Kirlian Quest Read Online Free Page A

the potent fringe of his aura touched her. /To die is unfortunate, Smallbore. To die without meaning is tragedy./
    She made a sandy sigh. ::Oh, lay down your card!::
    He shook the deck in his front tongs, shuffling it, and flipped out a random card. The mica-thin leaf landed face up on the floor between them.
    Smallbore considered it. ::A picture of three entities rising from a deep pit, beneath a representation of Galaxy Andromeda,:: she said. ::Oh, I know what that means! It is the Andromedan Council of Spheres summoning the Slash for judgment. See, the creatures don't want to come!:: There was a certain malice in her tone.
    But Herald accepted the slur against his sphere without rancor, having had a great deal of practice in this sort of thing. These cards had pictures, true, but the pictures served to evoke suppressed reactions, to dredge up interpretations that reflected the most fundamental concerns of those who considered them. The animus against Sphere Slash was very strong in Sphere Quadpoint, which was natural. The Bores of Metamorphic had performed an act bordering on ignominy when they summoned a Slash to heal their child.
    /You have guessed it, Smallbore. The card is yours. But do you know why the Slash are so poorly regarded?/
    ::They committed a crime against our Galaxy. They betrayed us to the enemy.::
    /Yes. That crime is known as the Curse of Llume. May I tell you our side of it?/
    ::Slash has a side?:: she asked incredulously.
    /Strange as it may seem, it does./
    ::Oh, all right,:: she said, pleased at her success in winning the card she didn't want ::We Quadpoints are enlightened sapients, after all.::
    Uh-huh. /In the time of the Second Energy War, a thousand years ago, there was an agent from Sphere Slash who, on the verge of success in her mission, renounced it and defected to the enemy galaxy, Milky Way, thereby enabling Melody of Mintaka to reverse the course of the war. The situation was very nearly saved by the fine general Hammer of Quadpoint.
    ::Hammer!:: she cried, recognizing the hero instantly. :: Admiral Hammer!::
    /This Slash agent was called 'Llume' because that was the local identifier of the Milky Way host she first took in Transfer. It was a Spican Undulant of Segment Etamin. Llume became enamored of Melody of Mintaka, whose aura was very like hers but almost as strong as mine. Thus she was the arch-traitor of Sphere Slash, just as another female Slash, whose name history has refused even to record, had been in the First War of Energy a thousand years before that. The sphere did not endorse the treachery of either female, but it nevertheless suffered the stigma of it, and the idea developed that the sapients of Slash were somehow traitorous by nature. Ever since, we have labored under that onus. The irony was, both females thought they were doing right, granting parity to the Milky Way so that it would not be destroyed. Llume prayed to the God of Hosts that Sphere Slash might one year redeem itself in honor./
    ::Didn't Andromeda seek to destroy the whole Milky Way?:: Smallbore seemed unaware that the thrust of her question had changed.
    /Andromeda merely sought to harvest the energy of the enemy galaxy for better purposes. That energy was needed to promote the level of civilization itself./
    ::At the price of sapiencide? I do not see that Llume was such a criminal, or that the sphere she represents is necessarily cursed. She sought a blessing! ::
    /Thank you, Smallbore./
    Startled, she sputtered sand for a moment ::You—I—you are from Sphere Slash?::
    /Yes./
    ::Is your aura like Llume's?::
    /Perceptive of you to guess that! Perhaps I shall have to give you my aura, like the card! Yes, it is like Llume's, and like Melody of Mintaka's, and perhaps like Flint of Outworld's too, at least in intensity./
    ::Then you must be the one to abate the Kirlian Curse!::
    /All things are possible, if unlikely. Would you like to trade places with me?/
    ::Never!::
    Herald reshuffled the deck,