The Persistence of Memories - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe (56 page)

“She didn't tell me a damn thing.”

He chuckled. “We can't expect to have our
hand held all the time.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He sighed, his humor seeming to melt away as
he turned and looked out the windows. “It means that we're growing
tired of waiting, Karinna. It's about time you Gharné remembered
who you really are.” He stood up and walked to the window, hands
behind his back and his shoulders tight. “Your kind are our
offspring. Your kind, the Trisandi, are the offspring of the
kiralla. And the chain keeps going down, spurring and evolving,
down to Mannaki, Gharné, and possibly beyond, when you decide to
venture further than the CNF-sanctioned worlds. There's a vast
universe out there, and it's about time the lot of you truly
understood that.”

“You’re kiralla,” she whispered.

“Yes, I am.”

She stood, and bravely moved to stand next to
him at the window. The sun was peeking out over the corner of
Bridgetown, the quiet end of South City, rising in the space
between the pillars of the I-91 bridge and reflecting off the
Nulltech Alley towers. It gave the false impression that South City
had been set afire, and it chilled her. But what scared her more
was the sudden feeling that if it had actually been on fire...
it
wouldn't have mattered
. In the grander scheme, the grander
Goddess
of the universes...it was just another event in a
long, unending history. A reaction that was utterly so unlike her.
And she knew that her parents would have felt the same thing.

We are all kiralla,
she thought.

“I want to understand,” she said quietly.

He looked down on her. It was the teacher,
the
sehndayen-ne
summing up a potential pupil. He nodded
twice slowly, a soft smile crossing his face once more.

“Good,” he said. “You shall.”

She bowed her head slightly. “Thank you.”

They both turned back and watched the sun
rise over the city. Peaceful, elegant and majestic. He reached out
and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Do not thank me, emha. Thank
yourself. You've given yourself permission to explore your own
spirit without holding back. I can sense you, Karinna. You have
amazing potential. You do not need those emotional walls anymore.
You have the strength within. It's up to you to channel it.”

“I've tried to give myself that affirmation
since the One...since
Denysia
awakened,” she said. “It's
hard, but I am committed.”

“Strength,” he whispered, and extended his
arm, crossing it over her shoulders. She felt trust with him, and
let his arm stay there. “...and Spirit,” he added.

“Peace, Love and Light, edha James,” she said
calmly.

“And to you,” he answered.

CHAPTER FORTY

Peace

In peace we shall gather; in peace we shall
part.

Denni stepped out of Light and into another
Void, a nonspace without place or time. It was a gray emptiness,
neither light nor dark. It was calm with no energies swirling
through the air, leaving their senses and their spirits clean and
clear. She had asked the previous Ones of All Sacred for a place of
equality, where she could truly talk with Saisshalé without any
possibility of influence or animosity from either side. They
complied, but not without raising concerns; the previous Ones all
wanted to do away with him with a deadly passion. To stop this
endless cycle of Mendaihu versus Shenaihu, spirit against spirit in
a pointless war of control. Denni did not want it. Saisshalé
claimed he did not want it either.

Now was the time to find out the truth.

“Come forward,” Denni said into the
nothingness. “Show yourself, Saisshalé.”

Out of the dense gray fog he came, weary and
tired, dressed in his dirty street clothes. He stooped as if
waiting for someone to help him tear that weight off of his
shoulders. Denni wanted to trust him, at least here, where all was
equal...but something had stopped her. He did not trust
her
,
and he showed it. He was expecting her to destroy him, to erase any
trace of him from this realm. She would need to tread lightly
here.

“I agree to parley, edha,” she said. “We are
here peacefully. I give you my word as the One of All Sacred that I
will not harm you here.”

“Agreed. I too shall give my word,” he said.
She hid her surprise; his voice had none of the disturbing calm,
none of the intimidation it once had. It was ragged and weak. “I
tire of this violence, emha. I am only following the Will of the
Goddess, but I tire of this game.”

“The Will?” she asked with a frown. “I know
of no 'will' that states that either of us must kill, or at least
harm the innocent in any way.”

Saisshalé scowled at her and shook his head.
“Young emha, do you still not understand? It is the
Plan
of
the Goddess. Everything we do. Procreate, raise families, interact
with others near and far. Fight wars, create peaceful societies.
Everything is under the will of the Goddess. It is She who creates,
and it is She who destroys. It is all balance.”

Denni pursed her lips and forced herself not
to respond.

He continued, knowing she wouldn't. “I am
here, young Denysia, because
you
are here. You are correct,
we are equals. Everything that happens within your realm will
eventually happen within mine. Nehalé Usarai awakened you, Dahné
Natianos Lehanna awakened me. Neither of us have fully and
completely ascended. We both wish for a complete spiritual
awakening of the world, in hopes that it will make it a better,
more peaceful place.

“But our methods could not be any more
different, Denysia. You create a spiritual awakening on a
global
scale. Something that, to my knowledge, the previous
Ones of All Sacred never dared to try. I can only respond in kind,
by attempting to sway these awakened souls to their Shenaihu
nuhm'ndah spirit, rather than their Mendaihu kiralla. Again, it is
balance. I can't prove to you that I'm not corrupting these souls
to turn against you. That has never been and will never be my
intent, as long as it is not yours. I can promise you that under my
command, they will not attack unless provoked.”

“A heavy promise to keep,” Denni said. “This
is the Gharné, the
human
spirit that's involved here. You
can't keep them from doing anything, you know. The Gharné have
lived countless generations to sharpen their own version of
Trisandi emotions. Some may say we only react on base emotions. To
an extent, that's true. But that's the way
we
are,
Saisshalé. You may be able to contain the Shenaihu nuhm'ndah
through spiritual restraints, or maybe through discipline. But all
you've done is show them that the Mendaihu are
wrong
, and
you've told them that they are the aggressors here. Nothing could
be further from the truth! The Mendaihu are here as guardians, and
guardians
only
.”

“But from what, emha?” Saisshalé said. “From
whom
? You've convinced yourself plenty of times that the
Shenaihu and the Mendaihu are the
same
except in spiritual
belief! And let me tell you now, that even on that level we're not
that far off. The Shenaihu believe in the same Goddess.”

“They believe wrongly,” Denni growled. She
knew that was wrong to say, but she couldn’t help it.

“They believe in
reality
,” Saisshalé
countered. “Do the Shenaihu not believe in the Goddess? Prove me
wrong, Dearest One. I can tell you right now that they most
certainly do.”

“That's not the point, Saisshalé. The point
is—”

“That
is
the point,” he
interrupted.

“That's
not
the point!” she barked.
“Do me the pleasure of not interrupting, Saisshalé. It's not
whether the
Gharné
believe in the Goddess. They’ve evolved
spiritually and physically separate from their Trisandi ancestors,
and their survival instincts will most definitely kick in whenever
a threat shows itself. If the Shenaihu do attack, as you have shown
us quite a number of times with your own actions, they're going to
be wary. They're not going to trust you. So if this war comes, the
Mendaihu will be standing there, waiting for your kind, as they
have all this time. And they're not going to take it lightly.”

“Denysia,” he said quietly. “It doesn't have
to happen. Everything I have done has been in response to your own
actions.”

“So how do you suggest we end this, then?”
she barked. “Do you have to kill me?”

He let out a long, frustrated breath. “If it
comes to that, Denysia,” he said. “I am countering your moves
because I've been trying to keep this war from happening, just as
you have. You’ve never known those souls I hindered, have you? Take
the man in Branden Hill, the one whose attack was interrupted by
your sister, of all people. Do you know what purpose Gordan
Milainikos serves as a Mendaihu? He was to be one of your fiercest
protectors! Even higher than your sister, did you know that? Well,
from the look on your face, I can guess that you didn't. You really
should take your powers, young emha, and put them to better use
than talking to your girlfriend across the city. I can hear it all
quite clearly, by the way.”

Denni felt her cheeks burning crimson, but
again she did not lash out at him.

“Understand this,” he continued. “If we keep
at this, if you keep building up your Mendaihu defenses, I will
keep building up Shenaihu strength. I am only keeping the balance.
We are as precious as you are, Denysia. I do not want them harmed.
But I will not think twice about sending them in if you threaten
us.”

Denni grunted in frustration and threw her
hands in the air. “I keep telling you, Saisshalé. The Mendaihu have
no reason to threaten you! You have just admitted harming one of
mine, for no other reason than keeping this balance. Do you not see
that is our reason for our preparations? If you keep throwing these
attacks at us...”

“...we'll keep doing this in an unending
cycle,” Saisshalé answered. “Just like this damn conversation. And
Gharra will end up just another battlefield. Just like before.”

“Another battlefield? I know this has
happened before on Gharra. You’re talking elsewhere?”

He shook his head in disgust and began to
pace in front of her. “You really don't know, do you? Of course you
don't. You never ascended. By the way, that was me dismantling the
ascension, under the Dahné's orders. Do you want to know what I
did?”

Denni was burning with anger, but she noticed
that Saisshalé was not smiling. He was not reveling in his
victories. He was trying to free himself from them. “Yes,
Saisshalé, I do.”

He stopped pacing and faced her, nodding.
“Very well, then. As you are well aware, because of your failed
ascension, you did not directly link with the former Ones of All
Sacred. You can speak with them in your sehna lumia — I know you've
been visiting there for the last few weeks — and you can learn from
what they tell you. But you still don't have their direct
connection with me, do you? They've
told
you that I'm the
one you're looking for, the one you have to destroy. And each time,
you and I get together and we have this pathetic war. For what?
Victory over
what
? What are the spoils? A bunch of
spiritually aware citizens of a backwater planet? You and I both
know we aren't the kind of deities to question the Goddess:
She
is the one with the ruling hand. We're just her faithful
servants. We don't question
why
. We just go along with this
stupid war, time and time again.

“So what did I do, when you were about to
link up with those that came before you? Simple. I interrupted.” He
smirked, bowing his head slightly. “I did something I should have
thought of nearly two centuries ago, when this battle was brought
to Gharra. I simply broke your concentration, caused you to doubt
yourself, and made you believe that you couldn't possibly do what
you were doing. Obviously you showed promise otherwise, when you
set off the Awakening of Gharra.
That
was impressive, and
something I would never have expected from you.

“But because of that Awakening, you've set
some other...
interesting
spiritual events in motion.”

Denni crossed her arms. “Such as?”

He smiled. “Well, here you've done something
I don't think you've thought all the way through. Perhaps you have,
I don't know. But in awakening everyone on this entire planet,
you've awakened every soul. Mendaihu, Shenaihu, and cho-nyhndah.
Everyone
is involved now, and it's your doing. I'm not
putting you at fault, Dearest One, remember that. In fact, I’m
amazed you had the temerity to make that decision. For the first
time, you have made the both of us completely responsible for our
own. As the Mendaihu would follow you, the Shenaihu would follow
me...and the cho-nyhndah would have their choice. I do know your
followers have been, shall we say, 'recruiting' more spirits for
your cause, whatever it may be. As have mine.

“Honestly, I do not know what your cause is,
Dearest One. Not this time. You are quite different from the
previous Ones that I've interacted with. You're probably the
youngest, for a start. And to have that much knowledge at such a
young age! But let's face facts: you are still maturing, Denysia.
You do not fully understand the implications of your actions. I
know, I know...you want to base this all on
faith
. You have
faith in yourself and faith in the Goddess. You have faith that you
know what the outcome of your actions will be.

“Such as the Awakening of the kiralla. Didn't
think they would come in to play, did you? They've always been
around, and they're very adept at hiding. Most of them don't even
know they're kiralla until someone or something awakens them. You
know a few, as do I. And we know they're not going to be taking
part in this, It's not their job.