn’t heard him come near, but I
didn’t turn. He touched my shoulders in a warm, caressing grasp and rested his
hands there. “I was close to death upon that uncharted world. I had even begun
the long, cold spiral downward into death’s oblivion when I felt the awareness
of something speaking to me in my mind.
Not
someone, but
something
,
Kai.”

Matt turned me to face him. He
transferred his grasp to my arms and locked me in place. “It called itself
Timirshil-ka. It was curious at first, and then later it felt regret for me
that my
life force
was ebbing. It understood spirit
bonding between two entities, so it understood my anguish at losing my mate. It
asked me if I wished to continue in my present life essence, or if I was intent
on disassembling it. It would help me preserve my life essence if I wished to
continue to manifest in this dimension.”

I stared into Matt’s dark eyes with
the now familiar green-and-gold flecks at their center. Then the green sparkle
grew more predominant as I watched. A sense of unreality had surrounded me
while I’d listened to his quiet words. What he was telling me
must
be real. He couldn’t make this up
and sound so grave
. Could he?
Perhaps, he’d hallucinated at the time….

“I wanted to pass into death’s
oblivion, where my pain and loss would be absorbed into nothingness.
Timirshil-ka respected that wish, but it grew aware of another desire within
me, that I’d tried hiding from myself…. I still wanted to live. Despite all my
inner anguish and despite the physical pain in my dying body, I wanted to live.
Timirshil-ka infused a portion of its energies into my body to help it recover,
but that energy was always a distinct part of the entity. It warned me the
energy wouldn’t last indefinitely and would gradually supplant my body’s own
natural life essence. I was warned that my essence and the small portions of
the sympathetic entity would coexist peacefully for a while, but later my own
essence could dissemble when the other life energy began dissipating.

“To my amazement, I survived. After
my recovery, I buried A’lia and our child on that planet. An Alliance scout
ship found me several standard weeks later. I didn’t want them to exhume the
bodies to seal and ship them home. I requested they leave them undisturbed upon
the restricted system’s planet. I knew her family would protest, but I cared
not. I returned to my home world and worked in my father’s business for several
years, but I kept to myself. Then gradually I became aware of deteriorating changes
in myself.

“Timirshil-ka’s essence is
dissipating and I’m unraveling also, Kai. It started five standard years ago.
That was when I decided to change my name, status, and life. I bought another
ship, the
Stardancer
, became an
intersystem merchant trader, and was calmly prepared to die without sampling
any of life’s greater emotions, until I met you.”

I couldn’t look at him. The
negative emotions that uncoiled and writhed inside caused me shame. I was
exhibiting immaturity and insecurity by harboring deep resentment for a dead
woman who had claimed Matt’s regard and heart in his youth.

“Do you understand what I have been
trying to tell you these past few minutes, Kailiri?”

“Not entirely, Matt,” I whispered.
“Are you trying to tell me that you’re not wholly
Human—
that
you are part of another entity?” My scalp tingled as the implication of my
words struck me.

“I’m Human. I’m as I’ve always
been. There
is
another life essence
incorporated into my being, but it doesn’t control me. It passively cooperates
with my own life processes and supplements it. It’s like having a biochemical
battery—a life essence booster or regulator would be the closest term to
describe it.” Matt still grasped my arm, and his intense gaze burned into me
and compelled me to look up.

“Is… is that the source of the green
mists in your eyes when you’re troubled?” I dared ask
,
a bit surprised that they hadn’t appeared yet.

“Yes, people have mentioned them
after I returned from the uncharted system, and I’ve noticed them in the mirror
at times. They don’t bother me, though, and most of the time, I’m not aware of
the other essence. Among some things on the positive side, my strange infusion helped
me to function on less sleep and seemed to diminish liquors’ effects on me.
I’ve always possessed a high alcohol tolerance, but it increased after
Timirshil-ka found me. It’s a bloody, damned nuisance sometimes when I’m trying
to drown my sorrows,” he grumbled. He gave me a narrow stare, and I got the
feeling I was adding to his sorrows then.

I’d probably heap on more before we
left. I needed to know who he was—and where I fit into his life.

“Matt, where’s your home world?
What was your name then? And—and why did you choose to marry me?” Something
within me was torn and damaged. It hurt to think he might never have told me of
his beginnings and his first wife if I hadn’t asked… if I hadn’t followed
Harry’s advice.
Perhaps, it would have
been better never knowing.

Matt smoothed back another unruly,
wind-tossed lock from across my cheek. “I was born on Drakis in the Branis
System, Kai. My given name and land-hold title is Lord Mattin Sian Rakeda. My
father is of Old Terran Human Stock and also a land holder and high lord upon
Drakis. All sons of high lords bear the lord title. It’s a social convention
there. The name Matt Lorins is an anagram. It combined a few elements from my
birth name. I thought it was a catchy name for a lone wolf, far-rim trader.” He
smiled wryly at my intense, searching stare and caressed my cheek before he
released me. “I married you, Kailiri, because I needed you. You touched a place
within me I’d thought walled off and forever closed. You touched my heart, doll.
You imprinted yourself upon my awareness, and I found that I couldn’t let you
go out of my life.”

“You’ve never fully explained what
that
was—imprinting. You promised to
explain more down here.
On Rikin.”
I crossed my arm
and waited.

“It’s a term we use on Drakis. When
someone’s imprinted by another, it goes beyond physical or emotional desire.
It’s a spiritual hunger, an emptiness in the soul that only one special person
could ever fill within another. A soul mate….
A proton
finding its electron, Kai.
You complete me.”

Evidently,
so did his A’lia
. I closed my eyes and bit hard on my tongue to
not
say that. Instead, I said, “Most
people enter marriage contracts several times in their life spans. You’re my
first and I’m your second. People get imprinted with each other all the time.”
I shrugged, my flippant statement helping to ease some of my inner hurt.

“No, not like the way we need each
other, Kai. I sense your thoughts—your essence. I couldn’t do this with A’lia.
I—I never felt the soul binding drawing me like I do with you.”

I snorted, finding that hard to
believe. I turned away, disappointed and angry with my self and my ungracious
acceptance of all he’d revealed. I tromped farther out into the open meadow and
Rikin’s sunlight, which had at last banished the cloud cover. Matt made no
attempt to call me back or stop me. I wandered disconsolately through knee-high
grasses and flowers without seeing them. I was recalling the things he had told
me and wishing I hadn’t asked.

Maybe I should have stayed in love
with a mystery. I
did
know that he
would always be Matt to me, and not Mattin.
But
how long will I have him
? My disjointed, sad thoughts continued on, tumbling
over each other. I could never compete with his beloved A’lia. Whenever he
looked upon me or I spoke, I would now think he was unconsciously comparing me
with her. I had nothing to offer Matt. My memories taunted me about his wry
comment in the Marnu Port about providing me escape from Harnaru. It still
rankled and made me feel like an opportunist, using him only as means of
obtaining my own desires.

I paused in my wanderings and
frowned at the gnarled, bare branches on a small shrub blocking my path.