15. Revelation by Death

Gaelbhan, RageChild and Airgoidh met on Amamake VI, just outside the settlement, but still well away that their arrival was not noted. Though Gaelbhan was still in need of rest, she waved off the helping hands that reached out when she stumbled, or poked her when she began to nod. She woke in the pod, feeling much better but still quite sore from the long incarceration and the blasts from the lance. The pod waited for further commands, which she willed into functioning. She opened a comm-interlink to her sisters, whose faces were surprised, angry and relieved all at the same time. Gaelbhan let the gel soothe away her tensions as she told them to meet her at the settlement on Amamake.

Their precautions of landing well away from the settlement seemed for nothing. The town lay in ruin. Shacks and offices, storefronts all were covered in dust. Soon, the dunes would form and the settlement would disappear. The three sisters walked among the buildings into the ramshackle hut that was once Luci's Bar. Dust and empty bottles filled the interior, overturned tables told of a struggle.

"Laser fire," RageChild said, wiping dust from the wall. Scorched metal told the tale of a weapons fight, and from the intensity of the burn, probably Angels.

Airgoidh stepped back from leaning over the bar, gasping. "Over here. It's the bartender."

RageChild and Gaelbhan pushed the Matari over onto his back, his face still maintaining the look of determination despite the scorched flesh on his chest and arms. He had been hit many times, but then brutalized with continuous fire after he died.

Just beneath the bar, under the lip near the floor, RageChild found a PAD. It blinked idly, and she activated it with a tap of her finger. It belonged to the bartender, and he had recorded a message on it.

For her.

"Sister Matari," he began, his voice slow and methodical. Laser fire could be heard. "I do not know if you will return, or even if you get this message. I am beyond hope of living. The Angels have come for me because of you."

RageChild held up the PAD so that her sisters could hear and see the man's face on the recording. "I was the one who found your stasis pod in the wreckage of some Angels. I brought you . . ." More fire, and that portion drowned away for a moment until Zayard's face again appeared in the screen.

"I love you, but I do not know you. I hope you do not take offense of an old Matari's stupidity. I do not mean to hurt you."

Laser fire filled the screen, flashes and angry shouting. The bartender was giving them what it was worth.

"I must attend to business," he said, his face semi-visible in the screen, definitely hurting from several hits. "I do not know where you came from, but look to the Ardishapur family for answers. Don't trust them, as I know you won't, but look there first. The Angels are just the couriers."

The PAD went silent, and then the message ended. RageChild set it into her pocket, reaching behind the Matari's head and propping him up against the bar. He had likely spent the last twenty years here, sweeping dust and keeping the order for the Matari. He deserved better, but they had no time.

"I do not take offense, good son of Matar. May He return you to us anew to battle again another day."

**

The shredders outside the malinite outropping had grown to thousands, probably tens of thousands, but the sight of a field of wind-worn flags did not stop the three from moving into the caves at full speed. Even Gaelbhan seemed intent and energized.

The last week had seen many events happening in the worlds of Eve, and the Sect of the Warden had released a deadly virus - to not just the Amarr, but also everyone in Eve. The machinations of it were boggling.

RageChild had just returned from safely transporting the last Matari antidote from Ezzara this morning, meeting up with Airgoidh and Gaelbhan on the way back to Amamake. She told Gaelbhan of the threat the Sect of the Warden had proclaimed on GalNet. She told her sister of the attempts to stop the doctors from discovering a cure, and the fact that Daison Kador was involved directly in an engagement in Ezzara.

“So, he still lives,” Gaelbhan said.

The sisters did not know how to take her statement, but they continued their effort to bring Gaelbhan up to speed. "The Degraded have taken the work of a thousand generations and turned it into their own version of the Sect of the Sun Warden then?" Airgoidh asked as they passed through the caves, walking now around the pool.

"It appears, sisters, that the Sect of the Warden is now firmly in the hands of these Degraded."

RageChild tried to tell if Gaelbhan was disappointed in having her work, and the Sect of the Sun Warden perverted as it was by the actions of the Degraded, but nothing could be read on her face. Herself, she felt angry and dismayed that the Degraded have taken to atrocities that affected all citizens of Eve. They may even be guilty of attempted genocide.

Of more importance, Gaelbhan refrained from telling her sisters of the poison in her system. She did not want them to know of her decision to be the Sebiestor-in-Waiting of the upcoming Welcoming Ceremony on Matar, a ceremony in which she would sacrifice herself to Matar. A sacrifice not to spare her the death of Daison's poison, but to relish in the faith that was hers, faith in Matar. Faith that Cizin would see her soul return again in another era.

She certainly did not tell them that the poison made it impossible for her clone to activate properly. The doctors at the Clone Bank had seen similar situations, and could offer no solution.

The cave of the Sun Pool opened onto the underground temple. The crude houses and the general stonework were still there of course, built from solid malinite, but the Sun Warden panel and relics were gone.

"They took advantage of your absence . . ." Airgoidh said, holding her blood-sister's hands in her own.

"The Degraded and the ronin have worked together in the past," Gaelbhan answered.

"The fires of Cizin burned equally as bright in both, the Paratwa and the Degraded cousins in the effort to turn the darkness of the universe back to itself and rebirth."

"Not today," RageChild mumbled.

"Yes sisters, even today. Just not in the form we thought."

End of Book One - Tribal Council Trilogy: Wherein the Faith of the Liberated?