“Only if you pushed hard enough to break my defenses. It’s also possible to form a harmonious sharing between minds. Possible, but dangerous. I don’t have to explain to you how vulnerable you are once a telepath is past your defenses. But you should also know that, once they have that foothold, it’s nearly impossible to drive them out by force.”
“Nice of you to point that out now,” I muttered.
“You were never in any danger from me,” Carlisle said. “But you have to understand, uncloaking your mind in the presence of another telepath is essentially making a wager that your will is stronger than theirs, or at least strong enough to hold if they decide to fight you for control.”
I fingered my cloaking pendant nervously. “So shouldn’t I learn to protect myself?”
“Soon, yes. Like everything else, it’ll take a good deal of practice. Eventually, though, you’ll be able to protect yourself with little more than an afterthought. For now, though—”
“I should focus on the other stuff?”
He cocked his head. “I was going to say you should simply keep your cloak on at all times in the outside world. But, now that you mention it…” He waved at the stone in front of me, his smile spreading. “That stone isn’t going to move itself.”
15
White Lie
I’d spent my nearly eighteen years of existence seeing the world through a pin prick in the blindfold. That’s what I realized on the day my mind brushed against the thrumming turbulence of the fly.
It had been three days since Franco’s, with little news but that he was confident he’d have something for us soon. The waiting was killing me. Though, to be fair, it might have had less to do with the waiting and more to do with my stubborn abilities.
I’d yet to so much as budge that thrice Alpha-damned stone.
My extended senses, on the other hand, were quickly becoming the gateway to a whole new world. A world where I could apparently feel a fly from across the room with my mind, I realized, as the tiny buzzing mass in my senses settled onto the cool stone wall and held still long enough for the details to begin falling into place. The chitinous edges of delicate wings, so fine and yet so pristinely ordered. The intricate ridges between the hundreds of hexagonal units of its eyes. The bristly hairs on its body. The warmth of its blood.
All of these things, I felt from halfway across the room—as clearly as if I were inspecting a man-sized fly with my own hands and eyes.
It was impossible. It was incredible. But perhaps most of all, it was distracting. Because how was I supposed to convince myself to keep bursting blood vessels trying to move a confounded pebble when I’d suddenly discovered entire new worlds upon worlds to explore within that very room?
Not well. That’s how.
And that’s not to say I didn’t spend hours trying. I’d lost count of how many times I’d held the stone firmly in my senses, imagining it lifting from the ground, willing it to be so. More often than not, there was vigorous brow-wrinkling involved as well. But time and time again, nothing happened. Not on the first try. Not on the hundredth.
It was maddening.
My thoughts darkened by the hour. Some small voice insisted I shouldn’t be hard on myself. Demons to the wind, I had learned to feel a fly’s wings from across the room with my freaking mind in just nine days, after all. Where would I be in just another few days, at the end of a full cycle? How long until I was shooting snap flares from my hands and catching myself from Alpha-blessed hundred-foot falls?
Probably a damn long while if I couldn’t even move a scuddy little stone.
I clenched my jaw and kept trying. I’d like to say I eventually took a deep breath, backed up from the situation, and solved the problem like a scholar. But, in truth, it was only when I’d snapped—when I’d already plucked the stone from the mat, intending to whip it across the room—that inspiration finally struck.
Carlisle turned from his displays, calmly considered the stone I held ready to hurl across the room, then went back to his work without a word. I was too busy unpacking the tangle of excited thoughts racing through my head to worry too much about what he might be thinking.
Energy.
I’d been thinking about it all along—about Carlisle’s words, and shifting energy from one place to another. But I’d been thinking about it all wrong. I’d been straining until it felt like I’d blow a valve trying to produce that energy, but that’d been all I was doing. Unfocused, undefined straining, paired with hopeful visualization. But maybe all I needed to do was lift the stone—without touching it.
I wanted to mock myself for the simplicity of the thought. That’s what I’d been trying to do all along, right? But it shouldn’t be this hard. I was sure of that now.
So I dropped the stone to the mat and forced myself to sit back, breathing calming breaths. I reached for the stone with a small tendril of my mind, finding its smooth surface for the millionth time, the sensation as real in my mind as if it were actually pressed to my flesh. I focused on that sensation and started redirecting, willing the feeling of the stone from my abstract mental space back toward my physical body, down toward my hand.
It took several minutes to find the exact feeling I was searching for. Finally, though, I convinced myself. I knew the stone wasn’t in my hand. But, at the same time, it also was. I could feel it there. It was real, I told myself. I had to believe it. If my hand moved, so too would the stone.
So I raised my hand.
A surprised laugh from across the room startled my focus, and my eyes snapped open just in time to see the stone wobble in midair, on level with my upraised hand, and fall back to the mat with a happy little plop.
Even seeing it, I didn’t quite believe it.
I’d moved something with my freaking mind.
And sure, there’d been many unbelievable moments while exploring with my extended senses. And yes, I’d already seen Carlisle work more impressive feats and tell me I’d eventually be able to do the same. But it wasn’t until that moment that I truly started believing all of it.
“How did you do it?” Carlisle asked, positively beaming.
“I just, uh, pretended the rock was in my hand.” I glanced down at the hand in question, still trying to process. “And then I just moved it.”
“Marvelous! First with the telepathy and now with the telekinesis…” He shook his head, still smiling. “You have to understand, Haldin, when I said earlier that it might take cycles, I was sure I was being unrealistically optimistic.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Alpha, thanks for the vote of confidence.”
He was still shaking his head. “You mistake my meaning. Most take several seasons to do what you just did. Some take years. This…” He waved a hand, lost for words, then hopped up with sudden energy. “Here.” He pushed his chair toward me on skittering wheels. “Why don’t you try to lift this now?”
I considered the chair, then shrugged and reached out with my mind. Just like before, I concentrated until I could believe my palm was actually planted on the bottom of the chair, then I raised my hand. There was more resistance this time, as if…
As if I were lifting a desk chair instead of a pebble. It was so obvious.
Grinning, I raised my hand higher and opened my eyes in time to watch the chair topple over with a crash.
Carlisle looked down at the fallen chair and gave a few slow claps. “Do you understand what’s happening now?”
“I’m… connecting things to my hand so that I can move them from a distance? The chair must have tipped because my focus wasn’t centered on it right.”
“That is specifically what you’re doing, yes. But how would you explain something like this?”
The chair righted itself and lifted from the ground to hover a few feet in the air. Carlisle stood there, calm and relaxed, as the chair orbited once around him and settled neatly back to the floor.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly, trying to reason through it.
; He waved me on, inviting me to speak my thoughts.
“Okay. You didn’t move at all, so you weren’t using force from your muscles to move the chair like I did. But you must have been using energy from somewhere, because things don’t just move without energy. So, it came from… I don’t know. Somewhere else in your body, I guess?”
“Very good,” he said, nodding. Then he grinned and pulled a small energy cell from his pocket. “I was actually using this, but you’re right, I could have drawn energy from my body or our surroundings in any number of ways.”
I blew out a light chuckle. “Cheater.”
He shrugged, clearly amused, and clearly in better spirits than I’d seen since… well, since ever.
“So there are a lot of ways to do it,” I said, “but it always comes down to moving energy from one place to another?”
“That’s precisely the essence of Shaping. Channeling energy from one place to another, often from one form to another, to”—he raised his eyebrows—“re-Shape reality. Get it?”
I smiled at Carlisle’s unusual energy. “So where else could I draw energy from? How did you use that cell?”
“You can channel it from anywhere, really. Energy is always around us, in one form or another.” He waved the energy cell. “There’s chemical energy in this cell, and in the generator’s fuel…” He pointed at the fab. “Even in our food. There’s the electromagnetic energy flowing in from the solar panels outside. The thermal energy of the air and that of our bodies. Even the atomic energy of matter itself, though I don’t believe any Shaper has ever dared try to control such a force. The first question is whether you can figure out how to channel what energy you find and Shape it to serve your purpose. It’s mostly a combination of practice and creative thinking.”
“And the second question?”
“Is whether or not your body can withstand channeling the amount of energy required to accomplish your goal.” He sobered. “That’s where things can get unpleasant.”
“What happens if I can’t? Withstand it, I mean.”
“Channeling energy can be quite dangerous. Lethal even, in some cases, if a Shaper tries to handle too much at once. Fortunately, most of us who take more than we can manage tend to pass out before much serious damage occurs. Most of the time.”
“Oh, the relief,” I muttered.
“Not to worry. You’ll find your limits quickly enough, just as you’ll notice they begin to grow as you push them and further explore your abilities. Remember…”
He waved a hand in invitation, and four knives sprang from the pile of weapons by my cot, flew across the room, and pulled into tight orbit around him.
“… you’re only just getting started.”
“Only if you remember you’re a big old show off,” I mumbled.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
As he said it, the knives pulled into tight formation then broke off and began whizzing around like skimmers in battle. At least he kind of looked like he had to focus for that display.
Maybe he was human after all.
“Practice and creative thinking,” he repeated as the knives continued their dance. “Those are the keys. That’s why I wanted you to figure out how to move the stone on your own.”
“Right…” I said slowly, too deeply ensconced in Carlisle’s display to say much else until he grew tired of his game and landed the knives back in their proper places. “So what should I do next, then?”
“Practice,” Carlisle said with a smile, “and think creatively.”
By supper the following evening, the training had invaded my life to the extent that Carlisle had me try using my utensils with telekinesis instead of my hands, just to practice fine control. A few dozen spills and food-laden spoon pokes to the face later, I even started getting the hang of it. Or spilling a little less, at least.
Clumsy as it was, it was good to feel like I was actually getting somewhere. Especially after I’d spent the afternoon trying to telekinetically pluck things out of the air and finding out that objects in motion were still well past my skill level. Carlisle had told me not to berate myself and reminded me that I was doing beyond exceptionally well, but somehow I couldn’t seem to hear anything but Mathis’ voice in my head, asking me what Captain Daddy would have to say about my difficulties.
I was being hard on myself. Some part of me knew that. But even so, I couldn’t help but think my mental Mathis had a point. Sure, my dad hadn’t been able to move things with his mind, but he’d been an Alpha-blessed hero of Sanctuary. He’d been smart and skilled and careful.
And Kublich had still broken him like a twig.
So I’d be damned if I was going to sit back and congratulate myself on lifting a chair—telekinesis or no. This fight wasn’t going to be won by lifting pebbles and chairs. I had to work harder. Get better. Get stronger.
I had to kill Kublich.
But for now, I knew, I needed to start by mastering the basics. So I summoned a sponge from the sink to manage the growing pile of my accidents.
“A man could get pretty lazy practicing this stuff,” I said, wiping up the mess before floating the sponge drunkenly back over to the sink.
“It wouldn’t exactly be the first time we humans had abused amazing abilities,” Carlisle said, tapping pointedly at his palmlight.
“Guess not.” I absentmindedly fingered my spoon, contemplating our special brand of amazing abilities and a question that had been rolling around in my head all day. “Before, when you said the Sanctum had covered up certain truths in the past…”
“You’re wondering why it is they hunt our kind?”
I nodded. “I can understand why people like us might be feared, but… I don’t know. How did this happen? How has the Sanctum kept this whole thing a secret?”
“The short version is that they haven’t. Not truly. But I assume it’s the long version you’d like to know.”
“I might settle for medium.”
Carlisle smiled but quickly sobered. “You’re familiar with the prophet Sarentus and the demons of his scriptures, yes?”
“Yeah, everyone is, but…” I frowned, thinking of the giant statue of Sarentus in front of the White Tower. “You’re not saying…?”
Was he implying that the demons of Sarentus’ Holy Scriptures had in fact been Shapers?
The Sanctum made no jest in warning us of the perils of demons, even now, a thousand years after Sarentus had unified Enochia and helped cast them back to the nether at the turning of the dark ages. Like most people, though, I’d assumed that the modern day demons discussed in Sanctum services were mostly meant as metaphor for the lingering temptation to commit sins in the eyes of Alpha.
Yet, now that I thought about what vague details I could recall from the scripture—the talk of demons corrupting men to their will, calling upon unholy forces for strength…
“You’d never heard of the Emmútari before I mentioned them, had you?” Carlisle asked.
I shook my head.
He looked supremely unsurprised. “Few have these days. I often wonder whether the High Cleric himself is even aware of his heritage.”
I didn’t like the sound of this. Apparently, my feelings showed.
“Are you sure you’re ready to hear me disparage your Sanctum?” Carlisle asked.
The way he said it—your Sanctum—made me even more uneasy. But I needed to know. It might only be his version of the story, but the Sanctum had tried to have me killed, and I needed to know why.
“Tell me,” I said. “Please.”
“Very well.” He laid his hands on the table, preparing himself. “Over a thousand years ago, before the Sanctum came to power, there was an entire order of men and women like us. The Emmútari. Conquerors feared them for their command over the elements, and for over a hundred years, the Emmútari used their power to keep peace across Enochia.”
It sounded pretty much like the beginning of any number of the old fae tales, but I refrained from p
ointing that out.
“You’ve heard plenty about how Sarentus unified the twelve nations of Enochia under one deity to conquer a great evil,” Carlisle continued. “What’s no longer told is that it was really the Emmútari he was uniting the world against, playing on the mutual fears of the old nations. A strong Emmútar could have stood alone against dozens of soldiers in those times, you see. It wasn’t the kind of power many kings liked seeing outside of their control. You can imagine how the world might’ve been looking for a reason to turn against the order. Sarentus simply struck the flint at the perfect time, and in marched the armies.”
Neat and tidy. Just like every other tale. And yet…
I looked at the ancient stone surrounding us. “Was this supposed to be their temple, or something?”
“I don’t actually know,” Carlisle said, following my gaze around the room. “Maybe an outpost, if anything. Maybe a relic of some other dead and forgotten sect. The main temple of the Emmútari, though, was allegedly destroyed beyond any recognition. With most of the Emmútari still in it, I might add. Yet they refused to fight.”
“To keep the peace?”
He shrugged. “I think they realized there never could have been true peace on the other side of bloodshed. The people of Enochia no longer wanted the Emmútari, and so the order surrendered. They offered to disband and live quiet lives.”
“And that wasn’t enough?”
“The people’s fear was too strong. The united armies called for blood. Of course, not all of the Emmútari were present at the temple when it came under siege. Those who survived went into hiding. And, once the ashes had cleared with Sarentus on top as the mouth of Alpha, the one true deity of Enochia, he condemned any surviving Emmútari as practitioners of black magic. Demons of the nether.”
“And the Emmútari killed him for it,” I said, bridging the gap between his story and the one that said Sarentus eventually sacrificed himself to banish the last and greatest of the demons.
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