The Light-Field (46 page)

The queen looked to Taren, who must have had ‘I told you so' written all over her face.

‘Dear child,' the queen bent down to explain, ‘there is no safe way to free them.'

‘Yes, there is,' Ray insisted, ‘I know how.'

‘How do you know?' Taren frowned, wondering if the girl was putting on a performance.

‘I was the one who created the Phemoray.' Her confident statement made everyone gasp.

Taren figured this had to be a past-life thing. ‘Have you been hanging out with Telmo?'

‘A little,' she confessed. ‘He's fun.'

‘How long does she usually hang onto the traits of other psychics?' Taren asked Rory.

‘That depends on —'

‘Does it matter
how
I know?' Ray interrupted, like an adult dealing with a bunch of distracted children. ‘I'm going to need the crown I cursed and we're going to need to take it to the Pit of the Obstinate.'

‘I can arrange that,' the queen answered the child's call to arms, as Aurora sent the steward to find the menfolk.

‘We should get Telmo here pronto,' Taren suggested.

‘That is a very good idea,' Thurayya agreed.

 

No member of the royal family of Phemoria had the need to arrange for transport to take them out to the Pit of the Obstinate. Just in this small family gathering there were five people with PK ability to provide transpersonal teleportation to the site, which had spawned a revolution and a curse on the Phemorian queens for over a thousand years.

Like Dead Man Downs, this place had the vibe of an unpleasant death about it, although the last woman had been sacrificed at the Pit of the Obstinate over a thousand years ago. The last blood sacrifice here were not female, however — they were male, including the last King of Phemoria.

‘This place still gives me the creeps.' Zeven shuddered, as he looked up at the dead remains of trees silhouetted against the night sky.

‘Not me,' Taren disagreed, ‘I met the Grigori here.'

‘Really?' The queen was most impressed to hear this.

‘Mm-hmm. They saved me from the Phemoray,' Taren advised.

‘And from me,' her mother guessed.

‘Ah, memories!' Taren shrugged and made a joke of it.

‘Yes, thanks for the invite, Highness,' Lucian had to say. ‘This is certainly the most interesting family gathering I've been to in a while.'

‘Why, thank you, captain.' Qusay-Sabah Clarona was appeased.

Mythric found Lucian's comment amusing. ‘You really haven't seen anything yet.'

‘I can't see a damn thing it's so dark,' grumbled Zeven. ‘Where is this pit anyway?'

‘Further afield.' The queen pointed ahead through the long dead Cathedral of Trees, where Telmo and Thurayya were leading them.

‘In that case.' Zeven whipped a glow stick out of thin air and cracked it to shed light on the parched, barren clearing they were crossing.

On the far side of the Cathedral of Trees there was a large marble staircase, which led up to a sacrificial platform; the pit was beyond.

Thurayya was staring up at the platform with tears in her eyes. ‘What we did here … was horrible —'

‘Today is not about the past.' Telmo dropped down beside the girl to advise her. ‘Today is about giving each and every soul in this pit a future.'

Ray nodded and as her perspective shifted she calmed down.

‘So what is to be done, Ray?' Taren asked, once they had all gathered around in support.

She placed her hand on the metal case in her grandmother's hands. ‘This crown was formed from jewellery found on the dead women in this pit. The Phemoray were drawn forth to it, by the
bloodletting of a man.' She paused to silently mourn that instance. ‘To reverse the curse, we reverse the spell, which is almost always harder to do than casting the spell in the first place.'

‘So what …' Zeven theorised out loud. ‘We separate the crown into its original jewellery and offer it back to the pit?'

‘Yes,' Ray confirmed. ‘But because the Phemoray were attached to the crown by way of a male sacrificed at the hands of women, they can only be cast out of the crown by a woman resurrected at the hands of a man.'

Ray looked to Satomi, who smiled proudly at her granddaughter. ‘There is truly a reason for everything,' she said, her eyes welling with tears. ‘You could not imagine how many times I dreamt of being able to return this spiteful energy back into history where it belongs.'

Thurayya nodded, as if she had been aware. ‘It is a small recompense to amend for all the harm your foremothers have caused you and this family, but it is all I have to offer,' said Thurayya, and everyone present knew it was not a child speaking with them anymore, but a very old soul. ‘Father.' She looked to Zeven. ‘I'm going to need your assistance with the first part of the returning ritual.'

Zeven came and crouched beside his daughter. ‘Anything you need, sweetness, just ask.'

Thurayya smiled with delight at her father's adoring gaze, and held a hand to his cheek affectionately. ‘How men have changed since my time.' She shed a tear of relief. ‘So some good has come from all the horror.'

Zeven was a little spooked, but nodded with a reassuring smile as Thurayya took hold of his hand.

‘Unite the people,' she declared.

‘Unite the people,' Zeven echoed, agreeing that sounded like a mighty fine idea.

The crown of Phemoria's metal containment box was placed on the altar on the sacrificial platform that overlooked the dark drop where the pit lay beyond.

‘No matter what happens,' Telmo instructed, ‘no one is to pull a weapon or think a hostile thought, that applies double if you are male.'

Everyone nodded.

‘Captain, you are going to have a better view of this than anyone,' Telmo warned, ‘and it may not be very pretty at first, but the uglier it gets the more love you send them.'

‘We've been through this sort of thing before, Merlin.' Lucian referred to him as he had during those dark times in another universe.

Telmo grinned. ‘I didn't realise you remembered.'

‘Oh, I remember a whole lot,' Lucian teased the kid. ‘I remember Teo too.'

‘Oh.' Telmo appeared a mite discomfited about that.

‘Don't worry about me.' Lucian prompted him to get on with the rite. ‘I can take care of myself.'

‘Yes, you can,' Telmo agreed, happy to return his attention to Ray and Zeven. ‘Are you ready?'

Zeven looked to Ray, who closed her eyes a moment. ‘I have to recall every item of jewellery I put into this crown and the order in which I added them.'

Taren caught her breath. ‘That's a high difficulty factor.'

‘You think?' Lucian uttered quietly aside to her. ‘I bet you still have the specs of the Orion weapon, and the formula for the chemical compound to aid Kila against it in your head somewhere?'

‘Of course I do,' Taren replied, as this was leading to another very touchy subject for them — what to do about Kila? She knew what had to be done and Lucian really didn't want to go there again. Still, somewhere inside she also knew she could leap over into another universe and pop back to this morning and no one would ever know she'd been gone.

‘There you go,' Lucian summed up. ‘When something is vitally important, you remember.'

Taren looked to Lucian to find him smiling at her; perhaps she
wouldn't be forced to leave him behind after all. ‘But you have to be in the right time and right place to deliver that information,' she pointed out.

‘Yes, we do,' he agreed and looked back to the proceedings as Thurayya gave Telmo the nod to open the container. As soon as he did Lucian caught his breath, his eyes turned to the heavens above the opened case.

‘The Phemoray?' Taren said.

‘They're out.' Lucian kept his voice to a whisper. ‘And they're pissed off.' His sights were darting all over the place, as the atmosphere surrounding the site was churned by sudden, erratic winds.

With her father kneeling at her back, both arms around her middle, and Mythric and Satomi flanking them, Thurayya made a rising motion with both her hands and the crown rose up into the air and liquidised into hot molten metal. At the same time, what little remained of the Cathedral of Trees behind them ignited into flames.

‘Ignore it!' Telmo implored everyone to maintain their focus on protecting Thurayya.

Taren looked across to see Aurora struggling to remain detached and strong. Having no part in the proceedings, Taren walked over and placed one arm around her shoulders.

‘I'm cool.' Aurora forced a smile as she watched the fantastic scene unfolding with her daughter at its core. ‘I always suspected that her choice of name was no accident.'

From the spinning ring of liquid fire, Thurayya snatched items of jewellery one by one and placed them back in the container. With every item she took the wind died a little more and so did the fire behind them. As the last item formed and was dropped into the container, all the commotion seemed to die down, but Thurayya continued to utter her incantation in Phemorian.

Taren felt Aurora's tension ease and, looking back to Lucian, he appeared more in need of a hug, so she obliged immediately. ‘Are you all right?'

‘They're devastated,' he explained, ‘and very scared. They think we are here to destroy them.'

Taren smiled up at Lucian to reassure him. ‘Not to fear, we're here to free them.' Taren felt very giddy suddenly and had Lucian not been holding her she would have dropped to the ground. ‘Hold me …' she mumbled, as she blanked out and became a dead weight in his arms.

 

‘Oh dear.' When Lucian saw his wife's eyes roll back in her head, he knew some not so good news was on the way. ‘Taren?' He gave her a little shake to be sure this was a precognitive fit and it startled him when she came round.

‘Oh shit!' Taren was distressed.

‘You saw something?' Lucian whispered, not wanting to disturb the ceremony still in progress. ‘You were only out for a micro-second!'

‘I have to go,' Taren mumbled, ‘but I'll be back.'

‘What did you —'

She vanished.

No one noticed Taren leave; all were focused on Thurayya as she fell silent and the atmosphere calmed completely.

‘Is that it?' the queen asked. ‘The end of the Phemoray.'

Thurayya turned back to the spectators. ‘No, they have only lost their influence in the physical world. What we do now will set all the souls in this pit truly free. Thank you Father, Grandfather.' She gave them leave to step back.

‘My pleasure, princess.' Zeven kissed her forehead, before he and Mythric joined the others at the bottom of the stairs.

Thurayya turned to Satomi, picked up the container piled with jewellery and handed it to her. ‘Return each item individually, with all the love and good intention you have. And do not be distracted from your vigil by
anything
.'

 

When Taren arrived back on board AMIE, she landed in a dark room, but there was a lot of moaning going on. ‘Swithin?'

‘Shit!' Swithin and Amie were heard to cry at once.

‘Taren?' Swithin recognised her voice. ‘What the fuck? You're supposed to be at a family gathering?'

A scuffle was heard and the lights came on. Swithin was wrapped in a pool towel and Amie waved from under the bedclothes.

‘Don't do that!' he insisted, loudly.

‘I need you, right now.' Taren couldn't keep the stress tremor out of her voice.

‘Right now?' He couldn't believe it.

‘Right now,' Taren said with determination and apology.

‘No dead person is going to be much worse off in fifteen minutes time!' reasoned Swithin.

‘Aw, honey.' Amie sounded disappointed that was all the time he was allotting their romp. ‘Better that you come back.'

‘So sorry,' Taren apologised to Amie. ‘Thank you.'

‘Well, let me get my pants on,' Swithin appealed, as it looked like the women had things all arranged and when he looked again his clothes were on.

‘Now.' Taren grabbed his arm.

‘Is this a fresh kill?' Swithin queried, concerned.

‘It surely will be.' She returned her mind to the Pit of the Obstinate on Phemoria, and her body and Swithin's followed that thought.

 

Lucian had the oddest feeling as he watched Satomi returning the jewellery to the pit; the feeling was panic — something wasn't right. Lucian looked to those in his company on the bottom of the stairs and they too seemed restless; the foreboding feeling was coming from the Juju stone, therefore everyone present must have been feeling it.

You have betrayed us, Thurayya.
The spirits who had begun rising from the pit accused the young girl.

‘I have not betrayed you,' she answered the accusation that only Lucian and the girl heard. ‘I am here to lead you home.' Without a
second's hesitation, Thurayya manifested a blade in her hand, slit her own throat and dropped into the pit.

‘No!' Zeven was up the stairs in seconds and with his hand held out before him, he raised his daughter's lifeless body up to float above the pit and brought her over to rest on the altar. Aurora had reached Zeven and collapsed into a flood of tears, seeing Thurayya's tiny body bleeding from the throat.

Struggling as she was, Satomi did not pause from her vigil.

Zeven turned to Telmo, who was at the bottom of the stairs in shock. ‘Did you know this was going to happen?'

Telmo was horrified by the query. ‘No! I swear to you.'

Taren spoke up. ‘I knew.'

Lucian breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing her arrive with Swithin.

‘You brought Swithin.' Zeven was suddenly filled with hope and so was Aurora.

‘Praise the heavens.' She could breathe again.