Eye of the Ocean Book 3 Ji'jin Station

Eye of the Ocean – Book 3: Ji’Jin Station
tried to follow the moving lights. But the Priest clicked again, starting a series of
sounds that didn't translate any more than the trill had, and turned its body to
look around slowly as though searching.
“Walls,” it said finally in plain tongue.
“Could we have built a wall that only kept people out and not ourselves in?”
But he had misunderstood. “A blink is the wall,” the Priest said, touching the
end of the oath cord around its neck. “This one blinks, the mind scrolls forward.
Walls.” A trill capped with a buzz came from one of the attendants. The ti'Linn
Priest was speaking of dying. “With no walls, where is the house?”
The floors here were covered in mats, the serrated edge on the ti'Linn's feet
made a quick pic-pic sound against the closely woven dry grass as it walked to
the door leading to the small inner patio. Rit followed, Alicia with him. The Priest
bowed, but didn't rise from it, keeping in the tucked position, all eight legs folded
close. From the cushion by the brazier in the center of the patio, Ulanda looked
up, her eyes as unreadable to him as the ti'Linn's had been. Mirwin was with her,
the boy looking drugged, his mouth slack, but Rit felt him in the Net, quite sober.
At the far door were two guards, both Blackmouth Caste ti'Linn. They hadn't
moved when the Priest approached the entrance, or when it crouched. In the Net
as well, but a tight focused link.
The ti'Linn Priest ignored the guards, looking only at Ulanda. Then it blinked all
four eyes at once and the slowly rotating lights began to dim. “This one is a
sacrifice to the knowing,” it said. The faceted colors flared after the brief
dimming, then slowed, dulling again as they appeared to sink. Ulanda watched
without reaction.
Rit felt slow, it was as though his mind couldn't make connections fast enough
to make his body act. “Do something,” he said to the attendant who had inched
forward from the huddle. Adding a sign of favor followed by a formal Opening, not
sure what he was doing. Not sure of what he was thinking.
The ti'Linn stopped where it was. “The People play the long game,” it said in
High formal, making a song out of words and so perfect that it had to be a
translation. “My Priest is a door to Empire's actions. A door that closes.”
“Taking any blame, you mean?”
The aide bowed deeply.
Moving stiffly, Rit walked to the Priest, but watched the aide closely at the
same time. Sorrow? He wasn't sure. Fear? Would he have to make up the
emotions he expected in the same way as he had his conversations with Cassa?
He felt disorientated. Lights on the ocean, his eyes burned. He saw the movement
of the four living eyes and the dying at the same time.
“Rit!” Alicia said, pulling on his arm. He had half fallen against the ti'Linn
Priest.
Laurel Hickey www.2morrow.bc.ca