Laldasa (56 page)

When it was apparent the ship meant to take off, Con-Administrator Pangel called for a desperate and dangerous maneuver. With his own hands, he over-rode the de-magnetization process and froze the cradle of the starcoach Gauri Star.

The vessel attempted to lift anyway with unexpected consequences; instead of merely having her mag-keel holed, she exploded in a wash of blue-green flame. In the panic that followed, the skycoach Black Paruta lifted above the blast and sped away on a course that did not match the one registered with flight control.

Twenty minutes later, on the flight field next to the still smoking wreckage of the Gauri Star, the Vadin Rakesh Bithal summarized the situation for Nathu Rai Sarojin and his companions.

“There were three people aboard the vessel, it seems—a pilot, Bhrasta-sama and a woman. The pilot abandoned ship before the explosion and has vanished. I have enlisted the aid of the Port Sarngin to find him. This was no accident, I think, Nathu Rai. Vedda-sama is not here.”

Jaya ground the sole of his boot into the resilient surface of the flight pad. “Then we have to assume he's on the Black Paruta.”

“If he is,” said Rakesh Bithal, “we will track him down.”

oOo

The Balin cruiser carried eight of the elite militia men including their Supreme Commander, Rakesh Bithal. It also carried Mall Gar, Jaya Sarojin, Anala Nadim and Ravi. They had been in the air only minutes when a report from the Spaceport informed them that it appeared the Gauri Star had been intended to carry an additional passenger.

Among the remnants of baggage and various belongings in the smoldering wreck, searchers found clothing for two distinctly different men—different in stature; different in taste. There were also, reported the officer in charge, some odd icons, deformed somewhat by the blast. They appeared to the officer in charge to be the sort of icons one might find in an Asra's prayer niches, but with subtle differences. He described them as erotic, for want of a better word. They had been saved complete destruction by virtue of being in a steel case etched with the initials D.P..

“So,” Bithal concluded, “it would appear Prakash-sama was supposed to have been on the Gauri Star and, presumably to have died with it.”

“Perhaps that is Uncle Namun's solution to every problem,” said Jaya.

His voice was bitter and Ana felt a chill pit open up beneath her heart. She wanted to weep for him, for his father, for this betrayal, but realized it was neither the time nor the place for grieving.

They found the Black Paruta approximately where they expected they would, on a small private landing field carved out of the mountainous terrain not far from Namun Vedda's summer house on the Lake of Jewels. The Balin pilot set his cruiser down next to her and they debarked.

Ana, one of the first off, paused to listen to the mountainside. It was barely spring at this higher elevation and little pockets of snow still peeked from beneath evergreens and pooled around the bases of rocks. A vague whisper at the periphery of her hearing, a vague tugging at her consciousness made her orient herself toward the bow of the ship. She took several steps in that direction without realizing she had done so.

“South.” Bithal checked the map on his hand-held unit. “The computer agrees with you, Nadim-sa. Good. I would not like to have to choose which to trust.” He gave Ana a wry glance and nodded in the direction she faced. “The mine is that way. Does that surprise you?”

Ana blushed. “No, Vadin Bithal. I hear wind-singers.”

“Ah.”

He turned to his Balin and issued orders for their armament. They carried clubs and stunfuzzies set to maximum range and power. Bithal, himself, carried an ice pellet gun as well—a weapon legal only to the Balin. Jaya and Ravi were issued stunfuzzies; Ana went unarmed by choice.

Bithal led his party through the dense brush with Jaya and Gar flanking him. They found themselves almost immediately in a draw between two steep hills, tracing an old stream bed.

The random melodies of the wind-singers grew louder as they moved toward the mine. At length, a slight bend in the trail allowed them to see the entrance, cut into the hillside by the hands of men, barred from access by the same. A lurid depiction on the arching gate announced the nature of the sect. The windsingers hung on a pole thrust into the ground next to the entrance.

“I take it we must ring to be admitted,” guessed Bithal. “If you would rather not enter, Nadim-sa ... ”

She laughed. “I've been in worse places, Vadin Bithal. Besides, I think I can help find him.”

The Vadin nodded and moved to give the chimes a hard shake.
 
There was no response. He shook them again. Nothing. With a chuff of impatience, he pulled his pellet gun and took aim at the spot where the latch met one thick supporting beam. The latch made a sudden clunking noise and the heavy wooden gate swung wide open.

Bithal holstered his weapon and entered. All eyes strained to pierce the gloom. The darkness was not absolute, but eddied and coiled in a dance with firelight that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. It bled up the walls, lapped at the vaulted ceiling of the manmade entry and rushed in waves across the stone floors.

It took Ana a moment to realize that someone stood before them several steps up a broad, shallow rise of stairs. It was a man in a blood colored robe and he was watching them through narrowed eyes. A Bogar priest. Ana could feel suspicion radiating from him; could almost see it run in rivulets through the creases in his face.

The Vadin Bithal saw him too, and made a small gesture at Jaya. Together, they moved up the steps to stand directly before him. That gave the Bogar priest the opportunity to read the emblem of status on Jaya's cloak and the Seal of Indra hanging across the breast of Bithal's flight suit. The Bogar did not look pleased to observe that his visitors were led by One of the Nine and a Taj Prince, but he bowed deeply to both and gave the respectful greeting.

There was no respect in him, Ana knew. None. Only suspicion and arrogance. She extended herself outward, imagining tendrils of thought reaching into the sooty recesses of the cave. She was aware of some other people here, close by, but not Vedda. She would know if he was near. She found her eyes drawn to the darkness beyond the three men now holding conversation on the top step.

There. He had passed this way and left a trail of anger and frustration. Red. She could nearly see it—a bloody, roiling smudge in the dark.

“Namun Vedda has studied and worshipped among us in the past, Nathu Rai,” the priest was saying, “but we haven't seen him for some time.”

“Still,” said Jaya, “we would like to search the caverns. He may have entered without being seen.”

The priest smiled. “Namun-sama is a Master of the Bogar. A man of great power, strong forces. The Virgin would know if he entered her sanctum, and what She knows, I know. Namun-sama is not here. Besides, the gate is always securely latched and only priests of the Order possess keys to it.”

Ana moved lightly up the steps. “He was here, Jaya. He went back through there.” She pointed into the ruddy blackness of the main passage.

“That's absurd-“ the priest began, then broke off to fix Ana with a penetrating gaze. “Who is this?”

Jaya cut him off with a wave of his hand, not taking his eyes from Ana's face. “Are you sure, Ana?”

“Yes. He—he left a sort of trail.”

Jaya peered into the gloom. “You can see it?”

She nodded, then shivered as the eyes of the Bogar priest seized her.

“You have the Jadu,” he said. “Why do you seek Master Namun?”

Ana turned her own eyes on the man, willing herself to hold his gaze brazenly, arrogantly. Her stomach twisted, but she forced the words out. “He seeks me. I am the end of his quest. You know this.”

The priest's face lit, the creases smoothing, sucking up their runnels of disdain. “Then you will pass the Power to him here?” He bowed deeply. “We are honored, Rohina. It isn't often that your Path crosses ours. I must assume that the Master has gone to the womb of the Virgin to prepare for you. I am sorry, but I don't know which of the passages he might have taken, which of the shrines he might visit on his way. The middle path is the shortest.”

Jaya glanced, again, into the flame-fanned darkness. “How many passages are there?”

The priest did not take his eyes from Ana's face. “Three. All lead to the same place, eventually. Why do you bring these men with you, Rohina?” His eyes were sharp, suspicious.

Before Ana could answer, Jaya did. “I don't think, priest, that it's any of your concern. We are here to see Master Namun, and to see that he obtains what is his.” He put a hand on Ana's shoulder.

The priest took in the ambiguous gesture, venom dripping from his eyes. “As you bring the fulfillment of my brother's quest, I can hardly stand in your way. Or more to the point, in the way of the Seal of Indra. That is license to do whatever you wish. I ask only that you refrain from disturbing the bhakta during their devotions and studies.”

“We wouldn't think of it,” Bithal told him, and signaled the group below him to come up.

He waited until the priest had adjourned to one of the side chambers, then posted two of his men at the entrance to the cave. Then he led the way through the long, broad main corridor into the cavern.

The first junction came about fifty meters along the downsloping main shaft. From a sand-carpeted juncture with the smooth, polished surfaces of a cauldron, a second passage sprouted suddenly to the right. Narrow and curving, it was lit with glowing disks attached to the water-carved walls instead of the torches used in the main tunnel.

Rakesh Bithal studied the passages with some skepticism. “How far should we trust the directions of our esteemed priest?”

Ravi snorted. “I should say, very little. Why do you ask?”

“It occurs to me that Vedda-sama might be somewhere other than we have been informed, and that the brother's directions were intended to stall, to confuse, or to divide.”

Jaya made an impatient gesture. “Do we have any choice? We must divide, if we're to search effectively.”

“Perhaps, but we need not divide blindly.” The Balin commander looked to Ana. “You saw his trail before. What does your Sight tell you now?”

She searched the walls, the sand, the ceiling. Odd. The tell-tale bloody smudges were absent here. “I don't see anything,” she said.

“Perhaps he did not come this way,” suggested Mall Gar. “Perhaps there is another way into the mountain.”

Bithal sent two Balin to the right and instructed Mall Gar to lead two Balin down the straight path. Then he looked once more to Ana. “Now, Nadim-sa. Perhaps if we back-track, we can determine where our man has really gone.”

They headed back toward the entry hall in silence and Ana listened intently to the sounds of the cave. She could hear them even above the whisper of their collective breathing and the slip and crunch of feet over sandy rock and the guttering of the torches, ensconced at intervals along the curving walls. There was water dripping constantly, insistently. Somewhere the water did more than drip; it splashed and hissed and thudded over rock molded by its persistent travels. Beneath that was a deep, musical sighing, as if the cave itself breathed along with its human denizens.

She felt suddenly like some alien bacteria, invading the body of a titanic, living beast. She recalled telling her parents quite firmly at the age of seven that the mountains men carved their mines out of were alive and really ought not to be disturbed by explosives, drills, and picks. She put out her hand to caress the cool, slick wall and imagined that they made their way through a major artery toward the heart of the mountain—a heart pulsing with the life of the planet itself.

She was still absorbing her surroundings, or being absorbed by them, when the corridor broadened and ascended into what was ostensibly a hall of sanctums in which the devotees studied the arcane and erotic arts.

Ana paused and scanned the doorways. There were four cut into the rough walls—two to the left, two to the right. One of them showed, if faintly, what she had taken as signs of Vedda's passing. She gritted her teeth, almost cursing the priest for his obvious misdirection. His warning against disturbing the students had caused all of them to completely overlook these portals.

Without speaking, Ana led the way to the suspect doorway. Within she saw red light flickering against mottled walls. She hesitated there, waiting until men had drawn up around her. Rakesh Bithal moved around her, his eyes grazing her face as he passed. One by one, the others past, except for Jaya. He drew level and took her hand.

“You don't have to do this. You can go back to the ship and wait. I'll send Ravi with you. We'll find him.”

She shook her head, lips curling wryly. “I was not made to sit and wait, Nathu Rai. I'll come along.”

She started to move forward, but he did not relinquish her hand. “If we were to marry,” he said, “could you be persuaded to forget that I am the Nathu Rai?”

“If we were to marry, could you be persuaded to forget that I am Genda Sita?” she asked, challenging him.