The Power and the Glory

Book 4 Chapter VIII: Haliran Escapes

At other times I would have liked the place, but now it seemed to suffocate me. The free moorlands were prison walls, and the keen hill air was the breath of a dungeon. -- John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps

After a long day with plenty of stress caused by Lian, Ilaran and Aunt Jiarlúr, Abi had looked forward to sleep as a chance to escape. She should have remembered what happened the last time she slept. Unfortunately she didn't, and it came as a nasty shock when she opened her eyes and saw an unfamiliar castle.

It came as less of a shock to realise she recognised it. She'd seen it in Ilaran's memories. From there it was easy to deduce where she was and what had happened. She sighed wearily.

Behind her Ilaran spoke up. "I'd tell you to get out of my head, but I think that's impossible now."

Abi nodded. Now that the initial shock, alarm and distress was wearing off she found herself able to look at the situation from a new angle. It was terribly inconvenient for both of them, yes, but how many other people could say they'd gotten telepathically linked with someone who was basically a stranger? This  could shed all sorts of light on how telepathy worked. If they told the scholars at the Barlanimnunil University they'd keep the research department busy until the next shoghantamev[1].

Ilaran's incredulity bled through to her. "Are you insane? Do you want to be treated as a test subject for the rest of your life? Because I sure as hell don't!"

...Well. Put like that it didn't seem like such a good idea to tell anyone. She sat down on the grass next to Ilaran, who was apparently trying to go to sleep in spite of being in a dream. "But how are we going to undo it? I don't know, and if you knew you would've done it by now."

Ilaran shrugged without opening his eyes. "I'm too tired to think about it just now. Have you any idea how much work has piled up while I was away?"

She didn't, but she could make a guess from the amount of books she'd seen in his room. "A lot?"

"A lot," he agreed. "And I can't concentrate on it when I keep hearing your thoughts at the back of my mind."

Abi winced. "Sorry."

They sat in silence for a while. Abi counted the windows on the palace walls for something to do. It wasn't exactly like the palace she'd seen in Ilaran's memories. In fact, surreal though it seemed, it had somehow gained the roof and some of the architecture of the Seroyawan royal palace. Likewise the garden contained some of Mirio's flowers and a swing that belonged in her parents' home.

Now that she had nothing else to think about -- at least, nothing else that she could do anything about -- her mind returned to what Lian had said about her magic. That still puzzled her. What could be controlled by her magic? She hadn't cast any spells.

She examined her magic. At once she realised there was something odd about it after all. It wasn't that she was currently controlling a spell, however unconsciously; it was more that she had cast a spell at some point in the past and it was now controlling itself.

"Do you sense that?" she asked Ilaran.

"What?" he asked, still not bothering to open his eyes. Apparently he was trying to send himself back to sleep by sheer force of will.

"There's something funny about my magic."

Abi didn't know how to explain it, so she simply thought of how it felt then tried to project that feeling to him. It seemed to get through, because Ilaran's eyes snapped open and he gave her an alarmed look.

"That's odd. I felt something similar after..."

He didn't finish, but she knew from the glimpse she got of his thoughts that he meant the parasite. And from what she could sense of his mind, he felt that the parasite had left something behind. 'Scars or dead tissue' was how he thought of it. Abi could perfectly understand that incident leaving mental scars -- gods knew seeing the parasite kill an innocent woman had scarred her for life -- but she got the impression that Ilaran meant rather more literal scars. And apparently they were reacting to something they could sense but Ilaran couldn't.