Path Into the Darkness
Part
Six: WilyKit
Back in the military complex that was now functioning as the temporary center of operations for the Lunar Plundarrian Kingdom now that the MoonTower was destroyed, Frostor was catching up on a few hours of much-needed rest on the couch in his office. The icewalker could have retired to his military quarters—gods knew he could have used some sleep on a real bed—but he had decided it was better for him to stay easily accessible in case any sort of news on the rescue excavation came through. If Selene and/or Psiarik were to be found, he wanted to make sure that he could be there as soon as possible.
The ice general’s light sleep was uneasy for he had pretty much given up any hope that the ruling pair was still alive. He knew by experience from the times of the disasters that the odds of surviving in such wreckage were rather grim. His recent argument with Luna had done little to help his mood either, and in fact, had worsened it, if such a thing were possible. If he had not been so exhausted at that point, Frostor would not have bothered trying to sleep at all.
His short break of rest was not to last long, however, for he was awakened with a start when one of the royal guardsmen burst into his office with an excited shout. Normally they would have been expected to knock, but Frostor had left word that if something significant happened to come in and wake him. “Sir, sir!” the guardsman exclaimed. “We’ve found them,” he informed the Governor General breathlessly.
Frostor was on his feet in an instant. “You found them? Are they alive?” The icewalker’s voice was hopeful but guarded, knowing that more likely than not it was the discovery of bodies that the guardsman was reporting.
The guardsman nodded back an affirmative. “Yes sir, they were found together underneath the last pile that was excavated. As soon as we confirmed the sighting we dug very carefully and were able to pull them out with no further injury. It’s a miracle as to how, but they both survived. The rubble was thick but in large enough chunks that they were able to get enough air to survive. They were under a heavy table that took the brunt of the weight directly above them. The medics said that they were dehydrated, weak, and unconscious, but they are alive. The team has them on their way into the med facility as we speak, sir.”
Frostor straightened his rumpled uniform and ran his fingers through his hair, more unruly than usual from his impromptu nap on the couch. “Take me to them. Have the others been notified?”
“We informed you first, sir, but I could dispatch word to the others,” the guardsman stated, starting for the door.
Meanwhile Frostor hastily grabbed his keys and security badge. “Actually, go on ahead and do that, but leave Luna and Amok to me,” he told the guardsman. “I would like to speak to her personally. I’ll be in the medical bay shortly.” The guardsman nodded agreeably and left to do as instructed, while Frostor headed toward the room where Luna was being held.
Once he got to the room, he dismissed the guard posted on duty outside with the instruction to also relieve his partner, standing guard outside a room in the adjacent hallway that held Amok, and to send Amok over to Luna. When that was taken care of, Frostor knocked on the closed door and poked his head inside. “Hello, Luna,” he said somewhat cautiously, keeping a wary eye out for any projectiles that might be hurled at him if her mood was particularly bad.
Luna, still sulking on the couch as she had been for some time now, barely looked up to glare at the ice general. “Get out,” she snapped irritably. “I’m not speaking to you.”
“Fine, Luna, don’t speak to me then, but at least listen,” Frostor replied, too preoccupied with the news he was delivering to argue. “Selene and Psiarik have been found. I told you I would tell you when I heard anything.”
“Are they alive?” Despite its angry edge, Luna’s voice was hopeful.
“Yes,” Frostor confirmed. “I’m on my way down to the med facility now. They’re in poor condition, I was told, but alive in any way is better than the alternative. I’ve already sent for Amok to be released from his detainment, and he should be here any minute now. Then we can go over and see Selene and Psiarik now if you want.”
“Oh, so you’re releasing me from house arrest finally, how generous of you,” Luna said sarcastically, before adding, “it’s about damned time.”
Frostor frowned. “Luna, I told you at least a hundred times already, it was in your own best—”
“—interests, yes, I’ve heard it before,” the lunar woman replied, waving her hand in aggravated dismissal. “I still think it’s ridiculous, and I still think that you’re full of it. You had no right to lock me up, and you know it!”
Frostor let out an exasperated breath. “You gave me no choice, Luna. Moon gods know you won’t just listen to me, oh no, that would be too easy. Instead you have to go and have everything your way, no matter what, just like always,” he said, rolling his eyes for a moment before continuing. “Sorry, Luna, but I wasn’t going to stand by and let you and Amok charge in there and wind up hurting yourselves or someone else on the rescue team. Operations like this have to be done by a professionally trained search and rescue unit. I never would have had to detain you if you would actually listen to reason.” He sighed again. “How many times have I explained that to you now? If you weren’t so damned stubborn, maybe it would sink in!”
Infuriated, Luna let out a loud screech at the ice general. “I don’t have to sit here and listen to a lecture from you! If I’m free to go, then get out, because I’m going to see Selene as soon as Amok gets here!” As if on cue, Amok then showed up at the door. “Ah, that’s my boy! Come here!” she called over to the brute. With a happy grunt, Amok barged past Frostor, ignoring him entirely in favor of his tiny mistress, whom he had missed for the time they were forcibly separated. He gave Luna an affectionate pat on the head, picked her up, and then set her on his back. The Lunatac pair then headed for the door.
“All right then, let’s go,” Frostor said, following the two of them into the hallway.
“Lead the way,” Luna replied, her tone noticeably colder as she addressed the icewalker again. “But otherwise don’t waste your breath talking to me. I’m still not speaking to you.”
Frostor sighed, not bothering to argue further. “Whatever, Luna.”
A few minutes later the three of them arrived at the military base’s medical facility. When they got there, they saw that Chilla, Vultureman, and the Ambassador Jackalman were already assembled in the waiting area, talking to a doctor. As soon as Luna, Amok, and Frostor arrived, the elder lunar woman looked around impatiently. “Where are they?” she demanded, her gaze fixed on the doctor.
“They’re stabilized,” the doctor, a slight and purple-haired lunar man aged in his late forties, informed her. “You must be Lady Luna, Queen Selene’s relation,” he guessed, his tone indicating he might have been told—or more accurately, warned—about her. “I’m Melurne, one of the doctors assigned to the royal couple’s case.”
“He’s rated among the best surgeons and neurologists on this moon,” Frostor volunteered. “I’ve worked with him in the past and seen him work miracles on some of the disaster survivors, especially when we didn’t have any psi healers on staff.” He glanced at Melurne. “Is Altheus here?” he asked, referring to the psi cleric that was the royals’ primary healer.
“He’s tending to their physical wounds at the moment,” the neurologist confirmed.
“A neurologist?” Vultureman questioned, somewhat surprised. “Caw, it was my understanding that neurologists were only required in cases involving—”
“Brain trauma, yes, that is the type of case we specialize in,” Melurne replied. “When they were found, both were in an unconscious state, so the medical team called me onto this case because of the possibility of neurological complications. As it turns out Queen Selene’s wounds are mostly superficial, and she should recuperate once she gets enough fluids back into her system and rests, but her husband Psiarik,” he paused, “well, without getting into too much technical detail, suffice it to say that he’s in a deep coma beyond what would be consistent with his physical wounds. The evidence suggests he experienced some sort of psychic attack.”
“He’s in a coma?” Chilla repeated, frowning. Although she was none too happy with Psiarik at the moment, she did not actually wish to see any harm befall him, if for no other reason than she knew how much he meant to Alluro. Not that Alluro can even be here to see him, thanks to Psiarik’s temper tantrum about Alluro hypnotizing the Thundercat, Chilla thought irritably. This is all that damn Thundercat’s fault, Chilla decided angrily, her and her problems and her ghosts.
Melurne nodded gravely in response to Chilla’s question, unaware of the conflicting flashes of emotion stewing beneath the icewalker’s otherwise calm façade. “At our best estimates, we’ve guessed that a short while before the MoonTower collapsed, he suffered a psychic attack of some sort that has somehow—for lack of a better term—locked up his consciousness,” the neurologist explained. The gathered group of Lunatacs and Mutants exchanged looks before turning their attention back to Melurne for further clarification. “Truth be told, we don’t even know the exact nature of what happened to him yet. Psychic attacks are still a very iffy area in medicine. I was hoping that perhaps some of you would be able to shed some light on what might have happened to him if you saw him before the collapse. Other than that,” he continued, “his physical injuries are not severe. Fortunately neither he nor her highness Selene were harmed badly considering the circumstance.”
“And where is Selene?” Luna asked.
“She’s in the room over there resting. Queen Selene has a few broken ribs, minor
cuts and scrapes, and is rather weakened and dehydrated, but it’s nothing she
won’t recover from in a short while.
Altheus said he would have the bones set and the cuts mended soon, and
after that it will just take time and fluids to get her back to a healthy
state. She did regain consciousness not
long ago, but she’s understandably tired and disoriented,” Melurne told
them. “We’re keeping her under
observation and giving her IV fluids for the time being, just to be on the safe
side. I do ask that you keep your visits
short if you see her, though. Stress in
her condition would be very counterproductive.”
“I want to see her,” Luna informed the doctor, her tone indicating that she would not take “no” for an answer.
“I’ll allow it, provided that you do not stress her,” Melurne reiterated, giving Luna a pointed look. Although that was his first time meeting Luna, others on staff who had met and dealt with the lunar woman before had filled him in on what he might expect dealing with her.
Frostor gave the doctor a nod of agreement. “I understand. Luna, you can come in with me first.”
Luna ignored the ice man, and instead looked over at Chilla. “Are you coming in, Chilla? I assume Selene will want to know how Silvian is doing, and I was told that you’ve been watching him.”
Jackalman’s ears twitched at that statement. “You’re the royal babysitter?” he asked incredulously.
Chilla gave the jackal a disgusted look. “Erissa and Silvian are family to each other and they play together often. When Erissa is occupied, that keeps her happy, especially when her father is missing because her brother is an ass,” she pointed out sharply to the visiting Plundarrian. “Watching two children that play quietly together is simpler than watching one that’s fidgety and upset. I’m sure if you were to ask Slythe, he’d say he kept you and Monkian together in Castle Plundarr for the same reason,” she finished sarcastically, before turning to Luna. “And yes, I’ll go and fill Selene in.”
“Caw, if it’s all the same, I’ll wait here. I don’t like crowds,” Vultureman said.
“So will I,” Jackalman echoed, making a face at Chilla once her back was turned. He rationalized letting her insult slide as the diplomatically sensible thing to do, but the truth was that he could tell from Chilla’s tone that she was edgy and irritable, and he knew from experience that needling an already angry Chilla was a good way to get iced where the sun did not shine, and he had a feeling that she had very little respect for the law of diplomatic immunity, especially being a fringe member of the royalty now herself.
Melurne gestured for Frostor, Luna, Amok, and Chilla to follow him. “All right, that’s about the limit of visitors I would like the Queen having at once anyhow. Come this way.” He led them down to one of the few hospital-like rooms in the military facility’s medical bay and before they entered, he reminded them once again to keep things short and lighthearted. Frostor went in first, followed by Luna and Amok, and Chilla entered last. Melurne quietly closed the door behind them and went down the hall to Psiarik’s room to give the group of them a few minutes alone with Selene.
The exhausted Selene sat up and blinked when she heard the voices and the click of the door, and looked over her group of visitors. “Aunt Luna?” she asked, her voice tired and strained. “Frostor?”
“Yes, we’re here to see you,” Luna answered with a surprisingly genuine smile for her usually sour demeanor. Amok pushed past Chilla and Frostor so that Luna could be right at her younger relation’s bedside.
Frostor smiled at the Queen and stood at the foot of her bed. “You gave us a scare, Selene. What were you thinking, charging into that doomed building like that?”
“I couldn’t just leave Psiarik in there,” she answered, and then looked back and forth over the faces of her visitors. “Where is he?”
“He’s down the hall. He’s a patient here too,” Frostor answered quickly, before either Luna or Chilla could say something blunt that would stress Selene. He did not like keeping the entire truth from her, but he respected the doctor’s orders, and he knew full well how Selene would take the news that her mate was in a coma induced by a psychic attack that they had no idea how to revive him from.
Selene seemed somewhat relieved, but she did not let the subject drop. “Is he all right?”
“Well—” Chilla started to answer, but Luna cut her off.
“Don’t concern yourself with that now. Rest and get well. Your people need you back in charge,” she said, shooting a sidelong glare at Frostor and unable to let the chance to sling a barb at him pass.
Despite being tired, Selene was still able to detect the undercurrent in her visitors’ words. “What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?” she asked, her voice rising mildly.
“Psiarik is under a doctor’s care, Selene,” Frostor assured her. “There’s really nothing more we can tell you right now. We just got here, and we haven’t seen him yet.”
To Frostor’s relief, Chilla broke in with a change of subject. “Silvian will be glad to hear you’re all right. He’s been asking for you, and I was running out of things to tell him that weren’t flat out lies just to make him feel better,” the ice woman informed her. Although Chilla did not have a moral problem with lying when a situation called for it, she saw no purpose in doing so to the children in that situation. Getting the kids’ hopes up with a happy lie would only hurt them twice as much if things did not work out favorably, and she would likely be the one in the unenviable position left to do the explaining—to her own child and to one she would have likely been watching for some time if Silvian’s parents had not been found. “I tried telling that doctor to let me bring him here, but he’s being anal about it, saying that kids have too many germs for his ‘sterile facility’.”
The distraction worked temporarily. “You’ve been caring for him, Chilla?” Selene asked, and then smiled at the icewalker when she nodded affirmatively. “Thank you.”
“No big deal,” Chilla said with a pragmatic shrug.
Since she had no reason to be concerned further about Silvian knowing he was being cared for, Selene immediately went back to the subject that the others were hoping she would stay off of. “So where is Psiarik, anyway? What room is he in? I’d like to go and see him,” she said, struggling to stand. Immediately Frostor took a few steps forward to block her way and gently pushed her back into a resting position.
“Forget it Selene, you can’t get up yet. The doctor said you need rest.”
“I’m fine, Frostor,” Selene argued. “I just want to see him.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Chilla said quietly.
“Why not?” Selene’s voice rose a few notes in clear concern. “I know you aren’t telling me something,” she said, eyeing her visitors worriedly. “How badly is he hurt?”
Frostor sighed inwardly, but kept his tone calm in the hopes of not riling her up further. “We’ll see to it that he’s taken care of. Just rest, Selene. Please.”
“No,” she argued forcefully. “Stop dodging the question and answer me. Now,” she demanded.
Seeing that they were getting nowhere in stalling her, Luna made the executive decision to fill her in. “He’s in a coma, Selene,” the elder lunar woman told the Queen as gently as she could manage. “They haven’t been able to wake him up yet.”
Frostor was not pleased with Luna’s decision and what he considered blatant disregard for the doctor’s orders. “Luna!” the ice general snapped angrily, glaring at the lunar woman sternly.
“She deserves to know the truth,” Luna retorted to the icewalker. “She’s not a fool, and she could see that you were stonewalling her anyway.”
Selene looked from Luna to Frostor, a hurt and upset expression crossing her features. “You weren’t going to tell me?” she said to Frostor, her voice taking on a distressed edge.
“We were going to tell you when we were sure you could handle it,” Frostor clarified. “You’re still recovering from a trauma yourself, and we had orders not to upset you. But some people don’t follow orders very well,” the ice general finished, shooting Luna another disgusted look.
Selene sat up and began to climb out of bed. “Aunt Luna was right to tell me! I need to go and see him.”
Frostor reached to restrain the ailing Queen. “Like hell you do. Get back in bed and rest,” he ordered.
“I’m not a child, and you don’t have the authority to order me around!” Selene snapped at Frostor furiously. “I am the Lunar Queen, and as a royal order I am telling you to get out of my way this instant!”
“Selene, don’t you dare—” Frostor started to argue, but the icewalker was cut off abruptly as Amok grabbed him and restrained him, effectively stopping him from stopping Selene. He whirled around angrily, drawing breath instinctively to ice the brute. “Let go of me!” he warned.
Ignoring Frostor, Luna instead smiled at Selene as the Queen climbed out of bed, disconnected her IV, and started for the door. Chilla stood by and watched the scene dubiously, not sure whether to intervene or not. Selene meanwhile gave her relation a grateful nod. “Thank you, Aunt Luna.”
“Oh, think nothing of it, my dear,” Luna replied, taking smug pleasure in Frostor’s obvious frustration.
Frostor shook his head and growled in aggravation, exhaling an icy frost onto Amok’s hands that distracted the brute enough that he could shake himself free. “Both of you are absolutely impossible!”
Selene ignored Frostor and rushed, stumbling clumsily in her exhausted state, into the hallway. Chilla followed the Lunar Queen, and right at her heels were Luna, Amok, and Frostor. The Governor General paused long enough to hit the button to summon the attending medical staff and then caught up to the others quickly. Selene meanwhile found the room in which Psiarik was resting, pushed the door open, and went inside. When she saw her husband’s unconscious form on the bed, she gasped in shock, and bit back tears of concern. She hurried to his bedside and took his hand in hers. It was warm, but unnervingly still. “Oh no…”
Chilla entered the room first. “This is why they didn’t want to say anything to you,” she told the Queen quietly.
Luna and Amok came in next and stood beside Chilla, while Frostor went over and stood behind Selene. “Selene, please go back to bed,” Frostor requested calmly. “I’m not trying to be heartless or keep you from him, but there’s nothing you can do for him, and it’s not doing you any good to see him like this.”
“I don’t care,” Selene argued. “He needs to know I love him and I’m here for him,” she said, squeezing her husband’s hand tenderly. “Please, wake up,” she murmured sadly, looking down at him.
“Governor General Frostor is right, your highness,” Melurne’s voice interrupted from the doorway. When those in the room turned they saw the neurologist standing there, looking clearly annoyed at how his medical orders had been disregarded, and an equally displeased lunar nurse at his side. “There is nothing you can do for him other than focusing on your own recovery, and being out of bed and off of the IV in your dehydrated state is very counterproductive to that. Please return to your room. You need your rest. I assure you that we will see to it that your husband receives the best care possible.”
“We have the same obligation to you,” the nurse added. “And the best thing you can do right now is go back to bed, Queen Selene.”
Selene shook her head in upset defiance. “How can you expect me to rest knowing he’s like this? I should be with him when he wakes up.” As she made her statement a look passed between the medical staff and Chilla, Luna, and Frostor. “What?” Selene asked. “What else haven’t you told me? He is going to wake up, isn’t he?”
“Please go back to your room, your highness,” Melurne urged the distressed royal.
“Isn’t he?” Selene demanded, a little louder that time.
Frostor sighed. “Selene—”
“Answer me,” Selene pressed, growing more and more agitated that answers were not forthcoming. As a Queen she was not used to being defied, especially by those who she was closest to. “He is going to recover, right?”
Melurne took a deep breath and addressed the distraught Selene. “We—we really can’t say for certain at this point, Queen Selene,” the doctor answered hesitatingly. “His condition is physically stable, but he suffered a psychic attack of some kind before the collapse that we don’t have the means to treat. There’s no physical reason he shouldn’t be awake, or at least be able to be roused into consciousness, right now.”
Selene blinked in horrified shock. “A psychic attack? You mean that WilyKit—Torlei—she did something to his mind?”
The Lunatacs exchanged alarmed glances, and Melurne’s eyes widened in surprise as he regarded Frostor with a puzzled look. “WilyKit the Thundercat Ambassador? She did this to him? I had no idea that Thunderians had such abilities,” he said with a shake of his head. “The only Thunderians documented as having any psi abilities at all are cheetahs, snow leopards, and some strains of lions.”
“I’m just as stunned as you are,” Frostor replied, trying to sort the newest bit of information. “I wasn’t present when Psiarik lost consciousness. Selene was the only witness to those events still in contact with us. The other two—WilyKat and Leonora, are both Thunderians, and they’re on their way back to New Thundera right now, to stop WilyKit and Mumm-Ra,” the icewalker explained. “Mumm-Ra and WilyKit were the ones who destroyed the MoonTower.”
“It wasn’t WilyKit helping him, at least not in spirit,” Selene clarified, the stress of the situation showing on her tired features. “It was Torlei, possessing WilyKit’s body. She and Mumm-Ra were the ghosts that did all of those awful things to us before they brought the Tower down.”
“Shit, that explains a lot,” Chilla muttered. Those remaining after the MoonTower’s collapse had already realized that Mumm-Ra was behind the ghostly phenomena they had experienced prior to the MoonTower’s destruction, but the twist of Torlei’s involvement in possessing WilyKit was news to them. They had simply assumed that WilyKit had lost her mind or that some other ghost of Mumm-Ra’s was influencing her. Last they had seen Torlei, she had been an ever-living with a body, not a ghost, and they had hoped she at least had been destroyed at the Battle of the Swords if Mumm-Ra was not.
Luna sighed and shook her head in disgust. “My sentiments exactly, Chilla. Things make a lot more sense now.”
Melurne meanwhile frowned curiously. “Wait a moment. Are you telling me that it was a Lunatac spirit possessing a Thundercat that did this to the Queen’s husband?”
“Yes, that about sums it up,” Frostor said matter-of-factly.
The lunar neurologist closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, stumped. “Well that one sure isn’t in any medical journals. Psychic attacks are hard enough to counteract, and treatments have a dismally low success rate. The best hope for a psychic attack victim is to have a psi skilled in the same discipline and ideally one familiar with the methods of the attacker himself—or herself as the case may be—attempt to reverse it.”
“Torlei’s powers are amplified by black magic, doctor,” Luna informed Melurne. “She channels dark power directly from the Ancient Spirits of Evil themselves. Good luck finding a telekinetic who can match that qualification.”
Melurne sighed. “In that case there are only a couple of options for him.”
“What are they?” Selene asked.
“Firstly, we can try to find a telekinetic or at least a skilled psi familiar with this Torlei individual’s work.”
“What about Alluro?” Luna said. “He might be a hypnotist, but loath as I am to give that arrogant fool any credit, he is superbly skilled at his art.”
“Yes, WilyKit can attest to that,” Frostor muttered, although it was not with any real malice. Unlike Psiarik, he did not fully blame the hypnotist for what had happened, although he did think that Alluro and Darkail’s mind block certainly had not helped matters.
Chilla’s face darkened slightly at Frostor’s remark about Alluro, but she chose not to dignify it with a response and instead offered her opinion to Luna, Selene, and the neurologist. “Alluro and Torlei were very close when she was alive, and they worked as a team for years, from the time they were children. No one probably knew her better than he did.”
“But like Aunt Luna said, her powers have been changed since those days by her pact with the Ancient Spirits of Evil,” Selene said glumly. “And Alluro obviously isn’t here—he never came back after the collapse, did he?”
Frostor frowned. “No.”
“Having an outstanding warrant for his arrest might have something to do with that,” Chilla pointed out icily.
Selene raised an eyebrow. “It’s been a couple of days. The royal guard hasn’t found him?”
Luna offered her relation a wan smile. “Selene dear, you’re talking about someone who has several years’ experience at evading law enforcement figures and who had high enough military clearance to know pretty much all of the codes and strategies used by the royal guard. I could evade them easily if I so chose.”
“Somehow I don’t think stealth comes naturally to you, Luna,” Frostor remarked, eliciting a brief but knowing look of amusement from Chilla as well.
Selene squeezed Psiarik’s still hand again. “Well, we should leave the warrant out for his arrest just to get him back here so that he can try. But in the meantime, what are our other options?” she asked Melurne.
The lunar neurologist eyed the Queen evenly. “Send a prayer to the Moon gods that your husband finds the inner strength to counteract whatever his attacker has done to him on his own.”
Selene gasped and choked back a sob. “No! That can’t be it!”
“I’m deeply sorry to be the bearer of such grim news, your highness, but that is the truth of the situation,” Melurne informed her regretfully.
“No!” she argued, her voice rising significantly. “You doctors are supposed to be experts in these things, and you’re telling me all you can do is sit around and wait?”
Luna frowned in concern when she saw how agitated the younger lunar woman was getting. While Luna had felt that Selene had a right to know the truth about Psiarik’s condition, she had no desire to see her collapse in stress or exhaustion. “Selene, calm down.”
Much like her elder relation, Selene was not one to listen when she was upset, and she ignored Luna to continue arguing with Melurne. “You must be able to do something!”
“We are doing all we can for him, I assure you,” Melurne replied, eyeing the distraught Lunar Queen with concern for her own well-being. “Please calm down and return to your room, your highness. You can not stress yourself this way in your condition.”
Selene drew herself to her full height—more intimidating to the doctor, also being a petite lunar than to anyone else in the room—and faced him defiantly. “This is my husband on this bed here, and I will not calm down until you tell me that you will find a way to wake him other than to sit around and wait. I want tests run, experts from Mirindet brought in, whatever it takes—just do it!” she shrieked hysterically.
“Selene, calm down. Please,” Frostor interrupted, noticing that Selene was stumbling and gripping the rail of the bed for support as she yelled, indicating that whatever strength she had regained was rapidly being used up in her tirade in her exhausted state.
“No, you have to do something, you have to,” she argued, her voice beginning to choke up and her eyes welling up with emotional tears.
Melurne took a few steps toward the Queen, also taking note of how the stress was affecting her, and regretting letting any of the royal family in to see her if that was the effect they would have on her recovery. “Your highness, I promise that we have been doing and will continue to do everything in our power to ensure Psiarik’s recovery. But this has gone on long enough. As your doctor I must insist that you return to bed right now.”
Selene grasped Psiarik’s limp hand once gain. “No. I won’t give up on him even if you do,” she snapped.
“That was not a suggestion, your highness, it was a doctor’s order.” Melurne’s voice was stern as he addressed her. “Either you return to your room right now, or the nurse and I will sedate you and take you there ourselves. You are not acting rational, and you are endangering your health.” The nurse beside him took the cue from her supervisor and retrieved a syringe from the medical cart in the room, and drew a dosage from one of the vials.
“Please be reasonable and listen to the doctor,” Frostor told Selene.
Instead Selene glared back defiantly at Melurne. “I’m not going anywhere. I am the Lunar Queen, in case you have forgotten, and I insist that you leave right now!”
Melurne sighed. “All right, have it your way then. Nurse?” The doctor then reached forward and grabbed Selene’s arm. The slight Lunatac struggled in his grasp, yelling and protesting, but he was stronger than she was, especially in her weakened state.
Luna prodded Amok to move forward, but a sharp glare from Frostor made her reconsider, and Luna stopped her mount before he intervened. She hated seeing Selene treated like that, but realized it was best not to interfere when she took an objective look at how weak Selene truly was in her recovering state. The nurse meanwhile dutifully took hold of Selene’s arm and injected her with the sedative. She and the doctor pulled the hysterical Selene away from Psiarik and out into the hallway. Luna tapped Amok and then had him follow. The elder lunar woman figured that she could perhaps talk some reason to Selene and calm her down before she passed out. Of anyone present, she supposed Selene would be most likely to listen to her.
Once Selene, Luna, Amok, and the medical staff were gone, Frostor collapsed into a chair beside Psiarik’s bed and rested his face in hands. “Great Moon gods, this is such a damned mess.”
Chilla cast a glance at the door for a moment before looking back to Frostor. “She was being irrational. She’ll be better after she rests,” the ice woman stated. “Seeing Psiarik like this after everything that happened, it’s not surprising that she lost it.”
“I know,” Frostor said with a sigh. “And to top it all off, she’s probably going to give me an earful when she does wake up. Did you see the look on her face when they took her out of here?”
“She’ll get over it,” Chilla replied. “Luna will talk to her.”
Frostor let out a short, bitter laugh at that. “That’s what I’m afraid of. She’ll just rile her up more, and I’m not exactly high on Luna’s list of favorite people right now. I ought to go the extra mile and bar Luna from the medical facility, but I don’t want all my guardsmen to quit on me when they get posted on anti-Luna duty.”
Chilla raised an eyebrow. “I thought you and Luna were pretty close. Is she still mad about you barring her from the search of the Tower wreck?”
“I’ll say,” Frostor answered. “Despite all the yelling you were witness to, she’s ‘not speaking to me’ at the moment.”
Chilla snickered knowingly. “I’m impressed. You must have really pissed her off if she’s not even willing to bitch at you.”
“I guess I should be thankful for that.”
“Definitely,” the ice woman replied. Chilla and Frostor both shared a smile at the sentiment before the serious mood settled over the pair of them once again. “You look tired,” she said eventually to break the silence.
“I am,” Frostor admitted. “I haven’t really slept more than an hour straight since the night before the wreck.” The ice general rubbed his eyes for a moment, and then glanced up at Chilla. “You look rather worn yourself.”
Chilla shook her head. “I’m fine,” she said automatically, although the truth of it was that she felt exhausted, worried, and a shade lonely without Alluro and no idea of when he would return. She did not take his absence personally—she would have done the same thing had their roles been reversed—but she highly resented the situation. However, she had no desire to talk about that with Frostor or anyone else, so she kept up an impassive front as best she could. It was difficult enough with her child frequently asking her where her father was and when he would return, and having to think up answers to placate the girl. Chilla certainly had no desire to get into the discussion with any of the adults. “But maybe we could both use some sleep,” she added after a moment.
“Maybe so,” Frostor agreed, standing up and starting for the door. “You’re staying in the west quarters, right Chilla? I can’t recall exactly where they put everyone since—”
“West quarters, third floor,” Chilla confirmed. “They said it was an officer’s suite, but I was given it since it had two rooms and a bath. They put the kids in one and me in the other. Watching the Prince has its perks, I guess. What about you?”
“I’ve always had my own quarters in this place but I haven’t needed them much except for military business that required an overnight stay. I suppose it’s home for now though, at least until the MoonTower is reconstructed. However long that might take,” he finished with a tired sigh.
“Damn that Thundercat,” Chilla muttered darkly as they made their way down the hallway together. “I hate her.”
“That was your old friend Torlei responsible for that, not WilyKit,” Frostor pointed out.
“Torlei is no friend of mine,” Chilla corrected the Governor General in an icy tone. “At best she was once an ally, and even that was years ago, before her death—the first one, anyway. Besides, WilyKit was the one who came here and brought Mumm-Ra along with her. We were all just fine until she showed up and turned our lives upside down with her ghosts and her problems and her memory loss.”
“A memory loss that wouldn’t exist if Alluro hadn’t placed a mind block at Darkail’s request,” Frostor clarified.
Chilla’s eyes flashed with anger when Frostor broached the touchy subject. “Leave Alluro out of this, and don’t you dare defend that Thundercat to me. I don’t want to hear it.”
The ice general looked away, preferring to avoid getting into yet another argument. After the earlier exchanges with Luna and Selene, he was already at his wit’s end. “I’m not defending anyone, Chilla. I’m stating fact.”
“Then keep your facts to yourself,” Chilla snapped. “Because the only fact I see at this point is the fact that my home, your home, the place we all called home is sitting in a pile of rubble, and I have to sleep in a strange bed in a noisy and unfamiliar place while my lover and the father of my child is out gods know where and out of touch because of that stupid, inbred Thunderian bitch!” she finished, her tone venomous and her eyes flashing with barely controlled anger.
The sound of someone clearing his throat behind the pair of icewalkers came as a welcome interruption, at least to Frostor. Both turned around and saw a uniformed royal guardsman standing a few feet behind them. “Yes?” Frostor inquired.
The guardsman gave a polite salute. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but—”
“Oh believe me, no apology is needed,” Frostor informed him.
The guardsman cast a wary glance at Chilla, and then continued to address the Governor General. “I came to report that Lord Alluro and Chief Ambassador Darkail have been taken into custody. They came here and willingly surrendered.”
“What? Alluro’s here?” Chilla asked, both surprised and relieved at the same time.
“When did this happen?” Frostor demanded of the guardsman.
“They showed up about fifteen minutes ago, on the ship that Lord Alluro took with him the night he left. They came back to the MoonTower, only to find—well…”
“To find it destroyed by that Thundercat and Mumm-Ra,” Chilla finished for the soldier.
“By Torlei and Mumm-Ra, but let’s not nit-pick,” Frostor corrected the ice woman without taking his eyes off of the guardsman. “What happened? Did they turn themselves in at the wreckage?”
The guardsman shook his head. “Not exactly. They opened up all channels and requested information as soon as they saw what was left of the MoonTower. We sent an armed ship to greet them and told them if they came into custody quietly, there wouldn’t be a scene, out of respect to their titles. They asked a lot of questions but we didn’t tell them anything because we wanted to wait for your orders, sir, being that you’re still technically acting ruler with her highness Selene in intensive care and Psiarik comatose—and he was the one who ordered their capture to begin with, right sir?”
Frostor nodded affirmatively. “Yes. I’ll handle them from here. Take me to where they’re being held immediately.”
“I’m going with you,” Chilla told Frostor with a look that said clearly that she would hear no argument otherwise.
“Fine,” Frostor agreed. The guardsman acknowledged him with a brief nod and started down the hallway. Frostor and Chilla followed closely behind.
Less than five minutes later they arrived at a steel security door leading to a large room located centrally on the first floor of the complex. The door was guarded by two armed royal guardsmen, who stepped aside and keyed in the clearance code when they saw Frostor. They were surprised to see a civilian with the Governor General, but they did not question it, since questioning a superior officer was something that was simply not done in the Lunar Plundarrian military. The door slid open and the two guards allowed Frostor and Chilla to enter, and then closed the door right behind them.
Seated in metal folding chairs inside the highly guarded room were the rather irritated Alluro and Darkail. Both the psi and the hunter looked up when Frostor and Chilla entered, and despite the unpleasant circumstances, Alluro’s features softened to a relieved smile when his eyes met Chilla’s. He immediately stood and walked toward her, and when she met him halfway there, he pulled her into an embrace. Alluro was also relieved to see that the bruises Chilla had taken in the scuffle with the ghosts were healing well enough and she did not appear to be hurting from them any longer.
Darkail also stood up when Frostor and Chilla came in, but the Chief Ambassador did so slowly and deliberately, and he eyed Frostor with an intense, but surprisingly calm look. “Glad to see you, Frostor,” he stated, and then took a few steps forward. “I wasn’t sure your people were going to actually honor our request to talk with someone of importance, with us being two of the Third Moon’s Most Wanted after all,” he said with a frown. “I had hoped that Selene and Psiarik—especially since he issued the warrant for our arrest—would be here themselves, but you’ll do.”
“You asked for who was in charge, so here I am,” Frostor replied evenly.
“Frostor, you know as well as I do that Alluro and I didn’t break any laws,” Darkail continued. “To my knowledge it’s not illegal to put a mind block on someone unless it’s against his or her will. That was not the case with WilyKit. She not only gave permission, but specifically requested that it be done. How does that get turned into—what was the trumped-up charge again—criminal mischief and endangering a diplomatic mission?”
Alluro lifted his gaze from Chilla briefly to address Frostor as well. “And when you’re finished answering that, you can tell me why Psiarik isn’t the one here explaining just that.”
“And what in the Moon gods’ name happened to the MoonTower?” Darkail added. “Your men said something about Mumm-Ra destroying it? How is that even possible if he’s been banished to another dimension?”
Frostor held up his hand. “If you’ll let me get a word in, I’ll fill you in,” he replied. Both Darkail and Alluro grew quiet and waited for the Governor General’s explanation. “First of all, Alluro, Psiarik didn’t come here to explain the charge he made against you two because he can’t.”
“Why not?” Alluro asked, a note of uneasiness seeping into his voice as he realized the explanation for that was likely tied into the one about the wreckage of his former home and the mention of Mumm-Ra.
“Because he’s downstairs in the medical facility in a deep coma,” Frostor told the psi somberly.
“He’s what?” A mixture of fear, guilt, anger, and worry flashed through Alluro’s eyes all at once.
“He was in the Tower when it came down,” Chilla told Alluro quietly. “So was Selene.”
Frostor acknowledged Chilla with a nod and continued where she left off. “It happened yesterday, the day after you left. They were pulled out of the wreckage earlier today, and they’re lucky to be alive at all.”
“What about Selene? What is her condition?” Darkail questioned.
“She’s all right,” Chilla said. “A little upset after everything that happened, but she’ll be fine.”
“Psiarik on the other hand they’re still not sure about,” Frostor informed Alluro. “Apparently he suffered a psychic attack before he lost consciousness, and the doctors think that’s what’s keeping him comatose.”
“A psychic attack? From Mumm-Ra?” Alluro asked.
“From your sister,” Frostor clarified. “Remember the ghosts that were plaguing WilyKit? They were none other than Torlei and Mumm-Ra, playing a very twisted game with the Thundercat as their pawn. Torlei took over WilyKit’s body and possessed her, according to what Selene told us. Psiarik tried to intervene and she retaliated with the psychic attack that landed him in the coma that he’s in now—and then Mumm-Ra proceeded to knock the Tower down while Selene and Psiarik were still inside.”
Alluro frowned. “That should be impossible,” he said, reeling from the news that not only had Mumm-Ra and Torlei come back from wherever it was they had been banished to, but that they were responsible for destroying his home and his sister responsible for nearly killing his son. “I was sure the ghost bothering WilyKit was—” the psi then cut himself off mid-sentence and clenched his fist in frustration instead. “Damn it,” he cursed under his breath. “How is it possible for Mumm-Ra and my sister to be responsible for this if they were banished at the Battle of the Swords? And where are they now? Were they defeated?”
“We don’t know how they came back,” Chilla said darkly. “And we didn’t fight them. We didn’t have the chance or the means—Mumm-Ra was a giant and was able to knock down the Tower with his bare fists. He left after he destroyed it, saying he was going after the Thundercats next and then the Mutants. WilyKat and the lioness went back to New Thundera to warn their people.”
Alluro gently pulled away from Chilla and took a step toward the door. “I want to see my son, Frostor. Take me to him.”
The ice general nodded to the psi. “That shouldn’t be a problem, considering Selene left the warrant for your arrest outstanding primarily so you could be brought here for that purpose.”
Alluro blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“The doctors on the case think that you, being familiar with Torlei’s powers and style at least during her living years, might be able to reverse the psychic attack she gave him—assuming that Psiarik doesn’t find your presence an added stress,” Frostor explained. “The doctors have said that stress is very counterproductive to them both, and I’m going to ask you to tread lightly so you don’t undermine their efforts.”
A frown flashed across Alluro’s features. “If he’s still angry with me, that’s beyond my control, but I have no intention of stressing him.”
“Yes, and Luna expressed a similar sentiment earlier when we visited Selene—and thanks to her Selene wound up so upset that the doctors had to forcibly sedate her,” Frostor countered. “I’m just advising caution, Alluro. I’m not trying to be a pain in the ass.”
“But you keep managing to do it anyway,” Chilla muttered under her breath at the other icewalker.
The psi narrowed his eyes at the Governor General. “I’d like to think I have a better handle on my people skills than Luna, thank you very much.”
Frostor took a deep breath and conceded to the psi with a nod. “All right, Alluro, come with me. Darkail, I’ll have to ask you to wait here.”
Darkail nodded silently and sat back down in the chair thoughtfully while Alluro and Chilla followed Frostor to the medical facility.
It was a relatively short walk through the complex from the room in which Alluro and Darkail had been held to the medical bay. When they reached Psiarik’s room, Chilla left to retrieve Erissa from the sitter so that Alluro might see her afterward. Alluro meanwhile stood at his unconscious son’s bedside, an unreadable expression on his features. Frostor then went back out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him and leaving Alluro alone in the room with the comatose Psiarik.
“Well I’m here and you haven’t flatlined yet, so I suppose that’s a positive sign,” Alluro greeted him as he regarded the younger psi’s still form. “I knew you had a penchant for melodrama but to throw me out, put out a warrant for my arrest, and then land yourself in a hospital bed by the time I’m arrested and given the runaround by Frostor is a new record,” he said with quiet sarcasm as he pulled up a chair to the side of the bed and sat down.
Alluro then placed a hand on Psiarik’s forehead, in a similar manner to how Psiarik had to WilyKit the night that everything had hit the proverbial fan. “Let’s see what exactly my sister did to you,” the hypnotist murmured, doing his best to focus on the task at hand. Although he was a master at the psi craft of hypnotism, and an element of hypnotic powers involved manipulation of psi empathy to a degree, as a practiced mesmerist Alluro had learned early on to shut out key elements of empathic powers—namely, the ones leaving his own psyche vulnerable to truly feeling the emotion of the others. Hypnotists just had to do enough to sense their subjects’ feelings, and it was counterproductive of them to feel any of the pain or confusion they caused.
Unfortunately that was exactly what Alluro had to do to an extent at that moment, and he did not relish the thought. Firstly, because he knew his son well enough to know that on all but a good day, he was a walking well of repressed emotion, and secondly, if he was successful he was likely to stumble across some unflattering things about himself that he would rather not hear or see given the terms he and his son had been on when last they had spoken.
The elder psi closed his eyes and drew upon his considerable reserve of energy and relaxed his own mental barriers enough to form a basic empathic link. Mentally his psyche reached and searched for that of his unconscious son, but aside from a sharp flash of an angry cry and a flash of psychic pain—residual energy, Alluro would realize when he later withdrew—he felt nothing. No consciousness to answer him, no familiar sense of anything other than a lingering darkness he had come to recognize after two other brief, but unforgettable experiences that he’d had several years ago. Dark, vicious, and spiteful energy laced with the unmistakable mark of black magic. Torlei’s energy.
Not willing to withstand exposure to that any longer, Alluro abruptly pulled his own psyche out of the shell of his son. Once he got his bearings in the physical realm again, he realized that he was trembling slightly, his unguarded emotions overwhelmed by the unpleasant associations that Torlei’s mental signature in close contact dredged up within him. He reinforced his mental shields and stood, narrowing his eyes in silent anger at his lost sister and in sad frustration at the absence of his son’s psyche, which Alluro surmised had been forcibly withdrawn from his body and taken, or been banished, somewhere far beyond his reach.
A telekinetic should not be able to do that, Alluro thought with a fresh stab of outrage. From what he knew of Torlei’s—and by association, all practiced telekinetics’—powers, the complete and utter removal and banishment of a soul was not one of them. They had the ability to shock a victim senseless, and if they had a knack for psychic attacks they could visit a form of mental pain and anguish on the psyche that might tear it from the body in agony for a short time, but nothing as severe as had apparently been done to Psiarik. “Yet another way you were altered by that black magic, it would seem,” Alluro muttered aloud, although he knew Torlei was not there to listen.
He eyed the still form of Psiarik once again. “Wherever she has you, I’m afraid you’re on your own,” he said quietly. “But she will answer for this, one way or another. You have my word on that—whether you believe my word is good for anything or not.”
With that Alluro turned and left the hospital room, unable to stand the silence any longer and his resolve to rectify things strengthened tenfold.
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