Part 7

---

Chiana began to open her eyes though it felt like she was looking into the same darkness. The sounds came first, something farther off from her right was dripping. The sound of metal chinking together followed a few quiet foot steps. The feeling of being in an enclosed room followed the faint smell of dust. She raised her head slightly as her vision came into blurred shapes and shadows with an agonizing slowness. She barely dared her breath as a searing pain began to make itself known to her awareness. She tensed, testing restraints that coiled down her arms like tightening vines.

She swallowed, searching out blindly to the feeling someone was in front of her with a weak, frightened moan as she tried to distinguish if someone was from the blurs and shadows.

"That is the very last thing I would have expected," Larran commented some where just a few yards to her left as more of her vision began to clear. "Have you ever heard of the Neythra, Chiana? I wouldn't guess ... the trait is almost even more rare among Nebari as albino are among Sebaceans. But, there was a time our mental abilities surpassed the confines of - simply to have knowledge. I suppose we only take it for granted now, forgotten into the - Greater Good. After all, Sebaceans can't transform a thought into a projected activation of one specific control collar to another."

He paused as Chiana groaned, the pain searing through her intensifying. "I don't suppose it matters now," he continued. "Those kind are only mythological beings, Nebari who could fly, Wind Catchers, who could telepath, see into the future, into the very hearts of men ... whimsical tales that - upset the balance of the social sanctimony."

Chiana felt his hand come up under her chin, still unable to make out more than blurs as the pain began to subside. She gasped for her air as she drew lax into the restraints. After a few more moments she could make out Larran's face, his sharp black eyes as he studied her.

"So tell me," he spoke quietly. "Where did you get the damage to your shezavan?"

"My - my what?" Chiana barely managed to breath, tensing again when pain began to grip her once more, seeming to come through whatever was coiled around her arms, stretching them.

"Well, you would have to be Establishment to know that one," Larran commented as he let go of her and turned away.

Chiana gazed over the room through the throw of her long strands of ash white hair. It looked to be one of the rooms she had passed getting to the levitation lift into the bio-dome. She swallowed, closing her mouth as she began to tremble. In the far corner she could make out Oshana curled up with her arms wrapped tightly around her legs.

Chiana gained the floor from her half way hanging position with the tip of her toes. She eased out as she slowly pushed off from them, looking to Larran beneath her brows as he set things out on a table. She breathed in slowly through flaring nostrils, tilting her head slightly. "Hey Larran," she nearly smiled as she spoke softly. "Didn't you get enough for one day? Why don't you come over herrrrehhh ... trade places with me ..." She chuckled softly with a quirk of her brow. "You know what they say, one good turn deserving another."

"You already pleasure me," Larran smiled darkly as he turned to her.

"You gonna torture me now?" She flexed her fingers within the tight grip of the coil along her wrists, raising her head as the lids of her eyes lowered halfway, gazing on him nearly down her nose.

"Mmm," Larran gazed down at whatever was in his hand and set it down. "You're right. I'm sure that's nothing new to such a delectable creature as yourself ..."

He leaned back on the table, drawing his finger to his lips, rubbing his upper lip as he rested the elbow on his crossing arm. "Perhaps," he muttered, tapping his lips with the index finger as he carried his gaze over to Oshana.

---

Larran drew open his thin, black cloak as he approached Oshana. He slipped it away from the dark purple silk shirt and black vest he wore underneath, kneeling in front of her. Oshana cast her eyes up at him without expression, staring into his eyes as he slipped his pale hands along the sides of her head, brushing his fingers through her black hair. "I want to see her, Chiana. Bring her to me."

"I can't," Oshana scowled sullenly at him without moving.

"You can," he narrowed his eyes on her. "And you will."

"There's little more you could do to me," Oshana shook her head as her eyes welled with tears. "And nothing worth just allowing you to have me condemn myself."

"Need I remind you?" He asked as he began to grab her hair into his fists, glaring into her. "Don't tell me you and I must go all the way back to the beginning Oshana ..."

Oshana searched his eyes desperately as she tried to pin herself against the wall even more. "Your spirit is already an empty cruelness wrought with your evils. Leave it at least one small room for pity!"

"Let me see Chiana," he commanded.

"I warned you," Oshana suddenly glared back as her eyes began to become gold, piercing into him like a fiery rage.

Chiana's lips parted, wild eyed with fascination as she saw the light seem to glow around Oshana's face from her eyes. She began to chant something. Chiana began to feel like something was pulling from deeper within her, drawing her down into some place dark.

"Nohhh!" Chiana breathed, shaking her head as she yanked back, standing straight up. She screamed as the coils tightened along her arms, stretching them as shards of pain shot through her from them.

"Nnnhhh!" She let out the moaning breath through her nostrils up at the ceiling as she jerked, shaking as her eyes began to once again loose their color almost immediately. Her body jerked again as her eyes fluttered. She threw her mouth open, letting out a long, hollow shriek on the intake of her breath, a sound she hadn't emitted since the death of Hubero.

---

Chiana saw only swirling drifts of light in a darkness. It looked like some kind of war was going on. She saw a form, to a corner, the form developed out of the shadows, eyes gazing on her, staring back. They were her own. She reached out and touched. Like ripples in water.

She felt Larran come around her, his hands folding around her. She looked down at his hands. They seemed to branch like the roots of the trees in the bio-dome, spreading over her naked body, rivering up her breasts and down her arms. The things that were roots now twined down her torso and legs.

She cried out. It sounded strange, unreal and hollow. Like it was from someone else echoing down through a surreal reality. She felt like she could remember something ... she clung to it, wanting to grasp it to pull her away from this ...

She could just make out some sort of faded portal screen, inside the command center of a Leviathan. For a brief moment she grasped a sense of urgency to be there, go back ... it began to fade away as she heard the chanting of Oshana. Larran had her by her shoulders, pulling her down. She reached out even as she allowed herself to be laid down. She closed her eyes but there was no escape to the vision, dream whatever it was, even behind what she had thought was closing her eyes she could still see Larran as he came over her. His hands ran smoothly down her body, savoring the silken touch of her skin. Chiana turned her head to one side, unable to look at the darkened lust in his cruel eyes. She heard herself moan at a searing pain that shot through her, arching her back and reaching out as she tried to turn away from it.

She felt like she was in a thick pool, unable to escape the grip Larran held on her as he rendered long shards of pain that seared through her. She could almost see him twining her into something that was leaving long red streaks on her like the stinging strands of a jelly fish. She managed to end up on her stomach in a thick nothingness, Larran's hands caressing their way up to her inner thighs as he spread her legs. A deep warmth began to pool into her, a sense of a sensual pleasure surmounting within her as he pleased her womb, caressing her breasts, tempering her pain and fear with a heated sense of her own desires. She moaned deeply as she felt his hardness coming into her, struggling to bring her arms into her own will as something caught her wrists. Again the pain began, searing over the deep thrusts. She cried out into it with pain and the frustration of being denied her pleasure. She could feel how it seemed to delight him. It was a feeling that brought her very suddenly into fear, catching in her breaths with it as she tried to see him, find his face.

She cried out again with an uninhibited scream, struggling to get herself away. She looked into a dim, faded blue edge and tried to reach for it when the subtle pleasures began once more, building up in her until she groaned within her helpless climax of ecstasy. She didn't let her sight go from the blue edge though, holding on to it, wanting to see what it was. She seemed to calm as the edge revealed itself very subtly, like a pair of eyes within the bamboos of her balcony. The eyes blue, around blue, sweeping away in lavish, exotic temperament like the wings of a peacock tail feather. Chiana forgot who it was, couldn't remember where those eyes were so familiar but they calmed her. Her fear began to subside, the dream or nightmare or whatever it was began to slip away. She could feel Larran's hand sliding down her leg, leaving as he let out a dark sigh of a sated sort of satisfaction in the taste. Chiana shuddered as she moaned again, bringing her fists up to the sides of her head as she curled up to try to shake the cold feeling her body was left in by his touch. The blue eyes seemed to linger and then swift away from her like a streak of color shooting off through the dark.

Chiana felt herself coming back, blind as she became aware of the room once more. She remained lax and motionless, allowing herself to just gaze off on the blindness and drift away.

Larran drew himself away from Oshana. She closed her eyes, lowering her head to rest her forehead on her knees, returning her arms to wrapping around her legs. Larran stood, gasping in his breath as he clung to the wall. Sweat glistened his face, beading down from his forehead into his eyes. He blinked their sting away as he came towards Chiana. He took her chin again, gazing into her blinded eyes as they began to clear, becoming her usual black eyes even though she refused to respond to anything. He tried to even his breath, still gasping as he ran his hand through her hair at the side of her face.

With a crisp draw upright, Larran turned and left, leaving a pair of troubled breaths in the room. Chiana's breath steadied, but Oshana's remained upset. Finally she stood up and strode to Chiana. "Why?" she asked, clearly choking in an accusing tone to her voice. "Now he is free, free to do worse!" she spittled at her.

Chiana could hear that Oshana was crying. She sighed deeply. "Couldn't ... whatever you thought I, that I'd do. Let the fekkik win ... for now. Couldn't. nnn - I'm just me."

Oshana cradled around her and pressed the side of her face into her. It was some sort of forgiveness or maybe just acceptance from devotion of some kind, twisted around devotion like a knot tying it to something else. Whatever it meant exactly, Oshana drew back and left with quiet footsteps.

Chiana licked her dry lips. She tried again to free herself, but her grunt just died in the empty room. "And thanks for all the help."

---

Perkunas slipped off his black leather coat, tossing it onto the desk that headed the room of several long tables. The eyes of the Nebari male turned with mild interest to the other Nebari, Sebacean, Bannik and a pair of young Traskan twins at the long tables. They each sat before a broad band of magnifiers, working on a small box to their left of stones to cut into the shiny works in smaller cases to their right on the tables. He began to walk by each of them, inspecting the work as he rolled up the long sleeves of his silver shirt.

He came to the Traskan twins last, lingering over his inspection of their cut stones when the door into the warehouse opened once more. He lifted his gaze up to the Nebari who had entered and stepped to him quickly. Without a sound he took the younger male by his arm and pushed him through the door of another room behind the desk.

"You really shouldn't come here," Perkunas stated calmly as he closed the door and turned to him. He crossed his arms as he gave the younger Nebari male a leveled look. "If the Establishment suspects the Obsidian Guild of harboring you, we'll all be arrested, Bursamen, and my particular gang in the Resistance has held this front for as long as your Benefactors' gang has held Nerri's Resistance Militia if not even longer than that. There are too many at stake who would not be pleased to see Obsidian Guild disband - because of one compromised Enforcer."

"I am sorry Benefactor Perkunas," Bursamen lowered his head slightly, staring wildly into Perkunas chest. "I have highly pressing news you must send out through The Cause news vines. It is of great importance, enough to have already sent the Fenas into an alarming unease."

"The Sister Fanatics?" Perkunas curled his lip with an incredulous look at him as he sat down on a console's edge. "Unease wouldn't be news, what is then? Something new?"

"Yes," Bursamen strained with trying to be patient in his urgency. "Look, Benefactor I must tell you now ..."

"No frelling dren," Perkunas interrupted as he raised his brows, scratching at the shadowed line along his cheek. "Alright, make this really good. Is it from Oshana?"

Bursamen's mouth hung open as he looked to Perkunas' eyes.

"The Fenas?" Perkunas waved, urging him to continue.

"Oshana believes she has found The Sister," Bursamen spoke swiftly as he rested his hand on the pulse pistol inside his open, leather cloak. "Larran has taken in a Nebari girl and her Sebacean servicer and she believes this girl is Nerri's sister herself, her name is Chiana ..."

"How," Perkunas lifted an eyebrow at him as he lowered his head. "Reincarnation? Establishment prolonged stasis or ... the usual favorite, a successful clone from Larran."

"Well," Bursamen rolled his eyes. "Ah, you know Oshana, she is now more convinced than ever that The Sister is immortal."

Perkunas closed his eyes briefly as he leaned back, resting his hands on the edges of the console. "So you and the Fenas want me to smuggle into the intel network that the living Sister, by now old enough to have been my great grand-sire ..."

"The Fenas believe Oshana," Bursamen interrupted. "As a General of the Cause it is your duty to ..."

"Spread wild rumors?" He charged at Bursamen. "Enforcer! What sort of dren ...? You have the most influential Fena out here touting this Chiana is The Sister - immortal. The poor girl, whatever her true name, isn't it tragic enough the unfortunate fell into Larran's little lair? She and her servicer will be dead by the time the entire realm heard of it, why would Oshana want Larran to gain so much attention from possessing the actual sister herself?"

"That's why she contacted me!" Bursamen protested. "It is our duty to protect any suspicion from the Establishment pertaining to The Sister. If Larran finds out Oshana's suspicions, you can be assured he would use it and do so against our best interests. She saw in this - Chiana, the same ... I'm not sure, something about the same thing as her divination of The Sister for the Fenas. I need this information to pass, you have no right to suppress it. Oshana was very clear about her urgency."

"Fine, I'll relay a report," he sighed as he turned around to the console and began to play his fingers over the keys. He glanced up to Bursamen briefly. "It might be worth looking into ... let Oshana know I'll be looking forward to finding the truth in this. Maybe that will calm her down and keep the Fenas from going manic on us. Any moreso than usual ..."

"We should see to her escape ..."

"From the Minister of the Urlain Sectors?" Perkunas eyed him as he sat down to the console.

"He's nothing but a high ranking servicer- tralk - to the Establishment," Bursamen charged as he stepped closer. "Neither in the Establishment itself or with the Cause."

"He didn't get there by accident Bursamen," Perkunas sighed lightly as the door opened.

A young Bannik boy stepped in, glancing to both of them as he set a handful of data chips on the console. Without a word he scooted back out of the door, slamming it shut behind him.

Perkunas took the chips, placing them into small slots in the console. "Think of it for a moment," he slightly chided the impatience of the enforcer he'd known since he was a spitfire of a young man. "The Administrators are an Establishment office of rank, third only to the Imperial presidential council and the Administrators servicer is Minister, the highest archy in the servicers. Like Minister Ruis of the Thedus planet. He is also its Prince, yet his Administer still has him in a virtual control collar."

"Yes," Bursamen agreed impatiently. Perkunas wanly smiled to himself, all but seeing Bursamen roll his eyes. "If ever there was a good case for a control collar, Larran would be the argument."

"But Larran broke the virtual slavery. He has used the increasing decadence and remoteness of this world to his advantage, pushing his way through rebel sanctions in order to appear to be handling the growing rebel presence here, so that he could in turn worm his way into gaining Establishment favor. And of course the situation here helps him handle favors for certain people in the Establishment that they wouldn't want known elsewhere. He can use that to his advantage as well."

"He is responsible for Administrator Mecle being caught at that pleasure house then," Bursamen shook his head to himself.

"Absolutely. It's really remarkable. A pity he wasn't dedicated to better ends. He achieved an autonomy his office hasn't held since the generation following the contagion ... he's not only a frelling tralk to the Establishment willing to do dirty work, he's also a rather strong and deeply rooted power in the underground because he knows how it works ... from him? There is no escape."

"But we should have one of our own in his place," Bursamen narrowed his eyes as he rested his fists on the console. "Like Benefactor ..."

Perkunas raised his hand in motion for him to silence as he stood again. "I'll have a talk with Oshana."

---

Next Page