Avoid (2 page)

“So, they all saw me die?”

Harken quirked his lips. “They all saw your un-breathing body launched out a window. I caught you and brought you here after enough bystanders confirmed that you were actually dead.”

“What happens now? I would really like to go back and teach that Geenari a lesson as to what a Terran can do when she is not restrained by fluffy clothing and etiquette.”

“What of the Skiilar who sent you to your death?”

“I already wished her a death via thousands of STD’s, so my work there is done.”

The catalyst was not to blame. It was the intemperate fiend who had actually strangled the messenger just to make a point that she had a bone to pick with. Fate would take care of the royal.

Harken chuckled. “It would be a just death, but think of the partners that she would infect on the way.”

“True. But she really needs to get taken down a peg.”

“Let’s get something to eat and discuss this further. There is always more to learn about anyone, and her early days might surprise you.”

“How could I possibly know about her early days?”

His grin showed amazingly white teeth, “That is part of what I am about to show you. Food first though. You Terrans seem to think better after food.”

She shrugged and had to admit he had a point. “Wait, Terrans? How many of us are there?”

“That is a topic to discuss while sharing a meal.” He wrapped his arms around her, his hands sliding over her hips a little too tightly, but there was a flare of light, and they were no longer in the same place that they had been before.

“What was that?”

“A directional shift. We moved in space.” He released her, and she could feel the reluctance in his body as they parted.

The smells of food caught her attention, and it came to her that she had not had lunch or breakfast. She was definitely hungry, and it seemed that he was prepared to take care of her needs.

He showed her how to manage the food trays and where to find coffee, a luxury that she had not had in years.

With her selections weighing her down, she picked out a table away from folks gathered in clutches and sat with her back against the wall.

Harken joined her and raised his snow-white brow. “You don’t like to socialize?”

“I am not sure yet where I am or what I am doing here, so I will err on the side of caution.” She bit her lip and poked her meal with her fork before trying a few bites and swallowing reluctantly.

“You don’t like it?”

She smiled. “I do, but my throat is still a bit sore. Apparently, I don’t bounce back as fast as I would like from being strangled to death.”

Deep in her mind, she still wasn’t sure that this was a cross between a hallucination and a perverse afterlife that no culture she knew of had yet discovered.

Chapter Three

By the time she had eaten her entire meal in tiny bites, a few folk had come by to meet her and formally give her their greetings.

When she was alone with Harken, she had to ask, “How do they know I am new?”

His smile was blinding. “Your eyes. When you have met the Orb of Time, they will change from your charming blue to the same swirling darkness that we all bear.”

She blinked. “Is that why you wore that hood while you were stalking me?”

Harken looked innocent. “I wear the hood to keep folk from becoming alarmed by looking into my gaze. We all do.”

“Aha! So you were stalking me.”

“I went where the Orb of Time sent me. It was not my will to chase you around, but the fact that you noticed me time and again is rather flattering.”

She exhaled noisily. “Men.”

He chuckled and leaned back in his chair. “What questions do you have about Home?”

“What is that?”

“Home is the ground that you sit on, the air that you breathe. It is a place outside of time and space, a piece of the lost universe that was here before our own.”

Every television program about the big bang that Idara had ever seen ran through her mind. “So, there was a universe here before ours?”

“There was. It knew the end was near and protected this piece of itself, making a haven for those who would bear its mind when the seeds had been sown.”

“What about the seeds? How long ago were they planted in my body?”

He shook his head, “Not your body, your mother’s mother’s mother back hundreds of generations. Over ten thousand years by Terran time measurement, back before my people tried to take yours by force.”

Idara rubbed the back of her neck. “So, somewhere in my past, a cave-dwelling ancestor or a woman bounding across the plains was infected by this ancient universe, and she passed that trickle of power on to me?”

“More or less. The power has to degrade to the point where it is simply buried in your genes, and when you died, we had free rein to pull you out of that universe and bring you Home.”

“Why did I have to die?”

He steepled his hands in front of his face, and his voice took on a lecturing tone. “We all make an impact on others within our timeline. Families, friends, they all are touched by our presence in their lives. When we died, our timeline officially came to an end. The death has to be one that we could not recover from, and in that moment, a burst of energy calls to the Orb of Time, and it sends one of us to retrieve you.”

“How could you be there before I died? I mean, if you were waiting for the signal, you should have only shown up after I died, not before.”

“The Orb gave me an image of you that I had to match to your experiences and appearance. As for the before part, we are talking time travel after all. You are allowed to enter and observe any timeline that is not your own.”

She sipped at her coffee and sighed as the heat relaxed her throat. “So, you are saying that I will be able to traipse through time?”

He grinned. “You will be assigned a tutor from those who are available and from there you will have someone to ask your questions of as well as you will accompany them on their travels to get a feel for stepping through time.”

“There is a pool of prospective tutors?”

He shrugged. “The Council of Seven usually matches the tutor with the pupil based on information given to the speaker of the council. Currently, Ravikka is holding that position, and she is fair and direct with her communications. She will choose the right tutor for you.”

Idara sighed, “I hate waiting for other people to decide things in my life.”

Harken grinned and took her hand. “Then, it is a good thing that your life is over.”

She blinked for a few seconds before she burst out laughing. “I think that that might be the single most insensitive thing that any man has ever said to me, and I have heard some doozies.”

He grinned, “The Admaryn always strive to make an impression, even if they are basically extinct right now.”

Idara sighed, “What if I don’t want to be one of you? What if I want my old life back?”

He shook his head. “You can’t. You are no longer part of that universe, and they will see you as something that does not belong.”

A very unladylike snort came from her. “I have never belonged. I don’t even know what I am doing off my planet.”

He nodded. “Walk with me. It is easier to accept Home if you can see it.”

She got to her feet, and the tray she had been eating from disappeared. She looked back at the space where it had been and frowned. “Where did it go?”

“Acquisitions obtains the food and disposes of the plates when they are empty.” He wrapped an arm around her waist, and he started a slow walk out the door and onto one of the ramping walkways that connected the buildings.

“Acquisitions?”

“They are a group of the Nameless responsible for bringing food, clothing and amenities here. If you want anything in particular, Acquisitions will pull it from time and deliver it Home.”

“Anything?”

“Within reason. Books, hobbies, games, anything that has been mass-produced basically. You can also take a stint in Acquisitions if being in service to the Orb is too difficult.”

They were walking in the eternal light that pulsed from the stars above, and she had to smile at the elegant grace of the stellar dance. “It really is lovely.”

“I am glad you think so.”

“Where are we headed?” The boots she was wearing made no sound on the bridge that spanned a crack in the ground beneath her. When she noticed that there was nothing but empty space on the other side of the crevice, she moved more to the centre of the walkway.

“To the council hall.”

“So, this is being done no matter what I want?”

“Sometimes fate cannot be avoided. Your new life is about to start. Do you wish it to start without you?”

She pondered the twisted logic of his words as they moved inexorably toward the building that housed her fate, whether she wanted it to or not.

Chapter Four

Idara stood in the centre of the mark on the floor and waited for the councillors to speak. She was very good at keeping herself quiet when folks in power were deciding what to do next.

Apparently, when she had been in the Volunteer recruitment centre, it was her very avoidance of confrontation or eye contact with the interviewers that had captured their imagination. People who were entirely non-confrontational were in high demand when dealing with royal families across the Alliance.

Idara stood with her feet slightly apart for balance, her hands behind her back and her head slightly down.

“Idara Queering, palace courier and member of the Alliance Protectorate of Terra. How are you adapting to the thought of being a member of our select gathering?” The voice was a pleasant female tone, and it must be the speaker that Harken had referred to.

“It will be interesting. It will certainly be better than living in the Skiilar palace and probably less dangerous as well.”

A ripple of laughter spread through the people in the room. There were folks standing in shadows behind the council, and they chuckled as well.

“That is probably true, but know that while we do live a strange existence outside time, we can and do die when the damage is great. Are you prepared to go where you are sent no matter the consequences?”

“I am. It is what I have done up until this point, so there is no use changing my career at this stage in the game.”

The woman stood up and stepped out of the shadows. “That is all we can ask. Come and meet the Orb. I get the feeling that it has a special task for you.”

Harken followed behind, the king of the shadows that surrounded her.

As they stepped down into the belly of the building and to a stone spiral that was fixed over the vast expanse of open space, Idara looked for him to comfort herself. When she saw him off to one side, witnessing what was about to happen, she relaxed marginally.

“You will know what to do, Idara. The Orb would not bring you this far and not tell you what you needed to do.” The woman smiled and walked along the narrow edge of the wall, standing next to a protrusion that seemed to have a purpose that Idara could not figure out.

Her instincts told her to walk the wide spiral to the centre of the room, and she throttled down her conscious mind that told her it was the stupidest idea she had ever had.

Breathing calmly, she walked around the spiral, and when she reached the centre, seven figures around the wall touched the icons next to them.

Looking into the swirling vastness, a tiny piece separated from it and came toward her.

A glow hovered in front of her, twinkling playfully before it eased itself into her chest and bloomed inside her.

Flickers of awareness started in her mind, scenarios she had never seen began to play themselves out. Idara began to see the effect of every decision she had ever made.

Putting herself between her sister and harm had been the first decision that she saw. The two branches of reality that could have come out of it were so different, she swayed in shock.

Remembering where she was, Idara quickly walked the spiral out and onto solid ground. The speaker took her arm and led her up the stairs.

“The disorientation fades. It is showing you the branches of your life, is it not?”

Idara swallowed. “It is. Some of them are quite frightening.”

“If you did not live the frightening ones, then you made the correct decision. That is what matters. The Orb insists that we learn the options for our actions.”

Idara shook her head. “It hurts.”

“That will pass. Now, come and get your belt and dagger. We wear the dagger to give us a last line of defense if we are confronted.”

Idara blinked. “Does that happen a lot?”

The woman shrugged, “Often enough. We try to keep ourselves out of the line of fire, but sometimes, it cannot be avoided.”

They were back in the council hall, and the speaker walked to a huge chest, removing a length of leather and a knife in a scabbard.

She helped Idara get the belt into place around her hips. “After a while, you won’t feel dressed without it.”

“What is your name?”

The woman blinked, “I thought that Harken would have told you. I am Ravikka, speaker of the Council of Seven.”

Idara smiled as the weight of the knife slowly felt less foreign. “Pleased to meet you, Ravikka. Now what?”

Ravikka looked at her with her swirling, starry eyes. “I think you are one of those who will work best with the man who retrieved you. Harken will be your new tutor and will be responsible for answering your questions and making sure that you learn the ins and outs of being a Nameless.”

“What if that relationship doesn’t work out? Can I get a new tutor?”

A voice rumbled from behind her. “I will make that extra effort for you, Idara. Now, if you would care to see your new rooms? They overlook…everything.”

His pause was suspicious, but she turned and smiled up at him. “Can we walk there?”

“Of course.”

“Good. I am still acclimating.”

He offered her his arm, and they walked out into the light.

* * * *

The councillors turned to Ravikka.

Gwetho whispered, “What did the Orb intend for her?”

“She’s a patcher. She will skip through time and remove folk who have slipped into disaster that does not involve them.”