Jerrika's eyes felt scratchy, but she forced them open. Instead of a cell wall, she saw plaster and paint, carved wainscoting and filigree ceiling. She felt the cushion of a bed beneath her and gripped the covers that billowed up around her. She realized that a cord bound her to the bed frame by one hand and one foot.

She recalled in detail the moment she'd used her new found kai powers because of the meld with Losira, and produced a silver dagger which she'd thrown at the heart of the witch. A blinding flash, and then darkness.

Had she killed the Witch? Why was she bound in a beautiful room?

"Jerrika."

Jerrika stopped struggling against the cords that held her bound. The voice had come from within her, and Jerrika was new enough to her telepathic powers to need to concentrate. Was it Kara's voice? Oh, how she longed to speak one final time to Kara, tell her she was sorry it had all ended this way.

"I am here."

"So am I."

Jerrika felt a rustling inside from the sleeping Losira as the voice finally came into her awareness as well. 

Jerrika focused again. "Who are you?"

"Who I am is not as important as what I am. You must find me. I can help you."

"How do I know I can trust you?"

"Your dagger did not kill Adara." In her mind, an image formed, of the Witch, with the silver kai dagger plunged into her heart. She saw a man, tall, bald, in black robes, swirling into the picture and pulling the dagger out of the Witch, who laughed as she cast a familiar cloud of toxic gases into the air, and Jerrika slipped into a hazy sleep.

"Where are you?"

"I am here, in your Zalez."

"I don't understand Zalez."

"It is your conscious mind, where you receive telepathic impressions and words. "

"Is it where my kai resides?"

"Above the kai. Your training is scant. Zalez is basic mind control. You must learn to control your mind."

"I have never heard of Zalez."

"That is why your mind is open to me, and also to Adara. You must learn to control your mind."

"Will you teach me?"

"Yes. Focus on the place where you sense me inside you. Then shut me out. Build a wall, do not allow me inside. When you want to speak to me again, focus your energy from that place and call to me."

"What shall I call you?"

"Call me by the essence of me you sense."

Jerrika sat up, adjusting for the awkwardness of her bindings. She let her body relax, as she began to speak clearly inside her mind. She searched till she could feel the energy vibrations near a starting point. She pictured herself building a heavy wooden door, similar to the door she'd built as a safe room for herself and her kai to enter. When the door was in place, she pushed it closed.

Immediately, she sensed relief, as if outer noises had ceased. The residual pain she'd been experiencing the entire time she'd been inside Auditorium was abruptly cut off. A sense of safety washed over her. She would keep her door firmly shut.

*******

Crevan lifted his third cup of ale to bang it with Rion's. The girl in his lap giggled, and ran her hand down his arm, followed by her tongue as she licked the splashes. The noise in the tavern was raucous. A huge fire roared in a pit in the center of the room and large wooden pillars obscured the view around it. No other lights gave off any illumination. Crevan could see Rion's eyes, though and knew he wasn't as aroused as he let on.

"Brother! Take her upstairs!" His eyes indicated the place where a man could take his brothel whore and have a little privacy.

Rion lifted his mug again and saluted Crevan without interest.

"I am fatigued." He knew his persistent brother would pry it out of him.

Crevan snorted. "The infant Shadow Eater has sapped your strength! Drink up! You need more sustenance."

Rion wanted nothing more than to ride his steed to the sea. The kind of sustenance he craved could not be found in a tavern. He stood, tumbling his whore to her knees.

He strode outside, pushing past several Salimantors already drunk, and several men of far lesser rank, who saluted him as he passed. His dark hair swung in lank strands around his neck as he strode away from the lusty smells of the tavern. He staggered over loose rocks in the path and made it to the outer perimeter before his stomach rebelled and he found himself vomiting.

Rion wiped his mouth on his arm, still scaled, and remembering, transformed into his human form. He could feel the newly assimilated infant Shadow Eater still in the surface of his awareness balk at the transformation. He knew it would be a few days until he no longer felt it.

Even that thought gave him no pleasure. A breeze off the seashore sent a cleansing spray to cool his overheated skin. Taller grasses bent and tangled. He sat heavily on the wall, letting his feet dangle on the seaward side.

Was she out there now, the little Searcher girl from Sentinel? He could no sooner get her essence off his mind than he could rid himself of the infant Shadow Eater. He regretted the assimilation, regretted the dizzying physical reaction. He didn't need to assimilate anymore. He was already the strongest of the Brothers, even though Crevan was the Captain of the Team. It was greed that caused him to do it, nothing more.

He regretted the sense of her.

Rion slapped himself in the forehead. Why did his thoughts return to her? He'd never even seen her, yet he had more of a sense of her than he did of the fat whore who'd been rubbing between his legs an hour ago.

He closed his eyes and transported himself back to the scene in which he and Crevan had captured the first girl. They'd lured her into a lotica room inside the mountain. Most of the time, if he caught their thoughts at all, it was faint and garbled, but this time it had been so clear and so trustingly innocent. She'd come from inside the living rock and entered the pool. But Crevan had been on the rocks behind her.

Her mind voice carried a sing-song quality: Was it a token like the calling ring? (Something Rion had never heard of). Was it similar to the searching mirror? Or Nimiane's stolen scepter? Better yet, was it kept in a little box like the one Ondrea had once possessed? Avarona had once described it. Was it that?

All these things were unknown to Rion.

She had been agonizingly unaware and had fallen into their trap in surprise. She fought vigorously. Nevertheless, she'd not been close enough to a cavern wall to meld away from them, but as they were rolling her body in lotica leaves to keep her still should she awake on the way to Auditorium, they'd been surprised at the unexpected attack from her sister searcher. Ferocious and deadly, she'd peppered them both with shuriken, only missing him in her fury because of her fear for her companion. He'd had barely enough time to throw up his shield. She'd flown out of the living rock like a fire serpent, so fast and so accurate he'd not had time to even get a good look at her. It was then he'd turned back to the prisoner and kicked her, knowing the rage of the girl would turn to protective instincts if he threatened her sister.

He'd not expected to encounter her again. When he had, it was as if a whole inner sanctum had welled up within him. She was a worthy opponent, fearless, strong, bold, brave... the list went on. Pitting her skills against his was a sport he relished and he found himself becoming aroused just thinking about it. Never, never had he allowed himself to think like this. To do so, he realized he had to exit from his brother's presence. To acknowledge this thought was traitorous, he could be killed for such thinking.

His life had become routine and boring. Nothing occupied his mind. Not to mention he'd begun having feelings of doubt toward his leader, Quildor.

Finding Searchers and throwing them into Auditorium, seeking a Talisman no one even knew existed.... He wanted something purposeful, a meaning in life that did not include gratifying another man's lust.

Quildor.

It was his greed they fought for. The Talisman was nothing, it couldn't save anyone, and never would. Rion realized that fighting a pack of Shadow Eaters almost to death gave him no excitement.

His mind went back to that moment, leaning against the living stone, knowing she was there, within arm's reach. He smelled her fear, and he desired it, craved it. He would have her. The little Searcher Girl and none else.

Where are you now, little one? Where, now?

Surprisingly, the bright aura of Zalez opened a vista in his mind as he focused on her essence. A single shard of golden glass came into view. He breathed her rage. His body trembled as the weight of her untrained emotional outburst permeated his inner core. Loss, furious, deniable loss. He felt it, took it in ever increasing waves of agonizing grief. Blurred shards of golden glass opened into his mind. A lace patterned cloth, a golden artificial light, broken shards, wet stinking flowers. Unguarded; her mind was untrained, and more full of overflowing sorrow than anything he had ever encountered.

Rion forced his mind to retreat from this encounter. Opening eyes that had turned inward, he swung around as if facing a sudden foe. He'd been there, outside the mountain, yet inside her mind, as she broadcast her feelings again. The frequency was embedded in his Zalez now.

Having been in the tavern, amidst the uselessness of strong drink and mind-numbing complacency, a thought had come to him. He could steal the little Searcher girl and take her out of the mountain, beyond the swamplands where no one had ever gone.

He shook with the enormity of his desires. To strike out on his own? To disavow the Quarso?

Now he had this amazing avenue of connectedness to the girl. That was as far as his thoughts would take him.

What would he do away from his brothers? His home, his destiny? He had no idea. For one brief moment, he'd had a vision of something far beyond his own scope and imagination.

But the thought was gone. Retreated in the face of reality.

It was a thought that he couldn't let himself entertain. He was loyal to the Quarso, to Quildor.

If he caught the sister, he'd kill her.

*****