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By Root 567 0

the peace of the world. He did this by filling the world with his own children, whom he sired on mortal women. Less than gods, the children of Yaro envy us because we have been given the good teachings that will one day bring back the joys of Evramur to Iskir. So they use their beauty and their lies to lead us away from the good teachings.” She shrugged. “In the tower, when Geordi told me where he was going to take me, I assumed that I had fallen in with one of Yaro’s children, but then the light came over us and it was too late to flee.” “And now?” She looked around the conference room a second time, considering everything in it from the people to the furnishings to the contours of the Lamechian crystal flask and tumbler already set at her place through someone’s thoughtfulness. “Now I am still not sure. When we first had word of your coming to holy Evramur, our teachers told us that you were the starlords, the children of the Six Mothers and the Three Fathers—although when I was small, I never heard of the Three Fathers.” She made a small, dismissive gesture. “All teachings are perfect only in holy Evramur.” “What is this Evramur you keep mentioning?” the captain asked.

“It’s her word for paradise,” Geordi cut in. “It’s also her word for Ne’elat. The same way Iskir’s her name for Ashkaar,” he finished grimly.

“She is from Ashkaar?” Hara’el half rose from his place at this news. “How did she escape?” “She didn’t,” Geordi said. “She was taken.” Valdor studied the girl closely. “She does not look like a criminal, not a dangerous one.” “Now I suppose you will say she must be a soldier,” Lelys remarked.

The legate snorted. “What I was going to say is that not all dangerous criminals look the part. Also, that perhaps Ashkaar serves our Ne’elatian brethren in a third role as a haven for disordered minds. See, she does not even know the proper name for her world!” “That’s hardly a gauge of mental health,” Dr.

Crusher said. “The natives of a place don’t use the same name for their home that vistors do—or invaders.” “Do you mean to say that there were native lifeforms on Ashkaar when the Skerrian colonists first arrived?” Commander Riker asked.

“If there were, this girl isn’t one of them,” Dr.

Crusher replied. “Look at her: She’s the image of the Ne’elatians.” “Let her speak,” Geordi said. He had taken up a defensive position behind her chair and now he placed one hand on her shoulder. “Tell them what you told me, Ma’adrys.” She looked up at him for a moment before beginning her story. There was no longer any awe or uncertainty in her eyes, but only the purest trust. Her smile rivalled Ambassador Lelys’s for its power to charm any who saw it. She reached up to touch his hand as if it were some talisman, then spoke.

“My name is Ma’adrys of Kare’al village. My people like to brag that there is no settlement built higher up the flanks of the holy mountain than ours, for we guard the shrine of the Six Mothers at its peak.

My father was a man of the village, dead before I was born. My mother came from beyond our mountains and died giving me life. I was raised by the village— mostly by old Mother Se’ar the deathspeaker.” A slight cough interrupted her story. Geordi hastened to pour her a little water from the crystal flask.

She sniffed it suspiciously, sipped, then continued: “When I was growing up, I was always curious. I wanted to know why the village men who went into the lowland towns came back sick with the dry cough that killed their children but left them alive. ! wanted to learn why the winter fevers never seemed to gather as many spirits for holy Evramur as the spring ones.

Whenever anyone would come to ask Mother Se’ar to tell them whether their sick kindred would die, I went along and watched. I saw how there were always certain signs on the bodies of those poor folk she said would depart, and that when the same signs were on the bodies of the rich, they too departed even though Mother Se’ar claimed they would live. When I spoke to her of this, she beat me and told me I was wanting in reverence.” “Or ready for med