Mind Over Psyche (24 page)

*

There were too many barriers between them. Too many clothes. Too many shields. His hands fumbled at the ties on her shirt while hers slowly but more surely worked the fastenin
gs on his.

Her mind worked the same way upon his shields, teasing them until one by one they fell with a rush of pleasure and a need for more. Already their minds had joined enough that he had a sense of tactile double vision. The nerves of his fingertips echoed every sensation of her touch, and he felt his every caress play upon his own skin as it had on hers, and when he at last undid the tie of her shirt and pulled one side of it away, he gasped with the intensity of her
pleasure.

He heard a distant thundering, but he couldn't tell if it was the galloping of hooves or the galloping of the
ir hearts.

Then she slid his shirt over his shoulders and he was too lost in the sensation to worry
about it.

*

Joshua saw Leinad approaching, and his own anger vanished into panic. He dug his heels into Glory's flanks, but she didn't complain, just put on even more speed. Leinad was clearly furious—and he w
as closer.

*

Their passion flowed over Deryl, making the last of his shields sing. He moaned, half ecstasy, half anguish. Still, a part of his mind protested,
There are things you don't know—t
he Master—

Then show me!
her will commanded.
There is nothing we cannot handle
together.

Her confidence flooded into him, drowning his protests. The last of his shields trembled against her desire and he knew he wouldn't stop them from falling b
efore her.

*

Leinad howled with fear. He concentrated that fear into a tightly focused command and threw it
at Deryl.

*

Joshua watched in horror as Deryl was flung backward and knocked to the ground, his arms covering his head, convulsing with pain, yet terrifyingly silent, as if the pain were so intense he couldn't ev
en shriek.

Leinad, meanwhile, grabbed Tasmae by the shoulder and spun her around to face him. She slapped his hand away and screeched more like an animal than a person. The two stood glaring at each other, and it was obvious even to a non-psychic that a battle raged bet
ween them.

Glory reared to a stop, nearly unseating Joshua. He leapt from the saddle and knelt over his friend
. “Deryl!”

*

AWAY
FROM HER!

A red-hot ball of terror hit Deryl like a missile, blasting away the last of his shields and leaving him vulnerable and open to every psychic impression a
round him.

He'd thought his shields had been all but useless when he'd first arrived on Kanaan. Now he realized just how much he'd blocked. Every person on Kanaan, every beast, every animal—he could feel them all, hear their thoughts. He could even sense the grass growing, the flowers opening themselves to the sunrise on the other side of the world, the movements of Kanaan's continental plates miles below him. They all pressed upon him, seeking his attention, demanding his recognition. His mind instinctively struggled to block them out, but every shield had been shattered by the intense emotions of those ne
arest him:

Joshua, his fear lik
e a lance.

Leinad, his fear now anger as he confronted his rebellious student and leader. How dare she put herself—their world—in su
ch danger!

Tasmae, her fury like a volcano, like the heart of a star. It caught him up in it, burned away every defense, seared
his mind—

“Taz!” He tried to gasp, tried to telep, but his words were lost in his fight to breathe, and his psychic scream drowned in the avalanche of impressions crashing
upon him.

*

“Stop it!” Joshua jumped between Tasmae and Leinad, shoving each for good measure. “Stop it! You're going to
kill him!”

Jolted out of their rage, the two blinked at Joshua in
surprise.

*

In that moment of release, Deryl's shields snapped back into place and he gave himself to blessed oblivion. His last impression was of Joshua's fear, strong, bu
t distant.

“Deryl, don't you do this to me! Come, on, man. Don't
do this.”

Oblivion felt so good. He couldn't muster the strength to apologize as he let himself get swallowed by its tender no
thingness.

Deryl's first impression upon
waking was that someone had flayed his mind.

Every synapse burned, and every nerve in his body echoed their agony. He rolled onto his side, moaning. His stoma
ch heaved.

Someone pushed a bowl under his face just in time and he gratefully threw up into it. Then he fell back onto the unfamiliar sleeping mats and fought to catch h
is breath.

“You ought to be thanking God you're ev
en alive.”

The quiet voice nonetheless hammered itself into his head. He wanted to protest, to beg for quiet, but he couldn't remember how to make himself speak. He started to shiver, felt a warm heavy blanket being pulled up over him. He forced his eyes open, saw Joshua. He wanted to say something, to ask what happened, but he couldn't find the words. He felt like half of himself had been stolen away. It was a struggle to think, to remember w
ho he was.

“Deryl, come on, say something,” Jos
hua urged.

“Tasmae?” The name sent a flood of yearning through him, and he forced himself into a sitting position. Dizziness swept over him, and he fought the urge to vo
mit again.

“She's all right. Better than you, I'm told. Now
lie down—”

He shook his head, despite the lances of pain. “Tasm
ae. Need…”

“Uh-uh. You don't need anything to do with her right now.” Joshua tried to ease him
back down.

“Yes, I do!” His sudden desperation gave him strength to shove his friend away and to push back the pain. Words returned in its wake. “Where is she? What did you and L
einad do?”

“Me? Listen, you selfish little pain in the ass! I saved your sorry life. You, on the other hand, were the one who decided to get busy with the caretaker of an entire world, the most powerful and the most valuable person on this planet! Did you know that these people believe if anything happens to her, their whole
world
i
s doomed?”

Joshua's anger seared into him like salt on an open wound. “Josh,” Deryl protest
ed weakly.

“Don't even try to excuse this! You
knew
Leinad doesn't trust us! I
told
you to stay away from her. Yet you decide to get it on with her in the middle of a frickin' meadow? What the hell were you
thinking?”

Deryl couldn't think. It was getting hard to keep track of who he was again. Something was missing. Someone...“Where's Tasmae
? I need—”

“Let me tell you what you need!” Joshua grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him up. “You
need
to get better. Then you
need
to talk to someone
else
about teleporting. I've asked around and guess what? There are plenty of people
right here
who know how to do it. Then, you
need
to get me home, preferably in one piece and within twenty-four hours of after we'd left. Anything you
want
to do after that is your own damn business, but I am not going to be around to bail you out. Do you un
derstand?”

Joshua's anger—Joshua's fear—scraped upon his raw nerves. Desperately, Deryl nodded. “Yes, yes. I
'm sorry.”

“I'll accept your apology when you're ready to get me home.” Joshua released him and left
the tent.

Deryl leaned toward the bowl and threw up again, then fell back against the covers shaking with fever and with the need to find Tasmae. Only remotely did he wonder whe
re he was.

*

Joshua hesitated outside the tent flap when he heard Deryl vomiting a second time. He even turned around to go back in when he stopped himself.
Don't do it
.
You'll just end up yelling at him again, and that's not going to hel
p anybody.

Instead, he turned to Cochise, who had been waiting for him outside, sprawled out like a cat basking in the sun. “Cochise, tell Terry that Deryl's awake finally. I'm taking a walk.” The everyn gave a chirrup of assent, then stretched and yawned before curling up again. Apparently, he had no intention of moving. Joshua watched him a moment, assumed he'd teleped the information to Terry, and headed out toward the woods, his own stomach churning with the combination of anger
and shame.

How could I have done that? Deryl was barely coherent, and I grab him by the collar and scream at him? What the hell was
I
thinking?

He reached the end of the camp and headed out onto the path in the woods, wandering blindly, focused on his
thoughts.

He knew what he was thinking. He was thinking how close he'd come to being stranded on an alien planet umpteen billion light-years from home. When he'd stopped Tasmae's and Leinad's psychic argument, Deryl had stopped twitching, all right. He'd also stopped breathing. Terry had looked at him with such terror that Joshua had known there was no way the healer would help him. Fortunately, just as Joshua was about to start rescue breathing, Tasmae had shoved away from Leinad, who'd been trying again to restrain her, knelt beside Deryl, and placed her hands on his temples. “Return to me,” She'd whispered, then fallen beside him unconscious as her almost-lover—
thank you God, that it was almost
—started to breathe in huge aching gasps. He was alive, but if Leinad's look said anything, any more wrong moves, by whatever Leinad termed was “wrong,” and he'd make sure Deryl stopped breathing permanently. Leinad had carried the unconscious Tasmae to a waiting unicorn and headed back to the keep, but Joshua, Ocapo, and Terry decided it was best if they took Deryl back to the Bondfriend
compound.

“Can he make that long a trip?” Joshua asked, though he really didn't have an al
ternative.

“I will take him through the Void,” Terry sa
id grimly.

And that's when Joshua found out that at least half the people around him had known all along how to
teleport.

Joshua's strides grew longer and faster as his anger r
esurfaced.

So all the time, we were surrounded by people who could have taught Deryl how to get us home, and nobody said a word, not even Leinad, and he wanted us out of here more tha
n anybody!

The path forked, and he blindly took the path toward a
clearing.

And to make things even better, these “storms” Tasmae and Deryl talked about are short and with breaks in between. We could have left days ago. And no one mentioned a thing! Probably Tasmae and her “will of
God” jazz—

Cochise flew at his face
shrieking.

“Yeaghhh!” Joshua jumped back, startled out of his reverie and probably a year or two of
his life.

“What was that all about?” He stopped as he realized he'd almost blundered right into one of the clearings he'd been told to stay away from. In fact, he
was
in the clearing by a few steps, and the trees swayed in his direction. One snagged his foot and Cochise snapped at it, ripping it with his sharp teeth and freeing him. He turned and ran, and kept running until he was about halfway back toward the camp and the pain in his chest made him stop and cling to a tree for support. He tried to breathe and found he couldn't catch h
is breath.

Oh, great
! His panicked mind blithered.
I escape from the enchanted trees just to die of a heart attack on an alien world billions of light-years from everyone I love—
Then he couldn't think in his struggle t
o breathe.

Relax,
the clinical part of his mind instructed.
You're hyperventilating. Heart attacks don't run in your family. An anxiety attack, though? That ma
kes sense.

He sat down on the trail, covering his mouth and one nostril with his hands, forcing himself to take deep eas
y breaths.

His breathing had started to normalize and the tightness in his chest to ease when he heard footsteps racing in his direction. He'd lowered his hands and was taking normal, if shaky breaths when Ocapo and the Bondfriend healer got to him. They knelt b
eside him.

“Joshua?” Ocapo asked te
ntatively.

Joshua wanted to brush him off, tell him he was fine, but instead he found himself saying miserably, “I gotta go home, Ocapo.” Before this summer, he'd never even left Colorado, never been more than an hour's drive from his parents, never, never been so alone. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook
his head.

Just like his grandfather would have, the healer moved beside him and pulled his head against his shoulder. Joshua leaned against him, letting someone else be strong for just a lit
tle while.

After several minutes of silence, Ocapo spoke. “You will get home, Joshua. I promise. If Deryl is unable to take you, and if the Kanaan are unwilling, then we Bondfriends will find a way. I know it is hard for you to trust right now, but trust us
on that.”

Joshua nodded. After all, what choice di
d he have?

*

Terry had come into Deryl's tent not long after Joshua had left. Deryl struggled to sit up and confront him. “Tasmae?” He demanded weakly, and cursed his weakness. He had to get to her,
he had to!

Terry reassured him even as he restrained him. He spoke in English, as if he guessed at how raw the state of Deryl's psyche was and didn't want to aggravate it more by teleping. “You will go to her, Deryl, soon. But we must figure out how to do this
. Leinad—”

“He stopped us! He took her!” He heard himself raving. He thought he was feverish. He felt so hot. He felt wrong. Incomplete. He had to get to her.
“Leinad—”

“He did what he thought was best for Tasmae, and for us all. Tasmae underestimates his understanding of the Remembrances and of the Prophesies, and that has caused trouble. For better or for worse, however, you have started something that must be completed. You will be with her again, Deryl. But you must give me time to convince Leinad. In the meantime, lie still. Gain your
strength.”

“Can't!” Why didn't Terry understand? He needed Tasmae! How could he have ever thought of leaving h
er? “Taz—”

“You will hurt Tasmae if you go to her as you are now,” Terry said sternly. “Is that what
you want?”

He shook his head. He fought the ur
ge to sob.

Terry nodded, satisfied. “I didn't think so. And you will hurt yourself. Why do you think I'm using your English? Your mind is weak and injured, and the only thing that can help you is time. And rest. Now try to sleep, or I will have to drug you, and neither of us wants to
do that.”

“No,” Deryl agreed, and Te
rry stood.

“Rest, Deryl,” he said gently. “Rest and heal. I'll be outside if you need anything.” Without waiting for an answer
, he left.

But Deryl hadn't heard him. At that moment, he'd felt a familiar tickling at the base of his brain, and he'd joyfully given himself to the Miscr
ia's Call.

He found himself in the small glen Tasmae had imagined for them the first time they'd actually “spoken” together in the Netherworld. The canopy of branches and leaves shrouded them in privacy. It cut off the view of the sky, yet somehow, he saw everything clearly. It didn't matter; Deryl only cared about seeing
one thing.

“Tasmae!”

She ran to him, and they embraced. Then he pulled away. “Terry said I'd
hurt you—”

She touched her fingers to his lips, and he understood that Terry didn't know everything, and that the only pain she felt was at their s
eparation.

Then she flooded into his mind, and where she touched, waves of cool healing washed over his psychic wounds. He sighed with relief, and actually swayed a little. She caught him, and he wrapped his arms around her, first for support, then for something far more intimate. This time, they would
be alone.

A familiar voice, a voice from nightmare, interrup
ted them.

I WOULDN'T BE SO CERTAIN A
BOUT THAT.

As one, they turned toward the intruder and
blanched.

“Alugiac?”

“Master!”

They gaped at each other. They both
knew him?

The Master, once known on Kanaan as Alugiac, laughed. A triumphant satisfaction flowed from him like the thick fog that slowly rolled from where he stood at the gl
en's edge.

AT LAST I RETURN TO YOU, DERYL—AND LOOK AT THE GIFT YOU'VE B
ROUGHT ME!

“Tasmae, run!” Deryl shouted. A sword appeared in his hand, but though he held it at the ready, he was shaking so hard the blade
quivered.

The mist had surrounded them now. The trees, moss, even the rocks had eroded at its touch. Colors fled, leaving them in a gray and black world, with only an indeterminate ground and low fog as
landscape.

*

“Run, Beloved!” Tasmae felt the tangle of Deryl's emotions—fear, anguish, guilt, hatred toward himself and toward the one he call
ed Master.

“No.” She pulled the punch dagger from her hair. She did not know what hold Alugiac had on Deryl, but they would end it
together.

Alugiac laughed, an ugly sound. LITTLE TASMAE. ALL GROWN UP. IT WAS ALMOST WORTH IT, FAILING TO TAKE YOU IN THE LAST WAR, JUST TO SEE YOU AS YO
U ARE NOW.