Clarissa and her attacker vanished.
The monster released Tasmae and dissolved into the mist. Through the blue field Deryl watched her stagger, look his way, and then rush to check on Joshua, helping him sit up. They were real. Now he knew; they were real, and he would never let them be threatened again.
Deryl trembled with fury and power. “You want reality?” He snarled. “Now, I’m your reality. I trusted you while you twisted my mind, played with my feelings, tried to forge me into some kind of weapon! You want a weapon? I’ll give you a weapon!” The humming of the shields grew louder and higher.
Alugiac, snarling in return, flung an attack at Deryl, but it never materialized. The shields around him reached out and absorbed the power, and it was his turn to scream and thrash as lightning danced around him, pulling energy from him instead of zapping him with it.
“Deryl!” Joshua croaked. “You don’t have to kill him. That’s not the answer.”
“What alternative is there?” Deryl cried, but already, the shields had receded, leaving Alugiac weakened and on his knees, but alive. He grinned smugly at Deryl. Deryl froze. He had to end this, but—
Deryl, beloved, Joshua is right. He is not innocent, but he has been as ravaged as you, Tasmae teleped, sharing with him images of the Alugiac she knew before the battle that had driven him insane. She was crying, and Deryl wept with her.
“Kyrie eleison,” Joshua chanted under his breath. Deryl realized that, hurt beyond the ability to think, his friend had reverted to one of the first sung prayers he’d learned: God have mercy.
Mercy.
Deryl knew what to do.
“I’m not going to kill you,” Deryl whispered, suddenly calmer and more sure. He closed his eyes, concentrating. He held his arms out defensively before him.
Triumphant, Alugiac stood again, not noticing that the lightning around him was taking on a new form: syringes.
“I’m giving you a taste of your own medicine!”
Like darts, the hypodermic needles pierced into him, and the Master shouted in pain and collapsed.
Deryl strode up to him and knelt beside the now-shivering man. “It’ll be okay. It’s an anti-psychotic cocktail, Alugiac. Some stuff they tried to give me to keep the voices at bay. Your own Realitin, only this stuff will help you see things clearly. Even some Prozac to help you cope. Maybe, maybe you can find your way back to who you really are.”
His lips trembled, and he left Alugiac, now just an old and frail heap that lay unblinking in the fog. He walked out of the shields, leaving them protectively around the man. By the time he got to Tasmae and Joshua, he was quaking so hard he could barely walk. He sank down and let himself be enveloped by their arms as he took in their love.
“I want to go home,” he sobbed.
“I can do that now,” Tasmae whispered as she stroked his hair.
He leaned against her, relaxing into her love as she Called them to the real world.
Chapter 31
Tasmae awakened back in her own body.
She had just enough time to notice that she’d been moved to a brighter and more cheerful tent than the one Deryl was in, when an overwrought Leinad swooped her into his arms and held her tightly. His concern washed over her.
She was touched—but also very dizzy. Now outside the Netherworld and the influence of Joshua’s music, that empty half-complete feeling threatened to consume her, and she teleped a single thought to Leinad: Deryl?
When she felt his mood darken, she leaned her forehead against his shoulder and pleaded for his understanding. After a moment, however, she realized his anger was not directed any longer at her human lover, but at himself and at the events that had transpired. While she had been unconscious and in the Netherworld, Terry and the Bondfriend healer had explained to him about the lifebond developing between her and Deryl. For better or worse, what they had started must be finished, and he had been wrong—dangerously wrong—to have interfered.
What you have started, you must complete, he told her, yet she felt his trepidation.
You think this is my will, Leinad, but it is not. It is God’s. For whatever reason, the Ydrel was brought to us. To me.
He understood that now, she knew, but the reasons themselves frightened him. He knew the warnings of the Remembrance. He saw some of the most fearful coming true in the Ydrel’s arrival. In her.
We face them together, she replied with authority. I will need your help. The Ydrel has many talents, in the manner of humans, but he needs training. As do I. The Remembrance of Gardianju has opened my awareness to many riddles. The answers may lie in other Remembrances.
Of course I will help—you and the Ydrel, he affirmed, and she felt his pride. He had first known her as a scared child; now, she was growing into the leader she was meant to be.
A sudden wave of weakness threw off her train of thought, and longing overcame her. Grown or not, leader or not, she was only half complete without her soul-mate.
Deryl.
Leinad eased her onto the pillows, and she was too weak to resist. Now, he answered her earlier question more fully: an image of Deryl, well enough but asleep, still recovering from the trauma of their interrupted bonding and the terrors of the Netherworld attacks. Joshua, too, slept, though he had regained consciousness long enough to mutter something about light sockets and Jedi before retreating into a more normal sleep. Terry had healed him and reported something had disrupted even the very smallest bits of his body. He had also picked up some of what had happened.
In turn, Leinad’s teleped his own one-word question: Alugiac?
We are safe for now. She didn’t tell him more; the Remembrance Keeper knew Alugiac only by reputation. But a part of her dared to hope, and she wished for Salgoud, who had been one of Alugiac’s good friends before the change, to share her hopes. The healers, however, had set up a quarantine shield that prevented her from reaching anyone.
Terry believes what has happened to you is similar to experiencing a Remembrance, Leinad said. She agreed. She assented to his gentle command that she sleep and heal, and give Deryl time to do the same.
She had almost nodded off when a thought struck her. Why was he here in the Bondfriend encampment, keeping vigil over her?
You are the Miscria—and as a daughter to me, came his tender response.
It helped ease the ache in her heart.
*
Deryl woke up to find Joshua keeping watch over him, with Terry watching over them both. At first neither had noticed him stir, and he lay quietly for a moment listening to Joshua play—or try to play—a kind of flute while Terry embroidered what looked like a vest. Then an intense longing swept over him and he murmured weakly, “Tasmae?”
“Hey, the one-track mind awakes!” Joshua set the instrument aside and smiled at his friend. “Taz is fine, sleeping as much as she can, and just as anxious to see you as you are to see her. However, neither of you is going anywhere—in this world or any other dimension—until you’re both stronger. Don’t even try teleping with her; the healers have some kind of psychic shield isolating you both, particularly from each other. How are you feeling?”
“Like someone put my brains in a blender. Better, though.”
Joshua snorted through his nose. “That’s better, huh? The bizarre thing is that I know what you mean. In fact, I now know exactly what Luke Skywalker felt when he went against Darth Sidious—and believe me, that was knowledge I could easily have done without.”
“It’s over?”
“It’s over,” Joshua assured. “And before you ask, yes, this is real.”
Something about the way Joshua answered seemed familiar. “I’ve asked this before?”
“About three times. You’ve been fading in and out most of the day.”
Terry set his work aside and moved closer to Deryl. He placed his hands over him and Deryl felt
a tingle of energy as the healer psychically examined him. Deryl couldn’t help but smile.
Terry smiled back. “You are much healed, and it would do you some good to stay awake for awhile. Do you think you can sit up and eat a little?”
Deryl’s stomach answered for him.
They helped him into a sitting position, and someone brought a tray of light things to eat. For the next couple of hours, Joshua told him about Tasmae’s Amazing Maze and the Bondfriend camp. They didn’t discuss Alugiac or what had happened in the Netherworld, either before or after Joshua’s arrival, for which Deryl was grateful. He gladly agreed when Terry told him that he was not well enough to see Tasmae that night or maybe even the next day. Too much had happened, especially in his illusions concerning Clarissa, that he didn’t understand yet, and he wasn’t sure he could face Joshua’s questions—or Tasmae’s mind.
Later that night, though, when the camp was asleep, but they were awake and watching the stars through the hole in the top of their tent, Joshua broached the subject. “Deryl? You know all that stuff in the Netherworld? Can I ask you something about Sachiko?”
Deryl’s thoughts had been both a thousand miles away and focused on Tasmae’s tent, which might as well have been a thousand miles away, and it took him a minute to register the question. “Uh, sure, I guess.” He wanted to add that he might not answer, but held his tongue. That would have started a line of questions in itself.
“Sachiko drink a lot?”
Deryl looked at his friend, surprised. He’d though he was going to ask about her and Malachai. Deryl and Tasmae had run past them, locked in an embrace; Joshua had to have seen them, too. Despite himself, he reached out to Joshua’s mind and found that the love-struck human had come up with his own answer. Malachai had hinted to him that he also had an interest in the beautiful nurse, and Joshua had decided the whole thing was a ploy to play upon his own insecurities to slow him down and maybe separate him from Deryl and Tasmae as they’d made their escape. It had almost worked out that way, anyway.
“What brought that up?” Deryl asked before Joshua took his silence for affirmation.
“Before we could get to you, we had to distract the swing shift nurse. ‘Ko played jilted lover—and drank an entire margarita to get into character. Swallowed the whole thing like it was water. And back home, at our engagement party, she got a little tipsy, but now that I’m thinking about it, she put away a lot of wine to get that way.”
“It depends on what you mean by ‘a lot,’ I guess. Her family’s cultures—on both sides—have a more casual attitude about alcohol than most Americans do. But she’s not an alcoholic. I can tell you that. She doesn’t have the right kind of personality for that—and believe me, I’d know.”
“Good,” Joshua said, then fell silent. After a while, though, he asked, “What was all that with the pregnant blonde girl—was that supposed to be your wife?”
“Clarissa. Yeah.”
“Clarissa?”
Joshua rolled onto his side and raised his brows at his friend. Even in the dark tent, Deryl made it very clear with his return look that he didn’t want to talk about it.
Instead, Joshua mused out loud, “A fantasy wife and an alien lover. Know how many SF geeks would kill to be you?”
Deryl sat up and glared at him, aghast.
A moment later, however, they both burst into laughter.
*
The next morning, Deryl felt much better, and after lunch, Terry helped him walk to the falls for a much-appreciated wash. Afterward, he was able to walk on his own back to the tent and spent a wonderful, uneventful, and painless hour sitting outside, basking in the warmth of the sun while idly talking about Earth while Joshua outlined to Terry and Ocapo what he planned to do once home.
“A brownie sundae,” Joshua said. “Sachiko’s brownies, pralines and cream ice cream, caramel and the good spray whip. Then, I’m putting my feet on my table, calling up a movie on Netflix—”
“Netflix?”
Joshua started explaining internet movies while teasing them about what they were missing when something caught Deryl’s attention, and his head turned toward Tasmae’s tent, like a hound catching a scent. His lips parted in a smile.
Tasmae.
She had clearly recovered more quickly than he, for her steps, while not her usual strong stride, were nonetheless lithe and sure. She wore her hair in a loose ponytail and it moved behind her like a dark, velvety cloud. Her obsidian eyes shone as she smiled down at Deryl.
He smiled up at her, mesmerized, feeling his pulse quicken in an incredibly sensual way. She was the most beautiful, most desirable woman he’d ever seen on any world, real or imaginary.
“This could get embarrassing,” Ocapo commented wryly.
Joshua started to whistle “Kiss the Girl.”
Terry smacked him on the shoulder. “Maybe we should go.”
“Maybe they should take it to the Kanaan equivalent of a hotel.”
All three young men burst out laughing as Deryl rose, took Tasmae’s hand, and followed her out of the camp. So lost was he in her presence that their little comedy routine barely registered with him.
They headed down the forest path. They moved slowly because his legs were still shaky; still, he enjoyed the quiet beauty of the woods, the feeling of movement, and the anticipation.
Where are we going? he teleped to her, though beneath the words lay his real question of whether it was much farther. She glanced back at him a look that was both annoyed and coy, and he felt her impatience growing, too. Again, his heart skipped, and they quickened their pace.
He stopped, however, when she started to take him down a side path. Joshua had told him the trees in the clearings had been trained to attack non-Kanaan.
Tasmae turned and leaned against him, her hand on his chest. You are Kanaan.
She kissed him, and as his arms tightened around her, he wondered how he could ever have thought anything less could be real.
Still, when at last they pulled apart, he whispered in her ear, “Do the trees know that?”
I am the Miscria, she responded as if that were answer enough.
And it was. The hanging branches of the willow that covered the entrance like a beaded curtain pulled apart, and Deryl followed Tasmae into a little patch of Eden.
The clearing was dazzling in the afternoon light. Tropical flowers, their brilliantly colored blossoms open to the sun, lined a sparkling pond. Thick, low-hanging branches of trees surrounded the glen, their perfect green leaves unmarred by insect or animal, although Deryl did hear the call of an exotic bird and the chirruping of some kind of cricket. The grass beneath them was thick, fine, and soft as a fur rug. Without thinking, he slipped out of his shoes so he could stand barefoot in it. He turned in a small circle, taking it all in, full of awe for the beauty of the place—and for the woman who created it.
I didn’t create it, she corrected him with no false modesty. I simply made my plans known to God, and He led me in its design.
Deryl nodded, suddenly thoughtful and a little subdued. He was going to have to get used to the close and comfortable relationship these people had with God—and with the casual way his soul-mate could design so beautiful a trap.
She took his hands, and at her touch, his misgivings dissolved. Nonetheless, she reassured him wryly that the trap was only one reason for the glen. Most of the time it was for the enjoyment of the Kanaan.
She leaned toward him, but this time, he pulled back, and spoke in English in an effort to keep her distant from his memories.
“Tasmae, in the Netherworld—Clarissa—”
She pressed her fingers lightly to his lips and the sensation made him dizzy with desire. As his lips played over her fingers, he felt her mind reassuring him. She had felt the times Deryl had slipped away from her; and when she had seen the girl Alugiac called Deryl’s w
ife, she had guessed what had happened. Alugiac had manipulated his mind, used his emotions, but it was not real.
“It felt real at the time,” he whispered, suddenly sick and ashamed.
Then she kissed him, and he knew that no matter how it had felt, it had never been real, and that after today, he would never doubt reality again. His shame washed away, and he pulled her closer, while his mind sought hers.
This time, however, she hesitated. Twice they had attempted this, and twice he had been hurt when he let his shields down.
He pulled away before his need made him decide to risk it. He’d thought about it last night and had an idea. He stepped back from her, though still holding her hands, and forced his mind to clear. He found a ley line and reached psychically to pull its power to him and into his shields. Once they were strong, he pushed them outward, past his mind, past his body. Tasmae gasped as they passed through her. Once they surrounded them both, he tied them to a ground, let them go, and smiled at his soul-mate.
Tasmae stared at him in awe as she felt the world, now so quiet, so still, around her. All of the psychic impressions she took for granted had faded. It was if there was just the two of them.
He pulled her close. Their bodies pressed together as their minds flowed into each other’s.
Then the two were One.
Chapter 32
“Wake up!” Deryl nudged Joshua with his foot. “Time to get you home.”
“All right!” Joshua bounded out of the covers, whooping, and hurried to throw on his Earth clothes. “You’re sure you can do this right?” He demanded as he slipped on his dress shoes. He shoved the softer leathery shoes the Kanaan had given him into a satchel.
“If I don’t, we’ll be the first to know,” Deryl teased.
“What? Don’t even make that joke!”
Deryl laughed, then smacked him on the shoulder. “Come on. Folks want to say good-bye.”
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