“Oh, man, do you smell that?” Joshua moaned in ecstasy as they broke through the trees and the aroma of cooking meat reached them.
Ocapo inhaled and hummed in pleasure. “Not much longer. We can stop and walk from here.”
“I have so missed meat! The only thing that could make this better is a Diet Coke and about 400 milligrams of ibuprofen.”
“Are you in pain?” Terry asked as they dismounted. He pulled the pack off his unicorn then hurried to Joshua, who moved more slowly.
Nonetheless, he waved his friend off. “Just stiff from all the riding. I haven’t ridden this much in years. I’ll be fine—though tomorrow might be a different story.”
He pulled the pack off Glory and set it on the ground. “Hold on, baby, let me see if there’s a brush in here—“
Glory tossed her head and took off.
“Hey!” He called after her.
Ocapo closed his bag and handed it to him. “There is a waterfall in a cove down the trail. They are going to bathe. She said she will return for her brushing later.”
“Great. Wet horse. You know, a shower doesn’t sound half bad.”
Ocapo clapped his shoulder and led him down the path, Terry just behind. “Later we will go together. You should not wander off the trails alone. Remember what I said about traps? The plants may not recognize you as a friend.”
Joshua cast a suspicious look at the trees beside him. That creeped-out feeling started crawling along his spine, when a heavy beat with a flying melody distracted him. “Music!”
Ocapo laughed. “I told you.”
“Do you have dancing?” He could not think of a better way to work out his kinks or his anxieties.
Ocapo nodded and quickened his pace. “I, myself, am not very good.”
“I’ll teach you—but I want to learn your dances, too.” He saw Terry lagging behind and reached back to include him. “Come on, Terry! I declare a hiatus on any heavy topics. Tonight, we party.”
*
Gardianju fell to her knees in the middle of the marketplace and concentrated all her strength on keeping two of Kanaan’s tectonic plates from shearing each other apart.
Help me, she commanded, and her apprentice, then some villagers, knelt beside her and offered her their strength. She took it, pulled, and gradually, Kanaan’s struggles ceased. She focused the last of their energy on the mountain near the site of the quake. It shook, then crumbled, pouring tons of trees, rock, and debris into the gap that had opened.
She and twenty others had to be carried to the healers, but Kanaan would survive another day.
A season of calm came, though it held no calm for her. The torments of the Ydrel had increased as the torments of Kanaan lessened, and she devoted her talent to healing his mind, working with synapses and neurons as she would earth and flora, and sharing in his sufferings as she had shared in her world’s. She sat in the corner of her room, arms crossed over her stomach, rocking, and her walls seemed unnaturally pink.
Another progression of the seasons had come, and again, they were in a season of calm. Even the Ydrel seemed to have calmed, though she did not know whether the demon attacks had lessened or if he could better defend against them. It did not matter; if he had been in torment, she could not have helped him this time. The events of the last Progression had left her unable to think, barely able to care for the world—or herself. She lay on the ground in an open field, staring up at a blue sky in which the smaller sun was catching up to its sister. She saw them but did not see them, for visions filled her mind. Kanaan caught in a deadly dance with another world. Bright flashes on an alien planet. Wrong. Bringing the demons. Bringing insanity. Insanity all around her. All around the Ydrel. Ydrel comes, but not to her. To another. A Miscria. Tasmae.
A surge of jealousy, then the visions reassert themselves.
The Ydrel comes to Kanaan, bringing change—and peril. Too much change. Too much peril. The other world explodes. Its pieces rain on Kanaan. Ydrel reaches out, clasps the demon planet. It is whole. It survives. The aliens survive. Kanaan changes. The dance, so perfect, so comfortable, changes. Snow falls from the sky.
She didn’t try to interpret or even understand the visions, merely let them play in her weary mind until they became one with her dreams.
More seasons of pain and confusion, torment and visions. Then, a sudden clarity, like awakening from a deep sleep. She looked at her hands, shocked to see the wrinkles, stared in amazement at the gray in her hair. Had it been so long? The Ydrel, she thought. The Ydrel is still a child. A moment later, she wondered why she thought that. No child could know what he knew. No child could have battled as he had. Ydrel Mentor, Ydrel Guide. Not Ydrel Child.
She pushed the thoughts aside. God had given her this clarity for a reason. She had duties. She summoned the Keeper of Remembrances, and closed her eyes to rest until he arrived and presented her with a seedling. She caressed its tender shoots, opened her mind, and imprinted it with her memories, experiences, and visions. It burst into bloom, then one by one, the blossoms closed into buds. Only at the proper times would they open again to reveal their secrets.
Next, she summoned her protégés, one of whom had been newly discovered during her time of visions and was being trained by her own apprentice, now nearly her equal in caring for Kanaan. Nonetheless, he had not had contact with the Ydrel. That must change. She would help him forge the link.
But when they touched the Ydrel’s mind, her protégé fell to the ground screaming and did not stop until God took him two days later.
When he breathed his last, Gardianju whispered heartfelt thanks that his suffering had ended, then turned to her newest student, who knelt beside her, terrified.
This will not happen again, she vowed. To commune with the Ydrel is too dangerous. Yet they needed his information; she knew that, too. Her visions had shown her that.
Once she had fled her mind to a Netherworld, where she had found the Ydrel hunted by demons. Now, she would find a way to pull him from his own mind to a place of her choosing. Somewhere neutral. Somewhere safe. Somewhere where there was only the Will of the Miscria and the Answers of the Ydrel. Her own Netherworld.
She would never allow another Miscria to die as her apprentice had.
*
In the hidden grove, with a unicorn keeping watch, Deryl whispered in his sleep. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Don’t worry, Gardianju. I won’t hurt Tasmae. I swear, I won’t. I’ll make it right.”
*
The sun was setting on the mesas, but with the clear sky and incredible density of stars, everything was still visible, if a little washed out. Nonetheless, Joshua got hints of the variety of patterns and colors whenever someone’s costume caught the light of the several bonfires in the center of the camp. The Bondfriends—and maybe regular Kanaan for all he knew—loved color and pattern. He looked forward to the morning when he could see everyone’s outfits in detail.
As with any large but close-knit community party Joshua had known, small groups had formed up, with people of all ages moving from group to group, the kids often at a full run. For the most part, they avoided Ocapo, Terry, and Joshua, content to cast glances their way. Even the children observed the rule, which impressed and touched him. He smiled and winked at one little girl who hovered near a tree just on the edge of what she’d apparently been told was the boundary, but before she could take that as an invitation to cross that boundary—and start a flood of curious kids, no doubt—he looked away toward the bonfires in the center of the campground. Over one roasted a huge animal with way too many limbs.
He shouldered Ocapo and pointed to it. “So, everybody gets a drumstick?”
As if in answer, the same child he’d smiled at appeared before him, bringing him a roasted leg that would put any turkey to shame. He chuckled—it felt so good to laugh—and took a bite. His eyes closed in pleasure as he chewed.
Ocapo nudged him, and he opened his eyes to see a young lady skipping out of the way of a young man. Laughing, she dashed past, with him in pursuit.
“Oh-ho,” Joshua commented.
Ocapo gave him a knowing smile. “You know the everyn who are doing the mating dance? Those are their Bondfriends.”
“Really?” He watched as the man caught his mate. They spun a moment, nuzzled, then she squirmed loose, and the chase was on again. A few people looked up with tolerant amusement. “They haven’t been doing that the whole afternoon, have they? I’d be too exhausted to—uh—you know,” Joshua finished lamely.
“Everyn do have greater stamina than Bondfriends, though Spot thinks Cawa drags things on. Krrrass doesn’t seem to mind, though. For that matter, neither do they.” He watched the flirting pair, wistful.
“You have a soul-mate?” Joshua asked.
“Not yet. Do you miss yours?”
“More than words can say.” Joshua breathed through pursed lips, letting go of his sorrow before it could overtake him, and stood. “But this is a party, and I’m not going to think about that now. Come on. If I’ve got to meet anybody, let’s meet them, then let’s get the groove on, Kanaan-style.”
But Ocapo wasn’t listening—not to Joshua, anyway. Rather, he was stock still and focused, his head turned toward a path in the maze. Joshua looked at Terry, found the healer mimicking his own confused expression.
Soon, everyone had turned toward the edge of the clearing. The music faltered and died. The dancers stilled. Everyn landed on the trees or sat up from where they were resting on the ground. Even the children stopped their wild games to turn and focus. Joshua couldn’t see what they were looking at, yet he hesitated to ask or even move lest he disturb something important. Instead, he followed Ocapo’s stare.
The camp was near one of the openings of the maze, and Ocapo had told him while they ate that Tasmae had created the woods beyond it to hide the entrance while at the same time corral the Barins into it. Around the only clear path, thick woods discouraged straying, except for a few clearings, where plants like the ones that made up the walls and keep waited to attack any non-Kanaan. He thought he saw some of the trees swaying, though whether of their own volition or because something was moving through them, he couldn’t tell.
Suddenly, the everyn began to keen, and the Bondfriends joined them, adult and child alike, in a one-note chorus that echoed throughout the mesas. Joshua clapped his hands over his ears, but the sound still reverberated in his head. He glanced at Terry and saw the healer wincing as well.
Then it was over; and just as if nothing had happened, everyone went back to what they were doing, though Joshua noticed that most of the children ran to edge of the clearing.
“What was that all about?” He asked Ocapo.
“Come on. I’ll show you. You’ll find it very interesting.”
As they made their way to the far end of the camp, Ocapo explained. “A new pride has arrived, and they bring with them a child who has entered the Serenity. Remember what I’d told you happened to me before Spot found me? Her time has come. They are hoping an unbonded everyn here will choose to join her. What you heard was us alerting any everyn in the area.”
They stopped behind the crowd of children who stood a respectful distance away yet stared with curiosity as some adults settled a young girl by the fire. A woman placed a cloak around her shoulders—her mother, Joshua guessed from the tender way she stroked her hair before sitting down next to her. The child didn’t look older than eight, and a frail eight at that. Her mousy brown hair hung limply around a too-pale face, which combined with her deeply shadowed eyes, gave her an ethereal appearance. Her eyes glowed with otherworldly joy and her dry, cracked lips parted in an unearthly smile. She was beautiful, in a spooky sort of way, like an El Greco painting.
“Is she all right?” Joshua whispered. “She looks like she ought to be lying down, preferably in the healer’s den.” In fact, the healer had just knelt down in front of her and was hovering his hands over her head and neck. He was older than anyone Joshua had seen, and his hands trembled as if with palsy, but he still had a keen light in his eyes. Terry went to join him.
“There is nothing they can do,” Ocapo whispered back. “She has entered the Serenity. But she has not eaten in days. If she does not find a Bondfriend soon, she will starve to death.”
“She’ll die of dehydration first,” Joshua muttered. She reminded him of paintings he’d seen of saints caught in ecstasy. If she had been human, he would not have been surprised to see the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, manifesting on her hands and feet. “On Earth, we’d put her on fluids with an IV. Anyone tried to force feed her?”
“She won’t swallow. They have been traveling for many weeks. If a Bondfriend is not found here, she will die.” Ocapo regarded Joshua shrewdly. “Is there anything in your talents that can help her?”
Despite himself, Joshua had been wondering just that. Ecstasy and alien origin aside, the psychologist part of him would have diagnosed her with catatonia—and that was something he’d worked with before. “I don’t know,” he said, thinking aloud. “I might be able to get her to eat, but I can’t guarantee anything. I mean, I’d be using alien techniques. I have no idea if they’d work. But if it’s okay, I’d try.”
Suddenly, Joshua found himself grabbed and pulled through the crowd of children to stand in front of the girl and her mother, and Joshua realized Ocapo had been translating the whole time. Nonetheless, he emphasized, “Tell them I don’t know if this will work. I could make things worse.”
“They trust you as I do,” Ocapo reassured. “If you can get her to eat, it would buy her some time for the right everyn to find her.”
Still Joshua hesitated. What if he messed up something that caused the everyn to not want to bond with her? His mother had taught him never to touch a baby wild animal because the human scent would make the mother reject it. What if he put some kind of psychic taint on her?
The aging healer looked up from the girl and met his eyes. Even though he wasn’t psychic, Joshua could feel his reassurance.
“Okay,” he said, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “I need two cups, one with something the healers think she can tolerate—broth or whatever—and one for me. Water’s fine in that one. Then, just don’t disturb us awhile. I don’t know how long it’ll take.”
Ocapo clapped his shoulder and left to get the drinks. Joshua knelt down beside the girl. He observed her for a minute, taking in her posture, her breathing, anything he could use to reach her. “I don’t suppose you’d make this easy on us, would you, baby?” He asked her. “Your mom’s awfully worried about you.”
Ocapo brought the two cups, and experimentally, Joshua set one against her hands, waved the fragrant broth under her nose. Her nostrils didn’t even twitch in reaction.
“That won’t work,” Ocapo commented.
“Didn’t think it would. Just curious is all. What’s she looking at, do you think?”
Ocapo sighed such a wistful sigh that Joshua turned to look at him. His expression was a near match to the girl’s. “Your language doesn’t have words for it,” he said, then nodded and went to sit near the parents.
Joshua turned back to the girl. “Well, whatever it is, we’ll see if we can make a dinner show of it, okay, honey?” He shook himself to release his tensions and doubt and, despite his earlier objections to Deryl, tried to “do Neuro Linguistic Programming on an alien.”
The first time he heard the story about using NLP techniques to bring back a catatonic patient, he’d been fascinated. He’d bugged his father for weeks to try it out on someone—or better yet, let him try it out—until his father had finally scolded, “This is not a game, Joshua. NLP is a tool. If I think the conditions are right, I may attempt it, but only if I’m comfortable. As for you: Give yourself time. I have no doubt that when you’re older and more experienced, opportunities will present themselves.”
His father had been right. So far, Joshua had used this particular method on an autistic child he babysat for a client of his father; as a case study with his father in Colorado; and on Deryl. Now, he’d try it with an alien.
He set the cups in identical positions by his knee and hers, settled himself into a complimentary posture, and readied himself to enter “uptime,” match the girl’s rhythms, and get into her world.
Maybe it was because she was psychic. Maybe it had to do with the training Terry had given him, or something about the world itself. Whatever the reason, he found his awareness almost immediately swept away. Something similar had happened with Deryl, but it had taken hours, and he’d found himself in a cloudy and gray world. Her world dazzled his mind’s eye like being inside a ray of sunlight. As he saw with her, he, too, focused on its source, and it was everything beautiful and holy and right.
“Oh, God,” he whispered, and it was a prayer. In his vision, he sank to his knees beside the girl. Of course she was content to sit there, gazing and longing, yet patient. That rapture, heaven, was hers, too. She just had to wait to be invited in.
He would wait with her.
No, came a knowing, gentle and amused, in Joshua’s mind. He was loved, he was cherished, but he was not invited in now, nor was it his place to sit and wait. There were things he must do, beginning with this child beside him.
He became aware again of his own body and of the girl sitting entranced before him. Automatically, he checked to make sure he was still in sync with her, and reached for the cup, raised it to his lips, and swallowed.
She mimicked his moves.
He heard the gasps of amazement from the people around him, but filed them away along with the amazing rapture he’d felt. Right now, his only focus was on going through the motions of drinking. When the cup was empty, someone refilled it and he took her through the motions a second time. When no one refilled it again, he let her return to her position of waiting while he decided what to do next. He could try to bring her out of it entirely, but he wasn’t sure he should, or that he wanted to. She rested in a place of near perfection—what would happen if he took her away from it with nothing to offer in return?
Better let the everyn do it if it’s meant to be, he thought. Dying didn’t seem like such a fearful thing, after all. Still keeping his breathing in sync with hers, he leaned forward and grasped her hand. “Be patient a little longer, sweetheart. Heaven will always be there, but right now, I think you’re meant to stay with us awhile longer.”
For just a moment, she focused on him, and smiled a more natural, childlike smile. Then the unfocused rapture returned.
He sat back on his heels. “That’s the best I’m gonna do,” he said to Ocapo, then laughed as the girl’s parents threw their arms around him. “Tell them they’re welcome,” he said to his friend as he returned their hugs.
The healer knelt down beside the girl, his trembling fingers moving over her face, turned to Joshua, then Ocapo, then Joshua again. This time, his eyes were wide and amazed.
“He wanted you to do a cleansing,” Ocapo said, “and I told him human healers didn’t need to, and that at the keep, you’d healed dozens of injured Kanaan without break.”
Joshua shook his head. “Tell him I didn’t do the healing. I was a conduit, more like glorified jumper cables or something.”
Terry smirked at his analogy. “Perhaps so, but no healer could have done this.”
Joshua felt himself blushing and just a little giddy. He snagged Ocapo by the arm. “Tell you what, though. I do have some excess energy I’d like to work off. What say we go find the dancing? We can teach each other some moves.”
*
Summer again. Too hot. Too bright. Anguish returned for Kanaan and Gardianju. For the Ydrel, too, and this time, his agonies insinuated themselves into her mind, so that sometimes she could not tell their realities apart.
She sat in the middle of an open field under the blazing sun, yet couldn’t escape the feeling that she was trapped within padded walls and the light was wrongly bluish and cool upon her skin. She felt confined, bound, and her arms kept crossing themselves across her stomach. Things in her head skittered and bustled: whispers of thought, passing streaks of emotion, mists of attitude, and they crowded her as well. Her mind struggled to sort them out, and she reeled in confusion until:
One feeling loomed over all else: Pressure.
One thought shouted over the others: This is Wrong!
One emotion overrode the rest: Anger.
One target became her focus: The twin suns.
You are not sisters! She snarled at the smaller of the two stars. Fury burned inside her more hotly than the heat that stripped her world of its moisture. You are an intruder! She saw it so clearly now: two suns—one villain, one hostage. Caught in a struggle of domination versus freedom. Kanaan caught in the middle. Kanaan being ripped apart in the battle. She being torn with it.
No! Intruder! She stood, shaking, glaring at the suns. They seared her retinas. She didn’t care. They could take her vision, but they would not take her world. Leave us! She seethed. Go away!
Hardly aware of what she was doing, she reached deep into her fury, deep into the heart of Kanaan, drawing all the power into herself. It filled her, coursed through her. She no longer saw, no longer felt, no longer heard. There was nothing now, not even her anger: just power and one single focus.
Leave!
She felt the power race from her like a beam, sharp, focused, violent. She felt it impact against the star, felt it knocked off its route. But it wasn’t enough.
She reached out, found lines of power in the atmosphere, in life. Across her world, people and beasts fell unconscious where they stood, and flowers wilted as in a sudden freeze.
LEAVE!
She reached to the Ydrel, grabbed the power of his mind and pulled. She felt his strength move though her, until she no longer felt him, just power.
GO! With an animal scream of fury, she threw her power at the star. She held the scream, held the power, held her fury, until she felt the star grudgingly release its ties to her sun and again move on its way.
Then she collapsed among the dying flowers, blood streaming from her ears and nose, the power gone, her life spent, her mission complete.
But as she let out her last breath, she saw the planet faint in the sky and knew she hadn’t completely succeeded. Too late. There would be others. And the Ydrel…Tasmae…
Tasmae suddenly spasmed and it was all the healer and Leinad could do to steady her against the seizures. They were absorbed in holding her down when the earthquake hit.
*
Deryl was in the high intensity ward again. He didn’t remember why—so much had confused him then. Anger he couldn’t control burned through him—anger at the voices, at the staff, at the cold lights that nonetheless seared his eyes whether they were open or closed.
He was standing in the padded room, screaming for everything to leave him alone, when he felt…something, someone…reach into his very soul and drain him. He collapsed into a catatonic state. Only when a lovesick nurse, Sachiko, was somewhat mischievously whispering the secret of her affair with the chief psychiatrist did he open his eyes and turn to her, nearly scaring her out of her wits. She screamed.
Tasmae screamed as the shock of Gardianju’s dying shook her system. Deryl felt her convulse as her body fought against the compulsion to follow the first Miscria into death. Her abilities went wild; her control of Kanaan slipped; the world reflected her throes.
Deryl reached out with his mind to steady her; to embrace her.
The ground beneath him shook.
*
“Nothing personal,” Joshua apologized to the tree as he buttoned his pants. He’d been a little hesitant when Ocapo had pointed him down the path and essentially told him “Go down a hundred yards or so and pick a tree,” but so far, nothing had reached out to grab him.
He did say I was safe as long as I stayed out of the clearings, Joshua reminded himself as he passed a spot where the trail branched off into one. The starlight reflected off a small pool of water to one side and frosted the grasses and leaves with silver. Under the willow-like trees grew the heavy moss that he knew felt softer than the most expensive carpet back home. It looked very inviting, and he wondered if that were part of the trap, and that once a weary Barin had settled himself to rest, the graceful, low branches would coil themselves around him.
Joshua heard a loud rustle and froze, still facing the clearing, ears straining to determine where the sound came from. He couldn’t help thinking of the strange creatures roasting on spits in the camp. Were there other dangerous creatures nearby?
The rustling grew nearer.
Then he heard a playful, feminine shriek, and the two lovers who had been flirting and chasing each other at the camp came crashing into the clearing. The woman dashed into the pond, paused to splash water at her mate, then started off again. He lunged to reach her and when he caught her, she didn’t resist, but moved in close, cooing and giggling. She nuzzled his neck, breathing in his scent, and he followed suit, caressing her hair and bringing it up to his face. Her coos turned low and sonorous.
Joshua realized he was staring.
As quietly as he could, he backed up and headed to camp, face burning and missing Sachiko anew. He decided he’d ask Ocapo where their tent was and call it a night.
As he neared the camp, he heard the everyn kreeling again, and wondered if that had anything to do with the mating dance coming to an end. When he got to the campground, however, he found everything in a controlled fury. Parents dashed about, gathering children, herding them to the large dancing area and making them sit. Others threw dirt and water on the fires without worrying if they got any on the still-roasting meat. Joshua started to call out to ask what was going on, when the ground shook violently enough to knock him off his feet.
Everything happened at once. Children screamed. Adults were knocked to the ground, one just missing the fire. Joshua heard a screech and Cochise came flying at him, claws extended. As he rolled to get out of his way, he heard a loud CRACK! A tree as large around as he was fell just where he’d been laying. He gaped at it a minute, then rolled back and huddled against it. There was no way to get up; the ground trembled—like a hurt, living thing, came the snatch of verse. He shook, too.
Then came a sound like out of his nightmare, a huge groaning, ripping noise, and he saw the ground tear into two. The rip snaked its way into the camp—right toward the young unbonded girl he’d met earlier.
“No!” Joshua yelled. He tried to crawl toward her.
The crack grew two, three feet wide. Steam rose from it. It sped right beside her. Under her. She tipped and fell.
Her mother screamed.
An animal cry joined her scream, and a large everyn dove into the rift. He rose, wings laboring, the girl in his claws. He skimmed the ground to a safe spot, lowered her, and curled protectively around her.
The shaking stopped.
The noise silenced.
Everyone remained still, but when the ground showed no sign of resuming its wild dance, people rose. Some ran to others, embracing and reassuring those who were all right. The Bondfriend healer and Terry hurried to those who were injured, directing some of the men to carefully move them to a safer part of the camp. Others cleaned up the damage and rekindled the fires. To one side, the entranced girl was awake and aware and hugging her new everyn Bondfriend, while her family surrounded them, rejoicing.
Shakily, Joshua got to his feet. Cochise landed on his shoulder. “Thanks, buddy. You can be my jailer anytime,” he said and rubbed his neck.
Ocapo came running up to him. “Are you all right?”
He still felt himself quaking inside. “Uh, yeah, thanks to Cochise. But down the trail—in one of the clearings—the soul-mates—”
Ocapo nodded. His eyes unfocused for a moment, then he grinned. “They’re all right. Their everyn checked on them—they didn’t even notice!”
Despite himself, Joshua laughed.