Legacy of the Mind (13 page)

‘It’s just a good idea for you to know how to defend yourself,’ he said.  ‘It’s basic training for Descendants and I’m not sure why it’s not taught to everyone.  It just means that if some crazy person tries to get into your mind, you will know about it and will be able to defend yourself.  Much as it pains me to admit it, he does have a point.  I’ll have to teach you.’

Alexander laughed openly.  ‘You think you will be able to teach her?  You can barely defend yourself, let alone teach someone else how to do it.  Don’t you think you should leave that to an expert?’

Marcus was livid now, both Alexander and Anita could tell from the energy steaming off him, but neither said anything, each holding their breath, waiting tensely for his answer.

‘Well, I suppose, seeing as I’ve already agreed to teach you about the Mind disciplines, it would be a bit intense for me to teach you about the Spirit ones as well.  And I’m not too proud to admit that, although I am far from a beginner, I’m not a Spirit expert.  Alexander would be a more suitable candidate.  But if you lay so much as one finger on her, you’ll regret it.’

‘Marcus, I’m not in the least bit interested in your little girlfriend here.  But I am interested in someone close to you being vulnerable to attack.  As you know, I would feel the same way if any other Descendant were in this position.’

‘I suppose you have a point.  We don’t want someone getting at me via Anita.’  Marcus sounded cringingly pompous, reminding Anita strongly of Austin, but she didn’t say anything given how close she was to being able to spend a great deal more time with Alexander.

‘Although I’ll obviously be laying a finger on her in a plutonic way.  As you know, some of the meditations require it.’

‘There is no requirement for you to show her those poses.’

Alexander looked at Marcus as though he were a petulant child.  ‘Marcus, you know I need to show her every pose if she’s to be properly protected.’  Anita was intrigued, wondering what the offending poses were, but again thought it best to keep her thoughts to herself for the moment.

‘Fine,’ spat Marcus, ‘but not until she is ready.’

Alexander gave Marcus a terse look and walked away.  ‘Meet me here tomorrow evening at seven Anita.  Marcus, don’t even think about coming too.’

Marcus helped Anita up, his face like thunder.  Alexander was right, he was possessive, and half of her loved it while the other half couldn’t stand it.  On the one hand she wanted to spend more time with both of them and that was what it looked like she’d be doing, and she quite liked having men fight over her, but on the other hand, she’d had no say in the matter, something which she was really quite irked about.  However, this didn’t seem like the right moment to bring it up, so she tried to lighten the mood instead.  ‘So,’ she said flirtatiously, ‘when do we get started on my Mind lessons?’  Marcus visibly perked up.

‘Tomorrow morning at mine?’ he replied and she nodded, kissed him playfully on the lips, flashed him a flirty, disarming smile and sauntered out of the Temple.

Anita didn’t wait for the others, she hadn’t been for a run and that would inevitably lead to difficult questions.  Instead, she decided to run to the river to climb one of the cliffs.  She hoped that would help clear her head, she’d been feeling a bit fuzzy since the meditation.

Anita got to the river lost in her thoughts, so was startled when a voice called her name.

She turned around to see Helena jogging into view.  ‘Helena.  Hi,’ she said bemused.  ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I thought it was a good day for a spot of climbing,’ she said, descending the steep grassy slope down to the river bank where Anita stood.

‘Great minds and all that,’ Anita replied warmly.  ‘In fact, it’s probably a good thing you bumped into me,’ she smirked, ‘at your age, it’s a wonder you can still make it out here.’

‘Alright, enough of that thank you,’ Helena scolded.  ‘I’ll still beat your sorry little ass up the cliff.’  They smiled at each other, it was just like it used to be.

They were free climbing obviously.  Body types had a healthy scorn for ropes and were half way up the cliff, just reaching a tricky overhang when Helena casually dropped in, ‘so I see you and Marcus are getting along very well.’

‘For the love of the Gods, not you too?’

‘What do you mean, not me too?’

‘I didn’t have you down for a gossip.’

Helena laughed.  ‘No, I’m not generally, and I’m not very good at it either.  I was wondering more about how Austin feels about your relations with his son?  You should be careful of him you know,’ she said offhandedly, launching herself upwards to grab a hold that had been just out of reach.

‘So you fall into the ‘save Anita from Austin’ camp,’ Anita replied evenly, placing her foot and all her weight on an impossibly small crease by her waist to reach her next hold.

‘There’s a whole camp of us?’ she said sarcastically.

‘It’s growing.’

‘Well I just think you should know that Austin is dangerous and that woman Amber comes in a close second.  She is very adept at getting into peoples’ minds.  You should stay away from her.’

‘What do you mean ‘getting into peoples’ minds’?’

Helena looked over at Anita, glad she had finally caught her full attention.  ‘I mean, that in the same way as we have Body skills that are not taught at a school level, there are also Mind and Spirit skills that most people don’t know much about.  Amber is extremely adept at a couple of particularly manipulative ones and crucially is exceptionally good at getting into peoples’ heads.  Sometimes she simply uses the power of suggestion, planting things into conversations, repeating words or phrases a number of times so people remember them unwittingly.  But when she feels the situation calls for it, she’s been known to launch a full scale attack, which involves finding a way into a person’s mind, such as when they are meditating, or praying to the Gods, or concentrating extremely hard on something and planting something in there.  Most people who have had this done to them will never know about it.  The only way to tell is to meditate to one’s own Centre and recognise something that is slightly out of place.’  Helena paused while they lifted themselves over the top and sat dangling their legs over the edge, admiring the view down the river.  Helena noticed Anita had gone both very quiet and a dangerous shade of grey.

‘Are you alright,’ she asked, concerned.

Anita paused, considering her answer.  Helena’s words brought back her meditation earlier, so she wasn’t entirely sure.  ‘And what is the purpose of planting something?’ she asked.

‘Well it depends.  It can be a very effective way to kill a person and make it look like they just dropped down dead, but generally people like Austin don’t really care about how deaths look, given there is nobody he has to answer to.  Or it can be a way of gathering information, but the tricky thing there is working out a way to extract the information, as then you need someone with expert Mind skills to plant the idea and a skillful Spirit to extract it through meditation.  Or it can be a way to store or pass information secretly between people without there being any physical evidence or conversation.  For example, people used to widely use brass cylinders as a way of passing messages or storing information and then when people found them whilst meditating, they would know what they had found.  The only problem with that of course is that people then started to plant hostile brass cylinders as a form of attack, which were extremely effective because people thought they were safe, so would open them and immediately drop down dead.  Only a handful of people practice planting and extracting any longer, the world is a much safer place now than it used to be, but most academics will know about and often practice them to keep the arts alive.’

Anita sat and contemplated what she had just heard.  After the first mention of death, she had been on the verge of telling Helena about her experience in the Temple, but now that she had brought up brass cylinders, Anita didn’t know if this was such a great idea.  ‘Can you find out when something was planted?  That way you could agree certain times to plant so you would know it was safe?’ she eventually asked.

‘No.  Not unless you actually caught the person in the act.  But that’s very difficult to do as you’d be concentrating extremely hard on something else whilst the plant is taking place.  The only thing you can do is learn to protect your mind from attack, which means there are barriers up that an attacker has to get through in order to plant something.  And seeing as getting through barriers takes time and energy, it takes someone more skilled to do this and obviously makes it more risky to try.  You can give friendly planters clues as to how to get through the barriers, making it easier for them to plant.  The Descendants are all trained to protect themselves in every way possible as they are obvious targets for attacks.  However, Austin has taken this one step further and takes Amber with him everywhere he goes, just in case he feels the need to be hostile himself, which he often does.’

‘So why do I need to be careful of Austin?  Why would he be hostile towards me?’

‘You’re powerful and it’s pretty common knowledge that Austin doesn’t like having powerful people around.  It makes him feel threatened, vulnerable, so he does all he can to identify and either use, or rid the world of those he sees as a threat.’

‘And when you say ‘use’?’

‘He employs them for their skills.  In the same way he uses Amber’s planting skills, he might want a powerful Spirit as an extractor, or a powerful Body to seduce somebody or beat someone up.’

‘Seduce somebody?  I would have thought that would be a Mind trick too.’

‘There’s a lot of cross over.  Yes, Minds tend to be proficient in seduction and manipulation, but a Body can be good at seduction too.  Instead of using their mind and manipulation to seduce, they simply use their bodies.  In reality people tend to have a mixture of the three Gods in them, so it’s never as cut and dried as attributing certain skills only to Minds, Bodies or Spirits.  You might be a strong Body but have very little Mind at all, meaning you may find seduction hard, or you may be a strong Spirit but have a lot of Mind, meaning you may be able to master both planting and extraction, or you may have a little of all three and be passable at everything but excel at not very much.  There’s no set formula.  There are a handful of academics who research skills inheritance, but they haven’t found much to go on yet.  I think the most interesting research is being carried out by a very small group, who are looking at people who can give energy jolts and shivers, but they’ve made virtually no headway at all given how rare those abilities are, and they don’t seem to follow any obvious inheritance rules.’

Anita thought about telling Helena what she’d felt when she’d kissed Marcus and touched Alexander, and ask whether that meant they had the power or that she did, but given that would mean having to tell her about the kissing, she decided to keep it to herself.  Maybe she’d do a little independent research on the matter.

‘Anyway, the point is that you would be wise to steer clear of Austin and Amber, which also means giving Marcus a wide berth, especially after your display the other night, spectacular as it was.’

‘Thanks,’ she half laughed, ‘I think.  And what if I decide I don’t want to give Marcus a wide berth?’

‘Then you are taking a tremendous risk.  Marcus is Austin’s son,’ she turned serious, ‘remember that.  He’s becoming more and more like him and I wouldn’t want you to get caught in the middle of that transformation.’

‘It’s not a foregone conclusion that he’ll turn into his father,’ Anita said prickling.  ‘And anyway, Alexander, your fellow ‘protect Anita club’ member, seems to think the safest place for me is with Marcus.  You two should have some kind of ‘protect Anita’ convention and get your advice together.’

Helena ignored her little outburst, saying cautiously, ‘just how close are you and Marcus?’

‘Not that close,’ she replied uncomfortably, ‘not that it’s any of your business.’  This was new territory for Anita and she didn’t like Helena prying.  She’d never had to explain any of her previous relationships, probably something to do with a lack of nosey parents and living with a grandmother who protected her own privacy and therefore respected the privacy of others.

‘Anita, if Alexander thinks you’re safest with Marcus, then it’s probably gone too far already.  Marcus has always been extremely possessive, just like Austin, which will work both in your favour and against you.  It does mean that Austin is unlikely to harm you and less likely to try and recruit you, but it also means if you ever want to walk away, it’s likely you will have serious problems.  Marcus might not want to let you go.’

‘This gets more and more crazy,’ said Anita exasperated.  ‘If Marcus and I have any kind of relationship, it’s not like I will suddenly belong to him.’

‘That’s what Amelia thought too and look at her now.’

‘Marcus is not Austin.’

‘And you are not Amelia.’

Anita didn’t know what she meant by that, but it clearly wasn’t anything good, so she didn’t ask.  Unfortunately, Helena seemed to think it was something Anita needed to know, so she carried on anyway.

‘Amelia was, and indeed still is, an extremely adept Mind academic.  When she fell in love with and married Austin she brought a lot of influential supporters with her.  When they separated, which had a lot to do with Austin turning into a carbon copy of his father Tobias, by the way, Austin lost a lot of those supporters, but he couldn’t harm Amelia or he would risk a fraction forming within the Temple of the Mind.  Obviously, given how fragile the balance is at the moment, Austin should leave you alone whilst Marcus wants you, but if Marcus changes his mind, or you want to leave him, you will be in a great deal of danger, and you don’t have powerful supporters to protect you.’

‘The fragility of the system seems to be the topic of the moment,’ said Anita dismissively.

‘Anita, the possibility of a revolution is not something to be flippant about.  It could happen.  The Institution is growing and given the current bloodline situation and energy crisis, now seems like a likely time don’t you think?’

Anita looked blankly at Helena.  ‘The Institution?’ she questioned.

Helena rolled her eyes.  ‘It always amazes me how little your generation knows.  You lack any kind of political zeal, so unlike your parents.’

Anita wasn’t sure whether Helena meant her parents specifically, or just her generation’s parents in general, but she made a mental note to drop them into conversation later to find out.

Helena continued, ‘the Institution is a group of powerful individuals, mostly academics, Councillors and a few traders, whose purpose is to ensure the energy stays steady.’

‘I thought that was the job of the Descendants?’ Anita chipped in.

Helena searched for how to answer.  ‘Theoretically yes, but the Descendants have never really been interested in ruling for the good of all.  Historically they’ve been more preoccupied with personal gain and adoration, and in reality they have no interest in sending the relic back to the Gods, given that to do so runs counter to their personal interests, regardless of what they swear at their Crownings.’

‘Hmm.’

‘So the Institution was formed centuries ago to ensure the energy remained stable and has dedicated itself to freeing the world ever since.’

‘But only the Descendants can free the world.’

‘Only if the only freedom you consider is from the Gods.  What if freedom was from the rule of the Descendants?’

‘So why wait until now?  Why hasn’t the Institution acted already?’

‘The Descendants hold some information they’d use to discredit the Institution if we tried to act, which means we’ve been at stalemate since they stole it.  If we overthrow them, they’ll discredit us, the world would descend into chaos and the energy would plummet.  It would mean destruction of the world as we know it and the Institution would have failed in its purpose.’

‘So when you say ‘we’, I take it that means you’re part of the Institution?’ Anita asked.  ‘Why are you telling me all this?’

‘Because we need powerful people like you to join us,’ she replied simply.

‘But what’s the point of growing if you can’t act?’

‘Because, as you know better than most, the energy is failing.  If we don’t act now, then it may be too late.’