Whispers on the Wind (31 page)

Lenore stared at Jon. Had they even left? The only evidence to show it was in the naked woman who lay in a heap on the carpet, quivering slightly like a dog asleep and dreaming.

Help me.
Jon’s plea filled her mind, blocking out the hysterical voice of the announcer who danced from one foot to the other in the corner of the room as she gave a recap commentary along with an instant replay of the action.

Lenore knelt.
How?

Give strength. Show peace. Project safety. Enter Ree’s mind with me.

It was easier than she had thought it would be, and took less time.

Ree awoke, gazed at Jon, and tears filled her eyes.
Jonallo
...
I have been so alone
.

No longer alone, Ree. No longer apart. You are safe. Safe with me, safe with Lenore, my bond-mate.

Ree looked at Lenore through tangled wet lashes and dashed the tears from her eyes. They were a lovely shade, as clear a turquoise and as limpid as the Sea of Lancor.

Bond-mate? You had no bond-mate.
Bewilderment seeped from her.
Jon, how long have I been lost? Are we too late? Have we missed the end of the window? Where is Restal?

Jon smiled and propped cushions around and under the woman, making her comfortable as Lenore covered her with a blanket. Her
Kahinya
winked and twinkled, flickering with the purple light reflecting off the holo announcer’s startling hair. Lenore waved the holo out of existence, the better to concentrate on the conversation between Jon and Ree.

It was not so much conversation as an outpouring of information that Ree absorbed as quickly as it was delivered and when Jon was finished, she smiled, reaching out a hand to touch Lenore.

Welcome, cousin.

“It is she who must welcome you,” Jon said aloud. “For this is her home, on her home-world.”

“I do welcome you,” Lenore said.

“And I?” spoke another voice. Lenore whirled. Minton and Fricka stood supporting a man a few inches shorter than Jon—the man she had only seen as a holo image performing magic tricks.

She felt momentarily light-headed. “Yes, Zareth. I welcome you, too.”

She tried to smile and make it genuine as she counted the Aazoni. Where there had been only three, now stood five.

Three more to go, and the Octad would be complete.

Letise, letise,
we will find the strength somehow to do what we must
...

Lenore looked at Jon, read the sorrow in his eyes and whispered aloud, “I know, my love. I know.”

But she did not.

The next to be found was Vanter, a man much older than the others, and the most experienced tracker he knew, Jon said. If anyone could find traces of the others, it would be he. Vanter had picked up one of the faint trails Jon had left and had, since his own rocky landing and recovery, stealthily followed it in, taking great care always not to alert Rankin.

Now, the old man sat in quiet solitude, almost a trance, Lenore thought, for many hours each day. Periodically, he would come to, eat, drink and sleep, but always he returned to his...ruminations? What, she wondered as the days passed, was he doing?

The others seemed to accept his long silences, to trust that he would succeed, whatever his intent. Jon, she knew, was becoming increasingly aware of the passage of time. All too soon, their one, narrow window would close. If they didn’t find the missing members...

Lenore longed for more time, but knew it could not be granted her. What she had was now, and somehow, she would make it suffice.

At odd intervals, the others disappeared singly or in pairs, leaving Lenore to tend to Venter’s needs.

Then one day, just as everyone else had assembled for a meal after their various treks, Vanter opened his eyes and looked fully alert for the first time since Lenore had first seen him.

We must go to a desert
, he decreed, facing Lenore, directing his thoughts at her.
There, we will find Rankin.

“Rankin? What of the others?”

The others will come
. Vanter had never used audible speech in Lenore’s hearing. She didn’t even know if he could.
But in the desert, Rankin awaits.

“What desert?” she asked.

Vanter gazed at her for a long time.
A desert with hot days, cold nights. There are few trees but many cacti. Steep mountain peaks rise from the bare earth. I see it. I sense from you that the aroma from the trees is that of pine. The cacti are of several varieties, the names of most unknown to you. There is one that grows tall. It rises straight from the ground as a fat cylinder, with upraised arms for branches. One is broken. You have seen it. You know it.

Into her mind he planted a vivid picture. “Saguaro?” Lenore said. It was the only cactus she knew by name and the one he showed her did have a broken limb. And it also, oddly enough, looked familiar to her, though she was certain she had never seen it before.

That is your name for it, yes. You must show me where it is.

“That particular cactus?” She gaped at him. “But...that’s not possible. There are millions of them. There are many desert areas where they grow,” she protested, looking to Jon for help. He apparently had none to offer her.

Vanter eyed her sternly.
How many? Where?

“I don’t know. I...we can look it up.” Swiftly, she keyed in the word “saguaro” and learned it grew mostly in the Sonoran Desert, which encompassed parts of Arizona, California, and northern Mexico. “That could be a lot of territory,” she said, though on the map, the Sonoran Desert didn’t look all that large, when seen against the backdrop of the entire North American continent.

A frown of concentration creased Jon’s brows as if he were searching either her mind or Vanter’s. The latter, she hoped. It was enough knowing Vanter had been digging through her thoughts all these days, without her even suspecting it.

You know where it is
, the old man insisted.
You have followed Zenna’s Kahinya to that place.

“How could I have?” Lenore knew she had not. “The only time I sensed Zenna was in my dreams and she wasn’t in any desert, but here, somewhere in or near the Cascadia Corridor, in a forest clearing with the ocean visible through the trees. And not a cactus in sight!”

Nevertheless, her essence speaks in your mind of desert terrain and of that particular plant with one broken limb.

Hope surged like a palpable tide through the room. Jon spoke almost inaudibly. “Zenna? Are you saying she’s alive?”

I cannot know that. I sense only her
Kahinya’s
signature through your bond-mate’s mind
. His dark gray gaze, penetrating and clear, connected with Lenore’s. May I look again, deeper?

After a moment, she gave him silent, if reluctant consent. As Vanter’s gentle probes fluttered through her mind, they seemed less intrusive than she had feared. How long he searched her, she could not tell, but when he released her, she was weak with exhaustion.

She knows. The knowledge is in there, but she blocks me. She gives me nothing I can follow.

“She gives as much as she can,” Jon defended her.

But she has more. To find, to track, to be sure, I must be allowed to seek deeper within her, to break the blocks she has erected.

Jon’s arms tightened around Lenore. “No.”

Then we will not succeed.
Vanter’s thought carried the heavy weight of despair as Jon carried Lenore to her bed.

But...Zenna’s essence. Is it of her, or only of her
Kahinya? Lenore, despite being on the verge of sleep, knew how deeply ran Minton’s desire to know and how it grieved Vanter not to be able to tell him.

I believe it is of her living self. I will continue my sweeps
...The old man’s thought followed Lenore into sleep.

The next day, with Fricka’s
willayin
firmly in place, creating a tight surround for all of them, the party of searchers moved out, translating to every desert the maps told them were within reach of a strong
Kahinya
such as Zenna’s. The areas were vast and empty. Even Vanter had to admit that.

Wherever Rankin is, he is so well hidden I cannot track him. Jon, I must send out a stronger probe. I must break through the carapace of his shield. Meld with me. All meld with me, join me in my tracking. Help me!

Jon shook his head. He was still the Octad leader. “No. We will find Wend and Restal first. Then, with a full complement, we will track Rankin and defeat him. If he is so heavily shielded, he cannot sense us unless we are right on top of him. As long as Fricka can maintain our surround, and Zareth our invisibility, we could be in his lap and he would not know it. Keep trying, Vanter. He’s out there—” Jon waved a hand at the desert where they all stood. “I know that. If not this desert, then another. The next one, maybe. I trust your instincts, Vanter. And we will locate him. He doesn’t know we are here. And when we find him, Ree and Restal will cast hoods over both him and B’tar. They will not escape.”

“Your birth-mate’s hunting party grows,” Rankin said in satisfaction, sneering at Zenna, “This is a far superior tool you have devised for me. With it, I can choose which of them will live, and which will die. You have done well, Zenna. I may, after all, let your child live. Would you trade her life for that of your birth-mate, or your bond-mate?”

He paused, apparently in thought, thought that the power, now all his, the newly tuned amplifier kept shielded fully from her except when he projected what he wanted her to know.

“Your bond-mate, I think,” he decided for her, as if she had ever really been offered a choice. “I will need Jonallo for the translation to the home-world. At least, for the initial stages of it.”

His smile was pure evil. “I’m certain you left enough of the translation functions intact to get yourself home...in the faint hope that you would somehow regain possession of the amplifier.”

His being right did not endear her to him but she resolutely kept her cloak firm, not letting him past a certain point. He had no idea how much she could hide from him, and for that she thanked the genetics that had bequeathed her much greater personal strength than he could ever hope to attain.

While maintaining a tight mental lock on the part of her psyche he could reach, he still managed to feed a large portion of his mental capacities into the amplifier, and laid the visions out for her like holo images, wavering in the desert heat. “There, you see. Your birth-mate is reestablishing his Octad. I believe I will let him continue.”

Through her unwilling connection with Rankin, Zenna saw through the surround with which Fricka kept the group guarded, unaware of how much stronger it would need to be to hide their presence from Rankin. She longed to warn them, but could not.

She saw Jon, Minton, Ree, Vanter, Zareth and Fricka—and another. She clamped down tightly on that, not to let Rankin glimpse the stray, startling information that leaped into her mind. The other woman was...
The Other
! She felt ill. The Other, there, physically beside Jon and Minton, and by the look of the surrounding terrain, not far from this location in the Sonoran Desert.

“But he did not translate to this space and time with only seven,” Rankin mused, “and one of those a weakling.”

So, while he might not recognize The Other as not a proper part of the Octad, he did recognize her deficiencies.

“One is yet missing.”

Which one?
B’tar’s terrified thought filtered in.

How would I know which one?
Rankin was scathing.
I have no way of knowing who else he has brought on this little venture of his. Now, leave. Tend to the child. Keep trying to reach her essence wherever her mother has buried it.

“Who will it be?” he went on, speaking aloud again as he faced Zenna. Half his capacity was tied up in the amplifier. “Shall we see, Zenna? Shall we, ourselves, collect the last member of Jonallo’s Octad and use him for our own purposes?”

Again, she remained silent, neither helping nor hindering, simply...biding her time, watchful, waiting, hoping, however slim that hope might be, that he would lower his guard for a moment. And that before he did, he would not find the one small gap she had left in the amplifier’s shield on the chance she could infiltrate.

“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?