The Persistence of Memories - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe (53 page)

Don't you worry, sis. I trust you to the
ends of the earth. And I think about you
always.
But I can still kick your ass if you step out
of line, kiddo. Remember that.

Love you too. Take care of yourself. I
should be back by midmorning.

–
Karinna

And with that, she left the apartment, and
headed towards the basement garage. She hadn’t used her motorbike
since the first ritual, weeks ago. She hoped she'd remembered to
charge up the fuel cells, because this was going to be one hell of
a ride.

She pulled up to the front of the Nulltech
Museum just a little before five and parked the motorcycle up on
the sidewalk, close to the front stairway. There were no other
vehicles parked on the street, and there was no traffic anywhere in
the area. This was troubling…Sachers Island was a quiet haven for
the rich and the powerful, situated in the wide mouth of the
Sachers River, but there was always someone going somewhere, even
here at this time of morning. In fact, nearly all the streets of
Bridgetown had been quiet and close to empty, South City being the
exception.

South City...everything seemed to start
there, and it looked as though Saisshalé's base of operations had
been Nulltech Alley after all. Which meant that Sheila's misgivings
about her visit with Kindeiya Shalei were on the mark. Caren had
chosen to take the I-91 Freeway rather than Krieger Avenue or South
Main Street to cross over to the island, and even then she was
lucky to make it through the sector without delay. She’d entered
the sector just as Saisshalé's Awakened had started making their
way there. The nearly empty freeway was suddenly jammed with cars,
trucks and even motorcycles, all trying to get off at the
Bridgetown Parkway exit, to head towards Nulltech Alley. Only her
badge and her stubborn will kept her going.

Nulltech Alley didn't have warehouse blocks
like the Waterfront District. If there was going to be a meeting
place like the warehouse for the Shenaihu, it would have to be one
of the massive tech plants or the corporate office towers. They'd
have better accommodations, that was certain. But geographically,
they'd be further away from most of the city. The Waterfront was
accessible from almost all points in the Sprawl. On the other hand,
South City was a condensed, elitist sector with too few outlets
into other areas, except for Sachers Island and the lesser South
Bridgetown sectors across the river.

She switched from her helmet back to her ball
cap and climbed the Museum's stairs. A chilly October air pushed at
her face. She pulled the duster's collar over her neck as she stood
between the marble columns framing the entryway. She'd seen the
Councillor only on vidmat or on the NewsComm feeds, never in
person. She judged him to be about five foot eleven…he had shaggy,
dusty-blonde hair, usually tied back in a loose tail, and lately
had the makings of a goatee. He wore small, silver-rimmed glasses
that were slightly tinted. She didn't know his build, or how he'd
be dressing for this questionable occasion. Thankfully, she only
had to wait a few minutes before he arrived, popping out from the
predawn shadows.

“Emha Johnson,” she heard from below, just
beyond her parked bike. His voice barely crossed the ten or so
yards between them. “Down here, if you please.” He was wearing a
dark leather coat and had a ball cap on backwards, his unruly hair
pushed behind his face. He waved quickly and furtively.

“Councillor?” she said, not daring to raise
her voice. She frowned, watching his quick, twitchy movements as he
walked slowly towards her bike. He looked nervous and desperate.
She bound down the steps. “Coming, sir,” she replied. “We going
somewhere?”

He nodded quickly, waving for her to get back
on the bike. She eyed him for a moment before doing so, curious and
wary. What did he have in mind? He climbed on as she started it up
and coasted off the sidewalk. “Head down Chilton, away from the
bridges,” he said over her shoulder. “And keep the lights off.”

She flipped up the visor of her helmet and
glared at him. “Are we really that desperate to break laws this
morning, sir?”

He laughed at her bravado. “Have faith, emha.
Please, indulge me.”

“Fine,” she growled. “Hang on.” Kicking the
bike into gear, she peeled out onto the empty morning boulevard and
sped west. The stoplights were all blinking red and yellow at this
point in the day, so she could get away with blowing through a few
intersections if they were lucky.

“Where to?” she called out over the wind.

Lorenson Peak Drive,
he said
within.

She shivered…his innerspeak voice caused an
unintended reaction, a full-body sensation of two people who had
just sensed each other’s entire beings. She had just read his
spirit without meaning to, and he had left it wide open. Bravely,
perhaps brazenly, he had built no barriers, no walls of protection
around his essence, daring anyone to get that close to him. She
blushed deeply...but at the same time, she had felt that strange
synesthetic reaction, of
feeling
his aura as a scent...a
strange mix of cinnamon crossed with patchouli. Where had she
sensed that before...?

“Just down here,” he said quickly. Out of the
corner of her eye she saw his hand reach out and point to a side
street off to the right, a wide residential street that broke off
of Chilton Boulevard. The avenue dropped slightly in an s-curve,
then rose again on a long straightaway for nearly a mile and a
half. This was Lorenson Peak, the westernmost summit of Sachers
Island, and one of the most expensive places to live in the entire
Sprawl. To her right, a jumble of trees served as camouflage for
the first of many mansions she would pass. After about a quarter
mile the trees gave way to untamed grass as the road crested. They
were now at the top of a grand mountain that looked out over the
mansions below, the river, and the most glorious view of the city
she'd ever seen since going up to the Crest.

“Eyes on the road, emha,” the Councillor
laughed.

“Sir,” she smirked, and rode on. “We almost
there?”

“A few more blocks. At the next intersection,
take another right and follow the road all the way to the bottom of
the hill.”

She nodded and followed his directions. This
avenue took a very lazy curve, almost a complete one-eighty, as it
descended closer to the water's edge. This was a hidden community
in itself, a tiny area in a cove less than a mile long. She could
see the road ahead, stretching all the way to the waterline. Very
few lights were on in this little area, except for one house that
stood apart from the others, standing on a slight hill and
overlooking the river.

“That's it,” he said. “The one with the
lights.”

“Yours?” she asked.

“Me?” he chuckled. “No, that’s a bit out of
my price range. I’ve been using it for business. Used to belong to
a Councillor friend of mine.”

She blinked.
Vigil
.
No way.
Couldn't be.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Bann Dassah

He'd forgotten how disorienting Lightwalking
could be.

Wherever Elder Nayélha was taking him, the
destination was not local. They'd been floating somewhere in
nonspace for at least five minutes when he regained his bearings
again. Commercial travel through Light was like any other
near-Earth and sublight interstellar travel, enclosed in a long
tube-like structure, cut off from nearly all external frames of
reference, with your experience limited to turbulence, a slight
change in gravity, and a sensation of displacement. Traveling
through the Light using only your spirit, on the other hand…

Poe had come up with a term for it: painting
the universes. With yet another nod to Councillor Kelley James'
poetry, it fit the situation perfectly. One would feel connected,
fully and completely, spiritually and physically, to the universe
around them…yet completely and utterly divorced from it. Like one
could only touch its surface, but not grasp it. The body felt
disconnected from reality — in a sense, it was — and any sensory
information the body received was in response to whatever was in
its immediate vicinity. It could be anything within the traveler’s
imagination, just like an artist beginning a brand new work. Poe
could not begin to understand how a well-practiced Null traveler
navigated this bizarre nonspace. All he could do was grasp Elder
Nayélha's hand and hope for the best.

“We are almost there,” she said. Her voice
had a curious echo to it, reverberating before and after her words.
Poe knew time meant little here, but how little and in what
direction was up to question...

“Taftika,” he managed.

She sensed his discomfort and spoke no more,
which left him with little more than the sound of his own breathing
and a slight but constant breeze in his ears. He closed his eyes to
the strangely comforting near-silence, awaiting their next
destination.

He hadn’t noticed landing, minutes or hours
later. Eyes reopened and wide, he found himself standing at the
entrance of a long stone hallway, dimly lit by torches and
stretching on for what seemed like an eternity. Its end, if there
was one, was obscured by distance and shadow. He still felt the
breeze, yet now it felt warm, like a breath. The draft carried down
this corridor at a comfortable pace, calming him.

“We are at Bann Dassah,” Elder Nayélha said.
“We are in the center of the city, within the Goddess’ Hall.” She
waved a hand down the hallway. “These are the Elders' Quarters.
This is my home.”

Poe's eyes had adjusted enough to the darker
light and glanced down the hallway again. This time he saw an
ending, though still farther away than expected. He guessed this
hallway to be at least a quarter-mile long, with a recess in the
masonry every thirty feet or so. Doors, he guessed, to the
quarters. The nearest one was shut tight and it looked impossibly
heavy, as if cut from an enormous slab of black marble. There were
no markings, handles or hinges. Each door looked exactly the
same.

“How do you know which is yours?” Poe
asked.

“Our own spirit signatures sing to us, edha
Poe,” she answered. “Just as yours does...though I confess I've
never heard a song quite like yours.”

Kai had said something close to that not long
ago, in a late night phone call. Elder Nayélha sensed that cold
void as well. He’d never known its source or the reason for it.
He’d never questioned it, even after he’d been given information
about his birth parents. Until now. He had to know.

“What does it sound like?” he asked.

She didn’t answer right away. She began to
walk down the corridor in the direction in which they'd arrived.
Slow, deliberate steps, tapping her fingers against each door she
passed, listening to the spirits within, perhaps talking to them.
“It sounds like sorrow,” she said finally, turning to him. “It
sounds like loss.”

Poe frowned in surprise. “Interesting,” was
all he could find to say.

“Edha Poe…do you know what you have
lost?”

The question unnerved him and he chose to
delay the answer as they walked further down the hallway. He'd lost
quite a few things in his life. His birth parents. A blood-relation
sister he never knew, during the last Season of Embodiment. His
ability to truly love completely and unconditionally, something
that had changed only recently. None of these seemed to be the
right answer to her question. No, this loss was bigger, something
he couldn’t quite grasp. Not yet.

“I really don't know,” he answered. “Where
are we going?”

“To my quarters,” she said. “What I need to
tell you is in there.”

Poe frowned. “I trust you,” he said, for lack
of anything else to say.

He followed a few steps behind her, glancing
at each door. He felt and heard nothing, yet he was quite certain
there was something or someone behind each one, just out of his
sensing reach. Each black marble slab gave off the same coldness,
the same lack of connection as the one before it. It reminded him
of the black polycrete of the Mirades Tower, and wondered if it had
the same properties. Meraladian polycrete was a good insulator as
well as a great defensive shield. Could this be the same?

“Just a few more steps, edha Eiyashné,” she
said.

Poe stopped short. “What did you call
me?”

Elder Nayélha glanced at him out of the
corner of her eye and smiled, but did not answer. Ahead he saw the
room they were to enter…the marble door seemed to be glowing and
getting brighter as they approached. By the time they reached it,
it had taken on a warm yellow and sepia glow. He could just about
hear a light hum emanating from it.

“Nice effect,” Poe said.

She laughed warmly. “Edha Eiyashné, of all
the days we've known about you, one thing we never expected was a
sense of humor in the face of adversity.”

“Takes all kinds, I guess,” he shrugged,
betraying what he really felt: fear. There was something wrong
here, something very wrong with this situation. This same Elder who
had been training Caren to be a better Mendaihu was now training
him
, without his permission and without prior warning. He'd
been caught off guard and tricked. He had no way to prepare himself
for whatever she was about to throw his way, nothing to defend
himself with.

“Don't be afraid,” she said, taking his arm.
“As long as you're with me, you're safe here.”

“And once I'm alone?” he asked.

“We'll just have to find out. Come.”

They stepped through the thick marble door
and landed inside a wide room before he even had a chance to
experience it.

“What the hell was that?” Poe said, spinning
around. He stared at the black marble door. There were no hinges,
no frames, no jambs...the door was simply flush with the wall like
an opaque window. A portal of some kind? Had they Lightwalked
through it?