The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [33]
Although his treeship flew in a procession of inferno-infested worldtrees, he remained connected with his little sister. Though the flaming verdani battleships could barely endure their pain, they kept the young faeros leashed within their wooden forms. Ravenous living flames continued to eat away at the branches, and Beneto knew the treeships had to hurry before they succumbed. He could not let the faeros loose now.
Through telink, he saw Celli standing in a scorched meadow surrounded by the wental-drenched worldforest. She blinked once, looking skyward, and when she blinked again, she was with him surrounded by the empty gulf of space. He knew she could feel the searing damage in his heartwood, his bloodsap, his outspread branches. He could not hide it.
Many green priests could not bear to maintain a telink connection, but Celli’s love for her brother gave her the strength to endure the pain. She refused to let go, and even as he raced across the gulf of space, he could feel the hot tears burning down her cheeks, hotter than the faeros fire in his heartwood.
The giant, thorny ships swirled around the black hole’s vortex. He and his companions released the uprooted trees, and one by one, they vanished with silent gasps, telink echoes of both dismay and victory. One at a time, the remaining verdani battleships spiraled in, passed the event horizon, and dropped into the blackness.
As each one disappeared, he knew that Celli could feel a permanent loss. She sucked in great breaths, no longer aware of her surroundings in the meadow. “Beneto . . .” Hearing her, he drew strength from her companionship.
Beneto had done what he needed to do. He had dragged the faeros away from Theroc and saved the rest of the trees; he had brought the fiery elementals to a place from which they could not escape to cause further harm. He felt Celli shaking as she lowered herself to the singed ground. His sister would grieve, but she understood what Beneto had accomplished. She loved him, and she was loved. Love and hope had the power to heal. She and Solimar had taught the verdani the truth of that. Beneto was glad.
Celli turned to Solimar, buried her face against his muscular chest, and let the sobs come. She knew it was over.
In the last instant before he passed the point of gravitational no return, Beneto embraced the distant worldforest again with his mind and poured himself into it. His pain dissolved as his worldtree body fell into clean ash that mixed with the cosmic dust and gases . . . then swirled down forever.
* * *
20
Hyrillka Designate Ridek’h
The entire population of Ildira could not hide from the faeros, but they scrambled for whatever protection they could find. Young Ridek’h, the true Designate of Hyrillka, took shelter deep in the old mines along with Prime Designate Daro’h.
Digger kithmen worked to expand the tunnels and create large grottoes in the bowels of the mountain, as well as numerous new escape passages, should they be needed. Watchmen stood at posts outside the cave openings, always alert for faeros fireballs.
Ridek’h preferred to sit under the overhang, staring across the sunlit openness, trying to come up with some solution that he could offer the Prime Designate. On Hyrillka — the planet he supposedly ruled — the great, windy plains had been used for agriculture. He wasn’t meant to live underground in tunnels. No Ildiran was.
Though engineers had brought blazers to light the underground chambers, it had become Ridek’h’s habit to slip out and use surreptitiously gathered brushwood to build a modest fire — a safe fire. Sitting by the bright flames outside the mine entrance, he looked out into the never-ending daylight of multiple suns, and contemplated. Though he was no more than a young man with little experience who had become Designate completely by accident, Ridek’h was determined to help.
When the ten thousand Ildirans who had attempted to escape in a single warliner had lost their