Legends of Lemuria

Chapter 2: Nadika-2

Letting go of the lifetime of work she'd devoted to keeping “Bentota World” operating in anticipation of their return, work that she'd started even as a toddler barely able to hold herself upright as she teetered away from her mother's knee.

Nadika recalled feeling disconsolate like this only once before, when her mother left and her father tried to explain to a three-year-old what death was, and why sometimes people had to leave and couldn't come back. By the time she was five, Nadika had finally understood that her mother wasn't coming back, and that's when she'd wept, disconsolate, much as she was doing now.

Because the Lemurians weren't coming back.

Even at five years old, Nadika had known loss, and she had turned her attention to the amusement park, much to her father's relief. She realized now, at age twenty-two, why she had thrown herself so assiduously into the work of maintaining Bentota World.

Because if she worked hard enough, the Lemurians would come back.

And might bring her mother with them.

Sam's arms were strong and solid around her, but Nadika couldn't be consoled, because if the Lemurians weren't coming back, then neither was her mother.

* * *

The stars were bright above them, the Crab Nebula looking more like a burst cocoon than a crab from within its raveled edges. Nadika had always wondered why they called it that.

Hours had passed since Sameera had joined Nadika on the promontory. A chill wind had just picked up, the breeze not cold, but Nadika hadn't eaten since noon, and except for Sam's arms, she had little to protect her from the chill.

“Your father will be worried about you,” Sam said.

Nadika nodded. “And your parents about you.”

“I'm glad you're all right,” came the soft voice of her father. He stood at the base of the promontory, his approach having been silent. “May I speak with you, Child?”

Alone, Nadika knew. “Of course. It's time for Sam to go anyway.” She stood and helped him up, then adeptly climbed down to her father.

“I'm so sorry, Nadika. I shouldn't have struck you. I feel terrible that I did that.”

She took his face in her palms. “Apology accepted. I feel terrible that you did that, too.” And she kissed him on the nose and pulled him to her. “But I understand. We've both been under strain lately.”

“And we have conclave tomorrow evening,” he said, sighing. “I just want to be a good host.” He looked up into the darkness. “You'll join us tomorrow evening, Young Sam?”

“Certainly will, your Excellency. Do you need us to arrive early to help with preparations?”

“You're certainly welcome to, and it would be a blessing to have it. Thanks for offering.”

“Oh, and Negomba Grove sends word,” Sam added. “They're in the middle of a bumper harvest and won't be able to come.”

Nadika felt her heart sink. She'd been looking forward to seeing her distant relatives—Governor Gayan Kitul, his wife Piyumi and their small clan—whom she hadn't seen in a whole year.

“I'm happy for their harvest but sad they won't be here for the gathering.”

“So you can show off your exemplary daughter.”

Her father grinned at her and nodded. “That too. I'm so proud of you, Nadika.”

She smiled, the cold night air no match for the warmth he instilled in her. “Thank you, Father.” She wrapped herself in his arms.

“We'll see you then, Sameera.”

Nadika waved to Sam as he departed, grateful and wishing she could have at least hugged him. Her father would have frowned upon such behavior.

They walked back into Bentota World, the park more brilliant at night, lights adorning many of the attractions. She'd never seen it with all its lights working, and she could only imagine how magnificent it must have looked. She sighed, feeling helpless to restore the amusement park to its former glory.

As she slipped into bed that night, her belly full with the evening meal, and her father's soft snore coming from the other room, Nadika wondered how to live up to her father's difficult ideals and to keep Bentota World in good repair for the return of its original proprietors, the Lemurians.

I'll just have to do my best, she thought, drifting off to sleep.

* * *

With the guests to conclave had come the blind Seeress Dinithi Talava, who strolled through the central square behind the Governor of Samuta Island, himself an august guest who'd traveled more than a hundred miles to attend. Despite his outlandish dress of flowered tunic and palm-frond breeches, it was she, the blind Seeress, who attracted the most notice. Because she walked with the confidence of the sighted.

“Governor Weligama,” the Seeress said, not quite looking at Nadika's father. “How kind of you to host the conclave this year.”

Nadika watched from over her father's shoulder, scrutinizing the old woman's face.

Like Nadika and her father, Dinithi Talava was bronze-skinned, but her hair was a shock of gray, pulled back in a bun, just a few wirelike strands loose at her ears. Most remarkable were the eyes: White balls that sparkled in the sunlight, like crystal, without pupil or iris, which stared directionlessly at the world, perfect orbs without variation to their surface in either texture or color, not even the faint red lines of blood vessels. And down her left cheek was a livid scar from cheek to chin, the tissue a deep burgundy.

“The honor is all mine, Seeress Talava,” her father replied. “We are all honored that you have graced our conclave with your presence.”

“It is a small thing I do compared with the devotion you and your daughter have given to Bentota World. I see she's grown now and flowering beautifully. Child Nadika, let me see how you've grown. Join me for a time, would you? Walk with me awhile, my child.”

Nadika was somewhat taken aback by the Seeress's familiarity, but found she couldn't resist the easy charm and radiant smile. She stepped instantly to the older woman's side.

Seeress Talava put her hand to Nadika's cheek. The head moved back and forth as though the eyes examined her face. “Beautiful, indeed. What lucky man will win your heart? Ah, but your commitment to your work has given you little respite to consider such affairs, hasn't it? Come with me, Nadika, and let's get acquainted.”

She fell into step beside the shorter, stouter woman. “Forgive me, Seeress Talava, but you talk as if we've met before.”

“Call me Dini, Dear. And yes, we have, although you were knee-high to that gnome over there, and ten times as cute. You probably don't remember.”

Nadika strolled beside Dini across the square, the other guests parting for them as though for royalty. “Father never mentioned you, which seems a shame, given your grace and aplomb.”

“As honey-tongued as your mother, it seems,” Dini said, patting her arm, the face tilted upward, the gaze seeming to scan the skies. “Of course, it may be that he was having too difficult a time then, just before your mother joined Fallah in Paradise.”

Nadika remembered her mother quite clearly, and was sure that she'd have remembered Dini as well, if she had met her. Nadika's memory was too good for that.

“As well you don't remember me,” Dini said, “for it would've been a memory thick with sadness. But let us not talk of the past. Let's talk about your future.”

Nadika was puzzled. “My future? What interest might one as distinguished as yourself have in the future of a waif like me?”

Dini smiled. “I foresee a great but difficult future for you, Nadika.” The Seeress stopped abruptly and turned Nadika toward her, the white glass balls searching Nadika's face.

She felt the probe to her soul.

“Change comes, and with it opportunity. A challenge awaits, one that's as exhilarating as it will be frightening. Dilemmas will tear your soul asunder, and you will carry the burden of responsibility for a great many people. You are our future, and whatever else happens, I bid you to hold onto hope. This—” she might have glanced around, if she'd had eyes “—is chimera and ultimately it will vanish into the mist. But you, Nadika, you will be remembered for a hundred generations.” Dini turned and began walking again.

Nadika followed, feeling inadequate to a task that had yet to manifest. This is the Seeress, she reminded herself. What cataclysms she sees, what catastrophes she knows, she cannot reveal.

“Perhaps I've said too much,” Dini said. “The curse of the Seeress is that any warning I issue will change the course of what's to come. For you, Nadika, that simply means that you must embrace your future, for it will greet you whether your arms are open to it, or not. Now, if you would, child, lead me to the food, for somehow, my eyes have failed me.”

* * *

“Will the Lemurians return, Seeress Talava?” the girl asked. She looked to be twelve or thirteen, the nascent breasts and the slight widening at the hips hinting at the promise of an incipient womanhood.

Nadika looked at Dini.

Quiet had spread, whispers seeping through the crowd at the girl's question, each whisperer falling silent to strain for the answer.

Dinithi Talava had a long line of supplicants, come to hear the Seeress's pronouncements upon their futures, each desiring a glimpse of prosperity but dreading any augur of misfortune. But her face was impassive at the girl's question, the first question to draw anything less than a beaming smile.

Dini's face turned slightly left, then slightly right. The chin lifted a touch. The livid scar on her cheek grew purple. The face returned to the girl. Without pupils, Dini's eyes were difficult to track.

Nadika never quite knew what she was looking at.

“The child Anjali Hukara asks a question that weighs so heavily upon most of us that we quail at asking anything similar, lest we have our hopes crushed. Instead, the young among us who have yet to find a mate want to know, 'Will I meet him or her whom I so desire?' Those with families ask, 'Will the harvest be bountiful and the woods generous in bringing meat to our table?' ” Dini's head moved left to right, her low voice reaching far back to the plaza edges, her audience entranced. “We pray the more fervently for the blessings of now, in the face of a lessening certainty that Lemuria will grow strong once again and bring our struggling world back into fold of humanity.”

Her jaw grew tense, and then her face turned to the sky. “Throughout my lifetime, I too have held this question in my heart, both because I have asked it of myself, and because it has been asked of me many times, as by the child Anjali before me today.

“I answer not lightly, as it holds for us an importance second only to the meaning of life and the ascension of our souls to Paradise when this life is done.

“I am reminded of our prophet and savior, Mohammed, who wandered among us and called us to prayer. He beseeched us to believe that Paradise is at hand. The Kingdom of Fallah is upon us, he declared. And so I believe it is with Lemuria.

“The Empire of Lemuria is upon us, I declare, for we are like lambs lost in the wilderness, without a shepherd for this past millennium, and in our wanderings, we wouldn't know a shepherd if one were among us, so faded has our memory become of what it's like to behold a Lemurian.

“How do we know one is not already among us?

“Therein lies the lesson that the Prophet would have us learn, that the Kingdom of Fallah has always been upon us, and that the Empire of Lemuria is with us now.