Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 28

"Mistress," he politely gave her his full attention.

"Not 'Ma'am'?" she let her voice lilt humorously.

"You aren't looking very martial today, Mistress," he smiled playfully.

"No," she sighed and waved him back to his seat. "No, I'm not."

She took a stool for herself, the many layers of cloth strips hanging from her waist spreading over her thighs, covering her dignity far more than when he'd last seen her. Women, Zhair'lo imagined, have different skirts for different occasions.

He had no idea what she wanted to say, but as she outranked him he had to wait for her to get around to it.

"How are you?" she said finally, as if that phrase contained the whole purpose of her visit.

"Fine, now," Zhair'lo remained perplexed. "Recovered, if that's what you mean."

"Oh, I know your body is fine," Aloe lilted her voice to let him know the trifling priority she placed on mere physical well being. "You've run a ten kilometre patrol already, so I assume you're back to full strength."

Zhair'lo nodded.

"But how are you?" she widened her hazel eyes and twitched her eyebrows in a way that made him understand it as a question about his mental state.

"Oh, that," Zhair'lo shrugged it off with a half smile. "It wasn't a big deal. I just went through that 'test' thing they do to us -"

"The running track?"

"Yes, that one. I did it a few months back, before I joined the Hunters. Then I asked to come here."

"Archer. Fighter. What else do you do?"

"I've work with a blacksmith, a roofer. I've cared for horses and baked bread. I get around."

"And you like maps," Aloe nodded at the table.

"Like to know where I am in the world," Zhair'lo spared a longing glance at the map.

"Planning to go somewhere?" Aloe laughed lightly, one of the sweetest sounds he'd ever heard, and pulled his attention back to her.

"Sixty kilometres, around in circles," he pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the maps, unwilling to look away from her again.

She stood up to look at the map Zhair'lo had unrolled, relieving him of the burden of her gaze. He had laid out for examination one of the largest rolls, showing the entire city from the foothills in the north, the quarries in the east and farms in the south. The aqueduct snaked into the Temple from the mountains, delivering running water to everyone inside that privileged triangle. With her finger, she traced the sixty kilometres of patrolled roadway separating the barbarian hordes from the structures of civilization. As she reached across him, their bodies nearly touched and Zhair'lo caught the faint scent of some intoxicating perfume.

"Is that our job, running in circles?"

"That's what 'patrol' means, doesn't it?" he doggedly maintained his tone against her distracting proximity. "Doing the same thing again and again?"

Aloe nodded and pursed her lips in acknowledgement of his wisdom, and Zhair'lo felt a rush of pride for knowing a simple word definition. Her presence still perplexed him and he knew that the deftness with which she could manipulate his emotions meant he might never know.

She backed away just slightly, giving him some space while leaning on the map table so she towered over him slightly less, and her expression became serious.

"It does not bother you to have been Served by so many, of ages well beyond yours?"

"No, Mistress," Zhair'lo shook his head honestly. "Though I much appreciate your part."

She gave a startled laugh at this.

"You'd better! We only do that for ..." she trailed off.

"For special occasions," Zhair'lo finished for her, remembering Zoe's phrase. "I know."

"I wonder how much you know," she searched into his eyes, but didn't seem to find what she wanted.

"Were you worried about me?" Zhair'lo lowered his eyebrows and tilted his head up to peer at her more closely.

"Somewhat."

"You have to know the weird things I've seen," he explained.

Zhair'lo then launched into a greatly edited account of his first frightening upgrade, his encounter with Atani after she'd accidentally exposed herself to him, and a few other choice stories of his life. He left out, naturally, any further mention of Talla.

"That's quite a bit to carry inside you," Aloe paused thoughtfully when he'd finished. After some consideration, she spoke lightly to the ceiling. "And yet your burden will only get heavier, as it is with anyone."

"Take 'em as they come," he shrugged in reply.

"Indeed," she nodded, again making him feel very wise. Her voice became relaxed, "That's why I came to talk to you."

'Finally,' Zhair'lo thought.

"One of the predictions the Temple made, when they sent you here, was that you would have a predilection for, among things, maps," she waved a graceful hand to take in the entire room.

"Yeah," Zhair'lo expressed his resignation with a burst of air. "They know me well enough by now. I'm not surprised."

"The intention is to have you become, in time, a Ranger."

Zhair'lo froze, suddenly unable to breathe.

"Out there?" he twitched a rigid arm at the empty portions of the map. "Exploring on my own?"

"Something like that," Aloe gave him that warm smile again. "This obviously appeals to you."

"They knew it would," he pointed out, an exhalation relaxing his body again. "And so you knew it would."

She peered at him, hazel eyes glowing with that penetrating look Facial women used, and he faced her as blandly as he could. Having found or not found what she wanted, she stood up straight. For the sake of courtesy, he rose to his full height as well.

"Continue with your maps," she spoke in clipped, formal tones. "Memorization of them is an essential part of your training in becoming a proper Ranger."

"Yes, ma'am."

Aloe let out another of those nearly involuntary laughs as she slipped out the door, leaving the room as she left every other room: slightly darker for lack of her presence.

Once the door closed, it occurred to Zhair'lo she'd learned a great deal about him while he'd learned almost nothing of her. He dismissed this minor defeat with a shrug. The Temple saw him as an ideal Ranger, and he couldn't imagine a more useful delusion on their part, given his desire to tear the place down.

------===================-------

Talla and Yua trudged across the Goddess's domain on one particularly dusty afternoon, their bodies sore and their minds weary from their final lesson in Form's yard.

"They've started building that ugly tower," Talla had stopped to look north toward the centre of the Temple.

"What?" Yua tried to wipe sweat from her eyes but only succeeding in getting her face dirty. "Talla, I never want to see those training yards again, and after today I won't have to. Can we get to the baths and wash off the dust?"

But Talla remained standing in the large courtyard where Form emptied out into the Goddess's triangle.

"Look up there," Talla pointed. "It looks like they're on the third or fourth storey by now, or we wouldn't be able to see it from here."

"What is it?" the whine had dropped from Yua's voice.

"I don't really know -"

"It's a Heliography tower," a deeper voice said, prompting both girls to turn around.

A woman stood over them, tall and dour, a virtual statue of bronze skin, black hair and a body decorated with the minimum of orange clothing an Officer could get away with. By the assets attached to her chest, Talla identified her as a fellow sister of Endowment. She turned away from them a moment to wave through a long train of carts bearing quarried, yellow sandstone.

"Mistress?"

"Once we're done," the woman stated proudly, "They'll install a heliograph at the top."

"Helio ... you're doing what with the sun?" Talla racked her brain. "Mapping it?"

"Reflecting it's light," the woman corrected impatiently. "You are Endowment? You should be aware how quickly light travels, yes?"

Talla and Yua straightened as they became aware of a lesson underway.

"Immeasurably fast, Mistress," Yua spoke softly.

"We will install towers like these on the highest hills between here and Beshenna in the east, and Turiksa to the northwest. With a simple code, we can pass messages from one city to another and receive answers in less than a bell."

Talla's mouth dropped. A round trip took something like fourteen days to Beshenna or Turiksa, and that only worked if a merchant caravan arrived the same day another departed. If the Temples really managed to build all these heliography towers, they'd have a network of sunbeam messengers that would embarrass the strongest legs in Form.

"How does Form feel about this?" she asked.

"What?"

"Messages are Form's things, aren't they?"

"Form women will manage the towers I imagine," the Officer raised an annoyed eyebrow. "I assume you two have somewhere to be?"

"Yes, Mistress," they chimed back and, clearly recognizing dismissal, darted away.

"Amazing," Yua's eyes widened.

"Frightening," Talla shivered. "The power this would give them, Yua."

Yua's eyes shrank a little, but Talla had to admit to herself that a brilliant woman had invented the heliograph.

"Not much we can do about it, though," Yua pointed out. "Our nights have been full for a whole week now, delivering wood down there. I don't have enough engineer in me right now to knock down a tower."

Talla wondered about Yua's exhaustion. While Talla had taken every trip down into the sewers, despite her full slate of extra history classes, Yua, Tina and Illya had alternated alongside her, and yet Tina and Yua always seemed more tired. She shook her head, wondering if her determination borrowed energy from some distant, future version of herself.

"Just promise me you won't let me fall asleep and drown in the bathtub, okay?" Yua pleaded.

With a shrug, Talla put an arm around her friend and smiled.

------===================-------

Zhair'lo could only observe Talla's work from the very perimeter of the city. The real work, as always, belonged to the women, on this occasion marching in the sewers while hauling logs and kindling. Zhair'lo had shown her how to arrange tinder, straw, kindling and logs to get a very quick fire going, but for now, Talla and her friends kept their supply hidden in whatever dry crevices they could find near the ventilation room.

For two weeks, he'd felt her excitement growing and, standing as he did on the highest level of the tower which looked over the Eastern Barracks, he had a very good read on her present mental and emotional state. Leaning his elbows on the sandstone ledge and looking back across the Barracks toward the Temple, with the setting sun almost blinding him, he sensed Talla's presence somewhere near Endowment Hall, perhaps the courtyard where women gathered before going out for a night of Service.

Behind Zhair'lo stood two Soldiers of the third rank, a man and a woman, both on duty watching the road where it stretched out to the east, winding up through the heavily forested hills.

'Watch that way all you like,' Zhair'lo said. 'You keep an eye out for your enemies, and I'll keep an eye out for mine.'

"Enjoying the view, soldier?" a deep voice sounded behind him.

Chief Cameron, a dark haired, square jawed squad leader of many years, had climbed up the ladder to join him.

"Yes, sir," Zhair'lo straightened as he replied. "South Barracks doesn't have a tower like this."

"South Barracks isn't on the road to Beshenna," Cameron leaned a shoulder casually against one of the four thick timbers that held the roof in place over their heads.

With his thorough study of the maps provided at each Barracks, Zhair'lo had made himself familiar with the land and roads all around Gern and he well knew the significance of the road the Barracks guarded. But looking at a map didn't compare to standing on a tower and seeing it all laid out before him.

"A merchant caravan is coming through," Zhair'lo shielded his eyes against the sun.

"Seven days to Beshenna," Cameron commented idly, "If they have good weather."

'Three and half, maybe four, for marching Fighters,' Zhair'lo smirked at the thought.

A watcher on this tower, located at the outward facing eastern wall of the Barracks, had a short window of time to detect outbound caravans They cleared the forest around Gern and only moments later disappeared from view below the high palisade wall at the west end of the Barracks.

Chief Cameron tilted his head to listen as a great deal of shouting erupted near the western gate, and soon the doors opened to admit the long train of horse drawn carts and walking attendants.

"The longer you watch these trains go by, the more you learn to recognize them from a distance, even covered with canvas," Cameron explained. "That first one's loaded with flour. Same as the second. The next two have smaller loads, so they must be heavier. Metal weapons possibly, since the canvas is so flat. If it were a special stone of some kind, it would be bumpier."

Zhair'lo wondered at the older man's eyes, that he could see clearly what looked to be identical burdens to Zhair'lo.

"Next, you look at the people. There's a way that carters have of walking, almost as efficient as Fighters, but without the wariness we have, and without the tiptoeing of a Hunter. They've got a long way to go, see, and they don't worry about the barbarians."

"Of course, they aren't all Carters," Chief Cameron peered intently at the two files of walkers passing through the gate. "If you see a woman, she's either H'rem, and is used to this, or migrant, and isn't. You can tell the difference by the walk, too, usually ..."

Cameron trailed off, squinting into the sun.

"... but not always."

"Not always, sir?"

"Some of the migrants have purpose in their feet, soldier," Cameron stroked his chin as he continued to stare, leaning out over the stone ledge. "They're not changing cities for kicks, but instead because they've got some reason to be somewhere else. That one in yellow, for instance ..."

------===================-------

Thirty metres below and a hundred metres west of Zhair'lo and Chief Cameron, Maksa walked alongside the caravan. As a migrant woman, she'd spent the last several days inside the Temple, denied the opportunity to Serve. All travelling women, whether permanently assigned as H'rem or making single journeys, saved up their sexual energy for the long road ahead. In order to keep the men happy during the journey, they'd be busy every night.

Maksa saw the lure of it. H'rem spent roughly seven days taking long walks through the forest, each day punctuated by a night of Service. Following such a journey, the doctors prescribed three or four nights recharging in the centremost, and therefore nicest, rooms of the Temple before new orders sent them to another city. A woman could visit the entire empire, see the coldest and hottest cities, the wettest and driest. She could visit Prima, the place where the gods had come down, and she could journey to the smallest and most dangerous Temples on the frontier of the empire's growth.

Conquest and expansion held no priority for Maksa, for she chased a more delicate demon, one who would scratch impishly away at the foundations of the Temples until they collapsed. For this alone she went to Beshenna, laden with as many documents as she dared carry. Nothing in her satchels contained evidence of her involvement in the genealogical conspiracy, for she'd written most everything in her own cryptic, mathematical code, a cypher nearly as deep as that which the Sorceresses of Pussy used to convey messages to each other. If need be, she could babble on about her research to the utter boredom of any who asked..

On the other hand, Maksa still felt the thrill of adventure. Born and raised in Beshenna, she'd known no other city. And now she found herself marching with the H'rem, duty bound to placate the travelling men with her vagina. Alone of the other women, she knew the precariousness of that control, how close to the cliff edge they trod, and how much more dangerous these journeys would become in the decades ahead.

The train of carts never slowed its progress on its way through the Barracks. Instead, it picked up a new cart at its head. Maksa had learned about this in the days she'd spent waiting for a caravan she could join. The forward cart would be loaded with weapons to be used by the Fighters. A second cart, waiting in a side alley, would bring up the tail of the column, carrying a good deal of the camping supplies needed for such a journey.

Never having seen a Barracks from the inside, Maksa's eyes roamed everywhere. The structures registered as almost entirely foreign, as if imported from another city. Although predominantly wooden framed instead of stone, they still looked sturdy. Practice yards, currently in use for archery, bo staff fighting and sword fighting, packed in tightly with sleeping quarters and eating halls.

What with all the things on which to feast her eyes, however, Maksa's gaze constantly crept to the dominant structure, a traditionally constructed stone tower rising several storeys above everything around it. The tower, she also knew from her studies, had stood to watch the road to Beshenna long before the Barracks had existed. Only in recent decades had the Temple decreed the building of the three Barracks buildings.

As the the carts passed the base of the tower, she looked up to find two men leaning out over the edge, staring down at the moving train of carts.

'Actually, they're staring right at me.'

Maksa paused in her walking and squinted to check for certain. Not knowing what else to do, she waved at them. Apparently startled, they both waved back hesitantly.

Not wanting to hold up the line, she resumed her walk and passed out their sight.

Seven days of marching awaited her.

------===================-------

They'd put all the wood in place.

On this rarest of evenings, Zhair'lo and the male members of his squad, as well as several other squads of soldiers found themselves housed in a small wooden building just outside the main gates of the Temple. The unusual location put him close enough to Talla he could clearly sense her pride of accomplishment.

After three weeks of careful carrying and stowing, Zhair'lo's link with Talla had assured him the girls had accumulated enough fuel to absolutely cook anything in the Synergist chamber. The work had been complicated by the fact that, in addition to her normal duties, Talla's had found her schedule packed with daily lessons on History, Temple Culture and various language courses.

Nothing remained but waiting, and Zhair'lo's nerves rode a razor's edge. For three weeks, they'd feared the Goddess might die before they'd completed the preparations. Their panic had absorbed them so completely, they hadn't considered the opposite possibility: years of patient waiting.

As he generally spent his time on the periphery of city, he had no way of knowing when the fateful event would happen. Talla, even with her minimal rank, had the advantage of proximity. The talk amongst the older women revealed that, while the death of a Goddess was always kept a secret whilst a new one was chosen, wiser heads could detect the frenetic motions of Officers low and high as well as strange empty slots in the Upgrade schedules.

Tina swore the nightly dockets exposed the inner workings of the Temple, and they would serve as the lever that released the conspirators' catapult. The moment those documents became closely guarded secrets or contained blanks, the moment they found an Augmentation Chamber shut down for an entire evening, the time to strike had to be seized. While all eyes and every guard studiously served the Ascending Queen above the ground, the conspirators would unleash their attack from below.

Zhair'lo saw the tinder igniting the first embers directly under the stone vent, felt the cool air rushing in as heat and flame hurled themselves upward. The conflagration spread around the room in a circle, the heat igniting the heavier wood around the vent. More air was drawn in. More heat was forced up inside the vent ...