Shadows and Shades (Adventures in the Liaden Universe®) Read Free Page B

reedy in comparison with the other's rich tones.
      "Come forward, Montet sig'Norba."
      Forward she went, until she stood her own short arm's reach from the Voice. She looked up and met the gaze of far-seeing black eyes.
      "Yes," the Voice said after a long pause. "You bear the wounds we have been taught to look for."
      Montet blinked. "Wounds?"
      "Here," said the Voice and lay her massive palm against Montet's forehead, directly on the spot centered just above her eyes, where the pain had lived for six long relumma.
      The Voice's palm was warm and soft. Montet closed her eyes as heat spread up and over her scalp, soothing and—she opened her eyes in consternation.
      The headache was gone.
      The Voice was a Healer, then. Though the Healers on Liad had not been able to ease her pain.
      "You have that which belongs to Naratha," the Voice said, removing her hand. "You may take me to it."
      Montet bowed once more. "Lady, that which I carry is ..." she grappled briefly with the idiom of the language she spoke, hoping it approximated the Voice's nearly enough for sense, and not too nearly for insult.
      "What I carry is ...accursed of God. It vibrates evil, and seeks destruction—even unto its own destruction. It is—I brought it before a ...priestess of my own kind and its vibrations all but overcame her skill."
      The Voice snorted. "A minor priestess, I judge. Still, she did well, if you come to me at her word."
      "Lady, her word was to make all haste to fling the monster into a sun."
      "No!" The single syllable resonated deep in Montet's chest, informing, for a moment, the very rhythm of her heartbeat.
      "No," repeated the Voice, quieter. "To follow such a course would be to grant its every desire. To the despair of all things living."
      "What is it?" Montet heard herself blurt.
      The Voice bowed her head. "It is the Shadow of Naratha. For every great good throws a shadow, which is, in its nature, great evil."
      Raising her head, she took a breath and began, softly, to chant. "Of all who fought, it was Naratha who prevailed against the Enemy. Prevailed, and drove the Enemy into the back beyond of space, from whence it has never again ventured. The shadows of Naratha's triumph, as terrible as the Enemy's defeat was glorious, roam the firmament still, destroying, for that is what they do." The Voice paused. The chant vibrated against the pure white walls for a moment, then stopped.
      This, Montet thought, was the language of legend—hyperbole. Yet the woman before her did not seem a fanatic, living in a smoky dream of reality. This woman was alive, intelligent—and infinitely sorrowful.
      "Voices were trained," the Voice was now calmly factual, "to counteract the vibration of evil. We were chosen to sing, to hold against and—equalize— what slighter folk cannot encompass. We were many, once. Now I am one. Naratha grant that the equation is exact."
       Montet stared. She was a Liaden and accustomed to the demands of Balance. But this—
      "You will die? But by your own saying it wants just that!"
      The Voice smiled. "I will not die, nor will it want destruction when the song is through." She tipped her massive head, hair rippling, black-and-gray, across her proud shoulders.
      "Those who travel between the stars see many wonders. I am the last Voice of Naratha. I exact a price, star-stranger."
      Balance, clear enough. Montet bowed her head. "Say on."
      "You will stand with me while I sing this monster down. You will watch and you will remember. Perhaps you have devices that record sight and sound. If you do, use them. When it is done, bring the news to Lietta, First Novice, she who would have been Voice. Say to her that you are under geas to study in our library. When you