Unfinished History
Created | Updated Sep 30, 2004
Part Eight
Isyhe awoke with a feeling of something amiss. In the darkness of the room he'd been given in one of the school buildings which had been adapted to serve as a shelter for those whose homes had been lost in the storm, he couldn't quite place his finger on the problem. It was like a light shining just at the edge of his vision, flickering through wind-blown trees.
Abruptly, it flared and faded. Iyshe sat up, closing his eyes, feeling with his Psychic powers. The surge of Psi came again. It had a familiar tinge to it, a slightly sloppy feel which spoke of inexperience.
It had to belong to Arkyna.
He rose, donned his now rather dirty robe by the light of the small ball of Psi he cast into the air, and left the room, heading for the edge of the settlement where he felt Arkyna's working flaring again. He was barely out of the building's door when another surge of Arkyna's Psi made him stagger with its intensity. The girl had considerable raw strength, that much was certain. She directed it uncertainly, and it seemed that she lacked the skill and focus necessary to do whatever it was she was trying to do. The old Psidar quickened his step. In the darkness between the few outside lights which were functioning, he tripped and nearly fell, catching himself against the wall just as Arkyna unleashed another surge of energy, even stronger this time.
Casting caution to the winds, for surely even the least Psychic colonist would be feeling something unusual under this barrage, Iyshe made another light and increased his pace once more, this time avoiding the ruts in the damaged streets. He was almost to the edge of the settlement when the biggest surge came. It was such a deluge of Psi that he lost control of his own flow and his light flickered out. The backwash from that interference slammed into him, and he fell, twisting his ankle on an uneven stone.
'Iyshe! Are you hurt?' someone put a hand under his elbow and helped him to stand, but he couldn't put his weight on his injured ankle.
'I'm fine,' he said, 'just a twisted ankle. I must- oh no.'
The young man holding him was Firnor, he realised. A young man with considerable Psychic potential of his own, he would certainly be feeling something wrong. Arkyna's surge was sustained now, roaring through the old Psidar's senses as the storm had done through the forest, but it had changed. Instead of a pushing outward, she now drew in, as a wave retreated after breaking on the sea shore. It dragged at Iyshe's mind and power, threatening to pull him along with the energy she was sucking from everything over a considerable area. He hastily divested himself of his connection to Psi, putting his mind safely out of reach even as he marvelled at the sheer power Arkyna was displaying. He just wished he knew what she was trying to do.
'I must proceed,' he said to Firnor. 'Immediately.'
Firnor didn't help him move. Instead, the young man was frowning.
'I got a headache,' he said. 'Exactly when you fell. Now I feel like my mind's being sucked over there.' He pointed in the exact direction Iyshe sensed Arkyna to be. 'What's going on? You know something, old man.'
'I do, and I will explain, but we must proceed. Arkyna is attempting something very dangerous. We have to help.' Again, Iyshe wished he knew exactly what it was Arkyna was trying to do. There was a flickering bluewhite light visible from her direction now.
Firnor hesitated a moment, then nodded and helped Iyshe to walk. They saw a few other people on the way, all of them looking curious or puzzled or just nauseous. Many were heading in the same direction as they were, instinctively following what they subconsciously perceived. It was strange that such a situation would be how they showed a far greater Psychic sensitivity in the average Alledar than Psidar researchers had previously thought - although over the last few centuries such research had been made almost impossible due to the general climate of anti-Psidar feeling.
At the edge of the settlement, they found a small crowd already gathered, and they also found Arkyna. She stood in a large open space, arms held stiffly by her sides, her head thrown back. Light swirled around her, the visible manifestation of flickers of energy which slipped away from her control. The flashes were bright, but she held a far greater amount of Psi in check, building it at a rate which sent shivers down Iyshe's spine. Already she had enough power at her immediate disposal to put a significant dent in the side of the planet and trigger an ice age with the resulting debris. Iyshe could barely conceive of how she could handle so much.
The observers already there were hanging well back, but Iyshe urged Firnor forward, and they approached until they felt waves of heat radiating from the young woman. There they stopped and a moment later Arkyna turned to face them. The gathered colonist gasped and retreated as one, for Arkyna's eyes burned an intense bluewhite, actually crackling behind her half-closed eyelids. Light even shone from beneath her skin, bluewhite as the rest if it was, the colour of Psi.
'What are you doing?' Iyshe shouted over the roaring. He didn't realise until later on that Arkyna's activity up to this point had been perfectly silent; it was only through Psi he was able to perceive the violence of the energy she stored up inside her.
'What I must do. Look!'
Arkyna turned and pointed dramatically with a glowing finger. On the horizon, cloud boiled and lightning flashed. As the colonists watched in horror, they saw a vast storm front descending upon them at an impossible rate, following the same track as the previous storm, throwing up broken trees and tattered plants ahead of it.
'You cannot stop that storm alone!'
'That is where you are wrong.'
Iyshe considered the amount of power Arkyna was holding.
'Perhaps. At least let me assist you! You need not do this by yourself.'
Arkyna hesitated, then nodded.
'Join your strength with mine, then. We will face this together.'
Iyshe looked over at Firnor.
'Help me sit down,' he said. Firnor did so, and when Iyshe was not very comfortably settled on a broken log, the old Psidar took a deep breath, closed his eyes and dived into the roaring pool of Psi Arkyna had made, bringing his own not inconsiderable strength with him.
All his power melted into hers as a bucketful of water adds to a large bath.
In the joining of their power their minds grew closer and they communicated on a level below words, exchanging concepts, intentions and images all in the blink of an eye. Almost immediately, Isyhe became aware of the dream which had led Arkyna to seek out the incoming storm and to attempt to destroy it. The realisation that the first storm had not been natural confirmed a deep suspicion Iyshe had already had, a faint lingering he had sensed in the air. He now realised that this faint lingering had the same feel as Arkyna's memories of the dream and of this second storm. All were things made of Psi, but with a touch unlike any Iyshe had encountered before.
Arkyna thought it was only natural, as it was clearly the work of an alien intelligence. Iyshe took that news, thought it over and finally agreed with her. Here they had found proof of the existence or at least the former existence of alien sentience and, if they didn't manage to stop the storm which had provided the evidence, they would never be able to tell anybody. A strange reason not to die, but as good a one as Iyshe could think of amidst that roaring sea of energy.
But such thoughts were irrelevant next to the immediate goal of stopping the storm and they plunged themselves into the task with determination. Iyshe let Arkyna carry her enormous pool of Psi with her, as he knew he would be destroyed immediately were he to try and control such a vast amount of energy. Instead, he drew on his own power and cast it into the storm, finding patterns and energies and using the information to discover where Arkyna's power would be most effectively applied.
To their combined dismay, they found active threads of Psi within the storm, driving it on and resisting their attempts to stop it. Time stretched into a meaningless moment as a battle of minds commenced; their two linked minds against those of the aliens who had constructed the storm. The alien thinking was so strange to them that it seemed an eternity before they managed to affect even one of the threads powering the storm and then it writhed and twisted, trying to avoid their influence.
Two Alledari minds, in this case, proved more powerful than the single mind behind the thread and eventually they shattered it, dispersing the energy out into the world. Arkyna was aware that her body shut its eyes in reflex against the bright flash of light this produced, but she paid it no mind as they struck for the heart of the storm and twisted it, disrupting the flow of the entire pressure system.
With a great blast of wind which itself flattened trees, damaged buildings and knocked people to the ground, the storm collapsed upon itself and was gone. In its place, still starry sky spread over a vast swathe of devastation which stopped within the zone of the first storm, a mere hundred metres from the edge of the settlement.
Iyshe's eyes flickered open and he became aware of Firnor holding him upright.
'Are-'
'I'm fine,' the old Psidar said. 'What about Arkyna?'
He tried to get up, but Firnor stopped him from doing so.
'She passed out just as the storm collapsed,' he said.
'She will require rest. A warm bed and no interruptions until she wakes by herself.'
'Her parents are here. They will see to it. I suggest you need the same thing, you can barely sit up by yourself.'
Firnor drawing attention to his situation made Iyshe realise just how tired he was from the effort of working against the storm. He put a hand to the young man's shoulder to steady himself as a wave of fatigue swept through him.
'That would be wise,' he said. Firnor nodded shortly and helped him to his feet, supporting most of the old man's weight with surprising ease. Tired as he was, Iyshe's sensitivity to Psi was somewhat reduced, but he could feel the slight flow which Firnor was drawing to augment his strength. Iyshe was going to have to start training him as soon as possible; Arkyna had managed some degree of control by herself, but it was best not to leave such things to chance.
They started to make their way back into the settlement. Around them, the people who had witnessed the collapse of the storm stood well back in the gloom, watching Arkyna or Iyshe with expressions ranging from fear to awe to loathing. Several people came forward to help and Iyshe soon found himself wrapped in someone's coat and helped along by three strong young men. He craned his head around to see Arkyna and saw her being carried by her father, brother and four other men, with her mother close by.
Satisfied that she would receive the care she needed, he didn't remember much more of the journey back to his bed and everything from opening the door to his room until he awoke in daylight was the deep, dreamless sleep of total exhaustion.
