Jean Lorrah - Wulfston's odyssey

The young Mover turned his attention to Chulaika. “What do you think, dear aunt, betrayer of my mother? You chose this stranger from a distant land to be your champion. A fine champion! The only way you could get him here was to kidnap his brother. Are your charms fading, Chulaika? Couldn’t you seduce the Beast Lord as you did my father?”

Chulaika stood impassively. Let Norgu reveal just how much he knew of her plan. “You’d never help me,” she said.

“Why should I share the throne of the Zionae with you and your bastard?” Norgu demanded. “You pinned your hopes on that poor little baby-you thought he’d have my father’s powers. But he’s just like you, without power, a weakling. He can’t even talk! That’s the kind of offspring you produce, Chulaika.”

Norgu lounged back on his throne in an attitude of disrespect, waiting for Chulaika’s response. She refused to give him one. Finally he prodded, “Should I let you go with Sukuru? You’d make a good family. Bunch of weaklings. Maybe I should make you marry him. “

Suddenly Norgu sat up straight. “What-?”

His servants were running in the corridor outside the main hall, men dashing up the great staircase toward the room where Lenardo was kept.

Chulaika Saw with Norgu, Lenardo on his feet, braced for the onslaught. The white man had some minor Mover’s powers, certainly enough to handle those servants.

But not Norgu! From the young Mover’s mind, the command to sleep struck the stranger lord. The man fought it easily until Norgu backed it with his Mover’s powers, physically overpowering the Seer. The white man slumped into unconsciousness. The servants entered the room, and began to carry Lenardo out-

Where? Why?

Norgu had seemed surprised when the servants appeared. Yet it must have been on his order.

Chulaika stared at Norgu, and suddenly he turned, fixing his eyes on her.

It wasn’t Norgu!

Chulaika’s Seer’s powers were very dim; she had recognized only the overlay of Norgu up to that moment, but in those eyes she recognized the look, the madness.

Norgu’s hand rose clumsily, still fighting the force within his body.

Chulaika screamed and flung herself behind Sukuru, shielding Chaiku with her body.

The thunderbolt struck Sukuru, killing him instantly.

“No!” Norgu howled, fighting the demon in possession of his body.

Chulaika slithered out from beneath Sukuru’s charred body and ran, dragging Chaiku by the hand. The boy began to wail in fear. “Quiet!” she hissed, and his sounds stopped, although tears still rolled down his face.

Where could she hide?

Thunderbolts were striking randomly throughout the castle as the witch possessing Norgu improved her control.

Hangings burst into fire, and servants dropped in their tracks.

Chulaika scurried into the kitchen, where a number of Norgu’s staff cowered, waiting for orders. “Under the table!” Chulaika told them, diving beneath it herself, clutching Chaiku close. The servants crowded in around them, their terror providing a psychic shield. Chulaika took Chaiku in her arms, calmed him, and entered the mother/son bond in which she could brace her son’s Movers powers. It made them nearly invisible to Seers.

But their attacker had firm control of Norgu’s powers now, and was methodically destroying his castle.

The kitchen fireplace was large enough to roast a buffalo. When the fire leaped from it to the table, the servants scattered, Chulaika and Chaiku with them.

Carrying her son, Chulaika ran with the servant who spilled out into the hall, until they came to the stairway leading down to the dungeon.

Praying desperately to Shangonu that the intruder had not been able to follow her, she fled down the winding stairs, stumbling in the darkness, catching the rhythm until the stairs ended abruptly and she hurtled into darkness, falling onto a damp stone floor.

Breathless, she clung to Chaiku, making him enforce the Mover’s shield with all his strength, a strength amazing for a child so young, but still a child’s strength. In moments, the effort dragged them both into unconsciousness.

“Lord Wulfston! Wulfston, come out of it!”

The voice came from a great distance, calling somebody she vaguely knew.

“Let go! Come out of the woman’s mind, Wulfston!”

He gasped with the mental anguish of releasing memories that for long moments had been his , but Tadisha’s mind was there to support him.

He was kneeling, frozen, with his hand on Chulaika’s shoulder. Tadisha’s warm hand touched his cold one, lifting it from the contact.

The weakness of relief flooded him as he forced himself up on legs gone numb. “Thank you. I’ll be all right now.”

“What happened?” Tadisha asked. “We couldn’t find you! Finally the dogs led me down here.”

“The woman is Chulaika,” Wulfston replied, staring down at her. She was not veiled now. He had seen that face before, in Barak’s vision. “Z’Nelia’s twin sister.”

Tadisha used her Seeing power to examine the woman and her child. “They’re just unconscious. We’ll take them upstairs and put them to bed. Which is where you belong, too.”

“No.” he insisted, “I’m all right now. But Z’Nelia has Lenardo.”

“Z’Nelia!”

“She took over Norgu’s body, used his powers to destroy his own castle, and put Lenardo into Adept sleep. Apparently she used Norgu’s servants to carry Lenardo away-I don’t know where, because Chulaika doesn’t. But Norgu had the power to do Z’Nelia’s will, as your body didn’t, Tadisha.”

“But what was he doing out of body? Norgu has never shown much interest in expanding his Seer’s powers.”

“He was not out of body,” Wulfston replied. “Z’Nelia has learned to take over a Mover who is awake.

That’s why

Norgu was in shock when we got here. He couldn’t fight her off. It was a harsh lesson, Tadisha, to have his own powers wrested from his control.”

“Mother finally brought him out of shock,” said Tadisha, “and he is sleeping.”

By this time they were up the stairs. Wulfston drew deep breaths of clean air, then asked, “Where is my help needed?”

“We’ve put the worst injured in the main hall.”

There were the usual casualties of Adept attack: burns, broken bones, shock. Within hours, all were in healing sleep, and those uninjured had already buried the dead, as was the custom here. Wulfston, Tadisha, Kamas, Barak, and Ashuru met around the dining table.

When Ashuru heard what Wulfston had learned from Chulaika’s memories, she said, “We are in grave danger indeed. Z’Nelia’s powers grow daily. Perhaps she is now stronger than all of us together. Yet if we do nothing to stop her, she may learn more and yet more, becoming ever more powerful.”

“She seeks a confrontation with me,” said Wulfston, “or she would not have taken Lenardo. She must think I’m here to take her throne. If only she understood that I don’t want it! If we had found Lenardo here today, he and I would have helped you against the Savishnon, and then gone home. Now I must fight Z’Nelia for Lenardo. I ask your aid.”

“You have it,” said Ashuru. “Z’Nelia made herself my enemy when she attacked my daughter.”

But Chulaika and Norgu were another matter. Z’Nelia’s sister and her son were awake the next morning, and Wulfston confronted them with all he had learned from the unexpected mental contact. “You were the real force in the plan to bring me to Africa,” he told her, “not Sukuru. You merely used him to keep my attention from you, so I would not find out that you are Z’Nelia’s sister.”

“Since I have no powers of my own,” Chulaika replied, “why would I try to oppose Z’Nelia?”