A Perilous Power (Arucadi Series Book 5)

by E. Rose Sabin

  Veronica returned. “Good for you. Have faith in yourself. You can do this. But remember, you have the power to call for help if you need it.”

  He said, “I’ll remember,” but he thought, I won’t call for help. I’ll do this alone—for Les.

  You made a wise choice, Trev, spoke a voice in his mind. Les’s voice! You won’t be alone. I’ll be with you. We started this thing together, and we’ll end it together—one way or another.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  FRIENDS IN NEED

  Trevor watched the hack bump and sway off along the rough road, leaving him stranded outside Dr. Tenney’s house. He searched for some sign of occupancy, beating his way through tall weeds to check the sides and back of the house. While he had been imprisoned in the house, he’d noted that the doctor kept candles and oil lamps burning in his laboratory and in his study throughout the day, but no lights were evident in those rooms now.

  The owl had no need of light, Trevor reminded himself. It was a nocturnal creature.

  He returned to the front of the house and stepped into the street to escape the clinging weeds and pick the burs off his trousers. His confidence was ebbing.

  He moved farther from the house, into the noonday sunlight. From there he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Dr. Tenney, it’s Trevor. I’m out here. Come and get me.”

  No one answered. If Dr. Tenney was affected by the owl’s natural instincts, he would not willingly emerge at this hour. Trevor wished Veronica had suggested some plan instead of merely warning him not to go inside the house.

  He regretted his hasty rejection of Leila’s offer of help. Hamlyn’s daughter had considerable power, he knew, though he did not know her specific talents.

  But I’m not alone, he thought, recalling Les’s voice. Les, if you’re here with me, show me what to do.

  He waited for some kind of response until a rustling in the weeds drew his attention and he caught a glimpse of a sinuous black form. A snake.

  Owls ate snakes. And mice. The overgrown fields surrounding Dr. Tenney’s house must be full of both. Would the Adept’s diet be guided by the bird’s hunger? It might be worth a try.

  He closed his eyes and concentrated on sensing the small movements, the soft sounds of hiding creatures. Slowly, carefully, he drew them toward him. Opening his eyes, he saw the high stalks set in motion by the passage of small bodies.

  I don’t need so many. Five or six mice. Maybe a snake or two. He narrowed his summons. A gray mouse slipped out of cover and sat at the edge of the road, its nose twitching. Another joined it; two more. A black snake slithered onto the dusty road.

  He turned them, sent them toward the house. They seemed as reluctant to approach it as he was. The mice crept forward in short bursts, followed by long quivering pauses. The snake reached the house’s shadow, turned, and whipped away. Trevor could not call it back. The mice would have to serve.

  He forced the creatures to climb up onto the rickety porch steps and to chase one another back and forth on the steps, making scrabbling noises that the sharp-eared owl would hear.

  A feathery white blur plummeted downward from an upper-story window and snatched a mouse in its talons. With squeaks of fright, the other mice dashed away. The owl perched on the porch roof and consumed its prey.

  “Dr. Tenney!” Trevor stepped closer but remained in the street. “I know that’s you. I have to talk to you. I can help you regain human form.”

  The owl cleaned its beak on its feathers and regarded Trevor. Come into the house, my boy, and I’ll listen to what you have to say. There was no mistaking the oily voice in his mind.

  “No, you come down here,” Trevor shouted to the owl.

  It is you who want to talk, not I, the voice came again. It is not your place to dictate the terms.

  Trevor looked at the porch with its doorway yawning open into darkness like a hungry mouth. Even if Veronica had not warned against it, he could never bear to enter that place again.

  He stared up at the owl, and the owl stared back at him, offering no further communication, merely waiting as though time meant nothing at all to it.

  He had to do something. He glanced at the posts supporting the porch roof. The one on the corner to his right looked as though it would bear his weight. If he climbed to the roof and met the owl there, it would not be as bad as going inside the house. He had no plan for dealing with the Adept once he reached the roof; he could only hope that something would present itself. He could not endure this inaction.

  He raced to the corner of the porch, vaulted onto the porch railing, and shinnied up the post. Reaching up, he grasped the roof overhang and tried to haul himself onto the roof.

  The owl spread its wings, flew upward at a sharp angle, and plunged toward Trevor. He dared not loosen his hold to fend off the bird. The powerful talons clamped around his arms, the wings flapped, and the great bird pulled Trevor up over the edge, dragged him along the roof, and dropped him facedown on the rough wooden shingles. The owl released his arms only to hop onto his back so that he could not rise.

  He hurled his power at the bird, remembering to shield immediately. He felt the owl sway and dig its talons through his clothes and into his flesh. He lowered the shield to launch another bolt.

  Fiery worms attacked his mind, boring into his brain, sending shock waves of pain through his head. He gasped, struggled against unconsciousness, and lost the battle, though only for a few moments.

  He regained awareness when a voice spoke in his mind. So kind of you, my boy, to come back and offer me a more appropriate host than this ridiculous fowl. I thank you.

  The talons pulled free, tearing his flesh. He felt the bird’s weight lift off him, heard the swish of wings; the wind of the bird’s passage swept over him. The owl, freed of its tenant, had flown away. Dr. Tenney had installed his consciousness in Trevor’s mind!

  It hovered over his own pain-disordered thoughts, a black-winged bird of death. He fought it with waning strength. He felt his body roll over, sit up, rise to balance precariously on shaky legs, all in obedience to no command he had given. His legs carried him unsteadily toward a second-story window that opened onto the porch roof. His arm lifted, poised to break the cracked window and allow entrance into the house.

  Have to stop this. Trevor tried to pull his fragmenting thoughts together. Need help. Les!

  His arm swung. The window shattered. Blood flowed from a jagged cut on his wrist. His booted foot kicked out the rest of the glass. Though he seemed powerless to stop it, Trevor knew he was lost if he entered the house. Les! he sent again.

  I’m here, Les’s quiet voice said in his mind. I’ll do what I can, but it won’t be enough. Tenney’s too strong. Call for more help, quick, while you can.

  Trevor hesitated.

  Les’s voice grew faint, garbled. No time for pride. Ask help. No shame. You wanted Community. Call.

  It might already be too late, but he tried to send. Leila, Peter, Miryam, Veronica! Help me! I’m caught. I can’t do this alone.

  He heard his own mouth utter an angry exclamation, the only indication that the feeble sending might have gotten through. A cottony blanket clamped over his thoughts, smothering further attempts to call. Dazed, losing himself, he could only mumble, “Les.”

  His hands grasped the window frame; his foot lifted to stand on the sill. From somewhere came the strength to stiffen his arms, dig his fingers into the rotting wood. He willed his muscles to obey his mind, not the alien commander’s.

  Power. In response to Les’s faint whisper Trevor dredged up his fading power, channeled all he could find into the control of his own body. It wasn’t enough. He could not move backward, away from the window. He could only refuse to move forward, and that not for long.

  It’s hopeless. Give up; you can’t win. You’re stupid to think you can defeat an Adept.

  At first, he accepted the thought as his own. Only a faint echo of Les’s voice cautioning, Don’t listen, alerted him th
at Dr. Tenney had inserted the despairing thought into his mind.

  Anger fueled his power; his will strengthened. The dampening blanket grew lighter.

  Hang on, Trevor. We’re coming. He recognized the sending as Leila’s.

  His muscles tensed. He pushed himself back, away from the window. His foot caught on a loose shingle. Unbalanced, he toppled backward, slid down the sloping roof.

  Fool, I won’t let you kill yourself. At Tenney’s sharp voice, Trevor caught himself, hung on to the rough wood at the roof’s edge. Turning onto his stomach, he inched back toward the window.

  Again Leila’s words penetrated the mind fog. Keep fighting. Your friends are on their way.

  Hurry, he sent and twisted away from the window. Dr. Tenney’s growl issued from Trevor’s throat. Pain stabbed through his body, exploded in his brain. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, could feel nothing but all-consuming agony.

  “You,” he gasped. “You have to feel this too.”

  He didn’t know if that was true. He wanted it to be true, wanted to think that to make him suffer, Tenney had to suffer along with him.

  He withdrew as he had from Carl’s abuse, tightening himself into a tiny ball, rolling into a distant corner.

  In his mental exile the pain lessened. He constructed a wall around himself, imaging bricks and mortar. The wall took form. As it grew higher, the pain receded to a memory. He allowed himself a small sense of triumph. Yet something nagged at him. A thought, perhaps his own, perhaps a sending from Les or from Leila. Something said, Wall Tenney, not yourself.

  Wall Tenney? Surely that was impossible.

  He added another row of bricks to the top of his wall, and as he came to the wall’s corner, he curved it outward, away from himself. He added more rows of bricks, stretching their line outward, building frantically now, working from outside the wall rather than inside.

  He visualized Tenney as he had been before his body was killed, pictured the round-cheeked, bearded face, the pudgy body. In the mouth he visualized the Adept’s ever-present pipe. That should please you, he thought with a grim smile.

  A portion of wall exploded outward. Bricks flew toward him. One struck his head, another his shoulder. He fell backward, fresh pain flowing through him.

  No! This is my mind. I won’t let you control it. Trevor hefted a brick that had fallen. He hurled it at the figure climbing out the hole in the wall. Clamping his teeth against the pain that coursed through him, he gathered the rest of the bricks and replaced them before the Adept recovered from the blow that had toppled him back into the enclosure. As Trevor worked, the pain receded.

  Hurriedly he built the wall higher until he could no longer reach its top. He visualized a ladder, leaned it against the bricks, and climbed it. His construction had become a tower with no windows or doors interrupting its solid walls. He gazed into the interior. The Adept, shrunk to doll size, glared up at him.

  I’ll have to roof it over, he thought. That should make it impossible for him to escape.

  He imaged planks of thick, hard wood and struggled to carry these up the ladder and lay them across the top of the tower until the opening was nearly covered.

  Have mercy, my boy, came a plaintive voice from the dark recesses of the tower. You can’t leave me here alone in the darkness. Leave me at least a breathing hole.

  Trevor considered. Despite the vividness of the image in his mind, the Adept had only his consciousness, no body that needed light to see by or air to breathe.

  I’ll be able to help you if you leave me an opening, the imploring voice rose to him faintly as from a great distance. Think of it: the power of an Adept at your command.

  I want no help from you, Trevor shouted into the last open space, creating echoes that swirled down the tower. He slammed the final board into place, clambered from the ladder onto the plank roof, and secured the boards with mortar, nails, and crosspieces, all furnished by his fertile imagination.

  When the structure was complete, he climbed down from the ladder and walked around it, inspecting his handiwork.

  “Trevor! Trevor, can you hear me?”

  Leila’s voice roused him from his fantasy. He became aware of the rough wooden shingles beneath his hands, the awkward angle of his body on the sloping porch roof. He realized that the pain Dr. Tenney had inflicted was entirely gone. He also realized that Leila’s voice had not spoken in his mind; he had heard it normally, through his ears.

  He opened his eyes and cautiously raised his head. Leila and Peter stood in the street, gazing up at the porch roof. “Thank the Power-Giver! You’re alive!” Leila called to him. “Where’s Dr. Tenney?”

  Trevor sat up, sent a tentative probe inward, and explored his own mind. He sensed a closed-off area, did not probe that spot too deeply. “I’ll explain later,” he called back. “First I need help getting off this roof.”

  Only when they had all gathered in Veronica’s house did Trevor describe his battle with Dr. Tenney. The tables were shoved together against the wall to clear a space in the center of the round room next to the stove and woodbin. The group sat on the furs, Trevor in the center, with Veronica, Leila, Miryam, Peter, and Doss Hamlyn encircling him. Hamlyn looked out of place in the eccentrically furnished room, but he had insisted on being present.

  “As a friend of your uncle, I’ve been deeply concerned for you all along,” he said. “I was injured attempting your rescue earlier, and I participated in the lending of strength in your contest with Tenney. I must know the outcome of the contest.”

  “So, you were all helping. I didn’t do it on my own.” At one time the revelation would have been a blow to his pride. Now he could smile about it. He wasn’t really surprised; he’d felt the infusion of strength that came when he called for their help. He didn’t know how much of his success was due to his own ingenuity and power and how much to the efforts of his friends.

  Did it matter? No, he answered his own question. I’m lucky to have these friends. No one gets through life on his own.

  “We started channeling power to you as soon as we got your sending,” Leila explained. “That was all we could do. We didn’t know your situation, couldn’t advise you. We tried to send to you, but Tenney was able to block our sending. So we were working blindly, focusing power and hoping you’d be able to use it.”

  Trevor nodded. “I had other help, too. Les was with me, I don’t know how.” He looked at Miryam. “I do know that I couldn’t have done it without him.”

  The eager expression on her face made her look almost pretty. “Tell me about it, please.”

  He told them. Where he would have skimped on details, their questions drew out every particular. When he finished, Leila threw her arms around him and hugged him. “Trevor, that was brilliant. And it took real courage.”

  He felt his face flush with embarrassment. He could find no words to answer.

  Hamlyn regarded him with a frown. “So Tenney’s consciousness is alive in you. You realize, son, how dangerous that is? That mind tower you built—he’ll find a way to tear it down. It may take him a while, but you won’t be able to hold him forever.”

  The words sent a chill of fear through Trevor, but before he could speak, Veronica intervened. “I think Trevor can,” she said, her sharp-eyed gaze scanning the faces around her. “He can, if we are all willing to give up a portion of our power. If we each pass to Trevor a bit of our power—of ourselves—for the strengthening and binding of the tower, Tenney will never be able to escape. The question is: Will you each relinquish part of your power for that purpose? I will do so, but since I have more to give, the rest of you may be unwilling to follow my example. Your gift must be completely voluntary. And Trevor is not exempted. He will have to give up more than any of us. To keep Tenney imprisoned will require a large part of his power for the rest of his life.”

  “What are the alternatives?” Peter asked quietly. “For Trevor especially. Is there no way to release Dr. Tenney and deal with him?”

&nbs
p; “No safe way,” Veronica said. “His consciousness needs a place to go. If we could extract it from Trevor and prevent it from entering any of us, Tenney would be destroyed. That would be the simplest solution. The problem is that if Tenney were let out of his prison, before we could force him to abandon Trevor’s body, he would certainly destroy Trevor to extract vengeance even in defeat. We must sacrifice Trevor if we are to do away with Dr. Tenney.”

  The chill that had invaded Trevor intensified, freezing his blood. He had wanted to die. Now he wanted to live. But only if Tenney could be kept imprisoned and helpless.

  “Trevor’s gone through enough,” Leila said, her eyes sparking with anger. “He certainly isn’t to be a sacrifice.”

  “I’ll give all my power to keep Tenney bound,” Trevor said. “Will that be enough?”

  “Possibly, but I can’t be sure,” Veronica answered. “Even with all yours and part of mine, well … you know how great Tenney’s power is.”

  “There’s no need for Trevor to use all his power. I’ll gladly give up part of mine,” Leila said.

  “I haven’t wanted anything more to do with power,” Miryam spoke up. “He can have all of mine, and gladly.”

  “A kind offer, but not one I’d allow Trevor to accept,” Veronica said. “You may give him part of your power, but most you must reserve. Your life is not over. You have much to contribute, and you will need power to fulfill your potential.”

  Miryam started to object, but Doss Hamlyn cut off her words. “Here, here. Let’s have no more talk of all these noble sacrifices. The entire Community owes much to Trevor. I will call on those who had their power restored after so nearly losing it all to Tenney and urge them to give a small portion of that power to Trevor. I’d be very surprised if anyone would refuse.”

  “I certainly would not,” Peter said. “I’ll gladly contribute.”

  Veronica nodded. “An excellent suggestion, Doss. Such an action will be the best thing the Community has done in a long while. Perhaps there is hope that it will, after all, return to the nurturing that was its original purpose.”