Garden of Embers: Beneath Devouring Eyes #2

Chapter 5, Part A

"The tendency of our tidally-locked world to develop hypercanes is notable. The dim but unrelenting rays of our sun render our day-side oceans vulnerable to excessive sea surface temperatures and cyclone formation. In the hands of nature, these cyclones, powered by the superheated sea, can grow so massive that they fail to dissipate after landfall, thus forming hypercanes. These monstrous storms, unimpeded, may then circle the planet forever. A well-functioning Trellis and well-trained Princeps Worldholder are therefore essential if we hope to prevent calamity here on Aquarius."

-- from Within and Without:
The Revised Model of Lattice Interactions
by Sedulus Trames

*~*~*~*

"A hypercane?" Merula asked, repeating the word Domi had just said. She paused in the curved corridor outside the dining chamber, frowning thoughtfully at his question. "No, I've never heard of it. Is that some kind of hurricane?"

"I don't know." The boy glanced over his shoulder back toward the skychamber attendants. "That short guy said he heard about it in the Caeles. A hurricane hit some city and people think it might turn into a hypercane."

"Sorry, kid, I don't know anything about that," his Ma said. "Can you look it up in the Caeles?"

"I don't know how yet, and I don't have one of those stones. But it sounds bad, doesn't it?" He bit his lip, the roiling unease in his belly twisting painfully. It was hard to get the next words out; his voice was soft and choked. "Do you think I caused it?"

Merula's eyes glistened as she looked down at him. Domi just stared, heart plummeting. Was she on the brink of tears? He hadn't seen her cry since she'd had to tell him his Aunt Cissos was dead of tooth-rot last Germinating.

"You know I want to tell you no, Domi," she said, her voice quiet. She rested a hand atop his hair, rustling his shorn black locks with a gentle touch as she shook her head. "But I just don't know. Maybe it's a coincidence. Sometimes things do just happen."

"Not bad weather," Domi said in a small voice, heart hammering in his chest. "That's always the Princeps Worldholder's fault." Everybody knew that.

He looked up at her, hoping for reassurance but knowing she couldn't offer any. Her expression was grim. They both knew he'd done this, somehow. He'd wiped out a whole city with a hurricane. The horror was numbing. He couldn't even wrap his mind around the enormity of it. All those people... Was anyone left? Had there been enough time to evacuate?

His Ma's gentle voice cut into his spiraling thoughts. "Do you remember when you were nine and got malaria? You couldn't hold anything in and it was one hell of a nasty mess for me to clean up."

He swallowed. "No." He'd been really, really sick; the whole memory was just a blur of heat and misery. But he'd heard the story before. She liked to remind him of it any time he asked her for something and she refused. Now, don't you go thinking I never do anything for you. Do you remember that time...

"Well, was it your fault you got sick?" Merula asked, with that weird urgent encouraging tone adults always adopted when trying to reassure kids during something really bad. "Was it your fault being sick made you puke all over the blankets we were supposed to distribute?"

"No," he said, feeling tired. Leaden. This attempt to make him feel less guilty wasn't helping but he didn't know if he had the energy to try to argue.

She nodded firmly, as though he'd just given enthusiastic agreement. "When someone is sick or hurting, it isn't their fault if nasty things happen, Domi. All we can do is try our best to clean up the mess and get the person well again so that, you know, there won't be any more mess to clean up."