Helix Wars (9 page)

The acolyte left her before they reached the Council corridor, and Calla pushed through the small door before her, stepped into the dimly-lit corridor, and approached the great door.

She paused before it and stared in wonder. Twice her height and just as broad, it was fashioned from ancient silverwood and even in the half-light of the corridor gave off a lambent lustre, a vitality she knew had lasted for over fifteen millennia, for the door had been brought all the way from their ancestral homeworld.

Every Diviner and Healer, with death approaching, was allowed to lay a hand upon the door which, over the thousands and thousands of years on New Phandra, and for countless aeons on Old Phandra, had accepted the touch of every dying Healer. This ritual would commence the Healer’s final week of life.

She wondered if this was why she had been brought to the Retreat; perhaps she had miscalculated, and did not have a year to live, but much less. But why then had Diviner Tomar summoned her? That was not established practice.

She reached out and placed her hand flat against the warm wood. She closed her eyes, gasping, and felt the cumulative touch of the myriad others who had laid hands on the sacred timbers before her.

At her touch, the door swung open, and, trembling, she stepped through.

The door, hallowed as it was, gave no clue as to the dimensions of the room beyond. The Council chamber was five thousand paces long and half as broad, lined along its length with timber pews said to have been brought from Old Phandra along with the silverwood door. Draped hangings, representing every family on New Phandra, covered the walls on each side, and at the far end, diminished in the perspective, was the Southern Window.

It blazed with the light of the setting sun, filling the chamber with a million polychromatic patterns like a kaleidoscope made gargantuan

She knew the protocol of a summoning to the Council chamber. She was to walk half its length, towards the circular reception area, and there wait for Diviner Tomar to beckon her the rest of the way.

She set off, her light footsteps whispering over the polished stone. She stared ahead, her breath tremulous, and drank in the details of the sacred chamber, the ranked pews, the ancient hangings, and the coloured glass window.

Ten minutes later she came to the pews in the reception area and took her seat.

From here she could just make out the distant circular arrangement of padded benches in the Council area at the foot of the Southern Window. Seated on the benches were two figures, one large and one small. They were too far away for her to detect the flow of their thoughts, and she had to rely on visual clues only. She knew that the man on the left was a Diviner, for he wore the green robes of his calling and, even seated, was stooped with great age. She thought she recognised, from his posture, Diviner Tomar. But the second figure...

Her breath caught as she realised, with a start, that the second figure was an alien.

He or she was twice the size of Diviner Tomar, and garbed from head to foot in red. The figure was bending towards Tomar, and seemed to be speaking in lowered tones to the venerable Diviner.

She wondered if this audience had anything to do with the arrival of the violent aliens.

And she wondered again why she had been summoned here.

3

S
HE WAITED A
further hour, every minute filled with the miracle of her presence here, and then realised that the audience between the Diviner and the off-worlder was drawing to a close.

The tall alien stood, and reached out and touched Diviner Tomar’s hand. They spoke again, and the alien turned and walked away from the Council area, striding down the central aisle towards her. She held her breath, then released it in a rush. Soon, within minutes, the alien would pass within metres of her. She had never before set eyes on a being from another world – the closest she had come to doing so had been the previous morning, when she had beheld images of the aliens in the minds of those she healed.

But now the tall alien was striding towards her.

A minute later he was within hailing distance, and Calla stared in wonder.

What struck her initially was his ugliness. She was accustomed to Phandran skin the shade of snow-flowers, with hardly a variation in tone, but this creature’s flesh was as dark as midnight, contrasting with his red one-piece uniform. He had the usual complement of facial features, but his nose was disproportionately huge. He possessed, also, an air of confidence she had never beheld in a fellow Phandran – but most striking of all was the total absence of mind-noise.

She could not help probing as he approached, but it was as if pure emptiness existed within his skull. She gasped, wondering at this being. Never before had she encountered a living, sentient creature – or, come to that, a non-sentient creature – without a cerebral signature. What kind of being was this that possessed none?

He strode towards Calla, looked upon her without expression, and swept on past.

A locus of emptiness, as vacant as a yahn-tree...

Minutes later she became aware of a soft voice, calling her. She looked up. In the distance, surrounded by bright sunlight, was the diminutive figure of Diviner Tomar. “Calla-vahn-villa,” he said. “Please, this way.”

She stood and hurried towards the light.

Diviner Tomar was as old as herself, but men of their species aged more quickly than women. The years had scored deep runnels in the pale flesh of his thin face, and his cheeks were sunken. Vitality, however, burned in his eyes, betokening the intellect still at work beneath the whitening hair.

She probed towards him, but the Diviner was well practised at keeping his thoughts and emotions from the prying minds of others.

He gestured for her to be seated on a padded bench, and hardly believing where she was, she sat opposite Diviner Tomar.

“You are no doubt wondering why I summoned you here, Calla?”

“That, and many other questions beside,” she said. “Why the arrival of the aliens, and why was their violence not foreseen, and who was the tall being, who has manifest life and yet does not possess a cerebral signature?”

Tomar smiled. “We foresaw the invasion of the Sporelli from the neighbouring world to our east,” he said, “and we foresaw their violence. It is all, Calla, a part of a much vaster picture.”

“But the violence they –”

He raised a hand. “The violence belongs to the Sporelli, and affects us only physically.”

“But the suffering...”

“You know that all life is suffering, Calla, until the end. And before you say that the suffering could be avoided, I will say that you are right; but to what end? Our dead are now in Fahlaine, and the perpetrators of evil must look into their souls and regret.”

She bowed her head. “I understand that, Diviner. I was too close to the suffering, when I went among the injured and dying.”

“That is the burden of the Healer,” he said.

She looked up. “But the aliens, the Sporelli? What do they want with us?”

“They are passing through, bent on invading our western neighbours, the D’rayni. On the way they will use us, take our finest Healers and Diviners for their own ends.”

Calla opened her mouth in sudden understanding. “Ah... so that is why you summoned me? To warn me, yes?”

Tomar smiled. “No. The Sporelli will take who they want; it is divined, and will be so, and there is little we can do to prevent what is divined.”

She inclined her head in understanding. “And the tall man, the man without a cerebral signature?”

Tomar said, “He was... advising me, Calla, and I, for my part, was advising him.”

“About the violence of the blue men?”

“That, and many other things, yes,” he said.

She said, with sudden realisation, “He was one of the humans sought by the invading aliens, yes?”

Tomar shook his head. “No, Calla, he was not who they were seeking.”

She shook her head, confused.

Tomar sat back in his seat, regarding her. A minute elapsed, and a slight smile played on his thin lips. He said at last, “Your father was Diviner Ehrl-vahn-villa, your mother Healer Caro-vahn-villa.”

She frowned, wondering at this sudden turn in the conversation. “Yes.”

“You issue from the finest stock. Your father was my supervisor, I his acolyte. He was a fine man. He told you, once, when you were very small, that you were destined to achieve greatness and travel far.”

She smiled. “He said this, yes. But he was mistaken, Diviner Tomar. I am almost ten years old, and close to the end of my days.”

He said, staring at her, “He was not mistaken, Calla-vahn-villa. You are destined for greatness, and you will travel far.”

Her heartbeat thudded through her and a hot wave passed over her face. She sat back and shook her head. “I will?” she managed.

“Details are vague, especially concerning events ten days and more from now. But even so, we have divined, the Council and I, that momentous incidents will play themselves out in your presence.”

She inclined her head, attempting to take this shattering news with dignity. She had anticipated a final year like all the others, serving the people, travelling the nearby valleys... and now this.

She said, “And events within those ten days, Diviner?”

“You will be called upon to heal, but to heal not a Phandran but a human.” He swept on, before she could question him. “He will be arriving here very soon, and will be badly injured, and poisoned also. But your ministrations will save his life.”

“They will?” she whispered.

“More, you will then leave the Retreat with the human, and travel to the western coast. There it is foreseen that you will be parted – but you will be reunited again. Calla, you will suffer much hardship in the days that lie ahead, and pain, but you will persevere through all the pain and hardship, alone and with the human, and you will travel far... And through helping the human, Calla, your actions will bring peace to our world.”

Her head was spinning. “Travel far, to where...?”

“To another world on the Helix,” he said.

“Another world?”

“And there our foresight grows dim,” Tomar admitted, “though we can discern, dimly, the many wonders that lie beyond. But now, Calla, you must repair to the Healing Garden and prepare for the coming of the human. He will be suffering broken bones, and lacerations, and gan-fruit poisoning.”

“Diviner Tomar,” she said at last, “I am honoured.”

The Venerable Diviner reached out and took her hand. “And I, too, am honoured to know one whose destiny is so great,” he said. “Now go.”

In a daze Calla stood and made her way up through the many levels and galleries of the Retreat until she came to the Healing Garden, bathed in the last golden light of the setting sun.

And there she prepared herself to nurse her patient.

F
IVE
/// T
HE
H
EALING
G
ARDEN

1

E
LLIS CAME TO
his senses and, for the second time since the crash-landing, was amazed to find himself alive.

The pod was spinning again, and rocking from side to side, and he sensed that he was being lowered to the ground. He opened his eyes, but all he could see was the red-tinted interior of the pod’s membrane.

He tried to move, to struggle, but he was still paralysed.

He allowed himself a flash of hope. This, surely, was not what the tree had planned – if such could be ascribed to a non-sentient plant? He should have hung up there, surely, until wholly digested. So what was happening now?

He heard what he thought were voices far below, and felt a renewed surge of hope.

Had a human rescue mission located the shuttle, and somehow worked out what had happened to him?

However unlikely that scenario might be, he could not deny that there were people down there attempting to rescue him.

They were not human voices, however. He strained to hear, and made out high chittering calls between two or more individuals. Seconds later the to and fro motion of the pod ceased, and his head hit the ground softly. Through the flesh of the pod he made out a shadow – the form of a small humanoid – as it grasped the pod, lowered it the rest of the way to the ground, and then knelt to hack at the connecting stalk with what might have been a machete.

He tried to cry out and sit up, but could achieve neither.

He was left there for what seemed an age. He listened intently. He heard movement around the clearing: the susurrus of footsteps through the crimson grass, the soft call of voices, and a regular chop-chopping sound as the pods were harvested.

It came to him that he might survive, that – no longer connected to the tree – the pod’s digestive juices might be unable to do their work. Soon the paralysis might wear off and he’d be free.