Dark Matters_ Shadow of Heaven (Book 3) - Christie Golden [28]
She cut through the grate quickly. This one was lightweight and easily maneuverable. Quietly, she pushed it upward and slid it aside.
At that moment, hands seized her wrists and hauled her upward. She kicked violently, trying to break free.
"Here you are at last," came a familiar voice. Jekri turned and stared into the eyes of Verrak, her betrayer.
INTERLUDE
What a sad, war-torn place this planet was, the Entity thought as it approached Brother against brother. Law versus power. An old, old story.
As more information came to the Entity, it became disturbed. Once again, it knew this place. Han. It was becoming used to this strange sensation of familiarity, of knowledge of places it did not know it knew. But this was different, more intimate knowledge.
It had lived here.
It had been an Ilarian.
Yes-no-yes and no, right and wrong. Emotions buffeted the Entity: anger, fear, selfishness, selflessness. Battles, fought on the inside, reflected on the outside of this poor planet's scarred surface.
It floated down toward a turreted fortress. This was where the autarch ruled.
It had been an autarch, and tried to be one again, and-
The Entity did not like these sensations, and concentrated on what it had come here to do: seek out and neutralize the -wrong things, the things that could soon destroy every universe save the ones that the Shepherds had created for themselves.
It was two youths who had been in conflict; youths they were still, not men, not old or weary or wise enough to realize that they should love and honor one another, regardless of who wore the ancient talisman. And following them, those who followed one or the other. It ought to have ended soon after it had begun, and they had thought that ended when they had left-
They? Who were they? Again, the perplexing questions that distracted the Entity from its task.
The Ilarians were a rugged people. They were not too far away from savagery, though they strove to honor the ways of peace and an. That savagery, lurking beneath the surface at all times, had erupted when a man long dead had risen to try to reclaim what he had lost two centuries earlier. The autarch had been murdered, and his sons squabbled over the right to rule like dogs over a bone.
A name floated to the surface of the Entity's conscious thoughts: Tieran.
It had been Tieran.
It felt angry with itself, and floated into the fortress like an unseen mist. It did not matter if it had been Tieran, or had not. Both it knew to be true and factual, though seemingly contradictory. But it was here to do what it could to soothe the damage that Tieran's bid for power had wrought, though only time and wisdom would do that.
The dark matter was strongest here. The Entity extraded it from walls and hangings, from plants and statuary and flagstones and flesh. It removed it from the reigning autarch, Demmas, as he ate alone late at night. And it left a sweet breath of spring behind. Demmas paused and looked around, sensing he was not alone.
His several nostrils flared. "Who is there?" he called, tense and frightened. This was his life, now; the fear of the assassin, or worse, the friend who betrayed. Gently, the Entity comforted him, and he relaxed and returned to his meal. Demmas thought of the fighting going on, how his troops were punishing those found to be loyal to his brother, and wondered if perhaps it wasn't time to forgive. He called his First Castellan to him and began to talk in quiet tones.
In another part of the fortress, Ameron languished. The food was poor and riddled with the dark matter that was turning his imprisonment into a living nightmare. Gently, the Entity came to him, taking into itself the hatred and fear and sickness caused by something that ought not to be causing harm at all.
It lingered, waiting for something, it