The open-air corridor of the seniors’ floor bustled with activity as the men dashed back to get changed. Selda waited for Ram, pacing outside his door. Suddenly she heard an excited, familiar voice calling her, “Ama, Ama!”
It was her son, a big boy all of three years old, pelting down the planks toward her. He wove around Vin’s startled legs and jumped into Selda’s arms. “AMA-LA!” he shouted in her ear with his chubby arms around her neck.
She laughed and squeezed him heartily. “What are you doing all the way up here?”
He sat back in her arms and made eye contact. “Did you See the shaktis?”
“Mm-hm,” she nodded, “Did you?”
With a dejected pout he looked down and shook his head.
The screen behind them slid open. Ram emerged from his quarters wearing a short skirt wrapped over his diving loincloth. He carried the few other vestments for diving. As he slipped on his sandals, he noticed the boy in Selda’s arms.
“Ai, Seldan!” Ram grinned. “What are you doing all the way up here?”
Seldan glowered.
“Uh-oh, what’s wrong with him?”
“Ram,” Selda enunciated carefully, “How old were you when you first Saw a shakti?”
The senior diver scrubbed his chin as they walked toward the stairs. Seldan peeked over at him. Ram gestured an index finger toward the ceiling and said, “I could not See a shakti until I was…sixty-two years old!”
Seldan was horrified! But then he felt his mother’s side shaking beneath him. “Don’t let him fool you,” she stage-whispered in his ear, “He’s not a day over fifty!”
“Ai!” exclaimed Seldan, accusing Ram.
“Ai!” exclaimed Ram, accusing Selda. Ram was, in fact, only twenty-seven years old.
“There he is!” said a voice from the stairway. Two pre-teen boys leapt into the corridor. They bowed to Ram and Selda. “Sorry, Saat. Sorry, Saati,” said one, “I don’t know how he got all the way up here!”
They received stern looks from both adults—Ram’s reminding them that a toddler shouldn’t be running underfoot at such a time, and Selda’s reminding them that they should take better care of her boy. Seldan was the youngest student at the Diver School.
“I’ll hold on to him a little while longer.” Big Selda let her face soften, to the boys’ relief. She snuggled Seldan to her shoulder as they continued down the stairs. Ram gestured for the boys to follow them outside.
The other divers—all but one—trotted ahead of them down the stone edge of the water lane, toward the dock. The two boys remained a respectful distance behind Selda and Ram. As Seldan bounced contentedly on her hip, Selda took the time to warn the senior diver, “Amala Vengar is also coming. She hadn’t arrived yet when I left the dock.”
Ram was surprised. “Both Amalas? For just three destins?”
“Yes, and I think they’re planning to use all eight divers. They also called for two extra aides from the temple.”
“Hmm.” Ram added it all up. “That’s a boatload, all right. Did Amala say why?” He meant Amala Tebbe.
“It was the Mahasagi. He spoke with her just before I left. Apparently he got an intuition that something…might happen.”
“Something.”
“Right, something, I don’t know. I’m not going to question those two!” She laughed.
Seldan squirmed in her arms and smashed his fist into her shoulder for leverage—he was trying to get a better view of the lake as the tree line broke on their left.
“Oof, Seldan!” She set him down on top of the low stone wall that bordered the lane. Ram paused beside Big Selda, and they took a moment to gaze out across the lake at what Selda’s son could not yet See. The Ayudena had moved on, but the three shaktis lingered near the north point of the lake, flirting with the surface of the crimson water.
Even those on the dock halted their preparations to witness the shaktis’ final descent. They could see no details in the three smudged lights from that distance, but everyone knew enough about the process to project meaning on the fuzzy, miniaturized scene as it played out.
The shaktis themselves were oblivious to being watched—if they were aware of anything, it was not the tiny moving specks on the tiny wooden structure at the far shoreline. From where they hovered, the shaktis could only comprehend the air above and the lake below. Focusing without eyes on a cluster of murky shapes beneath the water, the three arrivals moved with instinct and purpose. The slightly chopped surface of the lake reflected nothing but sky as the glowing spheres drifted apart. One halted, then another, as each aligned herself above a unique heartbeat that only she could feel. It was all done without emotion or thought—each shakti was simply a mass of raw consciousness, naked and mindless, in need of a body.
The third shakti came to a rest just as her sisters began to drop. The two slipped into the lake without any splash or ripple to mark their passing. The third remained in the air a moment longer, alone, waiting as the rhythmic pull from below grew stronger. She pulsed with it, testing it…then trembled as velvety waves of heat surged through her, a previously unknown sensation. The promise of greater heat rose from a spot just beneath her. This was the one. Suddenly urgent, she lowered herself toward her newfound destination.
Water and shakti were unaware of each other as the shakti entered the lake. Plantlike shapes loomed about her. She ignored most of them as peripheral objects, not to be touched. Her target was an algae-encrusted pod a few feet below the surface. The pod itself held unmoving at the end of its long stalk, but a sensual energy throbbed forth from inside it to guide the electrified shakti.
Within the ripened vessel, a fully adult female body slept in a curl, suspended in amniotic darkness. The body was not aware of the approaching shakti—it was not even aware that its own thumping heart was a beacon. Its final moments as an empty shell were spent as its first eighteen years had been—incognizant.
Then the shakti arrived, reaching through the crust of the pod to stroke and feel the body. The shakti’s final moments as naked energy were cut short by her own crushing need—with a sudden thrust she penetrated the body, shocking it awake. Flesh and limbs responded, trembling as the shakti entered fully. The heat was there, the painfully wonderful heat of rushing blood melting the body and spirit together.
When it was over, the new destin rested. The soft brushing of arms against her legs and the gentle bumping of knees against her chest intrigued her. Slowly her perception settled on something stronger—an unpleasant flavor on her tongue. The fluid in which she floated was also in her mouth and in her lungs and with her new ability to taste she found it repellant. Her eyes blinked open in an effort to understand, but there was no light to help her. The destin kicked and groped in the blackness, elbows knocking against unexpected walls. Tight quarters had never concerned the empty body, but for the newly awakened destin, the walls caused a sudden flush of terror.
Najat Gampoban Felt her panic. Three fingers of dread pressed into his sternum as each of the destins came aware to her claustrophobic prison. He could Feel them all, even as he tried to block them out.
Ram and Selda had moved on. Najat now stood where they had been, one hand heavy on the stone wall as he looked out across the lake. He had to collect himself before meeting the others on the dock. It had been rash to give Jayan a glimpse of the Ayudena—such a trick required immense effort, regardless of one’s health. Najat was aware that he was falling ill, and he intended to hide the fact from everyone else. Yet he had jeopardized his physical condition in that moment with Jayan…even now he was not sure why.
He had to get over it. Using the diving vest he carried to mop telltale perspiration from his cheeks, Najat stood squarely and relaxed the soles of his feet against the stone pavers. With a deep, long breath he willed himself to be grounded. Solid. Strong. No coughing allowed. Mercifully, the anxiety projected by the destins faded from his perception.
Finally ready, he turned just as Seldan and the boy’s teenaged keepers passed on their way back to the diver complex. The two older boys halted, bowed, and offered the appropriate mudras, making sure Seldan copied their moves. The Kumasagi acknowledged them with a blank nod, already striding along the lane as if he had never paused at all.
As he approached the dock, Najat could see the Mahasagi waiting at the base of the northern ramp—the only way onto the dock from Najat’s current position. Najat put on a hurried expression and quickened his pace so that by the time he passed the Mahasagi he was in a fair jog. It was reasonable for him to sweep by with only an abbreviated, apologetic mudra—as the last diver to arrive at the dock he was certainly holding up the whole operation.
Mahasagi Tebhan and his attendants watched Najat with turned heads as he padded up the wooden boards. The old one’s First and Second Hands were as tuned to the Kumasagi as they were to their current master. “Mahasagi,” whispered the First, touching Tebhan’s arm. “He is ill!” Her tone was surprised.
“Yes.” The Mahasagi made no move to follow Najat.
“But he can’t…”
The Mahasagi’s eyebrows quirked. “Perhaps he can. It will be interesting to see. If he fails…” The Mahasagi’s mouth quirked as well, “it could only help our cause, don’t you think?”
She shook her head, understanding what he meant but still a bit worried. They could see Najat walking across the dock, his pace much slower now that he had managed to dodge the Mahasagi.
As it turned out, he would be able to dodge Amala Tebbe as well. The dock held two floating barges—for this dive they would take the larger one, which could carry both Amalas. Tebbe already sat in one of two seats raised high above the flat deck of the barge. Najat glanced up at her as he stepped onboard, hoping she wasn’t watching for him. She looked frail with her green cloak wrapped up to her neck against the wind. Her withered face gazed forward, oblivious to Najat’s late arrival. The Amala was deep in meditation.
Najat noted that the other high seat was still empty. Amala Tebbe’s three most senior acolytes were on deck, along with the seven other divers. The oarsmen positioned themselves at the back of the barge. A thick wooden wall split the barge just behind the Amalas’ seats, to protect the oarsmen from all that would happen out front.
Ram and the other divers sat on the floor of the barge, quietly facing the lake. They also meditated, clearing their minds with help from soothing energy that emanated from Amala Tebbe. Najat Felt her energy envelope him as well. Big Selda stepped forward and took the vest and other things he carried, setting them aside for the moment as he turned his back to her. She grasped his shoulders, massaging his muscles as he stretched his neck from side to side and flexed his elbows and fingers. Selda’s hands magnified the warmth coming from Tebbe. Najat let go of his last troubled thoughts, instinctively beginning the mental procedures that would take him into the proper trance for diving.
The physical part of a diver’s task was fairly straightforward. Today three women would be born in Shakti Lake, and it was the divers’ job to collect them from the water. Wrestling frightened, flailing destins up onto the barge was arduous work, but each diver’s body was prepared after years of training in the Udaka Ruby.
It was the mental aspect of diving that made it difficult and dangerous. Every woman began life as a destin, with a fully matured body and a raw, deficient mind. That mind could only be awakened through a series of initiations from an Amala such as Tebbe. At birth, a destin’s instincts would cause her to search for her Amala—but there had been cases of newborn women imprinting on the first person they came into contact with. At Shakti Lake, a destin’s first contact would be a diver. Every diver called to serve on the barge must be able to shield him or herself from a destin’s grasping energy.
Najat was a master at this. Standing with Selda on the barge, he entered into a calm, well-practiced trance that would make him invisible to the destins. He managed this even as his symptoms from the virus entered a new phase. The pain permeated his stomach now, but it was merely an abstract discomfort because he felt no attachment to it. The method of the trance required Najat to lose attachment to everything, including his sense of self. A destin could not latch onto someone whose mind and spirit were empty.
Najat’s awareness was beautifully heightened in this state. He could no longer label the objects around him, and so their properties sprang to his senses unfiltered, intensified. The blue above him deepened, the crimson expanse that lay ahead flashed and bled geometrically. He could Feel the clarity and strength of the divers sitting in front of him, but his disciplined mind had forgotten their names.
Even Selda’s hands on his back lost their identity, melting into their own warm contact with his skin. The hands left his shoulders to move past his head and hold up his diving vest. He maneuvered his arms through the holes in the solid front, letting the hands hitch it into place and lace it tightly in the back. The nameless owner of the hands stepped around to face him with his diving sleeves. He slid them on and let the hands tie them securely. They were made from the same rough cloth as the vest, covering his forearms from elbow to wrist.
He stretched again, making sure his bare upper arms were loose. Someone strapped a sheathed pair of surgical clippers around his right thigh. The destins returned to his perception, but their fear only glided through him—for the moment there was nothing in him for it to stick to. He moved to crouch in line with the other men, no longer recognizing them individually but recognizing their purpose together. Every one of them maintained the same trance as Najat. The entire diving operation would be carried out by instinct, without discernment.
The barge had not yet moved from the dock. The divers waited, blankly aware of the sun on their scalps and the breeze against their ears. Not a single thought stirred in any of them when Amala Vengar finally arrived. No one acknowledged the dark-haired beauty as she stepped onto the barge with her three Hands and the two extra aides from the temple.
Vengar climbed the few steps to her seat. The oarsmen in the back could see her head as she settled in on the front side of the wall—both she and Amala Tebbe were positioned to be seen from all areas of the barge. Amala Vengar glanced down over the wall to make sure the oarsmen were ready, then raised her hand as a signal to them.
The barge lurched as the oarsmen pushed off from the dock. Najat’s stomach lurched with it, instantly knocking him out of his trance. It was only momentary—he slid back into it easily, as he would a slipped sandal. But the abstract lump in his stomach seemed larger now, more insistent. An odd tingling sensation spiked the fingers of both hands.
Suddenly he Felt the unmistakable, velvety touch of Amala Tebbe’s mind. She hovered around him curiously, having noticed a blip among the divers when the barge launched. It was very unusual for the Kumasagi to be distracted out of such a deep meditative state—Tebbe had trained him herself. Najat ignored her as he ignored his hands and ignored his stomach. If he did not acknowledge them, the pain and Amala Tebbe would surely go away.
The barge moved smoothly now, sending a fine mist from the water onto the front deck. The droplets helped protect everyone’s skin, which would tend to dry and crack in such a brisk wind. Big Selda and the other attendants worked to prepare large cushions and water-moistened blankets to ease the transport of the destins. The women maintained a trance like the divers, but they did not have to go as deep. After years of living and training with the Amalas, they were adept at blocking the destins mentally.
As the barge approached the north end of the lake, Amala Vengar used hand signals to guide the rowers. Najat’s gut swayed in unison with the distant splashing of the oars. His discomfort fell into a rhythm of evolving spasms, building and rising until it seemed to swell against his diaphragm. His only response was to instinctively steady himself with a tingling hand on the deck. He remained blank, not even aware that he was perspiring again.
Praaaack! A sudden, squelching explosion echoed off the midwall. The barge slowed as a patch of bubbled disturbance came into view on the surface of the lake. One of the pods had opened. The divers stood up and removed the skirts from over their loincloths. Najat stood as well and slowly unwound his skirt, as his legs trembled from the effort to stay balanced on the creeping barge. But when the vessel finally halted with a braking lurch, the Kumasagi somehow survived, still standing.
The barge rested a safe distance from the pods so that it could not drift into their cluster. The Amalas had a good view of the twenty or so egg-like bulbs from their high seats. The divers and others could not see under the water from their lower angle, but they could see the first destin splashing at the surface near the jutting, curled rind of her burst pod. They could not retrieve her yet—they had to wait for the other two pods to open. Ram paced the deck and young Palen stood tensely alert. Amala Vengar had assigned the first destin to them. She did it without verbal commands, instead reaching into the blank mind of each diver to nudge him mentally. Her energy oozed over the other divers, preparing to assign a pair for the second destin.
The second pod exploded underwater, sending a huge bubble to be belched at the surface. Its curled destin shot into the depths of the lake as the mangled pod rebounded off the immature buds around it. The umbilical cord caught the destin, causing her arms and legs to roll open. Back on the barge, the diver Vin watched for her to come to the surface. His pulse raced with a confirmation from Amala Vengar—this destin was his.
On the far side of the cluster, the third pod blew apart with a loud report. Vengar gave a mental tap to Gavind, then moved to signal Najat. The Kumasagi jumped as Vengar’s energy tipped into his spine. In that weakened moment, his body could not handle her. He swayed visibly from the effects of his quickening nausea.
Amala Vengar noticed. She motioned to Amala Tebbe, careful not to verbalize her alarm for fear of breaking anyone’s trance. Vengar could not deal with Najat—she had to maintain her connection to the other divers. With all three pods open, the water was safe to enter. “Go!” she shouted, the one word that could be spoken as part of the routine. Ram and Palen dove into Shakti Lake.
They swam deftly through the gritty water as Vengar’s voice barked distantly behind them with another Go! for the second pair of divers. Palen followed Ram with instinctual deference, keeping a vague eye on the senior diver to catch any visual commands. They would not be able to communicate verbally. The cluster of mostly closed, unripened pods came into view, seen by the two divers as a series of blackish purple clumps beneath the red water. Ram cut a wide curve around the left side of the cluster then turned sharply to approach their target head on.
Their destin had stopped splashing. Now she floated stiffly, clinging to a twisted shard from her pod’s blown shell. She watched Ram and Palen approach with squinting, sun-shocked eyes. The water around her was turbid with bits of mucus and fleshy plant membrane, and the massive placenta could be seen sagging within the half-submerged pod.
Palen moved quickly, flipping around the destin to grab her from behind. Her skin was slimy and slick, but the rough fabric of his vest helped secure her against his chest. One powerful, sleeved forearm clamped across her sternum, going under her armpits but above her breasts. Palen used the rest of his limbs to tread water as Ram moved in. Before the destin could react, Ram’s hands were on her belly, feeling for the umbilical cord. The destin began to scream.
Ram found the cord and compressed it with a clamp produced from a pocket in his vest. The destin struggled, kicking her naked legs at him and beating her arms behind her head at Palen. The two men ignored her, calmly spitting out the water she splashed in their faces and easily deflecting the blows of her weak limbs. Ram unsheathed his pair of clippers from the holster at his thigh and used them to scissor through the umbilical cord. Palen pulled, but a screech of pain from the destin told him that she wasn’t yet free. Ram braced a foot against the remains of the pod and briskly clipped off a finger’s length of her hair, which had tangled on the pod’s jagged rim.
Finally Palen was able to shift her away from the cluster. He kept the destin on her back and moved to take one arm while Ram swam up to grasp the other. She wailed and struggled, but the two divers remained on course, towing her firmly back toward the barge. They passed Vin and another diver who were grappling with their own destin. So far, this had all been routine—the divers in the water were unaware of the crisis unfolding on the deck of the barge.
Gavind poised himself to dive at Vengar’s next command. Suddenly two hands closed on his shoulders. Big Selda’s voice breathed into his ear, “Not you.”
Amala Vengar shouted her signal. The two reserve divers loped past Gavind to dive into the water, heading toward the third destin—the one that had been marked for Gavind and Najat. The junior diver didn’t even flinch. He was trained to obey the women on the barge, especially if the decision had Amala Tebbe’s energy behind it, as this one did.
To the right of Gavind and Selda, as if he had only been waiting for the rest of the divers to leave, Najat collapsed. He landed on his hands and knees, bringing his stomach with him. The front edge of the deck was close enough to crawl to—he made it there with enough time to position his face over the water and pause. His mind was still clear. Najat began to vomit.
He hadn’t eaten much lunch and so he was soon heaving nothing but air and saliva, repeatedly. It was difficult to support himself on his aching hands—the tingling had become a crippling burn, seizing up his muscles. Amala Vengar still lurked inside him, making it all worse. He blasted at her, mindlessly whirling out a barbed, defensive shield. Her energy jumped back as if stung. He shut Tebbe out as well. If no one meddled with him, he could maintain his trance. The Kumasagi’s mind remained detached even as his body gasped and choked in its rebellion against the virus.
Selda twisted Gavind so he faced away, but it was too late. The retching noises came in a voice that was unmistakable to Gavind’s ears. In that moment of recognition, the junior diver fell out of his own trance. He looked around frantically for Najat, but Selda was a rock behind him, keeping his shoulders squared toward the lake. Suddenly Gavind had another reason to be alarmed—Ram and Palen were approaching the barge with their destin. Gavind tried to slip his mind clear again, but the continuing sounds of distress from Najat tripped him. With rising panic, he sank back against Selda’s bosom, needing protection.
“Tch,” said Selda. She turned with Gavind, maneuvered him around Najat, and then pushed him toward the side of the deck. “Get off,” she commanded in a low tone, so that she wouldn’t disturb the other women from their meditation. Gavind obeyed, but only after stealing a glance at the huddled form of the Kumasagi. The cries of the destins reached Gavind’s ears as he dove off the barge to swim a safe distance away.
Selda stood over Najat, waiting. He was still incapacitated by his violent stomach, but he seemed to be shielding himself well. The first destin did not notice him. Selda positioned herself to block him visually as the other women moved to the edge of the barge to pull the slippery destin from Ram and Palen’s arms. The two divers backed away in the water—they would swim to shore as was the routine. The second pair of divers also delivered their destin without incident—she was tearful and bewildered, as expected for a destin, but she did not pick up on Najat.
It was only when his heaving stopped that Najat fumbled mentally. The sheer relief of getting his breath back again bumped him halfway to normal awareness—a tenuous state to be in as he lifted his head, because at that moment the third destin darted into view. The reserve pair of divers splashed right behind her, having lost their grip for a moment. Najat stared at the destin dumbly, until he saw her staring back at him. She stopped in the water even as the divers caught up to her. At the last moment, she dropped neatly under their reaching hands and disappeared beneath the surface. Najat found himself wondering where she had gone…and then he realized he was out of his trance. He caught sight of a pale shape gliding toward him underwater, as ominous as an approaching shark.
Najat tried to scramble backwards and promptly listed to one side, bumping against a solid pair of legs next to him. Big Selda grabbed him under the arms and pulled up just as the destin broke the surface at his feet. The newborn snaked both arms onto the deck and leaned for his buckling legs, but Selda was quick. She dragged Najat back to the middle of the deck as Ram and Palen swam in to help the other divers secure the destin.
This sufficiently agitated the other two newborns, who managed to knock aside the women tending them. The destins both located Najat’s unprotected mind and lunged for him bodily. Selda had to shove them away as she stomped past, bringing the stumbling Kumasagi with her to the wall at the middle of the barge. Najat saw Amala Tebbe sitting high above him and felt waves of shame rise with returning nausea. She did not look at him—she was trying to mentally subdue the two wailing destins.
Najat started to fall again, too weak to keep his feet working. Ram and Najat had hauled Selda herself out of the lake only six years earlier—now Selda hauled Najat through the door and into the rowing pit at the back of the barge. The oarsmen stared as she dumped him half gently in the aisle between the benches. On her way back to the door she shot a look at one of the oarsmen, her husband. Then the door slammed behind her as she went back up front to help Tebbe.
Amala Vengar signaled the oarsmen to get the barge moving again, as Selda’s husband and another oarsman hurried out of their seats to tend to Najat. They shuffled the Kumasagi to the back of the boat and sat him against a railing. He appeared conscious, but unresponsive. The two oarsmen sat on either side to prop him as he sagged a bit.
Even with his mind clouded and his hands crippled and his lungs and stomach failing him, Najat retained a certain level of pride. He allowed one trembling shoulder to lean against Selda’s husband, but he did not let his head or his eyes drop. His line of sight went past the chiseled, cranking arms of the working oarsmen to the blood-toned water beyond. As the barge cut backward on its return across Shakti Lake, Gavind Sandarapan swam as close to it as he could, always staying within Najat’s view.