Shadows of Aggar (Amazons of Aggar) Read online

  Elana shrugged, her gaze fixed on the glistening golden-cast clouds above. “I’ve been answering questions.”

  “You have needed patience this night. Have any shown a responsible interest?”

  “Two perhaps. Although, more did demand details.”

  “Few are appropriate for such a venture,” the Mistress agreed calmly. “Did you dissuade any?”

  “Some — their eagerness is admirable, but I feel their sheer persuasiveness might be too attractive to the Council Master. They simply are not prepared enough. One in particular, Najda, is too young — and sexually naive. It would have been an awkward match with the Amazon’s cultural differences.”

  “Your judgment is sound. I’d not doubt your reasons. Did you show the woman the ramifications of her curiosities?”

  Elana shifted uncomfortably, interlacing her fingers. “In truth, I did not.”

  “You didn’t tamper with her amarin? Then she may well be drumming on my door this morning!”

  “No, Mistress. I reflected the differences of the Terrans as I know of them. I simply reflected the end — if the Amazon departs Aggar.”

  “So you did not address the sexuality?”

  “I could not,” she repeated quietly.

  A smile played across the elder’s face. Elana felt an impish one of her own grow. “You are a bright child,” the woman teased gently. “I know you could imagine such a joining if you put your mind to it.”

  Elana laughed a little. “With so many around me, I did not dare reflect it! If I’d succeeded — think of the scores of brown blushing faces we’d have this morning!”

  “Truth.” The Mistress could not resist the chuckle before she continued with, “Is your Sighted friend, Telias, curious?”

  Elana responded with a regretful shake of her head. The elder sighed. “Today I could wish more of our trainees had the Blue Sight. It would have been useful on this journey.” Abruptly she tossed the thought aside. “Who are the two of your choice?”

  “Miam or Lenial.”

  “Yes, they may do.” The old woman pushed stiffly to her feet. The chattering menagerie of birds was growing as the sun climbed; the evening’s peace had turned into a disruptive dawn. “I will talk with both of them after this morning’s meeting.”

  “I asked them to be present at the observation.”

  “By all means, they should be. This Amazon promises to be quite an interesting woman.” The Old Mistress went still, almost hearing an echo of her own words. A lingering thread from her night’s musings tugged at her gently.

  “Mistress?”

  “I expect,” she murmured absently, “that you will be present too?”

  “As arranged.” Elana rose, smiling tenderly at her mentor. A drifting concentration attuned to other matters shrouded the older figure. Elana knew it was time to leave.

  “You should sleep!” the Mistress suddenly called after her. But even as Elana turned to acknowledge the instructions, the elder’s thoughts had moved elsewhere, and the younger woman left the garden unnoticed.

  † † †

  Chapter Five

  The waiting hall echoed the impatient footsteps of Commander Baily. Irritably his palm clapped at his thigh as he turned heel and started across the hard wood floor again. His shining black synthetic boots struck hard with a double-clack.

  He was a military man, not a diplomat, and he had a general distaste for “dealing with the natives.” Skinny and nervous, he looked as out of place as he felt pacing beneath the great vaulted ceiling. Above him, the yellow sunlight streamed through the small, southeastern windows, and the colors glittered and shone in the stained glass mural opposite. But the Commander had no appreciation for that brilliant display that hung so far overhead.

  With a bang his fist hit the desk. He paused abruptly, distracted by the resounding echo, then turned. The doors remained shut; there was no recognition of his childishness. His wide brow creased in frustration, and the thin, blond mustache twitched. How dare they make him wait?!

  “Patience. I’m sure the Council of Ten hasn’t forgotten us. After all, they did invite us,” his companion offered. Diana was sprawled on a bench beneath the glass mural. Unlike Baily, she was comfortably dressed in the clothes of Aggar’s men. She avoided the Empire’s costumes whenever possible.

  “You’re not here to give orders,” he grumbled and resumed his jittery pacing. “You just do what you’re told.”

  “Always,” she drawled sarcastically and folded her arms.

  “They’re watching us,” he muttered, glancing suspiciously at the doors spread about the room.

  Diana crossed her ankles and said nothing.

  “And they say we’re as inhospitable as Ait Skellor!”

  An eyebrow quirked upwards. “As who?”

  “As, as… well, you know. That thing they keep calling my — uh, our base.”

  “Oh, Fates’ Cellar!”

  “That’s what I said.” There was the note of childish stubbornness in his voice.

  “No, Thomas. Fates’ Cellar.” He appeared thoroughly confused which didn’t surprise Diana; his mastery of language and accent were exceptionally poor. “The Fates are their evil male deities. And Cellar is their term for an underground storage or dwelling.”

  “Deities? What deities?”

  “The Fates.” She studied his baffled face with fatigued disbelief. After all his years on Aggar, he should have known more. Diana tipped her head back against the wall and gazed at the arches above as she elaborated. “The two greater powers, if I remember correctly, are attributed to Malice and Ambition. Then there is a score or two of lessor minions such as Greed, Arrogance and War. The lot of them usually work together to cause grief with sadistic little plots like, say…,” Diana kept a bland face and stared down at a boot, “…losing a pilot?”

  “Humpf.” Her commander returned to his pacing with a pinched, pained look.

  The Amazon sighed, wearily remembering how apt it could be to refer to Baily’s base as ‘Hell.’ Mae n’Pour, Goddess above, lend Your sweet strength!

  The heavy door opened, squealing on its hinges as it admitted the Council Speaker, his gaze on the Commander. Someone outside shut the door for them. The Terran fidgeted beneath the Speaker’s scrutiny. A deliberately bland, almost innocent expression settled across the Speaker’s handsome face. With a lift of an eyebrow, he inquired, “Are we ready to proceed?”

  The Terran’s thin jaw clenched and his chin leveled. “We are.”

  The master looked past the Terran male to the relaxed, silent figure beyond.

  For a moment, Diana returned the man’s quiet appraisal, and then she smiled. She had not missed his quick glance overhead to the glass mural; she realized she had inadvertently placed herself beneath the hidden observers and well out of their view. Slowly her long legs unfolded, and amused, Diana stepped to the center of the room before approaching him.

  The Speaker’s smile broadened knowingly, and he extended his hands, palms upwards, in greeting.

  “Aa — may I introduce my Cultural Liaison?”

  “I know who your companion is, Commander.”

  “Then I am most honored.” Diana bowed, clasping her hands over his.

  “No, Min.”

  Diana’s amusement faded with the formality. A somber cloak seemed to descend about the Council Speaker as he said, “No. It is I that am honored, Diana N’Athena of Amazons. Perhaps, you will be able to help my people.”

  † † †

  Elana hid her smile as she entered the hidden observation room above. The three of them were standing at the wall of stained glass and looking down on the Council Master’s conference. She heard Miam, the youngest of the two trainees, question the Old Master with a blatantly awed tone. “That is a woman? She is so tall — look at her clothing.”

  “Does she always travel as man?” Lenial asked. “Never tights or skirts?”

  The Old Master half-nodded to both of them. “Even as you often do
here in the Keep. Now, study the dress closely. The make must be perfectly matched.”

  The Old Mistress raised an intolerant brow at Elana’s tardiness, and the young woman hurried to the far corner of the window to join her.

  “Beg patience,” Elana murmured. “We had a slight riding accident on the woods’ course today.”

  “The new boy, I’d suppose. What’s his name? Thaden?”

  Elana nodded with a rueful grin. “I took pity on him and didn’t remind him of your warnings about taking a horse for granted.”

  The old woman smiled and nodded towards the figures below them.

  “These Amazons seem much more respectful of our Council Speaker than the Terran Commander, don’t they?” Lenial’s distaste was clear in her voice, and the Mistress spared the others a glance. Lenial’s perceptiveness pleased her. But as she turned back to question Elana’s reactions, her shrewd gaze suddenly narrowed.

  The Eldest Prepared stood with white knuckles clenching at the safety bar as emotions surged, darkening her skin. Triumph lit the old one’s gaze and she knew, without glancing below, what had stolen such rapt attention from her student. The old woman watched for the tell-tale reaction of a protector’s bonding as she baited, “You can control your repulsion to Terrans better than that, Elana.”

  Elana’s blue-white eyes blinked and jerked from the figures below. Disoriented, her eyes locked with the elder’s. A gnarled hand grabbed as the Mistress reeled with shock. Images of fires, stallions and riders — the power of that Amazon’s angular face exploded through her mind as Elana’s consciousness invaded hers. And then abruptly, it all stopped. “Mistress!” Young hands held the old one upright.

  “Careless fool!” The Master seized the Mistress as she threatened to collapse.

  Elana flinched, releasing the woman as she was struck by the Master’s anger. His face flushed dark, nearly the shade of the stained wood panels of the room, and his fury pushed Elana’s intuitive awareness into oblivion.

  “It was not meant….” She was stricken. How could it have been? The Mistress was more dear to her than her own mother. Never could she seek to harm her — never! “I… was startled,” she stammered and looked desperately to the darkened faces of her mentors. “Truly! I did not… I would not….”

  “Hush, Elana.” The Old Mistress placed an unsteady hand over Elana’s own. “He was not speaking to you. At least if he has any intelligence at all, he was not!”

  A grimness settled about the Master as he allowed the old woman to shrug off his aid. With a rumble in his throat, he declared, “Youth can only be foolish — not enough experience to be careless.”

  The Mistress snorted, smoothing her robes into more comfortable order.

  Elana felt the Master’s anger begin to dissolve. Slowly the presence of the Amazon began to seep into her awareness once more. Unobtrusively she forced the tension in her shoulders to ease and steadied her breathing. She felt her responses cautiously, already stretching to incorporate the patterns of this new amarin into her being. This time the connection with the others was not obliterated. Satisfied, she released a breath.

  “What absorbed you so that this one could surprise you, Elana?”

  “Foolish indeed. It is the one below.”

  “The Amazon?” Lenial ventured hesitantly.

  “Certainly. It appears that this off-worlder is the woman Elana has been seeing in her dreams all these tenmoons.”

  “You knew!” Elana gasped, outraged and astonished. “And said nothing?!”

  “I suspected,” the old woman corrected firmly. But she was careful to avoid returning that blue gaze directly. “And only since this morning.”

  “It could be an admirable match.” The Old Master wandered nearer the glass.

  “She must choose it,” Elana asserted suddenly as a protectiveness sprang up in her. She did not wish her Trainers to move for mere expediency’s sake.

  A delighted grin lit the Old Mistress’ face. She squeezed Elana’s hand reassuringly and winked. “You will be a fine protector.”

  “Nevertheless,” the Master turned to their younger trainees, “Elana speaks truth. The final choice of who will accompany her must be the Amazon’s. Destiny is — ”

  “Destiny, bah! The Mother is no fool,” the old woman scoffed, moving towards the door. “Do not raise their hopes.”

  “Hopes?” Miam echoed with a relief that Elana could feel was genuine. “I would have named it fear,” and the Old Master chuckled deeply, giving her a kind smile and a hug.

  † † †

  Chapter Six Wearily, Diana turned and half-sat against the low stone wall, crossing her arms. The garden was a luscious, thick collection of leafy brush and towering, green-barked trees. The peacefulness of the place touched her. She shifted slightly, resting one ankle over the other as she wondered what Thomas was still doing in the shuttlecraft. Probably avoiding her until their next meeting with the Council Speaker. Still, it might be for the best. She was fatigued from sleepless nights and hard riding, and she was not in the most tolerant of moods. And with Thomas, she admitted wryly, she needed a tolerant mood.

  Silently Diana peered past the garden’s edge to the wooded canyons below. The afternoon sun was warm even to her, and she welcomed the breezeless air selfishly. How long would it be now, she wondered, before she left planet? Before she glimpsed the topaz mountains of home? The lavender skies? The warmth of the near red sun? She had been gone too long. Rarely were any off-world so long as she had been — unless one counted the few who elected to work at the Sisters’ moonbase on Shekina or the handful who left for a man’s marriage. But they were scarce indeed.

  To be rid of the games! She drew in the sun-warmed air smelling of tart silverpine resin and damp autumn leaves. That was all of her present ambition — just to be rid of the games! Just to be home! She could barely reconstruct her reasons for electing a second term of duty. Almost twenty years all together — five of them here on Aggar. It was a long time. Diana smiled at a passing gray cloud. Hadn’t somebody promised her a little wisdom along the way?

  Well, the universe was to be saved one more time. Her sarcasm faded, and she turned her back to the mountain canyons — unfortunately, this time it truly was important. Unfortunately, it always appeared to be.

  There seemed to be an endless array of paths to civilized destruction. Diana wondered if those ancient travelers who had planted the human seeds across the universe ever regretted their sowing. Or perhaps those ancient ones had also gone the way of self-destruction? In all the stars, the Terrans had yet to find traces of them. Maybe they truly had ceased to exist.

  She sighed, returning to the task at hand. Unlike Thomas, Diana did not particularly begrudge the Council’s involvement. Thomas wouldn’t care that Aggar could be invaded… or even destroyed should war come. Considering what was at risk, the “natives,” as Thomas sneeringly referred to them, had just as much concern in this project as the Empire did. She respected the Council’s insistence in being involved. Diana truthfully hoped that this pilot, Garrison, did have information that could forestall this disaster — if she could just get to him in time.

  But what the Council was actually suggesting did bother her. To impose a partner on her? Now? That didn’t seem wise. After twenty years of working alone, now was not the time to take on a partner!

  A breeze descended from the mountain heights and out of habit Diana reached for the edges of her cloak, drawing it close. Her eye caught an odd stillness off to her right, and Diana became aware of a figure standing beneath the feathery, green-grey canopy of a tree. Barely a shadow — the thought flitted through her mind. Her body tensed. They train them well, Diana observed, appearing to stare at her own toes — very, very few people could move so near and remain so unknown to her. Unless she was much more fatigued than she was aware. She frowned very faintly. That could be dangerous. If she was that ready to be shipped home, it could get her killed. It could get a great many people killed.

&nb
sp; “I can leave…”

  Diana’s dark head tipped sideways as she looked to where the stranger stood. The voice was low, but clearly a woman’s. And surprisingly she spoke Imperial Common — hesitantly, with a faint accent, but undeniably it was Common.

  “…if you wish to be alone?”

  “No,” Diana responded in the local tongue. With a rueful shake of her head, she added, “After all, I am your guest.”

  “I should not be here,” Elana admitted as she stepped through the shimmering, leafy curtain. Without a sound her soft booted heels took her across the autumn twigs to stand before the Amazon.

  She was tall for a woman of Aggar, Diana noted. Her waist was small, but not tiny, and her stomach was flat; the woolen tights displayed a runner’s legs. She had dark, unruly hair that was longer than most. It lent her a youthful appearance that Diana thought might not be far from the truth. She was certainly beyond the usual age of marriage, judging by the taut stretch of the laced jerkin. Although that didn’t narrow the seasons by much on Aggar, it was obvious to Diana that this woman did not spend her time solely tending babies.

  “I am Di’nay,” Diana offered finally. She watched the other closely, intensely aware that she was in turn being scrutinized, but differently. Blue eyes scanned her face, never meeting her own gaze directly, but there was no driving nervousness in the searching. Blue — Diana’s gaze narrowed almost imperceptibly. She had not known the people of Aggar could genetically produce blue eyes.

  “You prefer this name to…” Elana hesitated and then, “…Diana n’Athena?”

  “Di’nay is how I am known on Aggar.”

  The faintest of nods and then, “I am Elana.” Slowly she extended her right hand, and Diana had the distinct impression that the deliberateness of the action was so that Elana would not startle her. Just as slow, Diana uncrossed her arms and accepted the hand. She found the grip was neither soft nor dainty. She had been right; this woman was not typical of Aggar.

  “As Eldest of the Prepared, I welcome you to this Keep, Di’nay.”