A wondering moan of relief and hope escaped Darllanyu's lips, and Jindigar returned his attention to his Formulator. //We want to hold at this level—the very urge to go on is the power we need to summon Eithlarin. Zannesu?//
//I've never Received anything from within the Oliat before.//
Zannesu had been thrust into an Office beyond his training, hut he was already resonating to Dar's Renewal, straining after Eithlarin, who, frustratingly, was not responding.
//May 1 show him the inner Reception?// asked Llistyien,
and, at Jindigar's assent, Emulated a Receptor focused inward at the Oliat while at the same time Receiving externally as Zannesu was Receiving Eithlarin.
Barely breathing, Zannesu aligned with Llistyien, and suddenly the Oliat lost all external awareness except for the narrow thread of Krinata's human senses. Llistyien shifted to Emulating Renewal—which was hardly necessary considering her own condition. Krinata gasped. Jindigar's glands pulsed. Venlagar groaned. Zannesu emitted an uninhibited mating cry that somehow harmonized between the shaleiliu hum and the Eithlarin link static.
It built faster than Jindigar ever dreamed possible. He never knew how he found the fortitude to focus them outward to Eithlarin. //Protector! Danger!//
And she responded.
Eithlarin, biological instincts a mere memory to her disembodied psyche, nevertheless strained toward her mate, fending off Llistyien and Darllanyu as if they were rivals.
The linkages shuddered with forces wholly unsuited to the* Oliat channels, building until the linkages wobbled and quivered, like out-of-tune whule strings interfering instead of making music.
Eithlarin stirred, eyes fluttering open. Zannesu checked his automatic step toward her, and hovered, Receiving her totally. She turned toward him, her linkages into the Oliat strengthening as the Oliat pattern itself blurred with the vast energies surging through them. Zannesu tore at his shirt collar, his glands engorged.
Darllanyu took two steps toward Jindigar, reaching for his neck with fingers that offered tender relief. The energy built, destabilizing the Oliat instead of Dissolving it, wiping away the shaleiliu hum. But there was no way he could stop it. Whatever happened now, happened.
Suddenly the linkages prickled with human surprise. Jindigar flicked a glance at Krinata, and his gaze locked with hers. His breath caught in his throat as he saw himself through her perception, tall shadow within shadow against searing whiteness, vast, commanding, powerful, mysterious, and forbidden. Wanted but forbidden.
She closed her eyes and thrust a question along the linkages together with a faint sound that grew rapidly. //What's that?//
"Natives!" It was Trinarvil's voice, carrying to them from outside where she stood on the Temple porch, and she yelled the warning. "We're under attack!" An alarm bell began to toll.
And then they all heard it. It was a howling, chattering babble, stretching from their very porch into the far distance. Trinarvil ran back through the portal and turned as if to fend off an attack. Six shadowy forms boiled from the entry way. Hardly pausing, they knocked Trinarvil over. A mob of shadows erupted out of the doorway. They headed straight for the worldcircle as if they could sense it.
With every step one of the outsiders took the circle dimmed. Their footsteps took on a vague luminescence. Then, as the vanguard reached the circle, it shimmered and smeared out until the whole floor was permeated with Phanphihy's energy, just like the rest of the world.
The subtle hint of Dushaun that had held them in attunement with Phanphihy vanished.
Heedless of the stunned Oliat Officers, the intruders charged onto the spot where the circle had been, jostling the officers this way and that. Sobering waves of shock washed through the Oliat. Buffeted by howling Natives, Zannesu staggered, catching sight of two huge shadows smashing into Eithlarin. As if waking from paralysis, he let out a roar that set the roof beams vibrating and dived across to Eithlarin, grabbed her off the elevated platform, and rolled away from the attackers.
Jindigar's link to Eithlarin stretched tight, draining all the energy in the links. Then it snapped with a sudden finality—, everything that was Eithlarin fleeing the one nightmare she could not tolerate, break-in. She vanished as if she had never been.
Eithlarin was dead before they hit the floor.
The shock of the snapped link to their Protector hit them hard. Jindigar, as Center, took the brunt of it but couldn't prevent it from going through him to all the others. Without his volition his body staggered toward Darllanyu, compelled by pure, physical need to protect her. But she was surrounded -by Natives stamping and howling in a frustrated war dance. His knees buckled, and he dropped to all fours amid a forest of legs. Feebly he groped for the linkages to shut down the channel to Krinata. He had to protect her from the Dissolution shock.
He was hardly aware of the room filling with frantic bodies, barely conscious of the reek of unwashed Native hive-dwellers, the most intelligent four-species symbionts in the galaxy.
"Jindigar!" Two gentle hands shook Krinata. Dushau hands. "Jindigar, listen. Call me to Protector! Jindigar! I can do it! I have the attunement!"
He forced his eyes open against the crashing pain in his head, his spine, the searing spasms of his internal organs. His senses were raw, as if flayed of every protection. The dim room was too bright, the babble deafening, the odor paralyzing. Hands scrabbled at his skin, feet kicked at him. And it was all alien, too alien.
"Jindigar! I have the attunement. Take me to Protector!" It was Trinarvil shaking Krinata. He needed Trinarvil. The Oliat needed her. He put his hands out to her and called weakly, //Protector!//
The protests from the others came only as silent agony. They had lost attunement, the world turning into an infinite, formless menace. And they couldn't let go of Eithlarin.
Zannesu crouched over a lifeless hulk. Eithlarin's presence was gone—simply gone.
//Trinarvil! Protector!// repeated Jindigar with grim determination. She turned to him, put her hands out in response, and answered steadily, //Center.//
He forged the link to her, following the line that relieved the crashing, stunning pain. Weakness enveloped him, and he lay curled on his side, panting helplessly. But the Oliat steadied as if of its own accord. A new note had been added, deep, calm, vibrantly alive, and stable beyond belief, reasonably at home here. This was maturity.
The texture, complexion, and identity of the Oliat changed then, as it must with each change in officers.
Trinarvil Protected. Gradually understanding replaced helpless horror, inducing attunement in them once again. It wasn't hard. They'd only lost it momentarily.
Jindigar expanded their awareness. The room was filled with unwashed bodies, stinking of fear and flight. Weapons flashed in the last flickers of the dying fire in the pit at the other end of the room. The Native hive's warriors brandished spears, hatchets, and other throwing tools. They were of medium size, covered with a heavy winter pelt, and favored traveling on all fours, apelike. Their upper pair of limbs branched at the elbow into one forearm with a hand at the end of it, and another with a paw with retractile claws. Their main clothing was their weapons harnesses.
Among them were a few of the rustlemen, as Krinata had dubbed them. They were the most intelligent of the hive-dwellers, evolved from the predatory rustlebirds. They were covered with the quasi-feathers or evolved scales that caused the rustling sound when they moved. They stumped about the unfamiliar space of the room trying to bring the warriors to order with piercing screeches and gestures. Several of the rustlemen carried on their shoulders the little, carapaced hive-binders, the telepaths of the hive who created the hive's group mind and defended it.