Whispers on the Wind

by Judy Griffith Gill

  Still, they searched.

  When they weren’t physically searching, they spent time net-surfing, seeking out other possible leads. Though they followed up, often by waiting until night and translating to the different locations, each one proved either to be easily explained in Earthly terms or simply false, another tabloid exaggeration.

  Jon was right, though. Each translation became easier for her, though after three in one day, she was weak, scarcely able to stand.

  She was never too weak to make love.

  Jon awoke from a deep slumber and lay watching Lenore sleep. Her face was, for once, serene, and he was glad for that. He had given her peace, if only for a time. And she...she had given him a great deal more than peace. While she had accepted her Aazoni half over the past weeks, had accepted the powers it gave her, she was still reluctant to let him help her delve deeper. Her early memories of her mother and their parting still terrified her. Not once had she accessed her birth-Aleea, to revisit the unconditional love he knew she would find within it.

  He knew that even their baloka could be richer if she would but let it, allow him into her mind all the way. But, he decided, sadness permeating the thought, it was likely better for her if she did not.

  What they had together could not last. His obligations would take him from her and in the ten years before he could return, he could not know if she would choose to bury the memories of their bonding. If he were to return when he could and find her physically and emotionally mated with someone else on whatever level was possible, he was unsure what it would do to him.

  He’d known of no other bond-mate union that had been broken but by death.

  Now, knowing he had permission, he gently stroked over her mind, through it, seeking out memories she would cherish, to build her another Aleea. She had only three, the one from her mother—her non-Aazoni father having been unable to create one for her—and the one he had given her of their time with the mazayin, plus the duplicate of the one he carried, of their bond-mating enhanced by baloka. There were many memories for her to recover, so he filtered gently, seeking out the better ones—but then he hit a snag.

  Something captured him, held him helpless as he experienced the teasing giggles of a small child, one who danced just out of sight, keeping to the shadows, tempting Lenore—or her mind—to follow. Lenore tossed restlessly in the bed at his side. Her mouth moved as if she were pleading or protesting.

  Jon tried to contact the mind of the child, certain now it had to be Zenna hiding in her memories. That clear, infectious giggle was hauntingly familiar to him, but with the conduit of Lenore’s mind the only way to connect, he could go no further than Lenore was able to take him.

  Would it be far enough? The other presence seemed so close, almost tangible. Hope sprang high in him, and a desperate need.

  Come out, he ordered the child as would a kindly parent. Show yourself! And for a split second, much too short a time for him to grasp and hold, he saw the bounce of tawny hair on narrow shoulders, glimpsed a bright blue garment reflected in the bright blue of Zenna’s eyes, but then it was gone, flooded out by a much more powerful presence, filled with evil, with anger, with death.

  Rankin!

  His sensing the other man snatched him away from the gentle child-mind. With rapier focus he homed in on Rankin, battling for supremacy, was fought back by an indescribable blast from which, for a terrible moment, he had no defense. It left him open, vulnerable, in that first second, and worse, it did the same to Lenore.

  Instantly, as she cried out, her body twisting a into convulsion, Jon wrenched free of Rankin, clamping down hard on his mind, blocking access to the criminal he should have been following. But not while Lenore was in danger!

  The seizure continued to turn her rigid, vibrating her limbs against the mattress however carefully he tried to enter soothing thoughts, assurances of safety. Did Rankin still have hold of her mind? He could not tell. She had erected a block so powerful he couldn’t penetrate it. Or had Rankin erected it to keep him out? What was the other man doing to her mind? Was he stripping it of all knowledge, using it as a means to reconnect with Jon?

  Though her mouth opened in a silent scream of terror, he dared not interfere with whatever defense mechanisms she might be creating for herself. Her brown eyes remained wide but sightless and he sent out a concentrated blow, smashing it indiscriminately toward where Rankin’s had originated.

  He felt resistance, pushed harder, felt Rankin give and then cave in.

  He glanced again at Lenore, still twisted by a rictus that locked her body into contortions.

  Her heart stopped. He started it again.

  He inadvertently let his alarm for her safety beam out in an uncontrolled burst, a plea for help, for Wend, who could heal.

  In that instant, yet other presence overwhelmed him totally.

  It overwhelmed him with gladness, with relief, with the sense of connection that had been missing since his Octad had broken and Fricka—Fricka!—tumbled naked to the floor beside Lenore’s bed. And then...Fricka’s signature wavered, collapsed, though her body, scratched, bleeding, badly damaged, remained.

  A gurgling groan jerked his attention back to Lenore as she continued to convulse in dreadful spasms. He saw as much as he felt her consciousness leave her body, and cried out, grasping her shoulders, shaking her, as the rictus left her limp and flopping like something dead. He sensed no patterns from her brain as again, her heart froze, unable to continue beating.

  Wend! His mind bellowed again a wild and terrible projection made without care for who else might hear, who else might zero in on his desperate cry.

  Wend! Come to me! Help us! Now!

  Jon’s instinctive call for the Octad’s medic had an effect, but not the one he had wanted. A scream of outright rage at his presence flooded Jon’s mind. Rankin again! And stronger, much stronger, as if he were nearer. He was coming after them!

  Swiftly, Jon acted, flinging the rage back tenfold, blasting it through the atmosphere with killing intensity. Even as he did so, he reached out with his mind and gathered in Fricka, reached out with his arm and cradled Lenore, then translated away. Out. He knew not where, he cared not where. He knew only that they must be gone from the spot in which he had so carelessly let down his defenses, blasted forth that cry for help and let Rankin in.

  His powers nearly depleted, he felt himself thud to a hard surface. Under his head and right shoulder, something cushioned him as his own body cushioned Lenore’s. He glanced blearily around, but it was dim and his Kahinya had not enough strength to illuminate it properly. The place felt and smelled vaguely familiar to his all-but-scattered mind and he tried to focus on something recognizable but found nothing.

  The substance under his head and shoulder was loosely woven brown, cream and orange threads, much like the mantles worn by the Grales. That told him nothing. He knew he couldn’t have translated to their time and place, despite the enormous jolt of fear he had experienced at the thought of losing Lenore. Not without an Octad.

  Of Fricka, there was no physical sign, but he knew she was there—or what remained of her was there. Her essence ran weakly through his mind, struggling to the tenuous thread connecting them.

  He automatically ticked off the seconds since Lenore’s life-signs had faded to nothing. How long did he have? He could start her heart again, her breathing, but it was her mind that most concerned him. He knew he could not bring her back unaided. He needed two intellects. He really needed Wend, but all he had was himself and Fricka.

  He must help her so she could help him recover Lenore. Deftly, having done this many times before with others, he melded his mind to the fragments of Fricka’s, building, knitting, patching, feeding warmth and strength and positive thoughts into her until, at last, she flickered, almost formed, on the floor at his side, and then was there, growing ever more solid.

  As her corporeal self took shape, she gazed at him, still stunned, but he couldn’t give her time to fully recov
er. With his fingers playing her Kahinya in a clumsy and only partly effective imitation of Wend’s expertise, he imparted to Fricka the urgency of need to help Lenore. He formed a physical bridge between the two women, gave Fricka threads to hold, fragile ones, but vital, while he reached in and carefully, skillfully braided in the most tattered ones within Lenore. It took great effort on both their parts, but when she began again to breathe, when her heart took up a slow but steady beat, her mind to function as it should, he knew they had won.

  The knowledge gave him added strength, strength he shared with Fricka, with Lenore, further depleting his own until, at last, Lenore merely slept, her mind whole, her body restored to what it should be, operating correctly in every sense. Rolling apart from her, he covered her with the Grale-like fabric to keep her warm, knowing her newborn Kahinya would not be equal to the task.

  He aimed a swift thought at Fricka, instructing her to remain cloaked, to maintain a surround, not to project so much as a glimmer of their presence beyond these walls...wherever these walls might be.

  The power of Jon’s psychic surges as he battled against Rankin swept over Zenna, sending her reeling and smashing into an open storage compartment, sending a cascade of filled drug vials tumbling around her. They broke, smashed, spilled their deadly liquid across the floor and she clasped her daughter, holding her close to keep her from harm.

  She felt herself falling, falling, falling, swinging and twirling as if she were a leaf caught in a cataract as the two men fought, Jon, with his bare mind, Rankin with the aid of the amplifier, fortunately close to depletion from a recent translation. But slowly, with great concentration and determination, she steadied her descent, struggled against almost irresistible forces that wanted to drag her out of it and into the battle on Rankin’s side at his demand.

  She knew B’tar had been vanquished in the first instant of Jon’s response to Rankin’s probe. He was of no account, but she refused to let herself be used against her brother, no matter what.

  She somehow regained her center, calling on her Kahinya to support her, to strengthen her, help her torn senses to reconverge within herself, to collect the spirit of her daughter and protect it with her own powers. Glesta’s simple Kahinya, with its few, precious Aleeas, was some help, but very little.

  That incredible force of Jon’s energy might not have been aimed at her, but the effect was the same as if it had. All that had saved her from destruction was the fact he was her birth-mate, and hence she was insulated by her intimate knowledge of him. In it, she felt his fear, his anguish, as well as his fury as he refocused his power and squashed Rankin like the insect he was.

  She picked herself up from the floor, wiped her hand across her top lip, saw it streaked with red; her nose streamed blood. She tasted it in her mouth. Her tongue was lacerated from where she had bitten it. Her eyes felt as if they had been half sucked from her head, or pushed, perhaps, by the pain that still screamed there.

  Still holding Glesta close, both mentally and physically, she grabbed a cloth from a nearby rack and held one to her daughter’s face, pinching the bridge of her small nose to stanch the bleeding, the other to her own, as her gaze cast swiftly around the room, seeking Rankin and B’tar.

  She found the former crushed into a corner as if by the force of a heavy, physical blow. He had dropped the amplifier, rendering him much more exposed to the power of Jon’s massive, second surge. Not only his nose spurted blood, but his ears showed trickles of it, too, and he was deeply unconscious, his mouth lolling open, also bleeding where he had sunk his teeth into his tongue.

  B’tar showed little signs of life.

  Between the two men, under a table near Rankin’s bunk, lay the amplifier. Zenna lunged toward it, but pulled back swiftly as she saw it was coated with the viscous fluid rendered from the salal leaves. To so much as touch it with unprotected hands, to breathe the fumes of that drug, could be deadly. What to some races was a pleasurable but addicting narcotic was, to the Aazoni, toxic, just one more weapon Rankin held over her head, threatening Glesta with it.

  Carrying her limp daughter, she translated herself and Glesta to a camp far out in the Arizona desert, one they had not visited for some time.

  She and Glesta rematerialized in cold and star-filled darkness, with blowing sand filtering around them. Slowly, aching in every joint and muscle, she made her way into one of the adobe huts where there was shelter from the wind. There, still dizzy, she lurched to a bunk with Glesta, her precious child, who lay curled in a fetal position, alive, but just barely.

  Cradling the small form, she rocked her, humming a soft, familiar tune, one that comforted her as well. With infinite patience, she peeled back the protective layers Glesta had instinctively created to secure herself behind. Presently, she sensed a tiny glimmer that was the essence of her daughter’s consciousness. She fed light into it, and warmth, and strength. With the one hand pressed to the beads of her Kahinya, the other against those of Glesta’s, she gave the child back her knowledge of herself, knowledge of Zenna, of Minton.

  The sun had risen on the desert before Glesta returned to herself.

  Her eyes flickered open. She smiled. “Mama.”

  Tears of gratitude stung Zenna’s eyes. “Yes, my love, my letise. Mama is here. You are safe. We are safe.”

  For the moment, she did not add.

  Chapter Fifteen

  LENORE WOKE TO FIND herself lying, inexplicably, on the living room floor in the log house in the mountains, with a half-completed afghan, the crochet hook still attached, covering her. She blinked her eyes and focused on the shape of another person who sat propped nearby, her back against the front of the shabby old sofa. Though it was nearing twilight, she could see the woman was naked. Lenore shook her head. Was she having another weird dream? Somehow, she sensed this wasn’t the woman from her earlier dreams.

  She fought loose of the covering she wore and struggled up as far as her hands and knees, then dropped back down again into a crouch as she spotted yet another person in the room.

  This man wore a powder-blue ski suit of shiny, form-fitting material. The sleeves, revealing strong forearms covered with glistening hairs were much too short. With it, he wore no hat, no gloves, but, as unlikely as it seemed, he did have on a pair of red ski boots—still attached to the skis—skis, in the cabin! She shook her head, but the vision remained.

  Long orange socks protruded from the tops of the boots and had been drawn halfway up his lower legs. He propped himself on his poles, looking as confounded as she felt, and stared at her.

  At once, she realized her total nudity and grabbed the afghan again, pulling as much of it up in front of her while scrambling backwards in an attempt to get her knees off the rest of it. She was so damn weak! Her head spun dizzily as a result of the effort it had taken to get that far and she stayed very still for several minutes. Slowly, she rocked back onto her heels as she somehow sensed the skier meant her no harm. At least, he appeared to be frozen in position, making no move toward her or the other woman, who remained motionless, slumped in front of the couch, her eyes closed. There were signs of injury on her skin, but even as she stared, Lenore watched them heal.

  Around the woman’s neck was a circlet of light...

  In a flash, it all came back. “Jon!” she wailed in dismay, looking frantically for him.

  At Lenore’s sudden cry the woman’s long lashes whipped up to reveal silvery eyes glowing intensely under a wide forehead. Dark, shiny hair lay in deep waves that touched finely arched eyebrows. She was impossibly beautiful, with high cheekbones, a small, pointed chin, and almond-shaped eyes. Whoever she might be, like Jon, she had to be a perfect specimen of whatever she was. Another Aazoni? A member of the Octad?

  She glanced at the man who still stood as motionless as an ice-sculpture, his face appearing frozen in disbelief. He, too, was larger than life, incredibly well put together, with broad shoulders, narrow hips and long legs. His hair was black; thick and curly like the woman’s.
It was longer than Jon’s, and his dazed eyes were so dark a brown they, too, could have been black. He also wore a necklace of light, a few beads visible where the neck opening of his ski-jacket had failed to close tightly.

  Lenore clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering, and wrapped herself more closely in the afghan. Her crochet hook fell to the floor, rolling away. She watched it as it disappeared under the cold pot-bellied stove.

  “Where is Jon?” she demanded.

  The woman didn’t speak, but Lenore knew, without knowing how she knew, that Jon was all right. He was simply...recovering.

  “Regaining his corporeal state?”

  The answer, yes, occurred in her mind and Lenore quit fighting it. That, she knew, was a lost cause.

  I am Fricka. Over there stands Minton. I sensed him during our translation and managed to create a surround strong enough to include him. You are Lenore. Jon was very angry that I killed you. It was not my intention to do so. I apologize.

  “Killed me?” Lenore rose unsteadily to her feet, pulling herself up with the aid of an upholstered chair. She tripped on the blanket she wore, stumbled, and flopped down on the seat of the chair.

  “How did you kill me?” Oh, yes, she’d definitely gone down the rabbit hole—or maybe just around the bend. The last thing she remembered, she and Jon had been in Port Orchard. And now she was back in the cabin with a strange man in not only a ski suit, but boots and skis as well, and an even stranger, naked woman who claimed to have ‘killed’ her? That part was madness, of course. Because she felt alive. Or at least halfway alive.