He was being beaten, beaten, over and over, the way he had as a new slave. Qora curled into a ball, trying to protect himself, hands turned in and tucked against his breast so close to his flared nostrils that he felt every hot panting breath against his knuckles.
The void was hate. Was darkness and terror, but most of all, it was hate, a cold, alien, alienating hate.
Everything you love will die, alone and cold.
Qora pressed his nose closer to his hands, whimpering, willing it to leave him alone.
It will start with you.
He had done everything, everything he could to protect people. To help them survive. To survive himself—
You didn’t even claim them.
That cut too deep. He had thought himself above too many people. Above the Others. Even above the other Faulfenza, because even without visions, he’d been proud of being an Eye. Of being special.
You’re not like them.
He’d wanted to be special, and had let that seed blossom into error. But it had been error, as first Sediryl, then the Queen and Vasiht’h and now Laniis and Shanelle and the Liaison and Osgood and all the others had taught him. And if he could have friends among the Others, then they were truly the gifts the God had intended for them.
They will never accept you—
But they already had—
They will never accept you, and all your efforts will be in vain. You will become our instrument, an instrument of hate!
Qora’s eyes snapped open. No, he thought, and then aloud, “No. I am the God’s instrument, and always will be. And… and you are the haters.” The memory of Daqan’s voice filled, not his mind, but the marrow of his bones, a basso vibration that built from the inside out. “You are the haters, and you fear our fire!” He rolled out of his fetal curl, MindFire flaring, and it was no meager warmth radiating from his hands but a mandorla of billowing flame. By its light he could see the sparks of the Others’ souls, and on the other side of them, Daqan, burning. He reached for the Voice—
—touched his hand—
The world flashed back into sight around them. The Slipstream was coasting out of the wormhole’s egress. Daqan remained at the pilot’s chair, but Qora was standing, and didn’t remember doing so. The Others… they were unconscious on the deck, their faces frozen in rictuses of despair or panic. He didn’t recognize one of them—another Seersa, male. He should know what that signified, but his mind didn’t seem to be working with its usual clarity or speed.
“Are you present again?” Daqan asked, focused on the instrument panel.
Was he? His entire body was shaking. Slowly he closed his hands into fists, flinching at the crackling of the knuckles. His bones felt scooped hollow, as if they’d been cored out by cold and then filled with fire. All gone now, though. He felt very mortal. “I… I think so.”
“It’ll pass faster if you stay busy. Help your friends while I see us to orbit.”
“How?”
“If I knew, I’d volunteer for the duty.” The Voice glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes were pitying as they grazed the fallen aliens. “I have never brought Others over one of the bridges.”
“You said they might go insane….”
“The first time I used a bridge was enough to suggest the possibility. Or do you disagree?”
Qora shuddered. “No.”
Daqan’s eyes returned to the display, turning the vessel toward their destination. “Get them warm. That’ll be a start.”
The memory of the bridge’s cold made Qora shudder. “Right.”
The Slipstream ran at Alliance standard gravity, so carrying the Others around the corner into the ship’s abbreviated mess was no hardship. Qora propped them up shoulder-to-shoulder on the bench and mounded blankets around them until the faint tremors he’d felt when moving them stopped. The onboard database had the expected vast selection of music, and he picked something labeled as ‘soothing.’ Perhaps by Other standards, it qualified, but to his ears the string quartet had too many competing harmonics. What else? Vasiht’h had liked baked goods. Remembering Laniis’s delight at the prospect of trying iizi, he asked the genie for a basket of fresh breads; the scent that spilled from the basket when he unfolded its red-and-white napkin reminded him that it had been a while since he’d eaten. If staying busy would help restore his relationship with reality, then anything that grounded him in the here-and-now would surely work just as well. And an empty belly felt unpleasantly like the sucking void that had been howling imprecations not even an hour ago. It had, hadn’t it? Yelled its hate? Or was that a construction of his mind, making sense of unsense?
Qora caught himself staring at the basket without moving—again—and forced himself to shake it off.
When he dropped into the copilot’s chair, he was munching a bread stuffed with cheese. He offered a second to Daqan, who took it idly. “How long until we reach the planet?”
“Four hours.”
Qora forced himself to concentrate on mundane, sensory detail. The texture of Other bread, which struck him as too elastic. The warm chewiness of the melted cheese, sticking to his teeth. “The last messiah knew about the haters.”
“And the messiah before her.”
The messiah before—“Faullaizaf?” And then, he twitched his head. “Of course. He led the exodus from Quzen after the world died, and the journey was said to take the beat of a heart.” Qora frowned. “But he called it a road of fire.”
“It was when he held it open for our people,” Daqan said. “He scoured it with the MindFire of a FireBorn. In fact, if my guess is correct, he burnt it down to prevent the killers from following. But the doing used him up, as it did Zafiil later when she traveled this bridge.”
Qora frowned, visualizing. “Can a bridge deliver you to more than one destination, then?”
“No,” Daqan said. “From point A to point B. If you want point C, you open a new bridge… as the haters did here. You’ll see why soon.”
Saying he didn’t want to see the handiwork of the makers of the bridge would be expected. Wresting his thoughts from that fixation made another question far more pressing. “If they were used up making the bridges safe, then….”
Daqan’s smile was a bare wrinkle near his right eye. “I am near the end of my life, and my final years were spoken for long before you were born.” He raised his head, staring through the portal. “There is always a price. But there are people born to pay them, and they are given the grace and the gifts to do so. Remember that when the time comes.”
“If this is what it’s like to be surrounded by portentous people I can see why people found me irritating,” Qora muttered. Daqan chuckled, and it was such a normal sound that Qora was emboldened to continue. “What… what was she like? Really?”
“Zafiil?” A more natural smile, and then, unexpectedly, a laugh. “She was the only person who talked to me the way you’ve been. I was young, driven by the zeal of youth and my divine purpose, and she treated me… like a Faulfenzair. Born from a womb, like every other. So she said to me more than once when we had… disagreements… on how the God’s purpose should be shared.”
Attempting to imagine the Voice and the Hand of the God as young Faulfenza who could make mistakes and have arguments made Qora’s brain hurt. He was about to ask more when a scream burst from the mess, and he was on his feet and racing for it before his ears finished fanning shut. He skidded to a halt around the corner and nearly into Laniis and Na’er, who were clawing at one another desperately with unseeing eyes. The former was screeching, the latter growling, and both looked like sleepers trapped in nightmares. Qora dove between them, his heart speeding until his whole body pulsed. “Laniis! Laniis, wake up! Don’t strangle the boy you like!”
Daqan, pulling Na’er away from the frenzied Seersa, said, “Really, Qora.”
“She does like him, and she won’t be happy to know she attacked hi—ow!” Qora winced as the Seersa’s claws dug into his arm… and didn’t stop digging. “Ow, ow, ow, stop that, alet!”
Another shape hurtled into the fight… the second Seersa, bowling them both over. This male flattened Laniis to the ground. “H-hunt… huntsister, wake up! Nestsister!”
With another shriek, Laniis jerked upright, eyes wide and staring straight past the male’s shoulder. “Stop them! Before they destroy everything!”
“They have good instincts,” Daqan observed, holding a now limp Na’er.
Did they? Did it serve the Others to want to go on the offensive against this enemy? Qora wished his head would stop pounding. He pressed a palm to his bleeding arm as the second Seersa—that would have to be the Chatcaavan, shapeshifted—drew Laniis to her feet. She wobbled and stumbled, catching herself against the bench. “Is it over? Speaker-Singer, it’s over.” She collapsed onto the bench and pressed her face into her hands, rubbing. “Except we have to do it again, don’t we.” She glanced at Daqan. “What were those things?”
“The Enemy,” Daqan said. “Yours, and ours.”
Na’er opened his eyes, teeth bared. “What… the… hell… was that.”
The dragon-in-Seersan-guise had risen and walked to the basket. As he brought it back to Laniis, Qora said, “You seem to have weathered the journey well, Liaison.”
“It doesn’t like the shapechange.”
That stole all their attention, even listing Na’er’s. “What?” Qora asked for them.
“The creatures,” the Liaison said. “Attacked. When I changed shape, their voices attenuated. It feels more like a dream now than an event that transpired.” He nodded toward Qora’s arm. “You should dress that wound.”
Having it pointed out made it hurt again, but Qora hesitated when Na’er stood. If the Other attacked the Liaison….
“So the Chatcaava have a leg up on us using these things.”
The Liaison surprised them all with a wry laugh. “No, alet. The Chatcaava who are your allies have that advantage. All those who see the embrace of aliens as poison will suffer.”
Na’er’s ears slowly lowered. “Huh.”
“I think… they might suffer more than you,” the Liaison murmured. “Before I shifted shape, I could barely think my own thoughts. It was as if the hate was everywhere, and it was me. Only by Changing was I able to find my true core, the untouchable one.” He shuddered. “No… this technology is no friend to any Chatcaavan. You need not fear our using it against you.”
“You wouldn’t, anyway,” Laniis said.
“No, nestsister,” the Liaison said. “You must see clearly or fly into a wall. We would use any technology to master our environment and secure advantage for ourselves. Do not allow your fondness for me to assign motives to Chatcaava that do not conform to reality.”
“Good advice,” Daqan said.
“It is,” Na’er said. “And hell, it’s not like we wouldn’t either, love.”
Laniis straightened, her entire body quivering. “Did… did you just call me ‘love’? Do you mean it?”
Na’er ran his hand over the back of his neck. “I’m not going to go through that again without saying it fair. We might not come out the other end and…” He glanced at Daqan. “I get the feeling that unexamined feelings make you excellent prey for the haters.” When the Voice inclined his head, Na’er finished, “So I’ll tell you, dragon, that I don’t trust your Emperor and you get on my nerves.”
The Liaison grinned, all teeth, and it was such an obviously borrowed expression that Qora chuffed a laugh of his own. “That is more than I hoped for from someone with so much evidence of my people’s perfidy. I don’t expect you to like us, alet. I want only the chance to prove that we mean what we say when we say we wish to be true allies this time.” He paused. “You see, even I know that it’s ‘this time’. Our history makes this flight challenging. But… it appears we have a common enemy. One more dangerous than false Second and his breakaway rebels.”
Na’er nodded slowly. “Yeah. I don’t want that two front war.” He offered a hand, palm up. “Can you have a huntbrother you’re not sure you trust?”
“No,” the Liaison said. “But I have no trouble trusting you.” He set his hand on Na’er’s. “We will fly this storm and make our enemies regret that we ever caught sight of them.”
Na’er grinned. “Good enough.” And grunted as Laniis threw herself into his arms. “Okay, this part I like.”
Daqan chuckled quietly. “Go, Eye of the God. You’re dripping.”
Laniis exclaimed, “Oh, Qora! Your arm! Let me help…!”
* * *
“So that’s your homeworld,” Na’er said. “You sure did a number on it.”
“Did you?” Laniis asked, ears lowered. “It’s… well. It’s a wasteland.”
“We polluted it past bearing our population, which had grown too large,” Daqan said. “But we did not do this. The haters did.”
Qora, sitting in the copilot seat, could not drag his gaze away from the sight of the Faulfenzair birthworld. Faulza had planted them here; Qudii, First-Mother, had secured the MindFire for them on this world, seen them Painted for the first time. The mighty iifaul had hunted these forests before the Faulfenza had set them loose on Quafiirla, light years away. The first FireBorn had Danced here, and the second, before the exodus. All of the Mythic Wisdom Scrolls had been penned on Quzen, and all the pre-messianic age’s, and most of the remaining ones as well. This… this was the seat of Faulfenzair history. And it was a ball of barren rock and dust, haloed in a twinkling circlet of demolished orbital debris.
He wanted to keen. He would have had Daqan’s words not registered and swept his grief away with horror. Horror… and desperate gratitude that Faullaizaf had spent his life to destroy the bridge the Faulfenza had used to escape to Qufiil.
This… this could be Qufiil. Any world.
“So why are we here?” Na’er said.
“Because you needed to see this,” Daqan replied. “To know why the fight is important. This has been done to many planets, aletsen. Some your people know of. Many they do not, because they lie farther afield than you have ever gone. Like this world, which is far beyond the borders of your Alliance, and your Empire.”
“If it’s so far away… is this even our problem?” Laniis said, her voice hesitant. “Forgive me for saying so, sir, but… if these things are too far away to bother us, I don’t know that we should be kicking over any nests.”
“Unless we’ve just kicked one over by traveling this wormhole,” Na’er muttered.
“You have not,” Daqan said. “And if you wish, you can forget all about this when I return you to the Silhouette.”
“But,” Laniis said. “I sense there’s a ‘but’.”
“They’re coming,” said the Voice, who was the prophet of the God of Fire. “Soon.”
“Anything that can do this must be stopped,” the Liaison declared. He was still wearing his furry shape, but the prosody of his voice, the body-speech, and the attitudes remained draconic… even to the way he tilted his head. “Developing a defense against them would yield other advantages. I see no reason not to pursue such a course, and many reasons to do so.”
“Opportunity cost,” Na’er started, then shook his head. “No, I’m still disoriented from the transit. It’s made me contrary. Of course we need to have a plan if something like this comes for us. I don’t want Selnor looking like that… bad enough you Chatcaava trashed Tam-ley.”
“Na’er,” Laniis said.
“He is correct,” the Liaison said. “It does not hurt me to hear the truth, and does much good to build trust.” He looked at Daqan. “Have you taken detailed scans of this system?”
“I have, yes, but if you would like to check the data and run some other sweep, you are welcome to do so.” The Voice rose. “I leave you and your companions the conn.”
“Move over, Scales,” Na’er said. “I wouldn’t trust another Pelted to drive a relic this old, much less an alien.”
“I will examine the existing data,” the Liaison said.
“And I’ll sit at sensors,” Laniis said. “If you trust me to manage the relic?”
Na’er grinned. “Sure, sailor girl.”
“Wrench boy, you’ve been a spiky handful lately, declarations notwithstanding. You’d better make it up to me later.”
“I will. Promise.”
Qora followed Daqan out of the fore of the ship. “They’re good people,” the Voice said. “Keep them with you, if you can.”
“They must answer to their governments,” Qora said, not really caring about the topic, because: “That… that was our birthworld. Our birthworld. It’s in ashes.”
“Yes.”
“Did Faullaizaf lead us from it because it had become unlivable or because he knew it would shortly become unlivable?”
“If you meet him, you should ask.”
Qora came to a halt, ears sinking. Then said, “Voice of the God!”
“Eye of the God? If you’re about to accuse me of taking the matter too lightly, don’t. I always mean exactly what I say.”
“That’s our homeworld!” Qora said. “Will it ever bloom again?”
“If it does,” Daqan said, “it will be because of your actions.”
This time, when Qora stopped, the Voice didn’t, and vanished into the cabin where he slept. In the corridor, Qora felt his heart stuttering.