Chapter 96

Una, the Psiontial, and her clan were happy. They’d managed to extricate themselves from the Yr’ch to a new world and had agreements with new friends, an odd concept to the Psiontials, but a term that fitted well with the circumstances. This friendship was with the Seers, a gestalt group who communicated with their own multi-gestalt and who passed on information. They also helped the Psiontial multi-gestalt to contact a Power on their new world and be placed under a welcome protection.

At the moment the Psiontials were busy carefully scanning Vultoq, something their allies could not do owing to the way their abilities worked. This was an area in which the multiple form of the Psiontial psyche appeared to work well, particularly when the Seer gestalt taught them ways to not be detected. They scanned other worlds, of course, and were fascinated by the rebuilding of civilisations aided and assisted by the Powers, though did not contact any of the denizens of those worlds, at least not until they were ready to be contacted.

What information the Psiontials were able to glean, they passed on to the Seer gestalt who passed it on to what forces they had available. It did give Una and her clan a great deal of joy to see a target they had marked being attacked and destroyed, even if they could not as yet discern how it was done. The Seer gestalt told them it was another ally, the Maraú-Uxuí, who were able to do this and they were incredibly good at what they did and very difficult to detect.

At the moment a part of the multi-gestalt was studying the area known as the echtra and trying to find the best and safest route for the assault the Psiontials knew was planned. This had to be done carefully as an immense power within the echtra was also scanning and trying to lock onto any forms of mental scanning and injure the scanner by overloading their sensory input, something the multi-gestalt was vulnerable to. Hence a very subtle game of cat and mouse was ongoing around the echtra as the multi-gestalt attempted to scan and the patripures attempted to detect any scanning and kill the scanner.

‘How goes the game, Una,‘ came the melodious not-voice of the human gestalt.

‘It is fun, if tense at times. The patripures are aware of the attempts to scan and are diligent in tracking down where we are doing this.‘

‘The endgame is nigh, we hope.‘

‘That will be sad; for you, our friends, will leave.‘

‘We will keep in touch; we know now from your efforts how to communicate over the universe boundaries, though we cannot scan over those boundaries.‘

‘You will?‘ Una asked in joyful tones, informing her multi-sisters of this.

‘We will,‘ came the voices of multiple gestalts from the Allied Earths.

‘Thank you. We so feared being alone.‘

‘We would never abandon our soul-sisters. We believe soon the worlds around you will flourish and you will also be able to join with them in creating an alliance of worlds,‘ the Allied Earth gestalts announced.

‘We have detected no signs of gestalt capable entities as yet,‘ Una stated pensively.

‘You cannot discern destinies, we can. Some of our sisters have seen the destinies of those races and believe the Enterlech will soon join you in harmony as their race grows back to maturity.‘

‘This is good news indeed.‘

‘For all of us, yes.‘

‘We will do our best in the coming struggle. We can for a while distract the patripures mentally, so your people can gain access to the echtra easily,” Una stated, changing the subject.

‘We thank you, sisters,‘ the gestalt replied.

Oonagh was getting a pasting from Roxanne, again. Though in this case, Roxanne was showing her the necessary counters for the moves where Roxanne was able to break through Oonagh’s defences. They would then practice the counter until Oonagh had it right and then Roxanne would hit her with something else.

To give Oonagh credit, she wasn’t flinching from the training, nor was she bitching or rising to Roxanne’s taunts, which were primarily designed to distract and gain another advantage. Still, finally it was over and Imelda and I went down to do some repairs, or rather to speed up the healing process as Oonagh had re-learned how to do it for herself, if not terribly quickly.

“Much better, Oonagh,” I heard Roxanne tell her. “But you’re still too slow on the counter.”

“I ... I will improve,” Oonagh gasped out, her reserves clearly depleted.

“Damn right you will. This mission depends on your getting to the patripure and we can’t send you till you’re ready.”

“You need to eat,” I said to Oonagh as Roxanne moved away to look over Jukar and Kate, who were sparring nearby.

“Yes, my boost reserves are all but depleted. How can a human be so fast?”

“A lot of it is avoidance, in being in a place where your sword can’t easily get past her defences, but also placing you in a position where to do so exposes yourself to a counterstroke,” I explained.

“Yes...”

“Also, don’t forget that this is her at normal speed, she’s far worse when able to use magic as well,” I added as we walked to the mess tent for a late breakfast. I had informed Arch of the delay.

“I am glad it was you who broke through the lines at Myrkálfar,” Oonagh observed with a wry look on her face.

“You should be, you’d probably be dead otherwise.”

“I know. When do you practice?”

“Early mornings, before you emerge.”

“Roxanne is up that early?”

“She seems to need only about two hours sleep. It’s all we can do to keep up with her at times.”

“Amazing.”

We had a quick breakfast, though I ensured Oonagh ate a lot of high energy stuff before we went to the range and Arch gave her some basics on a semi-automatic rifle adapted with Loegrian power packs to fire self-nulling bullets. As ever with guns, Oonagh enjoyed this and enquired as to keeping up her practice after our mission was completed.

“That would be down to Verenestra, so your best bet is to ask Arwen,” Arch replied.

“I ... I will, though they really have no reason to permit me. I will even struggle to find someone to keep my training with the sword going.”

“It costs nothing to ask ... politely,” I replied with a shrug. “There are, no doubt, a few Fae as accomplished as Roxanne or Verenestra ... though not many.”

“Yes, though few would travel to Jingol to train me. At least two of them would, I suspect, try to kill me due to my past actions.”

“Can’t help you there, though Arwen again is your best bet.”

“I will ask. The worst they can do is say no.”

“For that, yes,” I chuckled.

Oonagh looked at me with narrowed eyes. “You know something I do not?” she finally asked.

“Not really, though it’s to do with your heirlooms you sold.”

“What of them?”

“Just this imperative you feel to get them back could lead you into trouble.”

“They are mine! I feel a great ... attachment to them, but selling them was the only way to raise the funds to start putting my life back together.”

“I take it Fae would normally sell such items back once the person who sold them is back on their feet?”

“Yes, though it is not unheard of for enemies of a house to acquire such items to create an incident or to gain land or concessions.”

“But not to hold onto them indefinitely to mock the seller?”

“No, such was almost unheard of, though it appears some, in my case, are prepared to make an exception, all honour be damned.”

“You do realise if you take them back, you will be the one in trouble?”

“Yes, one of the reforms Verenestra put into place, that I thoroughly approved of, was the rule of law where abuse of power or crimes cannot be covered over by the ... noble classes.”

“Even though it now disadvantages you?”

“I have no power now, John; I would be in trouble anyway. Yet I must have them back. It is in my very bones,” she sighed.

“If this mission goes well, I’ll help. My Mage, Morgana, can apply pressure to those who hold such items through the Council contacts on Tír na nÓg. Verenestra cannot be seen to be involved in such matters as no laws have been broken, just customs.”

“I do not see how you can,” Oonagh replied, looking interested.

“It is called ‘naming and shaming’. Whilst many Fae might smile at your position, all understand why you would want these items back and few would enjoy being cast as a villain for such a flagrant breach of custom.”

“That ... might work. Though there may be a few who will not care.”

“One bridge at a time,” I shrugged.

“I will accept your aid; I truly do not wish to go back to the arrondistrium.”

“How goes the deceitful weapon?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Slowly. We thought we had the third stanza sorted, but it affected the previous ones and we need to go over them to match the resonance of the chant required. Dhunvael helps in this as he is used to how ancient Fae wrote their verses as well as being versed in the language, though Mage Hermes has a better grasp of the nuances. Dhunvael also came to my tent last night to go over my autobiography and is editing it for me.”