Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra (60 page)

“When we had learned the secrets of our world, the time of wandering came to an end. We harnessed the living crystal for power, and quarried the shining sunstone. Our fathers built great cities of light and lived under the sun in harmony with all things. We remembered our brothers in the dark cities and sent emissaries to them, bringing our most precious gifts to share. They welcomed us, and greedily learned all we could teach them, then turned against us, using the knowledge we had given them to make weapons. They covered their cities with crystal and became Dome.”

“The cities of darkness became Dome,” the chorus replied.

“They turned jealous eyes upon us. In darkness they cursed our light and dreamed our destruction. The fever of hate inflamed them, and they went mad in their delirium. Then, when the evil in them grew too great…” The Preceptor's voice cracked with emotion. All in the room held their breath. “Then came the Burning.”

“The Burning,” answered the chorus in a hushed whisper. The effect was chilling. Treet stood spellbound.

“The Burning,” the Preceptor sobbed. “Fire fell from the clear sky without warning, raining down on the cities of light, destroying them in clouds of smoke that blotted out the sun, consuming even the stones. No one survived. Young and old alike perished in that terrible day. It was over in a moment, but the black smoke rolled up to heaven for many days to become a shroud to cover the sky. On that day, our bright homeland became the Blighted Lands, a desert where no living thing could ever survive.”

Tears escaped from under the Preceptor's closed eyelids. She let them fall and in a little while resumed. “But the Fieri survived. A very few, it's true. Some of our people were working the crystal mines in the West when the Burning took place. Others were away in the mountain quarries to the North. These few survived to wander once more.

“A dark epoch followed. Sickness became our constant companion: our men grew old too quickly and died suddenly; those of our women who were not barren gave birth to dead babies or produced monsters from their diseased wombs; our flesh withered while still young; little children lost teeth and hair, they vomited blood. Our proud ancestors became a nation afflicted with sores and running wounds.

“All that we knew passed away; all that we loved died. The treasures of our great civilization fell into dust. We lost the knowledge we had worked so hard to discover—we lost everything to the dark time.

“Yet, we survived.”

“We survived,” came the murmur from the chorus.

“We lived, for the Infinite Father heard our people and took pity on them. As they wandered the land, sick and sore, the Seeker found them, the Gatherer brought them together, and the Sustainer led them here, to the shores of Prindahl, where we were given a new beginning.”

“Glory to the Infinite Father!” said the Fieri behind her.

“He bound our wounds and healed our sickness. He gave us the light of hope to guard us, and taught us a deeper love than any we knew. The Infinite Father raised us from the ashes of death, and He claimed us for His own.”

“Praise to the Infinite Father!”

The Preceptor opened her eyes and regarded the visitors with unutterable sadness and compassion. Treet was overwhelmed with a rush of jumbled emotions—outrage at the crime that had been visited on these noble people, grief for their loss, wonder at the meaning of the Preceptor's words, and astonishment at their incredible will to survive. For what she had described was a nuclear holocaust.

Out of jealousy and spite, the inhuman monsters of Dome had leveled the bright cities of the plain with atomic weapons. They had turned once-fertile soil into a wasteland scorched white and sterilized by radiation.

As one who had passed through that man-made desert, Treet felt the cruel injustice of it like a hot brand in his heart. It was some time before he could speak. “Such horror … I never guessed …,” he murmured.

“The worst that could ever happen to any living thing happened to us,” said the Preceptor. “But the Infinite Father in His love sustained us.”

“Sustained you? He let it happen in the first place!” snapped Treet without thinking. Every eye in the place turned on him.

“How so?” the Preceptor asked softly. They might have been the only two people in the room.

“He could have saved you, but He didn't. He let it happen,” mumbled Treet, dreadfully sorry he'd said anything at all. He felt Yarden tugging at his sleeve.

“We did not know the Infinite Presence then.”

“But He existed, didn't He?”

“Yes, and He revealed Himself to us through our pain. He taught us with our tears.”

“It seems a hard lesson,” remarked Treet finally. “Too hard.” Yarden tugged again.

“No, you do not understand. Our pain was His pain first. If we grieved, how much more did the Comforter grieve. He became our sorrow; the death of our loved ones was no less death to Him, the Light of All Life. He took our sorrow to Himself and transformed it into love and gave it back. That is His glory.”

Treet caught only the barest hint of what the Preceptor was saying, but he let it go. “You've stayed away from Dome ever since?”

“The Protector gave us Daraq, the desert, as a shield. Dome will not cross the Blighted Lands. Now they live turned in among themselves. Their disease will not be healed. It festers within them; it devours them and will in time destroy them. We leave them to their madness.”

Treet stared at all those around him and knew in that instant why he had come here to this place. Words bubbled up from inside him and fought their way to his tongue. He felt like shouting, like hiding, like running from the hall screaming, like weeping and singing all at once. He began to tremble and felt Yarden's hand on his arm.

He clamped his mouth shut, determined not to make a bigger fool of himself than he already had. But his mouth would not stay shut. Hot pincers gripped his tongue, and the words came of their own accord. “The horror is starting again!” His voice grated in the hushed room.

The assembled Fieri looked at him strangely. The Preceptor nodded and said, “Speak freely. Tell us what has been given you.”

Treet drew a quivering hand across his damp forehead and said, “You know that I—that is we,” he included those with him, “escaped from Dome. But while I was there I saw the signs—the madness you spoke of just now—it's all beginning again. Already the leaders of Dome are searching for you, fearing you without reason. It's only a matter of time before they overcome their fear and come for you.”

His words sent shockwaves of surprise coursing through the assembly. “Treet!” came Yarden's urgent whisper. “What are you doing?”

The Preceptor merely nodded once more, pressed her palms together, and brought her fingertips to her lips. Treet waited. Needles pricked along his scalp from nape to crown.

She leveled her eyes on him. “What will you do, Traveler?”

The question was not what Treet expected. “Do?” He looked to Talus and Mathiax for help. They merely peered back at him with narrowed eyes waiting for his reply. “I'm sorry—I don't know what you mean.”

“Your purpose has been revealed to you,” the Preceptor explained. “Now you must decide what to do.”

“Why me?” Treet sputtered, looking around helplessly. “I mean, this affects every one of us. We all—”

“You
must decide,” said the Preceptor firmly.

“I'm going back.” The words were out of his mouth before he could think, but once said he realized he'd been waiting to say them since the moment he'd set foot in Fierra, perhaps even before. “The signs are there—I've seen them before. We've got to stop Dome or they'll destroy everything. Come with me.”

The Preceptor regarded him silently and then said, “We have seen what war can do; we carry in our hearts its terrible wounds—wounds which can never heal.” She shook her head. “No, Traveler, we will not go with you. We will not fight Dome.”

“But they wi—”

“The Fieri have vowed eternal peace. We will never lift a hand against another living being.”

“They will annihilate you,” Treet said wonderingly.

“So be it.” The Preceptor's eyes glittered in the light. “It is better for us to join the Comforter in the pavilions of the Infinite Father than to increase the hate and horror of war by participating in it. We have vowed peace; let us live by our vow.”

Treet could not believe what he was hearing. He looked to Mathiax and Talus for help, but they merely looked back emptily, their faces drawn in melancholy. “You will die by your vow,” he said, shaking his head.

The Preceptor turned and moved away. The ranks of Fieri broke and the hall began to empty. Treet watched them go and then turned to his companions. Each regarded him with expressions of incredulity and contempt mixed in equal portions.

Crocker said, “You put both feet smack in the brown pie this time. Coo-ee!” He strode off.

Pizzle shrugged. “What can you expect from a guy who's never read
Far Andromeda?”
He shuffled away, following Crocker out into the courtyard.

“I'm going to my room,” Yarden said icily.

“What did I say?” whined Treet. “Yarden, listen!” He hollered at her retreating figure, but she did not turn back. In a moment he was all alone. No one has any use for a doomsayer, he thought; and that's just what I am.

“You're insane, Orion Treet!
Is this some kind of kinky death wish? Is that what it is?” Yarden seethed. Anger flared her dark eyes with flecks of fire and honed her words to piercing points like needles of ice. Treet had never seen such fury in a woman and stood back in awe, as from a flame-sprouting geyser.

“Yarden, be reas—”

“Be reasonable yourself! If you weren't so infatuated with that gigantic ego of yours, you'd see how crazy it is!”

Treet flapped his tongue in response, but his reply was lost amidst Yarden's fresh tirade.

“It's a fool's errand. You'll get yourself killed for nothing. You have some kind of misguided messiah complex, and you think you'll change Dome. But you won't. They're
evil,
Orion. Through and through evil—rotten with it. I won't stand here and listen to you delude yourself.”

“It's not that bad, Yarden. Honestly, do you think I'd—”

“Think you'd walk into that nest of vipers unawares? Yes, I do. You don't know them for what they are. You did not see them like I did. Please, listen to me. Stop this stupid, stupid plan of yours now. You don't have to do it. No one will care whether you go or not. No one will think less of you for not going. Give it up.”

“I can't give it up! Can't you see that?” He'd tried the calm-down-cool-off-let's-talk-about-it approach, and it had proven about as effective as a pup tent in a hurricane. Yarden's reaction mystified him. She had blown up instantly, without warning. He hadn't seen it coming. “Someone has to do something about Dome or the holocaust will begin again.”

“You have no proof of that.”

“I know what I've seen. I know the pattern from history—I've seen it time and time again. The machinery of war is already in place. We've got to stop them before they get full control of it.”

“How do you intend to stop them?”

She had him there. He had no idea. “I don't know, but I'll find a way. Come with me.”

“No! I won't be a party to your suicide. I love you. I won't watch you kill yourself.”

“I'm not saying it isn't dangerous. I know it is. I'll be careful. But dangerous or not, it's got to be done. Don't you see that?”

“No, I don't. The Fieri have lived for two thousand years avoiding Dome. Why should that change now all of a sudden?”

“It's the age-old pattern, the cycle of hate. Dome despises the Fieri, and over time that hate builds up until they can't contain it anymore and it explodes. Last time they incinerated the Fieri cities—changed a million kilometers of fertile farmland into a sterile desert waste; they blasted three generations of civilized human beings into sizzling atoms in less than two seconds. They'll do it again unless they are stopped.”

Yarden stared at him. Her lips were compressed into a thin, straight line. Her face was clenched like a fist, teeth tight, jaw flexed. “I can't believe you'd do this to us,” she said finally.

“To us? You think I want this?”

“Yes. In some strange way no one will ever understand, you do want this or you wouldn't insist on going.”

“Yarden, I don't
want
to go. I'm no hero. But someone has to go, and there's no one else. You heard the Preceptor. None of the Fieri will go. Fine. I'm not bound by any sacred oath. Besides, I promised I would go back.”

“You what?”

“I told Tvrdy I'd return. They're desperate for help, and they're waiting for me to bring it. I told them I'd come back with help, and I meant it. That's why we left, remember?”

“I don't believe this,” Yarden huffed. “After all you've seen here, you can still think about returning?”

“They're waiting for me—us—to come back with the help they need.”

“They're using you, Treet! Open your eyes. Suppose you helped them overthrow Jamrog—what makes you think Tvrdy would be any different, any better than the fiend he replaced? They scream about injustice and brutality. Yet, when the new regime comes to power they show themselves worse villains than the villains they replaced: more brutal, more unjust, more repressive. It's the politics of terrorism—you end up replacing one terrorist with an even bigger terrorist!