Chapter 15
Part 4
Late on a night near the end of Talia’s seventh month of pregnancy, while she was deeply asleep, her
unborn children were bored and restless. For the first time, they projected their psionic awareness
outside Talia’s body, and went exploring for something interesting. The boy sent his mind questing
toward the settlement, lightly sampling the sleeping thoughts he encountered, but drawn to the stronger
minds on the far side of the ts. One was too basic to be interesting, and two were so bright they were
frightening, so they were avoided. But one was just right, and the unborn boy was drawn to that mind,
to which he felt an affinity. But he found the mind was hidden behind strong barriers, so he began
feeling around, trying to get past to the shining mind that so fascinated him.
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His sister had been following along as he did this, her thoughts always deeply entwined with those of
her brother. But then a bright spark of thought seemed to capture her attention, and her awareness
went out to find it, behind the house, behind their backyard valley, deep in the mountains near the
center of the ind.
She found what she was seeking, but the mind detected her, resisted her, hurt her. She reacted
instinctively, and made the mind stop hurting her. Then, with her tiny heart pounding with the
excitement, she broke past the mind’s barriers to see what it was like inside.
Her brother observed this and copied what she’d done, and a momentter he was through the barriers
around the mind he was considering.
Talia, Mark, and Alilia were sted awake by Povon’s psionic shriek. “MIND YOUR CHILDREN!” she
angrily demanded. “They just broke Kragorram’s psionic shields, and they weren’t gentle about it! He
has the god of all headaches, and we cannot bar them from his mind without destroying them! Which I
almost did, before I realized who was doing it!”
“By the source!” Talia gasped as she checked her children. “He has Kragorram, and she has… A
Sylvan! Out in the mountains somewhere! Missing gods, she’s almost killed him! If he isn’t helped
quickly, he’ll spend the rest of his days as a babbling idiot, if he survives at all!
“Mark, help with Reggie, and Alilia help me with Helemia!”
“Let the nice dragon go now Reggie, that’s a good boy, just let the nice dragon go.” Mark gently
instructed, but his brow was furrowed with the effort and concentration of what he was doing. His effort
was about half coaxing and half controlling his son as he desperately tried to ease the boy out of
Kragorram’s mind as quickly and as gently as possible. The unborn babe was being stubborn about it.
Mark would have thought Reggie would have fled from Kragorram’s anguish, frustration, and pain, not
to mention Povon’s seething hostility, but the baby was uncowed. He was too ignorant of the meaning
of others’ emotions and too fascinated by Kragorram to be intimidated. Finally, Mark realized that his
methods weren’t working, and let some anger show through in the Link. “NOW, dammit!” he growled,
and forcefully pulled his son’s mind from Kragorram’s with an improvised technique that was so intuitive
that he had no way to describe it. For want of another way to hold his son’s attention, Mark began
singing to him as loudly as he could, both physically and psionicly.
Alilia and Talia, meanwhile, simply started building Shields around the remainder of the Sylvan’s mind
until Helemia was forced out. Mark was already singing loudly by then, having finished with Reggie,
and the three adults cast a psionic shield around the three of them with enough power to contain the
two young and inquisitive minds still forming inside Talia. Then Talia carefully cast Sleep on her
children; which didn’t take much. Though still excited by their adventure, the two unborn babes were
also close to exhaustion from their efforts, and were asleep even before the spell hadpletely taken
effect.
Alilia instantly Translocated the Sylvan to a spare bedroom in Yazadril’s house and informed Hilsith of
what had happened with a quick burst of thought. Hilsith was awake instantly, and was already
psionicly examining the Sylvan even as she woke Yazadril and Nemia by suddenly jumping out of bed
naked and running out of the room. They quickly followed her, and did what they could to assist her
with her patient.
“Quewanak!” Mark yelled, both physically and psionicly. “Where the hell did that Sylvane from?!”
“I already know that.” Talia told him, her eyes closed in concentration and both hands on her belly. “It’s
in the Reading I just took of Helemia, which included what she took from the Sylvan’s mind.”
Quewanak appeared as a small Projection only a meter long, crouching on the bed beside them with
his eyes tightly closed and his finger held to his lips for silence.
A minuteter he looked to Talia with an inquisitively raised eyebrow.
“There are a few thousand of them here.” Talia tensely rted. “Sylvan in Hiliani, that is. A Sylvan god
brought them here a few hundred years ago, when Zarkog started taking over Serminak, and he’s been
hiding them here ever since.”
“Huh. It must be the Sylvan God of Hiding, for him to have hidden them from the other gods’ notice.”
Markmented.
“Not quite their god of hiding, though I wish he were.” Quewanak’s Projection told them, his voice
taking a very serious tone indeed. “Rather, he is the Sylvan God of Stealth. The difference being that
his choice of stealth rather than hiding as his mandate indicates that he is as skilled at avoiding notice
for offensive purposes as for defensive.
“How skilled is he, you might ask? Skilled enough that he became a god a few thousand years ago,
chose his mandate, gathered followers, and established his religion among them, all without any of the
other gods even noticing his existence. This is the first time anyone has be aware that there was
a Sylvan God of Stealth without his permission. And still, I only know this because it was known by the
injured Sylvan, whose mind and Helemia’s I have Read. Though I am now a god myself, and my
awareness and psionic skills are as good as any other’s, I cannot find a single one of the thousands of
Sylvan who are on Hiliani beyond the one that Hilsith is treating, or the slightest trace of their God of
Stealth who hides them. Or even any evidence of their presence or workings here.”
“Dammit, Helemia found one, and she’s not even born yet!” Mark growled. “Are you really saying that
the Dragon God of Dreaming can’t match the psionic sensitivity of an unborn child?!”
Quewanak met his eyes for three long seconds before simply replying; “Yes.”
The Projection disappeared.
The three expectant parents took a moment to consider the implications of that. Then Mark’s irritation
and worry burst out of him.
“Dammit, what the hell are they doing here?”
“When Zarkog started taking over Serminak, the God of Stealth gathered his Sylvan followers and their
families and brought them here to hide them from Zarkog.” Talia replied. “They’re here for the same
reason we are; because Hiliani is the most isted ce in the world that’s alsofortably livable.”
“Dammit, if they’d have let someone know they were here, we’d have chosen somewhere else and not
intruded on them!” Mark grumbled. “Now I’m not even sure that we’re entitled to our sovereignty of the
ce! Were the Sylvan here before or after Hiliani was scouted by The Sea People and sold to
Membitra?”
“Before, by almost a century.” Talia told him.
“That is irrelevant,” Alilia calmly informed them, “And your sovereignty of Hiliani is fully legal by every
nation’sws, including by the somewhat informalws of the Sylvan before they were conquered by
Zarkog. One must at least publicly im ownership ofnd before one can own it or justifiably defend it;
every thinking race on Keran sees the practical necessity of that. The Sylvan did not do so. The Sea
People registered their im to Hiliani with their governments on three continents, and publicly
proimed it, before they sold it to Membitra. Your im to it is legally indisputable.”
She paused, and gave them both a warm smile and a caress before she continued. “Now, having dealt
with that, we shall discuss what is truly worrying us, that being; How has this experience affected your
children, and how will their having these absolutely unprecedented psionic abilities affect how they will
develop, and how we should raise them?