Whispers on the Wind

by Judy Griffith Gill

  “There!” he said, from within his link with the amplifier. “Restal.”

  That wiped the smile off his face. She felt his sudden apprehension, exulted in it. He, like she, had knowledge of Restal and his powers as a hood-caster. If Restal could get near enough, if he could pinpoint Rankin’s location, he could cast a hood that would contain Rankin’s mind, rendering it incapable of projection.

  She gasped in pain as Rankin’s amplified mental capacities linked abruptly with Restal’s. It was as if a huge, unrelenting hand had gripped the hood-caster’s heart. It squeezed, holding it, stopping it, squeezed once more for good measure, and Restal dropped. A moan escaped Zenna’s throat, hidden under the raucous sound of Rankin’s triumphant laughter.

  She snatched at his moment of elation, seizing the opportunity to pounce, but he was too quick for her. With one blow, he flattened her to the ground. Reaching into a pouch at his side, he withdrew a hypospray and pressed it to her neck.

  She felt nothing, heard only a faint “psst!”

  As the drug infiltrated her system, leaving her helpless, only half aware, she heard him laugh. “Now, they are only seven. They cannot leave Earth without me.” And Zenna knew she would never see her family, or her home-world again.

  Restal’s glad cry of recognition and connection gave way to a gurgling, strangled one of shock and agony, swiftly followed by his death-tone. Lenore reeled under the impact of its projection. Vanter’s form flickered and wavered, so hard did Restal’s demise hit him. Fricka steadied the surround as Jon caught the old man, balanced him, held him together, while Minton and Zareth supported Lenore. Ree collapsed to the hard ground, unconscious, overwhelmed by the loss of her mentor.

  Vanter’s anger flooded from him. Its power helped Lenore recover as it swept through the group. Rankin! The old man spat the word into the minds of the others. He killed Restal. Just like that. He stopped his heart. But how? How can he have such power?

  “The amplifier?” Minton asked. “Could it be used in that way? As a tool of death, not just a means of translation?” He seemed to be talking to himself, thinking aloud. “How? What would have to be done to it to create such a device?”

  Zenna...Vanter’s certainty was clear. Her living essence is in it. She caused it to behave in that way.

  Both Jon and Minton rounded on him. Zenna? Their mutual joy in his certitude that she lived did not prevent their instant denial of Vanter’s statement. “She would not create a tool that would give another the power of death over others. She would die first, herself.”

  But she lives, Vanter insisted. I felt her. She is with Rankin. A part of him, an integral part of it. A part of his...power.”

  “She might be in his power,” Minton snapped. “She is not, I assure you, part of it.”

  Vanter sighed and nodded. Perhaps it is as you say. But it makes no difference. With her power and his linked through the amplifier, Rankin has more than all of us put together. Especially now we are missing two.

  “The Octad is missing but one,” said a husky feminine voice Lenore had never heard before, and she watched a slender woman, shorter than herself, fly into Minton’s arms, where she nestled like a fledgling returning to its nest.

  Wend! The thought came from nowhere and everywhere, carried on a wave of pure gladness.

  Fricka, strengthen the surround, Wend said from within her birth-mate’s embrace. Much evil is afoot. I sneaked in under cover of Restal’s translation. I felt Rankin reach out, felt him still Restal’s heart in a way I did not know was possible. Her mental speech hesitated, as if she were speaking aloud and choking back tears. I tried to restart it, but could do nothing. All we have of him is this. She stepped back from Minton, showing them Restal’s Kahinya draped over her hand. She bent to the slowly recovering Ree, laying Restal’s Kahinya on the other woman’s chest. You will take it to his family, Ree. As his student, it is your duty.

  Ree only stared, and Lenore sensed she was still deep in shock. The hood-caster closed her eyes again but her face seemed less strained. Was Wend healing her even as she turned back to Jon?

  “How can she take it home to Restal’s family?” Fricka asked, slumping against the trunk of a tree in the copse where they stood in its sparse shade. “Restal is gone. We will never get home without the full Octad.”

  Jon and Lenore shared a swift glance and a momentary sensation of sweeping, guilty exultation before Wend spoke sharply as if to drag Fricka from the despair she was quickly sinking into. “We will rescue Zenna as we came to do. With her, we will be eight.”

  “You confirm Vanter’s belief?” Minton’s hope grew stronger. “Zenna lives?”

  “Zenna lives.” Wend’s tone left no doubt.

  “But where?” Jon asked. “Did you sense where she is? Where Rankin is? Exactly, I mean? Can you lead us to their location?”

  “No. He has something that makes him entirely more powerful than any one Aazoni should be. That is why we must remain within the tightest of surrounds and well cloaked. Vanter must do the tracking, with Zareth to hide him from view.”

  “Yes.” Lenore felt Jon’s distress lessening, felt his strength returning. Was this the effect of the healer?

  He stood straighter, his face hardened, his lips tightened, his chin squared off with resolve. He was, without doubt, once more in full command of his team.

  “Fricka, can you maintain a total surround with our help?”

  “I can.” Fricka’s voice quavered. She steadied it as she rose. “I will.”

  “And Ree...” Jon crouched beside her, touching her brow with his fingertips. “Will you manage to hood two captives unaided?”

  Ree nodded slowly. Her eyes, as green as Jon’s, stared round and hurt with a face still white in contrast to the blaze of her hair. “I can...try. Restal would expect it of me.”

  Jon raised her from the ground with one hand as he stood. “I expect it of you.”

  She nodded, looking healthier, more sure of herself by the minute.

  “Zareth...you are ready to do your part?”

  Zareth looked suddenly like a Marine snapping to attention before his commanding officer. “I am. I will create a diversion the minute we have a lock on Rankin. He will not know whether he sees illusion or reality.”

  “Vanter?”

  Ready. I will track Rankin. I will find him for you. He cast a narrow glance at Lenore. With luck.

  “Not with luck. With your own skill.” Jon’s tone was hard, uncompromising. He held Vanter’s gaze for a long moment until the old man nodded, tacitly agreeing not to molest Lenore’s mind for needed information.

  “Minton?”

  “I will do what is required of me to rescue my bond-mate.”

  “Then we will return to Lenore’s home to refresh ourselves with food, drink and rest.”

  The seven Aazoni—and Lenore—joined hands and translated from the edge of the Sonoran Desert.

  It was not until they had all eaten and she lay beside a sleeping Jon that Lenore let herself think of how he had polled each of his teammates as to readiness for the task at hand—and asked nothing of her.

  It was, she knew, because he felt she had nothing of value to contribute.

  Slowly, carefully, she reached out a shaky, inexperienced probe to Vanter, inviting him in...

  He was gentle to start with, so soft his touch she scarcely knew he was there...until he met resistance. Then, as if he were a crowbar and her mental barricades no stronger than rusted gates, he forced them open. With a scream of pain mingled with terror, Lenore struggled to escape, blaring forth a spray of torment, a wordless plea for Jon, for his protection, for succor. She felt his presence, felt Vanter struggling with him for precedence, and then...they were both gone.

  Lenore whirled through a dark abyss shot through with ugly streaks of red like blood, of deep purple like bruises, of green like putrescence. Her body slammed hard against something as another mind raked through hers, raping, tearing, snatching out pieces here, chunks th
ere, casting them carelessly aside even as she attempted to repair the breaches in her barriers.

  It was no good. She couldn’t keep him out. It wasn’t Vanter. This much she knew. The signature was the one of total evil she had sensed once before, the one that had inadvertently killed her. It would kill her now. It could, but it didn’t. It simply...took from her.

  She sensed the man’s malevolence, knew his mastery over her was complete, felt him using her terror to batter at Jon, to demand his presence if Jon wanted surcease for her. With each clawing probe into her mind, she knew she was crying out to him, try though she did not to. She had to hide. She needed to protect not only herself, but Jon. She must not let Rankin use her this way! Something told her that. Someone? Yes. But who? It was a person she should know. Vaguely, she recognized she had felt that person’s fear at other times, fear for the life of...a child? The fear was the same now, but it was her life in jeopardy, not that of a child, unless she was the child?

  Was the person who wanted to protect her a mother? Her mother?

  In her traumatized condition, she could not know, could only go where she knew it was safe. Following a persistent, annoying non-voice, an order she only felt but knew she must obey—or die, she raised her hand. Slowly, it moved, heavy, heavier than the world, but she forced it to raise from the hard-packed dirt where she lay, moved her fingers, digging them into her own skin to help them creep from her side, up over her chest, until her finger touched, for just the necessary instant, that single bead that would take her home.

  Deeper, deeper, she slid into that home, a home she forgotten existed, a home open only to the unborn. She crawled inside, curled there, warm in the enveloping fluid, floating, at peace, leaving the Rankin-taloned attack far behind. On one level, she remained aware of his rage, his fevered attempts to drag her from her haven, but she refused to leave because there was safety.

  My child...my beloved. The voice filled her soul. She sensed somehow a presence, not so much a memory as a knowing. For a time she floated, gathering stamina, then she was out of the fluid world, cradled close, nestled to warmth, sustenance filling her body and mind.

  She heard all the words her mother had ever spoken to her, accepted the knowledge of who she was, what she was, why she was. She recognized the love Careel had felt for Winston Henning, man of Earth, the love he had felt for her, and for their daughter. She grew to know intimately Careel’s sadness at Winston’s total refusal to accept her for what she was. She was there during the discussions between the two, not part of them, but aware. She suffered with Careel, suffered with Winston, who thought his beloved’s mind was unsound.

  And then, she experienced his disbelief, swiftly followed by terror, then anger, the day he came in and found his infant daughter hovering near the ceiling above her crib. Levitating!

  She cringed, as did Careel, at his scream of anguish when he finally accepted that his wife was sane—sane but not of Earth, that his child, the child of his heart, could never be wholly his, that she had talents that would take her from him. His horror burned deep within Lenore, his revulsion at what he had helped to created.

  A monster. A hybrid. An unearthly mutant. His mind, set to deal with facts and figures, could not deal with such an aberration.

  Careel fought him, fought his prejudices, worked to appease him, but to no avail. She clutched her child in her arms, pressed her hungry mouth to a breast to still her terrified cries. And then...and then she screamed as the baby was dragged from her grasp, forcibly taken from her. Mother/child combined could not overcome the determination of a demented man, not without doing him irreparable harm.

  Careel, loving them both, could only leave, giving her child the most precious gift she could, her one Aleea, planted deep in her mind for later retrieval, and a solemn oath she would return.

  And then, for Lenore, the memories stopped. Of Careel, there was no more, only an echo of the strong, unending love of a mother for her child.

  Mama, mama, mama...The words were hers...and yet not hers.

  The child! The child of her dreams. Enough self-awareness returned for her to recognize that child, to know that they were both in great danger, to know that somehow, before Rankin, with his horrendous capacity to do harm, could claw his way to where they were, she must act.

  Gathering herself, she sent out a thought to the child and the essence that was...Glesta...flooded her mind, mingled with the child that had been Lenore. The two, combined—the sum—were greater than the parts.

  Glesta, whimpering, crawled in to the safe cradle of Lenore’s mind as they fed each other strength. It took time, time to build rapport, time to create trust, time to reassure the child that was Glesta, time to rebuild the child that had been Lenore, to reclaim the woman Lenore had become. But when it happened, when the mending was done, the melding complete, there came a surge of pure energy, so much unexpected vitality, power to spare, power Lenore knew was hers to employ, she rejoiced in it, in her new-found certainty that she could win. She could, if nothing else, save this child. In doing so, she would save what was left of Careel.

  You must go, she told the child, recognizing the truth even before the thought formed. Glesta, I must send you from here.

  My mama...

  Your mama sent me to save you. She wants me to take care of you for her. I am The Other. I am Lenore.

  My mama, my mama, my mama...

  And mine, Lenore said, mingling the Aleea of Careel with those already in Glesta’s mind. Then, with a dint of effort she could only hope would be adequate, she gathered herself, narrowed her focus, locked it on what she knew of Jon and...thrust the child from her.

  Her last conscious thought was knowledge that Glesta was gone from there...gone to a better kind of safety, with Jon.

  Jon staggered under the impact of a small but solid body smashing into his chest. Instinctively, his arms came up to hold it and he looked down into a face that was Zenna’s—and not Zenna’s. Who? he demanded. What? But the child could not reply. He could make no sense of her. In her mind was only terrified gibberish, incomprehensible babbling, and the repeated word, mama, mama, mama...

  Jon sensed the shocked confusion of the others within Fricka’s surround, felt them crowding physically closer, mentally probing, trying to get a handle on this newcomer. Wend stepped in, brushing their minds and bodies aside, pulling a cloak over herself and the child, blocking out even Jon.

  He let her take the little girl, watched the concentration on her face as she used her superior healing powers as a calming influence, sifting through the confusion to sort out knowledge she carried. Finally, Wend broke into a broad smile.

  Stepping forward, she handed the small, unconscious body to Minton. “Minton, this is your daughter, Glesta.”

  The instant babble nearly overwhelmed Jon, but again Wend’s calming authority, her rapid but succinct explanations, settled the group.

  Minton, tears streaming down his face, stared at the child whose existence Jon knew he had never once suspected. He stroked her hair back, tenderly administered to her mind. Jon followed Minton into the mind of his birth-mate’s child, approved as the other man fed her bits of himself, bits of his memories, sifted through hers for all her mother had told her.

  His gaze swung to Jon’s, stunned, and for a moment, the two continued to stare at each other. “She had no knowledge of either of us,” Jon said to the others, who had politely kept themselves apart from this family union. “None at all.”

  “But of Zenna, yes?”

  “Yes, Wend. Much of Zenna. And of Lenore. We have Rankin pinned. Through Glesta, Lenore has sent us his exact location.”

  But, he couldn’t help wondering, was it already too late for his sister...and for his love?

  In stealth, shielded by the protection of Fricka’s willayin, the cover of Zareth’s illusion, and the power of all their combined minds, five Aazoni slipped across the desert. Behind, they left Wend still working on the unconscious child, carefully, skillfully pee
ling back the layers of her protection, freeing her from the protective chrysalis her mother had created for her, and in which she had safely remained when Lenore had flung her.

  In the crystalline desert air, the encampment appeared closer than it was. Making their way toward it on foot was slow, tedious for those accustomed to instant movement from one spot to another. But, with what they now knew of Rankin’s enhanced abilities, his power to kill with a mere single thought, they could not risk letting him know of their approach. To translate would surely alert him that the group he “sensed” as still being huddled under the trees was nothing more than one of Zareth’s illusions.

  Still within the surround, they safely reached the first of the adobe huts. All was quiet. Jon slipped apart from the others, a shadow masked by the other shadows Zareth created, and peeked inside the building.

  B’tar! He lay in a heap on the floor, as if he had been flung by a powerful force against a wall, only to slide down and stay put. Jon spared him only a glance. He was of no account, and clearly out of commission, but there, on a bunk at the side of the room, deep in real shadows, he saw Lenore.

  Deeply unconscious, she lay as in death. Only the faint rise and fall of her chest told him she still lived. He dared not reach out to her physically, lest her unconscious mind respond to that touch and signal Rankin of a change in her neural patterns. He dared not reach out to her mentally. To do so, he would have to break out of Fricka’s surround.

  There was no physical sign of Rankin in that hut, nor in the next. Jon was forced to clamp down on Minton’s inadvertent howl as he spotted Zenna lying in the dusty soil, bruises covering her face and body, blood running from wounds, a limpness about her that spoke of more than mere unconsciousness.

  Carefully, Minton lifted her, cradled her close, rocking her to and fro, telling her Glesta was safe, healthy, healing, that they were together, they were going to go home. Jon felt her fogged brain begin to respond, and bade Ree to cast a hood over her and Minton, to contain their uncontrollable gladness.