Talla's Fallen Temple Ch. 29

"How do you fare?" H'reena moved closer, lowering her voice.

"Well enough. I have -,"

"Matters of great importance to which to attend," H'reena acknowledged. "As do I."

"I don't see what -"

"What is your mission within the gates of Form?"

Pauses could speak volumes to women with H'reena's skill and the hesitation before Shanata's answer told her a lie lay in the offing.

"I will depart to Beshenna, representing Abundance."

Nearly the truth, H'reena surmised, except as it failed to answer the question.

"That is not your purpose beyond these gates," H'reena kept her tone light, leaving aside all accusation, and nodded to a place behind Shanata. "The army lies beyond the main gate, waiting to depart."

"I - ah," Shanata stammered. "I go to seek my aide, whom I believe wandered into Form to arm herself ahead of me."

'Do you think you fool me?' H'reena wondered. Certainly Shanata spoke the truth of Talla's designation, but the tinge of triumphant sneer, no matter the masking presence of the helm, exposed it for a cover story.

"Your 'aide' awaits you at Baccarat's Depot," H'reena tilted her eyes skyward just enough to let Shanata know the transparency of her ruse. "We didn't know of her promotion, however. Please congratulate her on Our Behalf."

Shanata braced herself, for only those of the highest ranks used the plural possessive in exactly that manner.

"I will, of course. Thank you for your help."

H'reena nodded, turned on her heel, and passed through the gates back into Form. If they had known of Shanata's imminent arrival - and intention to take Talla along regardless - they could have simply kept Talla safely inside Form until they could arrange a pickup.

She found it far more fascinating that Abundance, both the Sorceress and the Discipline in general, had decided to cover for Talla this way. Certainly, one expected such things from Facial, at least if one resided in Facial. Nine gods only knew what people outside Facial though of the Discipline.

'But Abundance? What tenth hell is this?'

When, H'reena wondered, had they started playing the disruption game?

During her brief tenure as a teacher, she had developed a penchant for spotting her future Disciples. Certainly, the artists and singers made themselves obvious. It surprised no one when these found their way to Facial. An outsider to the Discipline had a much harder time spotting the others, though, the ones who kept playing board games to confuse instead of win, to disrupt rather than conquer, who preferred the creation of clever patterns over the achievement of the written goals.

Consequently, such women found themselves unconcernedly in last place at the Initiation and so stumbled into Facial. No one understood Facial's pleasure with a system designed to deliver precisely the best women into the arms of the those who could make them feel most welcome.

H'reena cleared her head with a shake.

She'd done her bit of disruption tonight and that would suffice.

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

A bone-shaking, endless tremor shook Zhair'lo slowly into consciousness. Before that, a distance as great in time as nine thousand steps would take him in space, he could remember only darkness, anger and exhaustion.

He tried to open his eyes, but his body failed to obey. Speech he attempted as well, and managed only a feeble groan.

Voices intruded upon his awareness. He recognized them, vaguely, as belonging to friends of a long lost era. Pain jabbed at his spine and he determined he lay on a rough, hard plank. As to who had put him there and why, he had no memory. For a moment, he felt a desire to avenge himself on such parties unknown, but the mere hint of revenge brought a foul taste to his mouth and repelled all such thoughts.

'How odd,' he thought. 'Vengeance lost its appeal somewhere.'

The rumbling continued to disturb him, to reach into his skull despite an uncomfortable cushion of some sort placed under his head.

A bump in the cobblestone road jarred the carriage, forcing a grunt from his lungs.

"Zhai?" a female voice, soaked with concern, whispered in his ear and the tremors ceased below him. The woman's tone changed suddenly to mockery and her distance increased as she stood over him. "See? Told ya he was fine. Jackass, making us worry."

He hadn't recognized Tara when she'd whispered, but he knew her then. With that, memories of the others flooded back. Before he could open his eyes, he felt them crowding around him where they'd stopped on the street.

"He will not awaken for some time," a chilling voice, laced with Authority, spoke from somewhere behind his friends. "We must continue to the Eastern Barracks."

"He's waking now, Mistress," Bree's voice made no attempt to hide the irony in her use of the honorific.

"Unlikely."

Zhair'lo grunted again, determined now to defy Authority, and forced his eyes open. The stars created pinpricks of pain in his vision. Torches, mounted on the walls of the street where they'd stopped, blazed in his eyes. The universe, normally quiet and dull, threatened to burn out his senses. He squeezed his eyes shut, prepared himself for the pain, and opened them again.

Every message to his brain seemed invalid. The presence of the stars and the lit torches spoke of some time after midnight, yet he could see every detail of the concerned faces clustered around him with perfect clarity. Behind the faces, buildings rose, every scratch in their sandstone faces visible to his eyes.

An irritating tingling radiated inward from every bit of his skin. He knew the sensation of being burnt, and this didn't match. On occasion throughout his life, for want of a proper sleeping position, one of his limbs might fall asleep on him, the waking of which produced painful jolts. The tingling he felt now reminded him of this, but everywhere and without promise of ever ending.

As he propped himself up on his elbows, the enormity of his situation hit him. His body felt the way it did because the Goddess had imbued him with the Perfection of Within. A flash image of her golden body appeared in his mind, ensconced upon the black silk sheets of her bed, preparing her body.

Zhair'lo blinked to clear his vision and looked around. Zia stood at his feet, looking over her shoulder at him, for she held the front handles of the caisson. Bree, Tara and Renzi watched him from the left while Del and Kit crowded in on the right. Craning his neck, he saw Z'rus behind him.

"You guys look well," Zhair'lo tried to keep the weariness out of his voice, but at least elicited a laugh from them with the failure.

"You don't, Zhai," Tara offered. "Why don't you go back to sleep? We can carry you."

"Can't sleep on this," he shook his head. "But thanks."

Pushing his twitching legs over the side, Zhair'lo sat up and let his feet hit the ground. Tiny bolts of lightning ran from the soles of his feet up his spine, forcing a wince from him.

"Madra Zen," Del cursed. "Are you sure -"

"He wants up, he gets up," Tara cut her off, her insistence mitigated by her lack of confidence.

Behind them, Sonja removed her helm as she stepped up to tower behind Bree and Tara.

"We do not have time to dawdle here," she spoke curtly. "Nor time for him to walk in his state."

"His state," Kit hissed softly back at her, and Zhair'lo wondered at the anger he felt from his comrades-at-arms.

With the overloading of his senses and his general weariness, he began regretting his insistence on getting up. Would marching to the Eastern Barracks leave him better than accepting a bumpy ride on the caisson?

One look at his friends told him the answer, for they had decided to stand up against Sonja on his behalf. Loyal acts such as that, Zhair'lo knew, he had best answer in kind. If he decided to lie back down, he made a farce of their mutiny.

His eyeballs burning and his nerves electrified, he stood away from the caisson and steadied himself before setting his gaze on Sonja.

"I'll walk, Mistress," he kept the rebellion in his voice to a minimum, not out of respect, but for lack of the mental power to come up with any phrase more inspiring.

The towering woman rolled her eyes at him before pushing past his female companions and setting her helm at the tail of the caisson, next to a small pile of leather and weapons.

"Do you want your armour?" Sonja asked, gesturing at the goods.

"Not - not yet," he stammered.

Hiding a gulp that fought down a wave of nausea, he turned on his heel and began walking. Renzi fell in immediately at his left, with Bree and Tara behind. Seamlessly, as if they'd never parted, they assembled and marched as they always had. Kit replaced Z'rus at the back of the cart, so Z'rus and Del could take their positions on the far right.

Properly ordered, they left Sonja no place in their assembly and forced her to tag along a few paces behind. Zhair'lo didn't turn to see her face, but he could hear her uneven, awkward breathing and knew they'd put her out with their tiny rejection of her authority. The woman recovered quickly, and soon he registered a contentment in the steady, near silence of her respiration.

'Hard to imagine,' he thought, 'that I was in her mouth just a few ...'

"How long was I out?" he asked no on in particular.

"It's been about half a bell since you came out of the Goddess's ... um ... chamber," Bree replied quickly. "But you were in there about half a bell, too. I don't know when you passed out."

Zhair'lo couldn't account, between his interactions with Sonja and the Goddess, for more than a quarter bell of his time inside the bedroom. That mean he'd spent a while in there unconscious. He wondered how long it took two women to put clothing on an unconscious man.

"Anybody got water?" he asked. "Weird taste in my mouth."

The faintest nasal exhalation came from behind him. Sonja had found something funny and hadn't completely contained her mirth.

"Any news since I went in?" Zhair'lo ignored Sonja entirely, pitching his voice as if he intended to exclude her.

"Beshenna fell about four days ago when the Goddess died," Del replied. "We don't know why, but the Queen of Sweetness and the Sorceress of Within died too, which meant no Goddess could ascend and the Temple couldn't be restored."

Zhair'lo listened and watched the passing streets at the same time. He found his brain was easily up to the task of dividing his attention this way.

"Gern is the closest city to Beshenna," Del continued. "So they sent a runner to us, stopping only for water and food at certain way stations along the road. It's understood that, by now, the power of the deceased Goddess to hold the men of Beshenna will have been lost. Some will begin falling comatose, while others will become violent."

"A runner came," Zhair'lo paused to wonder. "Not a rider on horseback?"

"A woman of Tight can easily outrun a horse on such long journeys," Sonja put in.

Zhair'lo looked in through the windows of passing buildings. He knew that men slept nearby, as if the sound of each individual breathed in his ear. Certain places he knew as empty by the relative silence.

"The Goddess has chosen you to be the Conduit," Del came to the end of her story. "You have been given the magic of Within and our task is to convey you to Beshenna in speed and safety."

A new kind of tingling ran up his spine; a vibration he couldn't recognize. Some unrecognizable force, Zhair'lo realized, approached from the rear.

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

Two hundred metres behind, along a long, wide street, a bevy of women raced toward Zhair'lo's squad.

"You'll just have to do your best to keep up," Shanata whispered in Talla's ear as they jogged. "Janine is not patient."

Talla, not only out of breath from moving so quickly, but nearly out of energy from the multiple adrenaline rushes she'd put herself through, didn't waste any of her lung capacity on a response.

"They're all expecting me to have chosen an aide with more Form upgrades," she indicated the squad of Enforcers in front of them, a group apparently led by this 'Janine'. "Don't disappoint them."

Talla got the impression Shanata worried most about her own reputation in front of the Form women. The bluff by which Shanata had attached Talla to the outgoing expedition still mystified the younger woman. 'Why is she supporting me like this?' Talla wondered. 'It's perfectly obvious what I'm doing. I already got in a heap of trouble for this once. None of this makes sense.'

All she knew she had gathered by hint and innuendo, for Shanata had shown up with a troop of Form's Enforcers to pick Talla up outside the Temple.

"There's my aide!" Shanata had announced with a grand gesture, and quickly dragged Talla out into the street to get her running.

Shanata's eyes had said, 'Play along' as clearly as if she'd spoken the word, and Talla had had little time to catch her breath since.

"What's ahead?" one of the Enforcers shouted.

"The caisson!" called back another.

"With no one on it?" Janine squinted into the distance.

The ten women slowed as they came upon a marching squad of mixed gender. One woman marched behind eight others, two of them charged with moving a caisson lightly loaded with weapons and armour.

'Madra Zen!' the shock hit Talla out of nowhere. 'Why couldn't I feel him until now?'

The sight of Zhair'lo, though unarmoured and clearly not in his best shape, punched Talla in the stomach with such force she stumbled before she could stop.

"Do you have the Conduit?" the lead Enforcer called out.

Zhair'lo's group came to a halt and turned as one to face the chase group. A chill seized Talla's heart when she recognized the woman at the back of the group.

"Yes, he is -" Sonja began.

"I'm right here," Zhair'lo growled, speaking over the shoulder of a girl. Talla watched his eyes scanning her group, searching their impenetrable masks one at a time. "Who are you people?"

"We go to catch the expedition to Beshenna," the Enforcer replied. "We will escort you. You should be better accompanied regardless."

"We're his protection," the girl in front of Zhair'lo puffed out her chest. "But you may come alongside if you wish."

Janine stepped forward, bringing herself to her full height and clearly preparing to rip a hole through the petulant girl who had spoken. Just as she inhaled, however, Talla registered a twitch in the corner of her vision and Janine appeared to think better of the situation.

"Very well," the lead Enforcer muttered. "Let us march on."

As the merged groups got moving again, Shanata and Talla fell slightly behind.

"What just happened?" Talla whispered, watching Sonja and Janine putting their heads together as they marched behind Zhair'lo's group.

"I'm not sure," Shanata leaned over. "It appeared to me that Sonja made some signal to prevent Janine from upbraiding that outspoken little girl. They confer now."

Shanata watched quietly, peering through the wall of Enforcers to watch the smaller Fighters marching at the front.

"We may find out the details later, but some things I can tell from here," Shanata craned her neck. "Zhair'lo's friends are not happy with something, possibly with the state the Goddess left him in."

'Allies, then?' Talla wondered if she could trust the type of people who had chosen to become Fighters. At the very least, they held Zhair'lo in high esteem.

"Regardless, Talla, this is your place," Shanata's voice grew severe.

"Pardon, Mistress?"

"Beside Zhair'lo," Shanata clarified. "That's why we're letting you do this. You stay the hell away from any fighting in what is sure to be a disaster in Beshenna. You stay by Zhair'lo's side right to the end of this mission - and afterwards."

Talla gulped, realizing her transparency.

"How did you know -?"

"Pril," Shanata replied instantly. "She saw you running into Form. We deduced the rest quiet easily."

"Then why -?"

"So you can watch over Zhair'lo. You will take better care of in the aftermath of ..." Shanata waved a hand to indicate their squad, its mission and whatever nonsense they believed they'd find in Beshenna, "... of all this than anyone else will provide."

At the front, there was a cry from a woman and a masculine grunt followed by a rough scuffle of feet and bodies.

"Got him!" someone called out.

"Easy, then," a female voice added.

The Enforcers pounced instantly.

"Get him back on the caisson," Janine ordered roughly before pointing to two of her inferiors. "K'ra, Mae'zi, take over the cart. We need to move to catch up to the van."

Talla sighed as the combined group started jogging again. She'd already felt Zhair'lo lose consciousness before she'd heard the first cry or scuffle. What, she wondered, had they done to him this time? Carrying a single upgrade wouldn't work him as hard as carrying doubles and quadruples, but this time they expected him to hold it inside himself for days. What would this recklessness leave in its wake?

She and Shanata shared a glance as they moved toward the centre of the group, nearest where the caisson rolled, ensconced first by a shield of Zhair'lo's squad mates and then by a cadre of Enforcers.

"Get in the middle," Shanata grunted. "That's where you stay. No matter what. Get used to it now."

In Shanata's voice, Talla read fear of an imminent danger. The idea that some disaster awaited them in Beshenna, that somehow all the men had lost their minds for lack of regular Service, found no purchase in Talla's mind, regardless of the sincerity oozing from Shanata's words.

"Mistress," Talla nodded obediently as she went ahead of Shanata and closed upon the left side of the caisson.

Suddenly, a hand yanked on her shoulder, pulling her hard to the left and away from the rolling wooden cart.

"Mistress?"

"Gods dammit," Shanata hissed in unaccustomed panic. "Not so close."

Bewildered, Talla moved across to Shanata's left, letting the larger woman fill the space between her and Zhair'lo. Her eyes darted to the cart and the Form women controlling it. The thing didn't appear dangerous or unstable, but she couldn't imagine another reason for her superior's anxiety.

"What is it?"

"Later," the Acolyte spoke through gritted teeth. "Just move along and keep your distance from the caisson."

Talla wondered if her proximity to Zhair'lo had somehow triggered suspicion on the part of one of the Enforcers. Could any of them recognize her with her armour on? Did any of them even care at this point? How had Shanata noticed? Her mind whirled with questions even as the shock of Shanata's harsh handling wore off.

But everyone kept marching and she concluded that if she'd misstepped, no one else had noticed.

'You're all far too panicked to care about me,' she twisted her lips thoughtfully. 'You know that if we get to Beshenna and nothing's gone wrong yet, we're all going to realize we don't need you.'

Still, Shanata walked beside her, carefully keeping Talla away from the caisson, making the younger girl wonder how Shanata expected her to protect Zhair'lo.

Zhair'lo, she noted, passed painfully in and blissfully out of consciousness, an undulating wave of pleasure and pain as the Form women bounced his cart mercilessly over the cobblestones roads.

In time, they passed far beyond the part of the city Talla recognized into the surrounding forest. With a jolt, Talla realized the enormity of her decision. For the first time in her life, her feet led her beyond the bounds of her home city.

The road through the forest wound gently, keeping with the contour of the land, as the cobblestone faded into hard packed dirt.

"The torches," Talla breathed. "Are they always lit at night?"

"No," Shanata replied. "Only in emergencies. It's only worth the effort when we muster an army."

Every twenty or so running paces, they passed another shoulder high post with a lit torch in a sconce. Talla started counting them, but lost track somewhere around eighty or ninety.