ROD’H
When the Shana Rei attacked Kuivahr, that was his only contact with the outside universe, the only glimpse of worlds and stars he’d been allowed to see since his capture. And what he saw was no mercy. No mercy at all.
Rod’h had been lost in sensory deprivation, a cocoon of emptiness with no heat or cold, no sound except when the Shana Rei or Exxos tormented him. But in orbit above Kuivahr, they allowed him to watch the black shroud smother the whole world. Perhaps they did it to emphasize their power, or perhaps just to reinforce his feelings of helplessness.
During their panicked evacuation, he had sensed both Osira’h and Tamo’l, and he cried out in every way possible, but the void swallowed his words. Rod’h knew he had been bred for great things—perhaps even destined to be the savior of the Ildiran Empire—and now he was completely impotent. Worse, he was a dangerous vulnerability, a chink in the armor that could bring about disaster for all Ildirans.
He watched as the black shell engulfed the entire planet. Even the Solar Navy could do nothing to stop the suffocation of Kuivahr. He sensed Osira’h as she fled with Prince Reyn, and he sensed Gale’nh—and Muree’n!—aboard the warliners in the midst of the space battle.
Still down on the planet, Tamo’l seemed more open to him than his other siblings. She was sensitive, desperate, vulnerable. She opened up and reached out, trying to help him—as if he were one of her misbreed patients. He tried to hold on to her.
The Shana Rei appeared around him, inkblots hovering closer. He tried to pull away, but their voices thundered in his head. “We will follow you.”
Too late, Rod’h realized that this was exactly what they wanted! He struggled to break the connection. He knew Tamo’l was also seeking strength from him. The inkblots swarmed closer, wrapping around him like leech patches. Though he thrashed and fought, the creatures of darkness drilled into his mind, pressed harder, and seeped into him like a fever in the blood.
Then, Tamo’l was gone, as if she had been snuffed out, the connection broken … no, not broken, just stretched. She had vanished through the Klikiss transportal.
And in despair, he realized that the Shana Rei had followed her like a parasite hooked on to her thism through him, riding his mental connection to her!
Osira’h couldn’t help him. Gale’nh and Muree’n couldn’t help him.
Even watching the annihilation of virtually all the despised Klikiss robots gave him only a glimmer of hope. The barrage of far-superior sun bombs should have been a crushing defeat for the Shana Rei, but the shadows seemed not to care at all. They were much more satisfied with what they had done to him, with the bond they had forged through him … and with the damage his weakness had caused.
“We can now undermine those who cause us pain,” the Shana Rei said.
“We are not hurting you!” Rod’h shouted.
“You exist. And by existing, you create agony. Your thoughts scream at us. Your life is a stain on the cold purity that existed before creation. We must eliminate you all. We must rip out the underpinnings that corrupted the universe into an organized state. The Shana Rei were slumbering in our chaos until we were driven out by the increasing pain. Now it has grown too intense for us to bear.”
“But what did we do?” Rod’h shouted.
“Not you,” the inkblots pulsed. “Eternity’s mind awakens, and we have little time to erase you all—and ourselves—before that scream of order becomes infinite.”
They tore at Rod’h’s mind as if to give him a taste of the agony the Shana Rei said they experienced each instant.
“We have already found a way to destroy the verdani mind from within. Now that we possess you, we have a way into the thism as well.” The inkblots hovered around him like jackal lizards. “We can use you to cause great destruction to your own people—from within.”
Rod’h could see black tendrils everywhere, like barbed wire lashing through the Ildiran race, drawing tight.