‘And you started having these visions after Maladaan shifted?’ Taren established for the benefit of the others.
‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘But I don’t understand it really … I mean, what kind of “Power” is memory?’
Taren grinned. ‘That memory belonged to a spiritual master and Time Lord,’ she advised, ‘surely such wisdom will not go astray?’
‘So what’s your story, Mr Dacre?’ Lucian invited. ‘How did you get yourself appointed chief science advisor for the MSS?’
Telmo seemed overwhelmed by their attention, but did not hesitate to explain himself. ‘I designed the mechanism to contain the energy sample that, I have since learnt, was stolen from your project, Professor Gervaise.’
‘You seem very young to be placed in such a position of authority?’ Lucian wondered how he’d got so far, so fast in life.
‘Ah,’ Telmo blushed at being pulled up on that point, ‘but not too young to have a lover on the design team to feed ideas through. I lost all the credit for my design, but I gained three-quarters of her fee.’ He grinned, hoping not to be judged too harshly.
‘And got laid in the bargain,’ Zeven said. ‘I like this guy.’
Upstairs, Avery was awake, on his feet, and freaking out. ‘Get Rhun!’ he was yelling at Cadfan. ‘I need to see him —’
‘I’m here,’ the governor announced on his way through the door. ‘Why are you yelling at Walter?’
‘Who healed me?’ Avery demanded to know.
‘Why, do you wish to thank him?’ Judging from his brother’s disturbed state, he thought not.
‘Thank him? I’m still mortal!’ Avery was horrified; he’d never been mortal!
‘I told him,’ Cadfan began calmly, ‘it’s going to take time, compassion and love in order for his DNA to re-braid but —’
‘Compassion! Ronan is dead!’ Avery was fuming. ‘They killed him before my eyes and because I am mortal, I couldn’t prevent it.’ His voice broke over the true cause of his grief, and he sank to a seat on the bed and went into a stunned state of shock.
‘Whether you like it or not, Avery, you are traumatised,’ Rhun told him after a long silence. ‘Your powers will return once you have come to terms with your ordeal.’ This was what Walter had been trying to tell Avery, but now it seemed to be sinking in — his emotional and mental state had to stabilise before they would mend.
‘They really don’t like psychics on Maladaan,’ Avery commented as an aside and then looked to his brother. ‘They’re ordering the disempowerment of the only folk who could save them from the Orions once it all turns horribly ugly. The entire population of that planet will be Orion chowder before long.’
‘Not if we can help it.’
‘Is there a plan?’ Avery probed. ‘I want in.’
‘The team is Maladaan residents only.’ Rhun was glad not to have to hold his brother’s mortality against him. ‘So, rest up and I’ll let your wife know what’s happened and that she can find you here.’
Avery nodded to accept his lot. ‘If anyone will make me feel better, Fallon will.’
Rhun grinned and made for the door.
‘Thanks,’ Avery waylaid him, ‘for not leaving me to die in that hell hole.’
‘Thanks for not dying in that hole and leaving the Otherworld to run amuck.’ Rhun’s retort made Avery smile.
‘I’m sure the little woman has it all in hand,’ his younger brother replied.
Rhun nodded. ‘Get better,’ he ordered as he turned to leave.
‘Avery!’ Fallon manifested in a whirl of air elementals that sent the scent of a spring field in blossom through the room as they departed, leaving their mistress to rush into her husband’s embrace.
Her arrival stopped the governor from leaving — he was obviously as keen to hear news from the Otherworld as Avery was himself.
‘I would have come sooner,’ Fallon told them, ‘but I had to dissuade the air elementals you ordered to Maladaan not to retaliate or abandon their charge in protest of their mistreatment of you.’
Avery felt urged to kiss his wife for her efforts on his behalf and then looked to his brother. ‘I told you she would have things well in hand.’
Looking at him now, Fallon had clearly expected to find Avery in worse shape. ‘You have recovered quickly.’
‘On the outside, perhaps.’ Avery’s cheer waned and Fallon’s concern returned.
‘I’ll leave you, then.’ Rhun resumed his departure, and Cadfan decided to bow out at this point too, closing the door behind them.
‘I saw horrid images of you battered and bleeding, like a mortal,’ Fallon divulged, once they were alone.
‘I am mortal,’ Avery confessed. ‘Cadfan and Rhun both agree that my DNA will re-braid given time, but no one can say for sure.’
Fallon was speechless for a moment; the event was unprecedented. ‘How?’
‘A new weapon.’
Fallon gasped, not liking the sound of that. ‘A new enemy then, too,’ she assumed.
Avery nodded. ‘And my infirmity is going to mean a hell of a lot more work for you, my love.’
‘Don’t let that concern you.’ Fallon smiled in the hope of raising his spirits. ‘There is an upside to you being mortal, you know?’
The Lord did not even have to ask what the silver lining was. ‘With all that is going on in the world, you want to conceive a child now?’
Fallon nodded, wearing her best impish grin. ‘Right now, before you have a chance to get better.’ She began stripping off the little he wore.
She was truly his joy, and with her kisses he felt his trauma ebb a little. ‘You’re good medicine,’ he told her, pulling her onto the bed on top of him. ‘Be careful, or you’ll defeat your own purpose.’
‘Love is always the best remedy, my Lord.’
Although Taren swore to the governor that she had broken her MSS conditioning, she was scheduled an appointment with Cadfan in any case. She felt she had little need to see a healer, as physically speaking, she felt perfectly well.
‘Your aura is rather something to behold,’ Cadfan told her as he entered the small, round, white consultation room that was flooded with natural light from the skylight in the ceiling high above.
‘How so?’ she replied curiously, not recalling anyone ever speaking of her aura before.
‘Well, usually a person’s aura is primarily one or two colours, reflecting the vibrational frequency or sonic with which they personally resonate. For example, I am a healer, my aura is pink and green as the talent stems from a need to express compassion, which stems from my heart centre, the primary colours of which are pink and green,’ he explained. ‘But your aura is rainbow-coloured, indicating that you resonate, or can alternate, between many different frequencies, chakras and psychic talents.’
The healer’s words had Taren thinking about the great deva she had contained in her science lab on AMIE for a short time; it had communicated telepathically with her before leaving and had referred to her as, ‘a twelve-toned organism.’ She uttered the phrase out loud.
‘There could be twelve tones in there.’ Cadfan was squinting to discern between the many colours.
‘So what does that mean?’ Taren was hungry for the esoteric information of which she had been so deprived to date.
‘It’s like having the power of a mighty creation deva all packed into one little human being,’ Cadfan simplified things for her. ‘I have never seen this kind of spiritual potential in any being still abiding in the physical world, and for whatever reason you have come into being at this time, I feel you must have a very great purpose.’
Taren trembled as she listened to his words, not from fear, but from an inner knowing that he spoke the truth; the proof was in her life to date and there were more trials to come, that was certain. ‘Am I still beholden to the MSS?’ She wondered if she had indeed broken all her prior conditioning.
‘You are not.’ Cadfan smiled to assure her. ‘I see a being very much in control
of itself.’
‘Now if I can just get my past back, I shall be complete,’ she concluded. Why it was so important remained a mystery, but she had never felt so compelled to do anything in her life.
‘You are a formidable leader,’ Cadfan told her.
‘You all see me as Tory Alexander, but I am not her any more … yet?’ Taren wasn’t sure how reincarnation worked. ‘I wish I had some of her warrior skills … I’d bring the MSS and the entire US council to justice for what they have done to psychics out of fear over the years.’
‘I feel sure that is well within your sphere of capability.’ Cadfan looked in a large circle around Taren. ‘Your aura is rather extensive; in fact I cannot see the end of its influence from here.’
Taren looked up and around herself but couldn’t see a thing. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Well your aura is so large it escapes the confines of the room,’ he explained.
‘Is that normal?’ Taren wondered.
‘For a great cosmic master, yes,’ Cadfan concurred. ‘Would you like to accompany me outside and I can get a better idea of just how far your influence extends?’
‘All right,’ Taren grinned and frowned at once, as she followed the healer out under a beautiful glassed-over conclave and into the gardens beyond.
‘It is as I thought.’ Cadfan was amazed. ‘I cannot see the end of it.’ He laughed, excited for her.
‘But if I am so masterful, why can’t I see this huge aura I have?’ Taren challenged.
‘Maybe you can,’ Cadfan suggested, ‘but you just don’t remember you can.’
Taren had a short, vivid flashback to her early childhood: her father had told her something similar to what Cadfan had been saying. ‘I can see just by looking at you, that you’re different to other people, special.’ She gasped at the brief memory and tried to cling to it and see more, as she had not been able to recall any of her childhood for over ten years!
‘You’ve been encouraged to repress your gifts all your life,’ Cadfan pointed out, ‘and taught that your power is something to fear. But, on the contrary, it must be embraced to be fully mastered.’
Taren’s eyes were brimming with tears and at first she thought that was why she saw coloured spheres of energy around the plants and trees in the garden — there was even a faint bubble of energy around Cadfan! When she squeezed the tears from her eyes, the shimmering hues remained around everything. Taren’s heart leaped into her throat with excitement when she noted how Cadfan’s bubble was pink around his heart and faded to green around the outer edges. ‘I can see it,’ she gasped again, as she turned her sights onto her own form and was in awe of the huge transferrals of cosmic energy taking place within her being. ‘I see all of it!’ she exclaimed, rushed by a feeling of amazing expansion, of being suddenly connected to everything in existence, in this universe and the next.
When Taren awoke, Lucian was seated alongside her, smiling. ‘Did I black out?’
Lucian nodded. ‘You certainly did … that must have been some session you had with Cadfan.’
‘Oh my stars.’ Taren held her head, blown away by the memory of what she’d seen, and what Cadfan had said. ‘He is amazing!’ She was a little disappointed to note that she was not seeing auras now, but as she looked at Lucian and allowed her physical sight to slip out of focus, she began to see his auric hue that was indigo and violet. ‘I can see your aura.’ She grinned.
‘Can you now?’ Lucian brushed some hair from her face.
‘It’s all —’
The sound of a woman yelling in the corridor outside the room drew their attention to the open doorway.
‘I must speak to the governor,’ she said. ‘This was not Fari’s doing!’
‘The governor knows that —’ There was a man trying to reason with her, unsuccessfully.
‘Then why is Fari locked up?’ the woman challenged. ‘I’m going to kill Zelimir Ronan!’ she claimed with a passion. ‘I touched him in the governor’s office, so I can assume his form and I know everything he knows,’ she asserted, but she was lying. She had actually stolen the chief’s DNA blueprint many years before. ‘I can fool all of Maladaan to get to him, if I must!’
Taren and Lucian looked to each other, most intrigued to hear this, and, with Lucian’s help, Taren accompanied him out into the corridor to discover the source of the amazing claims.
It was a Phemorian woman and a young man that Taren had seen in one of En Noah’s chronicles of the Dark Ages on Earth. Their loud debate had stopped as the Phemorian woman spied the Lord of the Otherworld walking down the stairs.
‘You cannot kill Zelimir Ronan, as he is already dead,’ Avery told her solemnly.
Taren was shocked to hear this and a little saddened. She wasn’t sure if her deflated feeling was because, deep down, she had respected her nemesis, or because she had been denied the satisfaction of confronting him herself.
‘My Lord.’ The Phemorian woman humbled herself a little, and considering Avery was a man, that was rather unusual. ‘I am so sorry if my temper offended you, I did not realise you were here.’
‘I am a patient, just like you,’ he informed her as he descended the stairs to stand before her. ‘I was with Ronan when he died and can assure you that his death was every bit as painful and inhumane as anything you could dream up to satisfy your lust for revenge.’
The young, blond fellow who’d been arguing with the Phemorian appeared a little put off by the woman’s obvious adoration of the Lord of the Otherworld, but he stood out of the way as Avery addressed her. Taren stared hard at the young man; it was as if they’d met before but she just couldn’t place him.
Then the Phemorian did something unprecedented for her race: she began to sob. ‘How else am I to feel when I see injustice?’ she appealed to the Lord.
‘Compassion,’ he told her softly, whereupon the Phemorian shrieked in anguished frustration. ‘But where does that get me? Compassion will not stop the MSS from persecuting the innocent.’
‘No,’ Avery agreed, ‘but it will stop you from persecuting the innocent.’
The statement made the Phemorian gasp and she ceased to weep.
‘And when Ronan died,’ Avery stated, ‘he had repented, and he was innocent, Jazmay. There is no one man you can kill who will accomplish your goal, it is the institution, the mindset, that must be annihilated.’
‘So, how does one annihilate an entire network compassionately?’ the Phemorian was eager to know.
‘You do what you feel is in the best interests of all … love with your mind, think with your heart,’ he told her. ‘And if your goal is truly righteous, then you shall be supplied the means to achieve it, always.’
The Phemorian was bemused by this. ‘But I don’t know where to begin.’
‘I think I do,’ Taren spoke up to alert everyone to their presence.
When the three turned to find Taren and Lucian, only Avery knew them.
‘Who are you?’ the Phemorian asked, more curious than defensive.
‘I am an ex-MSS agent who seeks to break into the mainframe of my one-time employers and reclaim a large chunk of memory they stole from me,’ Taren began. ‘I believe my memory may hold some of the answers we seek in regard to getting our planet back to its proper place in the scheme of things. We are assembling a team of psychics from Maladaan to get me in and out of MSS headquarters, undetected hopefully. Ronan’s memory could prove very useful, if you’re interested?’
The Phemorian was stunned a moment.
‘Ask the right question, you’ll get an answer,’ Avery concluded, heading back up the stairs to his room.
‘I’m very interested,’ the Phemorian proffered, calmly.
After his consultation with Cadfan, Zeven had been given the all-clear from MSS conditioning, which was a relief, but he felt he’d learnt more than he wanted to about himself.
Without ever meeting Zeven, Cadfan knew all about his risk-taking, womanising and heroic tendencies, for his soul-mind h
ad always been this way before he found his Chosen other. The healer had also predicted Zeven had a huge destiny to fulfil, and at that point in the conversation, Zeven specifically asked Cadfan not to mention anything about his love life.
‘But your entire life is love.’ Cadfan was amused. ‘Spirit is love, and the nature of spirit is to explore and push the boundaries of reality. You are so attuned to spirit that you will do anything to advance the common understanding of existence … and by so doing you serve the creator.’
‘So to try and prevent me from pushing those boundaries is wrong?’ Zeven had reasoned — having wondered many times if it was ego and pride that drove him to such extremes, or some higher calling?
‘There is no right or wrong,’ Cadfan replied, ‘only choices that prove to be constructive or destructive.’
‘But the woman I am meant to be with, my “Chosen other”,’ Zeven used Cadfan’s terminology, ‘she would never prevent me from fulfilling my destiny?’
‘I wouldn’t think so,’ Cadfan replied, ‘she will encourage you to be all that you can be.’
Now, in the shade of a tree in the temple garden, Zeven was contemplating this information and feeling a little lost. So Aurora is not my perfect match after all, he concluded. ‘But I was so sure,’ he muttered, bemused, as the sound of flapping wings captured Zeven’s attention and he glanced up into the sun to glimpse a large bird coming to land in the temple garden.
‘What the …?’ He had never seen a bird with a wingspan so large. But, as the sun was in his eyes obscuring his view, perhaps it was the Lord Avery? Zeven raised himself to go investigate.
It wasn’t the Lord Avery, but one of his ilk, maybe?
All Zeven could see from behind was the long white hair quills, a large set of white wings, a white miniskirt, suntanned legs, and white boots. ‘Are you looking for someone?’
The bird turned and Zeven was nearly winded to see Aurora — although clearly this magnificent creature was another incarnation of her. She was frowning when she turned, but upon setting eyes on Zeven she smiled winningly, held up a finger and began rummaging through her bag.