A Division of Souls - A Novel of the Mendaihu Universe

by Jon Chaisson

  *

  Kai quietly folded her hands on the table and observed the others surrounding her, throwing out a single strand of sensing at them to judge their levels of agitation. Chief Inspector Farraway stood at the opposite end of the table, head down and arms crossed tightly, deep in thought. He was obviously bothered by the church incident considering the chaotic emotions swirling through his head and heart...but that was as far as she could go. His thoughts were private and elusive, and she could focus no further. His agitated energy danced wildly about his body, directionless but kept very close to the skin. She knew enough to keep a respectable distance when sensing him; any closer and her spirit presence would be felt. Humans did not like such an intrusion.

  She also felt intense emotions from the fiery Sheila, whose brightly shimmering aura seemed more a normal occurrence than an excited state. She had been directly involved in the incident at the church on Ormand Street along with Nick, and so had draped a cloak of protection over herself and those immediately surrounding her. The gesture was purely instinctual, something she hadn’t even thought about doing; she just threw it out there subconsciously. They had been blessed with a true Protector on this team.

  Sheila stood directly behind the woman who must be Caren; she sat quietly and unassumingly halfway down the table, not saying a word or showing a shred of emotion. Her spirit was so wound tight, so restrained that she found it worrisome; it was neither normal nor healthy. By being her Protector, Sheila had become a channel for Caren's energy, instinctively siphoning out the fear and pain, and replacing it with a pure and unconditional love. They were an interesting pair, not quite sehnadha and not quite shadhisi, but something in between. Kai could sense their intensely strong bond, twin souls entwined. Caren’s spirit was scarred and raw, barely a scrape emanating past those within the room. It made Kai want to read her spirit signature even more, test it, read it somehow, yet the woman kept it so guarded even Ashan would have been unable to crack the surface. She lingered on the two a little longer before moving on, hoping she would have that chance soon.

  She felt Nick's odd signature before he even entered the room. It was unmistakably human, yet behaved as if Meraladian. He was completely aware of his surroundings, and immediately understood the actions and emotions of those around him...yet, as she had read from his file, he lacked any latent psionic ability. Unless his sensing abilities were dormant, his job as a profiler relied solely on logic and intellect. He took the chair two seats away from Caren and got himself settled, ready for whatever was about to unfold.

  Alec Poe followed close behind and sat down next to Caren, unassuming and...

  Cold…!

  Kai frowned at him without meaning to. She immediately lifted a hand to her mouth to keep herself from saying anything, or thinking anything for that matter, and blushed, wondering what had caused this sudden and unexpected reaction. It was not the same bitterness of nearby Shenaihu, but the unnerving coldness of someone moving in too close and too quick before she could lift up her own instinctual shield. That was the spirit signature of someone who knew the geography of her soul inside and out, coming and going whenever they pleased. She had not felt this up at the Crest earlier this morning, nor had Ashan, or he would have surely mentioned it. She had never felt anything like this in her life, and she did not know how to react. Was he intruding? Or was he…?

  Kai, Ashan whispered within. Is something wrong? She turned to her brother. He responded by pursing his lips and absently straightened the stack of files in front of him, avoiding eye contact.

  Uh...no, she responded. Just an odd sense reading is all.

  Alec Poe?

  She gave him a quick nod. Ashan did not answer. Everyone was in the room, and they were waiting for the meeting to start. She quickly composed herself and let it go for now.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said, hoping her voice hadn't just wavered. The sensitives in this room did not appear to notice any shift in her own energy signature, much to her relief. She glanced again at Ashan, who motioned for her to continue.

  “Ashan and I are aware of the attacks today. Our prayers go out to the victims...I only wish we could do more, but CNF guidelines restrict us. Since the attacks, we have not been permitted inside the church or its surroundings; nor have we gotten much information about the four other attack points. I fear this may be to our disadvantage in the future, but it is something we can work around. Chief Inspector, do you concur?”

  “Yes, emha,” he said, and cleared his throat as he picked up a vidmat from the table and started reading. “This is the preliminary data I received from Chiappara and the Special Forces team. The four remaining attack points are as follows: the corner of North Main Street and Pendergast Boulevard in Glover Court, just across from the Public Data Library: straight north of the Tower. The outdoor market at Sculler's Crossing in the Waterfront District: east of St. Patrick’s, and the hardest hit. Lexington Square in South City, one of the busiest intersections in Bridgetown. Last is right down the street: the corner of Ormand and West Krieger in Fraserville. Number of injuries and losses is inconclusive at this time, although we do have an ongoing shortlist of them here.”

  “Vidmat on,” Ashan said. A section of the wall behind him blinked to life. “Live satellite image, Bridgetown Central. Highlight points of today's attacks.” The vidmat responded with a blurred pan and zoom until Mirades Tower reached out towards them, dead center in the image. “Map all geometric alignments of all highlighted points and include the initial reach of edha Usarai’s awakening ritual.” The vidmat screen came alive with thin strands crawling across the satellite picture, dissecting and circling the city. The room grew cold and quiet as the agents stared wide-eyed at the map. The points of attack had been laid out in a perfect pentagon, with the Tower dead center.

  The first blast of Nehalé Usarai’s ritual was in perfect alignment.

  “It’s a hrrah-sehdhyn,” Alec said, voice barely audible. “The five-point defensive response.”

  Farraway nodded. “Considering the view, the area around the Tower received less damage than we thought during the psychic blast from the Awakening ritual. The casualty numbers from the ritual’s shockwave are amazingly low. We're looking at a death toll of under ten.”

  Caren gaped at him. “Only ten?”

  An unexpected burst of energy emanated from her, her first show of emotion and aura since they entered the room, and Kai flinched without meaning to. It was harmless, but it was frighteningly strong. Mendaihu Elder strong. She forced herself not to look at Ashan, fearing the others would notice.

  “The fact that the shockwave was from an elemental casting and not incendiary explosives is a starter, Caren,” Farraway continued. “The most direct damage edha Usarai’s ritual did was rattle the foundations of the surrounding buildings. Physically, there was little to no fallout. The ten deaths caused by his ritual were not directly involved, and were of natural causes: seven heart attacks and three brain aneurysms. To put it bluntly…they were in poor physical health and couldn’t handle the strain.”

  Caren shook her head. “But…the reaction? Psychologically?”

  “We’re still working on that,” he said with a touch of irritation. “No one wants to talk about it, that’s the problem. Most felt no change at all, other than frayed nerves. The reaction gets weaker as we spread out from the Tower. We haven’t moved farther out than the initial two-mile cloud radius yet.”

  Kai felt Caren’s energy level jump and ascend, just as Sheila stepped away from her and leaned against the wall. A fierce wave of love — not towards Sheila, or even through her for that matter — burst forth in its threadlike protective and focused form and shot northwards, towards someone obviously not in the immediate area. Kai felt the wave as a short jolt of electricity through her own body, and she couldn’t help but stare at Caren now. This energy radiated out of her, more luminous than Sheila’s aura, pure a
nd dedicated. This protective love must have been directed at someone extremely close to her in heart and in mind.

  Another Protector, she thought. Stronger than Sheila…

  “That doesn't explain...” Caren started, then changed course. “Last I knew, elemental castings do the same amount of damage, psychologically, as an incendiary device with the same reaction.”

  “Yes,” Ashan said. “But because of the preparation that goes into the ritual, it also gives sensitives a heads-up well enough in advance. That would explain the high number of witnesses sensing edha Usarai well before the blast. They knew to get out of harm's way before it happened.”

  “Still...” Caren frowned. “Under ten?”

  Farraway took Kai’s folder and slid it in her direction. “Would you like to see the report?”

  She looked at him icily and pushed it back. “No thanks. I'll take your word for it. So what about today?”

  Farraway started to speak, but Ashan cut him off. “To confirm your thoughts, Alec, yes, it is a hrrah-sehdhyn…the Shenaihu have considered edha Usarai’s ritual a major threat and have responded five-fold. This was their own protective response, whether we want to dismiss this or not. There has not been any word from any Shenaihu spokespersons, but it seems for now they are not going to move further unless edha Usarai makes one himself.”

  Alec nodded but remained silent, frowning deeply. Kai shivered, still feeling the strange energy from him, though she did not recoil. She felt the severe focus he held on the subject and the energies of those around him, though he seemed unaware of his own action. His eyes never completely fell on anyone, only moving from one person to the other.

  “About this five-point response...” he said. “According to my studies, the hrrah-sehdhyn is used most commonly as a defensive move, keeping the enemy stuck in one place. Am I to assume that the Shenaihu think of the Awakening ritual as an offensive on the Mendaihu's part, even if the prevailing theory is that edha Usarai himself acted defensively? It's enough to say that the response was symbolic enough to put the Tower into some sort of warding or defensive barrier, but unless we have proof that the Shenaihu acted first, I'd say this whole debacle puts the Mendaihu in an extremely bad light.”

  “I agree,” Kai said. “That is why we need to bring Nehalé Usarai into custody. It certainly looks as though he holds knowledge of a Shenaihu offensive. If that is so, then the ritual was his way of leveling the odds. Unfortunately, that would put us in a delicate situation. The Mendaihu do not want to enter into a...” she stumbled, hiding some words and searching for others. “...a religious war with the Shenaihu.”

  “That's it, though, isn't it?” Poe said coldly. “That's what this is turning into. The Shenaihu and the Mendaihu have always been in this little argument, haven't they? Dominance over whatever it is they fight against, be it holy land, the next messiah, or the One of All Sacred.”

  Kai paled. “I...”

  “See it from our perspective, Agent Poe,” Ashan interjected, his eyes piercing. “As Gharné, you only see our wars as spectators. See it as Mendaihu or as Shenaihu, the choice is yours. But until you do, you cannot understand--”

  Poe slammed a fist on the table and cursed at him. “Why the hell do you think we're asking you what to do here, Ashan? I don't have the slightest frigging clue what you guys go through! I could talk spirit reading until I'm blue in the face, but that doesn't bring me nearer to enlightenment, does it? I have to be Mendaihu or Shenaihu in order to understand it, like you said. But we're not. We haven’t been awakened — at least I know I haven’t.”

  Kai felt a cold sting from Caren make its direction towards Poe.

  Caren...? Kai stared at her, suddenly understanding her distance and discomfort. The soul within, though dormant, screamed in its confinement. She could indeed be Mendaihu, if she would only permit herself to awaken. Why had she not...? She started to speak, when Caren interjected.

  “He has a point,” she said. Kai felt the forced calm in Caren's voice, a delicate timbre meant to soothe its listeners while putting a point across to them — a distinctively Mendaihu trait. “But let me clear it up. As special agents for the Alien Relations Unit of the BMPD, it's our task to keep things like the church attack from happening, and if it happens, we're there to investigate it. We're glorified detectives, Ashan, I'll admit to that. But once you bring spirituality into it, it becomes a Mendaihu issue. And not all of us have that gift. And those who might, don’t exactly know how to use it.” Pausing, she let out a breath that sounded nearly like a laugh. Kai noticed the change — the intensely guarded aura around her began to relax and slowly resurface. A second passed and it faded slightly. She had let down that wall, at least for the time being, and much to Kai’s relief.

  “What we’re trying to say is that we need spiritual guidance if we're to catch Nehalé Usarai. If what we've found so far is legitimate, the only way we'll find him is for the two of you to sense him out.”

  Kai let out a quick laugh. “You make us out to be bloodhounds,” she said. Caren smiled warmly at her in response. There it was — Caren was willing to open up to her, however briefly. Kai seized the opportunity and sent out a thread of energy. It landed on Caren’s skin, a whisper of a breeze, but just enough for them to connect. In the space of that moment she could completely sense her, and she understood the agent's anxiety...

  She is hanging by a blade of grass, she thought towards Ashan. A burdened soul.

  “Thank you for the clarification,” Ashan said to Caren, then turned to Alec. “Nyhnd’aladh, Agent Poe. I apologize for my assumptions.”

  Kai glanced at Alec and felt that odd, cold closeness again. She shuddered and backed her senses away, masking her discomfort with an apologetic smile.

  “I do apologize myself,” Poe said, and let out a long breath, two of them. “I'm afraid I haven't worked this closely with Mendaihu adepts for some time now, so I'm a bit out of practice.”

  “I've got a rhetorical question,” Nick said, and leaned forward, hands clasped together and steepled index fingers pressed up against his lips. His eyes focused hard on the table in front of him. He had not said a thing during the entire meeting, though Kai could sense his thought processes moving at breakneck speed. There was something to his aura, an intense focus — similar, but different than Alec’s in its intent — wrapped within that chaotic energy. Something familiar…

  “Say we get Nehalé on our side of the investigation,” he said. “Obviously, that makes us part of this...this war, for lack of a better term. What are our chances when it comes time to face the nuhm’ndah? Judging from what I saw today...” he grimaced, intertwined waves of disgust and horror seeping out of his aura, and looked at Kai. “...I'd say we're in deep shit where we stand now. I know what I saw, emha. They didn't think twice about who they were aiming for, there at the church. Nehalé might have been the intended target, but they weren’t too worried about collateral damage.”

  Sheila had moved closer to her partner, and now stood above him, leaning on the back of his chair. “If they were after Nehalé, they would have gotten to him directly, and spared all the others, even if there was a shield keeping him safe,” she said. “The Shenaihu may be polar opposites of the Mendaihu, but they’re not ruthless killers, either. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, it doesn't,” he said, looking over his shoulder, up at her. “That's what bothers me. Even more so that this hrrah-sehdhyn seems to be aiming for the Tower. Was the church just conveniently one of the focus points, or was it planned? All five are in public places, even in Fraserville. Realistically, these points could have been anywhere. Residential neighborhoods, business districts, the Wilderlands, even in the river.”

  “Why the Tower, anyway?” Poe asked. “It couldn't be political. Although I'm sure Governor Rieflin's going to push it that way eventually.”

  Kai paused nervously. There was no easy answer to tha
t, at least not one that would reveal what she and her brother had witnessed up on the Crest. They doubted any of these agents would understand.

  Nick, thankfully, jumped back into the conversation. “Well, that wasn't exactly my question,” he said. “What I meant to ask...and neither of you are required to answer if you don't think it prudent...” He stumbled again, afraid of his own words. “What...would happen if this was a war between the nuhm'ndah and the human race, never mind Meraladians, or even the Mendaihu? What if it's an attack against us? Like last time?”

  “Against...” Kai shivered and stopped short. She turned to Ashan.

  What do we tell them?

  Ashan lifted his head and hummed as he thought. The truth, Kai. We tell them the truth. He faced her without emotion, but with the eyes of an older spirit who had suffered much. It is theirs, they deserve as much.

  She understood, and faced the people in the room. “Then...” she paused, hugging herself from the sudden chill in the room. “Then the Awakening truly begins, on a terrestrial scale.”

  Nick visibly paled. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. His aura sparked and shivered around him, his nervous energy barely contained. He glanced to his side, at Alec and Caren, then to Farraway. Kai looked at them as well; they were all equally terrified of such a possibility, yet chose not to show it. Only Nick seemed to be totally open with his emotions. He cleared his throat and relaxed his shoulders, and the most amazing thing happened: the electricity around him faded to a mere pulse, seconds after his panic attack. Kai was amazed by the speed of his return to relaxation point. She had never seen an unawakened Gharné so in control of his spirit! He continued as the color returned to his face, as if nothing had happened.

  “An awakening of that magnitude…that would be a last line of defense, wouldn't it?” he continued. “And in the grander social scheme of things, that can't happen without a severe backlash, can it? Politics and Federation policies aside, this could spiral completely out of control.”

  “You're getting a bit paranoid, Nick,” Alec said, leaning towards him. “We can't rule out the possibility, but we can't make it the only one either.”

  “Agreed,” Farraway said. “A global awakening is a last option, and I’m sure Nehalé Usarai understands that as well. We have a bead on him now, and there’s a high possibility he’ll show up again. More than likely at Moulding Warehouse, and we have eyes everywhere around that place. So until then, I want all of you to forget about Nehalé Usarai for the time being — we have enough agents on the lookout for him now. Instead, I need all of you to do some recon work. Kai, Ashan, I need the two of you to begin listening to the city. Concentrate on the Waterfront District, but be aware of anything else that might surface elsewhere.”

  “Consider it done, sir,” Ashan said.

  “Sheila, you and Nick did exceptional work at the church. I can only apologize for having put you through that, and the debriefing sessions afterwards. I suggest the both of you go home and get some rest…you've both seen enough for one day. Alec, Caren, I'd like you to continue with your research on the man. Call Kindeiya at KJS again if you must, though I'm sure we've got enough out of him already. The more contacts you find on him, the easier it is for us to find any connections between Nehalé and the growing number of Devotees of the One already at Moulding.”

  “Of course, sir,” Caren said.

  He nodded. “Thank you. Now…I want to tell you, this global awakening is something real. There is a chance that the nuhm'ndah are also pushing to awaken the One of All Sacred, just as edha Usarai is. Alec, Caren, I remember we talked about this…and it hasn’t left my mind. I have to keep all options open. It’s a possibility. All I ask is that we try to keep it from being an inevitability.”