Merker's Outpost

by I. Christie

  "If I banish him to a reformatory school he will learn to manipulate the situation to his own advantage and will be out as an adult, worse than what he is now," she regretfully informed the shaman. "I can assign him body guards to make sure he will not do harm to others, but Alan is resourceful. If he wants to get rid of his sister, he will, whether locked away or not."

  The shaman understood. As SH'a Grou picked up s'his herb pouches and returned them to s'his medicine bag, s'he gave instructions for Tess's care for the next ten stan hours.

  At the gate, s'he turned to Lady Artha, "Dream well and dream deep. An answer shall come to you tonight," SH'a Grou told her softly.

  ***

  Chapter 11

  Alan led the young girl through a maze of halls, purposely extending the journey. He felt her studying him and was intrigued.

  "You are with the dallier," Alan started. He gave a sly look towards the girl to see if his insult registered.

  The expression on the young girl's face did not change but in the dim light he could have sworn she was amused.

  "What is so funny?" Alan demanded immediately incensed.

  "I am amused," the young girl agreed. "A dallier, by your culture's definition, is one that spends time with those much younger then himself or herself. That is true, SH'a Grou is with those younger. I don't understand why you use it to insult."

  "He has sex with them! Forces them to do things they don't want to do," Alan accused with a mean intent.

  "Really? Whomever SH'a Grou has sex with is not my business. As for forcing his students to do things they should not do...what is that exactly?" Rene asked him interested.

  "Are you taunting me?" Alan turned on her angrily. He was attempting to bait her and so far, he could not even get an irritated response from her.

  "No. I am asking you for clarification on what you are talking about. Has no one instructed you on the art of discussion?" Rene asked innocently.

  "Are you his servant?" Alan changed his tact.

  "I do serve him as a student to learn the shaman arts," Rene returned patiently, watching the colors around him change. All were dark and sinister.

  Alan snorted in real contempt. "A girl can't do anything better than a man."

  Rene grinned. "Men do have more serious issues to contend with, while girls are still enjoying their childhood," s'she agreed. "Age sometimes has advantages."

  "Men do it better!" Alan snarled.

  "Ahh. Do tell. And what is that exactly?"

  "You stupid bitch! All women can do is have babies!"

  "Well, since SH'a Grou is both genders, s'he has the advantage of both."

  Alan was appalled for a moment. "A freak! He's a damn freak!"

  Rene smiled. "Ahh. Freak means different from the majority. Yes. Are you not also a freak in your society?"

  Alan glared at her. He was frustrated. He fed off people's fear and anger, and without it, he could not feel the euphoric rush he got from one of his violent rages. Her calmness thwarted his high.

  He turned and left her in the hall sure that he had confused her in their wanderings. Undaunted Rene made s'her way to the kitchen. S'she found the place where Alan hid his poisons and replaced them with harmless, similar looking herbs. Alan would never know the difference.

  Unable to contain his curiosity, Allan went searching for Rene. He found s'her laughing with the cooks. Rene raised s'her hand in parting and finally took s'her leave.

  "Hello, Alan. Have you decided to continue our discussion?" Rene asked as s'she came abreast of him. Alan was pressed up against the wall in the darkened hallway, but Rene could see his life force in its nervous bursts of energy.

  For the first time Alan felt something that was not brought on by the pain of another. Uncertain, he paused.

  "Walk with me to my pony and we can talk," Rene offered.

  Alan suddenly felt shy. He was intrigued by this girl his age that not only was not intimidated by him but acted as his equal.

  Rene wanted to know what made this person so maligned with life. S'she had made the choice to intersect s'her own line onto his web. SH'a Grou and s'her had talked about the implications and what would happen if they chose not to try to help this lost soul. The events were written before the Fermins rented the House of Illusions.

  Alan listened to Rene's voice. He finally asked her what she was.

  "I am?" Rene asked puzzled. S'she picked up his confused thoughts and laughed lightly.

  "I have a body like yours, but I feel as a girl. We are called twin-spirits."

  "You're a freak too!" Alan said triumphantly.

  Rene laughed with real delight. S'she could see through Alan's ploy and chose to defuse it.

  "We have something in common then."

  Alan tried to get furious.

  "Do you want to learn to control those passions that take you into the darkness?" Rene asked.

  Alan was frightened for a moment. How did she know?

  "If you don't you will be sent to HinterWield," Rene pointed out as he led them on a direct route to the outer courtyard.

  "That will not happen. My father will see to it," he told her with a contemptuous air, as if it was of no consequence what he was inflicting on others. It was as if he had no awareness of others, therefore he would have no awareness of his 'self.' She wondered how such a person could come to be.

  The shamans knew that when Alan was younger his father paid retribution to the families whose children he had harmed. However, he was getting older, and once he became an adult he would be held accountable. However, Alan had been perfecting his methods of selecting a victim with that in mind. They could feel on his life line that he had no intention of giving up something that was the only thing that gave him a feeling that he was alive.

  Instead of leading Rene to her pony, Alan showed her to his favorite spot near a fountain in the inner garden. Rene sent a mental greeting to Trotter, s'her pony, who informed s'her he was finding meager grass to chew on. Rene knew it was the sweet grass he found so little of, and gave him assurance when they reached home he would get an extra handful of corn that he also loved.

  Rene touched Alan's thoughts, allowing him to weave a fantasy that normally brought him into a manic passion while bringing violence and pain to the victim. As Alan became involved with his fantasy, thinking it was real, he opened himself up for Rene to see into him.

  Rene understood. Alan needed another's intense emotional fear to reach his own hidden little self. Then he sucked the energy of his victim into his meager reservoir.

  Rene also saw a face in his mind. It was a face that peered at him over a crib railing. Alan feared and hated the owner of that face. When Alan was bashing his female victim's faces in, it was her that he saw, not his victims. That explained to Rene why he had so much hate for the female gender. S'she saw nothing in the space that is usually reserved for a child's vision of his or her mother. Rene looked again, for everyone had some sort of space within him or her for the primary person in his or her infant life. S'she still found nothing.

  When Alan came out of the maddened euphoria and found Rene intact and sitting quietly regarding a flower in her hand he was frightened. Rene smiled and touched Alan mentally. He felt no animosity toward her escape from his violence as Rene carefully touched damaged parts of his brain cells telepathically to stimulate pathways that had not been nurtured when he was an infant.

  "Can I see you again?" Alan implored while awkwardly staring at her hand. He did not know what it was like to have a friend but he felt compelled to reach out for the first time to another person.

  "I shall be back tomorrow. Good dreams," s'she wished as they parted at the gate.

  Alan left Rene at the front gate where Rene's pony was waiting impatiently to return home. Alan was smiling as he walked back to his room caught up in reinventing his fantasy. The pathways Rene had started were but tiny scratches over a hard surface. Alan was uncertain at a new feeling that was prickling his usual brutish confidence, cau
sing hesitation in his manner. Since he felt no threat from Rene he allowed himself to become fascinated at the novelty. His life was not so boring after all.

  Alan's mother left late that night with her staff. Alan announced to her and to Lady Artha that he was staying with Lady Artha and the reduced staff that was remaining with the ailing Tess, too ill to be moved. He had not bothered to give a reason for staying, since it had not occurred to him that it was necessary. His intention was to be sure that his actions to right a wrong were successful, and to see the young shaman trainee again, though this was not something he admitted even to himself.

  The shaman's herbs did their part, leaving the child exhausted from purging through sweat and defecation through the night, and giving her the appearance of being near death. Alan believed it was an indication that she was sure to die. Village servants were entrusted with her care while Lady Artha slept in the cot in the same room. Lady Artha did dream and saw a plan to keep Tess safe from her brother and Gustaf's plans.

  The shaman and his apprentice visited the next morning to look in on Tess.

  Lady Artha watched the apprentice and Alan in the garden for a while. She had never seen Alan taken with anyone before. Lady Artha was aware that Rene was a twin-spirit and she assumed that Alan was curious of this for on his own planet such people were not talked about. Many were afraid of their anomaly and either gave them supernatural powers or accused them of evil doings. The shaman nodded, at the still form on the cot. Whispered directions were given to the young woman that was tending the form and then Shaman Grou rose from s'his crouched position, picking up the herb bag as if to leave. Lady Artha looked down at the unconscious figure. She could see the yellowish tinge to Tess's skin was gone, and in it's place an almost translucent look to her skin.

  "Honorable One," Lady Artha bowed her head to the shaman. "I have indeed dreamed."

  Shaman Grou held two fingers up and she nodded. The villagers would take Tess in two days to be raised by them. By her acknowledging the dream, she knew that she had agreed to the plan. She was hoping Tess would not fight it when she found out what her older cousin had arranged for her, but it was better than what her father or Alan were planning.

  Two days later Tess's life as a Fermin ended and her new life began. She was still weak and in a delirium when she was moved into the underground tunnels to another village. It was a three-day journey under the mountain. If she survived the harsh life on the Wield world, she would become a singer. The village of Triton had an opening for the training of a storyteller and singer. Music and art was greatly honored during the hard winters when no one could venture out beyond the perimeter of their village and the tunnels within the mountains became busy with life.

  Gustaf found out Alan was responsible for his sister's death and gave him an ultimatum, the same that Lady Artha gave to Gustaf. He banished him to the family estate in the desert of Kasam for an undetermined amount of time. During that time Alan focused his energy toward preparing for his rite of passage into manhood as well as studying the family business. He was unrepentant and only saw this as an inconvenience, which he became impatient with the boredom and isolation.

  When Alan returned to MageWield a year later he resumed his friendship with Rene.

  ***

  **

  "Greetings, Alan!" she signed then spoke.

  Shyly Alan returned both the sign and a polite greeting that Rene had been teaching him. Before Rene's teaching, he had just started his conversations as if everyone was on the same thought as he.

  "You are a woman!" he stammered as he could see that her body had taken on the obvious curves that a young woman's would have.

  Rene laughed and touched his shoulder to get him to look at her, for he had turned his reddened face away.

  Alan's thoughts were in turmoil. Why did he get embarrassed when he looked at her? He did not with others, whom he stared at with open disgust and contempt.

  Rene was telepathically cueing him that this was not asked in polite circles and then stimulating the parts in his brain that would be normally affected if he were embarrassed.

  "I don't understand why you want a woman's body. They are inefficient and…don't function right!" he continued in aggravation.

  "You are lucky then with the body you have. I happen to like mine the way it is now. It functions quiet efficiently for me and fulfills my needs."

  Alan abruptly turned around to stare at the fountain, feeling adrift in unfamiliar sensations. Rene realized he was not familiar with silence or peace that she directed to him. He was comfortable with anger and it's escalated form, rage. He also was addicted to others' fear and still looked for victims. It was only a matter of time until he would take lives.

  "I wanted to tell you that Lord Chaney has recommended me to attend a Military Academy." He felt important at this. It meant he would be wearing a uniform, which was a nice feature, and people would be saluting him. People that worked for the family business already did what he commanded, but the uniform and salutes were vestiges of power he could only legitimately get through the services, or if he formed his own army. Now, that was a thought.

  "I thought you were going to run your father's businesses?"

  "Huh," he looked at her distracted. "I am! I already do a lot of the business now," he lied. "It's nothing to go to one of those schools. Except maybe the physical workouts...but I shall get out of those."

  "Alan, if you are not going to do the whole program, why go?"

  "Lord Chaney thinks I need the discipline." Alan slammed his hand on a flat wall surface. "I can control myself! Father listens to him because he is helping us get a seat on the Committee. It will look good if I graduate from a military star academy." That was Lord Chaney's argument and now saying it out loud, it did sound like a good plan. "I'm going to a school on Janu to start preparatory classes."

  He kept from saying that his grades were not even close to qualify him to get on the waiting list of the academy and needed more than academic help, for his social graces were dreadful. If his father had not told him that this was his family duty, he would have found a way to mess it up so one of his younger brothers would have to go through this four-year drag.

  "Ahh. So you are going to get used to wearing a uniform."

  Alan smiled.

  "So when do your classes start?"

  "Tomorrow. Father called early this morning to say Lord Chaney finalized the deal." He nearly winced at what he just revealed. His father was going to give Lord Chaney a metragirl, a new type of biobot, for pulling strings to get his name on the enrollment list. Lord Chaney's dalliance with young girls was becoming an issue with his fellow Committee members so the metragirl would be something less politically incorrect. His father had shares in this new business of producing metrapeople.

  ***

  **

  Rene saw Alan every year, sometimes only for a few days. Alan was serious about becoming eligible to attend the academy. Perhaps that was why she was surprised to get a communication from Alan in his first year at the academy saying that he was booted out for behavior unbecoming an officer. Alan had struck a female cadet, though he insisted it was by accident. However, he continued, he simply transferred over to the Diplomatic Corps' Academy that shared facilities with the military academy. Rene knew why he remained. Her studies became more important as she knew her own day for an initiation few dared to attempt, was nearing.

  Three stan years later, Alan arrived on MageWield in the early morning.

  "Take a message to SH'a Rene. Tell her I need to see her now!" his voice was hoarse as he shouted at the young man who was barely awake.

  "She always knows when I am going to be here! Why is she not here waiting?!" he ranted as the hours dragged on and there was no word from Rene. "Where the hell, is she?!"

  His bodyguards would not let him leave the premises in his rage. He knew that they had failed his father's orders to prevent him from hurting any more women, and while his friends diverted their a
ttention, he had gone out to kill someone..or he tried.

  Furious, he picked up a stick and beat a statue in the winter dry patio. "She dared to live! Damn the DeMontes! Damn the Montrans! Those two stinking clans! I'll get my revenge yet!" He continued to beat the statue until the stick was only an inch long.

  For two days he ranted, escalating to high pitches until his bodyguards wrestled him down to administer a drug he otherwise had refused to take. He slept for a few hours and when he woke, Rene was in the garden.

  "Where the hell were you?! I need you!" Alan wailed.

  "I was in another village, finishing my business, Alan. Why do you need me?" Rene could see the wildness in his eyes. She did not touch him as she had in the past. The dark cloud that was around him was too intense and it would only cause him more harm then good to interfere with the rage. She could see that this was the time for her passing. Time for her to move into a new life. She watched as he implored with her for something, but she knew it was something only death could give him and that was not something she could interfere with. It was not his time, unfortunately. As he reimagined the injustice that one of his victims had the nerve to subject him to she could feel him pull the dark cloud around him, energizing his rage and madness, nullifying the effects of the sedative his bodyguards had given him earlier.