Dark Matters_ Shadow of Heaven (Book 3) - Christie Golden [82]
He saw comprehension spread across her face and nodded before returning his attention to the Empress.
"You assisted traitors?" said the Empress.
"Oh, yes," said the Praetor. "We are all technically traitors here. Telek R'Mor, with his family held hostage, still dared tell the Voyager crew about their danger, so that the true timeline was not polluted. Jekri had misgivings about Lhiau and was open in her suspicion. She then had the audacity to survive an assassination attempt-oh, Lhiau didn't tell you about that one, did he? When she spoke up against him, suddenly all kinds of charges were levied against her. I know they were false, because I helped make them up. Then I helped to free her. And Verrak, too, would seem to be a traitor."
"I-I do not understand," said the Empress faintly. She had turned pale at the news of the assassination attempt.
"Lhiau knew that the dark-matter cloaks were dangerous," Telek said. "The more we used the technology he gave us, the closer we stepped to annihilating our own universe. He played on our desire for conquest. If it had not been for Tialin and Voyager, who have been doing everything they can to gather up this mutated dark matter, Lhiau would not have been stopped."
"You keep talking as if you've stopped me." They all turned to stare at Lhiau. He was kneeling, but there was nothing submissive about him. His face was contorted with rage and he radiated defiance. "I can still bring it about. I can do it with a thought."
"Lhiau!" It was Tialin speaking, but with a different voice, higher and younger-sounding. Jekri blinked. "You have sworn the Oath." A third voice issued from her throat, this one masculine and deep. "Would you betray that Oath? Would you use your powers to destroy these worthy beings?" Still another voice. Jekri realized what was going on. All of the Shepherds were speaking through Tialin.
"We never should have interfered! It was wrong!" For the first time since Jekri had met him, Lhiau's voice was filled not with arrogance and contempt but with raw pain. Whatever he was saying, he truly believed. "There never was a balance! It was artificial. We created it. And then we had to keep it, just exactly right, so that these little things which had evolved under these false conditions could continue living their false lives!"
"We had a responsibility," said Tialin in her own voice.
"We never should have put ourselves in a position to have that responsibility!" cried Lhiau. "We should have left well enough alone. Chaos is the natural state of things, not this unnatural order that we in our arrogance have imposed!"
Tialin said nothing. Jekri realized with a sinking sense of horror that the Shepherd was listening to
Lhiau's rantings. Would she agree? Would they indeed all be destroyed?
"I was just trying to start over again," said Lhiau, his head sinking down. 'Trying to start fresh. To let the universes evolve as they ought to have, since the beginning of time. Since the beginning of our interference."
"Not even we can turn back time," said Tialin gently, in the voice of the young woman. 'To kill, to destroy- you would not do that, Lhiau. They have a right to be."
Lhiau's golden head rested on his chest. All the fight seemed to have left him. He looked tired, drained. "No," he said. "I would not break my Oath, even though to do so would be to right a grievous wrong."
To right a wrong. The Entity that had once been a corporeal being by the name of Kes knew all about wrongs done, and the desperate desire to right them. But what Lhiau was contemplating would only add to the wrongs, if wrongs there had been. Perhaps that was not the word. Perhaps misjudgments,