The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 31

Part 6

“Huh. What are Mother and Father doing?” Helemia asked.

“They’re preparing dinner, visiting with the others of the Command Group, and discussing today’s exercises. They know that I’m always keeping an eye on you. Otherwise they’d never allow you to be by yourselves out here at your ages, even with your advanced abilities and with Stripe and Scout to guard you.”

“What’s gonna happen to Vanakit Lamitkeze?” she asked.

“The mind of Vanakit Lamitkeze is gone forever. You’ve wiped him clean. He’ll need a week of physical recovery and Healing before he’ll even be able to move, and then he’ll need to learn everything all over again, including how to walk, how to speak and understand a language, how to feed himself, and how to dress himself. He’ll be a new person.”

“Huh. We might as well feed him to Karzog as a treat.” she snickered.

“I think not.” Quewanak chuckled. “I’ll try to find someone suitable to deal with him, and if not I’ll simply make him sleep and put him in storage until a suitable caretaker is found.”

“Why haven’t you come by to see us before now, and why haven’t our parents ever brought us to visit you?” Reggie inquired. “And why didn’t anyone ever notice that they hadn’t?”

“Your development has been as fast as is healthy for you, and you weren’t yet ready to meet me.” Quewanak said as he scratched under his chin. “For that matter, I wouldn’t be taking this opportunity to get to know you if you weren’t both psionicly exhausted. Like all psionicists, your subconscious gathers far more information than your conscious minds are aware of. And the shared subconscious psionic awareness that the two of you have is amazingly insidious. It’s almost impossible to block completely; it just slowly and passively seeps into everything around it. Even I am not certain that I could block it completely if you weren’t exhausted. And I have over one hundred and twenty million years of life experience. Accessing even a tiny fraction of my thoughts or memories would surely have a harmful effect on your minds.

“And no one noticed because it was simply more convenient for me that way. I try not to affect the minds of others without their permission, but sometimes I don’t notice it. I’ve developed some rather remarkable new abilities lately, and I’m still not entirely used to them. I’m sure you both can understand that.”

“Ha! We sure can!” Helemia laughed. “And I want you to know that I wouldn’t have faced death with dignity. I’d have been biting and scratching until the last second!”

“I believe you would have, little one.” Quewanak chuckled.

“That was really no fun at the end of the fight when we realized we were going to lose.” Reggie said, angry at the memory. “I don’t want to take even a little chance that it could happen again. Who can give us the intensive psionic warfare training?”

“Ah, the question I’ve been waiting for!” the dragon grinned. “With your permission, I’ll begin teaching you myself while you dream, the next time you and your parents are all deeply asleep. It should only take an hour per lesson, and you won’t even remember it. You’ll just know it happened, and you’ll retain the training.”

“Thank you.” Helemia said as she and Reggie stood. “We should go home now, and tell our parents what we’ve been doing.”

“Yes. But I want you to know something.” Reggie told the dragon with a nasty little grin. “Now that I’ve thought about it for a while, I’m glad you don’t treat us like babies just ‘cause we’re babies, like everyone else does.”

“Thank you. I’ll bid you goodnight then, and leave you by your house.” Quewanak told them with a warm smile, and a moment later they were in their back yard, and he was gone.

When their parents heard what they’d experienced, Mark got so upset that he resorted to a Tranquility spell to steady his nerves, for the first time in many months.

As a mercy to their elders, the twins stayed close to home for the next week.

PART 7

On Thirdday of that week, Talia and Mark were out late helping build coastal fortifications on the east side of Hiliani.