Mind Over Psyche

by Karina L. Fabian

  Through her shock, she registered his plea. She felt the strength of his Naming and of the bond between them. “Gardianju,” She repeated, mimicking the sounds as best she could. She pulled him a little closer. Her mind touched his, enveloped it while being absorbed by it. She curled herself around him and shared his dreams.

  *

  “So,” Terry summarized as he leaned against the bathroom door, “the ego balances the base desires of the id with the moral desires of the superego.”

  “That’s about it—‘what I want to do’ vs. ‘what I should do.’” Joshua paused to flatten his cheek as he ran the blade over it. Terry had told him they were going to Ocapo’s camp, and he didn’t know when he’d have a chance to shave in front of a mirror again. He rinsed the blade. “And remember, this is an oversimplification.”

  Terry shook his head. “It sounds like a Bonding between Kanaan and Beast. Perhaps humans have more in common with Ocapo’s people. We know so little about them. If we can reassure Leinad…”

  “Are you sure we should leave Deryl alone with him?” Joshua asked as he rinsed then dried the razor. “I am not comfortable hightailing it outta Dodge knowing he’s stuck in that Remembrance with Tasmae.”

  Terry took his razor and stuffed it into his pack. “When they return from the experience and he sees that Tasmae is all right, he will understand there is nothing to fear—especially if Tasmae is all right. Meanwhile, the only reason the warriors are on the other side of the door is because the door will not open for them.”

  “You mean the—” Joshua indicated the keep with a wave of his hand. “—won’t let them in? If that’s so, why’d it let Deryl and me into Tasmae’s room?”

  Terry shrugged. “It shouldn’t have admitted anyone while Tasmae was under the influence of the Remembrance. In fact, it shouldn’t have let her out, either. That’s part of what keeps Leinad from acting. It is possible the Remembrance has influenced the keep to bring Deryl to Tasmae. Perhaps with the Ydrel to guard and guide, Tasmae will unravel Gardianju’s mysteries.”

  Guard and Guide. “Salgoud, where did her name come from?”

  “Tasmae or Gardianju? Tasmae is a Barin word. Gardianju, it is thought, came from the Ydrel, though none know for certain.”

  “Hmm,” Joshua shut his eyes, morphing her name with slurring. Gardianju. Gar-di-ahn- jool. Gardiangel. Guardian Angel.

  How many personalities did he see Tasmae manifest? At least four, and all of them very human. Deryl may not have known the languages, but then again, he’d seen him speak fluent Yiddish to Isaac, and Joshua suspected he didn’t learn that language through any conventional means. Tasmae screaming about humans being contagion. The fits and visions and prophecies Gardianju supposedly had. Were they all because she’d somehow contacted Deryl when his abilities had first manifested and he’d been fighting against losing his sanity to the psychic influences of the patients around him?

  That was five years ago, but time’s irrelevant, Deryl said. Still, five years’ experience of dealing with outside thoughts—can he teach Tasmae, guide her through the experience? Or will he think he’s relapsing?

  They heard the door fold open. Joshua’s heart hammered in his chest, but rather than an armed warrior, the healers crowded into the room. They formed a half circle and waited.

  “Our escort,” Terry said.

  Joshua shouldered his pack and moved to the center of the circle. On the way through the corridors, he tried not to think about the wary looks of the warriors they passed.

  Silently, he recited the Guardian Angel Prayer for Deryl and Tasmae, and Gardianju.

  *

  Gardianju awoke with a start and glanced around, her heart pounding. The mists seemed to have thickened around them, but in a way that felt protective rather than sinister. She couldn’t see any shadows moving in the still grayish-white. She released the breath she had been holding.

  The boy, the Ydrel, slept beside her, a relaxed, natural sleep. Her lap pillowed his head, and she caressed his hair and marveled at all the things she’d learned from her contact with his mind.

  The demon attack had left her shaken and terrified, yet this boy had been enduring attacks of varying size and intensity for over a year. Despite that, he had only recently come to this place, driven here by forces he could not control. Mere weeks into her role as Miscria, the agony and the feelings of failure had made her flee her mind. Yet her experiences couldn’t compare to the horror he’d experienced.

  He doesn’t know what’s happening. He’s had no defenses. And no one will believe him, much less train him, except— She shivered. There had been an influence, a dark one, more sinister and more fearful than the demons. And he’d chosen—chosen—this rather than that evil one’s help. Tears of shame trickled down her cheeks, and she wiped them away lest they fall upon his face and wake him. He was depending on her. He’d named her, sworn his aid in return for hers. Now, they were joined. Neither would be alone.

  So much help he could give her! She thought again of what she had learned through their bond. In his mind, she had found the answers to so many questions of Kanaan’s odd behavior and pain. She hadn’t even known her own questions, yet the answers were there: how earthquakes start and how they may be calmed; the mechanics of volcanic eruptions; the crazy—no, the chaos—theory behind storms. So much information, and with it, ideas. Direction. She could help Kanaan. She could help her people. The Ydrel had shown her how. She would return to her people, use his knowledge to help them.

  She would help him as well. There were methods, ways of deflecting or dismissing the throes of Kanaan, that all Miscria knew. She had passed that knowledge to him through their bond. He could fight his way back to his world and rejoin his reality. There, he would gain even more knowledge for her.

  The Ydrel stirred, lifted his head, and sat up. He weaved slightly, and she clasped his shoulders to steady him. He blinked at her, not quite seeing. “Guardi-angel?” He murmured.

  “I’m here.”

  He focused on her with eyes shiny and wet. “Help me die,” he whispered.

  With a sad smile, she shook her head.

  “I want to die!” He cried like a child, like one who had lost everything, even hope, yet without the wild hysterics of before. Again, she marveled at his strength. She had to remind him of it, bring him back to it. He could no longer afford to be a child. Neither of them could.

  She clasped him to her a moment, letting him cry the worst out, then pushed him back. “Look at me,” She instructed in this strange spoken language she had picked up from their bond. She did her best to ignore the fact that the demons had used it, too. He used it; the rest was coincidental and unimportant. “Look at me,” She repeated, emanating determination in her voice and expression, and through their bond. “You cannot die here. You will not die here. You are the Ydrel. Ydrel Mentor, Ydrel Guide.”

  “No, no.” He shook his head, rejecting her words and the will behind them. “Please, guardian angel, I can’t. I can’t.”

  “You can. You will. You have fought the demons before—these and others. Yes, I know this, my bonded. You are not like him, the one you call Master. You have given my people a chance at life with your wisdom and knowledge. But I must have more. I have shared with you my skill. Use it to find your way back, beloved, but don’t fear. I will always be with you. When the demons come, I will be with you. I am the Miscria. I am your Gardianju. Trust me.”

  “I’m scared.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Me, too.”

  They held each other.

  Chapter 19

  Deryl was forced out of the Remembrance.

  He lay on the floor where he’d fallen, blinking slowly. Stunned and disoriented, he glanced around the darkened room, saw one of his hands was next to the Remembrance. Idly, he noted the blossom nearest him had closed. His other hand brushed lightly against Tasmae’s.
Her blossom was still open, and she did not move.

  “Tasmae,” he tried to call, but his voice was gone. He wondered if he’d screamed himself hoarse. He forced himself to focus and sighed with relief when he saw the rise and fall of her chest.

  Run, Deryl! Get out! An urgency spiked into him with such force, he unconsciously threw up shields.

  Something ricocheted against them.

  He didn’t even bother to check what had hit him. He forced his lethargic and protesting body up and half ran, half staggered from the room, blindly taking turns as the some thing compelled him.

  He saw no one until he reached an exit and stood blinking in the daylight. A unicorn offered its flank to him.

  Hurry! The unicorn urged.

  “No,” he murmured, “Tasmae.”

  You cannot help her if they kill you. Now mount!

  He didn’t understand. His head swam with images, feelings, memories. Some his, some…“Gardianju,” he whispered. “I forgot her. She loved me. She saved me, and I forgot her. And Tasmae…”

  He clambered on. His hands tightened in the unicorn’s mane as he took off at a full gallop. Then he could only concentrate on staying seated. The unicorn rode in a direction he’d never gone before. He caught sight of cliff faces, forests, green meadows instead of the purple-flowered ones. It didn’t mean anything to him. It hardly seemed real compared to the confusion in his mind.

  Perhaps an hour later—just enough time for his body to protest the ride—the unicorn stopped in another isolated glen with a small, clear pool. Deryl slipped off more than dismounted. He clung to the mane to stay upright as the beast led him to the water. He splashed his face, drank, gradually came back to himself. The unicorn stood patiently beside him.

  I didn’t know you could speak, he told him.

  You never asked, the beast replied.

  “There were two suns,” he whispered. Somehow verbalizing it helped. “It was tearing Kanaan apart. Gardianju didn’t know what to do. She fled, to me. How did she find me?”

  The unicorn’s hide shook in an equine equivalent of a shrug.

  He rubbed the scars on his wrist, remembering the terrifying weeks after he’d almost killed Perry. They’d put him in a hospital, and when he couldn’t control the thoughts around him, put him in an institution. So many minds. So much pain. And then, Gardianju.

  “She found me in the Netherworld. She protected me. She joined minds with me and took some of the worst of the attacks onto herself. She held me. She reminded me I wasn’t alone.” He stopped and again rubbed his wrists. “I guess she learned about weather and geology and such from me. I loved that stuff; wanted to be a climatologist. I wanted to die, but she wouldn’t let me. She said she needed me. Her people needed me. She gave me some of her Miscria skills, to use against the ‘demons’ of the Netherworld, and to protect myself in the real world. That must be how I managed until Joshua came and taught me better—and I thought it was Malachai that had helped me.

  “It’s me. The whole Remembrance is about me.”

  You think too highly of yourself. There is more.

  “Where’s the other sun?” He was so tired. Things blurred and focused, blurred and focused. He scooted back from the water’s edge so he didn’t pass out in it.

  Gardianju made it go away.

  He couldn’t sit up any longer. He blinked up at the specter of Barin just topping the trees. She didn’t do it right. Something went wrong. She didn’t know enough. I didn’t know enough. And the Miscrias don’t understand. They don’t know what to ask.

  He saw a model of the solar system in his mind, all the planets aligned and stable. He felt the dance of Kanaan, the Intruder breaking the path, and tried to trace the lines of its movements.

  “Orbital mechanics,” he murmured before exhaustion finally took him and he fell into a dream-filled sleep.

  *

  Once mounted, Joshua, Terry, and Ocapo hurried away, the unicorns making great awkward leaps up steep embankments. Joshua couldn’t shake the feeling of arrows pointed at his back, and he with no psychic shielding, so once they reached a long flat stretch, he let Glory have her head until there was nothing but the wind in his face and the thunder of hoof beats under his seat. When Glory slowed down of her own accord, he looked behind him and saw Ocapo and Terry, two small figures hurrying toward them. He laughed.

  “Wish I could take you home, baby,” he said as he patted her neck. She snorted.

  She came to a stop at the edge of the mesa. He gasped as he looked out across miles of mesas with long flat valleys in between.

  “Whoa! It really is a maze,” he whispered. His mouth worked silently for a moment, then he burst out, “God had a lot more fun on your planet than mine!”

  Ocapo laughed as he pulled up beside him. “God did not create this. Tasmae did.”

  “Tasmae?”

  “It is both protection and trap. After the last war, Tasmae knows she will be a prime target. She intends to lead the bulk of the Barins into the maze and defeat them here. That’s why Salgoud focused on the Ydrel’s idea of using the caves. In fact, one of the things I must do tonight is recruit more Bondfriends to search the maze for caves, or places where Tasmae can coax caves from the stone.”

  “Are we in the middle?” He asked as he tried to gage the length of the maze. Five, ten miles on this side, he thought.

  “What good would that be? The Barins have devices that can see from the air—another reason Tasmae thought of recruiting the everyn. You see that the mesas are narrow? They cannot land their ships here, either. Also, Tasmae will shroud the area in fog. We don’t doubt that they might still find their way around, but we can make them pay for every step. There are decoys, hidden tunnels and traps throughout the maze. The keep itself is actually to one side, and one of several. The bulk of the maze is behind us, on the other side of the mesa.”

  “Really.” Joshua whistled. He struggled to take all of it in. Colossal was too small a word to describe it. His head filled with so many questions that he hardly knew where to start. Ocapo’s casual acceptance didn’t help. “Um, so how long did it take to build this?”

  Ocapo looked out over the winding valleys and huge land formations arranged like hedgerows with pride but no particular awe. “I’m not certain. They say she got the idea in the Season of Recovery, but of course, the first thing she had to do was pray. When I say God didn’t build it, I meant that it was not His direct design, but obviously, she could not have done this without His help.”

  “Obviously,” Joshua agreed dryly. Talk about faith the size of a mustard seed.

  “So once she had a plan that was acceptable to God, He led her to this place. It was fairly empty, but with lots of volcanic activity. It was also a very unstable area, and she was able to use that to bend Kanaan to her will. I’m told it took the better part of the Season of Recovery and the Season of Calm, and even into the Season of Preparation. For all her natural talent, she never completed her training, after all.”

  “Oh, sure.” He tried to keep his voice casual, even though he felt rocked to his toes. What could a fully trained Miscria do? “Can I ask you something? If she can do this by herself, why can’t she stomp the Barins single-handedly? Just fling a few mountains at their spaceships or something?”

  “When the War comes, Tasmae will be useless as a warrior. She will spend all her talent just keeping Kanaan from destroying itself. It is always so in the Season of War. It was very early in the last war when her mentor was killed. Can you imagine trying to care for Kanaan while being sent from hideaway to hideaway? No wonder she wanted a safe haven. Look!” He pointed to the right, to where two small dots dove and swirled in the distance. “A mating dance! We have even more reason to celebrate tonight! Come. We will follow the edge of the canyon awhile, and then fly down to an open area where my people have set up camp.”

  He star
ted off, but Glory, sensing Joshua’s mood, lingered a little longer while Joshua tried to take in what he’d just learned about Tasmae, who could, for all intents and purposes, single-handedly alter the face of a planet, control volcanoes and earthquakes with her mind, had the charge of literally holding a planet together, and was essentially Ground Zero for an upcoming war.

  And she thought that Deryl had even more power and importance than her?

  *

  Deryl thrashed in his sleep, powerless against his dreams.

  Across a field, Tasmae stood, face tilted to the sky, screaming words of furious command. Behind her, stretched in time, the other Miscrias mirrored her posture and mood. And they were wrong—all of them wrong.

  He was Kanaan, content in its dance until the Intruder forced it from its steps.

  He danced with Tasmae, and they laughed at her pregnant belly between them. Something grabbed her, pulled her. Her hands slipped from his.

  “Tasmae!”

  Leinad sat in the corner of the Remembrance room, watching Tasmae, so still, and tears traced lines down his cheeks because he was watching the end of their world.

  Deryl yelled across the field, “Tasmae! You have to stop! They are wrong! All the other Miscrias were wrong!”

  Help me! Her command echoed across creation. He felt her pull with all her will. At her feet, the grass wilted.

  “No! Tasmae!”

  The circle expanded, and with it, death. Animals and birds entered the circle and fell motionless.

  “Stop it! It’s wrong!”

  One by one, the Miscrias sank to the ground and faded away.

  Tasmae began to shake with the power she could barely contain. Deryl felt as much as heard the roar growing within her.

  Kanaan’s energy turned from the dance to the Intruder.

  Intruder! Leave us!