Destiny (16 page)

"How are we supposed to tell a Blending member from any other High talent?" Honrita countered, beginning to get a bit of pleasure from taunting Ayl. "I'm sure
you
can tell the difference, so please share the method with the rest of us."

"The difference is easily seen, less easily described," Ayl said after another long moment, only the suggestion of a smile left to him. "When the time comes, I'll point out the desired target."

"Why won't we be able to simply take someone over and ask?" Kadri Sumlow put, looking back and forth between Honrita and Ayl. "Getting the answer from someone who knows what we need to find out would take the guesswork out of the effort, wouldn't you agree?"

Honrita watched Ayl stiffen at Sumlow's patronizing tone, and pleasure touched her again. Ayl seemed to be used to people falling all over themselves to worship him, just as she had pretended to do at first. But worship, she'd discovered, was extremely boring, whereas baiting seemed to be a never-ending enjoyment. As long as she used her talent to keep from going too far, there was no real need to be bored.

"There, you see?" Honrita said to a still-silent Ayl with an open smile. "When you ask the right people for suggestions, you tend to get what you need. I can see now why you chose these people, Dom Ayl."

"Yes, I did choose them, didn't I," Ayl said, as though he were thinking out loud. "They are, in effect, my creatures, and what one of mine does is merely an extension of my own efforts. The matter is now clear to me, and I approve."

Ayl sat looking as though he certainly did approve, and Honrita caught the glances exchanged among the others. She'd made sure to tell
her
people about Ayl's madness, and to explain that the man was needed to put
them
in power. Once they were successful, he would no longer be needed. Ayl had told Honrita that he'd chosen the strongest Middle talents in the city for his own private Blending, and that Honrita did believe.

"So that point is settled," Honrita said, looking around at everyone with the same pleasant, open smile. "When the time comes, we'll have no trouble finding the ones we want. Taking over even one High talent will give us the rest of them through the efforts of our puppet, and then we'll have
them
walk us into the palace. Does anyone see a problem with that plan?"

"Not with that one, no," Stelk Faron said, his stiff disapproval still very much in evidence. "I must, however, return to the problem of our fifth member. His recovery is taking much too long, and we must do something to hasten it."

"If I were able to get closer to him, I might be able to help out with that," Kadri Sumlow said with a thoughtful look coloring her haughty attitude. "I am, after all, a much better healer than the one treating him. I simply can't do my best from a distance."

"She shouldn't be
expected
to work at a distance," Seeli Tandor stated, showing just as much haughtiness as Sumlow had. "Using her talent in such an unproductive way is tantamount to wasting it."

"Since our fifth is up and about, there's no reason why Dama Sumlow and I can't go and visit him," Honrita said as though considering an idea that hadn't come to her sooner. "I'm sure I can … convince him to let another healer work on him, and that way he can be among us more quickly."

The others murmured immediate agreement, not to mention approval of the idea. Honrita had saved the suggestion specifically for the meeting, to show everyone who the real leader of the group was. Ayl hadn't made a single useful suggestion, but she, on the other hand, had come off looking rather well.

Honrita glanced at Ayl, and was somewhat surprised to see his usual faint smile. The man should have been annoyed, but instead he was feeling extremely pleased about something. And even as Honrita watched, the pleasure inside him was … submerged, somehow, as though it had never been. If she hadn't been watching so closely with her talent, she would have missed knowing anything at all about the emotion.

It took only a moment of thought for Honrita to realize that Ayl had plans he hadn't mentioned to her or anyone else. Honrita had found another Guild member, one who was as high up as Ayl used to be, and discovered that she couldn't put the man under her control. Her talent seemed to … flow past the man, which meant that nothing she'd tried - or wanted to try - with Ayl affected him.

That made for something of a problem, but one that would continue only until she had a Blending of her own to work with. Not even Ayl would be able to resist a Blending entity, and then she would find out what the madman was up to. He obviously thought he could escape her just retribution, but that would not be happening.

She
would
get even for everything done and not done, she
would
!

Chapter Ten

Everyone but Rion and Naran had moved away from the grass we'd been sitting on to do other things. I just sat there thinking about the enemy we'd only gotten a glimpse of in the flesh. We still didn't know what their entity was like, and that bothered me. When you know exactly what you have to face, it's possible to be brave even if your opponent is bigger and stronger and very frightening. But if you have no idea what your opponent will be like, fear goes wild along with your imagination…

"Tamrissa, we need to speak with you for a moment," I heard Rion murmur. When I looked up I saw that both he and Naran had moved closer to me, and both of them looked worried.

"What's wrong?" I asked, knowing for a fact that there was definitely a problem. "Did I miss seeing something happen?"

"No, it isn't something that you could have seen," Naran said, actually answering for herself. She'd been doing a lot of that lately, a definite improvement. "When I agreed with Lorand that I wasn't aware of conversation when we were Blended, I lied. I heard everything just the way Vallant did, but I didn't want Lorand to think he was all alone. Was I wrong to support him? Is there anything you can think of that we can do to help Lorand?"

"Naran has also told me that we must discover what the problem is and correct it," Rion put in, looking really disturbed. "If this particular problem isn't solved, we won't have to worry about any of the others."

"Why does every problem we face have to be a matter of survival or extinction?" I asked the world at large, my growing anger making me really want an answer. "Why can't we have an unimportant problem for once, one we can ignore without worrying that the world will end because we didn't take care of it?"

"We're just lucky, I guess," Naran answered with an odd smile. "Someone or something doesn't seem to want us to grow bored."

"I've decided I agree with Vallant about boredom," I stated, showing Naran that her comment hadn't amused me. "I can learn to really enjoy boredom, if someone or something would only give me the chance to do it. Well, no sense in wishing for something we aren't going to get. You two take Lorand aside and make a bunch of guesses as to why he and Naran haven't experienced what the rest of us have in the Blending. I'll get Vallant and Jovvi together and pass on the problem, and maybe one of
them
will think of what we can do."

The two of them agreed immediately before getting to their feet, so I sighed just a little before doing my own standing. The anger I'd felt earlier seemed to be growing, as if there really was someone to be angry at. If it ever turned out that there
was
someone behind everything we'd been going through, they would enjoy my discovering who they were as much as I was enjoying what we were being put through…

"What's wrong now?" I heard Vallant ask, and looked up to see that he'd left the people he'd been speaking with to come over to me. "I could feel your temper burnin' all the way over there."

"Don't worry, it's nothing personal, but I'm going to act as if it is," I told him in a mutter. "As soon as Jovvi is alone I'm going to stalk over to her, and when you follow to hear me complain about you I'll tell the both of you what the problem is."

"I'm glad you warned me," he muttered back with a scowl that hid amusement. "If you really started bein' mad at me again, I'd probably go hide instead of followin'. I don't think I'm strong enough to go through war with you again."

"Poor baby," I murmured with my own pretend scowl, giving him a wink only he could see. "Then I guess I'll have to do the arguing for both of us."

And with that I turned with a haughty toss of my head and strode off toward Jovvi, who now stood alone sipping tea. Vallant lost no time in following me, and by the time we reached Jovvi her brows were raised high.

"What's going on?" she asked at once, looking back and forth between Vallant and me. "My eyes tell me that you two are in the midst of feuding again, but my talent says you're doing no such thing."

"It's all
his
fault!" I said in a moderately loud voice, then lowered my tone to keep the "complaint" private. "Actually, your talent is right. I have to talk to the two of you, and pretending to complain about Vallant is the easiest way to do it. Naran and Rion told me that she lied when she said she didn't hear the rest of us in the Blending. That means Lorand is the only one who's cut off, and Naran also says we have to solve his problem otherwise we don't have a chance against the invaders. Do either of you have any idea what's wrong, or what we can do about it?"

"Lorand seems perfectly normal to me," Vallant said with a frown that wasn't acting. "He's just the way he always was, so I don't know what the trouble can be."

"What you just said may be the very thing that's causing trouble," Jovvi said to Vallant with a worried expression creasing her brow. "Lorand
is
just the way he always was, which means he's been hiding jealousy instead of talking about it or showing it. But possibly you understand the situation better than I do, Vallant. I've been able to detect jealousy in you as well."

"No, it's not really important or even relevant," Vallant said at once with a glance for me as his skin darkened just a bit. "It's a silly private thing that I'm havin' trouble with, and it's really not important."

"Please, Vallant, tell us what it is," Jovvi urged as I stood there without anything to say. "Even the smallest scrap of information could mean the difference between helping Lorand and leaving him to flounder. And we're quickly running out of time. The enemy - "

"All right, I know how little time we have," Vallant said sharply, then shook his head. "I apologize for cuttin' you off, Jovvi, but I've been feelin' guilty about this for some time now… Tamrissa, I really do love you, but - I also love Jovvi and Naran. That makes me a low, miserable dog, doesn't it?"

"If it does, then I'm the same," I blurted, more relieved than I ever expected to be. "I love you too, but I also love Rion and Lorand. I had no idea how to tell you about it without hurting you."

"But that's wonderful!" Vallant said with a big smile, putting one hand to my arm. "We both feel the same way about it, so there's nothin' of a problem."

"
You
have nothing of a problem," Jovvi corrected with gentle understanding, drawing our attention. "Lorand is still in the same position, so can you please explain why you felt jealous if you really weren't?"

"I was jealous of Rion, mostly," Vallant answered with what looked like a small boy's discomfort. "He seemed just as devoted to Naran as ever, and I was hatin' myself for not bein' the same with Tamrissa. Lovin' her only a little bit more than lovin' you other ladies seemed like nothin' short of betrayal."

"I think we're
supposed
to feel like that, since most of us do," I offered with a warm smile for Vallant. "Is it possible that Lorand is feeling the same kind of guilt and jealousy, but in his case it's keeping him from… I don't know, merging with us completely, maybe?"

"But the feelings didn't keep Vallant from … merging with the rest of us, so I don't think that's it," Jovvi said, a small headshake joining her concern. "That means his problem has to be different, and the only way we'll find out what it is will be by asking him."

"Naran and Rion are talking to him right now, to distract him from
this
conversation," I said with a sigh. "Maybe they all figured something out, and the problem is solved without the rest of us."

"I certainly hope so, but I'm not counting on it," Jovvi said with her own sigh. "Let's go over there and find out."

Vallant gave me a glance that said he'd rather just stand and talk for the rest of the day, and I knew exactly how he felt. Personal interrelations between the members of our Blending had always been more than complicated, but we had no choice about getting involved again. If our Blending was growing again in some way, we all had to grow with it or the rest of us were wasting our time.

Lorand was still deep in conversation with Rion and Naran when we walked over to them. Jovvi led the way, and when she reached Lorand he put an arm around her shoulders.

"Hi, love," Lorand said as he kissed Jovvi's cheek. "We were just trying to figure out why Naran and I are the only ones who haven't experienced this new thing in the Blending. We haven't gotten very far, so maybe the rest of you will come up with something that makes sense."

"Lorand, love, the problem isn't exactly what you think it is," Jovvi told him gently as she touched his face with one hand. "You need to know that Naran
did
experience what the rest of us did. You're the only one who hasn't, so things are more complicated than we thought."