Chapter 1
Levant
This was a miserable place to be. With a hiss of frustration, I lowered the multi-tool back down onto my workbench and considered my options.
Continuing with this project meant adding another thing to my pile of already mounting supplies to haul back once my exile was lifted.
Then again, I’d only been here a few months, and it wasn’t very likely my exile would be lifted soon.
Not until I came up with answers—and so far I had absolutely nothing.
My fingers twitched, and curiosity got the better of me.
Picking up the tool again, I leaned in close and studied my most recent find.
It was just a small machine, but it had six legs and a tail, along with a body that reminded me a bit of the Vakarsa of the plains.
Except this one was miniature. Tiny. It also reminded me of the Revenant creature that Corin had restored and kept as a companion and protector for his mate.
His robotic creature had been the talk of nearly every Shaman circle I’d been part of.
Well, if I couldn’t have my own human, perhaps I could have a Revenant friend for company.
I had to do something or I’d go completely stir-crazy.
Unlike many of my Shaman brothers and sisters, I was not very good at being alone.
I’d been assigned to the desert-dwelling Serqethos Clan for years and lived right on the edge of their village.
They were the only Clan for miles and miles, so that had made sense.
Most other Shaman, like my friend Artek, lived alone on the border between several Clans.
I’d always been grateful my life wasn’t like that, until the humans had arrived.
Seeing the lengths to which Cosima had gone for her mate, Zsekhet, had been eye-opening.
I was lonely, even living with a very enlightened, friendly, and party-loving Clan like the Serqethos.
My nights were lonely, and truthfully my days often were too, but having a devoted human mate like Zsekhet would change all that.
I swore, threw down the multi-tool once again with a howl of frustration, and spun away from the workbench inside my temporary home.
Now look at me, stuck on a frozen icecap with even less company than before.
Did I regret the actions that had led to my banishment?
No, not for a moment. Was I upset to be here?
Very much so. It felt unfair, and if only the Shaman Elders could see what the humans were really like, they never would have exiled me.
No amount of convincing, pleading, and begging had made them leave the Sacred Training Grounds to see Haven with their own eyes, unfortunately.
Artek, Corin, and I had all tried. Even Haven’s leader, Zathar, had given it a shot.
They were impressed with the budding civilization at Ahoshaga, the Naga-human settlement, but it hadn’t been enough.
I had disobeyed a direct order to help Artek save his mate, and that was unacceptable.
I hurled myself back and forth through the small living space, my tail flicking in agitation.
It was nice and warm inside the temperature-controlled tent, and I had plenty of food stored to see me through many more months.
It wasn’t a home, though, and it was beginning to feel claustrophobic.
That was only because being outside was so off-putting that I couldn’t extend my living space that way.
The tent had been my home since the moment I’d left the Training Grounds as a fresh new Shaman.
It was where I’d lived at Serqethos, and I’d packed it all up and taken it here when I’d been exiled.
I had everything; except a mate. A human of my own.
Fine, back to the strange miniature Varkasa, if I could keep my brain focused for more than two seconds.
I fiddled with the metal carapace and the strange fur that covered most of its back and tail.
The head was not furred but covered in something velvety soft, while the nose was cold as ice and smooth like a gem.
It was pinkish too, almost like a real Varkasa.
Whoever had built this device had done their best to make it look just like the real thing.
I’d found it frozen under the ice not far from where I currently camped, amid remnants of other items, though the ice had crushed and ground most of it to pieces.
The Varkarsa Revenant had been protected inside a strong metal lockbox of some kind.
The box sat next to my bed, opened from the wrong side of the thick lid.
I’d used a laser scalpel to cut through the hinges.
It wasn’t much of a surprise to find signs of our ancient civilization beneath the ice.
Still, this was at least the more exciting part of being here.
To dig through history and discover how our people used to live was part of the fun of being a shaman.
I knew things most Naga alive now could never even imagine.
Like the fact that the icecaps once resided in entirely different places on our planet.
I knew that because we, as Shamans, still knew our history.
When the calamity struck our planet and sent us back into an age without technology, it hadn’t been a single event; it had been several.
One of those was the shifting of our planet on its axis, not a huge amount, but even a little had been devastating enough.
The poles changed, and now the ice covered parts of our world that had once been inhabited.
I wondered who this little Varakarsa Revenant had belonged to.
A child? It looked like a toy, so that would make sense.
The Revenants we knew of now—the active ones—were huge, deadly machines of war, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t once built Revenants for much more benign purposes.
“Aha,” I exclaimed, because my pondering of the past had done what my earlier musings hadn’t: kept me focused long enough to make progress.
A panel came free from the belly of the little machine, and suddenly I was peering at its strange innards.
Cogs, wires, a power source, and slots to interface with my tablet—if I had the right connector.
Turning, I headed for a basket with cables and started rooting around until I found the one I needed, my belly full of anticipation.
This was it: a way to peer into the brain of one of these thinking machines and find out how they worked.
I’d just connected my tablet to the powered-down Revenant when an alarm went off.
That wasn’t good, not good at all. I peered at one of the viewscreens I had lined up on my desk, checking the readings carefully even though I was already certain of what I’d see.
A proximity alert, and one of many I’d been having since making camp in this location last week.
“Damn it,” I cursed. “If this is just another gust of snow, I’m going to be so pissed. ”
Dropping the tablet onto the workbench beside the tiny Varakarsa, I headed for the tent flaps.
I’d muted the alarm noises, but lights still flashed across the viewscreen in warning.
I slid my nictitating membranes shut against the glare as I began the arduous process of dressing warmly for the icy temperatures outside.
I was not cold-blooded, or moving outside would rapidly become nearly impossible, but even so, I needed to bundle up or risk losing a tail or a finger.
The temperatures were a bit extreme out there, unlike a good brisk winter back near Serqethos or Ahoshaga.
Tunic, coat, scarf, gloves, and several long segments of fur and leather to slide over my tail.
Often called tail warmers by younglings, I’d been forced to make the crude garments myself when I first arrived here.
I’d never known an adult Naga to wear them, and I kept feeling like an infant when I put them on.
It was not a good feeling, but it was unfortunately necessary.
At least there was no one here to see me in them.
Once I slid a fur hat and goggles onto my face, I was ready.
Still, when I lifted the flap to slide from the warm interior of the tent into the much cooler entrance area, I shook.
Exiting the second set of tent flaps to go outside was like getting slapped in the face.
The wind was whirling rapidly, tossing snow everywhere and obscuring my vision.
It wasn’t a snowstorm exactly, but it was bad, and very, very cold.
I really, really missed warm, sunny Serqethos, and if I could just be back there right now, I wouldn’t even long for a human mate.
The sensors were partially buried under the snow, and I had to dig them out each morning to make sure they functioned.
Then there were the more distant sensors I’d set up to seek the answers to the increasing EM field fluctuations on the planet of late.
That was one thing the Shaman Elders were definitely right about: it was getting worse, and whatever was causing it was coming from here.
Those distant sensors also needed daily maintenance, very frustrating.
I hated snow; I much preferred the silky, warm sands of the Serqethos Desert.
The sensor going off now was on the west corner of my tent, and I found it easily because I’d been doing this for three months by now.
What definitely wasn’t what I expected was the state of the sensor.
Though partially buried, it wasn’t covered yet, which could allow it to be tripped by particularly enthusiastic snow.
Except, it was sideways, and the pole I’d stuck into the snow was now crooked.
Much more disturbing than a bent, thumb-thick metal pole were the tracks in the snow beside it.