Chapter 180: Thesan’s Te’trad

Saturday, June 26, 1971

An ominous pall hung over the dining room as I came sprinting through the door, still dripping. I hadn’t taken the time to pick up a towel or my boxers, but no one reacted to my nudity as I knelt on the floor beside the body.

“Don’t touch him,” Ileana cried. “He’s still holding the sword!” Kalani was trying to protect Catherine, restraining her from rushing to David’s side, as Ileana was reminding everyone else that David was still clutching the sword. Some of the girls were crying, while others looked on in horrific disbelief as they kept their distance from the body. I had worked hard to cure the cancer in his neck just a few weeks ago, so I was devastated by the sight of his body lying prostrate on the floor.

My heart was filled with trepidation as I pried the sword from David’s stiff hand. I knew I had to do it, but I had no idea what to expect because I had never scanned a dead body.

The first thing I discovered was that David wasn’t dead. It’s hard to describe, but his condition resembled what I would have expected to find, if I had paralyzed him and then put him to sleep, all at the same time. I could see why they thought he was dead.

Everything else appeared normal, with none of the cortex swelling I would have expected if I had paralyzed him. But the activity in his brain was almost mesmerizing in its intensity.

“Help me,” I told Anna, connecting her to me as I began to examine the neural pathways of his brain, looking to see if any damage had been done there.

“He’s alive?” Anna asked in surprise. There was a quick intake of breath around the room, but no one spoke. Most of them seemed to be holding their breath, waiting...

“I think so,” I replied. “There’s a slight pulse. Regular, but almost nonexistent.”

“What are those?” Anna asked, referring to the sparks we were seeing in his brain.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” I replied. “You’re the head doctor.”

Anna’s thoughts suddenly became erratic. She was excited and trying to tell me something, but she seemed to be fading on me. When I saw her eyes grow wide and roll up in her head, I hurriedly broke my connection with David.

“ANNA!” I screamed in my mind as she collapsed in her chair. Reaching for her limp body, I lowered her gently to the floor beside me. The others all began talking or crying in alarm, so I quickly put up my big shield to block them out. I was also trying to block the growing noise that seemed to be coming from David and Anna’s minds.

Picking up the sword to move it out of the way, I was suddenly shocked to hear a voice booming inside my brain. It startled me so much, I jumped back on my haunches, grasping the sword firmly in my hands with the point digging into the expensive Persian rug. My hands seemed cemented to the sword’s haft. I don’t think I could have let go if I wanted to. My arms were straight, pushing the hilt as far away from me as I could in an effort to reduce the volume. But it didn’t seem to be working.

The pain was becoming unbearable even though I was channeling all my energy to my shield in an effort to block the noise. Suddenly, I felt Ileana’s calming thoughts.

“I love you, Michael. I love you with all my heart. You can do this, Michael. Feel my love,” she told me.

“I love you, too,” Abby told me. Then one by one, I could hear the others that were in the room. Their love was adding to the power of the shield, but I sensed it was not going to be enough.

Poor Vickie was frantically trying to rally everyone she could reach with her limited range. But Anna was out, Catherine was too distraught, Kalani was preoccupied with Catherine, and my cousins were all in Tennessee and out of Vickie’s range. Cindy had grabbed her daughters in all the confusion, so Hanna wasn’t able to really focus and Allie just didn’t have a clue what was going on.

“It’s him, Daddy. Your big knife is talking to you,” Sunny thought to me.

The moment she said that, I understood. It wasn’t trying to kill me. My sword was trying to communicate with me!

Taking a deep breath, I quit fighting the noise in my head as I lowered my shield.

I never lost consciousness. I never felt the blackness. Instead, it was as if I was floating above the three bodies, watching myself and the others. No one rushed to us. They were afraid to touch us after what happened to Anna. It didn’t help that I had pitched forward, falling across both Anna and David, the sword still clutched in my hand.

Finally, I watched as Kalani eased me over and gently tried to remove the sword from my hands. Squealing in pain, she dropped the sword back against my lifeless body.

“MOTHER!” screamed Ileana. I learned later that she had screamed it in their native language, but I still understood her.

“It scalded me!” Kalani explained as she grabbed one of the cloth napkins and gingerly reached for the sword again, this time wrapping the cloth around the ricasso and lifting it enough to flip it away from the three of us. Then stepping over me, she flipped it once more, to get it further away from us.

I felt good. I was calmly aware of all that was happening around me now. I was glad, knowing that David and Anna were not dead. And I was sad that everyone else was so worried. But I was not ready to leave wherever I was.

I thought back for a moment to the sword’s ‘message’. I guess that would be the best way to describe it. Once I had lowered my shield, it had been over in a moment. Just one word, really, and then the blissful peace had flooded me. I knew that Anna and David had both heard the message and were now feeling what I was feeling, but I was not able to use my gift to connect to them, or to the others.

The thought briefly flitted through my head that I was out of control with no idea as to how to regain it. Normally, the thought alone would have panicked me, much less the reality. But I didn’t panic. I just seemed to float there peacefully, watching...

“How?” she asked. “How do you do this?”

It took me a moment to realize that it was Bieta speaking.

“I ... I don’t know,” I replied.

“Is it Narvenia? Is she well?” Bieta asked me quickly. Because it seemed expedient, I simply shared my memory of all that had happened. Bieta didn’t bat an eye as she took it all in.

“You have the Twin Rings? The Rings of Knowledge and Understanding?” she asked in amazement. “Both of them?”

The words wouldn’t come, so I gave her an intergalactic nod.

“And the sword? You possess the Sword of Ages as well?” she asked quickly.

I nodded once again, afraid that if I spoke it would disturb our connection.

“What of the Armor? Do you also possess the Armor of Life?” she asked.

I shook my head from side to side, slowly.

“No wonder I can feel you! You possess three parts of the Thesan Te’trad. From my understanding, no single being in the universe has ever commanded three of the sacred pieces at the same time. Please be careful young one, for you now possess three-fourths of the most powerful talisman in all the known universes. I must inform my husband, immediately,” Bieta told me as she seemed to fade away.

“No! Wait!” I cried.

Now normally when someone cries out like that, it is to no avail. But Bieta immediately replied, “Yes, Master?”

“More,” I said, feeling as if I were shouting across an ill-defined continuum. “Tell me more.”

Bieta was torn. She was desperately balancing my command against her many millenniums of training.

“I am sorry, I cannot. I must speak with my husband now. He will speak to the Council of Ages,” Bieta said, the agony in her voice causing it to quiver. “Tell my daughter her mother wishes her ja’krim.”

I was sitting on the floor, holding Anna as I surveyed the quiet scene. Sandy was on her knees, holding on to both her sister and I. I was surprised to learn that it was Beth’s hand on my other shoulder, and even more surprised at the depth of her concern for me.

Catherine was at David’s side, holding his arm where the blade had cut him when I had fallen across them. She had seen him die. But now, he wasn’t dead. I suddenly realized what she was feeling, but decided now was not the time to talk with her. Grace was at Catherine’s side, touching her with concern. I noted that neither of them had taken the time to get dressed either.