Behind the high priestess, carved in gently sloping terraces, a library rose from the floor to the ceiling. There was no wooden furniture here; the sand was too abrasive. The stepped shelf systems were home to stacks of scrolls tucked into cubbyholes lining the walls. On each landing were several workstations, where more female acolytes laboriously copied ancient writings by hand, a new generation of codices faithfully reproduced from the last before time could erase them. A multitude of quills scratched across a multitude of parchments, sounding much like the sand being swept in the lobby above.
Talis gestured for the aliens to step forward. “High Priestess, allow me to introduce the captain and officers of the Yu’Nyun starship.”
Talis allowed the aliens to speak their own names as they greeted the priestess. She had practiced the captain’s name under Scrimshaw’s tutelage before they left Wind Sabre, but it was so similar to the future-tense for ‘destroy’ that she was almost certain she’d screw up and say the wrong one. Wouldn’t that have been a wonderful moment of cultural understanding.
The Yu’Nyun captain treated Illiya with the greeting of respect from a subordinate, the one Talis had been stopped from performing when they met. Perhaps the aliens had some concept of religion. Or at least they knew of the gods and the local emphasis on religious piety from all their digging around in Peridot’s libraries.
Illiya made an undulating sweep of her hand, in the traditional Bone gesture of welcome. Her fingertips were capped in bronze and flashed in the firelight. “I bid you welcome to this house of Onaya Bone, Talis and friends.”
There was a certain, barely distinguishable weight given to the last word, and Illiya’s ornately dressed hair bobbed with the slight tilt of her head.
She lifted a graceful arm to invite them to sit on stone benches, covered in layers of pillows and blankets, in front of the fireplace to their left. It was twice as tall as the formidable woman, carved from rock around them. Crackling flames chased back the chill in the subterranean cavern.
Illiya hosted the aliens with all the formality of her rank, offering tea and cakes, which the aliens declined. On the surface, all seemed to be going well, though every time Talis’s gaze met Illiya’s, there was a silent—and very pointed—question waiting for her.
Talis cleared her throat to dislodge a crumb from the honey cake she had accepted, and a cacophony of raven calls shattered the quiet, an abrasive interruption to the peace of the room. The birds, varied in size but identical in plumage, lifted from their perches and swooped down at the new arrivals, barely missing the tops of their heads. The aliens flinched, ducking out of the way in alarm. As a group, the birds surged up into the air in a frenzied tornado of glistening black feathers, then resettled onto their roosts and began to preen themselves in indignation. At a small workstation near the roosts, a robed woman worked by herself, quietly making quills from a large basket of collected feathers. She did not look up at the commotion.
When the noise faded, the silence that followed compelled Talis to get down to the point of their visit.
“High Priestess, I promised the Yu’Nyun a chance to seek audience with Onaya Bone.”
“Did you, now?” Illiya asked. Her lips, as they curved into a smile, pressed tightly together. There was a glitter in her eyes, but it was not amity. “I understand they have made this request many times. I wonder why I should be the first to allow it?”
Because I saved your wretched life, rot you. But Illiya wanted a reason that Talis could speak out loud.
“They have been trying to conclude their research. They would like to understand how The Divine Alchemists saved Peridot from the destructive forces of Cataclysm, so that they might save their own planet.”
Scrimshaw’s captain looked sharply at the interpreter. No wonder Scrimshaw had been so quiet. Xe had shared more than xe was supposed to, and Talis had just ratted xin out.
“Once they have the answers and the closure they seek,” Talis continued, pretending not to notice, “they will be able to move on.”
“Lost children of the stars,” Illiya murmured. She intertwined her fingers over her stomach, looking downward for a moment. A decision seemed to come to her. She lifted her chin.
“I will grant their audience,” she said in a gilded tone, and to Talis the meaning felt as rich.
The high priestess instructed her acolytes to make ready the alien guests while she prepared the communion chamber and sought Onaya Bone’s attention. They stepped forward to drape the Yu’Nyun with iridescent scarves in purple, black, and green, and to sift fine sand over their heads. Alarmed at these preparations, the fourth alien looked desperate to avoid being decorated in a way that was equal to xist superiors. But the Yu’Nyun leader held out a hand to stop the underling’s protests. Talis had gleaned the significance of that from Scrimshaw’s lessons, enough to be impressed with the captain’s tolerance of a major taboo in order to accommodate the local custom. But why not? The captain was mere steps away from attaining xist goal. A little breach in etiquette was
