Destiny

by Sharon Green

  "You and me both," Tamma agreed as they all began to move toward the door of the house. "But after we talk to the others, we really need to do some more experimenting. I can't get rid of the feeling that there's a lot more we don't yet know about."

  Jovvi knew exactly what Tamma meant, and the nodding of the others showed that they felt the same. As they walked out into the muddy street of the village, Jovvi got an idea. She really liked her soft riding boots, but going through mud was about to ruin them. So…

  "Hey, what did you do?" Lorand yelped as Jovvi was suddenly three inches taller. His arm had been around her shoulders, which let him notice the difference immediately. "Are you somehow starting to grow again?"

  "No, I'm just protecting my boots," Jovvi answered with a delighted laugh. "I don't want this mud ruining them, so I gave myself some hardened air to walk on. Rion, I had no idea how marvelous it was to be able to do this."

  When Tamma and Naran heard what she'd done, they had to do the same. Then they also joined Jovvi's laughter while the men discussed whether or not to protect their own boots. They finally decided that it was very fitting for all of them to walk on air, and their laughter had turned more to juvenile giggling by the time they reached the place where their associates were.

  "Have you six been drinking something other than tea?" Arinna asked with an indulgent smile once their rowdy group had gotten close enough. "Not that you don't deserve to celebrate your victory, but…"

  "But we're gonna be havin' more rain purty soon," Pagin Holter said when Arinna let her words trail off. "Too many a them slaves are comin' out of it feelin' scared, so we could use a hand settlin' 'em down b'fore we start drownin' again."

  "I can help calm those people," Rion said with a wide smile as he looked over at the shivering, terrified group of former slaves. "Watch and see how easy it is."

  The now-freed slaves began to calm even as Rion spoke, and a moment later they were straightening up and looking around in curiosity rather than with fear.

  "Nicely done, Rion," Jovvi said with a good deal of pleasure. "I couldn't have done that better myself."

  "What's going on?" Arinna asked as Jovvi and her Blendingmates began to laugh again. "You can't calm people with Air magic, so why are you trying to make us believe you can?"

  "Rion didn't use Air magic to calm those people," Lorand said in a very bland way. "He used Spirit magic, which was only fair. After all, Jovvi used Air magic to keep her boots free of mud."

  "How can you possibly be using each other's talents?" Arinna demanded, confusion clear on her pretty face before her expression changed to one of stunned amazement. "No, don't tell me! Something happened that made it possible. What was it? Was it something that we'll also be able to do?"

  "How much is that information worth to you?" Naran asked as blandly as Lorand had spoken. "We did warn you that we were going to charge for information from now on, so you can't say we didn't."

  That brought on another bout of laughter that Jovvi joined in, and by the time the amusement played itself out Arinna stood with a gold coin in her hand.

  "If this isn't enough, I'll get more," Arinna said, holding out the coin. "Now please tell us what happened!"

  "Let's take pity on them," Vallant said with a grin matching the one Pagin Holter wore. "They can pay us after seein' how much knowin' about it in advance is really worth."

  Jovvi was the one everyone else deferred to, so she described what they'd done with taking turns in initiating their Blending. When she described her own final efforts and what had happened, Arinna looked horrified.

  "You couldn't Blend again?" Arinna exclaimed. "But that's terrible! How did you finally overcome the problem?"

  "We didn't," Tamma answered when Jovvi gestured to her. "What we did instead was realize that we were Blended, with everyone awake and aware of what was happening around us. We were also able to use each other's talents, just the way our entity was able to. We can also do a couple of other things our entity could do, but we don't yet know just how many more are possible."

  "Then whut'r ya doin' here?" Holter demanded, his own expression looking stunned. "Why ain't ya back in thet house practicin'?"

  "We came to tell you people what was going on," Tamma answered dryly, clearly noticing the way Jovvi had that Holter's accent had suddenly gotten thicker. "But if you'd rather we didn't say anything next time…"

  "No, no, that's perfectly all right," Arinna assured Tamma quickly as she glared at Holter. "Pagin is just shaken up, and doesn't know what he's saying. We want to know about everything, as soon as you're ready to tell us."

  "Since you're being so nice about it, we will," Jovvi assured Arinna, and then she turned to her Blendingmates. "Let's also take Pagin's advice and go back to experiment. After all, we don't really have to be here in order to help out. We can help as well as experiment, and still stay dry."

  The others considered that a marvelous idea, so they began to retrace their steps to the house. There was an eagerness inside them all that Jovvi hadn't felt since the first time they'd Blended. They'd been through a lot since that first effort, but hopefully all the hard times were now behind them…

  "All right, what are we going to experiment with first?" I asked when we were back in our house. "What could our entity do that we haven't yet tried alone?"

  "You know, you should have asked that question before we left here," Lorand said, looking and acting as giddy as I felt. "Our entity could float along a street or road without using Air magic. Maybe we can do the same."

  "That's a good thought, so I'll try it," I agreed with a laugh I couldn't hold back on. "Let me concentrate for a minute."

  I concentrated on the desire to rise up off the floor without using Air magic, but a very long minute passed and nothing happened. I thought about the failure for a very brief time, and then the obvious answer came.

  "This is the wrong experiment," I said, getting the impression that most of the others had also been trying to rise into the air. "Our entity floated because it had no physical being, but we do. If we want to be up in the air we will have to use Air magic."

  "You know, this isn't the first time you've had a definite answer to something, Tamma," Jovvi observed while Vallant and Lorand made very loud sounds of disappointment. "Since you don't seem to be guessing, I wonder where that certainty is coming from."

  "Don't be silly," I started to say with a laugh. "I'm not - "

  And then the laughter stopped when I realized that Jovvi was right. I was getting more than just ideas about things. Facts were coming that I had no doubt about at all.

  "It could be happening because you're the 'oldest entity' among us," Jovvi mused, apparently seeing nothing of how momentarily upset I'd been. "Most of the new things have started with you, Tamma, but I wish I could be sure that we'll have access to the lost knowledge as well. There are still so many things I want to know about, including the question of where this knowledge can be coming from."

  "Now that's a good question," Lorand said as I stared at Jovvi with raised brows and thought the same thing. "Our entity seemed to have access to memories that we didn't, and it never occurred to me to wonder where the knowledge came from. How does it work for you, Tamrissa? Are these things just coming to you?"

  "Not really," I answered, actually thinking about the process for the first time. "It's as if I have all these different memories, ones I'm reaching for the first time. The information is just there, but now I'm wondering where 'there' really is. It isn't in my own mind, that's for certain."

  "You might want to spend some time now and then thinkin' about it," Vallant suggested as he stepped closer. "Our entity sometimes took a short while before it 'knew' things, as if it started a search and then let the search go on by itself. If the memories do work that way, you might suddenly find yourself with the answer."

  "If I do, I'll be sure to let everyone know," I said, then dismissed a matter I couldn't do anything about right now. "But we were trying to think o
f a good experiment. Has anyone had any ideas?"

  "I've had a thought," Rion said, speaking up before anyone else could. "When our entity looked at something, we could all see that something even though we seemed to be looking out of our own individual eyes. I've been wondering if we could all see what only one of us happens to be looking at."

  "Now, that's worth trying," I said, knowing a good idea when I heard it. "I'll look at something, and at the same time I'll try to give the picture to the rest of you. But I think you'll have to … open up in some way for me to do that."

  "You go ahead and try it, and we'll see if we can do the opening up," Jovvi said. "But don't tell us what you intend to look at. That way we'll know if we're seeing it ourselves or only through you."

  That was another good idea, so I thought for a brief moment before deciding I wanted to see what our former enemies were doing. They'd been put into that shed building under guard, and although they were also under control I thought it might be a good idea to check on them.

  As soon as my mind was firmly made up, part of it seemed to … break off and flash away. The next thing I knew I had our former enemies in sight, watching as they snarled at one another. Each one seemed to think that their troubles were the fault of the others rather than themselves, the attitude rooted in a lack of true belief in their ability and talents. The accusations came from their individual fears, of course, and their Spirit magic user did nothing to calm his Blendingmates.

  I looked around at the interior of the shed, but paid more attention to the workings of my mind. What I looked at was being seen only by me, I knew, but then I realized that if I made only a small adjustment…

  "Oh!" Jovvi and Lorand said together, and I could feel their excitement as Jovvi continued, "I just relaxed and waited, and now I can see the invader leaders. Is that what you're looking at, Tamma? Can the rest of you see them as well?"

  "Yes, that's what I'm looking at," I agreed as Lorand, Vallant, Rion, and Naran all confirmed that they saw the same. "I'd say that this experiment was a success."

  "Definitely," Naran said as I brought my attention back to the house we stood in. "And now I have another idea that's almost the same as two of the last ones. We know we can see at a distance, but just how far a distance? What's the limit of our range, so to speak?"

  "Yes, that's definitely worth knowin'," Vallant said at once with real enthusiasm. "You can't use your ability to its fullest extent if you don't know what your limits are - and aren't."

  Everyone including me agreed with that, so the next step in our investigations became obvious.

  "Let's see if we can find out what our … 'friends' in Liandia are doing," I suggested. "But let's all look at the same time, to make sure we all have the same range."

  "There shouldn't be any differences since we're supposed to be a single being, but checking won't hurt," Jovvi said with a nod. "First, though, I'd like to get a cup of tea and make myself comfortable. Being able to drink tea while we do things just may prove to be the best part of all this."

  "I support that idea wholeheartedly," Rion said at once, making the rest of us chuckle. "Being able to divide our attention is what I consider marvelous."

  We took turns teasing Rion and Jovvi as we all got tea and then went to sit on our sleeping mats, but I appreciated our new-found freedom in a different way. With all the tea we usually swallowed, being able to use the sanitary facilities at any time was my idea of marvelous.

  Once we were settled and ready, I sent that separate part of my mind toward the city of Liandia. I suppose I expected there to be something in the way of hesitation in reaching so far or delay in finding the people I wanted, but there was neither. My vision flashed into Liandia, and then settled in what I recognized as the garden of Antrie Lorimon's house. Lorimon was there beside the man named Frode Mismin, and with them were Olskin Dinno, Satlan Reesh - and a depressed-looking Cleemor Gardan.

  "… continued to hope you all were wrong," Gardan was saying to the others. It surprised me for a moment that I could hear and understand the conversation, and then I realized there was no reason I shouldn't be able to. Our entity hadn't spent much time listening to people talk, but that was primarily because it had had other things to do instead.

  "Well, of course you hoped we were wrong, Cleemor," Antrie said with a sympathy she really felt. "No man wants to believe the worst about the woman he loves, and Tenia is also your wife."

  "Tenia was my wife," Gardan corrected, the words somewhat on the ragged side. "When I told her that even if the invaders are defeated I won't be a member of the assembly any longer, she suddenly stopped … showing herself off to me, is the only way I can describe it. I've always been very aware of her nearness and desirability, but as soon as she heard what I had to say, my intimate feelings for her came to an abrupt stop. She looked really annoyed and spent some time muttering to herself, then she developed a sad expression and informed me that she had to leave me. She assured me that her leaving was completely for my own good, and then she had the nerve to ask me if I knew who the new assembly members would be."

  "She thought she had you under control again, and didn't know I was protecting you," Mismin told Gardan with a humorless smile. "Before she did that, it was only possible to know that you were being controlled. We couldn't tell for certain who the person doing the controlling was, but Tenia was kind enough to try her tricks with me there as a witness. You should have heard her scream when I placed her under arrest."

  "She'll scream even louder when her talent in Spirit magic is gone," Antrie said, her voice containing a hardness I couldn't remember hearing before. "We won't be members of the assembly once the High Blendings get here - if they do get here instead of the invaders - but until then we're still the only officials left. Olskin, can you handle the matter yourself, or will you need help?"

  "I'll use my Blending to take her talent, and we can do it first thing tomorrow," Dinno replied as he shifted in his chair. "No matter who happens to be in charge of our country, it needs to be made clear that Spirit magic users won't be allowed to use their talent to take advantage of people. But possibly I should have said, I'll use my present Blending. Reesh and I have been looking around, and we've met a pair of lovely ladies of High talent who don't seem averse to the idea of becoming a Blending with us. We want to get to know them a bit better - and find a fifth - but we may just give those new Blendings a run for their money."

  "The real miracle is that the ladies don't seem to find me objectionable in the least," Reesh said with an embarrassed sort of laugh. "They both decided at once that my shyness was 'sweet,' and I haven't been able to stop grinning since they said it. I let them see exactly what I'm really like, and they still think I'm 'sweet.'"

  "That's because you've changed so," Antrie told him with a gentle laugh of her own. "You're no longer desperate to be accepted by others, so that acceptance is much easier to get now. And Frode and I have talked things over, and we've decided that we're also going to be looking for Blendingmates. Assuming we survive…"

  Those last three words turned all of them somber, and it came to me with a small bit of guilt that we hadn't sent word to Liandia about our success. That gave me an idea, so I "moved" closer to the woman.

  -Antrie, can you hear me?- I asked directly into her mind the way our entity used to do. -Can you understand what I'm saying?-

  "Who is it?" Antrie asked after almost dropping her teacup. "You seem familiar, but I'm not quite sure…"

  "What is it, Antrie?" Frode Mismin said with abrupt concern as he touched her hand. "What's wrong?"

  "I think I'm hearing one of the Gandistrans," Antrie said, still looking and sounding shaken. "But I don't know how it can be one of them when it takes a Blending to do this kind of thing…"

  -Don't worry about that part of it,- I said into the woman's mind again. -You'll find out all about the new discoveries we've made, but what you need to know first is that the invasion is over. Your people helped us to figure out
how to face and best those leaders, and now the five of them are our prisoners.-

  "She said the invasion is over!" Antrie exclaimed, delight beginning to fill her. "I know it's a 'her,' and I think it may be Tamrissa. She said that they've bested the invader Blending and now have them as prisoners!"

  "Antrie, we all want the threat to be over, and you've been through some very hard experiences," Mismin said gently as he put a hand on Antrie's arm. "I'm sure that the Gandistrans will do everything possible to win against the invaders, so you don't have to - "

  -She isn't imagining things, so stop trying to soothe her hysteria,- I said, now spreading my thoughts to all of them. -We really did win, and in the process we learned a new thing or two. Once we have all the slaves freed, we ought to be able to head back to your city.-

  "They did it!" Reesh shouted, his face filled with joy. "They actually did it! Now we'll all have a chance to adjust to the new ways."

  Even Gardan left off his brooding to join in the vocal celebration the other four were indulging in, so I withdrew my attention back to the house we sat in. I had been able to sip tea while I listened and spoke to the Gracelians, and my Blendingmates and I exchanged grins over having passed on the good news.

  But then I couldn't help wondering what else we would find we were able to do…

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Honrita looked around fondly at her Blendingmates. The Blending experience had been as incredible as they'd been told it would be, and the second time had been even better than the first. Kadri, Stelk, and Seeli were still burbling to each other, but Arbon sat silent with heavy disturbance filling him.

  "What's the matter, Arbon?" Honrita asked gently, drawing the man's attention. "You seem to be terribly disturbed when you really ought to be rejoicing like the rest of us."