Gill tried to get off the nest, but he had to hold on to its edge, too dizzy to keep his balance. Without a word, Alala rushed to help him. Afraid that she might unwittingly touch the artifact through his clothes, he turned his left shoulder to her.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked, worried. “How bad did the blast hurt you?”
“I’m fine! I’m fine! Just a bit hungry, that’s all,” he mumbled awkwardly.
The female shook her head, little inclined to believe him.
“Let me help you. After dinner, I’ll let you smell the seeds I’ve been working on for the last ten years. They’re close to perfection,” she said with a tempting smile, to cover her lack of modesty (the truth is that modesty had no place when the Antyrans talked about their aromas). “I’m sure you’re going to relax.”
“I can hardly wait!” he exclaimed with fake enthusiasm. “What do we have for dinner?”
“Pretty much nothing—what do you expect?” she chuckled. “I only know how to open a can. I hope you’re better than that; otherwise, we’ll die of boredom.”
Gill had a suspicion that their stay in the dome would by anything but boring. Even though cooking was not her main asset, she fully compensated with other qualities, he thought.
“And we don’t have much food,” she continued with the bad news. “If we stay longer, you’ll have to provide. Go hunt some wild moulans to feed me,” she teased him.
“Great idea! And how do I kill them? Oh, I know, I could run them down with my jet,” he replied ironically.
“Yes! See? Excellent, you’re thinking of everything,” she exclaimed playfully.
“In that case, I’m going to need a chaser to herd them. How’s your running?”
“You need a chaser? I’ll give you chaser! Get down to eat!”
“I hope you cooked the siclides well. You know they’re toxic if not boiled at least half an hour,” he said, pretending to be worried, although he was pretty sure they came from an instant can.
“Go! Now!”
Seeing his hesitating moves, she grabbed his left arm and helped him walk to the door, casually rubbing her tail along his thigh. A shiver of surprise rushed up his spine. Did she touch him on purpose? Anyway, she didn’t seem to notice the effect she had on him. Or maybe she was just playing with him. That wouldn’t be unheard of; after all, she was a female.
The broth didn’t taste as bad as he feared it would. Actually, he would call it delicious, considering he hadn’t eaten for a whole day. Even before finishing his meal, the digestion overcame him. Weariness seeped into his bones like a river of molten lead. His tail became numb, which was a clear hint he had to go to sleep. He peeked in the other room to make sure Alala wasn’t looking at him, and he started to rub his tail. Seeing that it didn’t help much, he pulled its tip out of the back pocket and wobbled it vigorously from side to side to restore the blood flow. Unfortunately, it wasn’t his lucky day. Alala appeared suddenly in the doorstep, surprising him in the indecent posture.
“Leave the food and come quickly!” she cried, agitated, seemingly without noticing his indecent wobbles. “Bad things are happening!”
The center of Alixxor scrolled into view inside the large holotheater. All around the huge Shindam towers, the tide of a million Antyrans poured chaotically in all directions. The hologram was scanned from the air, probably from a flying jet. He immediately recognized the circular tower in the center and knew why she called him. Things were quickly unfolding on Alixxor, and not in a good way.
The exalted crowd of tarjis, dressed in brown ritual clothes, was hopping around the fires lit near the Executive Tower, shouting taunts at the Shindam’s acronte29. They burned the inflatable furniture of the building, together with the collection of ancient manuscripts from the basement. Hundreds of years of history were turned into ashes under Gill’s horrified eyes, and nobody did anything to stop the disaster.
In some places, even the Great Tower began to smoke heavily. Judging by the marks on its walls, the tarjis must have lit it several times, but each time, the building’s fire defenses overcame the fire. Now, finally, it seemed they had found a way to shut them down—the arson was about to succeed.
Large bowls lay on every street corner, twirling their scented smoke around the columns of the tarjis. Gill had no doubt what kind of aromas the initiates poured over the hot embers. The tarjis’ killing mood (already triggered by Baila’s speeches) was surely inflamed by the hormones carried in the evening gushes of wind.
The same news ran on most of the holofluxes, undoubtedly fallen into Baila’s claws.
“We just heard that the council was arrested. The traitor Regisulben is hiding like a coward in a military base, along with some of the Shindam’s counselors. But rest assured: no one will escape our just punishment!”
“No violence was reported,” said another initiate. “The tarjis took the power peacefully, under Zhan’s all-seeing eye.”
The images were telling a different story, though. Despite the clumsy attempts of the temples to hide the truth, the holograms betrayed the brutality of their takeover. Here and there, ugly holes dotted the buildings, and plenty of bodies in civilian or military tunics could be seen lying on the pavement at the feet of the crowd. Certainly those who tried to resist were overwhelmed and silenced by the tarjis’ weapons. How could the temples arm them so quickly? Surely they were ready for such an opportunity!
“Arghail is in Alixxor!” someone shouted in a booster shell.
“We’ll defeat him! We’ll defeat him!” the exalted crowd shouted back.
The view switched to a hologram scanned from an even higher altitude. At first, they saw the Roch-Alixxor mountain range, and then the city itself. The resolution slowly increased over the capital. All around Alixxor, a perfect circle was taking shape, a living chain formed by tarjis dressed in red clothes, the sacred color of the fight against Arghail. Gill thought that only Baila had the right to dress like that, but now he saw legions of them wearing the color. Not only that, but they thrust a row of sacred rikanes30 into the ground in front of them. The holly wood had the weird property of becoming fluorescent red in contact with air, which made it even more valuable in the fight against Arghail. They hung painted banners of Zhan’s angry eye on their poles. Another smaller circle surrounded about half of the city blocks. Finally, two other circles were inside of it. The last ones were close to perfection, the tarjis keeping the chain linked regardless of the obstacles in their path. They even went so far as to climb on top of some tall towers just to keep the shape. Right in the center was the training base in western Alixxor, the one where the Sigian artifacts lay buried. Most of the tarjis were here, called by Baila to join the battle against the god of darkness.
Barriers against Arghail. They were mere symbols, but they were worth more than standing armies because if some simple rikanes couldn’t dream of stopping the Shindam’s armored vehicles, the fact that they were carved out of murra made them a formidable obstacle. By assuming the title of fighters against Arghail, the tarjis condemned those who opposed them to fight under the banner of the “Ultimate Evil.” Arghail had to cross the sacred barriers to reach his offspring. If the Shindam’s soldiers would break the circles, they would serve the god of darkness and become his slaves for eternity.
This subtlety betrayed Baila XXI’s organizing skills. If the prophet hadn’t dressed the tarjis in red, the council may have had a chance to save itself. But now, with millions of fanatics in the city and the sacred barriers blocking any movement, the Shindam’s position became very precarious.