The Psychonaut: Book 1 in the Psychonaut Trilogy

by Adams, Tom

  Destain cried above the maelstrom. It is enough. Rein it in.

  Merrick was on his knees, trying to execute the equivalent of capping a gushing oil well with with a bottle top.

  I can’t control it, he sent.

  You can, came the authoritative reply. But you have to want it. If you continue, your power will consume us all.

  With a gargantuan effort, Merrick forced his errant third eye to close, remembering the techniques Arun had taught him. Slowly, but measurably, the energy diminished. After what seemed like hours, it reduced to a trickle and the mayhem was stemmed.

  Merrick lifted his head to a scene of utter carnage. Bodies, both Necrolyte and Amorphic, lay on the sand. Some were piled on top of each other, others so mutilated they no longer resembled anything recognisable. In the distance, remnants of Ukurum flew back to their underground lair. Theta was nowhere to be seen.

  A cry of pain brought his attention back to the companions. Celestia staggered to her feet and limped towards Arun, who was beyond agony.

  “We must stem the flow of blood,” Destain said, “otherwise he will be dead in minutes.” He ran over to join Celestia while Merrick followed with a staggering gait.

  Destain stooped over the shaking form of the Vietnamese. “Your belt—quickly,” he said to Merrick.

  Merrick unbuckled it and passed it over. “Can we save him?”

  “It’s possible, but not likely,” he said. “Celestia, wrap the belt round his upper arm—tight. I have something that will ease his pain. The clairvoyant reached into his tunic and took out a small vial. “Merrick, lift up his head.” He took off the stopper while Celestia coiled the belt round what was left of Arun’s arm.

  “Swallow this,” Destain said. The Vietnamese couldn’t have heard him as there was no response. “My friend—hear me. You must take the potion.”

  Arun’s lips parted a little and Destain allowed three drops of a dark brown liquid to fall on his tongue.

  “What is it?” Celestia asked.

  “A painkiller—stronger than heroin.”

  “His arm, it is still bleeding.” The arterial squirting might have stopped, but copious amounts of Arun’s lifeblood emptied out of the wound, darkening the sand beneath.

  “Here, help me smear this ointment over the stump.”

  Destain was a walking apothecary. Out of another pocket he pulled a jar and twisted off the lid. “It is a coagulant. If this doesn’t work, we have lost him.” They both busied themselves, smearing the ointment over Arun’s stump.

  Merrick stood back out of the way and scanned the battlefield. Was it him who caused all this destruction? He tried to tell himself that the fallen Ukurum were only monsters, intent on the Outcast’s elimination. But they were still sentient beings. The Amorphic, in particular, were slaves to Shamon, created to follow his commands. He cast his eyes downward to blot out the evidence of his complicity, but the black raven of condemnation alighted on his shoulder, speaking its words of judgement. So much death; and now he was going to lose Arun as well.

  “Are you okay?” he said to Celestia.

  “Oui, I’ll live.”

  “There is less bleeding now,” Destain said, “but he needs a transfusion. He’s going into shock and my skills are insufficient.”

  “We have to get him back to the jeep,” Celestia said, “if it’s still there.”

  Merrick gathered his reserves of strength, ready to carry his fallen comrade, but the sound of a distant vehicle caused him to look up. “We’ve got company. Can you tell who it is?”

  “They are Hierophants,” Celestia said.

  “Jason?”

  “Oui—and three others.”

  “Frying pans and fires,” he said. “can we take them?”

  “I could be wrong, but I sense they aren’t hostile.”

  Merrick melded with Celestia’s mind; it didn’t escape his attention that she acquiesced without hesitation. A sign of their increasing bond. “You’re right. Let’s see what he has to say.”

  The vehicle descended into a trough in the ridged landscape then emerged on the crest of the next rise. Merrick could see it was a type of half-track. The driver brought it to a halt in a cloud of dust, several feet from them. The engine kept running.

  Jason jumped out and ran over to them. “Seems like every time I let you out of my sight, you raise the body count higher.” He wore a bedouin-like headdress but Merrick could see the steel in his eyes, mixed with just a tiny amount of fear.

  “What do you want, Jason?”

  “My original intent was damage limitation, but it looks like we’re too late for that.”

  Merrick shook his head. “Look, I don’t have time for this shit. Arun’s dying. We need to get him out of here.”

  Jason looked down at Arun. The Vietnamese’s face was pallid, his breath shallow. “Yes, he looks in a bad way. Lift him into the half track. We can get him to a clinic I know within thirty minutes—but it’s likely to be half an hour too long.”

  “Take him,” said Merrick. “We’ll make our own way back.”

  “I’ve got a better idea. These guys will stay behind and clear up. You can come with us.”

  Merrick looked at the multitude of charred, disintegrated bodies. “You’re kidding right? There must be over a thousand dead here.”

  “Merrick,” Celestia interrupted, “Arun is slipping away. We need to get him to this clinic of Jason’s.”

  Merrick shook his head again but reached down to lift Arun. Destain helped him carry their wounded comrade to the back of the half-track.

  “Lay him flat on the seat and cover him with those blankets,” Jason said.

  Celestia sat with Arun in the back while Merrick rode shotgun with Jason as driver. The half-track rose up the incline with its engine revving at high speed. Merrick looked over his shoulder at the three Hierophants they had left behind. They stood at ease, in the military sense, each of their arms raised in a summoning gesture.

  Merrick raised his voice above the growl of the diesel engine. “What are they doing?”

  “They have skills,” replied the Thaumaturgist. “Give them an hour and this basin of land will be unrecognisable, covered in the shifting dunes of the desert.”

  “The bodies will be found in the end,” Merrick stated.

  “In all likelihood. It’ll keep archaeologists busy for the next twenty years trying to figure out the anthropology.”

  “Will this defeat be a setback for Shamon?”

  “I imagine so. It takes a long time to recruit and build the army you just wiped out.”

  “How did you know we were here?”

  “A breach of the ether. You can’t hide this sort of conflict. All we had to do was follow the psychic trail.”

  Merrick pondered the wisdom of revealing some of what he knew to Jason. His allegiance was questionable, but in the end, he figured there was nothing to lose by sharing intelligence—after all, they faced a common enemy. “Shamon has access to a gateway,” he said. “He’s building an army from beyond.”

  Jason shifted gears to accelerate the half-track across the plain. “That, I didn’t know.”

  Merrick could see the city up ahead and wondered if they could get medical help in time. He looked round and saw Celestia with Arun’s head in her lap. Destain loosened the belt-tourniquet for a moment, but as soon as he did so, blood started to poor forth from the stump again. He tightened it up immediately.

  It’s not like there’s a limb to save, Merrick thought

  He couldn’t tell whether Arun was still alive or not. The half-track bounced along the trail so much he couldn’t tell if the Vietnamese was breathing. He reached out to the man’s mind. There was still a flicker of life in there, but it was as small as a spluttering match.

  He set his face to the trail once again, finding it heart-rending to keep watching the wounded man. He didn’t do death well. His mind drifted to another time and place, a different person to the one he was now.

 
; He opens the door a crack to check if she’s still sleeping and sees her sitting upright in bed, reading a book. He enters.

  “I brought you a cup of tea,” he whispers, as if excessive volume might shake her emaciated form to pieces.

  “Oh Merrick, you shouldn’t have.”

  “Well I was making one myself, so I thought ... might as well.”

  Looking at her, he realises this will be an enduring memory; propped up against a mound of pillows, blue floral nightie clashing with the vulgar, orange, seventies headboard—but most of all, the smell. Her lavender perfume does little to hide the lurking stench of cancer. He pictures it advancing in her body, metastases taking hold in every organ and multiplying like poisonous growths.

  She smiles, and he can see the effort it takes to accomplish this small thing—and loves her the more for it. “How was the birdwatching?”

  He sits down on the edge of the bed. “I saw a black-tailed godwit.”

  “That’s one for your British list isn’t it?”

  “Yes, the bloke next to me in the hide says their numbers have gone up on all the migration routes.”

  He takes a sip of tea and looks at the floor.

  “What is it dear? I know you want to say something.”

  He shifts uncomfortably, then says, “Mum, why did Dad go away?”

  She sighs and looks out the window. “It’s complicated,” she says at last.

  “Did he not want to be with us? I keep thinking maybe I made him angry, or—”

  “No, it’s nothing like that. Your father had an uncommon job, and in the end its demands drew him away.”

  “But what could be more important than your family?”

  “Nothing. He placed us above everything else. Especially you, Merrick—he adored you. That’s why it’s so hard to reconcile. His love for us meant he had no choice but to leave.”

  She starts to cough, a terrible rasp deep in her lungs. Whatever is down there doesn’t want to come up. He rubs her back as she leans forward and feels the vertebrae, like a miniature mountain range beneath the thin material of her nightie.

  After a while it subsides and she lies back again, exhausted. He helps her take the medication and knows she will drift off to sleep shortly.

  “Do you want me to stay home tomorrow?”

  “No dear, I’ll be fine. They’re sending one of the Macmillan nurses round to look after me. You get yourself to school, you’ve missed enough time as it is.”

  He smiles and tucks her in. As he pulls his hand away, she clasps it.

  “Merrick, don’t you worry about me. I’ve got a lot more fight left in me yet.”

  This too proves to be a white lie, as three days later she is dead.

  The sound of a blaring horn brought Merrick back to the present. The half-track attracted attention and Jason’s demeanor told him he wasn’t comfortable with it.

  “How far?” Celestia said.

  “Five minutes. Get ready to lift him straight out when we arrive. Every minute counts.”

  Jason turned into a narrow alleyway that left only one inch clearance between the walls and the half-track’s battered sides. A group of children blocked the way ahead and Jason pressed on the horn in impatience as they took their time to clear.

  Round the next turn, he took a sharp right through a columned entrance in a brick wall and drove into an open courtyard. The place appeared to be deserted.

  “This is a clinic?” Merrick said.

  “Not to the general public, no,” Jason said as he brought the vehicle to an abrupt halt. “Carry Arun over to the door. I’ll try and get someone’s attention.”

  Merrick wasn’t filled with confidence. The building looked like a dilapidated laundry. Windows were open on all floors and washing hung out on lines between the building and the outer wall.

  Someone had answered the door to Jason’s battering. They conversed with machine-gun etiquette and the man, a dusky-skinned native, looked agitated. Despite appearances, Jason seemed to have won him over and he signalled them to bring Arun’s diminished body inside.

  Once in the building, the appearance was more typical of a medical establishment. It had the same disinfectant smell you got in hospitals the world over, but the paint peeled off the walls and a three-legged cat limped across the corridor, mewling pathetically. Two medics came to help and laid Arun on a gurney. One attached an oxygen mask to his face while the other wheeled him into a small room.

  “Best leave them to it,” Jason said. “We’ll only get in the way.”

  “I beg to differ,” Destain said. “The staff here are all Hierophants?”

  “Of course,” Jason said.

  “Then they need to know the treatment I have administered already.” He didn’t wait for a reply and rushed after the medics.

  That left the three of them in the corridor.

  “So what happens now?” Merrick said.

  Jason turned to him. “Now, Whyte, you apologise; for setting back our struggle by decades, not to mention leaving me with a permanent limp after our last encounter—”

  “Now wait a fucking minute—”

  “Know this, I’m using every last ounce of restraint I have to stop myself from decking you.”

  ~~~

  Chapter 27

  Like the beat of a heart

  Jason held Merrick’s stare, his pupils dilated, fist raised.

  Go on, matey-boy, make my day, Merrick thought.

  After the syrup-drip of seconds, Jason’s arm wavered and he allowed it to fall to his side.

  Merrick didn’t know if it was self-control or the Thaumaturgist detecting some powder-keg of intent in his own eyes, but the situation was defused. Jason walked out muttering obscenities under his breath.

  Later, Merrick found Celestia in a recovery room.

  “How are you feeling?” Merrick said as he passed a cup of goo-chai—traditional green tea to Celestia. She was sat up in bed, having had the Hierophant doctors give her the once-over.

  “Imagine being kicked by a horse,” she replied.

  “That’s actually happened to me,” he said.

  “Five cracked ribs, but no internal bleeding.”

  “Must hurt.”

  She winced. “Only when I breathe.”

  He allowed himself to smile and sat on the bed next to her. “Jason’s sorting out some chow for us.”

  “They eat dogs here? Mon Dieu, and they say we French are barbaric.”

  “No, not the dog breed. It’s just English slang for ... never mind. I’m just glad you’re all right. I mean, I know you’re not really all right, but at least you’re not—”

  “Dead? There was a moment back there when I thought it was the end for all of us. Any word abut Arun?”

  “He’s still in theatre. I have to be honest, I don’t think the odds are with him pulling through.”

  “He may yet surprise you; and the Hierophants are guérisseurs qualifiée. Remember, they won’t just be applying conventional medicine.”

  “I hope so.” He buried his face in his palms, rubbing them down his cheeks to massage out the fatigue. He felt three days worth of stubble. Shit, I must look a wreck.

  “And how are you?” As she asked the question, he felt her respectful probing at the edge of his consciousness.

  “See for yourself.” It was an open invitation. He watched her eyes lower their gaze.

  “It is hard for you,” she said. “You feel the burden of responsibility. But no one can make you feel guilty without your permission.”

  Merrick laughed. “The last person I heard say that was Gene Simmons from Kiss.”

  “Well, he was corrigé.”

  “He’s an arsehole. Almost as full of shit as I am.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “I’m going to get back to Mike and Rovach. They need to hear what’s happened. After that I don’t know.”

  “Merrick?” she put her hand on his and he felt the warmth flood from both her touch and her
mind. “What is it that you want?”

  He looked towards the window. The sun was descending in a grenadine haze. “I guess I just want to somehow make things right.”

  “No, I mean what do you really want?”

  He looked back at her. “You know, I’ve never stopped to ask myself that question. Before any of this happened I was content to rule the financial roost. Occupy my rather unique niche. Then Lotus came into my life—as did Karapetian. I thought I could have it all—the love of a good woman, the development of a newly-discovered gift.”

  “You mean newly acknowledged.”

  “You’re right. I suppose I knew it was there all along. But in the end it’s just become this tyrannical thing. I feel like I’ve got my finger perpetually on the nuclear button. If I unleash the power again, I don’t think I can hold it back. Hell, when the Ukurum were bearing down on us, I could have been the destroyer of worlds.”

  He sensed her mind shrink away. Not exactly fear, but a wariness, as if she was withdrawing from a venomous snake. “See? Even you can’t trust me.”

  “Je suis désolé. I did not mean—”

  “Lying’s not an option, Celestia—not with us. You know it’s true. I don’t even trust myself.”

  She looked down at her hands and turned a sole ring around on her finger. “The Ukurum are not yet vanquished. They will regroup and we will not be in a position to resist. There aren’t enough of us.”

  “You think we can re-align ourselves with the Hierophants?”

  “Do you still want to continue the fight against our enemy?”

  “You asked me what I wanted? That’s the one thing I’m sure about.”

  ~~~

  After a meal of mutton stew, eaten voraciously, Merrick asked a now calmer Jason for a mobile. The man tossed him his smartphone.

  “Be my guest,” he said sullenly. “The lock code is—”

  “I know what it is,” Merrick replied. “You broadcast it a few seconds ago.”