Mind Over Psyche (9 page)

“You mean you flinched? That hard?” Joshua
chortled.

“It's a personal shield,” Deryl explained as he approached Tasmae. “Telekinetic. I imagine it covering me like armor, but I control it. I can protect myself from anything, but if I want to touch something—“ He reached out and brushed back a strand of her hair. “I can,” he finished, his voice softer th
an before.

Tasmae raised her arm to knock his away, but again encountered his shield. Slowly, she set her hand o
n his arm.

He smiled.

Tasmae raked her nails across the back of
his hand.

“Yeow!” Deryl jerked his hand away. He backed up fast when she followed up wi
th a kick.

“Must you always concentrate on them?” She asked. Though she continued to advance on him, swinging and kicking, she didn't sound angry at all. Just ca
lculating.

“Only to alter them,” Deryl replied, puffing a little as he ducked and blocked her blows. She kept pushing him back to the far wall where practice weapons waited neatly
in a rack.

“Do we teach this to children, then?” She demanded. “Or can you fight and keep th
e shield?”

“Oh, I can fight!” Deryl spun, snagged a sword in his left hand and lunged toward her, swinging the sword wide. When she stepped back, he returned to a more natural stance while swinging his blade in a back-handed fig
ure eight.

“Nice,” Joshua called from the other side of
the room.

“Sachiko taught me that one,” Deryl replied. He started to make a “come on” gesture at Tasmae, but she didn't give him a chance before grabbing her own blade and coming at him with a fier
ce attack.

“Sachiko has four black belts,” he informed his friend. Even though he puffed a bit and continued to let Tasmae drive him back, he kept his voice level, as if this were nothing. “She's something to watch. You know she's got a temper. Sometimes, on really bad days at work, we'd sneak into the gym after hours and go at it with bro
omsticks.”

Joshua settled more comfortably on the bench and watched the two spar. This was at least as interesting as the stuff he'd seen in the movies; perhaps more so, since the swords were real and the steps not choreographed. At first, he marveled at some of Deryl's moves—real, Jedi-style combat acrobatics, but without the help of wires. He wondered if his psychic friend was unconsciously using a little telekinesis, then his thoughts turned more personal as they headed back in his direction. Despite himself, he leaned back in his seat as they drew near. Then Deryl swatted Tasmae with the flat of his blade and skipped off in another direction, drawing Tasmae away
from him.

“Why do you keep running away? I gave you that opening!” She snarled as she again drove him in Joshua's direction. “This is battle! You accomplish nothing treating this lik
e a game!”

He laughed as he parried her attack. “Au contraire, I seem to be doing just fine keeping your a
ttention.”

She spun through her deflected thrust and swung towa
rd Joshua.

With a yelp, Joshua threw himself backward behind the bench. His towel fell on the floor. Cochise shrieked and flew to pr
otect him.

“Hey!” Deryl lunged to stop Tasmae. His foot hit the towel and he slipped, crashing into Tasmae and knocking her to the ground. Both their swords went flying. They rolled and he ended up on his back, with her knee in his gut and her dagger at h
is throat.

“You would both be dead!” She shouted. “I do not know how you make war on Earth, but when you fight on my world, you fight to win! If you have an opening, you follow
through!”

“What?” His voice was hoarse w
ith shock.

She leaned back and returned her dagger to her hairpiece. “I said you didn't follow
through.”

He shoved her off him and backed away, shaking his head. In fact, he shook everywhere. “I didn't come here to fight—not with you, not in a war. And if that's your plan for me, then you can go to hell!” He turned and fled
the room.

*

Tasmae shrieked in frustration. “What is it with you humans?” She shouted at the closing door, not sure why she was still speaking. “How will you defend yourselves when the invad
ers come?”

“Who said we're staying for
your war?”

Tasmae spun at Joshua's hard, quiet voice and faced the tall, dark man. He no longer cowered. In fact, she recognized his calm. Salgoud took on that same kind of calm just before calling her to task for something terrible and stupid she'd done. Like she sometimes did with Salgoud, she stuck out her chin stubbornly. “You will remain until God's purpose for you here is fulfilled,” Sh
e snarled.

“Really? Are you
really
sure that's what you believe? Or are you keeping us here until
your
purpose for us is fulfilled? Because you're afraid to deal with the next w
ar alone?”

“How
dare you!”

Joshua merely raised an eyebrow. “I think your people are a lot closer to God than mine. Maybe you should ask Him about it. And while you're at it, you might want to think about who it is you want by your side—the Ydrel or Deryl. I'm not sure you can have both, anymore.” He bent down, picked up his towel and pointed at her with it. “And the next time you want to make a point, don't do it with my life.” He strode away, whistling to Cochise, who settled down on his shoulders. The everyn sent one parting thought her way—not words, but anger and embarrassment at he
r actions.

She waited until the door folded shut behind them before letting out another, though more subdued, howl of frustration. Even the Beasts sided with t
he humans!

With a lifetime of habit, she picked up the swords and returned them to their places, but she shook inside. She'd hoped when she'd been thrown from the Remembrance that perhaps the mystery had been solved, the reason behind the Ydrel's appearance discovered. Instead, he revealed unimagined abilities, then spurned her—and his companion has the nerve to tell her she must choose—the oracle o
r the man.

The Ydrel
, duty answered. Her people needed his wisdom. Yet he claimed to be just a conduit. And when they ha
d touched…

The Remembrance.
She clenched her fists in determination.
Gardianju had the answers.
She must.

Deryl took corridors at
random until he found himself in an area he knew wasn't being used, and ducked into a room. Once the door closed behind him, he strengthened his shields—physical and mental—and pushed them outward until they surrounded him like a large bubble. Next, he “tied” that bubble to a ley line. Sure he wouldn't need to concentrate on keeping his thoughts away from others, he put his back against the wall, sank down, and gave in to his anguish.

“You didn't follow through.” Why did she have to say that? Why those words? Coul
d she be…?

A cold wave of panic swept over him and he fought to steady his trembling hands.
Stop it! She's not the Master. No one here is. I know that mind, and it's not an
yone here.

She's not satisfied with defense,
part of him argued.
She'll press you to kill. First with swords, then with your mind. Isn't this how the Mast
er worked?

It was Spring Break, he suddenly remembered. He was home from boarding school. Aunt Kate had just had a miscarriage and was in bed, with Uncle Douglas tending her. Deryl had wandered around the house, lost and alone, until he stepped into the den and found his grandfather drunk and brooding. His eyes bored into Deryl with tang
ible hate.

“Devil's spawn!” He spat at him. “You've brought nothing but evil to this family since the day your father took my little girl. You think I don't know—I saw her change, you still in her. Ruined my lovely daughter—then you killed her. But for you, she'd be alive, successful…And now, you're the only progeny I get? Get away from me before I do what God should h
ave done!”

Deryl had fled to his room and cried until he'd fallen into an exhaus
ted sleep.

That was when the Master had come, offering to teach him to be strong, to take care of himself. He gave him a sword and taught him to use it. He spent hours talking to him, serious lessons he never heard in school.
The strong must rule the weak; it is their right and their responsibility. Strength lies in the body and the mind. Aggression is a tool, tempered by skill and cunning. You are chosen to walk a narrow path. Trust your skills. Trust my tutelage. Do not trust others. Do not trust technology. Trust yourself and me, but no one else.
The Master was a stern teacher, but Deryl hadn't cared. He welcomed the distraction from his misery. In those dreamtime sessions, he was special. The Master gave him the attention he'd craved. As the Master became more demanding, Deryl became more determined to prove himself, to please him. Failure brought anger and shame, but success filled him with tan
gible joy.

Looking back now, Deryl could see how skillfully he had been manipulated. He hadn't been aware of it at the time, but the Master's dreamtime preaching had influenced his attitudes. At first, though, it had seemed to help: He went from broody and withdrawn to haughty, yet began to make friends. He threw himself into sports, quickly making up in skill and determination what he lacked in size. He developed a patronizing disdain for anyone who preached nonviolence. They were the weak; he'd take car
e of them.

He took fencing. His body retained the skills and reflexes that he had honed with the Master. His coach stepped him up to more aggressive freestyle lessons he normally reserved for seniors. He praised his competitiveness and even talked about the
Olympics.

Deryl knew better now. The “competitiveness” He'd learned from the Master was predatory, a desire—a need—to draw blood. To wound
. To kill.

Deryl ran his hands partway through his hair, clenched them into fists, and pulled.
You didn't know,
he told himself.
You couldn't know. When it got out of control, you realized what had happened, and you stopped.
Nonetheless, he couldn't quite block the memory of his sparring partner with a long gash across his chest, blood staining his fencing tunic, nor of his own fierce joy at having done it. “Bloodlust” was a very accu
rate term.

You did stop yourself. You threw down your sword and never picked it
up again.

Yet the Master did not leave him. Training had continued intermittently but with greater intensity. When his psychic powers started to manifest, the Master tried to train him to use them as another weapon. When he had refused, he'd been forced to fight monsters or take painful blows that resulted in real bruises he'd had to hide with long sleeves most of the year. The pleasure the Master had forced upon him as rewards became equally intense, until Deryl had promised his obedience if only he'd not reward him so. Nonetheless, the feelings of well being he pressed upon him instead had been equally addicting. The lectures, too, had continued until he couldn't even look at a television without falling into a seizure. The school doctor had called it epilepsy and added it to Deryl's growing list of mental
problems.

Then, his fourth year at school, Deryl had lashed out at Perry, the senior who'd been tormenting him all year. When Perry gasped and collapsed, Deryl realized with horror that he had done more than wish him dead—he'd struck out with his Master-trained reflexes and stopped his heart. As the Master screamed at him to follow through, Deryl had started CPR—he hadn't known how to wish Perry alive—and when adults took over from him, had run upstairs and tried to kil
l himself.

Deryl pulled his hands from his hair and looked at his arms. He'd managed to slice both wrists properly, but he'd forgotten to lock the bathroom door. Again, he had not followe
d through.

So instead of dead, you ended up institutionalized
. Maybe that was a good thing, after all. There were demons in his soul, hidden insanities that he could never let out. Maybe he didn't deserv
e freedom.

Deserved or not, you have it. So what are you going to do about it?
A voice that sounded annoyingly like Joshua's
demanded.

He could never let Tasmae convince him
to fight.

Defense,
he thought.
Teach them the shields for defense. She's right; children can learn this. Save lives; don't
take them.

And stop this war.
The thought came unbidden, but he filed it away to think
on later.

The memories behind him for the moment, his mind began to still. He used a trick Joshua had taught him and channeled his negative feelings out of his body and into the ground. His quaking eased. He took a cleansing breath, disconnected his shields from the ley line and pulled them back into himself. He stood, took another breath, and went in search
of Joshua.

He found him in the healers' den, laughing as the healer they'd met before held his hands over his. “That is so cool!” Joshua
exclaimed.

“What's going on?” De
ryl asked.

“Hey!” Joshua turned a big smile to him. “Come here! Terry—show him! This is way cool! Put your hands like this.” He held them
palms up.

Deryl complied, and Terry hovered his hands over Deryl's and con
centrated.

“F
eel that?”

Deryl shrugged. “Kind of
a tingle.”

His friend snorted. “Please! That's like comparing ‘Twinkle Little Star' t
o Mozart!”

Terry laughed and backed away. “Psychic or not, Joshua has healing ability. I'm trying to teach him. Perhaps he has come to us
to learn.”

Deryl blinked. Neither he nor Joshua had thought of that; of course, he didn't really believe in ‘God-given purposes,' anyway. Still. “About that. I'm sorry about earlier,” he to
ld Joshua.

“What? Storming out on Tasmae? I was right behind you, dude. She was out
of line.”

Terry motioned him to sit, and took a seat himself. “It could be the Remembrance. You aren't supposed to come out of it until it releases you. Her healer is worried. Right now, she is…tainted by the memories. And even when released, few recover from their experience of this particular Rem
embrance.”

“No?” Joshua asked.
“Why not?”

“Gardianju was…” Terry stopped to consider
his words.

But Deryl knew. “Insane,” he
whispered.

Terry nodded. “I feel that means something different to your people. For us, insanity is not just a personal mental state. It can pass through mental
contact.”

“A contagion.” Deryl resisted the urge to wrap his arms around himself. He stared at his hands clasped in his lap. Silence
stretched.

“So, if it's a disease—an actual illness—to you, you can heal it, right?” Jos
hua asked.

Terry, too, looked at his hands, fingers moving as if over a wound. “It's too dangerous. We isolate the person; they survive—or not—according to Go
d's will.”

I did this.
Deryl hugged himself and closed his eyes. “And Tasmae?
Will she?”

Terry shrugged. “It is different with Remembrances, but it is said no Miscria survives the encounter u
nchanged.”

Joshua set a hand on his shoulder. Deryl forced out a breath and unclenched
his teeth.

“Slow down,” Joshua said. “What do you mean unchanged? They're haunted by the memories but otherwise able to function? They end up gibbering in the corn
er? What?”

Terry watched Deryl with concern. “Ydrel, you do
not know?”

Deryl shook
his head.

Then he knew, knew as all Kanaan knew in a composite memory/warning. Barin, huge and heavy in the sky. The Miscria, unkempt and wild eyed, “screaming” At the planet while around her plants wilt, crops fail, people and animals falter and collapse around her.
Leave us!
Go Away! Move!
The more she screams, the further the bligh
t spreads—

Deryl tore himself away. “Why is Leinad making her do this?” Deryl
exploded.

“It's not hi
s choice.”

“What?” Joshua
demanded.

“She goes insane and takes out half the planet.” Deryl gasped and tried to catch his breath.
I caused this. I ca
used this.

“
What
?”

“People, animals—even the grass! Then, then she…” He couldn't say it. He placed his hands over his nose and mouth and breathed slowly, trying to halt his hyperve
ntilating.

Terry took up the tale, his voice soothing, as if to a scared child. “She dies, but afterwards, there is recovery and a long period of peace. For many years, Barin keeps itself aloof. Then, the cycle starts anew, the Miscria are chosen, and eventually one must sacrifice
herself.”

“Not this time!” Deryl stood up and looked at his friend, the psychiatric intern. “I know your
purpose.”