The Persistence of Memories - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe (54 page)

“This way,” she said, grabbing his arm
again.

They were now walking through a large foyer,
but he was still unnerved. He’d experienced all sorts of weird and
impossible things that Meraladians put him through over the years,
and it was rare for him to respond adversely. Kai bringing him into
that altered state that time on the Crest had bothered him, but he
hadn’t prepared himself for it, and repeated nonspace jumps hadn’t
fazed him. But here? This was something new. They’d simply walked
through the door and he felt and sensed nothing at all. To his
surprise, it even felt a little too familiar.

Had he been here in the past?

Goddess, why was he afraid? He'd faced down
fears bigger than this. He'd faced death a number of times as an
ARU officer. So why was something as powerless as a severe case of
déjà-vu pulling him into a fit of terror?

“I've been here before,” he said aloud.

“Yes, you have,” Elder Nayélha said quietly,
leading them down another long hallway, this one branching off from
the foyer they'd just entered. “But you haven't returned for ages.
You’ve nearly forgotten. And we'd gotten worried. I felt this
little trip might restore some of your memories.”

“I...” Poe started.

She stopped underneath a torch hung on the
wall and turned back to face him. Her face was illuminated by the
flickering flames and her eyes were wide and frighteningly black,
and for a moment Poe felt that wave of familiarity again. Yes1, he
had been here before. He'd been here with
her
before. Right
here, underneath this torch, in this hallway, looking out over what
was once...

“No…I don’t…” he said, backing away. “Please,
Elder…don’t make me do this.”

You must know,
she said within, her
voice piercing any protective wall he put up around his soul, and
followed his every step.
You must remember, Alix Eiyashné. There
is no more time.

“Stop calling me that!” he barked. “Get out
of my damned head!”

It is your True name, edha Alix. Do you not
remember your birth parents Deilo and Shara?

“They're...” he caught his breath.
“They're...”
Oh Goddess…I can sense it! It can’t be true! I
won’t let it be true!
“Please, Elder, I don’t…”

They've been dead quite some time,
Elder Nayélha said.
And yet you know, in your soul, that they
are still out there somewhere.
You know this, Alix. Yet you
refuse to acknowledge it as truth.

“My fadhyané…they're...”

They're your true heritage, Poe. Accept
them, and accept yourself.

Yes. The truth was there, right in front of
him all this time. And he could no longer outrun it. The words
barely escaped his lips. “They're...Trisandi.”

Yes, they are. But they are more than that.
Spiritually, they are who you always feared they would be. And you
are one of them. You are...

“I am a Mendaihu Né,” he mumbled, amidst
tears. If he had to fight this truth, damn it, he would. It was a
truth he did not want to face. He wasn't afraid of what he might
be. He was afraid of what he might
become
, and the
circumstances once he…

Goddess…he did not want to know.

“You must know,” she warned. “You must know
now
, edha Alix. There is no more for you to be taught.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he
growled. “You haven't taught me a damned thing! I don't know a
fucking thing about being — damn it, I-I’m not a Mendaihu!”

“And yet you called yourself one just a
moment ago,” she teased. “That makes you one, my eicho. Face it:
you're as pure a Mendaihu as one can possibly get. All your
abilities were inherited. You and your partner did not need to be
taught anything at all, for you already knew it all instinctively.
It was simply a matter of making you both remember.”

“No! I won’t! Goddess, get me out of here!”
Poe seethed. He shivered, feeling the cho-nyhndah anger beginning
to rise. He needed to get out quickly, before he did something to
her, or to himself. He needed to keep himself from releasing this
anger, even if he had to let it out on himself. He could not
release it, not here —

She seemed to notice this and backed away,
but only to bring herself into a better defensive position. “I see
you, edha Eiyashné,” she said, laughing at him. “I see your anger,
your thirst for a fight. Come on, let it out. Release that anger.
Release yourself.”

Damn you,
he growled within. His hands
were shaking, balling into fists. He closed his eyes tight and
backed away further, crashing into the foyer wall.
Don't goad
me, Elder.

“Why not?” she teased. “It seems the only way
you're going to admit the truth.”

“Stop it!” he yelled. “I don't want to do
this!”

“You do,” she smiled. “It's in your
blood.”

“I...” he breathed heavily, fists
unclenching. He’d never been so damned close before. “I am Mendaihu
Gharra
,” he said. “I am not a monster.”

“On the contrary,” she said, and set herself
up: her right foot slid back, ready to pounce, and her hands came
up close to her chest, palms away, fingers slightly curled. “You
are
a monster, Alix. A peaceful one, but a monster
nonetheless. Come on, let's see it.”

“I don’t…I can’t fight you,” he said, every
ounce of energy and emotion draining out of him.

Wrong answer,
she said within, and
pushed at the air.

The energy blast hit him squarely in the left
shoulder and sent him reeling. He was spun around counterclockwise,
tripped over his own feet, and fell sprawling onto the floor. He
felt the sting of pain in his upper arm, the same exact spot where
Saisshalé had hit him weeks earlier. He winced and gritted his
teeth, refusing to cry out.

He gaped at the tattered hole in his shirt.
Underneath, his skin blistered and a thin layer of flesh burned
away. To his horror, she had not held back.

“Get up, Alix!” she howled.

He scrambled backwards, wincing with every
movement of his left arm. “Goddess! What the hell are you doing?”
he yelled back.

I said, get up, jinko.

Jinko. He shuddered...Saisshalé had called
him a jinko. Unclean. “You're fucking crazy!” he said, scrambling
to his feet and backing away. He had to get out of here, fast.

ffssshhhhhhhhoooooommmmmmm

The last time Poe had heard that noise was on
Haden Street in the rain, running towards Christine's office. He
yelped and dodged off to his right, favoring his bruised shoulder,
and rolled away just as he felt a funnel wave of superheated air
rushing past him. He felt a distant crash of exploding masonry as
he tumbled away. He'd landed partly in another hallway off to the
right, one that had no logical reason to be there without
intersecting the one outside these quarters...

He had no time to be disoriented. He pushed
himself up, and ran.

ffssshhhhhhhhoooooommmmmmm

He cursed and took another dive as another
blast sliced the air and surged past him. “Stop it already, for
Goddess' sake!”

Show yourself, Alix! Show your True
Self!
Elder Nayélha bellowed, her inner voice thundering in his
ears. He tripped again, caught himself, and darted another left in
this impossible hallway. He turned right once at the next opening,
and pushed himself tight into the shadow of the first doorframe he
saw.

“Not if you're trying to kill me!” he
yelled.

Not killing,
she said.
Tempting
you, perhaps, but not killing.

He blinked amidst tears of pain forming at
the corners of his eyes. This had gone much too far...was this
honestly the same woman who had been training Caren? Did Caren fear
for her life in a completely foreign territory like this?

Show yourself!

“Shut up!” he yelled. Goddess, he had to get
out of here…he shot a glance down the hallway, the one that had no
right being there, and chanced it. She was twenty yards away and
moving slowly closer. He didn't know how much energy he had left to
attack or defend himself, and she showed no signs of quitting. For
a moment he wished he'd brought his ARU weapons — even a stunstik
would have been helpful right now — but knew it would have been
pointless. She was not about to give up. There was only so much
until he either gave up or made his suicidal move and retaliated.
Only so much until his anger got the best of him and —

And?

Show yourself!

Something about his anger...

I remain unimpressed, my eicho. Come, let's
get this over with!

“Don't you ever shut up?”

No, I don’t.

He never noticed the arms surrounding his
head, slender but amazingly strong arms with hands reaching at his
face and coving both his eyes and his mouth.
Wait, I’m up
against a wall —
Pulled violently backwards into complete
darkness, only to be caught and pushed back on his feet. He
stumbled forward, tripping over nothing and sailing headfirst
towards — nothing? The wall should have been there. He skidded to a
stop and attempted to regain his balance…only to be forcibly pulled
back again. He felt something hitting him in the face this time,
something wet and cold.
Water!
Crittiqila was drowning him —
no, she was trying to…!

“You're damn crazy!” he sputtered and
wriggled out of her grasp, only to be caught and dunked backwards
again, then pushed away, again and again in quick succession. She
was…

“No...” she said from behind. “Not crazy.
Come and see for yourself.”

Dunked backwards, doused with water, pushed
away.

Not pulled back.

Poe skittered against the stone floor and
nearly fell again, only to catch himself against the wall. He
twitched and understood — this was a solid wall, one that she would
not be able to phase through, not like the others. He coughed and
spat out the foul taste of water and blood in his mouth. He’d bit
his cheek sometime during that scuffle. She wasn’t attacking him
anymore, though. Why was that? No time to question. He had to
escape. He had to wake up! He blessed the opening he needed and
darted back out the door from which he'd been hiding and into the
hallway —

And came face to face with a tall and eerily
beautiful kiralla. And she looked
pissed
.

Thirty feet long and fifteen high and covered
in chestnut brown scale and a dusky blond ridge, her long
dragonlike body took up most of the room and blocked his one means
of escape. Her eyes gouged into his entire spirit, burning away
every lie he could have uttered in his entire life.

What...what do you want with me?
Poe
said within, too terrified say or do anything else.

Crittiqila snorted out a breath smelling
heavily of patchouli and cinnamon, directed at his face. She stared
back at him with equal parts fascination and utter distrust.

Ignorant man,
she growled.
Do you
not recognize a kiralla when you see one?

“Y-yes, I do,” he managed. “But…”

Come now. Do you still not understand, after
all that? What you are, and who you must become?

“I can’t. It…it’s not in me.” He winced,
fully expecting her to attack again, even though he had spoken the
truth.

Instead, she merely sighed, twitched a fat
and spiky tail, and shook her head left to right, but slowly.
Unexpectedly, the Elder-dragon burst out laughing. It was a loud,
slow, asthmatic laugh that echoed off the walls and pushed
invisible clouds of hot breath in his direction. “Oh,
pashyo
, eicho Alix! Ah,
nyhnd’aladh
, but I am such a
fool!” she said amidst her giggles. “I owe you such a deep apology,
my dearest friend. We were so utterly convinced your True Awakening
would come about from violence and self-preservation. You merely
needed the waters to cleanse you.”

Poe wasn't entirely convinced of her change
in demeanor, and kept his distance. He decided to keep his
reactions and emotions as deep inside as he could. He'd be damned
if he'd give her the pleasure of any kind of reaction. He slowly
crossed his arms and stared in the blankest reaction he could
muster.

Sensing his bitterness, the Elder-kiralla
calmed herself down and shifted into a sitting position, hind
haunches pulled up to sides and forearms resting on the ground
before her. She lowered her snout to the ground, not quite
touching, but low enough that her eyes were below his line of
sight. She was truly repentant.

“I do apologize, eicho, for any harm I have
brought upon you, and shall do what I can to heal any injuries,”
she said quietly. “I bless you with Peace, Love and Light with the
hopes that I have not turned you against the Mendaihu because of my
actions.”

Now it was his turn to laugh. Turning against
the Mendaihu? What a preposterous thought! He would rather kill
himself than turn against Denni. There were just some things he
would never do, even under duress. “It would take far more than
that, Elder,” he said. “But you could me what the hell is going on,
what the kiralla have to do with Trisanda, and why I'm way the hell
out here on this backwater planet right now?”

Crittiqila lifted cocked her serpent head at
him. “How do you know where we are?”

“Why else would they call this the Goddess’
Hall of Bann Dassah? You've got a few mini-universes going on in
this apartment, Elder Nayélha. I can't think of any other reason
for these hallways to be here.”

Crittiqila nodded. “You are indeed quite
perceptive. Now, I believe you are ready.”

A mix of both annoyance and intrigue hit Poe.
“Ready for what?”

“Why, for your unveiling, Alix Eiyashné.”

Unveil...?
He opened his mouth, but
lost his words to silence.

He wondered how she’d known his True name,
the one his birth parents had passed onto his adoptive parents in
veils of secrecy. And now she was talking about pulling those veils
away! With one simple connection — his True Name — she had found
the one weakness in all the protective walls he'd put up over the
years. She wasn't threatening to use that weakness against him,
though. She was using its existence and forcing him to decide how
to knock those walls down. Only one person in his life had ever
been able to do that to him, and he trusted her more than anything
else in the universes. But these were walls even Caren wouldn't
knock down. In the end, he would have to decide, and he would be
the one to do it.