“Get up, O Great Ydrel! Dr. Malachai wants to see you.”
Don’t call me that, Deryl Stephens griped, but did not voice the objection aloud. Instead, he rolled over in bed and cracked his eyes open just long enough to see the orderly looming over him. “Thought you got fired,” he muttered and started to pull the covers back over his head. He surreptitiously pushed his old stuffed bear, Descartes, under the pillow.
Roger yanked the covers off roughly. “Only in your fantasies. Sleeping in your clothes now? Thinking about escaping?”
Deryl ignored the taunts and sat up, yawning and running his fingers through his hair. He glanced at the clock: 5:05. Just as well; he was having weird dreams, anyway. He was in a park in his hospital gown, about to kiss Clarissa, when Tasmae spun him around and demanded to know what was wrong with her uniform. He’d looked over the red outfit that hugged her curves and could only think that the color was stupid. Then she’d swung a sword at him just as a piece of the moon fell out of the sky…
He shook his head.
“What?” Roger demanded.
“Nothing. I just knew Malachai would come into work early,” he replied blandly.
“Because you’re psychic?” Roger sneered.
“Because Malachai’s ticked about Joshua proposing to Sachiko—and even more so about her accepting. Bet he didn’t sleep at all. Figured he’d want to take it out on…work.” He almost said ”on me,” but he wouldn’t give Roger a reason to report him for paranoid fantasies, not when he was this close to convincing the staff that he could make it in the world outside the asylum doors. Besides, his new approach of not reacting to Roger was raising the man’s frustration level in a most satisfactory way. He put on his sneakers, carefully because the incision site from his appendectomy was a little sore, and followed the orderly placidly to the chief psychiatrist’s office.
He felt tired and a little shaky as they made their way down the long hallway. He wondered if he had a fever again. If so, this time, he’d actually tell one of the duty nurses. Last time, he’d let fear stop him: The Master had invaded his dreams and forced him to fight, and when he refused, had punished him with Netherworld wounds that left real bruises. The Master’s demons had probably slaughtered his appendix, he suddenly realized.
And I was so afraid if I said anything, the staff would think I was delusional. Of course, I blew that when the demons followed me into the waking world. I wonder if that happened because I was feverish. Thank goodness Joshua was there to stop me before I really hurt someone.
“It was freaky,” Joshua had told him in the hospital later. “You threw things around with your brain.”
And yet, only Malachai and Joshua believe I’m psychic. Deryl snorted to himself.
“What’s your problem?” Roger snarled.
Quickly, Deryl grabbed something from Roger’s thoughts. “Just thinking how it probably cost more to decorate this hallway than it would to repaint your entire apartment.”
“Hurry up, you little shit,” Roger growled and stormed down the tasteful hall with its heavy mahogany doors.
A wave of weariness swept over Deryl. He was definitely going to mention this in the morning—or maybe to Sachiko in the afternoon, if sleeping in didn’t help. In the meantime, he didn’t think he had the strength to keep up his mental shields and deal with the chief psychiatrist. He reached out psychically for a ley line and pulled in its energy. Thus fortified, he marched smartly to the office door with the gold lettering that proudly proclaimed, “D. Randall Malachai, Chief of Psychiatric Services” Along with a slew of designations, both honorary and earned.
As soon as Roger left, closing the door behind him, Malachai spoke. “You honestly think you will be leaving our institution soon, don’t you, Deryl?”
Deryl smirked and crossed his arms. He didn’t think it; he knew it. Thanks to Joshua and his unique way of helping Deryl “tackle his issues,” he’d learned to control his powers and shield his mind from others—even the Master. Even Tasmae, but he couldn’t think about that now. Not if he was going to have to prove his sanity.
“I agree,” Malachai affirmed.
Deryl forced his jaw not to drop at the chief psychiatrist’s statement, but he didn’t trust himself to speak.
Malachai continued, “You need to keep one thing in mind, however: Our star intern has made remarkable progress with you, but Joshua will be gone at the end of the summer, either finishing his degree or pursuing that music career he’s so set on. Meanwhile, I remain the ultimate authority at South Kingston Mental Wellness Center. Further, your family has trusted my judgment for years.” He paused, letting Deryl draw his own conclusions.
Deryl stomped to the chair in front of the desk and sat down. “What do you want?”
“What I’ve always wanted, Deryl. To better understand your unique abilities.”
Deryl bit back an angry reply, but nonetheless countered, “You told everyone Tasmae wasn’t real. That I couldn’t telepathically communicate with anyone, much less an alien, and that she was a figment of my imagination I had to give up. Changing your story now?”
“Interesting that you mention her and not your telekinesis. Are you still in contact with her?”
I told her to go away. I shoved her out of my mind. She was so scared when I told I’d almost died from my appendix, and I made her go away. He felt a stab of guilt and loneliness but squashed it before it showed on his face. But I have to get better, get out of here. Then, then I can figure out what she means to me.
When Deryl didn’t answer except to glare his challenge, Malachai shrugged. “Thanks to your…demonstration…while delirious during your appendicitis, I believe it’s safe now to admit you do have some unexplainable talents, and that they may indeed be a factor in your emotional stability. Quite a breakthrough, if you think about it.” He leaned his elbows on his desk, hands clasped, and regarded Deryl with a not-quite smug smile.
Deryl seethed inside, but forced himself to mimic the psychiatrist’s posture. He was getting out of this place, one way or another. “So?”
Malachai raised a brow, and the fullness of the plan pressed into Deryl’s mind even before he felt the invitation.
Still, Deryl squinted, making a show of concentration. No way would he let Malachai know the extent of his abilities. He’d always had a hard time reading the chief psychiatrist—now was his chance to take advantage of Malachai’s openness. Besides, he needed time to think.
Malachai’s name on respected psychiatric journals. No more articles in rag-mags like Psychic Living Now!
“You want to study my abilities openly…” Deryl spoke slowly.
Malachai on the podium at international symposiums, presenting his findings to his peers, video of Deryl in an MRI chamber performing tricks while the results of his brain scan played on a separate screen.
Malachai nodded. “In return, I will arrange for you to have outpatient status.”
Deryl being called to his side, like a faithful dog, and told to perform similar tricks for Malachai’s audience.
Malachai pointed to the EEG machine in the corner. That surprised Deryl; usually, it remained discreetly behind the cabinet doors until he had Deryl’s cooperation. “It’s the best we have at the moment, but enough for a start. We’ll do a simple telekinesis exercise and get some preliminary readings. Monday, I’ll use that data to arrange for more precise instruments. This is your chance at a normal life…”
Malachai with his own private institute, combing the country for other psychics. A team of scientists under Malachai’s direction, drawing blood, administering drugs—playing with Deryl’s body chemistry to determine the cause of his abilities. Seeking a way to replicate them in others.
A normal life? Deryl shivered. “And if I refuse?”
A barrier clamped down so hard on Malachai’s thoughts that Deryl flinched.
“I think neither of us wants to investigate that possibility,” he replied, but Deryl felt the threat in his bland words.
Deryl held his jaw so tightly, it hurt to nod, but nod he did. Malachai had just made it startlingly clear that he could not gain his freedom by, as Joshua said, “Sha-moozing the staff.” Still, he needed time: time to think, time to plan.
By the time Malachai had finished applying gel and placing the last sticky circle to the base of his skull, Deryl had decided his best course of action was to play along until he could get out of the facility on his own—one way or another, but nonetheless far enough away that Malachai couldn’t drag him back.
He had a fake ID and control of his inheritance, even some cash to get started, all hidden in his bear. He just needed a way out. He imagined just wishing himself away, like a psychic Houdini. If only he knew how!
Malachai switched on the equipment and took a seat in the leather chair, setting a baseball on the coffee table between. Across the room, the small butler’s table held a catcher’s mitt—Malachai’s idea of a clever joke, apparently.
“This should be a simple enough exercise—”
“Fine. You do it.” Deryl crossed his arms. He couldn’t make it look like he thought it was easy.
“Now, let’s not be difficult. You’ve demonstrated the ability to move objects. Try to relive what you experienced that day.”
Deryl shook his head. Stalked by demons only he could see, his gut on fire, too terrified to ask for help, flinging whatever he saw at his attackers, only to have the objects pass through them, but their own blows landing with painful accuracy? He never wanted to relive that day. “I don’t remember. I was delirious.”
The psychiatrist shrugged. “You thought yourself in danger—attacked by monsters, correct? Why not imagine a monster in the direction of that mitt, and hurl the ball at it?”
I expelled those monsters, same as I’ve expelled the Master and Tasmae. The only monster here is you. For a wild moment, he thought about flinging something at Malachai, knocking him out, and running. Behind his arms, his hands clenched with the desire. He forced them to relax and set them on his lap.
And go where? I have to get far away—the farther, the better. Roger’s outside the door. Running won’t work, and I’d have to grab Descartes first. Even if I got off the grounds, then what? I can’t drive.
“I’ll try.” He sighed and pretended to concentrate.
In reality, he’d been surreptitiously moving things around for weeks. He could almost do it without thinking. Now, he strained to keep the ball from simply zooming across the room to land smack in the center of the mitt. He focused on distractions: how the electrodes itched, that the equipment’s sounds resembled breathing, what Roger might have done had he found Descartes… Malachai’s impatience morphed to greed when, despite his best efforts, Deryl caused the ball to shake a bit on the table.
“Yes, come on, Deryl. You can do this.” Malachai’s expression turned salacious, and Deryl could feel a lustful possessiveness coming from him. It made his skin crawl.
How long could he keep up the charade? How hard would Malachai push? He couldn’t give him what he wanted. He wouldn’t! He had to get away. Without thinking, he pulled power from around him, letting it envelope him like a cloak, even as he protested, “I can’t.”
“Try harder.”
I want to get out of here, Deryl thought. He felt the power growing around him; it took effort now not to direct it toward the ball. “I am trying. This isn’t as easy as it looks.”
Escaping wouldn’t be easy, either. Malachai would search for him; all the running in the world wouldn’t stop him. He leaned forward, and pressed against Deryl’s shields. Deryl shivered, and the ball with him.
“Do it! Want the ball to move.”
“Back off!” He leaned away from Malachai. The psychiatrist’s greed flowed over him, repulsive and terrifying. He hadn’t felt like that since he was a child and— I have to get out of here! He trembled against the urge to run.
“Into the mitt! Do it! Want it!”
I want to get away from you!
The power surged through him.
A sudden, terrible wrenching.
Then blackness.
*
Awareness returned with a shock. His head buzzed, both psychically and physically. He felt groggy, his muscles as weak as when he’d awakened from the anesthetic after his operation. Dimly, he noted the baseball in his hand.
He lay on the shattered remains of the table that had held the mitt.
He forced himself to concentrate, his eyes to focus on the other side of the room—the part of the room where he’d been only moments before.
It was a shambles. The equipment tilted against the toppled chair, the needles bent and casing dented. The wires that led to the electrodes were yanked out, and he reached up to touch the sensors still attached to his head. The table had broken in two, the halves caved in toward each other. Malachai lay draped over it.
Malachai groaned and pushed himself up. His lip bled from having bitten it, and a long bruise was forming under his jaw. Nonetheless, the expression on his face as he groped for a tissue and examined the scene was one of calculation and regret. Deryl shuddered, fighting the waves of dizziness that came with the motion. Malachai’s favorite lab rat had gone too far.
“I swear, I don’t know what happened!” Deryl pleaded, but he knew. He’d wanted to get away. His mind had been on the ball and the mitt, but his desire had been to get away.
He’d teleported. With a little concentration, he could do it again to anywhere he could picture. He knew he could.
Malachai knew it, too.
As Deryl watched in helpless horror, he walked to his desk and pulled a syringe from the drawer. It was already full. He tapped it, removing the air.
Deryl struggled to sit up, to scramble away.
“We both knew this day would come,” Malachai said, almost wistfully. “I had hoped it wouldn’t be for a while, yet. You were making such wonderful progress.”
Run! Deryl tried to teleport, but he didn’t have the energy. Fight! He remembered the baseball in his hand. He threw it.
Malachai howled as it hit him. He brought his hands to his face, mindful of the syringe he held.
Run! With sheer force of will, Deryl shoved himself up and tried to dash past. If he could just get out of the office, maybe Malachai wouldn’t—
His weakness and disorientation undid him. He stumbled over the mitt and fell into Malachai. They landed in a tangled heap, and he punched Malachai in the face as he scrambled for the door. A sharp pain in his side told him he’d torn some stitches. He ignored it and lurched to his feet.
Calling for the orderly, Malachai grabbed his ankle, and again, he fell. He felt a sharp prick in his calf.
Run! Fight!
As blackness overcame him, all he could do was whimper.
*
Tasmae, the Miscria, Protector of Kanaan and its peoples, raised her sword in a front block then heaved, forcing her opponent’s weapon aside. She followed with a kick that Salgoud jumped back to avoid. All the while, she continued to share her frustrations, letting her ire show through their telepathic conversation.
The Ydrel confuses. The Ydrel refuses. The Ydrel makes demands: “Call me Deryl. Show me your face. Show me your world.” And now, he has rejected me altogether! In her fury, she let loose with a series of swings that drove him back.
You are certain this Deryl is the Ydrel? he asked with complete calm.
Surprise at the thought made her drop her guard momentarily, and he lunged. Ignoring the tear in her armor, she spun and slashed down, just missing his leg. He grabbed her sword arm with one hand while wrapping his arm around her neck. He squeezed hard with both.
Of course, it is the Ydrel. My mentor told me. She let herself go slack, making him bear her weight, then lashed back with her foot. She felt his shock of pain as it connected, and pushed away, swinging.
He blocked. Your mentor died before the Ydrel began acting strangely. Could this be an imposter?
He limped slightly, but advanced with his own whirlwind blows that made her step back as she considered his words.
No, she replied. I would know. It is the Ydrel. Something has changed.
Has he ever communicated to a Miscria this way? He had driven her to the edge of the trees.
I don’t know! She leapt forward, swinging toward his good leg to make him pull back and place his weight on the sore one. I’ve not experienced all the Remembrances of the Miscria who contacted the Ydrel. You know that.
He retaliated with an upward swing, then pushed forward again, as relentless in his attacks as in his thoughts, once more driving her toward the trees. There were five—you have experienced the memories of two, and even those not in their entirety. You are not a fully trained Miscria. If you are so certain he is the Ydrel, then perhaps it is something you have done?
The flat of his sword connected with her sore wrist, and she released her grip. Before she could get her balance on the sword one-handed, he kicked out, sweeping her legs from under her.
She called upon her power over Kanaan.
The ground rumbled beneath him, and the ivy twined around one tree whipped out and captured his arms and legs, and yanked him off the ground.
Good! Salgoud called, but she had sat up, sword discarded beside her, and hugged herself, shivering.
She could see Deryl, in the Netherworld that he’d insisted she make look like her own Kanaan. She realized now how pale he looked, but at the time, she’d only been angry. She had questions for him—questions about strategies he’d given her that she only half-understood, despite her warrior training. Urgency had fed her frustration—she had to teach the others, but he’d disappeared for weeks, refusing her Callings. It shouldn’t have worked that way: she, the Miscria, called to the Ydrel, asked her questions, received her answers. Ydrel Mentor, Ydrel Guide. Why wasn’t he doing his duty?
Then he’d snapped at her that he’d been sick, had almost died.
She’d panicked. She’d lost faith—in herself, in him. Was that why he denied her now?
He said he almost died. Her admission came as a whisper.
Gently the tree lowered Salgoud, and he sat down beside her. Can an oracle die?
I followed the rituals, she thought. I did as I was trained. He insisted on doing things differently. Could I have hurt him?
Salgoud wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. Let Leinad bring the Remembrances here. Finish your training.
She shook her head. The war—
—will not begin for months. He glanced up at the small planet that shone like a star in the daytime sky. Even an old warrior like me knows Barin has not come close enough to loose its vermin on us.
She followed his gaze, but she felt overwhelming dread. Salgoud, this has to be the last war. I don’t know why, but I can feel it. We can’t just repel the Barin this time; we have to make sure they never come back.
Such dreams are for children, he replied. How would you make this real?
I don’t know. But the Ydrel does. He has to teach me. I will not let him abandon us!
Of course not. You are Tasmae, the most stubborn student I’ve ever trained. Had you not become Miscria, I would have let you take my place in leading our warriors. But you are the Miscria, and you need to train.
And, he concluded, pointing at a rider thundering toward them, I think you shall not have a choice.
Tasmae followed his gaze. Leinad!