(eng) Michael Cobley - Humanity's Fire 03 by The Ascendant Stars

Author:The Ascendant Stars [Stars, The Ascendant]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

21

CATRIONA

Through the web-vein-circuits of the ancient forest she was able to flit from place to place, from shadowy wellspring to bright and breezy canopy, throughout the length and breadth of Segrana. The flowery dream-palace with its soaring blue pillars and drifting veils of mist was always there for her, a sanctuary, a resting bower, a reminder. And as she darted here and there she saw new fresh growth, green sprigs sprouting from charred stumps, torn ground levelled and giving forth grass and fungi and teeming with natural wildlife. The damage she had caused during her undisciplined defence against the Brolturans was being steadily healed. She also saw how the Uvovo worked with spirited direction, a consequence of the Zyradin’s effective takeover of the great forest.

Or was it more to do with Segrana’s abdication?

Greg brought the Zyradin to Nivyesta and Catriona as the Keeper was turned into a conduit for its permeation throughout the continental forest, and since then there had been a schism at the heart of things. For a time she had felt the strains and dark moods of disagreement between those two inhuman forces, like the sound of thunder filtering down from cloud-swathed mountain tops, the abode of gods. Now, however, it appeared that Segrana had withdrawn from contention, and also from consensus. The hoped-for fusion never took place, there was no compromise and now no dialogue. Except that Segrana seemed content to allow the Zyradin to assume sufficient control to pursue its purposes. Thus far this had amounted to coordinated efforts to restore and revive those parts of the forest damaged during the battles between the Brolturans and the Spiralists, and between them and the Uvovo. And the wounds that Cat had caused.

Perhaps it’s just as well that I’ve been relegated to being little more than a wandering spirit, to the status of an observer, she thought. It’s no’ safe to give me those powers, I’ve proved that. No, Segrana needs another Keeper.

But no matter now often or how intensely, or even angrily, she had declared this in the openness of her mind, never had she received a reply. She just wanted rid of what increasingly seemed to be a pointless role, and she wanted to go back to her life, that real flesh-and-blood life. They owed it to her and she deserved it, she deserved to find happiness and even love. If Greg survived the horrifying conflict that lay ahead.

Although her corporeal integrity had been interwoven with Segrana’s vast and complex essence for a while, she had not realised until recently that she could gain access to a range of heightened sense abilities with which she could peer at the spaces beyond the sky. Quite quickly she learned how to make the sensing capacity show her visual information and to make it keep track of objects in motion, like starships. In this way she had been able to follow Greg’s progress since the Tygrans whisked him away in their ship. The lethal dangers he got himself

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