“And you don’t believe this?”
“I… don’t know. All I know is that everything that is, won’t be anymore. The expansion will change not only Ropolis but the whole Antyra… Do you realize it?”
And not only Antyra, Gill thought, horrified by the prospect. He couldn’t see why a god would be appeased by the tiny Antyran world, now that the wall of fire was gone… Had the alien worlds reached the same dilemma? Why had no singularity come from the vastness of space to take over Antyra? Since the aliens still existed in flesh and bones, it could only mean they didn’t like the idea of a singularity, either…
“I think it is madness to assume such a risk!”
“Baila can’t defeat us in a fight, but what can we do against a nuclear assault? It’s the next logical step, and some think that if Ugo expands, he’ll put an end to the war. They don’t realize that whatever he may become, we’re going to be mere bacteria for him. I’m scared… I’m afraid we’re all going to die… that our time on Antyra will end.”
“We must stop him by any means!”
The fire broke out on the edge of the cliffs, an incandescent curtain almost impossible to look at, even from a distance. Step by step, the dome was growing in front of them, taking over the valley between the peaks, rising to dizzying heights—an impenetrable curtain that distorted the relief inside, hiding its details.
The wall wasn’t uniform; huge, blinding flames danced on it, seemingly racing in their mad rush to conquer the heights. They resembled the breath of a monstrous creature puffing out of the ground with a certain rhythmicity.
Soon, they stood in front of it.
“Gill, wait a minute,” Sandara said, pulling his arm to stop him.
He turned to her, puzzled.
“I betrayed our secrets so that the parhontes won’t be able to hand you over to Baila in exchange for peace. If they do it, they will reveal the heresy of Kaura-after-Life. Baila will not rest until he wipes out the last trace of the city.”
“You’re saving my life!” he realized, astounded. Her confidences had given him an easy way to block the parhontes!
Gill could see why his presence was so important here, in such a moment: he could expose Ugo’s treachery, but more than that, he was the only one who could prevent Baila from nuking the place to smithereens because the prophet risked vaporizing the precious Sigian artifact along with the caverns. Of course, someone had to tell Baila that Gill was in the city. Surely the parhontes would have done it in a tailbeat. But Sandara… Sandara gave him a weapon to force the council to defend him by all means in order to protect their secrets. He didn’t need clever deductions to anticipate the disappointment of the architects when they found out they couldn’t use him to negotiate with the prophet…
“What will happen to you for telling me about Kaura?” he asked her.
“The punishment for traitors is death… but my life doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll offer it joyfully to get your help,” she said with sadness.
“Sandara, why did you do it?”
“I told you already, to—”
“No, I mean, why do you risk your life for me?”
“I don’t know,” she mumbled. “I don’t know.” The twinkle in her eyes, playful as the wind of the vardannes, was saying something else, though, so she lowered her gaze to hide them. “I hope you will find a way to defeat Ugo, to use what I told you to change the fate of the war, to get an armistice from Baila. I think… I think you’re the only one who can save Uralia, who can save our world!”
“Why do you believe that?”
“That’s how I feel. And I’m not often mistaken!”
“Sandara, I came here to hide from Baila, not to save Ropolis. How can I save you? You believe me a different Antyran than I am,” he said gently. “I’m afraid you’re holding false hopes.”
“You said you came to save a world! You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
“What?”
“One of Tadeo’s archivists?”
“Where… where did you get that?” he babbled, stunned that Sandara knew such details about him.
“When you admitted you’re an archivist, I remembered the one who started the whole madness. His name was Tadeo if I recall, right? Baila said something about Arghail’s children, brought to Alixxor by the Antyran. And he mentioned some bracelets…”
“You guessed right. Unfortunately, there’s no trace left of his discovery. A huge blast killed them all, and the artifacts were lost…”
“You lie,” she puffed. “I can smell you like a rotting razog fruit! Baila wants something from you!”
He sighed pensively. Even though she didn’t say it, Sandara offered her loyalty. She offered her unconditional help against her own Ropolitans, without demanding to hear his secret in exchange—although she had guessed much of it. A grah’s loyalty was not something to be thrown away. The grahs placed loyalty above everything; they were of a savage loyalty, up to death if necessary. His spikes were torn apart by the thought that not only could he not help her, but he might cause her death!
Gill came to believe that he was immune to the death of the others, but now he could see that he was still vulnerable, that his metamorphosis into a Sigian soldier wasn’t over yet.
He breathed heavily, summoning the aroma of the pathkeeper to help him find the way in the middle of the hungry abysses ready to devour him.
Slowly, he started to feel again the seed of power growing in his kyi, the boiling desire to live in a civilization dead for 1,250 years, the dream of a world that purposely sacrificed itself for this dream, for the unlikely goal of being reborn from its own ashes, for hearing once again the laughter of the Sigian children under the domes on the hydrocarbon planet. He had the key, and he was bound to defend it with his life.
For the first time, however, he had met his match. Sandara also had a dream, to save Uralia. Could he—an Antyran—sacrifice his kin for the illusory resurrection of a world dead for 1,250 years? I have to go on for Sigia, he thought, his confidence shaken.
“Sandara, I wouldn’t hide anything from you, but this is not my secret! I don’t know how it may help Ropolis without endangering another world!”
“You have to help me save Uralia; it’s my home!” she exclaimed. “I know you didn’t have time to discover it. I know you only saw its dark sides. But we have marvelous places, more beautiful than you can possibly imagine! Let me help you find them…” Sandara begged him with her shiny eyes and took his hand. She pressed her other palm on his cheek, while slowly drawing her face close to his. She began to breathe heavily and lowered her eyes, startled by her own audacity. But she hesitated to break away from him, thus letting the subtle aroma of her head spikes tickle Gill’s nostrils.
The female’s touches and her warm breath set his spikes on fire, his hearts beating wildly, enchanted by the innocent charm of her clumsy gestures. She cuddled on his chest not to find protection—Sandara would never ask for such a thing—but because she wanted to feel his touch… For a split second, her playful eyes let him look deep inside her kyi; she let him understand that she truly liked him… to realize that the imminence of death made her betray herself, to live everything she wasn’t allotted to live in the precious little time still available. He had to use all his self-control to resist the temptation to hold her in his arms, to inhale deeply the seductive aroma of her spikes, to abandon himself to the candor with which Sandara offered her scent.
“Sandara, I’ll help you defeat Ugo,” he said in a warm voice. “But betraying the secret of the artifacts… I can’t promise that.”