Eye of the Ocean Book 3 Ji'jin Station

Eye of the Ocean – Book 3: Ji’Jin Station
The years flipped backwards like the pages of a book against an impatient
thumb. He pulled out.
The years went backwards, one at a time, but in a flow like a strong wind. And
stopped. Poss a'ltic saw two young women walking the grass path. Late summer,
not spring. The bordering hedges were taller - and trimmed lavender, not
boxwood. In the centers were sprays of tiny yellow flowers. A cultivator of w'tin,
the flowers that grew wild in the meadows. A willow fence, where the cedar
hedge was now, backed a deep planting of perennials, Tollupi vines showed along
the top of the fence, a few of the blooms hanging to the shadow side. There was
no pathway.
Kascin hung his head in a laugh then looked sideways at her through a scruff
of wind-tangled hair. “Nothing's changed. You look just the same. Who is that
with you?”
The record hummed the date of its transcription from across the Nexus
Change, and the reference, why it had been kept. All the records they had of her
had been kept.
“Tissa, my aide.” She wished she had fingers she could use to push his hair
into place. Could he smell the Tollupi flowers? “That was just before my
Initiation.” Her own memories. She would have thought them gone by now,
buried by the years or pushed out from the sheer volume of events. Thousands of
years had passed since she had walked at South Bay Temple with Tissa by her
side.
“The peaking of Nexus Change forced the timing of my Initiation. It was act
then, or let me die.” When she had stabilized, Nexus Change was over and the
old Emperor and the other Priest Selects were dead. “It all happened very quickly
as such things are counted. South Bay Temple supported my Challenge for the
vacant Office of Forms. I was Empress the same day.”
She stood, letting the cloak fall. Kascin caught it, holding it bunched in his
hands as he looked at her, a puzzled expression on his face. His eyes held the Net
record as clearly as they did her. Raswini and Cayse were already on their feet,
waiting.
Poss a'ltic turned to the way they had come. The rooftops of the Temple
buildings showed through the bare branches and the Temple itself further to one
side. Only the smaller trees and the brush had leaves as yet. By high summer, all
sign of the buildings would be hidden. Behind was the mountain, Ri-altar at the
summit. She couldn't see Palace from this angle; the mountain hid it. Their path
had followed by the stream, white clouds from the hot springs next to the
bathhouse rising in the cold air. Steam and chanting, a deep base voice, slow and
practiced. Only one voice had been an adult, the rest were higher pitched and
held shivers of cold and excitement. The children from the Temple crèche.
Purification rites for Spring Blessing ceremonies.
Laurel Hickey www.2morrow.bc.ca