Alawahea

by Sara L Daigle

  There was no answer to his comment. Frowning, she looked for a cell phone or headset or something else she might recognize, but there was nothing.

  “Very good. Ah, hello Tamara. Ambassador Ki’i, may I present Tamara Carrington? Tamara, this is the Dorbin ambassador.”

  Even as she watched, a shimmering appeared in the air, coaelescing into a filmy shape that hovered in the air in front of her face. She managed not to squeak and jump back, but it was an effort. “Ms. Carrington. It is a pleasure to meet you,” a breathy voice said, so light she could hardly hear it.

  “Tamara does not have psi, Ki’i. You’ll have to form more fully for her to be able to see you clearly.”

  “Ah, my apologies.” The being solidified, looking oddly put together—as if it weren’t quite sure how it should look. It also spoke more loudly, so she could hear it without straining. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Carrington.” The being bowed and moved as if it didn’t have joints. But then, considering it hadn’t been visible the moment before, it probably didn’t. “Your grandfather James was known to us. He visited Dorbin on occasion.”

  “I didn’t realize that,” Tamara said, somewhat surprised. “He never told me.”

  The being smiled, and it was odd, again as if it had no muscles and the image was pasted on. “Dorbin is not comfortable for non-psi. He may have not had recall of it. Well, I shall leave you with the diarhman, Merran.”

  “She’s not diarhman, Ki’i.”

  “Ah, such a pity. If that should change, you will let me know? The merging would be worth much to me.”

  Tamara didn’t understand the conversation, but she got the distinct impression she didn’t want to. Merran didn’t reveal any discomfort—his ambassadorial façade was quite solid this morning—but as the Dorbin ambassador left the building, his body shimmering and disappearing even as she watched, Merran turned to her and she got the strangest impression he was embarrassed. “Ah, my coat. Thanks for bringing it back, Tamara.”

  “Is it me or was that weird?” she asked him, staring at the spot where the Dorbin ambassador had just been.

  “He’s Dorbin, so they function on a totally different level than we do. Anything we define as normal goes totally out the window around them. Your grandfather must have made quite an impression on Ki’i, though. We psi can see him all the time, but for him to reveal himself to someone without psi either means he has to for a trade agreement or he likes you. Or your ancestor, anyway. Dorbin don’t really distinguish between the two,” Merran said, taking the coat.

  Tamara frowned. “How old is he?”

  “The Dorbin are immortal, or as close to it as can be, so I have no idea. He saw the fall of the Roman Empire, or so he tells me. They like to observe other planets. I met him for the first time on Azelle, when he’d come to the Temple to speak to the aarya about something.”

  “The aarya? The Temple?”

  “Didn’t your grandfather tell you about the aarya? Or the Temple?”

  Tamara shook her head. “Not really.”

  Merran glanced at the clock on the wall. “I’ve got to grab a late breakfast before my next appointment. Join me and I’ll tell you a little more about them.”

  “Sure,” she said, following him out the front door. Rather than getting into a limo or climbing into a car, he led her to a small section of wall on the side of the building, a concealed gate that opened out onto a normal street. “Don’t you watch that gate?” she asked as it swung shut behind them.

  “There’s no way to open that door unless you’re psi,” Merran replied, “and this street is mostly Azellian businesses catering to embassy workers, so it’s pretty much watched all the time anyway.” He held the door open to a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Tamara entered in front of him.

  “Good morning, Merran,” a woman said cheerfully as they entered and the door swung shut. “The usual?”

  “Yes, Rosilyne. This is Tamara, a student from the university.” He led Tamara to a booth, sliding in on one side.

  “Welcome, Tamara. It’s good to meet you. Welcome to the Rose Café. Can I get you some coffee or tea, perhaps?”

  “Tea please. Non-caffeinated.”

  “Herbal tea coming right up. Do you need a menu?”

  “Please,” Tamara replied. The tall woman, whom she would not have picked out as Azellian, came over with a pot of hot water and a selection of teas along with a steaming cup of coffee for Merran. Tamara picked a peach tea and poured herself hot water. She ordered a bowl of fruit.

  “The aarya?” She prompted as Rosilyne took their order and disappeared into the kitchen.

  “First, how are you feeling?” Merran asked her, leaning back against his chair. “Greg says you had something very closely resembling an Azellian Awakening episode last night.”

  “I had a what?” Tamara stared at him.

  “Did you wake up with a headache this morning?”

  “Well, yes, but I thought it was the margarita.” She managed not to blush, but it was only by not thinking about the flirting that had gone on around the margarita. If it had even been flirting; there certainly was no sign of it this morning.

  He shook his head. “You might have been exhausted and tispy, but you weren’t drunk. Not enough to account for the migraine. What do you know about Azellian history?”

  “Not much. I mean, no more than any other human knows. Azellians initiated first contact fifty-some years ago and established the first embassy on Earth. My grandfather was the first human ambassador allowed to establish a return embassy on Azelle. Because of him, I know a little bit about the culture, but that’s about it.”

  Merran picked up his mug, sipping it carefully. “Pretty standard human teaching about Azellian history. Well, here’s a crash course: Azelle has several different histories, depending on the race.”

  “Several?”

  Merran gave her a grin. “The last I checked, Earth has hundreds of histories, some of them conflicting, so don’t be surprised. You knew there are three sentient species on Azelle, right?”

  “Three?” Tamara frowned. “No, I didn’t realize that. I mean I knew about you, of course.”

  “Yes, we call ourselves the umanaarya. Then, there are the aarya and the urro. Anyway, according to our umanaarya history, which is the one you probably will hear about from Greg and most of the other Azellians you meet, we have lived on Azelle for many generations, perhaps a thousand Azellian years. We aren’t native to Azelle but were brought there and allowed to live there through our Charter with the aarya. That Charter ended a generation of bitter war and prevented us from completely annihilating ourselves. It set up our current family-driven hierarchy and established the eight High Council families, sixteen City Council families, and the three families that chose not to follow the Charter but to ally themselves with the urro instead.” A shadow crossed his face, making her curious, but she didn’t want to interrupt him, so she continued to listen quietly.

  “It also placed us under the dominion of the aarya, who started changing our genetics, developing our psi in general and creating the Healers. That’s the official umanaarya history of Azelle.” He fell silent as Rosilyne served them their breakfast, retreating out of earshot as soon as she dropped off the food. He sipped his coffee and started up again. “What most people don’t know, including most umanaarya, is that the Healers that were the first psi users, spontaneously erupted from our original gene pool. It was the cause of the original war that the Charter ended. The aarya stopped us from killing off the psi users and developed psi in all of us.” He took a bite of the omlette and bacon on his plate, chewed and swallowed, and then continued his story. “The aarya don’t live among us, at least not openly. Instead, they choose to live in temples at the center of the eight main Azellian cities, with the first and primary Temple in Azorantxl. The temples serve as refuge, meditation centers, teaching centers, and for those called to it, training centers to learn to become close to the aarya. Even though we venerate them
and consider them guides, teachers, even deities, their perspective is so different than ours that it’s uncomfortable for most umanaarya to spend a large amount of time around them. But there are some who are called to it, and they are welcomed as Keepers of the aarya version of our history.”

  “Do you know the aarya version of Azellian history?”

  Merran gave her a look from under his eyebrows as he took another bite. “I never made it past acolyte. So no, I don’t.”

  “You were an acolyte? Is that like a priest?”

  “Not really, not as you define priest or minister, although there are some similarities. However, my status as an acolyte has nothing to do with Azellian Awakenings, so we’re moving on.”

  Tamara nodded. “Okay. But I’m not sure how any of this relates to Azellian Awakenings.”

  “As part of our Charter with them, the aarya changed us, developing the psi in all of us, right?”

  “Yes, I remember that part.”

  “Well, it doesn’t kick in until puberty. It is also highly sexual in nature, which Greg probably mentioned at some point.”

  “He mentioned it but didn’t really go into it. He said I was human so it wasn’t really relevant for me and that this would likely unfold in a completely different way than it does for Azellians.”

  “Well, that’s probably true, but it wouldn’t hurt for you to know the Azellian process, either, especially if you’re planning to go to Azelle to work. Azellian Awakenings are simply called that because we awaken to our psi, but it’s actually a bit more complicated than that. At birth, our psi goes dormant. The energies begin to emerge again at puberty. There are typically a series of what we call ‘episodes’ prior to the psi energies breaking through dormancy and flowing freely through the psi channels.”

  She frowned at him. “What are the typical episodes?”

  “They vary. Erotic dreams, migraines, flashes of talent, patchy shields appearing and disappearing, odd sensitivities and overtly sexual behavior in a child who presented none prior. These occur until the energies finally are loosened from their restraints and channeled through the body and psyche permanently.”

  “M—migraines?” Tamara stared at him as she suddenly realized just about everything he’d described on that list had happened to her at some point or another. Didn’t they tell me that I was open when I first met them, but now I have shields? she wondered. She took a deep breath and spoke out loud. “But all of these types of episodes could just be coincidence, couldn’t they?”

  “We’ve all experienced Awakening for the past thousand Azellian years, Tamara. We’re very familiar with what it looks like.”

  Tamara shook her head. “No … I mean me. I’m human. I can’t Awaken.” Although the idea of psi was not nearly as frightening as it had been a week ago when Greg first talked to her about it, it was still not something she was prepared to admit might be happening to her.

  Merran leaned back, his expression neutral. “We don’t know enough about human psi to tell what you can and can’t do. For all we know, human psi develops the same way ours does.”

  Tamara shook her head, trying to clear it. “I don’t remember what happened last night. I mean, I remember what we did, but I don’t remember anything being different … about me. So what did happen?”

  “You said you felt Greg working on you.”

  She bit her lip. “So? That’s not … I mean, why do you think that’s significant?”

  “Because non-psi can’t feel Greg’s touch. Most of the time, they don’t even realize he’s doing anything. Did you feel different last night? Sensations in your body such as tingling, prickly feelings, odd twitches, anything like that?”

  She felt the blush crawl up her cheeks, a blooming heat that gave her away even as she tried not to remember the sensation of Merran standing near her, the tingling that raced through her body whenever he got near, the warmth that spread through her as she rested against him while they sat on the park bench. Then, the feelings of relaxation and expansion as Greg touched her. Had that been a moment of psi awareness?

  Merran shifted in his chair. “And you developed a migraine, which is a classic symptom of any kind of Awakening episode, at least for Azellians.”

  She found herself fascinated and repelled at the same time as something stirred deep inside her. “It was just a headache.”

  Merran leaned forward and brushed his fingertips across the back of her hand, so lightly it was almost not a touch at all. She shivered at the sensation, which was making her whole body quiver. “When we’re children, just prior to Awakening, we pick the partner with whom we want to unleash the Awakening energies and we play a game.”

  Goose bumps erupted up her arm. “What kind of game?”

  A slight smile tugged at his lips. “It’s a game of the senses. Close your eyes.”

  She closed her eyes, then opened one. “What are you going to do?”

  Merran grinned at her. “It won’t hurt, I promise. Just relax and let me show you what psi feels like, Tamara.”

  She closed her eye and sat there, both eyes tightly shut.

  Merran had to suppress a grin at her tension. She looked like she didn’t know if she was going to an execution or a celebration, as her whole body quivered. He brushed his mind across her fitfully flaring aura. She didn’t always have one, but she’d certainly had one last night, and again today, which is how he knew he could play this game with her. Her fingertips twitched as he brushed across the back of her hand with his mind. Then he brushed against her cheek, her arm, her nose, and her forehead, carefully staying away from the areas that most Azellian children explored immediately. He didn’t need to set off a full-fledged episode—if she reacted like an Azellian. From her skin twitches, he could tell she felt every single brush, as he suspected she had last night too. Flirting with her during dinner had been fun, as had the surprising but pleasant session during which she’d curled up against him and fallen asleep while they sat on the park bench listening to the river.

  She slowly relaxed. “That tickles,” she said as her aura began sparking under his touch.

  “Good,” he murmured. He focused on touching her ear and the back of her neck, making her shiver involuntarily. “It’s supposed to.” Her aura sparked again, and he followed it, using it to set his pace and his direction.

  After a few more moments of that, she opened her eyes. “What exactly are you doing? It feels like a thousand little prickles across my entire body. It feels good but weird.”

  “It’s called aura sparking. I stimulate your aura using my mind. Because you are able to feel it, we know you’ve got at least some psi sensing ability and it hasn’t gone away yet. If you were Azellian, I’d say you were having another episode.” He studied her. “Your aura is very strong right at the moment.”

  “My aura?”

  “All beings have an energy field. We psi just have stronger ones that are visible to other psi.” Merran glanced at the clock on the wall behind her head. Feeling uncomfortable about taking this any further with Tamara, he pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go. I suggest that you ask Greg to continue where we left off. I really am sorry, but I’ve got to get back to the embassy. Are you ready? I’ll take care of breakfast.” He got up and put some bills on the table.

  “Yeah, I’m good. Thank you,” Tamara said, getting to her feet.

  “Any time,” Merran replied, with one of his dazzling smiles. Tamara’s heart thumped hard. He gave her a little bow. She bowed back, making his smile widen further as he ushered her in front of him to the door. “I’ll walk with you as far as the embassy and show you the door to get back in.”

  Tamara followed him out of the restaurant and back to the embassy wall. The featureless expanse of wall gave no clue as to the location of the gate, but Merran walked unerringly up to the tall obstacle and touched a spot. A wall section popped open, swinging freely.

  “Telekinesis?” she asked, fascinated. She reache
d out to touch the freely swinging gate.

  Merran grinned at her. “You got it. There’s no way to open it otherwise. Without psi, you can’t even find it.”

  “That’s amazing.” Tamara brushed her fingertips across the edge of the door. Her body tingled, almost as it had when Merran had touched her hand. She suppressed a shiver. “Thank you for breakfast.”

  “You’re welcome.” Merran stepped inside the door. “See you around?”

  “See you around. And thank you again.”

  He bowed to her, then stepped through the wall. It swung shut behind him, closing firmly. All signs of the door disappeared into the wall. She shook her head and turned toward campus.

  Chapter Five

  THE NEXT WEEK, Tamara spent every spare moment she could at home with her mother, but the rest of the time she organized getting her on-campus room set up, hanging out with her new Azellian friends at the on-campus new student events, and working to settle the new students into campus before the continuing students returned.

  Between work, visiting her mother, and hanging out with the Azellians as a group, she didn’t get a chance to talk to Greg in depth about auras, her visit with Merran, or the history of Azelle. She also didn’t have any episodes of odd, possibly psi behavior, either. The entire week went along pleasantly and completely migraine free. It gave Tamara hope that those odd episodes were over.

  Her cell phone buzzed as she collected her purse and computer tablet from the Registrar’s Office, ready to leave work for the day. With her free hand, she pulled her phone out of a pocket in her jacket and glanced at the number. What does Mellis want? Tamara wondered when she saw the number. Swiping the face of the phone, she put it up to her ear and waved at Kim as she pushed the office door open with her hip.

  “Hey, Mel, what’s up?” she asked. After two weeks of spending most of her spare time with the Azellians, she found their nicknames coming easily to her.