Path Into the Darkness

Part Six: WilyKit

Chapter One: Last Hopes

 

**Third Moon of Plundarr, Thirty-Some Years Later**

Her mood now even fouler than it had been before reading the text, Luna threw the leather-bound journal of Grune the Mighty against the wall with all her might.  It bounced lightly off the plaster before it landed on the carpet with a soft thud.  Her outburst should have made her feel a little bit better, but it didn’t.  “Damn him,” the lunar woman snarled venomously, redirecting her ire to the one who had her locked up once again—Frostor.  It was easier for Luna to be furious at him than it was to dwell on the heavier issues weighing on her mind, and the ice general was certainly a deserving target in her opinion.

 

The fact that he had locked her up, or rather “kept her out of trouble” as he had said oh-so-officiously phrased it, still had the lunar woman absolutely livid.  She had only wanted to help, after all, and Frostor knew that.  Luna also knew that he knew that she knew that, and that made her even angrier—that he, someone she considered a very close friend, would treat her like some irrational child when he knew that she was worried sick over a member of her family. 

 

And now on top of all of that there was the journal Frostor had given her in what she considered a half-assed attempt at a peace offering or a very poor apology.  Grudgingly she could admit that at first reading it had been a halfway decent distraction—not that she should have needed one, she amended bitterly in her thoughts—but the last entries, the ones that dredged up the memories of her last nights on the Moons before her unwilling exile all those years ago, had served only to remind her of things she would rather have forgotten altogether.

 

Luna had never admitted it, not even to herself consciously, but after all those years she had never been able to absolve herself of the lingering guilt that she had not waited longer for Kalin and Grune.  It was not so much the sabertooth—she knew she could have taken off to leave him behind and never thought twice about it—but leaving Kalin was not so easily rationalized away to the small part of Luna’s conscience, a part of her that she kept well repressed, deep within her.  Back in those days, Kalin had been one of her people.  Although Luna did not trust or even like all of her hires, the ones she had kept in the highest positions were ones she at the very least respected on some level.  Deliberately leaving someone she respected behind did not sit well with her, and despite all of Luna’s mental arguments that they would have all been captured or killed had they lingered even another moment to wait, she could not shake the feeling that perhaps that might not have been true.

 

That was precisely why Luna generally tried to push the matter out of her conscious mind entirely whenever it came up, but in the mood she was in at present that was far easier said than done.  She scowled at the leather bound book and then at the door in disgust, blaming it again on Frostor.  “When the hell is he going to let me out of this gods-forsaken prison?” she screeched aloud in frustration.

 

On the other side of the locked door, a snoozing military flunky was jolted back into consciousness by her holler.   Soon, I hope, was the unfortunate guardsman’s answering thought.  He felt that putting up with Luna’s periodic outbursts—of which he hadn’t heard any of in the last few hours—was worth hazard pay.  A lot of it.  Sighing to himself, the guard opened the door carefully and poked his head in.  “Sorry Miss Luna, I haven’t gotten any change in orders.  You’re still under house arrest.  Believe me, when I find out otherwise, you’ll be the first to know.”  Because I’m tired as hell of hearing you carry on, he added silently.

 

The sullen Luna crossed her arms and glared at the guardsman.  “Fine,” she snapped, and then turned her attention to the darkening purple sky through the window.   The setting sun marked another day’s passing, another day in which Selene and Psiarik still had not been found.  Luna wondered grimly if perhaps it was time she faced what appeared to be the inevitable, that the ruling couple was dead, lost somewhere under the wreckage and rubble that was once their home.  An ugly mess of pain and destruction that they could all thank that damned bag of bones and the psychotic Thundercat for.

 

A scowl crossed the old lunar’s features, and she turned away from the unpleasant view.  With the effort of walking on her own she slowly made her way back to the couch, settled back into the pillows, and waited glumly.  There was nothing else she could do. 

 

* * *

 

Far away from everything in the conscious world, trapped in a silent and lightless realm—a horrifying place of sheer nothingness so vast that it almost defied comprehension—WilyKit stumbled aimlessly, sobbing and alone.  There was no way the lost Thundercat could tell how far she had gone or how long she would have to go before she found anything or anyone, but she kept going anyway.  WilyKit knew it would only be worse if she sat still with nothing but the dark void all around her to pick at what she felt were the remaining shreds of her sanity so she kept moving, and she hoped—however vain the hope might be—that some way, somehow, she would find a way out of the darkness.

 

WilyKit was aware that some time had passed, but it was impossible for her to guess at how much.  It had likely been only a matter of hours, but for all she knew it could have been days.  It certainly felt like days at any rate.  Nothing made time feel slower than having nothing to see that would mark its passing, and in that horrible place, wherever it was that the spirit who had taken her body had sent her, there was nothing to see at all.

 

At first the Thundercat had called for help, but her efforts had proven fruitless.  Each time she cried out, her only response was the oppressive and deafening silence that filled the place.  It was enough to make her want to scream the entire time, just for something to hear, but she knew that all she would have wound up with for her trouble was the added discomfort of a sore throat.  It had quickly become clear before too long that there were no other inhabitants in that forbidding realm, for they surely would have heard her if there had been.  Therefore she had given up on the idea of finding someone to help her and resigned herself to the fact that if she was going to get out, it would have to be on her own.  Sadly she feared that she would lose the last shreds of her strength and sanity before she would be able to.

 

That was why when she first heard what sounded like a shout or a cry in the distance, WilyKit ignored it and attributed it to imagination and wishful thinking.  It had to be her mind trying to reconcile the unnaturalness of the vast nothing around her in a last ditch effort to keep her sanity in that maddening place.  She decided that she would not permit herself to indulge in such a fantasy, reasoning that if she was going to get out of that place somehow, she would have to keep in touch with reality, painful as that might be.  

 

A few moments later WilyKit heard the voice again, only that time a little louder.   There’s nothing there, she told herself, clenching her fists at her side as her logic wrestled with her senses.  It’s not real. 

 

“Hello?”

 

WilyKit froze in her tracks when she heard the voice that time.  Why did it sound so real?  And so lost and lonely?  Just like a real…

 

“Hello!”  The voice, distinctly male, somewhat familiar, and much closer now, rang out through the darkness again.  “Is anyone, anything, there?  Anyone?”

 

The Thundercat steadied herself and tried to keep calm, but felt herself shaking in both fear and frustration at how realistic the voice had become.  Great Jaga, you’re really crazy after all, WilyKit, she told herself grimly. They say when you hear voices that aren’t there and they sound real and as if they’re actually coming from outside your head, that’s a sure sign of insanity... 

 

The depressing thought triggered a hollow and bitter laugh as she realized that she had finally hit rock bottom.  So what if it’s insanity? WilyKit’s inner monologue reasoned.  If nothing else, I’ll at least have something to talk to, and how could I be any worse off than I am already?  Finally conceding defeat to her hopelessness, she turned around and shouted back to the voice.

 

“I’m here,” she called out with a false note of happiness, wiping the tears of pent up emotion and frustration from her eyes.  “Is anybody there?” she answered hopefully.  That’s right, have some fun and make friends in loony-land, right Kit?

 

The voice answered her immediately.  “I hear you!” he shouted back, closer now, and clearly approaching her.  “Where are you? … I’m alone ... So dark… I can’t see anyone... Where are you?”  To WilyKit’s surprise, her companion sounded almost as depressed and hopeless as she was.  Almost.

 

My imaginary friend doesn’t navigate this place any better than I do, what a shame, WilyKit thought.  But hey maybe he’s an attractive guy, I seem to run into those when I’m screwed up, so maybe at least I can get some while I’m lost in space and time too, she thought sarcastically and laughed darkly to herself.  She was still convinced that her companion was no more than a psychotic delusion, albeit a realistic one, and nothing more.  “I’m over here!” she called out, walking in the direction of the voice.

 

Within moments the outline of a figure appeared, slightly lighter against the bleak darkness behind it, and it hurried toward her.  WilyKit’s eyes widened in shock and then utter disbelief when the figure came into full view and she saw his face.  So much for her psyche dreaming up some proverbial Thunderian knight in shining armor to take her away and rescue her—instead it decided to send her Psiarik.  

 

Boy, does my twisted mind know no bounds, WilyKit thought with a shake of her head.  “What are you doing here?” she asked, almost afraid of what rationalization her crazy mind would come up with for an answer.

 

Unaware that she thought he was a figment of her imagination, Psiarik blinked in surprise as he approached the distraught WilyKit, as if he was as shocked to see her as she was to see him.  The psi stopped at her side and haltingly placed a hand on her shoulder, giving the Thundercat a quizzical look.  “WilyKit?” he said, eyeing her closely.  “It really is you, but—but how can you be here if you’re there?” he wondered aloud.   “It is you isn’t it?” 

 

Confused, WilyKit then realized upon a closer second glance how shaken and rattled the Lunatac looked.  “I don’t know,” she replied honestly.  “I think I’m me... but then again, I’m insane, so my opinion doesn’t hold much water,” she stated, more serious than sarcastic.

 

“Good gods, where did she send us?” Psiarik muttered, taking a long look at the bleak and dark surroundings. “This place is... damn...”

 

“What are you talking about?” WilyKit asked what she thought was no more than a vivid blip of her imagination rather than Psiarik himself.  It made no sense to her that he would not understand or make sense if she had thought him up.  What comforting purpose could that serve?  Or was it just another stage of insanity, something she had dreamt to torture herself?  He couldn’t be real, could he?

 

Oblivious to WilyKit’s confusion about him, Psiarik looked at her intently.  “How did you get here?  Do you remember?”

 

WilyKit shook her head and answered.  “Not really.  All I remember is the friendly spirit offering to take me away from all of it… she said if I let her in, just for a minute, that she’d make them stop tormenting me.  I knew it was a gamble but I had to do it, I had to say yes,” she sobbed.  “I couldn’t take it anymore.  You don’t understand how horrible it was.  He was crawling on me, and the smell… by the gods, that horrible stench—and his tongue—I was so scared!”

 

“The ghosts,” Psiarik guessed, waiting for her to continue.

 

The Thundercat nodded back to the psi.  “I remember I told her yes and then before I knew what happened I was falling and falling for I don’t know how long and I landed here in this place, this,” she looked around miserably, “nothingness.  I’ve been here all alone ever since.  I still am I guess, if you’re not even real,” she ended, her voice teary and hopeless.

 

Psiarik frowned and took a step closer to the upset feline, reaching for her hand to touch her, to assert to her senses that he was as solid as she.  “Listen to me, WilyKit.  I’m not a hallucination, I’m real.  And I don’t think you’re half as crazy as you think you are.  Those things that happened to you, they were real too.  You were being haunted, just not in the way we thought.”

 

WilyKit looked up hopefully when she felt the warmth of his hand against hers in the cool darkness.  “What do you mean?”

 

“It wasn’t a demon tormenting you, but something much worse: Mumm-Ra and Torlei,” Psiarik explained.  “They were the so-called ghosts, and in the end they got what they wanted—your body, and revenge.  Torlei possessed you.”

 

WilyKit gasped.  “Torlei?  She was the good spirit?”

 

“Good?” Psiarik repeated in disbelief.

 

“Well that’s what she told me, anyway,” WilyKit said sadly as she digested the information Psiarik had just given her and wondered what sort of deal with the demon she had made in that terrified agreement and what she had inadvertently done to those in the living world.  “She said if I let her take me over for a minute that she’d make the evil one go away.  But she lied… and she sent me here instead.”  The Thundercat lowered her eyes and tried to stop a fresh wave of frustrated tears from spilling out when she began to ponder the full implications of what had happened.

 

“Lying is something evil spirits excel at,” Psiarik said with a sigh.  “What she did to you was how I’ve always heard possession happens.  There’s a sequence of events traditionally carried out by dark spirits.  Infestation and oppression were the first two, when they did all those things to make you agree to let yourself be taken over in the first place.  Possession can’t work without that agreement, at least not easily, and Torlei would know that, both from being a psi and probably even better being a student of black magic,” he explained, shaking his head somberly.  “And that day in the library Dad guessed that’s what it could have been.  We should have given that theory more credence and warned you what to do—and what not to do.” 

 

“I’m possessed?” WilyKit asked with a startled whimper.  “But why am I here?  Wouldn’t I see what my body is doing even if I’m not controlling it?  And why are you here?” 

 

Psiarik shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I’ve never been attacked in such a way by a spirit and you’re the first individual I know personally that has been.  And I don’t think Torlei possessed me,” he said thoughtfully, frowning as he remembered his last conscious moments in the living world.  “When we realized that you were possessed and fought us in the library, I grabbed you and tried to establish a psychic link to you—the real you—to pull your psyche free of her hold.”  He sighed bitterly.  “But I never considered how open that left me to a psychic attack, and Torlei took full advantage, and pulled me into wherever she banished you instead.”

 

“I don’t know anything about a fight and I swear on the Gods of Thundera I never would have attacked you, or anyone else in the MoonTower.”

 

The psi nodded reassuringly.  “I know you don’t, and that was what led us to figure it out before you—well, Torlei as you—confirmed it.  Mumm-Ra and Torlei do have a reason to fight us.  Their hatred for us runs very deep after the Battle of the Swords and they’ve had five years to dwell on it and let it fester and come up with some plan for revenge.  And what better way for them to get that revenge than by using one of their hated enemies as a vehicle to destroy everyone else?”

 

“By using me,” WilyKit lamented miserably.  “And I let it happen.  All because I was so caught up in my own stupid issues.”

 

“Your problems made you an easier target, but if you hadn’t had them they would have just gone after someone else,” Psiarik said with a slight shrug.  “Right now that’s a minor issue compared to the task of getting out of here and putting you back in your body where you belong, and getting Torlei out of it once and for all.”

 

The Thundercat gave a nod of agreement, but hesitated a moment.  “I have to know something first, Psiarik.  What did Torlei do after she took me over?  What has she done in my body, other than attacking some of you in the library?  Did I—did I hurt anyone?”

 

Psiarik met her gaze evenly.  “Other than me, not last I saw, but it didn’t look good when I, well, when Torlei knocked me out.  It started when she tried to hurt Silvian, and then when Selene tried to stop her, you—she as you—tried to kill him.”

 

WilyKit gasped in horror.  “Oh gods—he’s only a child!  And your son… oh, I’m so sorry.”

 

“Like that matters to her?” Psiarik said bitterly, his glare hardening for a moment before he continued the account.  “But thankfully she didn’t hurt him, as far as I know.  Selene and WilyKat and I were able to stop Torlei before that could happen.  After that I confronted you, and I told Selene to run get Silvian somewhere safe, when you—she—confessed who she really was.  That was when Mumm-Ra appeared,” he explained. 

 

“What happened then?” WilyKit pressed, almost afraid of the answer.

 

“That was when I tried to reach you with the mind link.  I thought since we’d established that one the night before trying to break the memory block it might work, but like I explained before, Torlei instead reversed the flow on it, and pulled my own psyche out of my body and left me for dead.  I might be dead, I don’t know.  Maybe that’s why I’m here in this same place as you.”

 

“And I thank Jaga for that,” she said with a light smile, and hugged him tightly for a moment.  “Not that I did that to you, of course—gods, if I did, I’ll never forgive myself,” she amended quickly with a contrite look to the Lunatac, “but I’m just glad that I’m not alone here… and maybe I’m not going crazy after all.”

 

Psiarik returned the hug with a halfhearted smile.  “No crazier than the rest of us anyhow.  But if Torlei did kill me, well, forgive me if I’m not so enthusiastic about that,” he finished, forcing himself to see the dark humor in the situation rather than the depressing truth if it was reality. 

 

“If you’re dead, I think we both are, if it’s any consolation,” WilyKit said.  “But maybe neither of us are.”

 

“Let’s hope so,” Psiarik said as the two of them began to walk.  “So where the hell are we, anyway?”

 

“A very appropriate question,” a deep voice sneered from behind them.

 

Both WilyKit and Psiarik whirled around to see who or what it was that had joined them.  “What?” they asked in astonished unison.

 

To the complete shock of both the Thundercat and the psi, the imposing spectral figure of Grune the Destroyer stood in front of them.  The deceased sabertooth’s tall and forbidding stature, shrouded in a sinister light that made him seem all the more malevolent, even made the tall Psiarik feel small in comparison and the smug and hateful expression on Grune’s face chilled them both to the bone.  WilyKit could hardly believe the apparition before her was the same cat she had learned so much about in the few days before.  “Grune...” she whispered.

 

A knowing and evil grin spread across the ghostly sabertooth’s face.  “That’s right, kitten,” he said with a contemptuous sneer.  “I’m glad to see you remember me as well as I remember you.  Our paths have crossed once or twice, haven’t they?” he asserted, stepping toward them.  “The first you would remember would be when I haunted Cat’s Lair on Third Earth, and turned your own silly child’s prank pellets against you.  You and your brother were so pathetic—and from what I’ve seen, you still are!”

 

An expression of indignant disgust flashed across the Thundercat’s features.  “Grune the Destroyer—why?  Of all the souls to run into in this damned place, why you?”

 

Grune grinned knowingly.  “Why not?” he countered.  The sabertooth extended his hand to the side and his Thundrainium-spiked club materialized in it.  He circled his fingers around the handle and then tapped the mace lightly against his hand in a threatening gesture.  “You were expecting maybe Jaga?” Grune pressed with a derisive laugh.  “And here I thought you would like to see me, after displaying such an interest in my life.”

 

“I want nothing to do with a traitor like you,” WilyKit snarled angrily.  “Leave me alone!”  To emphasize her point, WilyKit threw a pellet at the sabertooth specter.   It went through the ghost’s body and exploded harmlessly several feet behind him.

 

“I’m already dead, kitten, you can’t harm me,” Grune sneered, his voice dripping with condescension.

 

His reaction to her anger only upset WilyKit farther.  “I am not a kitten, and don’t you dare treat me like one, or you’ll find out the hard way how not a kitten I am!  I am a Thundercat, and I won’t be underestimated or disrespected, especially by someone like you, murderer!  You should rot in the deepest pit of the hottest hell for the pain you brought into all the innocent lives you destroyed!”

 

Instead of angered or enraged, Grune only seemed amused by WilyKit’s irate reaction.  “Is that what you think it’s like, a pit of fire where we burn and suffer, tormented for all eternity?  Oh, kitten, you are so wrong.  Look around you...”

 

Psiarik, who had remained otherwise quiet and wary of the ghost during the exchange, raised his eyebrows noticeably.  “So are you telling us that this is the afterlife?”

 

“No!” WilyKit shouted defiantly, more to Grune than to Psiarik.  “It’s not!  This is all a delusion or some sick hallucination!  It’s not true!”

 

Grune gave the Thundercat a condescending shrug.  “Believe whatever you want to comfort yourself, kitten.”

 

WilyKit charged at Grune and hurled another pellet in his direction in outraged protest.  “I told you to stop calling me that!”

 

That time Grune laughed out loud as he levitated quickly out of the way and her pellet detonated four feet away from him.  “Oh, such spirit in you… just like your mother.”  The sabertooth’s face then twisted into a hateful scowl, and he hit his club hard against the palm of his hand in a display of barely controlled rage.  “How I detest that.”

 

“You don’t know my mother,” WilyKit argued heatedly.

 

“I think it would be more accurate to say you don’t know your mother, wouldn’t it?” Grune countered, coldly and contemptuously.  “Unlike you, I knew her well—very well—well enough to know her for the kind of lying whore she really was under that honorable façade.  And from what I know of you, you’re just like her, carrying your own bastard child.  Isn’t that right, noble Thundercat?”

 

WilyKit snarled angrily and moved to lunge toward Grune, but Psiarik grabbed her arm to stop her and hold her back.  “WilyKit, don’t let him goad you.  This is exactly what he wants, and he’s not worth the energy it would waste to go after him.  He’s just a ghost.”

 

WilyKit’s scowl at Grune deepened, but she did not fight the psi’s grasp.  “I can’t let him say such horrible lies about my mother—”

 

Another derisive laugh came from Grune’s direction, cutting the upset Thundercat off.  “You’re so sure they’re lies,” the sabertooth said, shaking his head in clear amusement.  “How would you even know the truth?  I know that you never knew your mother, and that the Thundercats never told you the truth, the whole truth anyway.  Not the sleazy truth about who your parents really are and what they did, because that would undermine their good name.  They didn’t, did they?”

 

WilyKit glared back at Grune, but remained silent.  She did not want to believe anything the traitor sabertooth said, but all of a sudden the evasive answers given to her over the years by Snarf, Tygra, and the others about the question of her and WilyKat’s parents tumbled to the forefront of her consciousness.

 

“No, they didn’t,” Grune pressed, grinning smugly as he basked in the knowledge that he was right.  “I can’t say I’m surprised.  It just wouldn’t do to have the ‘noble’ Thundercats embroiled in such a scandal.”   The ghostly sabertooth loomed closer, meeting WilyKit’s angry and defiant gaze.  “Did you ever wonder why you and your brother grew up as orphans in Cat’s Lair?  Why you were trained to be Thundercats at such a young age?  Who your father was?” he snarled, stressing the last question, before he lowered his voice again.  “I know you did.”

 

Looking from the lost and distraught expression on WilyKit’s face to the obvious cruel delight upon Grune’s features, Psiarik decided to intervene on the Thundercat’s behalf, as she was clearly falling into whatever manipulative trap Grune was placing or a part of and the psi certainly had no desire to see WilyKit harassed and upset further.  “If you think she’s going to believe any of your lies, you’re wrong,” Psiarik informed the ghost coldly.  “Leave her alone and get lost.”

 

Grune whirled around and glared at the psi in disgust.  “Aren’t you the noble one?” he sneered sarcastically.  “Stay out of this, fool,” the spectral sabertooth warned.

 

Psiarik narrowed his eyes, feeling the fuse of his own temper—which was somewhat short even on a good day—start to light at the sabertooth’s threat.  “You’re beginning to piss me off, feline.”

 

Grune ignored the Lunatac and refocused upon WilyKit, his vengeful eyes staring harshly into hers.  “Tell me, WilyKit, did you find it strange that the Thundercats and snarfs that raised you would change the subject every time your parents were mentioned?  Wasn’t it odd that you were supposedly from a humble background, but treated like royalty, and that you were the only hybrid Thunderians trained as Thundercats, and as young children at that?”

 

“There have been other hybrids in the past generations, and they said WilyKat and I were gifted,” WilyKit stammered, parroting the term Snarf Clarece had used many times to describe the twins and their cunning talents.

 

At that the ghost laughed mockingly.  “Gifted?  Oh yes, true child prodigies you were, I’m sure.  The only thing you two were ever gifted at was causing trouble.”

 

Psiarik stepped in front of the distraught WilyKit.  “Shut up and go back to whatever miserable grave you belong in, ghost, or I’ll send you there myself.”

 

That time Grune glared at Psiarik more meaningfully and clenched his fist, exposing spiked metal knuckles that materialized around it.  “Don’t make threats you can’t possibly back up, Lunatac.  You haven’t got the power to take me.  You and her combined couldn’t even do it.”

 

“Keep talking and we’ll try,” Psiarik countered angrily, realizing only after he had spoken that he also was falling for whatever antagonistic tricks the ghost was trying to incite them into.  “Or maybe that’s what you want?”

 

WilyKit, far more angry and upset than the psi at that point, looked from Psiarik to Grune curiously, but another voice, a new voice, cut her off before she could ask. 

 

“So full of himself, so overconfident, and so very arrogant... just like his father,” a light and feminine laugh echoed through the darkness behind Grune.  A shadowy mist formed behind the ghostly sabertooth and solidified to form a female figure.  “It looks like WilyKit isn’t the only one here proving the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, so to speak.”  As the figure took recognizable shape WilyKit and Psiarik identified her as a hunter Lunatac.

 

Although she had never met her or even seen a picture, WilyKit immediately recognized the woman from the detailed descriptions she had read in Grune’s journal.  “Kalin,” she guessed aloud.

 

Psiarik glanced at WilyKit, surprised.  “You know her, WilyKit?” he asked, before fixing his gaze back onto Kalin with an angry glare.  Given how he currently felt about Alluro and his part in conspiring with Darkail to block WilyKit’s memories, being compared to his father by the hunter ghost had fired his temper up a few more degrees.

 

Kalin in turn scowled back at the psi.  “You’d be smart to watch your tongue, lest I tear it out and take from you what little life you have left,” she warned, and then turned her attention to WilyKit.  “Nice detective work, Thundercat.  Yes, I am Kalin.”

 

While Kalin spoke to WilyKit, something in her last words to him stuck in Psiarik’s head.  What little life I have left… does that mean… yes, it must!  He grabbed WilyKit’s wrist to get her attention.  “We aren’t dead, WilyKit,” he said, his temper quelled by the hopeful realization that things were not quite as dire as they had feared.

 

Grune snarled at the psi’s announcement.  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

 

WilyKit’s eyes filled with hope at Psiarik’s optimistic words.  “We aren’t?  You’re sure?”

 

“He knows nothing,” Kalin argued coldly from beside Grune.

 

“That’s what you want us to think, isn’t it?” Psiarik challenged the ghostly pair.  “But it’s not the truth.”  He looked meaningfully into WilyKit’s eyes.  “We can’t listen to them, WilyKit.  They’re the ones who are ghosts.  Look at them, they don’t look like us.  They’re spectral, transparent, and they can move in ways we can’t.”

 

WilyKit nodded.  “You’re right.  My pellets—they went through Grune,” she realized.  “And Kalin just appeared… not like we did.  We’re solid, still flesh and bone.”

 

“And if they’re ghosts, they can’t do much more than annoy us—” Psiarik cast a hateful glare in their direction before he continued, “—talented as they may be at that.  But they can’t do anything else.  I think they want us to give up and think we’re dead, but we’re not,” the psi finished, now confident in his theory.

 

“But even if it’s true that we’re not dead, how can we get out of here?” WilyKit wondered aloud.

 

Kalin laughed.  “You can’t, Thundercat.  There is no way out.  You’re here to stay, here where you belong—forever.”

 

“In hell,” Grune added, and laughed wickedly.

 

* * *

 

Far away from and unaware of the turmoil he had left behind after he departed, Alluro’s ship hummed along quietly through the darkened skies of the Third Moon of Plundarr, descending to a slow-paced hover above the wild jungles near the moon’s equator below him.  The hypnotist sat silently in the leather chair at the control console, monitoring the equipment.  He saw that he was close to his destination, and he realized that once he found a suitable landing spot the more difficult part of the trip would begin; the land hike to where it was he was that he was headed—Serilune.

 

Alluro was fairly sure that finding Darkail was going to be a bit of a challenge.  First of all, he was not entirely sure where Serilune was.  Darkail had taken him there once, but the hunter had insisted on doing all of the piloting, so Alluro was going strictly by memory.  He was relatively sure that he knew where he was going, but he would have preferred to have a map of some sort, which of course he did not.  Serilune was not put on maps, and if it was, once that fact was discovered it was often moved anyway, rendering the map useless.

 

Secondly, there was the issue of the sentries.  Like most Lunatacs, Alluro knew that hunters had strict laws against trespassing “outsiders” venturing into their territory.  Darkail had escorted Alluro in the one time the psi had been there, and Alluro had gotten the distinct impression that was the only reason his presence was tolerated.  Alone, Alluro knew would most certainly be considered an “outsider”, but he was fairly confident that he could get around that.  He knew that the hunters were semi-tolerant of those who were known allies or friends of their clan, and as the royals’ Chief Ambassador, Darkail was certainly a prominent enough native of Serilune to qualify as an important figure.  Additionally, Alluro had the security of his own status as a royal to fall back on.  No Lunatac, hunter or otherwise, with any sense of self-preservation would kill the father-in-law of the Lunar Queen and subsequently risk the wrath of the entire royal guard and a political nightmare upon their people as a whole.  But most importantly in the psi’s reasoning, he believed that he could get into Serilune was simply because he was Alluro—the most powerful hypnotist on that Moon or any other planet—and no primitive hunter sentry would stand a chance against his powers of persuasion.

 

Alluro sighed aloud as he initiated the landing sequence.  He was not looking forward to the jungle hike on foot, but he supposed that the bright side to it was that the sooner he was out of the air the better it was for him.  He was aware of the warrant for his and Darkail’s arrest, for that had been the last transmission Alluro had picked up before he keyed in every blocking code he knew into the ship’s computer to keep his ship from being found.  The reminder of that situation led the psi to clench his jaw in silent anger.  It stung him deeply that Psiarik had chosen to take the side of a Thundercat, a relative stranger to his son and someone who had once personally been involved in making a number of years in his own life miserable, over that of his own flesh and blood.  Yes, he had blocked WilyKit’s memories—at her own request—and had then lied about it to keep the secret as he had been asked, but his reasons for doing so had been what he considered good ones.  Didn’t his intentions count for anything?

 

Apparently not, Alluro thought bitterly as he straightened in his chair and quietly brought the ship to the jungle floor.  The worst part of the whole situation, he realized, was that when he gave the matter some serious thought, only part of his anger was directed Psiarik and Darkail.  His son being angry about the lying he supposed he could understand, for he had given him his word once that he would not lie to him.  He did not think it gave Psiarik an excuse to act like a pissy child, but he understood it.  Darkail on the other hand had always had a bit of an unpredictable streak, although in Alluro’s opinion the ambassador’s judgment had taken a flying leap into oblivion after he had gotten himself involved with WilyKit.  Love did that to some, Alluro supposed with a sigh.  The psi just wished that he’d had the foresight to get out of the way before Darkail’s foolish whims of love had pulled him into whole mess along with the hunter and the Thundercat—and that was why Alluro was just as mad at himself as he was at Psiarik and Darkail. 

 

Once the ship was on the ground Alluro glanced down at the radio one last time and fought the urge to turn it back on just for a moment.  Although it had only been a little over a day since he had left home, he could not shake the feeling that he had missed something important that he needed to know about.  Still, he knew better than to dare switching it on before he was ready to see any of them again, and that would not be until he found Darkail.  Maintaining complete radio silence to ensure that he did not give off even the slightest signal of his whereabouts, rendering himself one hundred percent untraceable, was the only way he could be certain that he would not be found and arrested too soon.

 

The apprehensive feeling was one he had not experienced in a rather long time, he realized, but despite that it still felt sickeningly familiar to him as it was one he had lived with for many, many years.  I’m getting too old for this, Alluro mused as he remembered just how depressing and stressful it was to live on the run.  His thoughts turned back to those he had left at home—especially Chilla and Erissa—and he wondered how long it would be before he saw either again.  Right before he had left, he had told Chilla that he would be in touch with her.  Alluro had never intended to stay away long, only long enough to sort his thoughts and get a handle on his temper, but now that there was a warrant for his arrest that changed things quite a bit.  He knew that Chilla would probably understand his avoiding arrest and resultant disappearance, but the child would not, and he felt terrible about that.

 

The silent radio teased him for a few more moments, but the psi withdrew his hand from the console before giving any serious consideration to flipping the switch.  Whatever had happened, no matter how terrible or urgent it was, it would simply have to wait.  There were more pressing things for him to do—namely, to find Darkail.  Alluro’s reasoning for tracking down Darkail was that if he could show the Chief Ambassador just how badly his plan had come undone, that the hunter would finally agree to a removal of the Thundercat’s mental block.  It might be too little, too late, and he knew might just wind up in a holding cell for a time to show for it, but he did not see any other way to rectify the situation and mend the damage that had been done—not only to WilyKit, but more importantly, to his own family.  It then struck Alluro, somewhat disturbingly, that perhaps it was not just Darkail that was acting rashly upon his emotions.

 

Once the ship was secured, Alluro checked that his psyche club was fastened to his belt and set out among the trees in the direction he believed Serilune to be.  He hoped that fortune was smiling upon him and leading him in the right way as he made his way through the dark and wild landscape.  Determinedly he pressed into the trees, hoping that his leg and footwear would keep out the worst of the brambles and bugs. 

 

Alluro had gone a good distance without incident when suddenly something made him stop dead in his tracks.  He could give no definable reason for that feeling, but all at once an overwhelming sensation of fear filled him.  His instinct urged him to turn around, run, and get the hell out of there before it was too late, and although Alluro was by no means timid enough to fear the dark, he also knew that things he would rather not get into a physical tangle with lived in those jungles, beasts and unruly hunter Lunatacs alike.  The hypnotist paused and looked around nervously, but he saw nothing unusual, and heard nothing but the sounds of nighttime birds and insects.  He stood still for several moments, and when finally nothing happened, he relaxed and dismissed the startled feeling as nothing more than a bad association he had with hunters in general.

 

As a rule, he had never cared much for hunters.  Of the ones he had encountered over the years, by and large he found them to be unpredictable, vicious, moody, or just plain strange in an off-putting way.  Darkail was not exactly an exception to that, although Alluro had taken a liking to him despite that.  He supposed it was because Darkail had better breeding than most of them—or perhaps not as much inbreeding, Alluro thought snobbishly—and he had a classy and charming demeanor about him, much like Alluro thought himself.  Darkail also had always shown the hypnotist respect and a measure of admiration, which Alluro’s ego quite naturally basked in, especially after so many years as one of Luna’s bitching targets.  The hunter often solicited and seemed to value Alluro’s opinion, and at least until he had taken a jump off of the cliff of common sense in his relationship with WilyKit, Darkail had usually listened to whatever advice Alluro gave him.  The two of them had a fairly strong friendship, at least by Lunatac standards, and more than once the psi had the thought that if he had ever had a younger brother or even another son, he would like him to be like Darkail—except when it came to listening to him, anyway.  That association, combined with the fact that Alluro believed that everything had happened was because Darkail hadn’t listened to him to begin with, was primarily why Alluro was so angry with the ambassador at that moment.

 

Alluro continued along on his hike through the rainforest, using vague memory and gut feeling to guide him.  He was fairly certain he was on the right path and not too far from the hunters’ settlement.  Judging by how long he had been walking, and the sketchy details of the surroundings that he recalled, he estimated that he was maybe half a mile or so away from where he believed Serilune to be.  If he was lucky, he figured that would be near enough to see its nighttime lights in approximately ten minutes.

 

The Lunatac kept moving onward, but suddenly a fresh shiver of fear ran through his body.  Alluro tried to dismiss the feeling, telling himself that he was being foolish and irrational and that he was acting like some silly child who was afraid of the dark.  His mental admonitions did no good, however.  Suddenly the hair on the back of his neck tingled and stood up on end, and every instinct he had was screamed for him to turn and run as fast as he could.  It was not in the psi’s nature to feel as timid as did at that moment, but he could not shake the awful feeling that he was being watched.  Or more precisely, stalked.

 

He was.

 

All of a sudden Alluro knew that it was not merely his imagination making him feel that way, and the Lunatac instinctively reached for his psyche club, intending on using it to either hypnotize or bludgeon his would-be attacker, depending on how suddenly the strike came.  Before Alluro could even do that much, a powerful and incredibly swift force came seemingly out of nowhere and tackled him, pinning him against the dirt and brush upon the jungle floor.  The startled psi looked up at his assailant and saw a rather vicious looking hunter female.  The woman was naked except for a small loincloth, and her long and tangled evergreen hair tumbled in a wild mess over her shoulders and onto his shaking chest.  She roughly pressed her talon-like fingernails against the skin of Alluro’s throat, ready to rip it open, while her lips curled back into a menacing snarl.  Her eyes narrowed with suspicion and threat and met his in an unyielding gaze.  “Give me one reason not to kill you, outsider,” she demanded in a low hiss.  “You’ve ventured into our territory without invite, and under our laws, that’s punishable by death.”

 

Alluro knew that the hunter was not bluffing, and that scared him even more, as he had no physical means of defending himself at that point.  For a moment he was struck with a strange feeling of déjà vu.  What seemed to him like a lifetime ago, he had been in exactly the same position with a huntress not too different from the one on top of him—Kalin.  In fact, it was Alluro’s experience with Kalin that had made him have a healthy respect—if not outright distaste for—the hunters.  It had happened not long after he had met Kalin, and came about when he had made the mistake of coming on to her in a rather sleazy manner in Luna’s club.  To put it mildly, she had been less than receptive to his advance, and had nearly killed him—literally—on the spot.  Alluro still felt an inward chill at the memory.  First Kalin had punched him with enough force to send him sprawling onto the floor, tackled him, and then slapped him hard across the face with her claws out, scratching him deeply and drawing blood.  While the hypnotist had been wincing in pain and trying to catch his breath, Kalin had held her claws to his throat and told him in graphic detail what she would do to him and his male anatomy if he so much as even thought in an indecent manner about her ever again.  Her method of discouraging his come-ons had worked like a charm.  Ever since, Alluro had made it a point to stay out of the way of hunters.  Especially females.

 

Alluro forced himself to remain calm and met the eyes of his attacker.  “One good reason would be that Queen Selene would be distressed to learn of the untimely death of her father-in-law at the hands of a hunter sentry without so much as a question,” the hypnotist replied hastily, throwing a hypnotic lilt into his voice, although it was hard to get the focus to put significant projection into it with the distraction of a bloodthirsty primitive on top of him and eyeing him like a predator would its prey.  “I’m Lord Alluro, and you can go see the royal insignia on the ship I brought here yourself if you’re not inclined to believe me,” he added.  “I’m here to find Darkail, our missing Chief Ambassador.  I assume you would know him?”

 

“All true hunters know one another,” the sentry replied, keeping her claws at Alluro’s neck and eyeing him expectantly for further explanation.  “I know him.” 

 

“Then he’s here?  Good,” Alluro said, wishing the woman would relax the grip on his neck.  He supposed his explanation was working well enough, since he was not dead yet, although he was not sure if that simply meant that the hunter would let him live long enough get out of Serilune’s territory.  His title might secure his life, he realized, but it was not necessarily a pass into the hunter settlement.  “I don’t suppose you could escort me back to Serilune so that I might have a word with him.  Trust me, this is important.”

 

The hunter sentry frowned.  “We trust no outsiders unless we have reason to trust them,” she informed him coldly.

 

Despite being in the undignified position of being pinned beneath the hunter sentry in the dirt, Alluro frowned arrogantly at her.  “Look, I’m not here as a threat to any of you hunters and I’m not going to tell anyone any of your precious secrets,” he said huffily.  “I only want to speak with Darkail.”

 

Eyeing him warily, the huntress backed off a bit, lessening the force on Alluro’s body slightly, but not enough to allow him escape her grasp without a struggle.  “Darkail’s outside life is separate from his life here, and whenever one of us comes home after time away it’s usually to get away from all of that, when you and your kind that don’t understand our ways wear down on them.  Why should I violate his sanctuary by bringing a reminder to his doorstep?” she challenged.

 

“Because he has things to answer for, not the least of which is royally screwing up my life,” Alluro replied evenly, matching her challenging tone.

 

The sentry gave an unimpressed shrug and stood, releasing Alluro now that she was satisfied that he posed no immediate threat.  “So you expect me to go and disturb his peace for your petty outside world problems?”

 

Now free of her grasp and able to concentrate a little better, Alluro stood up and brushed himself off, facing the hunter woman with a million-watt smile laced with a considerable measure of his hypnotic powers.  Fortunately, for all the hunters’ natural strengths, none of them involved immunity to the mesmerizing abilities of the psi Lunatacs.  Alluro summoned his most charming voice, and addressed her.  “Of course I don’t.  I would never ask something so unreasonable of you.  All I ask is that you take me to him, so that he and I can talk.  I have no intention of causing you or anyone else any trouble.  I simply want to talk to my friend,” he finished, his tone the perfect imitation of heartfelt sincerity and concern.

 

Her features softened just for a moment, and her voice lost its edge when she answered him.  “All right, outsider.  I’ll make an exception and allow you into Serilune this once, but not unescorted.  I will take you to Darkail directly and nowhere else, and if he wants you to leave, you go or face the consequences.”

 

Alluro smiled, sincerely that time, although in part it was sincerely smug.  How nice it was to see it confirmed that he still had his touch, he thought proudly.  “Thank you ever so much.”

 

The sentry nodded.  “Follow me.”

 

“Lead the way.”

 

After a fifteen minute hike with the hunter woman, who Alluro soon learned during some casual chat was a nineteen-year-old sentry named Thiliana that had never been out of Serilune, the pair of them reached the limits of the settlement.  During the walk Alluro used his charm and a touch of his hypnotic powers to settle her amazonish demeanor, and once that was done he found her to be rather pleasant company.  It also did not hurt that she was easy on the eyes being nicely built and half naked, and although she was covered in dirt and scrapes from running around in the jungle, he certainly was not going to complain, especially since she had those sharp claws he knew from experience he did not want to be on the wrong end of.

 

While they walked she asked the psi about what it was like living with the royals and on the other parts of the Moons, and as soon as Alluro mentioned that in his earlier years he had been off the Moons and on other planets, he had her full attention for the entire hike back.  They had just reached the first building as he was telling her a bit about Third Earth, most specifically the Warrior Maidens, who were not surprisingly quite fascinating to her.  Thiliana was almost disappointed when they reached a building set a bit farther back from the road than the others and stopped.  “This is Darkail’s home,” she told him.  “You may go in and see him, but as your escort I must stay here until you leave or he dismisses me and takes responsibility for your presence himself.”

 

Alluro gave the sentry a brief, but undeniably charming smile and started for the door.  “I understand, Thiliana.  Thank you.”

 

“Hey, maybe on the way back you could tell me more about Queen Willa of Third Earth?” she called out as he headed toward the building.

 

Alluro only smiled back at her and disappeared through the doorway.

 

When he entered Alluro wondered if he should have knocked first, but he decided upon second thought that he did not need to bother anyway.  From what he knew of hunters, manners were not something they worried too much about, at least around each other.  Darkail’s family home was empty and surprisingly devoid of possessions or personal affects, save a few belongings of Darkail’s that he recognized and some pictures of Lunatacs, other hunters, that the psi did not recognize.  Alluro wondered if they were his family, and then had the disturbing thought that hunters kept to themselves so much that they were all probably not too far apart on the family tree.

 

The psi noticed some stairs to his right, and a kitchen-like room opening up behind the one he currently stood in.  He paused for a moment, deciding which way to proceed, and settled on the kitchen.  He figured that without air conditioning and in the humid jungle heat, a second floor was the less preferable option to investigate.

 

As it turned out, the kitchen was empty as well.  Alluro noticed some recently cooked food on the stove, and spied a screened doorway on the opposite end of the room with a torch burning outside, presumably on a patio beyond it.  He headed to the door and had just opened it about six inches when he heard Darkail’s familiar voice address him from outside.  “Why are you here, Alluro?”

 

When he emerged from the doorway, Alluro saw the hunter reclining on a lounge chair about six feet away on the patio.  “You knew I was here?” he asked, somewhat surprised.

 

“Your voice carries,” Darkail replied.  “I heard you talking to Thiliana out front.  That small moon accent you have stands out here in Serilune, and no other outsider would manage to both find me and get past the scouts who guard our borders.  Except for maybe WilyKit,” he added after a pause.  Darkail glanced up at Alluro, motioned for him to come over, and pointed to a chair.  “So is that why you came?”

 

Alluro closed the screen door and sat on the chair next to him.  When he approached he noticed that Darkail was coping with the oppressive heat and humidity of Serilune by foregoing clothing.  That bothered him slightly, as nudity in front of company you weren’t about to entertain in the bedroom was hardly tradition where he was from, but refrained from saying anything as it was rather unimportant compared to what he had come to discuss with the Chief Ambassador.  “As a matter of fact, yes, that is why I’m here,” he told the hunter.

 

“I’m not changing my mind about the block,” Darkail informed Alluro bluntly.  “If you came all the way here to ask me that, you wasted your time and fuel.  She doesn’t want to remember and I’m not going to break my word to her.  I can’t watch her live in pain any more than she can bear living in it.”

 

Alluro frowned and closed his fingers tightly around the chair arm.  The frustration that had been building inside him since he had left the MoonTower now started to boil.  “She’s already in pain, you idiot,” he snapped.  “And if you didn’t want her to remember you, perhaps you should have thought of that before you did whatever it was you did that let her figure out that you’re the father of her unborn child.  Your little disappearing act after that only made her ask more questions, ones that I had the unfortunate position of having to answer in your absence.”

 

Darkail sat up with a start and fixed his eyes on the psi intently.  “You didn’t!” he exclaimed with both anger and worry.

 

“I had no choice,” Alluro replied, the tension in his own voice matching Darkail’s.  “She already figured out that she was pregnant by you without any help from me.  Tell me, just what did you do to jog her memory, Dark?  Jump in bed with her?  Brilliant,” the psi snorted sarcastically.

 

“It wasn’t like that,” Darkail argued.  “She needed me that night, and I was not going to stand by and do nothing when she was so frightened and needed someone so badly.”

 

Alluro shook his head, not sure whether to laugh or simply be disgusted that what he had said in half-sarcastic jest was the truth.  “Dark, did nothing I said about how memory blocks work sink in when I explained them to you the first, oh, four or five times?”

 

Darkail sighed and rubbed his temple with his left hand, clearly distressed.  “All right, maybe that was a little too intense for contact, but—”

 

“A little?” Alluro replied incredulously.

 

“What else was I supposed to do?” the hunter countered defensively.  “Would you be able to just ignore it if Chilla was suffering and needed your comfort?”

 

Now it was Alluro’s turn to sigh.  “I would never block Chilla’s memories of me in the first place, so that’s quite irrelevant.  But if an extreme circumstance did give me reason to do it, I certainly would not torment her or undermine my efforts in putting the block there by following her around or, even worse, sleeping with her under some convenient pretense,” he countered.

 

“It was foolish, all right, I admit it,” Darkail conceded heatedly.  “Why do you think I left so quickly afterwards?  I knew I couldn’t see her again.”

 

“No, you knew you couldn’t face her again,” Alluro corrected the hunter.  “You knew that if she remembered the Hunt—”

 

Darkail sprang from his reclining position and roughly grabbed Alluro’s arm, his eyes alit with emotion.  “You did not tell her about the Hunt?”  It was more of an accusation than a question.

 

Alluro yanked his arm away from the hunter and glared back at him, irritated by the melodramatic display.  “No, I left that little tale for you tell her yourself.”

 

Darkail relaxed slightly.  “What happened?  What all does she know?”

 

“You mean, what do they know,” Alluro replied, finding the resultant look of surprise on Darkail’s face as he made the statement somewhat amusing.  Had he been in better spirits, he might have even laughed.  “Oh yes, Selene and Psiarik have become quite sympathetic to WilyKit and all her troubles,” the psi went on.  “These ghosts that she’s been seeing have become pests to all of us at the MoonTower, enough so that they invited WilyKit’s twin and his spiritualist girlfriend to stay with us so they can all get to the bottom of it.”

 

Frowning, Darkail recalled the events of his last night in the MoonTower and when he found the hysterical WilyKit.  “Ghosts?  That’s what she said happened the night she and I—the night before I left,” the hunter said thoughtfully.  “I found her crying and distraught on the bathroom floor.  She said some vengeful ghost was attacking her.  I didn’t see anything, so I thought it was some side effect of the mind block, that maybe she saw… him.”

 

“I’m afraid the ghosts are real,” Alluro informed the hunter.  “The day after you left they started attacking more than just the Thundercat.  They hit Luna—not that anyone could blame them for wanting to do that—and they threw books at Frostor and WilyKit while the three of them were in the library.”

 

“Was anyone harmed?” Darkail asked, concerned at the disturbing news.

 

Alluro shook his head.  “Nothing serious, no, but they attacked again that night.  That time nearly everyone involved took a hit or two, including me, and they beat Chilla around quite a bit,” he said, sighing as he recounted the events.  “WilyKit and the lioness took a fair bit of abuse too.”

 

“Are they all right?”

 

“As far as I know.  I left shortly afterward,” Alluro replied.

 

“To come here?” Darkail questioned.

 

The psi nodded affirmatively.  “I didn’t plan to, but during that ghost attack, one of the spirits claimed it wanted vengeance, loud enough for all of us present to hear.  WilyKit wanted to know why it would hate her so much, and Selene generously volunteered Psiarik to use his empathic abilities to forge a mind link with her to try and reach her blocked memories.  Fortunately I am an expert at such things, and my son is a novice at best, so he wasn’t able to unlock her memories, but he was able to identify what it was, and was not pleased to find it, to say the least.”

 

Darkail frowned.  “But he couldn’t have known it was you that did it, right?  It’s not like you signed your name to it or anything.”

 

“No, but it wasn’t that hard for him to guess,” Alluro explained.  “Not all psychic Lunatacs have the level of expertise I do and while Psiarik is not formally trained, he does have a considerable measure of raw psi power, probably inherited from me to begin with, and he does have some skill as an empath—I think that and his occasional clairvoyant dreams are the only psi abilities his mother encouraged him to develop in his formative years,” the psi continued.  “Anyway, he was able to see enough in her mind to realize it was done by a master at the art, and it was only a short step in logic to tie you in with me, given that it was memories of you that were blocked and that I’m one of your closer friends at the Tower.”

 

“Aside from what I shared once with WilyKit, you are my closest friend,” Darkail corrected Alluro with a brief but sincere smile.

 

Alluro sighed and shook his head.  “And look what it’s gotten me.”

 

“So what happened next?” Darkail pressed.  “They confronted you?”

 

“Yes.  It didn’t take long for Psiarik to accuse me straight out, and at that point there was no denying it, so I told him that I placed the block there.”

 

Darkail eyed Alluro curiously.  “But you didn’t tell them about the Hunt?  What did you tell them then?”

 

Alluro leaned back in his chair and met the hunter’s gaze.  “That you asked me to do it as a favor, and that you wanted it done for WilyKit’s own good.  Psiarik didn’t believe it though, he sided with the poor little victimized Thundercat instead,” Alluro said, his voice growing angry and bitter as he recounted the events.  “Psiarik even accused you of paying me off to hide something you did that she knew.  I tried to tell him the truth in so far as my involvement being voluntary, but there was no reasoning with him—he’s one of your bosses, so Moons know that you know how he gets.”  Darkail nodded, and then Alluro continued.  “He flew off the handle about lies and deception and how I’m the root of all evil and even threw what I did to his mother thirty-some odd years ago in my face before telling me to get out.  Apparently he changed his mind about not wanting to see me, though, because I found out about half an hour after I left on the radio that he wanted both you and I arrested on sight for endangering a diplomatic mission or some such nonsense.”

 

Darkail blinked in surprise, digesting all of the information Alluro had given him.  “Well, that would explain why you came to Serilune then, it not being on any maps and out of the immediate reach of the Lunar Royal Guard.”

 

“Yes, that was part of it, but I was on my way here before I learned I was under arrest.  I came to Serilune primarily to share the good news with you,” Alluro said with a lilt of sarcasm in his voice.  “Although avoiding arrest here certainly is a bonus.”

 

“So what should we do now, then?” Darkail asked Alluro.

 

Alluro stood and looked at the hunter squarely in the eye.  “You know what we have to do, Darkail.  We have to go back and remove WilyKit’s mind block.  It’s the only way.”

 

“The only way what, that we’ll get thrown in jail?” Darkail replied incredulously.  He buried his head in his hands and sighed in frustration.  “Or drive WilyKit over the edge entirely?  It will destroy her to remember the Hunt, Alluro.  She can’t stop agonizing over the fact that she willfully took someone’s life in the heat of the moment, even though the one she killed didn’t deserve to live anyway.  You remember, she told you herself the night we came to you that she never wanted to remember that moment again as long as she lived, that she couldn’t bear to be tormented and haunted by it a second longer.”

 

“She’s being tormented and haunted anyway,” Alluro argued.  “Her ghost is more physical and relentless than any memory from what I saw.  It would be better for her to face him with the knowledge of what transpired with him rather than without it and wondering exactly why and what happened.  You can not only give her that, but also consider this—once you do you can have her again, and we both know that’s what you really want anyway.  Plus, there is a chance that with the knowledge of the ghost’s identity and circumstance the spiritualist lioness could banish him for good before he kills your WilyKit or someone else at the MoonTower… like Chilla or Erissa, for instance,” the psi continued, hoping to sway the hunter’s stubborn resistance to the idea.  “Besides, I don’t think Psiarik would stay angry enough to throw us in jail if we voluntarily came on our own to rectify things.  And even if he did, Selene would just turn around and let us out five minutes later.”

 

Darkail let out a light, knowing laugh.  “I knew your motives for this weren’t entirely unselfish.”

 

“Of course not,” Alluro said, mirroring his younger friend’s smile now that he saw he had been successful in getting through to him finally.  “I’ve already told you, Darkail, I don’t give a damn about WilyKit other than I know how much she means to you.  All I want is my life back in order, and after the lengths I went to for you, I don’t think this little favor is too much to ask.  Do you?”

 

Darkail paused for a moment, wondering briefly if Alluro was using any hypnosis on him to force him to reconsider, or if it was just his own conscience acting up.  He realized to his lament that it was probably the latter and sighed.  “No, it’s not.  All right, Alluro, I’ll do it.”

 

Alluro offered Darkail a hand and helped him to his feet.  “Good.  Now get some clothes on and let’s get out of here.”

 

 

Continued

 

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