Warning - Spoilers for TNG episode; Gambit, and mild spoilers for Star Trek III - The Search For Spock
"In sleep he sang to me,
In dreams he came,
That voice which calls to me,
And speaks my name."
- From "Phantom of the Opera"
Chapter Nine
Long, delicate fingers moved from her face and raked through her hair, ending up on her lower back and pulling her body towards his warmer body. It was dark, and there were only the sensations of touch and smell. His scent was male, he felt young, and he proceeded to kiss her like his previous caress was a promise and not a demand. She eagerly absorbed every touch, not protesting when their actions became. . .
Her bones were burning, even as a wind like knives of ice chilled her flesh into stinging numbness and drew unwilling tears from her eyes. She clawed her way up a slope of hard pebbles of volcanic stone - rough and slicing, unstable and dangerous. She seemed to be making no headway, but she could not tell, for she could not see, could barely feel, and her blood rushed in her ears even as it seeped from a myriad of cuts on her hands and feet. Suddenly she hit wall of cobalt stone, cold and smooth and hard, and she beat against it with bloody fists, her bones bursting into white flames as. . .
Soft lips were exploring her face, and a warm hand rested gently on her hip. The light was low, and eerie green, making the skin of her lover seem soaked in blood. Strange plants grew all about them, their leaves oddly barbed, their blossoms sickly white. They breathed forth a fog of seduction and oblivion. The light came from the blooming flowers, and a rich scent of cinnamon swirled about in the haze they made. The one of her lover's hands not curled around her hip reached out and plucked a stem of the unknown herbs, his mouth still delicately exploring her ears and jawline. Without warning she felt a sharp sting above her left breast as the barb from one leaf dug into her skin. A line of blood trickled down her side and soaked into the soil beneath her. She cried out and. . .
She was smothered in a hot, thick blanket of stinking wool, the threads of which kept clogging her nose and blocking her mouth. She would have screamed but for the need to breathe. She twisted back and forth, but it held her like a straightjacket. Her mind screamed as her mouth could not, the terror of entrapment blotting all else from her consciousness. All air was denied her and she fell into blackness when. . .
Her belly was heavy with a child. She stood barefoot on the cold sands of early morning. The outlines of two standing stones like those that marked all entrances to places of marriage were before her. The rushing, whishing sound of tiny bells rolled towards her like a wave of the sea under the force of the tide. A figure appeared between the standing stones, tall, and dressed in robes, his silhouette sharp and pure and Vulcan against the violent gold of the dawn. He reached down, like a god to a supplicant, and put his hand on her stomach. The life within stirred and kicked in response to. . .
Two sets of fingernails embedded themselves in her arms. Dark mumbled words begged their desperate plea into the skin of her neck. The stifling, enclosing heat of the tapestry-hung bed was as nothing to the flame of skin and teeth and need that took her mouth without waiting for her to answer his appeal. A roaring sound came towards them, not of wind, nor of voices, nor of blood, but of water, full of salt and frigid in its terror. It slammed over them, drowning the heat in a flood of thoughtless, formless cold. The body of flame that had needed her was torn from her presence, and a scream of despair - from him or from her she was not able to tell - filled the room as the water flowed away as if it had never been. A keening wind touched the back of her neck, snapping her head sideways at an unnatural angle. . .
Arms circled her from behind, slipping beneath her loose fitting tunic and caressing the soft rise of her stomach, while echoes of some far away thoughts sparked from his fingertips. He carried her backwards, resting her on the firm cushion of his body as he lay down, his breath making all of her tingle as it touched the tip of one of her ears. He did not speak, but his arm came up, and pointing to the stars, traced new patterns into the glittering tapestry of space. She could feel him breathing, could feel his heart beating, could hear the faintest whispering of his thoughts. She turned over, trying to see his face. . .
T'Pring opened her eyes, and the phantoms finally fled.
It was both a relief and a disappointment.
She wanted to hate Spock for being right, but it was difficult when her Times were finally bearable.
She groggily slapped at the button which would summon a robot cleaning detail to her room, and dragged herself half-stumbling to the refresher unit, ordering the water shower on as hot as was safe for it to be.
It had taken three cycles for the Fever to even out. The first time had been a mere two weeks after he had left. That night she had carelessly neglected to lock the door to her rooms, and though she did not remember the incident, her father had told her later that she had needed to be wrested bodily away from the controls of the family's warp capable shuttle. Clearly she had been fiercely determined to go to Spock, whatever the consequences would have been.
After that, the physical side of the Fever began to diminish, being subsumed and integrated into the mental and spiritual aspects. The clawing need, the desperate outreaching of primal lust that she had only once truly experienced, had gradually been fully incorporated into the cycle of dreaming. Now, her fourth cycle since he had left, the nature of her Fever had changed entirely. Instead of only being an expression of pure rage, mortal fear, or base desire, now it was tempered with thoughts and images and feelings that clearly came from him.
When she awoke each time, she smelled like him, though he was light-years away. She had realized after that one time, when he had legitimately covered her in his scent, that she had always smelled like him after. . .
Well, after.
She lathered her hair with a juniper-scented soap, letting the sharp smell of it cover the male pheromones she could still detect clinging to her skin.
What he thought about the situation she could not tell, but if the content of the dreams were any indication, he was most likely not entirely pleased, but it was at least clear that he had not yet found anyone else. . .
A twinge of the after-pains gripped her, and she leant on the cool tile wall for comfort. The smooth serenity of the surface made her still-addled mind long to reach out.
Sa-kugalsu?
But the bond was closed, as it always was, after. . .
Well. After.
Then she bent, and washed away the still oozing physical signs that she had just spent days in Blood Fever, not daring to admit to herself that in fact she was trying to clear her mind of the remnants of his presence.
The water turned jade-green as it flowed away down the drain. . . she closed her eyes to it and turned her face into the pelting stream of near-scalding water that came from the showerhead.
She might very well need him twice a year - might very well draw his mind to hers and demand rescue from a thing which, normally, was a mere inconvenience to a woman of her race - but that was no reason for her to desire her current situation, or find it at all fulfilling.
Instead of the meaningful Time every Vulcan longed for, this was now what she had to bear - dreams and shadows with no good purpose.
She stepped out of the shower, absently wrapping a towel around herself, breathing in the warm mist still hanging in the room. Her Time always left her malnourished, dehydrated, and mentally exhausted. As it would do to anyone, of course, but, in truth, she felt the absence of any appreciable physical exertion. She sullenly drew a brush though her hair, indulging herself in admittedly juvenile petulance. No one understood, and there was no one to talk to. Even her father, compassionate as he could be, had never had to face the difficulty she was facing. Her stomach growled hungrily, but she sighed, as though it too had betrayed her. It was especially difficult to be philosophical when she still had to face the specter of insanity or death twice a year, without having the outward signs of physical difficulty to point to or complain about. . . or even boast of, come to that.
She resolutely did not think about the one time he had left a mark on her.
Even if she found someone to speak to on the matter, it would be near impossible to make them understand. Mental illnesses were simply not regarded as burdensome among a race that had, to all appearances, evolved beyond mental disorders of any kind. And kolinahr was the obvious option to the few aberrations that remained, she thought sarcastically, then sighed, wishing her father's father had not wanted to become a c'thia master, and that he had never personally proved that one with their hereditary proclivities might go insane without attempting kolinahr, but would, certainly and absolutely, go insane if they did. She wandered back into her rooms, having to will herself not to flop lazily into the freshly made bed.
There was only one rule regarding finding a choice-mate that was strictly adhered to - both members of the previous relationship must find their choice before the bond could be dissolved.
She curled up on a cushioned wicker lounge, pressing her fingertips to the ridge of bone that ran beneath her eyebrows. Her eyes drifted closed, but she snapped them open almost immediately, as the image of his face when he had offered her the freedom to choose seemed even yet to be burned onto her retinas.
Two years, and still it was Spock. . . always Spock.
She feared that even if she ever did find a choice-mate, the only face she would ever see when she closed her eyes would be his.
She wanted to hate him for that.
But she wasn't sure she did.
Her. . . it could only be called an obsession, and his. . . possession - could it be called possession if he did not wish to possess her? - well. . . put together they were quite simply the closest thing she had to a lifelong friend. An emotional constant, in the midst of infuriatingly confusing heights and lows.
And somewhere, locked away deep in her mind so she did not have to look at it, was the the conviction that she could not bear it if he ever did find someone else.
Is this what shan'hal'lak is like?
If so, then she understood why it was a far more feared phenomenon than the plak-tau.
There was a traditional, social, historical. . . And acceptable. . . method to deal with the Blood Fever.
There was nothing one could do with shan'hal'lak. It simply was.
This bond, this feeling - this obsession - was like that. It simply, resolutely, was.
She hated it, wanted to throw it away. But she could not.
I must control myself.
She must not let this spiral of illogic overwhelm her. She could not afford to slip back into dreams. She had done so once - two Times ago. He had still been there for her, and had brought her out of it safely, but there was something. . . something this Time had made her forget. . .
Suddenly she sat bolt upright.
"Computer - date and time?"
Her voice was thick and harsh from disuse over the last few days. . . and she did not know how many days. . .
"Stardate: 2252.38," said the impassive computerized voice, "Vulcan month: not applicable. Day of the week: not applicable. Local time: 09 - "
"Cancel," she clipped out, then jumped to her feet. Today was Gad'r'tas and the Yehvaru't'halovaya would begin within three hours.
She bit back a most unladylike curse.
It had been two-hundred and sixteen years since her father's clan had had its turn to lead the ritual of the Fabled Journey, and if she did not dress immediately, she would be late.
The necessary unbleached-cotton gown, utterly plain except for its great drooping hood, and long, flowing sleeves, had been commissioned weeks beforehand, and was hanging in her wardrobe.
As nimbly as possible, she tied herself into one of the fine handmade corsets her mother still sent her from the workshops at Gol, slipped into a set of plain, new sandals that had never been worn before, settled the dress over herself, and finally wound a girdle of knotted cords in the colors of her father's Clan around her waist. Then, she reached into a drawer, withdrew three small linen pouches, and quickly tucked their drawstrings into the cords at her hip. She swiftly arranged her still damp hair into a simple chignon, then covered her head with the ample hood of raw, coarse cotton, and she was ready.
And not a moment too soon, for as she emerged into the common areas of the house, she saw over two dozen members of the clan congregated in the Meeting Hall.
The sound of their conversation came in waves from the open doors. It was a low hum that flowed up and down in the broad, simple patterns of common language. It was a familiar, warm seeming thing that would be considered pleasant by most, should be, but to her, it seemed more like the rising and falling of the earth before it cracked and the lava flowed. It may well be pleasant to see, but she would far prefer to avoid close proximity to it.
She paused, resettling the girdle across her waist, making sure the pouches were secure at her hip. If they had to see her, they would see her proper and prepared. She took a deep breath, and entered the room.
It was not as bad as she feared it would be. In truth, it never was, but the patterns of her mind never seemed to let her remember that before she was compelled to appear publicly.
Several members of her family greeted her, and then a servant offered her a drink. It was the traditional naric juice with the pulp of sash-savas mixed through it; the usually homemade festive drink that preceded most Vulcan ceremonies. It was the first nourishment she had taken in four days. Fortunately, she remembered in time to say the few customary words in toast to the occasion before she swiftly drained the glass. Then she handed it peremptorily back to the servant who had offered it to her, and requested another one. She spoke briefly to another servant, and a minute later he surreptitiously brought her a large piece of bread. Ordinarily, the taking of any solid food would be postponed until the ceremony was finished, and they all could participate in a communal feast, but the ritual of Yehvaru't'halovaya involved climbing a mountain, and she was uncertain if she could do so in her current state.
Before she faded into a corner to eat, for one moment she caught her father's glance; the care he always showed her gleaming from his eyes. She nodded infinitesimally, and he nodded back, acknowledging her presence as the sacrifice it truly was for her.
Gad'r'tas only came once every twelve years, and with eighteen High Clans serving in rotation for the celebratory Journey, it was an event no one would believe you would want to miss. And yet she did, most heartily. The yearly Festival of Surak was long and involved enough without re-creating his climb up Mount Seleya, no matter how infrequently. Whatever deeper meaning there was to be wrung from adding such a service to the two weeks of solemn remembrance was almost entirely lost to the general populace, and even among the High Clans it only really meant something to a few.
In truth it was only the Reldai who lived the principals of the ritual, and so it was only they who honestly needed it.
And she, manifestly, did not need to be reminded of the life she had chosen but could not have.
The bread, large though the piece had been, was not enough. She slipped into the kitchens and took some pickled cir-cenchakh, eating it swiftly with a few savory kreyla biscuits.
She briefly wondered if she would have seen the Journey differently if she had been from S'chn T'gai. They were not in the rotation of clans assigned to the ritual, for they had the distinction of being the only clan allowed to approach the Mountain at any time. The Heirs to Surak could not lawfully be kept away from such a place. Could the accessibility of the climb change the meaning? She wondered if Spock had ever. . .
Curse it. . .
She did not need to be reminded of the second life she had chosen, but could not have.
Her father's voice called her away, and she tried to stop thinking entirely during the ride to the Mountain. Unsuccessfully, but she felt somewhat better for trying. She was so tired, and only just awakened from her Time. . .
I am an infinitesimally small speck in an infinitely large universe.
Somehow the thought was comforting.
She closed her eyes, not feeling the gentle swaying of the hovercraft as it sped along the Shi'Val Flats and up into the Mountains of Gol. The sharp, ragged outline of the Seleya'kun-el would not be visible for some time, but she had seen it before, when her mother had performed the duties of High Priestess at the Temple On The Mountain. Her memories of it, of all her childhood remembrances, were still the most difficult ones to separate from her instinctive identity.
The Seleya Peaks were impressive, even among the bleak ruggedness of the mountains that were the Gollic Range. A wide and lofty plateau surrounded the Sacred Mountain, which was itself merely a collection of red granite spikes thrust up from the heart of the world. Of itself it was not tall - for a mountain, of course - but its position atop the high flatlands afforded it nearly the altitude of the Nal-shin Range away up North - Vulcan's tallest range of mountains. But its height was no matter - the Vulcan people had revered the place since long before they had even learned to stand upon two legs, and would continue to do so long into the future, regardless of comparative altitude. It housed their most solemn Temple, and their most precious possession, the Katric Ark. It was a place of legends, living and dead.
It stood alone, surrounded, yet remote, the spires of dark red stone stabbing blade-like into the sky, defiant and indomitable.
In truth, the whole place frightened her.
She wondered if that was why she loved it so fiercely.
Her father called her name, softly. She opened her eyes and stepped lightly out of the hovercraft.
They had arrived.
The wind blew past the suddenly small-looking group of palely-clad Vulcans, the strange mists and the cold, pricking air of the desolate heights swirling around the lowered hoods and long sleeves of their ceremonial garments.
T'Pring took a step, her new sandals crunching upon the hard pebbles of the plateau. They were still far out from the Mountain, but not ten paces away were the two black boulders that marked the beginning of The Path - the narrow paved track that led all the way to the Feet Of Seleya.
It was here the ceremony began.
I forgot to bring a knife. . .
But her father had remembered, unfolding a pocketknife and stepping forward to the Clan Matriarch, T'Pilah. He knelt before the elder woman, using the short, sharp blade to notch the edges of her trailing sleeves. Then her father went to his wife, T'Vala, and next, to T'Pring herself, performing the service to each of them in turn.
It ought to have been her, as Heir, doing this part, but as her father knelt before her, his eyes met hers in an indefinable sort of look; the kind of look he always gave her when he understood something about her that she did not know how to explain.
Then he stood, and presented the handle of the knife to her, gesturing for her to finish the process.
She sent him a thankful look, and proceeded to notch the sleeves of everyone who was left, including her father, last of all. Of course, if the Katra Of Surak chose to inhabit one of them, they would not need to tear their clothes at the end of the ceremony, but it was always best to be prepared.
Even for those things for which one can never be adequately prepared.
She closed the knife and handed it back to her father, and as he took it, he spoke the ritual words that began the Journey.
"Though grief and violence have led us here, we begin, inexorably, upon The Path Of Peace."
Then he and T'Pilah began the long walk down the unnaturally smooth, arrow-straight road across the cracked and tortured landscape, the rest of the party stringing themselves out in two parallel lines behind them.
T'Pring brought her hands together, slipping them safely beneath her sleeves, and raising her eyes to watch the blurred outline of the Mountain become gradually sharper and sharper through the misty air as it drew closer and closer. This was when she ought to think; about history, or the legends which they were re-enacting today, or the principals of their society that had resulted from them, or even about how the obvious symbolism of this ceremony still applied to her even though she had chosen a different way of life than that of Gol. . . but now, when she knew she ought to focus, her mind buzzed only with the static of brief, conflicting images, and uncontrolled emotions that were as blurred as the still distant outline of the Holy Mountain.
The trek to the rounded, obsidian-stone hill called the Feet Of Seleya took nearly an hour. It felt both longer and shorter. By the time they had reached it, T'Pring felt as if she were existing outside of time - for this event, it mattered not if she were T'Pring, daughter of T'Sai of the Reldai, or Heir of Tarka son of Tassus, or a nameless, ancient acolyte of some long-forgotten race - for now, it was now, and that was all that mattered.
It would be many years before she realized the significance, but as she looked up at the towering, spellbinding spires of the Mountain, sharply clear at last against the misty purple-grey sky, for a moment it was as if her self was stripped away, and there was no need for anything other than her acceptance.
The thin, diffuse sunlight still gleamed from the shards of black glass that littered the end of the Path. The group all spread out, carefully avoiding the larger, more dangerous pieces, and stepping lightly so as to keep the smaller flakes from invading their sandals.
At the Feet, her father stepped forward again, leading the group to the rightmost of the two rough-cut staircases that began on either side of the glassy hill, each leading up an opposite side of the Mountain.
The left-hand stair, she knew, led to the Temple On The Mountain and the Pillars of Fate, where, according to her mother, it was possible to re-unite a katra and its body, provided of course that both had been properly salvaged. When T'Pring had been a child, she used to look at the stone biers by the Pillars, and wonder if she would ever have need of them.
She felt so unlike herself today, she wondered if she ought not to climb those stairs instead.
But again her father raised his voice, so everyone could hear, and he spoke the Va'hak't'shen, the Song Of Ascent.
"We have Come,
Where the Beginnings are.
The Ancients wait,
In clouds of Time and Trial.
Climb the Steps,
The Steps of Mount Seleya."
Then he took his place beside T'Pilah again, and began walking slowly up the right-hand stair, which led to things that, until now, T'Pring had only seen in pictures, and heard of only in legends.
Of course, the myth said that Surak had climbed the Mountain in one day, carving the path to the Cave Of The Ark with naught but his bare hands, pausing five times at the appropriate hours of the day to not only meditate, but to set up the Stones Of The Stairs as well. An apocryphal story, to say the least - the majority of the surface of the Mountain was a hard zasuhl-sbah, with minimal topsoil, and the incline was steep enough for the stairs that were cut into it to be almost necessary for an ascent of any kind - and the Stones of the Stairs were each at least a rasath-shek-tukh - though most were more than a Terran tonne. It was far more likely that the Steps had been cut long before Surak, and the Stones had been placed by followers of Oekon. It was clearly documented that these were five special crystals, each the focus of the five large cleared areas evenly spaced up the Mountain, and each such Stone corresponding not only to a specific legend, but to the seasonal rising of a certain star, be it Nevasa itself, or Lanka-gar'ukh, or stars which they now knew were not stars, but other planets that shared the cosmos with them.
But, like everything, the Stones, and indeed the whole Mountain, was now dedicated to Surak; their original names, histories and purpose rendered moot by the tide of Logic.
It did not take long for the party to reach the first landing - The Place Of The Stone Of Alem - and they all clustered close together so they all fit, for the first landing was, unexpectedly, quite small.
She had managed to stay close to her father's position, and so she was able to look over at the first Stone. It was set near the wall of the Mountain, a cloudy, lumpen thing, of whitish grey, its crystalline structure obvious, but far from beautiful. Its height was nearly that of a man.
The pillar of salt. . .
She had read an ancient Human holy book once. There was a story in it where fire and brimstone had rained from the sky, and the only woman brave enough to look at them had been turned to a pillar of salt.
She preferred her own people's legends. . .
This Stone, supposedly, was a tear from Oekon, one of many which he had shed when he saw the turmoil of his beloved Vulcan people. When the sun was high on that Day of Midwinter, a great stream of his tears had fallen from the sky and splashed all over the world, some making the salt flats, some soaking into the ground, and some making the ocean. This was the only one that remained whole, to remind them all of the event.
It was all illogical, of course.
But, she found it oddly compelling, nonetheless.
Everyone else, ready for the modern ceremony, reached for the three pouches they were all wearing, and she quickly followed suit.
The first pouch also contained salt, but pure, and crushed into fine dust. The second and third contained lhm'ta leaf and k'rhth'a bark, both also beaten into powder.
In all of their ancient stories, salt had played an important role somewhere, hence, there were almost as many meanings for it as there were situations for it to be used. But here, with the Offering on the Journey, it was meant to represent the harsh, stinging reality of their planet, and the forging each soul must endure to remain upon it. And used in concert with the other two herbs. . .
Well. It was an appropriate Offering for the ritual. Or would have been if the original Legends had still played any part.
T'Pring grit her teeth. Only the Reldai lived by pure logic, thus only they would find the current ceremony helpful. Why, she wanted to yell, Why, in this ritual, of all rituals, do we forget from where we came?
After everyone had measured out a small amount from each pouch into their hands, T'Pilah raised her voice, and spoke.
"In the beginning, there was no peace.
Forces and chemicals warred for countless eons, as purely formless and emotionless fact."
The whole group answered her -
"It did not bring peace."
Then they scattered the offering, grinding it into the dirt with the toes of their sandals.
As they all turned and continued climbing, T'Pring considered where they were headed next, wondering if anyone else in the group was thinking about anything but the logical mantras of the ceremony.
The Thas-kov, or Milkstone, had once been dedicated to T'Priah, goddess of fertility, and first wife of Oekon. One day, she had been feeding her son Khosaar, and he, being so violent, even as an infant, had spat the milk back at her. She had tried to catch the life-giving liquid, but it dripped from her hands, and formed the stars. Unwilling to lose any more, she had tried turning it to stone, but a few last specks had fallen to Vulcan, making a hard, tough stone that one day would be carved into the first bladed weapons larger than an arrowhead. Khosaar, angry that she had made something bright and good from his destruction, had then struck the stone in her hands. It flew apart, so fast that T'Priah could not catch all the pieces, and they streaked across the sky, trailing glowing tails behind them. But the goddess had caught the largest fragment, and placed it purposefully, giving everyone the bright evening star Ek'tra-kanash'es. It was so bright that if you stood near the white of a salt flats, you could see your shadow from it, wavering like a dream of the ancients.
It was still said that the first time you saw your starshadow, that year you could expect to conceive a child.
Illogical superstition. . .
And yet it was still tradition for a betrothed woman to spend at least one night before her wedding outside, sleeping in the open - and near to a saltplain, if possible. . .
I wonder, if I were to sigh, would my frustration go unnoticed?
In time they reached a second landing. It was much larger than the first, and they spread out around the rounded, oddly domed rock of smooth, opaque white yar-kov that was set up in the middle of the clearing. It was not more than knee height, but it was at least nine meters in circumference. For what seemed like a long while, she stared at several narrow, curved troughs that had been carved out of the base of it, and suddenly realized that she was seeing the signs left by some ancient senepa maker.
From the Mother of Life came Khosaar, the God of War. . .
One of her cousins, T'Velk, came forward and spoke.
"A war of light and dark, creation and destruction like unto an equilibrium. Tumult, working towards a center.
When the universe found its center, life began."
Again, they all answered with one voice -
"It did not bring peace."
For the second time, they scattered their offerings, and silently moved onward, further up the side of the Mountain.
She let her mind wander until they reached The Place Of The Stone Of Khaf.
This one was a ragged, glassy shard of jadeite, as clear and as green as the blood which gave it its name. It stood half again as tall as a man, slicing like a wedge down the center of the third, and very large landing. It gleamed dully in the light, but managed somehow to give the impression of being deadly sharp. The only part that had been smoothed and carved was halfway up the side that faced the Mountain, and it also involved Khosaar, this time as a full grown god, terrifying in his sheer power. The bas relief was small, but exquisitely well done, showing the Warrior in the very act of slaying ten thousand men, all so he might earn the hand of a mortal woman. . .
Her name had also been T'Pring.
Perhaps that was why she had always found the legends of the Journey to be so much more compelling than the Journey itself.
For a moment the sight of the young god before her was replaced with the image of Spock, fighting, his armor rent by his challenger's blade, his own weapon smeared with the green ichor of whomever dared to stand between him and. . .
The vision faded, leaving her cold, tired, and alone. She shivered as they arranged themselves before the Bloodstone.
Her uncle Vemik came forward and spoke.
"Chemically organic machines warred for dominance. The universe was a battle for meaningless life, between meaningless lifeforms, and then purposeless death.
When life found a meaning, then came intelligence."
They all said again -
"It did not bring peace."
Everyone else continued climbing then, but T'Pring lingered for a moment, grinding her Offering thoroughly into the ground. She could not conceal her reluctance to move on to the next landing.
It was her turn to speak next, at the Stone she least desired to think upon.
The Stone of Gol was a chunk of black granite, crudely carved into a life-size form of the goddess Reah. T'Pring had seen the pictures, heard the legends, and she had very little desire to meet the haunting reality. The roughly formed hands would be reaching outward in pain and supplication, the eyes would be sightless and pitiless, and there would be a great void in the side - like the goddess's heart had been torn from her with a brutal hand. In this case, however, that void was where a great Vulcan warrior, his name lost to history, had prized from the hard rock another, smaller crystal. From that unique piece, he had built the most deadly weapon ever recorded, using it to kill thousands with only a thought. But he had been killed himself soon after, by another who wished to obtain it. Then that one also killed many, and was killed himself, and the next usurper killed thousands more with a mere thought, until he too was killed. And the cycle had gone on, until the weapon had at last been broken, the pieces scattered, and only the story remained.
Then the great stone that had first held the fearsome thing had been carved into the likeness of the Goddess of Death, her hands reaching out, so that during the shortest night of Midsummer, for a moment she seemed to hold Kal-a'pton - the Planet of the Cursed, as it hung low in the sky.
The Gift of Killing is truly both our greatest gift, and our most horrid failing.
Slowly, T'Pring walked up the Steps to the fourth landing.
When she got there, they all were waiting for her, including Reah, standing closer to the edge of the precipice than any preceding Stone, her arms stretched out towards the desolate wastes of the plateau.
T'Pring resolutely did not look at her.
As quickly as was still civilized, she measured out the Offering for this Stone, stepped forward, took a deep breath, and spoke the words.
"All those who had intelligence gained knowledge, and with it, power. Then came wars of thought, of thinking, of knowing or wishing to know.
When minds learned to feel, there came emotion."
Nearly thirty members of her family answered her -
"It did not bring peace."
They scattered the Offering, and then they all flowed upwards to the last landing, and The Serene Stone.
With a small sigh of relief, T'Pring followed them.
This last climb was the longest, and the steepest, and would only end at the Cave Of The Ark.
She had heard it said that Surak had found the Serene Stone in that very cave the first time he had entered it, and at the same time he had discovered the perfect crystalline cubes that could contain a katra after the death of the body. He had come to the cave, looking only for peace, and had found these strange stone boxes, arranged perfectly around an impossibly beautiful pillar of clear blue stone. Then he had touched a few of the cubes, the story went, and found that he could hear the thoughts and feel the lifeforce of ancestors thought long dead. Again, it was all apocryphal, but pleasant to think upon. Surak, no doubt wearied from a climb made all the more difficult by his recent wounding in the Last War, had come, at last, to the Place On The Top Of The Mountain, the Cave Of Ancients, and the Place Of Peace. There he had discovered, not just a past that their people, in their turmoil, had forgotten, but also a future, and one so pure and ordered that Surak's own mind rejoiced in it, and he was able to bring it out of the dark, back to his people.
Wrapped in the assurance of the story, she did not have to lament the idea that, with the way things were in her life, she might never emerge out of the dark.
Finally, she and her family ascended the last Step, and gathered around the last Stone.
The Kov'mol-kom was the only cleanly faceted Stone, and the rarest, most incredible of them all. It was a massive, single, six-sided prism of pla'kohv-tukh - the very same crystal of blue quartz that it was said Surak had found in the Cave that now housed his katra. It was the only Stone that could lay a claim with any credence that Surak had himself placed it where it now stood, but discounting the notion that Surak had somehow had the power to move things with his mind, T'Pring did not believe he could have done so, certainly not without aid. Set somewhat into the ground for stability, it came to shoulder height. Even Kallin the Strong would have had difficulty lifting it.
The edges sparkled with sharp evenness, and the deep, rich blue vibrated shockingly against the dark red of the landscape even more than the green of the Bloodstone had done.
It was priceless, and quite thoroughly irreplaceable.
No, she decided, it would not matter how many times Spock had seen this - he would still be as strongly effected each time.
Her cousin Kamik came forward, reverently speaking the penultimate lines of the ceremony.
"Those who felt, reacted. Those who reacted, felt more. What was empty was now full. The battles turned inward, as a black hole, and there was no escape.
When emotion destroyed itself, then there came Logic."
And finally, they all answered -
"Logic brought peace."
They all fell silent. The rest of the ceremony was to take place without spoken words.
Then T'Pilah came forward, and pointed to eight of the assembled party. Heads bowed, hands hidden inside their sleeves, they followed her up the short, inclined path to the Cave.
T'Pring was glad she was not in the first group, as it gave her time to recover from the climb. The air was very thin, up this high, and the cold mists and creeping, keening winds were quite disturbing to a system that usually existed in the hottest of dry deserts.
This was not how she remembered the Temple On The Mountain - and rightly so, for that was on the lee side of Seleya, protected from the harsher winds by the wall of the Mountain itself. She recalled the still, dry air of the Temple, the cold reduced by the high stone wall that surrounded the Sanctuary, and the richly enameled coal braziers that were lit inside.
There were none of those trappings of civilization here. The Steps and the Stones did not speak of a sophisticated, peaceful race, but of a wild one, ruled not by reason, but by passion. Such an undertaking as cutting five long stairways into the side of a mountain, and then hoisting five enormous stones up them for no other reason than this - they had wanted to - indicated no trace of the solemn, orderly rituals that took place at the Temple, but, at least to her, showed decisively the fervor, vehemence, and stubbornness of the Vulcan heart.
For a moment she turned her back on the Serene Stone, and looked out over the high plain down below. From this vantage, the lines and cracks, caves and canyons could be seen, for these flatlands were not flat like the salt-plains she saw every day - this was a great lava flow, back from when the planet was still forming itself into the shape they now knew. The mountains that had once closely surrounded Seleya had been cut in half, razed with a torrent of boiling rock that was no doubt aided by massive earthquakes, and the whole expanse had been sheared off at the waist, as though with a cruel, blunt sword. The debris and lava had bubbled and drained down the canyons, filling them with a maze of tunnels, and what had once been merely another part of a mountain range was now a vast pock-marked table-land.
Heaven only knew how Seleya had survived all of that.
She turned when she heard the flat patter of sandals returning from the Cave. T'Pilah and the eight whom she had chosen filtered slowly back together with rest of them. They all had their sleeves torn up to the elbow. T'Pring gave a very small sigh of relief. So the Katra had not chosen to move its Place. Of course, it had only been known to do so twice, and each time apparently in an effort to return to the Cave from which it had been taken - maliciously or otherwise - but regardless of history, the potential remained, and every soul that came before the Ark must be prepared for the possibility that they could receive the Katra. And if it did not happen. . . then that too must be acknowledged. In any other context, deliberately wearing torn clothes would signify grief, or unworthiness, but in this place, at this time, it was a sign of thankfulness, and of the devotion of the individual who had, for a moment at least, feared the greatness of the prospect.
She fidgeted with the hem of her sleeve for a moment, rolling the notched edge between her fingers, and hoping she would also have reason to use it.
Her father nodded at her, and she came forward once again, choosing her own eight companions, and leading them up the short but winding path to the Cave Of The Ark.
As they rounded the final turn, the pathway that had been narrow all the way up the Mountain, or at least enclosed, rimmed with boulders like all the Places of the Stones, it suddenly opened up onto a wide, windswept sazasfek. The peak stood before them; the Cave entrance a third of the way up its face was tiny, and forgettable when set against the sight of standing all at once upon the top of the world. The weird, dreamlike state that had encompassed her all day intensified. She wanted nothing more at that moment than to stand there forever, staring at the red stone, as it spiked against the purple sky. T'Pring forced her eyes down, trying not to scrape her feet against the suddenly far steeper incline. Nevertheless, she must lead her group towards that small, dark eye in the rockface.
The Door was barely large enough to admit one person at a time; she paused next to the doorpost, letting her companions enter in a slow single file as she waited and watched them, and intentionally took the position at the end of the line for herself.
For many paces the Cave was narrow, dank, oppressively close, and dark. The irrational fear of being trapped rose in her mouth; with difficulty, she forced it down. At last, the walls fell away, to the huge room hidden within the Peak of Seleya. She raised her head, and the air flowed more smoothly in her lungs. All around the edge of the room, colossal statues of the gods, the Seven Fathers, and First Mothers towered, all cut from the living rock. In the center of the room, a dais of many steps drew her eyes up, and up, until finally she saw all of the great image of Surak, his hands spread wide in welcome, his impassive face bathed in the natural light that streamed from the oculus in the dome of the cave.
With deliberate steps they climbed the dais, T'Pring alone taking note of the Arks of the Ancients set along the corners of it. Almost she broke rank to go to them, and search for her own House Father among the great names of old. She had never wished to commune with Tassus before, yet suddenly the desire overtook her. Anything, anything but that infinite unknown soaring atop the dais. . .
At the feet of the great statue, there stood an almost insignificant-looking altar; a small stone table, backed by a low curved wall that connected two stone pillars - the pair of which flanked the final resting place of Surak.
Dwarfed by the colossus looming over it, the Katric Ark seemed a mere stone cube, upon a carved granite shelf, guarded by pillars rendered insignificant, though they held the marks of C'Thia and A'rie'mnu, twin children of Oekon.
Chaos and Mastery. And between them was Peace.
And the monumental eyes of the Ancients looked down with stony disapproval at the tiny mortals who had intruded on their silence. . .
Banishing her completely illogical anxiety - and attempting to still the almost painful trembling that had come with it - T'Pring joined the small circle the others had formed around the Ark, raising her hands so that they almost, but not quite, touched the hands of those on either side of her.
In her mind she spoke the mantras. . . My mind to your mind. . . My thoughts to your thoughts. . .
Suddenly she was one single current in a great gust of minds. All the people around her were present in her consciousness, flowing to the same goal, reaching out towards the Ark in a barely constrained whirlwind of thought.
Then came a shock of silence as their minds touched its surface. It absorbed any thoughts they might have projected, drawing them deeper into itself.
As their minds traveled within the Ark, it began to glow. The sharp, bluish-white radiance at first seemed small, but quickly grew, brightened, and reached up, reached out. Reached back to them. A cool breeze came from. . . somewhere. Long tendrils of ice-tinted fire erupted from the focal point of the brightness, snaking out, one to each Soul that stood before it.
Then, slowly, almost gently, a tendril wrapped around her hand, and the whirlwind became real. Surak was in her mind. Or she was in his, it was difficult to tell. . .
For a brief infinity she was frozen in time and space.
It was nothing like any other meld she had experienced. She was herself, but crowded out of her own existence, not by the turmoil of the other occupant, but by their peace. All her cares and worries were set at naught, all the wisdom of her experience was dismissed without the whisper of a thought. The pattern of her personality was. . . not accepted like it had been with other melds, not reduced as kae'at k'lasa would have done, but. . . incorporated. . . into a huge blank wall of perspective, and then drawn through a boundless plain of clarity that left her, not broken, but transformed.
Never had she been so lost, while at the same time being so aware of every part of herself.
The cold blue light crackled around her like a force field, as the plain opened beneath her feet, the powder-white grains of sand flowing away down the abyss, all the more frightening for that it happened in complete silence. Something drew her down - into a dark, velvet black place, so empty that it made even outer space seem small. Her mind reached out, but there was nothing, nothing. . .
She cried out in horror.
And then, back behind the vastness, was a small warmth, flickering faithfully, like the light of a single asenoi.
Suddenly she was sitting in a small room, warm with the aftermath of the day, cool with the promise of night. The air was beautiful with the scents of clean stone, of fresh-cut reeds, and the sweet, enticing odors of roasted meat. She sat, wrapped in the soft skin of a sehlat, her legs discreetly folded beneath it, and before her was a small bowl, filled with the pale yellow of clarified milk-oil. In it floated a lighted wick of braided sha'amii wool, perfect in its simplicity.
The scene clutched at her heart, but she did not know why. She stared into the flame, asking the light for answers. It flickered along with her thoughts, then all at once it flared, reaching out with the same explosion of tendrils that the Ark had done, only warm this time, and somehow. . . small, not grand, or vast. It enveloped her, but this time she was not afraid. This light was perfectly controlled, measuring itself out into her with abundance, but without superfluity. It was as soft as the golden winter green of new grass, as rich as the late spring harvest of fruit, and it smelled of the precious springs of water found only in the most barren places.
In it lived everything that was care, joy, tenderness, passion. . . love. . .
It was even worse than the blank vastness had been.
She could never, never be as great as that, as real, as good. . . as perfect. . .
She dropped her hands and bolted from the Cave, her sandals sliding, her eyes blinded with inexplicable tears. She did not see her family, nor the Stones, nor even the red of Seleya itself as she ran pell-mell down the Mountain.
All she could see was an ice-blue fire, flashing through Spock's eyes as he named her his ko-kugalsu, and then a warm, gold-red flame, pouring from his mouth as he set her free. . .
Time was dilated - she knew not how long it took to escape Seleya, nor how far she had run along the Path before she left it, and she had no notion of why it had become so dark, so cold and confusing. She spun around, scraping her hands against rough walls, tripping over she knew not what obstacles.
Then something connected with her temple, and in the flash of pain she found just enough time to realize she was in one of the thousands of lava tunnels that seethed through the plateau of Seleya, and that she ought to be terrified of becoming lost forever, but then her exhaustion, terror and pain overwhelmed her, and her mind blanked, her legs collapsed, and she fell in a senseless heap.
Tink. . . Tink. . . Tink. . .
The small sound echoed, not as it would through a large emptiness, but like a lone sound within a great silence.
Deep. . . beneath. . .
She could sense a light, far away but growing closer. . . slowly. . . slowly. . .
There was a shuffling, and a dragging, and then the ground fell away. It was as if the whole planet rolled beneath her and. . .
Breathe. . . stop. . . breathe. . .
The thin wail of an infant reached out from a great distance.
Shhhhhhh. . .
Hushhhhhhhh. . .
T'Paal. . .
The deep roll of stone against stone silenced all noises from the distance.
Scrappp. . . tsshh . . . scrappp, scrappp. . . tsh. . . tsshhh. . .
Tink. . . Tink. . . Tink. . .
Ratttttt-tat-tat. . .
Plink. . .
Lost. . . lost. . . forever. . .
The world took several eons to fully coalesce again.
At last, she opened her eyes.
She was definitely underground.
And do I dream again?
A muscle in her neck twitched, and an arc of pain jolted through her. She inhaled sharply, deciding not to move for the moment.
No, most of what she had heard must have happened. She was not where she had fallen, she was sure.
Then, she blinked, and realized that she was not only underground, but she could see. There was a lantern nearby, and sounds. . . footsteps. . .
A shadow fell across her face, and a hand reached down to her. The backs of warm fingers lightly touched a very sore place on her head. A gentle coolness came from them, easing the pain, and she turned her head.
A visibly concerned face looked back at her.
"Are you well, T'Saai?" the voice asked in heavily accented Old Golsu.
Ha'a. . . Heh rai. She projected as strongly as she could, not yet trusting her mouth to speak.
She felt. . . him. . . yes, it was a him. . . receive her answer. He smiled at her through his fingers.
His hand moved to the back of her neck, supporting her as she slowly sat up. There was a short, strange sound, and then a flask of water was being put to her lips. She tried to sip - it quickly became a gulp.
So thirsty. . .
"Tuun-boshi t'bolaua wai kah-if istau'be'aitlau, Ko-fu't Tahs'sus."
She spluttered, both in surprise and attempted obedience. Careful. . . Daughter of Tassus. It was very strange to hear familiar words spoken in such an ancient, little-used dialect.
With much effort, she took several long sips of the water, then managed to shift her body so that she was supporting herself.
He moved away, but did not leave.
"And what has made such a Lady leave the High Place in the middle of the Great Ceremony, and come here for her hurts?" He was still speaking in Old Golsu, but it was clear he did not often do so.
Yet. . . the archaic words seemed to. . . fit him. His motions were assured, his words carefully chosen. All in all he was strangely. . . precise.
She did not know why that should seem part and parcel with this eerie, dream-like day, but it did.
"How," she said, shakily, in Standard, "Why. . . do you speak so. . . to me?" She did not think he had touched her mind that deeply. . . she was sure he had not.
He smiled openly before checking himself. The slip was not odd, but rather. . . it was true. Yes, true to him.
"And how else ought I to speak to one such, an Heir of her House?"
That was also true - Tassus was the only House Father who had been born in Gol, and H'kl Y'ner was the only one of his Clans that consistently taught its Heirs to speak his tongue.
"How do you. . . know. . . all this?" Her still spinning head could barely take in the fact of her location, much less the mental leaps of this unexpected young man.
"It would not take even the most casual student of deductive reasoning more than a minute to see that you are dressed for the Journey," he said, finally speaking Standard too, and gesturing at all of her, "And everyone knows the colors of the High Clans," He pointed at the girdle she still wore.
"And you understand, me, do you not?" he added, once again in Old Golsu.
She nodded, "But your accent is less-than-satisfactory. . ."
His mouth twitched in plain amusement - there was no word for "bad" in Old Golsu. "Add to this that your sleeves are whole," he continued, "And, well. . ." He took a sip of water, and the replaced the lid on the flask. "Logical."
She swallowed, suddenly remembering to be ashamed, "It. . . was too much. . ."
His nostrils flared, and he clicked his tongue, "Of course it was."
She looked at him, a curious expression imposing itself upon her face, partly incredulous and partly offended. How could he understand? Who was he? How dare he presume. . .
With another openly wry twist of his mouth, he removed a short strip of cloth from his pocket and showed it to her.
It was one of the embroidered bracelets given to High Clan sons when they attended their first Water Ceremony. This one was stitched with bright red, the lightest of blues, and a brilliant metallic gold.
"You are of Ql'heksh Al'gath - of the House of Mat'ga. . ." she said quietly.
"Yes, third son of my mother." His voice was not hard or accusatory, but there was still something strange in it. He took back the bracelet, "Twelve years ago, it was our turn up the Mountain. . ."
"And?" She slowly stood, and shook the dust from her gown.
"And, that was enough to make me what I am today."
"Which is what?" she asked, blinking the dust from her eyes.
His cheek twitched - not a smile or a grimace, but some unnamed mixture of them both. He did not answer.
"At which Stone did you speak?"
He looked at her like he had expected her to already know. "The Bloodstone."
Even in the dim light she could see something flash through his eyes that was not entirely pleasant.
"The Stone Of Gol is not any easier." Her voice was somehow flat. She did not know if she was speaking to him, or to herself.
He reached out and took her elbow, leading her to a pile of sacking, and letting her sit comfortably before he answered her.
"I imagine so. . . any prominent role in the Journey is difficult." For some reason he did not sound convinced.
"Yet you did not run?" Her own shame was still clouding her insight.
"No, I did not. . ." He paused a long time, going to sit on a nearby crate. "But I wished to."
And then. . . she understood. Khosaar had been the third son of T'Priah, and a violent, untamable, vicious immortal, full of caprices, and never, never merciful. For him to speak at that Stone, even in the presence of the most modern of Vulcans, would be to invite a comparison between himself and the God of War.
It was the sort of legacy that anyone might be expected to run from.
"Tushah nash-veh k'du."
To the end of her days she never knew what made her say such a thing to him.
He laughed. A full, deep, pure sound, not at all the light, meaningless noise most Humans seemed to employ.
Again, it was so in keeping with his persona, she never questioned his emotional display.
"Nafai-kah ifdu," he said, solemnly, and changed the subject. "And so, we are the most distant of cousins. . ." He looked at her, clearly expecting her name.
"T'Pring," she said, steadily.
His eyes lit up, "Fortuitous," he said, cryptically, reaching out to pick up the lantern, turning it so the rest of the cave was no longer in shadow.
All at once she understood a little more of what she had heard while she had been so heavily dazed from her fall.
The cave was much wider than she had first thought, opening up at a sharp angle just beyond where she was sitting. As the lantern's beam swept across and around, she could see at least two dozen pits dug at respectfully wide intervals in the sandstone floor, and the cave continued on further back beyond them, curving beyond the lantern's reach.
She had stumbled into a Burial Cave. . .
Before her skin could begin to crawl, her companion stood and led her to the nearest of the pits. He was so matter-of-fact in his posture that he did not have to explain that this was not some random digging up of one of the horrifying mass-graves from one of the wars, nor a grisly looting expedition, but a deliberate excavation of a major and important find.
He hooked the lantern up to an elaborate projector cradle, and all at once the area around the pit became eye-grillingly bright. He picked up one of the tools that were scattered about and eased into the pit, settling and bracing his feet with great care. The walls of the pit came to above his waist. His eyes flicked to hers for a moment, and then he crouched down to do his work.
Tink. . . Tink. . . Tink. . .
Tinkkkk. . . tshh tshh.
She understood still more.
"I am in service at the Kel-vat Ekosi'vishlar - you know of it?" Enclosed in such a small space, his voice did not echo.
"Yes."
He stood up briefly, dropping some rocky fragments onto a tray.
Rattttttttt-thhhshh. . . tat-tattt.
"There are at least fifteen high-ranking Ahkh'haile buried in this cave." He crouched down again, "And most of them with their Neki'ne beside them."
Tink tink. . . Tink. . .
Tshhh-shhshsh. . .
"And there are grave types from at least three major periods - Foshin, Ke-tarya'morov, and Ek'mishan." He stood up again and pointed to the three different parts of the cave indicated by each era he named.
Slowly she neared the open pit, eventually mustering the courage to touch the sifting tray he had put the debris into.
"For the past three years I have worked on the Vesht Ahkh In'nahr exhibit. My work here will constitute a significant advancement towards its completion."
He stood up once more, and with a push and a twist, sat down on the edge of the pit.
"But, I am not boring you - t'pring?"
"No. . ." A small, cold, metal object was dropped into her hand. Only then did she realize that he had not said her name, but meant the thing he had given her.
She looked down at it, corroded and dirty still, but the shape could clearly be seen to be that of a figure-eight knot. She ran her thumb across it, and she could see the shallow-etched lines that mimicked rope-like patterns on its surface.
Until that moment, it had been worn by some great warrior. . .
She quickly handed it back.
He took it, looking up at her with a strange expression twisting his mouth.
"It is time you were going home," he said, dusting off his hands and turning to gather up his scattered tools.
She nodded, briefly, wondering just how far into the maze of caves and tunnels she had run, and how far he had carried her.
She looked around at the lonely cave again, suddenly aware that when he had come to rescue her, he had not been alone. . .
There was a narrow track of disturbed dust leading from their location and deeper into the cave. . . around the far bend and into. . . what? There were no footprints, but the track had clearly been freshly swept. As if. . . as if he had been trying to conceal. . .
What?
Then he lifted the lantern from its cradle, and the not-pathway disappeared into shadow again.
He did not speak while he led her out, but she could feel a very strange emotional projection from him. It was unlike anything she had ever sensed from anyone before, not even during the strangest or most unlikely scenes she had experienced with Spock.
He seemed to flinch at her thoughts, and the feeling retreated.
She was never more glad in her life than when they finally emerged out into the bright reddish glare of the plateau.
He pointed, "The Path is that way - you will know you are walking the right direction if the stones edging the path lean towards you. When you walk to the Mountain, they lean away."
He met her eyes briefly, and slipped something into her hand.
His eyes are light brown, flecked with green. . .
She looked down at what he had given her. It was a small, thin strip of plastic of the kind that businessmen handed out to clients.
On one side there was the elaborate seal of the Vulcan Museum of Antiquities, and on the other. . .
On the other side, there were contact numbers, a name, and a title.
Ql'heksh Al'gath Stonn - Co-curator
Stonn.
By the time she looked up from the card, he had vanished back into the caves.
She put it into her pocket, finally beginning to make her way back the beginning of the Path.
The mist was thicker now. The steams from the T'Karath hot springs off to the south often cloaked most of the Plains of Seleya during the late afternoon. The outlines of everything were highly blurred, and the light was much more of a glare. She stayed resolutely upon the Path, knowing that no help was left for her if she became lost among the labyrinthine tunnels again.
It was an ghostly, lonely walk.
She did not remember a centimeter of it.
Reaching the hovercraft at last, she took her seat, spending a few minutes rearranging her hair and hood to cover her bruised face - as soon as she returned home she would clean herself and heal the bruise - and she easily hid her sorely scraped hands beneath her sleeves.
It was well she had done so, for not five minutes later, her family returned as well, climbing quickly and solemnly into the hovercar with her.
They acknowledged her presence, but there were no questions.
She was not the first one to have run from the terrifying peace of Surak, nor would she be the last.
In their eyes, hers was the easily borne shame of a child of whom too much had been asked, and not enough had been given. They would bear it with her, in silence.
The ride back to Shi'Kahr seemed even longer than the trip away from it had been, but she did not complain, even in her mind.
She touched the small slip of plastic tucked into her pocket.
If looked as if her life was opening up, at last.
=/\=
Shan'hal'lak - Emotional engulfment, specifically the engulfment of love at first sight.
Yehvaru't'halovaya - Literally "the fabled journey". A ritualized re-enactment of Surak's first climb up Mount Seleya. Part of the Vulcan Festival of Surak, but only performed on Gad'r'tas.
Gad - Day; time for the planet to make a complete rotation on its axis
Gadwuh'rak - First day of the week
Gadahrik - Second day of the week
Rehkuh'ekgad - Third day of the week
Kehkuh'ukgad - Fourth day of the week
Kaukuh'ukgad - Fifth day of the week
Shehkuh'ukgad - Sixth day of the week
Gadshahtuk - Seventh day of the week
Gad'r'tas - Literally "year day" or "leap day". A day added to the calendar when necessary to keep the seasons aligned. Usually occurs once every twelve years, but there are rare exceptions. Is not part of any month, and has no week day.
Sash-savas - A strongly flavored, citrus-like fruit whose skin is pale green with pinkish spots. The pulp is light pink and the seeds are dark green. Both skin and pulp are often used in drinks and cooked dishes. The seeds are used for several medicinal purposes.
Mount Seleya - A mountain in the Gol range. Located in the Xial province on the continent of Na'nam. Has been a sacred mountain since before Surak; contains a temple, and Surak's katric ark.
Cir-cenchakh - Edible cactus-like plant native to the Kel province on the continent of Han-Shir.
Kreyla - Vulcan breakfast biscuits. A flat, crisp, double-baked type of bread, often flavored with sweet or savory herbs. Usually eaten with soup.
Kun-el - Hill, or foothill. A well-defined natural elevation either smaller than a mountain, or indicating a mountain of smaller size than others near it.
Va'hak - Literally "infinite melody". Used when referring to a song or poem that has been canonized in Vulcan philosophy or religion.
Shen - Ascent. The act or process of rising or going upward
Rasath-shek-tukh- Literally "iron weight". The largest Vulcan unit of weight - equal to approximately one half of a metric ton.
Zasuhl - Granite. A common, coarse-grained, hard igneous rock. Has many colors and cultural meanings.
Sbah - Red. Specifically rust-red, or murky, brownish red.
Lanka-gar'ukh - The Vulcan North Star. Belongs in the Vulcan constellation "Zhuksu-t'naehm" - The Warrior. Corresponds to the binary star system 61 Cygni in the Terran constellation Cygnus.
Lhm'ta - A Vulcan herb akin to Terran lavender. The flowers, leaves, stems, roots and sap are all used, almost exclusively in the preparation of incense. Culturally represents the act of remembering past deeds - either of yourself or your ancestors.
K'rhth'a - A Vulcan herb akin to Terran rosemary. The leaves are sometimes used to flavor food, but more commonly the bark and sap are used in sachets, incense, and ceremonial rites. Culturally represents the virtue of faithfulness.
Alem - Salt, specifically sodium chloride. Has many cultural meanings, dependent on the other symbolic items used in concert with it.
Thas - Milk. (noun) The liquid which female mammals secrete to feed their young.
T'Priah - The ancient Vulcan Goddess of Fertility. Often called "Mother of Life". First wife of Oekon.
Khosaar - The ancient Vulcan God of War. Third son of T'Priah and Oekon.
Ek'tra-kanash'es - Literally "planet of desire". In Vulcan mythology called the "Blessed Place". In ancient times thought to be the first stop on the path to heaven. In modern times also called Val'dena. Third planet in the Vulcan system. Uninhabited, N Class. The Vulcan "evening star", traditionally associated with T'Priah, goddess of fertility and love.
Yar-kov - Vulcan jade. Chemically can be either nephrite or jadeite. Colors generally range from green to white, but some varieties can be pink, blue, black, purple, or orange. Clarity can range from opaque to nearly transparent. During the Vulcan Stone Age was used as the main material for knives and other cutting tools, including weapons. In modern times generally used as a gemstone or in carving. Has several cultural meanings, dependent on form and color.
Senepa - A weapon with a poisoned tip or edge. Usually made with a crescent-shaped blade not more than 30 centimeters long. Can be made of either stone or metal. The handle is made in one piece with the blade, and is usually inset with the name of the maker.
Khaf - Blood. Specifically green, copper-based blood.
Gol - An ancient word with many translations and applications. Most commonly used as a geographical name for a province, and a mountain range and religious complex within that province. Culturally and historically can be used as an adjective or prefix which implies or solidifies power, enumerates or amplifies a gift, or invokes a calling. Also a name of two specific stones - the first a fist-sized crystalline matrix which has the unique property of amplifying psionic energy, and the second a carved pillar of black granite from which the first was mined.
Reah - The ancient Vulcan Goddess of the Underworld, the dealer of death and bereavement. Eldest daughter of Kharh, the God of Fear. Almost always depicted alone, with her hands outstretched, and a cavity in her side where her heart would be.
Kal-a'pton - Fifth planet in the Vulcan system. Uninhabited gas giant, J Class. In Vulcan mythology called the "Cursed Place". In ancient times thought to be hell, or purgatory.
Pla'kohv-tukh - Blue quartz. The rarest naturally occurring colored gemstone on Vulcan. Culturally represents the virtue of serenity.
Mol-kom - Serenity. The state or quality of being serene; a disposition free from stress or emotion; the absence of mental stress or anxiety. Also known as being "Too pretty to die" or "Shiny." (o_~)
Sazasfek - Crest. The top point of a mountain or hill
C'Thia - The ancient Vulcan Goddess of Chaos, eldest daughter of Oekon. Always depicted with her twin brother A'rie'mnu, as the ever opposing yet balanced forces of the universe. In the Vulcan Revolutionary Period it was the name of a female Vulcan philosopher who allowed for logical discourse without purpose or direction. Eventually the term became associated with the standard Vulcan philosophy of acceptance of reality and ultimate search for truth. Also the name of the first step in the kolinahr process.
A'rie'mnu - The ancient Vulcan God of Order, eldest son of Oekon. Always depicted with his twin sister, C'Thia. In modern Vulcan philosophy depicts the necessity of mastery of one's passions and emotions. Also the name of the final step in the kolinahr process.
Oekon - God; The Supreme Being. In Vulcan mythology called The God Of All.
Sha'amii - A goat-like herbivore, lives wild in the desert, but often domesticated; it yields milk, other dairy products and a long, silken wool, for which Vulcan is famous. Flocks do not require grain feed but can subsist on the native vegetation.
Ha'a. . . Heh rai.- "Yes. . . And no."
Tuun-boshi t'bolaua wai kah-if istau'be'aitlau - "Be wary of need, for there is but a thin line between enough and too much." (Vulcan Proverb)
Tushah nash-veh k'du - "I grieve with thee." Formal phrase used when speaking to one person of equal or lower status. Implies friendship and/or familial intimacy.
Nafai-kah ifdu - "Thank you." Literally - "What you have done is acknowledged". A Vulcan phrase of pure logic, unlike the implied emotion of the Human term.
Kel-vat Ekosi'vishlar - The Museum of Antiquities. Located in Shi'Kahr.
Ahkh'haile - Centurion, or General. Literally "warlord". Used up until and during the Vulcan Middle Period to denote a major leader both on the battlefield and in daily life.
Neki'ne - Shield-partner or wingman. The person a warrior could trust most in the heat of battle; a trusted friend and skilled warrior. Literally "strong supporter".
Foshin - A warrior trained in ancient defensive psionic techniques. Also the title given to a period of time in the Vulcan Stone Age.
Ke-tarya'morov - Hand-to-hand combat, or any contest or struggle that causes bloodshed. Used to refer to a period of time in the Vulcan Bronze Period
Ek'mishan - Literally "technology". Applies to all machines - simple as well as electronic. Includes the application of scientific methods, especially for industrial or commercial objectives. Also the title given to a section of the Vulcan Middle Period.
Vesht Ahkh In'nahr - The history and study of all psionic warriors, their social evolution, battlefield techniques and paraphernalia, and economic and historic importance. Also the name of a popular exhibit at the Vulcan Museum of Antiquities.
T'pring - A small brass or silver decoration molded in the shape of a knot or braid. Awarded to knights in ancient times to signify their valor in battle. Can be used as a proper name; means "little treasure".
Stonn - A zoological term meaning horn, or antler. Also a musical term, meaning any hollow, flared-tube shaped musical instrument played by blowing (excluding reeded instruments). Most commonly used if the instrument is made of metal. Can be used as a proper name; means "sound of triumph and alarm".