Tell No One

Tell No One.

Chapter 9

Blending in with the group of warriors was easy enough, especially when many of them looked the same, each bearing a slight change to their armour make up depending on age or rank. Hul Rapuung found himself silently praising the fact he had not shed his own armour after returning from his post earlier that day. He could join the squad relatively unnoticed amongst the chaos – and he hoped to the gods that Vua Rapuung was not the source of said commotion. Inside the damutek, warriors were breaking off into small hunting parties, several of them homing in on the personal chambers of the lower ranking shaper adepts and initiates.

The warrior’s commander stood overseeing it all in the main, central most chamber. His broad sloping forehead and squarely set shoulders giving him the appearance of one who held a great deal of superiority about himself, yet even he genuflected when he was approached by another. This other was one of the eldest Yuuzhan Vong Hul Rapuung had ever laid eyes on, he moved as though each step brought him great pain in doing so – yet he displayed none of it in expression, nor did he give voice to his discomfort – and even his headdress moved in sharp, stiff movements as if crippled by age it’s self.
Most curiously, this shaper bore two masters hands instead of the usual one, no doubt a sign of his prestigious rank among his caste.
Hul Rapuung could not hear what the elderly shaper and the commander were saying above the noise of raised voices and cries of outrage, despair, but the conversation seemed heated enough.

As if the gods had shone divine light down upon Hul for his idle wondering, the commander across the way fixed him with a cold, hard glare. Beckoning him forward with one short, sharp jerk of a gnarled hand, Rapuung had little choice but to comply. As he drew closer, it became clear to him that the commander recognized him as more than just a simple warrior from his designated squad. Hul Rapuung could hardly hide the marks emblazoned on his skin, nor could he disguise the implants upon his shoulders that identified him as a commander of equal rank.

“What is your purpose here?” The commander inquired, looking Rapuung up and down as if to access if what he was seeing was actually real. He had no need to address an equal by any title nor name, it was – Rapuung knew – a great insult.

Hul offered no sign of rebuttal, nor did he offer any salute upon his reaching a respectable distance away, instead he too scrutinized the commander closely, his prominent scarring identified him as a member of the respected domain Lah. Arrogance was to be expected then. However, Hul Rapuung could not state his real reason for being here and his causing an argument over such an insult would result in drawing more suspicion than was necessary. A lie then, that would have to do.
He raised his chin proudly.
“Some of my warriors are stationed here, I was not notified of any such activities.”

The commander’s eyes narrowed to thin obsidian slits, his nose ridge wrinkled in a half snarl,
“There has been a report of heresy taking place within this damutek, why has it gone undiscovered by your warriors?”

Hul Rapuung returned the snarl with the contempt it truly deserved,
“I am a warrior, not a shaper, I would not sully my hands with that which does not concern me.”

The shaper standing silently next to the other commander seemed contented with this answer at least, those peculiar yellow eyes of his seeming to analyse Rapuung carefully, his calm expression still betraying nothing of his thoughts. The warrior of domain Lah, however, did not look in the slightest bit satisfied.
“Heresy should concern us all, lest you wish to lose favour with the gods?!” He spat viciously.

The elderly shaper interceded before Hul Rapuung had a chance to escalate the situation further, his hand outstretched, arm trembling in anger as he pointed the way to a singular passage that was set apart from the other branches of the sprawling damutek’s interior.

“In the shal at the end of that passage, you will find the master of this damutek, Mezhan Kwaad.” The shapers no nonsense attitude was apparent from the moment he had first uttered spoken word, “You will bring her to me.”

Hul Rapuung did not like the manner in which the shaper had spoken, but in order to keep up the façade he would need to go along with this. If indeed he was the commander of the warriors stationed here, such orders and requests would need to be accepted – no matter how much it made him wish to lash out.
Rapuung bowed, indicating his understanding of the order yet still not acknowledging the contemptibly irksome commander of domain Lah. He turned on a heavily booted heel and stalked away, anger still boiling beneath the surface of his otherwise calm resolve.

*****

His words still rang in her years sending a cold trail of guilt straight through her frost-lined heart.
‘What have you done?’
For a moment, Mezhan Kwaad had gaped, caught in the trap with the threat and memory of guilt it’s self, shame, unable to draw breath, tendrils flailing in confusion - all symptoms of a deep rooted anxiousness she sought to rid herself of before it consumed her completely. For all would be lost if she let it.
She had to keep her composure, she should not be torn like this.
Finally able to breathe, the shaper took several slow, deep breaths and then gathered the strength she so desperately required.
“I did what I had to,” It was no answer in all honesty, and the warrior before her would know it.

In Vua Rapuung’s eyes she could still see the anger burning brightly, but it was more of a front now, hiding what it was he truly wanted to say, what he really wanted to do, perhaps out of suspicion or something more, this much her shapers talents could not tell her. Organic memories were chemical, could be changed, implanted, but memories in the making could not be predicted – not even by those as well versed in the shaping arts as Yal Phaath.
Not even by the heretics.

Rapuung reached towards her, large hands gripped her upper arms and he pulled her gently towards him, grip loosening to form an embrace around her, an embrace she gladly melted into – as if this alone could wash away the acrid stain of what she had done.
Looking up at him, her eyes seemed less bright than they had days earlier, weary, silently pleading with him to cease his questioning of her and he would gladly oblige. His questions were not why he was here.
Arms wrapped around her protectively, he observed those eyes a moment longer as if he could lose himself forever in those deep green pools, and never again need to be caught in the constant restraint caused by fear of discovery. He crushed his lips against hers, tasting her sweetness, their forbidden love. Feeling her respond in passionate kind, he deepened their kiss, tongue moving between her lips, becoming lost in the moments tantalizing sensations he wished would never end. It was in moments like this, he felt as thought time it’s self stopped, nothing else mattered but he and her – why couldn’t it be like that forever? Why should they be forced to hide? But of course he knew why, and that had been the hardest, relentless agony to bear all along.

Mezhan Kwaad drew back to look upon him, the sadness-tinged weariness in her eyes had not diminished, merely relaxed slightly.
“You should go, if they find you here – “ She began only to be cut off by softly spoken words of reassurance,

“The gods would not let that happen.”

His words stung her like the boiling caress, even now he still clung to his beliefs – after everything that had transpired between them, would he never let that go? Mezhan Kwaad feared not.

Anger spawned by a deep rooted sadness and frustration filled every corner of her mind with such an intensity, she felt her blood warm and the sublime blue beneath her eyes darken in accordance to her emotion unspoken.
“The gods do not – “ the shaper stopped herself on the brink of oblivion, if everything she had said or done could not cause him to so much question hid faith, what chance would there be for her declaration, really? No amount of ritual cleansing nor time spent in contemplation would allow her to escape from that scathing fact, it burned deeper than any scarification ever could.
She loved Vua Rapuung, and for the first time to date she was confronted with both that stark fact and a choice. She could go on living this lie, being forced to keep her lover in the dark about the true nature of her work, of her beliefs, keeping all that and their secret too, from prying eyes. Or she could tell Rapuung everything and risk losing him, losing her life’s work, knowing at the end of it all he would hate her and all she stood for.
Everything Mezhan Kwaad had done as a shaper had always been cut and dry, but this warrior blurred the lines she had drawn between personal life and her life’s work long ago. Of course she wanted him to stay, but to do so would damn them both.

“The gods do not?”
Vua Rapuung was looking at her now with a naïve curiosity untameable. Warriors asked much, took much and gave little but unassured victory in return. It was not his fault he was ignorant to the ways of shapers.

“It was a misstep in words, nothing more – I am weary, it has been a disturbed cycle.” Mezhan Kwaad said as she forced her tendrils into restless curls, attempting to betray her all too real restlessness apparently enough for him to take notice.

Something mischievous sparkled in Vua Rapuung’s eyes then,
“Not nearly weary enough,” he said in a suggestive tone that left just enough to the imagination to make Mezhan Kwaad smile with amusement.

“That was subtle, for one of your caste,” She praised, despite the nagging worry at the back of her troubled mind.

Vua Rapuung looked momentarily confused,
“You would prefer me to be less subtle?”

The warriors’ rather proudly lustful gaze did not waver, yet Mezhan Kwaad was certain she heard genuine curiosity tainting his tone this time, along with the suggestion. He had drawn her close again now, close enough for him to be out of focus when a wry thought played across the shapers mind like divine inspiration. The shaper could feel the warriors’ breath falling in slow, shallow breaths against her lips temptingly,

“Perhaps,” she mused mock-idly, running the spurred thumb of her shapers hand down his muscular arm just light enough to breath the skin,
“But not here.”

The reference to their first meeting had been entirely intentional, there was more than one way to get him through the adjoining membrane to her personal shaping chamber, she was only disappointed that she would not be able to make good of her own suggestion.

*****

Hul Rapuung hurried down the long, unintersected passageway just far enough to be out of sight and earshot of those still gathering in the main vestibule of the damutek. If Vua Rapuung was around here, he had covered his tracks as well as Hul would have expected of him, there was no trace of his brother, nothing to suggest he had passed this way. Not so much as an ichor stained footprint, and yet he had to be here! There were no other entrance ways to this structure, such things were a security risk, it also helped contain the shapers in moments such as this, he thought with grim acknowledgement.
Perhaps this master shaper he had been asked to retrieve, would be able to enlighten him a little?

The end of the passage was separated into three sets of chambers, Hull Rapuung knew the first was nothing more than a basic waiting area, designed to hold emissaries from other castes, who bore news, supplies or had come to collect shaped resources. Thus with that in mind, stimulating the nerve bundle at the side of the entrance membrane allowed him to gain access unhindered, so far.

Feeling the slight exchange of warm, humid air pass him by as he stepped over the threshold, Hul paused momentarily when his attention was drawn to the sounds of movement in the chamber at the far wall.
Hushed voices, barely noticeable if it were not for the occasional loud word every so often, could be heard through the fleshy membrane’s boundary.
The shaper had company then?
A little odd for the late hour, but who was he to question those so close to the gods?

Drawing in a deep lung-full of humid air, Hul Rapuung allowed the amphistaff he carried to slither down from it’s resting place about his arm, to form a rigid staff at his hand. Rising upwards, staff in hand, he brought the pointed ‘tail’ of the weapon down to bear on the tough organic surface of the membrane’s centre. A dull squishing sound issued upon impact, the membrane shivered slightly and dark blood began to ooze from the wound inflicted, but it did not move. It took several hacks to pierce the surface enough to make the creature that comprised the entrance to eventually quiver and retract in pain.

Rapuung stepped over the next threshold quickly in one fluid movement, so as not to catch the creature in death-spasm. Firmly on the opposite side, he fixed his steely gaze upon the chamber’s soul occupant – a striking master shaper, with sparking green maa’it implants turned upon him in a certain reserved, silent surprise. Her headdress, a stunning shade of sublime dark-blue, coiled up and down in what he supposed was a display of curiosity. Nearing the edges of youth as she appeared to be, she had drawn herself up into a haughty posture that Hul Rapuung would have thought more fitting if displayed by one of her adepts, but the outrage he saw developing in her eyes was enough to tell him it would be unwise to utter such observations.

“Master Mezhan Kwaad?” The warrior demanded rather than asked, gaze travelling down her arm to where her eight fingered master’s hand was hanging idle for the meanwhile, but her intent to perhaps use it in the offensive was still blatant in the way her fingers twitched subtly every so often.
“I am” She informed, her tone firm, precise.

“You have been summoned, you will come with me.” He regretted he had not asked the other shaper for their name, she would certainly resist until she knew it, wouldn’t she?

Instead Hul Rapuung was surprised by the way she stared coldly and uncaringly at him, as if the shaper has been caught in an unseen delayed shock.

“And you are?” She asked in a particularly condescending tone that irked Hul Rapuung to the point where he issued a small growl of reproach.

This was pointless, but if he wished to gain knowledge from her, the most expedient way would be to answer the questions she may put to him.
“Commander Hul Rapuung” He uttered amid the remains of the earlier growl, noting the faintest flicker of recognition crossing the shapers ritually adorned features – She knew that name?
Hul quashed the triumphant spark trying to ignite the truth within him, he was just stabbing blindly in the dark and hoping he would hit an answer now – she could have simply known of him, this did not mean she knew where Vua Rapuung was, nor why he was here. But someone had to.

It was nigh on impossible to enter a shaper damutek unnoticed and this shaper had not been alone before he had gained access to this chamber either. In the time that it had taken for him to hack his way through the membrane sealing him from sight, there would have been plenty of time for someone to retreat into the furthest chamber at the shaper’s back.
“What is through there?” Rapuung queried suspiciously, stabbing a clawed finger in the direction of the ovoid membrane at the far side of the chamber.

Mezhan Kwaad’s tendrils jerked back awkwardly, suddenly,
“I thought that I had been ordered to go with you?”

Clearly she was reluctant to answer any questions he might have after all. Hul was about to demand that she answer, when the shaper decided to furnish the answer regardless.

“That is my sleeping chamber, nothing more.”

Curious, Hul thought, steepling his fingers in pensive gesture while the amphistaff returned to it’s coiled position about his right arm. There had to be another shaping chamber through there, no shaper of her rank would dare the wrath of the gods and invite company to her private chambers to attempt the only form of shaping that was forbidden to ones of her rank. What heresy was this?!

“Who else is here, I heard voices before I entered this chamber, you have another here.” His words were a barely decipherable, guttural growl.

Mezhan Kwaad responded in a most baffling manner to that accusation, actually chuckling coldly at the audacity of Hul Rapuung’s words as if to discredit them all together. But of course she would try that. The irony of the whole situation would be lost on the commander however, if this had not been so serious, perhaps he’d even have found it amusing himself.

“Are all those of your domain so insolent?” she quipped, the tips of her headdress flicking out as if to punctuate her words with every movement.

Just as she watched the rage rising within Hul Rapuung’s facial expression, she produced from her cloakskin the leathery brown knot of a villip. Cupping the hand-sized biot in her one true hand, she offered the warrior a knowing smile,
“You have come to bring me to master Yal Phaath, you are doing so on the grounds of heresy.” Her eyes darkened intensely to near black, “Heresy I reported.”

Hul Rapuung took a cautious step back, as if he expected her to retaliate through force for his insulting assumptions. He had little time to contemplate this further as the shaper continued,

“When you arrived, I was conversing with my superiors on this matter, your abrupt entrance interrupted me.”

Despite it all, the warrior still did not appear abashed.
‘It runs in the family’ Mezhan Kwaad thought with a flicker of amusement. And on that thought, she should not give him too much time to think, lest he find error with her hasty little half-lies.
“Lead on commander, time – I fear – is slipping through our fingers.”

The warrior shifted heavily on his feet, something was not right about this, the shaper seemed too at ease in his presence, it was a confidence that was exceptionally arrogant, considering what was allegedly going on inside her damutek, and it was far too relaxed. It was, he thought, as though she had known what was to come.
Rapuung had no more time to contemplate it, the commander and shaper back at the central chamber would be expecting them to return swiftly, he had wasted enough time here already and the sooner he was done with this, the sooner he could resume his search for Vua.

“We leave” he agreed gruffly.

The short walk to the main chamber was a silent one, broken only by the ever increasing sounds of commotion going on in other parts of the damutek. Hul Rapuung dare not pose his questions now, this close to others he would give away the real reason for his being here. Mezhan Kwaad’s silence was expected, she would give nothing away, he wagered, probably not even on pain of death. That at least, was admirable, she carried herself well, even when the disapproving glare of Yal Phaath fell upon her with enough severity to make Hul Rapuung wonder if the shapers days were numbered.

Yal Phaath’s headdress curled back in contemptible distaste as he addressed the slender female before him, yellow gaze unwavering.
“Pray that you are correct in your accusations Mezhan Kwaad, it will be my pleasure to offer your life in payment should my adept return empty handed.”

Mezhan Kwaad inclined her head, hiding the sly smirk she felt play across her lips from view as she did so. Her intention had been to mock with this small gesture anyway.
“Your adept will not be disappointed ancient.” She offered quietly, stilling her tendrils with but a thought, she should not appear over confident.

“That” he replied tersely, “remains to be seen.”

The chambers’ occupants fell into an uneasy silence that even Hul Rapuung found disconcerting. Every so often, he would catch a glimpse of the female shaper’s incandescent green gaze flickering in his general direction, as soon as he noticed this, she would averts that gaze as quick as a nang-hul took flight. What was it she found so fascinating? She knew something, he was certain of it.

The sounds of frantic struggling and cries of outrage filled the air around the chamber, issuing from a side passage. Through one of the chamber’s junctures, two warriors dragged a young male shaper adept who was persistently thrashing in his captors grasp to hinder them more so. His hands were bound and covered by a creature resembling a much smaller version of the ganadote storage creature – no doubt to prevent any nasty ‘accidents’ occurring with those hands of his. The adept persisted to struggle, shouting angered but futile pleas of innocence to those who had captured him.
Behind the trio, at a suitable distance, walked another adept who Mezhan Kwaad acknowledged as being one of Yal Phaath’s own. The adept walked towards and stood beside his master, just as the warriors flung the other struggling shaper down at the feet of their commander. Face down in the seeping ichor, that had begun to encroach on the damutek’s floor surface, the adept coughed and attempted to rise, at which point the commander placed a foot heavily on the young shapers back, forcing him back down again, pinning him where he lay.

“This is a mistake! I have only ever been devoted to – “ He had managed to choke out before the huge commander had repositioned his spur-booted foot across the back of the adept’s neck.

“Silence heretic, lest you wish to be returned to the gods in more dishonour than that with you will receive!”

The adept looked up as far as he could pinned this way, anger and defiance burned in his eyes, that was until his scathing gaze shifted to regard the others he could see present, only stopping when he caught sight of Mezhan Kwaad. In that brief moment, barely more than the blink of an eye, Hul Rapuung was certain he’d seen relief in the young shaper’s eyes.
“Master! Command them! Tell them their accusations are false!” The adept cried in pitiful hope. And it was, Mezhan Kwaad thought, a fool’s hope.

She gave no response, gave no indication that she had heard the young shaper’s words at all. Instead her own gaze was directed at Master Yal Phaath, who had been busy examining several leaves of tissue samples along with the dead remains of a dweebit beetle, brought to him by his own adept. The elderly shapers yellow eyes grew wide with shock and then suddenly narrowed to mere slits before turning those maa’it’s too on Mezhan Kwaad.

“You are certain these were found in the chambers of adept Yakun Kwaad?” He asked the adept beside him, not moving his line of sight from Mezhan’s form.

The adept genuflected accordingly and nodded in stark response,
“Yes master, it was as reported.”

Yal Phaath’s expression grew deadly suspicious, his gnarled and wrinkled visage twisting into a picture of purest contempt,
“And you could find no trace of such samples having been handled or shaped by anyone other than this heretic?”

Mezhan Kwaad buried the urge to shift uncomfortably beneath the iciness of that stare, this was the only way, she reminded herself, Yakun Kwaad had known too much, known about her and Vua Rapuung! The heresy he may have kept to himself, but the affair he would have used as leverage, she had had no choice. He had said he too knew what it was like, to keep such secrets, but deception was not the soul domain of the priests and intendants. It, like Yun-Harla, took on many forms.

“I am certain.” The adept replied evenly.

Yal Phaath ground his teeth together in deliberation, his eyes growing distant and expression akin to one who had just lost sight of their quarry. But of course he would look that way, Mezhan Kwaad observed, he’d been so certain that it was she who had conducted heretical experiments within these walls, this was like rubbing hot ash into the wounds caused by her blatant and earlier insults. The elder shaper now turned his eyes upon her, seeking out her piercingly defiant gaze. Lips curled back to show sharpened and decaying teeth, he spat,
“It seems you are correct in your reports, Mezhan domain Kwaad.”

The female shaper gave little more than a tendrils’ twitch in acknowledgement, and as she did so, she saw Yakun Kwaad’s head snap round to fix her with a stare filled with painful realization and brutal betrayal.

The young shaper opened his mouth to speak, lips forming silent words that he appeared unable to give voice to. Trapped in his hateful glare, Mezhan Kwaad felt no guilt, no remorse- she had dealt with those the moment he had hit the floor, cold and unconscious from the mild poison she had injected into him. The moments during which she had dragged his limp form back to his quarters in secrecy and planted the samples on him with great care before issuing the antidote. He would have awoken to the sounds of the warriors’ terrible arrival, unaware of what they would find secreted upon his person. She had done this to protect the future of the heresy, he was too reckless, to open with his knowledge, he had come to her with such knowledge at great risk to himself and to her.
She had done this to protect Vua Rapuung and herself, no one could know about their secret and that meant in turn that she took risks of her own.
Yes, she told herself repeatedly, she had done the right thing.

A silent agreement passed between Yal Phaath and the commander opposite her, a life’s fate decided with one dismissive hand gesture. All seemed to fade into an incomprehensible blur then, the warriors who had dragged Yakun Kwaad before the commander, looked on expectantly for the order to follow, amphistaff’s hissing – venom beading upon their fangs – in anticipation.
Yakun Kwaad, in turn, made no attempt to shout words of defiance in his last moments, he continued to keep his disbelieving stare fixed on the instrument of his death – Mezhan Kwaad.
Even as the razor-sharp point of the amphistaff’s tail came down upon his skull to pierce the flesh and shatter the bone beneath, he did not break his gaze. Blood, black as the deep and endless void through with they travelled, began to spill from the wound, pouring in pulsing spillages about the still-writhing tentacles atop his head. Where the blood met barriers between roots of tendrils and scalp, it began to trickle in dark ribbons down the side of his face obscuring his view. He would not feel the follow up blows, the convulsions of his own body as his body failed him, nor the disgusted taunts of the warriors raining down punishment upon him. But he would, even in death, remember that face – the face of the one who had granted him this dishonourable death.

Mezhan Kwaad watched as the light faded from the adepts’ eyes still his gaze was cast in her direction as the warriors finished their bloody task. The being that was Yakun Kwaad was gone, but his eyes now observed her with a cold and fateful promise reserved for the dead alone. Inwardly the shaper repressed a deep shudder, she had witnessed such things before, but to have turned it on one of her own domain – it cut a little close to the bone.
“Take him,” She managed, though her voice sounded dry and hoarse, “I do not want any trace of his heresy to contaminate this damutek any longer than it already has!”

The commander standing opposite chopped his head once in the affirmative, issuing the sharp order for his squad to reform and leave, taking the now ngdin-littered corpse of the shaper adept with them. He would be disposed of in the maw luur like a shamed one, denied any death rights a true caste Yuuzhan Vong would have had, he could rest assured that his disposal provided the ship with sustenance at the very least.

Yal Phaath remained in the chamber only long enough to cast Mezhan Kwaad a cautionary glare, he would watch her more closely in the klekkets to follow. When he too had turned to leave, she was surprised - and truthfully, unnerved – to find Hul Rapuung still standing beside her unmoving.

“You remain.” A spoken mental observation on the part of the shaper rather than anything else.

Hul Rapuung nodded once, but he continued to watch the throngs of departing warriors as he spoke,
“He was of your own domain, will you not suffer as a result?”

Mezhan Kwaad’s maa’it’s seemed to glimmer as though his words had just roused her from a deep reverie. She clasped both hands in front of her carefully, the tendrils of her headdress curling round to tentatively kneed her scalp.
“We must look to the gods, redouble our efforts as a domain and offer more in sacrifice in the cycles to follow to prove that we have not become tainted also.” She replied softly, though inwardly it made her bristle with irritation to sound so lowly.

Hul Rapuung seemed satisfied with the answer, but still he lingered. He still had questions of his own that needed answering, ones he could not have asked until now – perhaps this was the most expedient time of asking too? Mezhan Kwaad was almost certainly preoccupied with her thoughts concerning what had just transpired here.

“I remain as I have yet a task to complete,” He began as he sought the words, the shaper was already turning away, “The true reason I came here…”

Mezhan Kwaad shuffled to an abrupt standstill at his last words, her tendrils actually froze for a split second as all rational thought abandoned her. He was not with the hunting party?
He had come alone –

The familiar painful prickling sensation shot through her shapers hand, cumulating tensely at the tips of her multi-implemented fingers. Mezhan Kwaad braced herself for the warriors’ next words.

“Where is Vua Rapuung?”