by Jean Lorrah
This time he and Lenardo did not take shape; they did not participate, but merely observed. Their point of view shifted down endless miles of corridor, so much the same that they might as well have stayed still, until finally the two corridors began to separate. Here there were colors and sounds, then shapes.
“Here the integration ends,” Lenardo told him. “There is a memory here that Z’Nelia refuses to share, and until she does, the integration cannot be completed.”
Wulfston “looked” around. It wasn’t seeing, though; it was Reading, that sensing different from his other senses that he was becoming pleasantly accustomed to. He discovered where the separation began, explored along the spectrum from integrated new personality through mingled strands of Z’Nelia and Chulaika, to where it was only Z’Nelia-and within that area a perfectly literal “mental block”-a mind barrier so solid that it might as well be a physical wall of steel!
“What in the world could she have to hide behind that?” he wondered-
And knew the answer!
The block remained. He did not penetrate it.
Yet he knew, as plainly as if it were his own memory, what Z’Nelia was hiding.-no, was being forced to hide!
The memory was from the time Z’Nelia had almost died, after she saved Johara by loosing the volcano, and then was struck down by the Savishnon spy. Her spirit had wandered the planes of existence between life and death, perhaps seeking the plane of the dead, unable to find it because her body was still infused with her indomitable will to live.
But of those memories only one was blocked, a memory of terror, of fleeing, lost, from one plane to another until she encountered-
Pure evil!
A mind even more warped and twisted than her own, a figure of female depravity, ancient and withered, kept alive by secret, forbidden methods. A spider hidden deep within the web that spread throughout an empire, carrying her poisons ever outward to maintain her power- until one man discovered her evil, and brought about her destruction.
She refused to die! She escaped the plane of the dead, and waited impatiently. Eventually fate brought her Z’Nelia, her instrument of revenge!
“Blessed gods!”
Lenardo tore himself and Wulfston out of the rapport with such violence that the pain was almost physical.
One moment Wulfston was in Z’Nelia’s memory, face to face with the gaunt figure of evil, and the next, senses reeling, he was sitting cross-legged on the floor of Chulaika’s tower chamber, gasping for breath as if the exertion had been physical.
“What-? Lenardo, who was that?”
But the Master Reader had closed his mind.
“Lenardo! Who was that?!”
Lenardo looked up, his face drained of color. “Portia,” he replied.
“Portia? The old Master of Masters? But how could she hide such evil from Master Readers?”
“She didn’t hide it from us all,” Lenardo reminded him. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it of Portias mental touch. “Wulfston-”
“You are the man who stopped her,’ said Wulfston. “Your kidnapping was her revenge.”
“No.” Lenardo shook his head. “It was Z’Nelia she controlled, not Chulaika. It’s much more complicated than-” His eyes widened in horror. “Aradia! Wulfston, you and I are her first line of protection. Our child!”
“Go pack whatever you need for travel,” said Wulfston, getting to his feet. “I’ll tell Tadisha and Ashuru.
We must leave at once.”
“Your wedding,” Lenardo reminded him.
“I don’t need a wedding, only a marriage. Move!”
Lenardo climbed to his feet, staring at the still form of Chulaika on the bed. “Wulfston… how did you get through that barrier Portia placed in Z’Nelia’s mind, when a Master Reader could not?”
“It wasn’t Reading,” Wulfston explained. “I just… knew, the way I knew Chulaika was somehow connected to me the first time I saw her. Barak says I have the Grioka’s talent.”
Lenardo nodded. “Thank you. Go on, now. Tell Tadisha. I’ll find the Night Queen crew.”
It took three days of preparation before they could leave. Wulfston and Tadisha were married in the Shangonu temple, with considerable ceremony despite the hurried plans.
The men of the Night Queen were eager to go home, but Zanos had not been seen since the destruction of Z’Nelias body. There were rumors of a flame-haired white man seen in the Warimu lands, and Wulfston theorized that the gladiator was planning a raid on the slave pens at Ketu. All he could do was wish him well in that endeavor, and be glad he did not have to confront him over the murder of Z’Nelia.
“Besides,” Lenardo reflected, “I doubt you’ll ever convince him he committed murder. He’ll always see the act as a just execution.”
“Yes,” said Wulfston, “but the execution of the wrong person.”
The Master Reader stared at him.
“I never could understand how Z’Nelia had either the power or the accuracy to attack our ship from a thousand miles away,” Wulfston explained, “but that was what I thought had happened. But after I confronted Chulaika in Norgu’s castle, I realized she was the one who destroyed the ship, hoping to strip me of my friends and retainers. She drew the power from every Adept on the Night Queen-so much power that her storm got out of control. I’m sure she didn’t plan on losing me!”
“You were supposed to be her weapon against Z’Nelia,” Lenardo agreed.
“But she didn’t have as much control as she thought. She was successful enough turning the storm I raised against me, that first day of the pursuit.” He shook his head. “We assumed it was Sukuru who damaged the Night Queen, but he never had that much power.”
Lenardo asked, “What about Zanos? What will he do when he finds out it was Chulaika, not Z’Nelia, who was responsible for his wife’s death? And that Chulaika may survive?”
Wulfston could only shrug. “That is a concern for the future. Right now, we have more immediate problems.”
Norgu was one of the problems. He was as uncoordinated as a two-year-old child now, and could no longer ride a horse. They had to carry his gross bulk in a wagon, and have someone with him to entertain him along the way, or he fussed and screamed like a baby.
Finally everything was ready. The caravan that would take them to the Great River awaited, and messengers had gone ahead to procure passage on a ship for them. Kamas was in the courtyard, but Tadisha and Ashuru were nowhere in sight.
“Wulfston, Lenardo, come to the tower,” Tadisha’s mental voice invited.
Lenardo and Wulfston looked at one another, and the Master Reader smiled. “When you have been married a little longer, you will learn that it’s not worth resisting such a request. We will be on the road more quickly if we go see what Tadisha has to show us.”
Both Tadisha and Ashuru were in the tower room- along with Chaiku, who sat on the bed grasping his mother’s hand.
Chulaika no longer lay helpless in a coma. Her eyes were open, and she focused on the two men with a weak smile.
It was not Chulaika alone, though; the integration was complete, they Read. This was a new person, Z’Nelia and Chulaika as one.
Her eyes-so like Wulfston’s mother’s eyes-fixed on him. Her lips trembled, but she was still too weak to say anything. But he could Read what she wanted to tell him. “Thank you. I will be well now. No more fighting.”
Even trying to form coherent thoughts was an effort for her. Wulfston knelt beside the bed. “We are happy for you. Rest now, and regain your strength.”
“Yes. Take care of my baby. Love… “
“That’s right,” he agreed. “Love your son. Queen Ashuru will help you raise him to be a great king one day.”
He looked up at Ashuru as the woman on the bed drifted weakly to sleep. She was right to make him take Norgu away, he realized. Chaiku had to be allowed to grow up without his half brother’s threatening presence, and Norgu would be better off far from Africa’s temptations
until he learned to value cooperation over conquest.
Wulfston rose and took Tadisha’s hand. Her green eyes looked into his for a moment. Then she turned to say goodbye to her mother, and to her homeland.
Hand in hand they followed Lenardo down the tower stairs, to join the caravan waiting to take them to their new life together.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-99c544-cb15-cf49-00ad-d624-58f9-7bb198
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 08.03.2013
Created using: calibre 0.9.22, Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
Jean Lorrah
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