Laldasa (59 page)

They searched the chamber, but came up with nothing more than hostile stares from a group of Bogar priests who had come to stand protest in the upper access to the chamber. When Rakesh Bithal returned with his party, they still had not found her, and Jaya was in agony. Trills of sheer terror alternated with equally terrifying silences during which Jaya's imagination all but gutted him.

They were holding council in the center of the chamber, when Jaya's attention was drawn forcibly to the altar with its hideous god. Without knowing why, he moved toward it, his steps swift.

“Nathu Rai?”

Bithal's voice barely registered. She was there, she was near. He was at the rim of the pool when she appeared from behind the glistening altar, soaking wet, her hair clinging in wet tendrils to her undergarments, her coverall gone.

He had started to mount the verge of the pool when he realized she was not alone. His godfather peered at him over her shoulder.

It was only when they had cleared the altar, wading out into the knee-deep pool, that he realized two things in stunning succession—one was that Namun Vedda was naked, the other was that he held the tip of a long dagger to Ana's ribs.

“Ah, nephew!” said Vedda conversationally. “If you would be so kind as to tell your militaristic friends to stand aside, I should like to go up to my cell and put on something more suitable for travel.”

The sudden flurry behind him told Jaya that the Balin were already reacting to the situation.

“No, no!” called Vedda. “That is not at all what I meant.”

The dagger jerked and Ana uttered a choking cry. A dark stain spread downward through the blue fabric beneath her left breast.

An echoing stab of pain shot down Jaya's side. “Damn you, Namun, let her go!”

Vedda shook his head. “She's my insurance, nephew ... and my beloved traveling companion.”

“If you need a hostage, take me. Leave Ana here.”

Vedda laughed pleasantly. “A kind offer, Jaya. I'm sure your lovely dasa appreciates the sentiment. Alas, while you are a delightful companion, she has many qualities you lack. Besides, she has pledged herself to me. Does that surprise you? It shouldn't. After all, while she is your slave; she is the lover of my soul. Aren't you, Deva?”

“Yes, Namun,” said Ana on cue. In her eyes, a flame had gone out. Drained of color, they reflected only the fire of torches.

Jaya's throat constricted. “Why are you doing this? Why did you do any of this?”

Vedda's expression softened. “Ah. What you really want to know is why I killed your father. Well, I'll tell you, because I want you to know. Bhaktasu Sarojin was everything and had everything I dreamed of being and having. He was all that and had all that without ever having to work for it. No discipline did he follow; no Path did he tread. It was simply given to him by blind gods of Providence. He befriended me in school the way a man might befriend a lost dog. And I was lost. My family had nothing. I had nothing. Nothing but my native intelligence and a natural talent for the sciences, which served to get me into the finest technical school in the seven provinces. Bhaktasu, who had so little natural ability it was painful, simply bought himself a place in class. I tutored him; I was his crutch and he took the poor, low-caste misfit under his royal wing.

“Don't think I was not grateful. To his credit, he was a generous soul; he helped me out a great deal. Helped me find lucrative work, later helped me start my own laboratory. But, odd as it may seem, the more he did for me, the more resentment warred with my gratitude. Of course, I felt great shame at my resentment. The shame, turning to guilt, gave birth to further resentment.

“Then, there was Melantha. We both loved her. Bhaktasu won her. I pretended it was because of his social station, but I knew it was not that, but his qualities as a man. Your father was a good man, Jaya. I wish he had not been.”

He paused, shaking his head, as if another path had opened up in this mind and he hesitated to take it. He recovered himself, though, and continued. “You may think me a man without ambition, but that is not the case. I decided that I was going to someday enjoy the kind of power you and your father owned by birth. That I was going to do it in my own way, on my own terms, using my native talents. I was well on my way to that goal when Bhaktasu stumbled across the means I had chosen to attain it.”

“So you had him killed.”

Vedda shook his head. “That would have been unworthy and cowardly. I killed him myself. I owed him that. It seemed dishonorable to send a mercenary stranger to kill a friend.”

Jaya's soul gave up an inarticulate cry of anguish. “Friend? You dare call yourself-“

“Enough,” said Vedda, “kindly move out of our way.”

Jaya didn't move. “Leave Ana and you can go. We won't follow.”

“You're not a good liar, Jaya. You never have been. Besides, I think you understand that she is more than just a hostage. I need her—want her. I wanted her when she was merely a theory. And, when, at Mesha Fest, you showed me the reality, I knew you had unwittingly given me the greatest gift I have ever received—the other half of my soul. I thank you.”

The gratitude was sincere—Jaya could see it in the glistening eyes. Mad eyes. They were at an impasse. Jaya had no threats to make, no weapons to use, nothing. He moved his eyes to Ana's face.

“Ana.”

She trembled.

“Ana, what do I do?”

“Let us go,” she told him. Her gaze held his in a painful grasp. “He won't kill me. He needs me. He loves me. Don't you love me, Namun?”

“With my entire being, Deva.”

“You see? I'm safe with him. You can let us go.”

Light-headed, Jaya turned to the watching Balin. “Move back. Let them go.”

The Balin fell aside, leaving a straight path up past the pools, through the grove of stalactites and the columns of lost souls, to where the Bogar priests hovered.

Jaya, too, stepped back, never once letting go of Ana's gaze.

Vedda prodded her to the edge of the pool. She was stepping out of the water when an explosion of sound erupted beneath the Bogar idol. With a cry of pain and rage, Duran Prakash appeared behind the altar. His right arm hung, limp, at his side; blood from a ragged wound spread across his shoulder. In his good hand was a lightning pistol.

He did not waste time.

As Jaya leapt forward, shouting, as Namun Vedda turned in disbelief, as Ana tumbled into the pool, a sizzling bolt of lightning cut Namun Vedda nearly in two and cauterized the wound as it went.

Jaya felt searing heat break over him and winced at the wash of brilliance that flashed from the weapon's muzzle.

Vedda screamed—the horrible, strangled sound of a soul being ripped, unprepared, from its body—then crumpled into the pool, nearly on top of Ana. The smell of charred flesh washed up in a curl of steam.

Sobbing, Ana pulled herself to the side of the pool and retched. Before Jaya could reach her, she slid beneath the water.

oOo

There was cold water in her face, cold water in her mouth. She swallowed. Her throat shrieked in bruised, abraded agony, but she swallowed again and again, worshipping the icy liquid. She was cradled in arms that shook with the palsy of recent terror.

She took a deep breath. The cut below her breast stung. She put a hand there and found the wound had been bound. Another hand covered hers.

“Jaya.” The name came from her throat dry and lacerated. She put up her hand and touched his face. It was wet. “Poor Nathu Rai,” she murmured. “I am such an irritant I drive him to tears.”

He kissed the hand, held it against his lips and whispered something into it that sounded like, “Laldasa.”

“What?” she asked.

He rubbed the dascree in her palm with his thumb. “My mother accused me of wanting to replace this with the Sarojin raicree. She was right.”

She opened her eyes then, and looked at him. Tears still chased down his face. “Crazy,” she called him.

“Nearly.”

“Are those my tears?”

“Yes. Lalasa,” he called her. “Beloved.”

“Then, thank you. You asked if a Deva can be a Rani. She can, but the cree of the Order goes here.” She pressed his thumb into her palm with her fingers. “Not the raicree.”

He nodded. “Understood.”

“I'm Genda Sita,” she said. “You said you had forgotten.”

“Yes.”

“The Rani has not.”

“It enrages the Rani. Let it. It's good for her soul.”

“Crusader.”

“Rohin witch.”

She stared up, then, at the glitter of the ceiling—of all the tiny presumably worthless crystals that grew there. “How did you know about the bhasvata crystal?” she asked.

He blinked at the non sequitur, but answered. “I saw it ... through your eyes, I think. A crystal box with herbs in it. The red wedding gown, the paruta flask, the room ... the hooded men.”

She was incredulous. “You saw all that? How?”

“I don't know. I just did. I knew you were in the KNC Towers. I knew you were hurt, frightened. Just now, I felt your fear. I even ... felt Namun's fear through you. It seems you really do have the Jadu.”

“Perhaps we both do. Perhaps we are of a kind.”

She studied his face, caught him looking back at her and, for just a moment, saw herself through his eyes, felt herself through his touch. It was a revelation that took her breath away. What intimacy, she wondered, might be discovered by two who could sense as one?

“Of a kind,” he repeated, as if reading her thoughts. “I hope so, but ... ” His eyes swept the steaming chamber. “ ... this is hardly the place to discuss such things.”

“A shrine to the senses, not the place to discuss the sensual?”

“I had thought,” he said, rising and helping her to rise, “that I spoke of the spiritual.”

“The spiritual? Are you now a bhakta?”

“Let us say, I am now aware of certain possibilities.”

He steadied her as they made their way up toward the chamber entrance. His eyes took in her state of undress. “Will you tell me what happened in the shrine ... with Vedda?”

She tried to grab back the dart of residual terror and disgust before he felt it, but saw in his eyes that she had failed. She offered him a rueful smile.

“Nathu Rai,” she told him, “this is hardly the place to discuss such things.”

Laldasa: A tale from the Asok tree

Copyright © 2009 by
Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

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www.mysticfig.com/

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