The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2

Part 4

Late on a night near the end of Talia's seventh month of pregnancy, while she was deeply asleep, her unborn children were bored and restless. For the first time, they projected their psionic awareness outside Talia's body, and went exploring for something interesting. The boy sent his mind questing toward the settlement, lightly sampling the sleeping thoughts he encountered, but drawn to the stronger minds on the far side of the flats. One was too basic to be interesting, and two were so bright they were frightening, so they were avoided. But one was just right, and the unborn boy was drawn to that mind, to which he felt an affinity. But he found the mind was hidden behind strong barriers, so he began feeling around, trying to get past to the shining mind that so fascinated him.

His sister had been following along as he did this, her thoughts always deeply entwined with those of her brother. But then a bright spark of thought seemed to capture her attention, and her awareness went out to find it, behind the house, behind their backyard valley, deep in the mountains near the center of the island.

She found what she was seeking, but the mind detected her, resisted her, hurt her. She reacted instinctively, and made the mind stop hurting her. Then, with her tiny heart pounding with the excitement, she broke past the mind's barriers to see what it was like inside.

Her brother observed this and copied what she'd done, and a moment later he was through the barriers around the mind he was considering.

Talia, Mark, and Alilia were blasted awake by Povon's psionic shriek. "MIND YOUR CHILDREN!" she angrily demanded. "They just broke Kragorram's psionic shields, and they weren't gentle about it! He has the god of all headaches, and we cannot bar them from his mind without destroying them! Which I almost did, before I realized who was doing it!"

"By the source!" Talia gasped as she checked her children. "He has Kragorram, and she has... A Sylvan! Out in the mountains somewhere! Missing gods, she's almost killed him! If he isn't helped quickly, he'll spend the rest of his days as a babbling idiot, if he survives at all!

"Mark, help with Reggie, and Alilia help me with Helemia!"

"Let the nice dragon go now Reggie, that's a good boy, just let the nice dragon go." Mark gently instructed, but his brow was furrowed with the effort and concentration of what he was doing. His effort was abou half coaxing and half controlling his son as he desperately tried to ease the boy out of Kragorram's mind as quickly and as gently as possible. The unborn babe was being stubborn about it. Mark would have thought Reggie would have fled from Kragorram's anguish, frustration, and pain, not to mention Povon's seething hostility, but the baby was uncowed. He was too ignorant of the meaning of others' emotions and too fascinated by Kragorram to be intimidated. Finally, Mark realized that his methods weren't working, and let some anger show through in the Link. "NOW, dammit!" he growled, and forcefully pulled his son's mind from Kragorram's with an improvised technique that was so intuitive that he had no way to describe it. For want of another way to hold his son's attention, Mark began singing to him as loudly as he could, both physically and psionicly.

Alilia and Talia, meanwhile, simply started building Shields around the remainder of the Sylvan's mind until Helemia was forced out. Mark was already singing loudly by then, having finished with Reggie, and the three adults cast a psionic shield around the three of them with enough power to contain the two young and inquisitive minds still forming inside Talia. Then Talia carefully cast Sleep on her children; which didn't take much. Though still excited by their adventure, the two unborn babes were also close to exhaustion from their efforts, and were asleep even before the spell had completely taken effect. Alilia instantly Translocated the Sylvan to a spare bedroom in Yazadril's house and informed Hilsith of what had happened with a quick burst of thought. Hilsith was awake instantly, and was already psionicly examining the Sylvan even as she woke Yazadril and Nemia by suddenly jumping out of bed naked and running out of the room. They quickly followed her, and did what they could to assist her with her patient "Quewanak!" Mark yelled, both physically and psionicly. "Where the hell did that Sylvan come from?!"

"I already know that." Talia told him, her eyes closed in concentration and both hands on her belly. "It's in the Reading I just took of Helemia, which included what she took from the Sylvan's mind." Quewanak appeared as a small Projection only a meter long, crouching on the bed beside them with his eyes tightly closed and his finger held to his lips for silence.

A minute later he looked to Talia with an inquisitively raised eyebrow.

"There are a few thousand of them here." Talia tensely related. "Sylvan in Hiliani, that is. A Sylvan god brought them here a few hundred years ago, when Zarkog started taking over Serminak, and he's been hiding them here ever since."

"Huh. It must be the Sylvan God of Hiding, for him to have hidden them from the other gods' notice." Mark commented.

"Not quite their god of hiding, though I wish he were." Quewanak's Projection told them, his voice taking a very serious tone indeed. "Rather, he is the Sylvan God of Stealth. The difference being that his choice of stealth rather than hiding as his mandate indicates that he is as skilled at avoiding notice for offensive purposes as for defensive.

"How skilled is he, you might ask? Skilled enough that he became a god a few thousand years ago, chose his mandate, gathered followers, and established his religion among them, all without any of the other gods even noticing his existence. This is the first time anyone has become aware that there was a Sylvan God of Stealth without his permission. And still, I only know this because it was known by the injured Sylvan, whose mind and Helemia's I have Read. Though I am now a god myself, and my awareness and psionic skills are as good as any other's, I cannot find a single one of the thousands of Sylvan who are on Hiliani beyond the one that Hilsith is treating, or the slightest trace of their God of Stealth who hides them. Or even any evidence of their presence or workings here."

"Dammit, Helemia found one, and she's not even born yet!" Mark growled. "Are you really saying that the Dragon God of Dreaming can't match the psionic sensitivity of an unborn child?!"

Quewanak met his eyes for three long seconds before simply replying; "Yes."

The Projection disappeared.

The three expectant parents took a moment to consider the implications of that. Then Mark's irritation and worry burst out of him.

"Dammit, what the hell are they doing here?"

"When Zarkog started taking over Serminak, the God of Stealth gathered his Sylvan followers and their families and brought them here to hide them from Zarkog." Talia replied. "They're here for the same reason we are; because Hiliani is the most isolated place in the world that's also comfortably livable."

"Dammit, if they'd have let someone know they were here, we'd have chosen somewhere else and not intruded on them!" Mark grumbled. "Now I'm not even sure that we're entitled to our sovereignty of the place! Were the Sylvan here before or after Hiliani was scouted by The Sea People and sold to Membitra?"

"Before, by almost a century." Talia told him.

"That is irrelevant," Alilia calmly informed them, "And your sovereignty of Hiliani is fully legal by every nation's laws, including by the somewhat informal laws of the Sylvan before they were conquered by Zarkog. One must at least publicly claim ownership of land before one can own it or justifiably defend it; every thinking race on Kellaran sees the practical necessity of that. The Sylvan did not do so. The Sea People registered their claim to Hiliani with their governments on three continents, and publicly proclaimed it, before they sold it to Membitra. Your claim to it is legally indisputable."

She paused, and gave them both a warm smile and a caress before she continued. "Now, having dealt with that, we shall discuss what is truly worrying us, that being; How has this experience affected your children, and how will their having these absolutely unprecedented psionic abilities affect how they will develop, and how we should raise them?¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶