Kayelle

Kayelle was hallucinating on the eve of the most significant moment of her life. Tomorrow, her great grandfather, the Southern Tetrarch, would name her Adept, raising her to his social equal, part of the ruling elite of Viridia. Yet she experienced the impossible. She closed her eyes to banish the illusion.

When she opened them, the stranger was still there.

“Who are you?”

“Jean-Paul.”

Taller than her, his eyes startlingly blue, a color unknown in Viridia, his mind should have been open to her—they were not naming her Adept without reason.

It wasn’t.

She’d been walking along the corridor toward the Naming Room with its grand balcony opening onto the Great Square and had stepped from a hard floor to a soft surface that felt strangely insubstantial, as if her mind had not yet defined it.

“A good analogy,” he said. “Everybody experiences it a little differently.

Kayelle started. Mind contact was always two-way. If the stranger, Jean-Paul closed his mind, the barrier should be complete…and it wasn’t.

“Our abilities developed differently because our cultures are different. It makes communication deliberate. I’ve had the opportunity to study yours. To you, mine is foreign. Think of it as two people conversing, only one bilingual. My thoughts are in a language you can’t understand.”

She sensed his goodwill and nodded reluctantly. Apart from the odd-colored eyes, his appearance was pleasant, non-threatening. Physically older, somewhere in his late twenties, she guessed, although, as an obvious Adept, this was probably deceiving. He may have imprinted himself early. The naming ceremony would fix her physical age at twenty-two for as long as she lived, unless she decided to allow it to change, physical aging to another imprinting. Few ever did, achieving Adept status took too long. She would be the youngest in history.

“We reach that stage in the womb. I sensed my parents before I was born.” Jean-Paul smiled at a memory.

“Did they sense you?”

“Yes.”

She liked the way he said it. Another might have highlighted her ignorance. Jean-Paul considered he was answering an intelligent question.

“Why am I here?”

He’d admitted to studying her culture. This meant he’d been around undetected for a while, something she’d have considered impossible without the present demonstration. It was unlikely he’d revealed himself without purpose.

“You have a problem. I can help.” He shared his mind picture of the epidemics now raging through the Non-Adept, killing thousands.

“How?”

“Your imprinting ritual protects the Adept by correcting the changes in your DNA.” The term was foreign, but the concept of the life pattern familiar. “Your best brains strive for Adept status so healing remains locked in myth and herbalist lore.” He used another strange term here; ‘Medicine’, but she understood his meaning. “Some of the artifacts you took from the crashed ship were weapons and your crude experiments triggered them, releasing diseases to which you have no immunity. Left unchecked, they will wipe out the Non-Adept and then whittle away any of you who become careless.”

“Weapons?” She had no matching concept.

She really liked his smile. It made her feel warm inside. He was undoubtedly projecting, or allowing her to sense, the accompanying emotion of admiration for innocence, but the smile was a thing of itself.

“The people in the ship were not good. They took without permission, subduing those who stood against them without regard for anything other than their desire for wealth.” He was having trouble expressing concepts she found foreign and she wondered why he didn’t use a mind picture, as he did with the epidemics.

“Such a mind picture would contain too many things you wouldn’t understand,” he said, additional proof she was open to him.

She nodded reluctantly. “These weapons were the means to subdue their victims.”

“Yes. They contained diseases you haven’t encountered and have no developed immunity. The people in the ship were inoculated and could move freely through the sick, taking what they wanted.”

She sensed uncompleted concepts in his words.

“Sometimes, they just waited until everyone was dead and the disease died for the lack of hosts.”

His distaste for these people leaked through the shielding of his thoughts. There was no anger in it, pity, compassion, abhorrence of the deeds, but no anger. It was an attitude she’d never encountered, even in her great grandfather.

“I’m glad they all died.”

“Death solves nothing. Wish it on no one.” His tone sounded bleak. She’d disappointed him.

It made her shiver. There was power in this man. She felt it.

“How do we counter this weapon and save my people?”

Her question made him smile. “Which people, Adept or Non-Adept?”

“All. They are all my people.”

“Few Adepts would answer that way. They’ve stood back for centuries, celebrating their difference and ignoring their responsibilities.” He wasn’t condemning. It was an observation of fact.

“Are your people any better?” He spoke as one equal to the Adept, which meant he, too, was an immortal.

“My family is. The others are learning.” He didn’t waste words, more used to the clarity of mind contact, she supposed.

“Why are you doing this?” She already guessed his answer, but she wanted to hear him say it.

“Because I can.”

She smiled. She understood the unspoken corollary. Because he could, he must. Yet, this was not a man to act without thought. She couldn’t imagine him following some futile quest. He’d calculated result against effort and had a plan maximize the former.

“How?” She must earn his respect, if they were to continue.

“Do you trust me?”

It was a deceptively simple question about a complex issue. Kayelle, as a fully functional telepath, was not required to trust. She knew. Until this moment, she’d believed any mental communication must carry absolute verity…that she could not lie to another telepath and still communicate because it involved mind sharing, which left no areas in her mind concealed. This didn’t apply to Jean-Paul. He’d proved he could scan her thoughts without opening his mind, so he could lie to her and her only defense would be logic.

“That’s true,” he said. “Do you trust me?”

The power she sensed in him increased the risk. Trusting someone who could do no harm was easy. She felt certain he had the power to do immense harm, not only to her, but also to her entire race. Did she dare trust her judgment of his character?

He could have deliberately fooled her, using his reading of her thoughts to guide them into the paths he chose…. It wasn’t fair.

“The Non-Adepts have to live with this everyday of their lives,” he said. “Have you ever considered it unfair to them?”

“You’re enjoying this.”

He smiled. “I suspect I am,” he said. “You’re a delightful companion.”

She fought down the surge of pleasure. He played with her, like a kitten with its first mouse, unwilling to end the game too soon.

“You can end it any moment you chose by saying yes or no.”

Kayelle took a deep breath. She wasn’t sure whether she trusted him, but her instincts said, yes, and she trusted them. “Yes,” she said. “I trust you.”

“Close your eyes. It will be easier.