An Abyss of Light (The Light Trilogy) (38 page)

“No, but it happened in Seir.”

“I’m sorry.” For a moment fear came back to Sybil, but as she searched his forlorn face an idea occurred to her. She sat up straighter and brushed tangles out of her face. “Avel? I know it won’t be exactly the same, but maybe while my mommy’s gone, I could be your little girl and you could be my daddy?”

He looked at her intently for a long moment, eyes softening, then he gripped her tightly and kissed her forehead. “I’d like that, Sybil. I’d like that very much.”

Rachel watched them walk out hand in hand, and glanced at Jeremiel. He stood like a lazy tiger, leaning against the table, eyes alert, guarded.

“I’m so glad Father Harper has become her friend. It makes things easier.”

“Umm,” Jeremiel grunted.

“What does that mean?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing.” He turned quickly back to the map. “Let’s get back to business. Tell me what this terrain over here is like. If we have to—”

“You don’t like Harper, do you?”

He blinked seriously at her. Candlelight glistened off his gold-furred forearms as he gracefully folded them. “Like has nothing to do with it. I’m—uncomfortable—with anyone I can’t ‘read.’”

“You can’t read him?”

“No. Can you?”

She shrugged, smoothing her jade sleeves. “No, but he seems nice enough and he’s always so good to Sybil. Actions speak louder than words.”

“Not always.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, there’s some truth to that, but often other things are far more important than actions. Like a person’s eyes. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“You mean that the eyes reveal inner thoughts.”

“Exactly. All a person believes and feels, is reflected there. Unless they’re making a valiant effort to hide those things.”

“And Harper’s eyes?”

Jeremiel speculatively caressed his beard, blue eyes focused on the door where Harper and Sybil had vanished. “Like a brick wall.”

“Well,” Rachel sighed and turned back to the map, fiddling with a handful of pins. “Don’t be so conceited. Maybe your talents at reading people aren’t as perfect as you imagine.”

“I never said they were perfect.”

“So if you know they’re not perfect, why are you so worried about him?”

“I didn’t say I was worried,” he protested. “I merely said he made me uncomfortable.”

“I thought in your profession everybody made you uncomfortable?”

“Recently,” he sighed and smiled halfheartedly, “that’s very true.”

“Recently?”

He ran a hand through his blond hair, chin lifted severely. He kept silent for a long time as though debating within himself what could be said safely. “The last time my ‘instincts’ screamed at me this way, someone I trusted deeply betrayed me.”

The utter somberness of his voice sent a tingle of foreboding through her. “Who? When?”

His eyes narrowed in obvious pain and his nostrils flared. “Two months ago.”

“The same time the woman you—”

“Yes,” he whispered and briskly started to move away from the table.

“Wait.” She grabbed his hand to hold him still. The bones of his fingers felt large and strong in her grip. His eyes met hers vulnerably. “Jeremiel, tell me more. Harper will be my daughter’s sole friend when I’m gone. If I have any serious doubts about his—”

“Don’t.” He exhaled, and glanced down at her fingers twined with his. His eyes darted quizzically over her face. “I’m not sure my ‘instincts’ are reliable. The battle in the Akiba system is still too close. So don’t worry—”

“I’ll worry,” she said and released his hand. “Flawed or not, there’s a part of me inside that trusts those blasted instincts of yours.”

“Really? And the one I had about you going on this mission?”

“I thought we’d already established you’re not perfect?”

“Ah, I’d forgotten.”

He gave her a nervous grin and she found herself clutching up, muscles tightening for no apparent reason, heart pounding.

His eyes went over her suddenly stiff posture. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t … want to trust you.”

“I can understand that. You only
suspect
my flaws, I
know
them.”

Hesitantly, he touched her shoulder, then pulled his hand back as though burned. Frowning, he abruptly leaned back over the series of maps. “Let’s get back to work. We’ve only got a few days. What do you think about …”

He continued talking but Rachel barely heard. His voice had grown soft, caressing, a little frightened. She balked at the feelings it stirred. As though time slipped, her mind found itself in the bedroom with Shadrach, trusting, loving. And now she caught herself relying on and believing in Jeremiel against every precious instinct.

“I think it would be better,” she responded half-consciously to his question, “if we put the gun emplacement here.” She leaned over the table next to him, intensely aware of the warmth of his closeness as she pointed to a high rocky point. “Except I don’t know how we’ll get the cannon there. We’d be in plain sight for miles.”

His eyes evaded hers. “Don’t worry about that. I have a map of the caverns that crisscross beneath and around Seir. We’ll get it there.”

“There are caverns beneath Seir?”

“Thousands of them.”

“Is that how we’ll get into the city?”

“Yes, why don’t you come to my chamber later and I’ll show you …” As though realizing the intimate implications of what he’d said, he quickly amended. “I mean, we need to discuss the best route with Rathanial. Why don’t we all three meet in my chamber after dinner?”

“All right.”

Her gaze lingered on the lines tightening around his eyes.

Avel Harper quickly guided Sybil to an adjacent chamber. “Can you put the books and things in that cabinet while I go get my pack? That way we’ll have a place to keep the sand and sticks.”

She wiped a hand beneath her nose. “All right.”

“Wait here for me. I’ll be right back.”

She nodded and took the books to the far cabinet cut into the red stone wall.

Harper backed out of the cave, checked the corridor for intruders, then slid along the wall, easing silently up beside the room where Rachel and Jeremiel talked. His brow furrowed deeply as he listened to their conversation about him—
and the caves beneath the palace.

CHAPTER 22

Pines loomed like black spears against the dusk sky as Sarah trudged up the winding mountain path.
Come alone,
they’d said.
Alone and unarmed.
Towering cinnamon cliffs thrust up around her. Twilight came early to these high canyons, gloom deepening in the fissures of rock while the last rays of sunlight lingered in sheets of lavender on the peaks. She stopped a moment to rest and noted painfully how narrow the slit of brightness had grown over her head. How long had it taken? Three hours? Maybe four, to climb this high? She’d never make it back to her own camp at the base of the mountain tonight. A small tremor of fear shook her as she realized she’d end up sleeping near the leaders of the planetary rebellions, sharing their camp—if they’d let her after she told them what she’d come to.

She hiked up the hem of her mint colored robe and slid by a jagged edged boulder. A soft voice stopped her.

“Your name?”

“Sarah Calas.”

She waited, unmoving, eyes focused straight ahead, lest they think she posed a threat. A scritching of boots against rock came to her along with the pine-scented muttering of wind through the canyons.

A moment later, a hand touched her lightly on the shoulder and she turned. A short stocky man with a round nose and a tangled chaparral of black beard appraised her from head to toe, amber eyes narrowing. She guessed his age at about forty. His gray livery and the ominous pistol tucked in his belt blended with the deepening light until he seemed one with the shadows.

“Where are the others?”

“Some wouldn’t come,” he responded blithely, as though understanding and sympathizing with their reasons. He snorted as he looked her up and down again. “Don’t much blame ‘em. You’re a hell of a ‘leader’ of Gamant civilization.”

Her jaw muscles jumped as she lifted a brow. “I’m not particularly impressed with you, either, Mister … Mister …?”

“Shem Kowitz.”

“Let’s get on with this. Where’s your camp?”

He extended an arm up the path, bowing nominally, a glint of amused contempt in his eyes. Sarah swept by him and tramped up through the narrow defile, cursing the extra weight that made her legs tremble with fatigue. After Mikael’s birth, she’d never quite been able to lose that twenty pounds that clung to her belly and made her thighs bulge. Now, suddenly, it bothered her more than it ever had. Pretty women at least had a man’s attention if not his respect, but a plain pudgy woman had to earn both the hard way.

As they worked through a series of pine groves, Sarah spotted a faint gleam in the distance. Black shapes moved lithely in the gold glow. And, suddenly, all around her, she saw the guards posted, some on the high points, others along the trail, many perched in trees overlooking the entire canyon.

“How many came, Mister Kowitz?”

“Three of us leaders, missy, plus a few of our boys to stand guard in case we’re ambushed while we’re up here—er—chatting with you.”

Sarah caught the distrust in his voice, but ignored it, heading straight for the fire gleaming beneath the canopy of trees. As she strode into the circle of its warmth, one man stood, tall and lanky, with brown hair and graying temples. Wary eyes flickered green in the dimness, his worn tan suit showing the tortures of battle. Dried blood stained the leather of his boots in splotched brown patterns.

“Miss Calas,” he greeted, forming his hands into the sacred triangle.

“Please,” she said, returning the gesture and bowing slightly. “Call me Sarah.”

“Not Zaddik?” Kowitz taunted, knowing it a title her father had won, that of holy man.

“Just Sarah.”

“I’m Zebulon Yoma and this is Ezra Nahor.” The other man extended an arm to the bald skinny little leader who refused to rise or offer any welcome at all. He merely clutched a cup of taza in dirty hands and gazed at her through slitted eyes. The fire crackled in the wind, sending sparks flitting through the tree branches overhead and throwing amber light across taut mouths and calculating eyes. Sarah’s heart pounded.

“Which rebellions do you represent?”

“I lead the Desert faction. Nahor is in charge of the Valley people.”

Sarah turned slightly to ask Kowitz, but glimpsed only his back, disappearing amid the black looming shapes of the trees. “And Kowitz?” she asked the others.

“The River people.”

She met and held Yoma’s tense gaze, seeing a buried stillness there that spoke of old pains poorly concealed beneath glimmers of hope. A sensitive man, she could tell, though cautious—very cautious.

“Pull up a log,” he said, pointing to an old stump that huddled close to the fire. “Can we get you some taza?”

“Yes, I’d like that, Mist—”

“Zeb. Just call me Zeb.”

“Thank you.” She spread her mint colored skirts and sat on the stump.

He threaded quietly back into the shadows where Sarah noticed tents pitched in the sheltered niches of the rocks. A soft clashing of metal and petrolon sounded. She saw him pull a cup from a pack and tap out the dirt that lined the bottom. He used his tan shirttail to wipe it clean. Nahor, she couldn’t help but notice, never took his beady pig eyes off her, though he threw another log on the fire and drank his taza as though dying of thirst.

“What’d ye come here for?” he asked in a low gravelly voice, squinting at her.

“To talk about the riots.”

“We ain’t gonna stop.”

“I’m not asking you to.” She refrained from adding,
I just want you to stop for a while until we can get reinforcements from the Underground.
But she didn’t, knowing it best to wait. They were strong-willed men. She needed to manuever
them
into suggesting it.

He blinked and slowly straightened, eyeing her curiously. “Then why’d ye come?”

“To explain the Gamant situation here on Kayan and throughout the galaxy as best I know it.”

“And then what? We don’t care what facts ye’ve got. We’re doing the right thing killing the damned Magistrates. No matter what ye say, we’re—”

“Why don’t you give her a chance to catch her breath, Ezra?” Yoma interrupted as he stepped up to the flames and lifted a battered sooty pot from the coals, pouring Sarah’s cup full of steaming black liquid. “She’s been walking for hours to get here.”

“I walked meself,” Nahor argued, puckering his lips disdainfully. “And got here not more than an hour ago.”

“Shut up, Ezra.”

The little man scowled but pursed his lips tight. Why, Sarah wondered? Did Yoma have more power than Nahor? That didn’t make sense. Though the Desert people had larger numbers, they divided themselves into clear ancestral lines. Living partially nomadic existences, they moved cyclically from dry farms, gathering areas, and hunting regions throughout the year. And those resource procuring centers were strewn across the sandy wastelands within distinct territorial boundaries. No group crossed the lines without inviting war. Getting even two lineages together to fight the same battle would be considered a miracle anywhere in the galaxy. But the Valley people congregated in bustling sedentary communities, where huge farms were cooperatively owned. Coalescing a fighting organism from such a staid community would have been far easier. But, perhaps Yoma had managed a miracle and his forces outnumbered Nahor’s despite the odds?