The Blending 07 - Deceptions, page 16
Those four entities which led the way toward the disturbance among the dwellings were puny indeed, not simply in strength but in arrangement as well. The bonds holding the entities as entities were frail and almost tenuous, weakening the entities to the point of their having no idea how badly they fared. These four were seriously crippled entities, making it no wonder that the Lorand entity and his lesser follower were needed.
The crippled entities reached the scene of disaster a bare moment before the Lorand entity, at which time they all hesitated. Odd-looking flesh forms were moving about among the terrified flesh forms of the dwellings, slowly and calmly ending each dwelling flesh form as it was reached. The odd-looking flesh forms carried long lengths of sharpened metal, and although there were less than two dozen of them, the dwelling flesh forms seemed unable to resist them.
Three of the crippled entities attempted to halt the odd-looking flesh forms, and then the fourth added its own efforts. All, however, were unsuccessful, as each of the odd-looking flesh forms was covered with an aura of protection. It took a moment for the Lorand entity to recall the details surrounding auras of protection, but then the memories were in reach.
A Blending entity with sufficient strength was able to generate an aura of protection about a large number of flesh forms. Once the auras were established, they were sustained by the power of the flesh forms themselves. The strength of the aura reflected the strength of the entity generating it, of course, and could be breached only by an entity of even greater strength.
With these facts in mind, the Lorand entity floated forward and gave the auras his close attention. An entity of great strength had generated these auras, and a brief attempt to negate them showed the Lorand entity that he, himself, had a lesser strength. For that reason he signaled to his associate entity, and the two of them formed echoing boards to increase their strength.
The Lorand entity sent his full power toward his associate entity, which being added its own strength and echoed back what it had received. Each re-echo increased the strength of the sendings, the power flaring back and forth so quickly that it was difficult even for the Lorand entity to follow.
The level of power rose and rose and rose again—and then it was sufficient for the purpose at hand. The auras surrounding the odd-looking flesh forms were breached and banished, leaving those flesh forms susceptible to being taken over. The Lorand entity felt great curiosity about these odd-looking flesh forms, and many questions would be answered when—
The Lorand entity found itself startled when one of the crippled entities flashed over the odd-looking flesh forms and destroyed them completely as it went. Anger followed immediately that a crippled entity should presume so, and then it was Lorand alone back again, and anger had turned to rage.
“You chaos-taken fool, what have you done?” Lorand demanded, turning toward a Satlan Reesh who had also returned and now sat among his Blendingmates looking completely triumphant. “You idiot, you destroyed them all!”
“Of course I destroyed them,” Reesh countered with usual bluster, his satisfaction looking only slightly dented. “In case you’ve forgotten, that’s what we came here to do.”
“How many times do you have to be told that you ask questions first?” Vallant shouted, obviously as furious as Lorand felt. “Endin’ people can always be done later, after you find out whatever you can from them. And since it wasn’t you makin’ it possible to end them, you had no right jumpin’ in like that!”
“And for your information, those people weren’t acting on their own!” Jovvi added to a now-scowling Reesh. “They were under heavy control, and probably had no real idea what they were doing. They were, in effect, innocent, and you murdered them!”
“You lot have a nerve criticizing other people,” Reesh huffed with red-faced anger and embarrassment. “Why didn’t you tell us before that you had another Blending with you? You let us believe you were all alone, and—”
“What can that possibly have to do with your stupidity?” Tamrissa demanded, her anger so great that there was an almost-visible aura of flames about her. “If we hadn’t had an associate Blending with us, we wouldn’t have been able to breach those auras, you incredible fool. And why wouldn’t we have another Blending with us? Do you take us for the same sort of mindless idiot that you are?”
“Please, recriminations now are useless,” Antrie Lorimon said with her own disturbance, her hands held up in front of her. “What’s done is done, so it’s pointless to—”
“No, it is not pointless to weed out incompetents,” Rion interrupted, the coldness in his voice a full match to Tamrissa’s heat. “That fool first hesitated and hung back when you others went forward to attack, and then he jumped in without thought once the invaders were no longer protected. Thanks to him we now have to look for others of the invaders in order to learn anything at all about them.”
“But one thing we know beyond doubt,” Naran said, surprising Lorand to a certain extent. “Your Blendings are too weakly linked to be in the least effective against those people. If we hadn’t been here, you would have been able to do nothing more than stand back and watch your people die. Isn’t that enough to make you think twice about ‘your’ way of doing things?”
Lorand watched all four of the Gracelians—and their Blendingmates—stiffen where they sat, which was a clear enough answer.
“You’re wasting your breath, Naran,” Lorand said, making no effort to hide the disgust in his tone. “They’d rather be crippled than go against their marvelous traditions, so there’s no sense in expecting anything else. I vote that we go home and gather our own people at the border, then take on the invaders once they’re through with these fools. That should give us enough time to—”
“No, you don’t understand, so please don’t abandon us!” Lorimon blurted, her disturbance having increased to the point where it was more than clear. “We aren’t refusing to strengthen our ties to our Blendingmates, we’re trying to say that it simply won’t work. Our Blendingmates have to defend their positions every month, and we ourselves have to defend our places every three months. What’s the sense in strengthening the ties in a Blending that could well have a different composition every few months?”
“There’s no sense in it, which means your arrangement is another thing that has to change,” Jovvi said without hesitation. “Limiting the number of Blendings to fifteen is as foolish as having only one, and mixing talent strength makes it all even worse.”
“If you want just fifteen assembly members, then limit that to the fifteen strongest Blendings,” Tamrissa said while the Gracelians all looked upset again. “If you’d rather not go by strength, then figure out another way to choose the members but do something . The way you do things now is as bad as the way the nobility handled things in our own country, and the only choices you have are change or go under. If you can’t bring yourselves to change, then you’re wasting our time as well as your own.”
“But you don’t understand,” Cleemor Gardan objected, fretfulness coloring his disturbance. “‘Strengthening ties’ might be fine for the others, but I’m a happily married man. My wife doesn’t happen to be part of my Blending, so how am I supposed to explain to her that what I’m doing is for the good of the country? I know how I’d feel hearing that from her, so how can I expect her to—”
“Oh, for goodness sake, grow up!” Tamrissa interrupted with her usual impatience. “If your wife refuses to understand that strengthening ties is for the good of the country, it’s only because she doesn’t want to understand or isn’t capable of seeing the truth. And if you’d had proper Blendings to begin with, you wouldn’t have gone outside them to look for mates. You’re all doing nothing more than making excuses, and I for one am really tired of it.”
“Which is another way of sayin’ put up or shut up,” Vallant concluded while Gardan scowled at Tamrissa. “And don’t try talkin’ about how sensitive your ladies are. Some of our own ladies had less than an easy time of it in the Blendin’ to begin with, but they did what was necessary for the sake of our need. So what’s your final decision?”
“This isn’t something that can be decided after only a moment or two of discussion,” Olskin Dinno put in when the others hesitated visibly. “We’ve done things our own way for centuries, and that can’t be pushed aside by five minutes worth of talk. My associates and I will have to discuss the matter, and then we’ll tell you our decision.”
“You can do your discussin’ when we get back to camp,” Vallant said after exchanging glances with Lorand and the rest. “We’ll give you until tonight, and then we’ll make our own decisions. We still need to find out who these invaders are and what they mean to do—assumin’ we stay here to help. If we don’t, we’ll need the time to assemble our own people against the crossin’ of the border.”
Lorand saw Reesh begin to tremble where he sat, the reaction certainly brought about by the thought of losing the help of those stronger than he. The man was really pitiful, and had no business being in the forefront of a situation like this one. Trust the Gracelians to consider politics before practicality.
They all got to their feet then, and went to see what could be done to help the surviving villagers. Most of the people were hysterical even if they weren’t hurt, and when Vallant was finally able to tell them that they had to get their possessions together and leave, the hysterics started all over again. Even their hosts hadn’t seemed to realize that the invaders would send a stronger contingent when the first never returned, which annoyed Lorand thoroughly. It’s one thing to have no experience with warfare, quite another to be incapable of logical thought.
Once all the wounded were seen to, the “saviors” were able to retrieve their horses and head back to the camp. Some of the villagers were already on the road, and they made no effort to get out of the group’s way. That actually annoyed some of their native “saviors,” causing Lorand to shake his head. This alliance they’d made was getting more interesting by the minute. Maybe they’d get lucky and have the Gracelians tell them to get out and mind their own business …
Antrie Lorimon was exhausted even before they’d finished their evening meal, but lying down to sleep was out of the question. She and the others hadn’t been able to meet and talk earlier because of the large numbers of refugees streaming past and into the camp. Now, thank the Highest Aspect, the refugees were asleep elsewhere and it was possible to think and talk again. Antrie had also wanted to have some private words with Cleemor, but hadn’t been able to manage that either. Now, with the others all gathering around, it simply wasn’t practical …
“You’re all fools for letting the Gandistrans take over like that,” Thrybin Korge sneered as he took his place near the fire. He’d been released to return to his usual self, and Antrie couldn’t help wishing he’d been left under control. “I told you they weren’t just innocent neighbors offering help to allies, and now—”
“Stop wasting our time, Thrybin,” Antrie snapped, all patience gone with her strength. “If you haven’t yet realized that this isn’t the time for ambition, you really are too stupid to survive. And we wouldn’t have survived either if the Gandistrans hadn’t been with us. We might not have died right then, but it would have happened eventually.”
“Those people had no right to speak to me as they did,” Satlan Reesh complained from the place he’d taken near Korge. “All I did was what any of us would have, what all of us should have. It isn’t wrong to destroy your enemies before they destroy you.”
“It is wrong to destroy them before you find out what they know, so close your mouth, Reesh,” Olskin Dinno growled from his own place to Korge’s right. “Our friend Korge has obviously tickled your need for acceptance again, but since he wasn’t there this afternoon his opinions don’t count. And we have more important things to discuss than your stupidities and Korge’s ambitions.”
“I think the first question has to be, Can we believe what the Gandistrans are telling us?” Cleemor said, his manner still as reserved and disturbed as it had been all afternoon. “We all saw how much stronger their Blendings are, but can we believe what they claim the reason for that is?”
“What do you mean, their Blendings?” Korge interrupted to ask, glancing daggers at Reesh before looking around at everyone else. “No one told me they had more than one Blending.”
“Well, they do,” Cleemor answered, faint annoyance now tingeing his tone. “If you hadn’t acted like an idiot and gotten yourself excluded from the foray, you would have found out everything along with the rest of us. There are two of them, both incredibly strong, and it took both of them to breach the protection those invaders had. My Blending felt like a ghost next to theirs, but I’d like an answer to my question.”
“How can we answer your question, except with opinion?” Dinno responded, clearly exasperated. “And my own opinion is that I’m not sure. Our own Blending entities are a good deal older than theirs, but theirs are so much more complete and able. And yet it’s possible that the state comes from something other than what they claim it does.”
“What good would it do them to lie to us?” Antrie asked, catching Dinno’s troubled gaze. “They really do need us to be as strong as possible to save them from having to face the invaders next, but I—just can’t—get around the requirement.”
“Of course you can’t, and you shouldn’t have to,” Cleemor said with heavy concern, reaching over to pat her hand. “When a male High honors a girl from the general population, he’s doing his part to spread his talent as far as possible. Since the same doesn’t hold true for a female High, it makes no sense for her to put herself out. And don’t think that my Blendingmates aren’t as disturbed as I am. A Blending is supposed to require their minds, not their bodies.”
“I told you they were all sluts, and their purpose is obvious,” Korge said with intense distaste. “They want to drag us down to their level, but I for one refuse to be sullied. My Blending is one of the strongest among us, thank you, and that’s quite strong enough for me.”
“But none of this solves our problem,” Antrie pointed out wearily as she accepted a cup of tea from one of the servants. “If we refuse to rearrange our lives the way the Gandistrans are insisting we do, they’ll leave us to face those monsters alone. And we can’t face them alone without being destroyed.”
“We also can’t rearrange things to please the sluts,” Korge stated, obviously having been briefed on this point, at least, by Reesh. “Having an unlimited number of Blendings will destroy our method of governing, not to mention set people to rioting. Who would want to be just one High talent among five? Being the major talent in a Blending is what every High dreams of becoming, and if we try to take that dream away from them …”
“Then they’ll riot, yes, yes, we get the point,” Dinno grumbled with a headshake. “What you can’t seem to get through your head, Korge, is the fact that the people rioting is the least of our concerns. No one can riot if they’re dead, and that’s what they’ll be if we don’t stop those invaders. And we can’t stop them without the help of the Gandistrans.”
“Which we won’t have if we don’t agree to do things their way,” Cleemor said, sounding as though he were ready to explode. “By the Highest Aspect, how did we get cornered in so terrible a place?”
Antrie watched her friend’s torment, knowing exactly what it stemmed from. Tenia Gardan, Cleemor’s wife, was a very beautiful woman who had Cleemor firmly wrapped around her finger. Tenia played the delicate flower for her husband, delighting in every gift he brought her, but Antrie had noticed that those gifts had quickly stopped being the valueless love tokens they’d been at the start. Tenia was now given nothing but expensive gifts, and her delight had grown accordingly.
But Tenia’s delight would disappear completely if Cleemor even thought about lying with the female members of his Blending. The woman would torment Cleemor until his actions became the reason for the end of the world, and it would be the end of his world. Cleemor wasn’t capable of looking at the matter objectively, but he was one of those who had to make a very necessary decision.
Not that the rest of them were any better, Antrie admitted to herself. Thrybin Korge was a narrow-minded bigot with sky-high ambitions, someone who didn’t care who he walked over to get where he wanted to be. He’d never give up the prestige of being a major talent, not under any circumstance. Death held no fear for him in this matter, since death would be preferable to being less than important.
Satlan Reesh was a man composed of fears—fear of not being accepted, fear of not being adequate, fear of looking like a fool or a coward. He would be lost among other High talents, no longer of the least importance even for his ability. And as far as lying with him went, what woman of High talent would want to? His Blendingmates associated with him, but only because they had to. If that requirement disappeared …
Olskin Dinno was a far more complicated man than she’d realized, but Antrie also knew that the man was currently plagued with doubts. He believed in the way Gracely had been doing things for so long, and simply tossing those methods aside could well be beyond him.
And then there was her, Antrie Lorimon. Antrie grimaced inwardly, finding it only just possible to admit to herself that she couldn’t lie with her male Blendingmates. She felt a great deal of closeness to them, of course, but she’d been raised to believe that a woman shared the bed of no man but her husband. How was she supposed to ignore those beliefs? How was she supposed to turn her back on the life she’d lived for so long … ?
“How did we get cornered in so terrible a place?” Dinno suddenly repeated Cleemor’s question, his voice full of bitterness. “We made the mistake of being invaded, that’s how. And now that we have been invaded, we still have to figure out what to do about it.”
