The Dark Between The Stars

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO
MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H

After the King and Queen left Ildira, taking the others to safety—including Osira’h—Jora’h felt that he should relax. But the sense of brooding, dread, and danger did not diminish.

Hoping to find some solution to his inner turmoil, he consulted four lens kithmen. Perhaps the large-eyed philosophers, known for their connection to the Lightsource, would have the answers he lacked. Focused on that higher plane of existence above even the thism network, members of the lens kith often had a soothing effect on those around them. Each wore a faceted crystal pendant, which they used to reflect flashes of sunlight into their eyes.

They sat together under the open sky near a light fountain. “You are the Mage-Imperator,” said one. “You control the thism. You have the most direct path to the Lightsource.”

Jora’h wanted to take comfort from the words, but they could not strengthen him. “And if the Mage-Imperator loses control of the thism, what then? Twice now the Shana Rei have insinuated themselves into our thoughts, coercing good Ildiran people to do terrible things. I did not sense it. I was unable to protect my people from them. And I do not know how to stop it from happening again.”

The lens kithmen turned their faceted pendants toward him, splashing reflections across his robes. “Draw upon the Lightsource, Liege. Pull greater illumination into the thism. Shadows disappear when light shines upon them.”

“Bright lights also cast sharp shadows,” he said.

Finding no help in their answers, he rose to his feet, exhausted to the core. Jora’h had felt sick inside ever since the assassination attempts against Nira, and then against the human scholar, the Confederation Prince, and his own daughters in the Vault of Failures. He needed sleep. Perhaps next to Nira, touching her soft green skin, he could find a few hours of peace to recharge his own soulfire…

Knowing he was troubled, Nira did her best to support him. She always did. Even though she couldn’t feel the thism, she understood. Their private chambers were lit with colored light. Four spindly young worldtrees, each taller than Nira, stood around the room. Nira often communed with the worldtrees, tapping into the thoughts of the verdani mind before she went to sleep. But now she gave her full attention to Jora’h. “My shoulders may be strong enough to lift some of the weight from yours, my love.”

“It is not weight that I fear, Nira. It is darkness.”

“Then close your eyes and dream about the light.”

She kissed his eyelids, and he lay back, pretending that he didn’t feel the cold shadow inside of him. But the more he wished for peaceful dreams, the more harshly his body and mind reacted.

In the human enclave, shopkeepers opened their doors, set out their wares, and prepared for the day’s business. Blondie cooked meals for her human customers. Crisp, savory aromas of frying onions and spattering grease wafted from the sizzling griddle. The coffee-shop owner brewed a new batch.

The artist who made mirrored wind spinners and colorful dreamcatchers hung out new creations that she had made the previous day, and now they turned in the faint breeze, reflecting light. The dulcimer maker propped up one of his new instruments, crafted from a combination of rosewood and imported black pine. Taking the soft hammers, he began to tap out lovely ethereal music, but he couldn’t seem to find the tune.

The writer sat at his usual place at an outdoor table drinking a second cup of coffee, which tasted just as bitter as the first one. He couldn’t concentrate on words to put down in his tablet.

The coffee-shop owner took a seat next to him with a foamy cup of cappuccino. She looked out at the quiet city of Mijistra, which seemed to be holding its breath to the point of suffocation.

Blondie came over, wearing an apron tied across her skirt. The heavyset woman brought two large cinnamon rolls drizzled with white frosting. “These were leftover from yesterday. If they don’t get eaten today, they’ll be wasted.”

The coffee-shop owner said, “I don’t feel welcome here anymore. I’m considering packing up and moving back to Ramah.”

A gust of wind rippled through the enclave, twirling the dreamcatchers and wind spinners. Suddenly, they fell still. The dulcimer player stopped his music and looked around. The hush deepened.

The writer glanced up to see a group of Ildirans coming down the streets toward the shop district of the human enclave.

Blondie set forks next to each cinnamon roll. “Looks like we might have customers after all.”

The writer kept staring at the approaching Ildirans. His brow furrowed, and he slid aside his coffee cup. He had not touched the cinnamon roll. “I’m not sure they’re here as customers.”

The Ildirans came from all kiths, judging by the mixture of clothing and body types, but they moved as if choreographed into a single unit. Their steps were somnolent, their expressions affectless.

The dulcimer maker put on his performance smile and played several notes before falling silent. Other humans came out of their shops and homes to watch.

The Ildiran crowd revealed clubs and crystal-bladed weapons. Without increasing speed, without yelling or showing any emotion at all, they began to smash and attack everything in sight.

Jora’h found no pathway to the Lightsource from within his nightmares. He dreamed of the lens kith, who smiled and gave him advice in a language he didn’t understand. They appeared one after another in a circle around him, and he spun around, desperate to learn what they were saying.

But every time he turned his back on one, the lens kithmen drew a dagger and stabbed him between the shoulder blades. When he whirled, trying to get away, a different lens kithman stabbed him. Each jolt of pain thrummed out through the thism, and made the stain grow.

One of the lens kith handed him a large round lens. “Peer through this, Liege, and you will see what truly awaits.”

But when Jora’h stared through the lens, it merely painted the whole world black.

The humans in the enclave tried to defend themselves. The writer fought with a chair. Blondie returned with cutting knives and heavy pans.

The marching Ildirans fell upon the dulcimer shop, smashing and jangling the instruments. When the musician tried to stop them, they smashed his skull to a pulp and stomped on his ribs until his body was a broken pool of flesh.

They set fire to Blondie’s diner, and the flames and black smoke rose high.

The writer and the dreamcatcher artist barricaded themselves inside a home, but the structure was not defensible for long. Ildirans smashed the windows, broke down the door, and pushed their way inside with clubs and crystal blades. Eight Ildirans managed to fit into the small home, and they closed on the cornered victims. Each one took a turn at the stabbing.

The massacre continued. All the artwork, signs, businesses, and homes were vandalized, desecrated. The fire began to spread. They slaughtered every human, dragging some out from bolt-holes and cutting them to pieces in the streets. Others were simply locked inside their dwellings and burned alive.

Throughout it all, the mob made no sound. When they were finished and every human was murdered, the Ildirans reawakened and became aware of who they were.

Looking around at the bloodshed and destruction they had caused, they began to wail. Their return to consciousness was no mercy, though, but a brief revelation so they could know despair at what they had done.

Then, like harvested grain, every one of them fell dead in the bloody streets.

When Jora’h tore himself out of sleep, he was screaming. Nira shook him, held him against his thrashing. She shouted his name.

He stared at her and finally his eyes focused.

Nira put her arms around him. “I’m here. It’ll be all right.”

But he knew that it was far from all right. He dreaded going out into Mijistra to discover exactly what had just occurred.