Whispers on the Wind

by Judy Griffith Gill

  A hand gesture brought the dog and its cushion back center-stage and with another flick of his cape the man made the dog disappear. It was replaced by a slender woman dressed in a blue gown, who now sat on the cushion, brushing her long hair with a silver-backed brush that gleamed and glittered as if some invisible stage lighting were capturing diamond facets and casting the light in sparkling rainbows over the backdrop of deciduous trees.

  The little dog was in the tiger’s cage, standing quietly on the back of the big beast. Another gesture, and the man stood alone on the stage while the audience cheered, whistled and applauded. He swept off his broad-brimmed hat, bowed deeply, tossed the hat to the front row of spectators, then stood erect as they began to drop in coins and bills.

  “Zareth!” Jon said in triumph.

  “You’re sure? You recognize him? His face?” The man in the holo image lacked the bronze skin Jon had. He also lacked Jon’s stature and presence.

  “No...no, he’ll keep his real identity disguised, just in case, but I know it must be him. Where is he?” he demanded of Lenore.

  She swiftly ascertained the location of the performance and told him. “Show me.”

  She brought up a map, pinpointing the place. “Dress,” Jon ordered. His urgency flung her into action and she raced to her room, dragged on a jumpsuit and shuffled her bare feet into shoes. When she returned to the living room, Jon was watching a replay of Zareth’s performance. He was still naked. He glanced at her. “I need clothing, too. Can you get it for me?”

  She stared. “Can’t you just create the illusion of it?”

  He shook his head. “When we translate, just the two of us, for some time I will not have the strength left to create that illusion. It will be drain me too deeply to make the translation. Zareth is scheduled to give another performance in one hour, but still, we must hurry.” The hat, now overflowing with donations, had been passed back to Zareth, who whirled his hand over it and created a small cyclone of cash, which spun high, then slid neatly into a capacious pocket of his cloak.

  With his hat back on his head, he somehow made the lights go out and faded into the darkness at the rear of the stage.

  “Wow! He’s something!” Lenore said, but Jon was scarcely with her. He was busy studying the topography of the location she had found for him on the map. Somewhere in the area of Tennessee, with low ranges of hills, much agricultural land, forests and pasturage, it appeared serene and beautiful and quite sparsely populated in that zone.

  “We must hurry,” he reminded her, and she dashed out.

  It took her very little time to purchase what she thought he’d need, and even less time to return. He dressed, then, as she quivered with fear of what was to come, let him take her hands and hold them tightly.

  “Will it hurt?” she asked.

  “No. But you may feel...inchoate for a moment as we complete the translation. I will be with you.” He placed his left hand, and her right, on his Kahinya. “You will be in no danger.”

  Oddly, she believed him and then there was a moment of darkness, a brief sensation that there was no up, no down, no weight, no true sense of direction. Lenore fought nausea, choked it down, and realized that her feet were once more on solid ground and she could see the moon sailing overhead.

  They were in that amphitheater where Zareth had given his performance. Only—it was empty. Nothing remained, not even a hint of litter to show that a crowd had gathered there to watch a magician work, not even a stage, though the grass still held the impression of where it had stood.

  “Gone!” Jon whispered, and Lenore sensed his frustration.

  “I guess it wasn’t a live broadcast,” she said. “What we need to do now is find someone who can tell us when your friend was here. Over there—” she pointed, “—there are lights. Someone we can ask.”

  “Yes,” he said, sliding an arm around her. “Work with me now, Lenore. Fix on the lights. We will go there.”

  She ducked out from under his sheltering arm. “You work with me now, Jon. Those lights are less than a hundred meters away. I can see people moving on the street. Why take the risk of materializing in front of some curious bystander? Let’s just walk into town as if we’ve been out for a stroll.”

  He looked almost scandalized by the notion, then grinned. “I bow to your superior knowledge of the way to do things on Earth.” Taking her hand, he began walking with long, even strides she found it difficult to match.

  In a busy café where a crowd of young people occupied one end, filling and spilling out of several different booths, and older, quieter people sat at tables near the front, Lenore and Jon took seats at a bar. “We have to order something,” she said, sotto voce. “What would you like?”

  “I do not know. Coffee?”

  “Coffee it is. And apple pie, I think. With ice cream. Translating makes me hungry.”

  His intimate smile told her translating—or something—made him hungry, too, though perhaps not for pie. When the server rolled over to halt before them, Lenore passed her wrist over its scanner and ordered. The cost would automatically be debited from her credit account.

  While they waited, Jon murmured, “How do we learn when Zareth was here?”

  “If it was Zareth,” she reminded him.

  “I am sure it was. No one else is that expert.”

  “I’ve seen some pretty good magicians in my time,” she retorted as the server placed two large cups of coffee before them. “Only it’s slight of hand, Jon, not real magic.”

  The server slid two plates of pie, still issuing steam around the cold scoops of melting ice cream, across the counter.

  Jon cut off a forkful and held it out toward her, his face patient. Suddenly, she realized what he was waiting for. She grinned and gently pushed his fork back toward him. “Not here, pal. Here, in public, we each feed ourselves.” Picking up her fork, she cut through the melting ice cream and hot pie and placed a bite in her mouth, reveling in the contrasts of texture, temperature, and flavor. “Mmmm...

  Jon did the same, and repeated her “Mmmm... He did the same with his next bite. And the next. She strangled a laugh.

  “It’s not necessary to say that each time.”

  “Oh. I thought that was the way to express appreciation—to share our pleasure in public. It is a pleasant sound, that ‘mmm’ you make. It vibrates right here.” He tapped his chest.

  “Drink your coffee, Jon.” She nearly choked on hers.

  When she had finished her pie—and he his, with no further sound effects—Lenore spun on her stool and faced the three people at the nearest table. “Hello,” she said, taking her compad from a pocket and laying it in plain sight on her knee. She introduced herself and Jon, giving him the first last name that came to her mind—Francis, which was Caroline’s. “My assistant and I are in search of talent for a show we’re putting together for HoloNatUnited. We saw the holo of the magician who entertained at your latest county fair. Can you tell us where to find him?” She scanned the café as if hoping to find a black-cloaked man in the shadows—of which there were none in the brightly lighted room.

  One woman spoke with a shrug. “The county fair? That was more than a week ago. You must have been watching old material. Anyway, he’s not local. He’s also long-gone. And he was a cash-taker.”

  She added that last with a strong dose of suspicion. Cash-takers and -users were growing fewer and fewer as the years passed, and were little trusted, even in outlying agricultural preserves. Most people preferred the safety of chip transactions, which offered a foolproof means of tracking sales and ensuring the honesty of vendors. Though many kept some solid credits around for just such oddballs as itinerant entertainers. “He just came,” the woman said, “and then he left. No one arranged for his appearance. It wasn’t advertised. Don’t even know what brought him here. Except maybe hunger for an audience.”

  A man at her table laughed. “Which he got after that little demo he put on right out there in the main square. And his show
was good. You have to admit that. The guy had a great act.”

  Several nods and murmurs of agreement sent a ripple through the crowd. Even the noisy youths in the back had fallen silent as they listened to the conversation. Probably more than half of them could see themselves being recruited for a part in the new show if the magician couldn’t be found.

  The server rolled over and refilled the three cups of the table’s occupants, then tilted its urn over the cup Lenore held out. A glance at Jon showed her his coffee was hardly touched and he had on his vacant look. She wondered whose brain he was poking into. As long as it wasn’t hers...

  “Did the magician say where he was going next?”

  “No. Simply took our coin and was gone. And he’d promised us another performance the next day. We sent out notices over the net to every town in a five-hundred-klick radius, with vids of his performance. Must have been one of those you happened on. Had a pretty big crowd show up, too, and then he didn’t come through after the two acts he put on for us that first evening. Don’t even think he intended to. He didn’t so much as spend the night in our hostel so far’s I know.”

  The indignant spokeswoman turned to a man at another table. “Did he, Roth?”

  Roth shook his head. “Didn’t so much as poke his head in the door. Course, I wouldn’t have let him in without a reading of his chip, and I’d be surprised if he even had one. Prob’ly from one of the rebel tribes. Most of those wanderers are. They go out and get coin to buy goods on the black market.”

  Lenore nodded. Rebel tribes existed, she knew, who lived deep in some of the forest and mountain preserves, self-sufficient survivalists who refused to use embedded chips or allow their children to be so equipped. There were some things they couldn’t provide for themselves, though, so they resorted to ancient Gypsy means of obtaining them. When they were caught, they were chipped, of course, and trained in a lucrative profession. Most soon learned it was an easier way of life than the hand-to-mouth existence they had known before.

  “Any other communities close by that plan spring celebrations or have had them in the past weeks?” she asked. “He might be making the rounds.”

  Several people named a few other towns, and Lenore nodded, then tapped her compad to stop its recording. After thanking the townsfolk, and fending off pleas for auditions from a few, she and Jon left the small café.

  Back in the empty amphitheater, Jon’s eyes took on the blank look that told her he was searching, seeking, probing. It seemed to go on for a long time while they stood in the sultry night, under a sky where a few stars shone. Was one of them in his place and time? she wondered, gazing upwards at the stars. And if so, which one?

  Finally, he blinked and looked down at her, his face unreadable now that the moon had gone behind the trees.

  “I cannot reach him. Either he is very successfully screened, or he has gone from anywhere near this location.”

  “So, now what?”

  He took her hands again, putting one of them just beside his Kahinya. “Now, we return to your house and eventually to our search. But first, you will need sleep. Translating is draining, even for me. For you, I know it was much more than that.”

  “No it wasn’t. I didn’t do anything. I was simply...along for the ride.”

  He touched her face with his fingertips and she heard the smile in his voice. “That is not true, Lenore. Your mind melded with mine to make the jump through time and space.”

  She stepped back out of his reach. “How could it? I don’t have the right kind of mind for that.”

  “Ah, but you do. Remember, I said at the beginning you were very receptive to the Aazoni mind? That helped you to link with my Kahinya when there was need. It will be easier this time. It will grow easier for you each time, if you will but let my Kahinya guide you. It would be easier still if you allowed me to help you create one of your own.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll pass.”

  “As you wish,” he said, but she heard the regret in his tone and then there was that moment of disorientation again, the sensation of nausea and she was suddenly standing, weak-kneed, in her own living room.

  She sighed as Jon drew her close, holding her, supporting her, easing her transition back to reality in the confines of her home.

  Reality...Deep sadness flooded her. They knew now, with some certainty, that several of the Octad lived. Minton, Zareth, Jon...if they could locate Zenna, they were halfway there. And if some had survived that risky translation, surely others had, too. Lenore felt guilty for wishing that Jon would never complete an Octad. She released a tremulous sigh.

  “You need to sleep now,” he said, his lips against her temple.

  “I need you to hold me.”

  “Are you saying you want me to sleep with you?”

  She looked up at him. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying.” She smiled. “And if you think I’m using the euphemism you learned not too long ago, you’d be right. I want to sleep with you. But I also want to have sex with you.”

  His smile was tender, so tender she thought, for a heart-stopping moment, he was going to correct her and use the other term he had learned: “make love.” He did not. “You are very tired, letise.”

  “We’ll see. I know only that tonight, I need you with me. Physically close.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I, too, need that. It is an unfamiliar emotion to me, but nonetheless real.” As his gaze lingered on her face, and his hands tangled in her hair, she sensed his despair, and that his need to be held close was at least equal to her own.

  Together, they walked to her bedroom. This time, their clothing did not disappear as if by magic. Jon slowly slid his hands up under her tunic, cupping her breasts, toying with her hardening nipples until she gasped and swayed. She reached out and unfastened the zip in the front of his jumpsuit, peeled it back and explored his chest.

  “I am not as tired as you seemed to think I would be,” Lenore said.

  “So I see,” he said. Slowly, with exquisite tenderness, he made love with her. When it was over, she could only gaze at him, trying to catch her breath.

  “I wish I could bottle those feelings,” she said at length. “I wish I never had to let them go.” I wish I never had to let you go, she did not say.

  “You can keep them,” he said. “If you let me build you a Kahinya, you could have an Aleea and in it we will place that memory. We can create many Aleeas for you and you will have them forever. And anything else you might want to recover and keep.”

  She gazed into his eyes, reading the promise in his words, taking strength from the calm in his face, his tone, his smile. And if it was all she would ultimately have...

  “I think I would like that,” she said.

  “I would have to enter your mind.”

  “Would you do it as skillfully, as beautifully, as wonderfully as you have entered my body?”

  “My letise, I would protect your mind with the same care as I have tended to your body.” He traced the shape of her left eyebrow. “I would cherish it as well. If you feel any discomfort, any fear, I will know and retreat at once. This, I pledge to you.”

  For a long moment, Lenore hesitated, then whispered, “All right. You may come into my mind and create a Kahinya for me, so I will never, ever lose you.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  GENTLY, THEN, SO SOFTLY she was scarcely aware of it, she heard him—no, sensed him—in her mind. He gave her pictures that were familiar to her, scenes she thought she had forgotten. Views of her childhood. She remembered the son of a housekeeper, felt again a four-year-old’s elation at winning a footrace against him though he was six months older. She experienced the joy of learning how to swim, the satisfaction of operating a car for the first time, the pleasure of watching a drawing emerge from the end of her pencil, paintings take shape from the stokes of her brushes and colors on canvas...She had all but forgotten her girlhood creativity. Recapturing the satisfaction of it was like a miracle.

  With Jon’s
guidance, she wove in and out of her own memories, going deeper, deeper, farther and farther back until she knew herself as an infant, nestled close to warmth, sustenance flowing into her as she suckled, absorbing a total, unconditional love such as she had never since known, as her tiny fist clenched a single bead of light and—

  “No!”

  Her voice tore from her in a harsh scream as she fought against a memory too fraught with terror to be sustained. Jon guided her back to more tranquil times, holding her there while her tremors eased and then ceased.

  Later, she slept.

  When she awoke, she remembered all of it, even the fear, the shock of having that monumental love ripped from her. Where had it gone? The thought occurred and almost on top of it, the answer: It has not gone. You hold it in your hand.

  Feeling a warmth in the palm of her hand, she opened her fist, lifted her head, and stared down at the small bead of light lying there. She reached out to touch it with a forefinger, then jerked back, her motion sending it rolling from her hand to almost lose itself in the folds of the sheet.

  Carefully, Jon retrieved it between finger and thumb and set it into the small hollow at the base of her throat. It remained there, feeling as if it were part of her. Though she sat erect, it did not roll out. Eyes wide, she stared at her image in the mirror over the dresser and watched in awe as two glistening tendrils began to grow from the bead, one on either side, to encircle her neck, imparting a deeply warming comfort. It flooded her from the inside, made her feel strong, whole for the first time in her life. Again, she experienced immense love that knew no beginning, no ending, that simply...was.

  She stared at Jon, who gazed calmly back at her. “Yes,” he said. “It is your first Aleea. It is the one your mother gave you. It was always there. I merely helped you recover it.”