Again, my sincerest apologies for the lateness of this chapter. I found all of my notes and the rough drafts of several scenes (including this chapter) yesterday while looking for something else, and danced for joy. I'd thought I would have to start from scratch again! Updates will still be long, but they will be coming. In the meantime, please enjoy the latest installment!

This chapter is shorter than the others, and shorter than I had intended, but it came to a natural break and the stuff that came after just didn't quite fit the mood. On the bright side, chapter three should be out a LOT sooner than this one was.

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize belongs to Tamora Pierce. Most everything else and the plot are mine.

Rhys

P.S. This would have been up sooner, but FF.N wasn't letting me upload anything for a couple weeks. Apologies.

What Once Was Lost

Chapter Two

Revelations

The lights in Kel's quarters were on their lowest setting. According to the ship's clocks, midnight had been a tiem and a half ago – say five and a quarter hours. Kel had been working non-stop with Mithros and some of the other Great Gods since the Sun Lord had agreed to let her wards stay, dispatching construction vessels from RFT.01 to locations on the planet, most on the far side of the world from the Eastern Lands. Aside form the lands where she had been born and raised, there was only one other inhabited portion of the planet, and the Terrans had steered well clear of those.

Except twice. Mithros and the Great Mother Goddess had both insisted that there be Terran colonies within easy riding distance of the Mendari, so that the colonists might observe the natives; the better to fit in when they finally got around to introducing themselves, Kyprioth, the Trickster, had said when he stuck in his oar. With the three of them ganging up on her, she'd had no choice but to concede, and two colonies had been establishes; one among the Teasai on the far side of the world, the other in the foothills of the Tusaine Mountains, near Fief Goldenlake.

She had been quick to decide that the Tusaine colony would be where they built the main embassy. All of the other colonies would have a greatly scaled down embassy, as well. But Kel would make her home in the Tusaine colony, in the land of her birth.

They had finished merely an hour ago, and Kel had sat in her dimmed quarters ever since, watching the blue and green jewel of a planet the RNS Sol now orbited. Though it was the wee hours of the morning shipside, planetside, it was late afternoon, bordering on early evening.

A flash of silver light that was almost blinding in the near-dark cabin brought her head whipping around, and she nearly gaped when she saw Mithros himself standing in front of her door. What was he doing here? All the time they'd negotiated for colony locations the gods had chosen to use the vidscreens. Kel had been grateful for that – after so long away from any mention of them, she didn't think she would have been able to endure nearly half a universal standard day in their physical presence. But the negotiations had been completed – ships had been dispatched to each location to begin construction. So why was he here now? And what was he wearing?

That, at least, was a valid question. Never had she even dreamed to see the god of war and law dressed so – dare she say it? – casually. Were it not for the yellow-gold eyes, and were she, say, Second Minister Amotok, she could have mistaken him for an ordinary human. He was dressed simply in leather boots, forest green breeches and shirt, and a golden tunic with a forest green belt.

She blinked at him stupidly for a few scattered seconds, then abruptly gathered her wits about her and sculpted her face into a Yamani mask – her best one. "Good morning, Great Mithros. What may I do for you?"

She was pleased to note that her voice was level and calm. There was no trace of shock, anger, confusion, or bitterness. Or sarcasm. She chuckled mentally at that last one – Roboak had kept her in his day cabin for at least fifteen minutes while he expressed his displeasure at her slip on the flag bridge.

He studied her silently for a moment, gold eyes unreadable, and the ambassador experienced a decidedly uncomfortable sinking sensation. When he spoke, his voice was as emotionless as his eyes, and had been turned down to mortal levels. "I would like to speak with you."

Kel nodded and waved him to the armchair across from her own window seat. He settled himself easily, and as he did, she pondered her life since she had left.

The past ten years had been the hardest she'd ever had to endure, even more difficult than the years he'd spent in Tortall since her decision to become a knight. And if what the Sun Lord had said the day before was true, then, though he was not to blame, he had been fully aware and had allowed it.

She had been taken by surprise when she stumbled across the Doughti scouts on her morning ride ten years ago. She had yet to figure out why the sparrows had not warned her of them. The clearing had been still and silent for nearly thirty seconds, both sides completely shocked at the sight of each other. The battle that followed had been depressingly brief. The next she had been aware, she had been laying on a bunk in a smuggler's freighter.

Shortly afterwards, the smugglers had turned her over to Captain Aerbrekk of the RNS Prudia, the dreadnaught escorting a Regime merchant caravan back to Davonsue. Kel had been confused almost out of her mind, and terrified, so Aerbrekk and the other Devonians in his crew had taken charge of her.

Large as a dreadnaught was, it was still a small vessel, and only the captain and his higher-ranking officers had their own quarters. Everyone else slept in berths set up like army barracks. Since Prudia had been carrying a full load of creatures that looked absolutely nothing like her, Aerbrekk had berthed her in his own quarters while he moved in with his exec. She never left those rooms, and she was tended solely by the captain and other shape-shifting Devonians who had taken on human form.

When they reached the capital planet of the United Devonille Regime, Aerbrekk had personally escorted her to the offices of Supreme Commander Stevan, United Devonille Regime Refugee Resources and Operations.

Lady Corine Lenavia Stevan XXXIX, reigning but absent Queen of Orvana and Empress of the Baranone Waters (plus a mouthful of other titles that Kel still couldn't remember) had been a sight for sore eyes. The Devonians had tried hard, and she'd greatly appreciated their efforts, but few indeed where the humans who stood seven plus feet tall. The five foot seven, blonde-haired, blue-eyed human woman was a quiet, calm woman who nonetheless had a commanding presence that drew the scared young woman to her like a moth to flame.

Lady Stevan had been bewildered when Kel told her she'd never heard of Earth, America, England, Russia, Australia, or any of dozens of other places she'd named. She'd even called up images and maps from the holoplate set in her desk. But the lady knight had recognized none of them.

Baffled, the queen had asked Kel to tell her everything she knew of her home. Great had been her wonder when she realized that Kel really wasn't from her own home world of Earth – Terra – but a whole different world entirely. That humans existed elsewhere! It had never happened before!

Unfortunately, Kel didn't even know what the planet as a while had been called, much less what galaxy it had been in or where it was. They started their search in the Embriyll Spiral Galaxy, where the smugglers had freed her from the Imperium scout ship, about four galaxies east true, universal relative, of the Takcha galaxy, but it had still taken them three years, and only because one of the scout ships had stumbled across a Reiyshel'bahgehn assault cruiser division plus screen on its once a month patrol of the Praont system and gotten permission to search the system.

By that time, Kel had gotten quite well acquainted with the Separatist War, the bitter struggle the UDR had been waging against the Heron Galactic Empire (Imperium) for darn well near three thousand years. As time passed with no sign of her much long-ed for home, Kel had grown more and more consumed with a desire to lend aid. She had finally set for herself a time limit; if her home had not been found in the next six months (her months), then she would throw in her lot with her friends and strive to bring the colossal war to an end.

She knew she would never be able to serve where she most wanted to, on the front lines – though she learned much in her two and a half years at the capital, it was not near enough to do battle, and in any case, their front lines spanned galaxies, not fields – so she spent those six months studying their politics, emersing herself in every political tidbit she could lay her hands on. Lady Stevan had been a useful resource in that area – though she served the Devonille Empress in a military capacity, she was still a queen in her own right, and was one of the empress's closest friends and advisors. Kel also studied universal history, choosing to wait to study individual galactic and planetary histories until after she knew what it was she would be doing.

Six months came and went with no sign of home, so she joined the Devonille Regime Diplomatic Corps as simply Kel Mindelan, leaving behind her title, her knighthood, and all that remained of her past save her name.

A little over a week later, the scout ship arrived with the news that they'd found her home.

She'd been torn, then. She wanted to go home so badly! But she'd thrown in her lot with the Regime, decided in her mind, if not yet in her heart, that she would fight with them in whichever way she could, and would stick to her self-appointed task through thick and thin, no matter what came her way. In the end, that had decided her, and she'd stayed on with the UDR, serving if not quite eagerly, then certainly willingly and ably, with a determined mind, a steel will, and face of stone, and a broken heart.

She shook her head slightly and looked up to see Mithros studying her quietly. Embarrassed, she fought down a blush and said, "Forgive my inattentiveness, Great Mithros; I was woolgathering. You wished to speak with me?" Silently, she cursed herself. She hadn't done something that clumsy in years!

Mithros nodded. "There is no need for the Great, Lady Mindelan. There is a good chance what I wish to discuss with you will prove upsetting, and I doubt you will be wanting to add honorifics if you choose to make known your displeasure."

Inwardly, the ambassador raised an eyebrow, but her expression did not waver. "Very well. I will call you Mithros, if you agree not to call my Lady Mindelan. I relinquished my title long ago."

"So be it, Keladry." The god met her eyes squarely. "I wished to discuss with you the reasoning behind your departure from our realm."

Kel felt her throat tighten. He wished to discuss it? She resisted the urge to snarl at him, telling herself that if the gods wished to giver her, a lowly mortal, an excuse for their actions – or lack thereof, in her case – then the least she could do was hear them out before 'making known her displeasure.' Instead, she said, "Reasoning?"

"We are not gods, Keladry, despite what we have made ourselves out to be," he said bluntly. Kel frowned slightly in confusion as he continued, "We possess god-like qualities when compared to the peoples of the Easter and Southern Lands, or the Makalrins, but only when compared to them. In truth, we merely exist on a different plane than you, one that makes such qualities commonplace."

It was all Kel could do to keep her mask in place. A Davonsue cyclone didn't even begin to describe the state of her mind. Not gods? Then what were they? Surely not planets, like Sheook. An image of Veralidaine Sarrasri flashed through her mind. Planets couldn't have children with people, could they? If they existed on a different plane, then how was Daine even possible?

She briefly thought on all she had ever heard of the theories of different planes of existence. Captain Aerbrekk, who'd kept in touch with his favorite human over the last ten years, had a younger sister who was a scientist, and was in fact one of the premiere minds toying with the idea. She had theorized that all planets, not simply Sheook, were sentient and self-aware, but that their minds existed on a different plane. She had similar theories concerning most celestial bodies. But they couldn't procreate with anyone on the mortal plane, could they?

Mithros continued, and she latched onto his words desperately, absently proud that her outward appearance betrayed none of her inner turmoil. "For a great time, nearly hundreds of starbirths, we believed much as our wards did of Father Universe and Mother Flame. Long before the world you call Mendari IV was capable of supporting human life, my kind worshipped them as gods. Eventually, however, they revealed the truth to us. As we exist on a different plane that the mortals, so also do they exist on a different plane than we, one where time is not what you would call linear.

"The non-linear time of their plane make them clairvoyant as far as we are concerned. They see a great many things that we cannot even begin to comprehend, and they saw something that prompted them to unveil the truth. They told us that a great change would come to our realm, and a younger race would need our guidance, much as we had required theirs. They counseled that you must be kept hidden, so when others stumbled across our realm, we either sent them away with no memory or destroyed them."

He leaned forward and locked his yellow-gold gaze with her hazel one. "This great realm was not always devoid of life. As few as twenty starbirths before the explorer, there were three other species here. In your early years, you suffered frequent incursions by them. Finally, Universe and Flame told us that beings like us guided these other races, and that they intended harm for you. It was decided that they must be eradicated."

Kel felt sick. Their gods had wiped three different species from existence, simply because they threatened their humans? It reminded her unpleasantly of Vaughnj and his Terra-poison.

Mithros lowered his gaze. "What is easily decided is not so easily carried out. For nearly eighteen starbirths, we warred with the races and their benefactors. Only with the support of Universe and Flame were we able to defeat them and leave out realm untouched. The planets you call tashak are the graves of that struggle, each entombing the essence of a benefactor. We felt the pain of their deaths as keenly as if we had died ourselves, and the pain has yet to fade. That is the punishment for warring with our own kind. So also did we feel pain when great Sheook was raped, and again when Earth was poisoned. Their pain shall never fade from our essence."

The great being was silent, and for a horrifying instant, Kel could see pain in his eyes. It was a pain she could not even begin to comprehend, a pain that would turn a mere mortal like herself to ash if she ever did more than glimpse it. The experience left her sweaty and trembling, struggling to draw precious air into her lungs.

After a moment, Mithros continued. "When the explorer arrived so shortly after our war, while we were only just beginning to recover form our wounds, we truly feared for your safety, for we could never have stopped a second assault of the same magnitude. But Flame came to us and said that this was the reason you needed our guidance. Flame told us to allow Praont to enter our realm, though he was to know nothing of you. Flame then told us to ignore the patrols, for they would guard you while we healed.

"Then Universe came to us and told us of your great conflict that you call the Separatist War. There would be no end, they said, unless the older races interfered. And so they told us to allow your abduction, for such would be the catalyst that would allow the older races to interfere. We did not wish to, for in our long vigil over you, none had ever touched the surface of our realm, but they insisted there was no other way.

"And so you were taken from us, and that was the first time in our existence the passage of years ever registered to us." He locked gazes with her again. "You were gone for only a short time, but we waited so long for you to returns to us. Your bitterness and anger saddens us, but we know the decision to relinquish it must be made by you. We can only wait."

He fell silent, and for a long time her quarters were just as quiet as he. Kel was reeling, and her face no longer bore her mask. Now it was simply plank, her eyes locked on his and showing such a mix of emotions that not even Mithros could discern them. Her oldest beliefs had just been calmly shattered as if he were discussing Scanran behavior patterns. No, she hadn't exactly clung to her belief in the gods during her years away, but they'd always been in the back of her mind, and when things had been rough, she'd lifted her worries to them in prayer.

She opened her mouth to speak, but found it paper-dry. She swallowed several times and cleared her throat, then said, "Why?"

To his credit, he didn't pretend not to understand her. "Because events are coming that will need your understanding. Only your understanding, however," and his eyes carried clear warning. "The humans are not ready to know the truth of our existence yet. The Terrans, especially, will need us as the Mendari have us."

Kel nodded, and the room was again silent for several long moments. Finally she ducked her head and cleared her throat again, then said, "I think I need to be along for a while."

He said nothing, simply studying her for a handful of seconds. At last, he also nodded and stood. He hesitated briefly, but then the light flashed again, and he was gone.

Lower lip trapped between her teeth, Kel turned back to study her home. For long hours, the dim room was absolutely silent aside from the quiet hum of the ship at standby. Finally, as the sun dipped around the far side of the planet, the silence was broken by her quiet sobs.

It was the first time she'd cried in nearly three years.

xxxxx