Manhunter Revelations (23 page)

It was around four am and Sessa had finally
decided she had consumed as much of me as she could and we had been
sleeping for a little over an hour when there was a knock at my
door. Easing out of the bed quietly so not to wake her I went to
the door and saw out the window that it was Fee. Not having a good
feeling about her showing up I opened the door.

"What's wrong?"

"Tessia and Serona have returned. She want to
see you, Hennings and his staff at noon over at Matriarch Hall"

She didn't say anything about Sessa, so
neither did I. She bid me goodnight and left. I closed the door and
turned towards the bed to see Sessa sitting up. There was a slight
frown on her face.

"It was Fee. Sessa and Serona have returned.
We all have to meet at the Hall at noon.

"Yes I know. I just received her message"

There is was again. The Ladies did have a
method of communications unique to themselves.

"You did. How, when?"

She just tapped her head.

"Come on back to bed. We still have a few
hours to rest before the meeting"

As I climbed back into bed I said, "Rest,
huh?"

She just smiled.

Fee’s conveyed message to meet at the
Matriarch Hall did not have a happy tone to it.

The tone of her message had an urgency to it
that did not inspire good news. Sessa had left an hour before the
meeting. Major Hennings and I arrived together. When we entered,
Serona, Tessia and the four Ladies were already there. The looks on
their faces justified my earlier assumption that the news was bad.
As we entered Serona said,

"Gentlemen, please have a seat"

As we sat, Forne, Danvers, Stallings and
Williams entered and heard the request for all of us to have a
seat. With a look of great dismay Tessia stood and addressed
us.

"We now know what we are up against and to be
honest we do not know if it can be stopped."

Major Hennings, his men and I all looked at
each other, did not say a word. We then looked back at her.

"You all have been briefed to some degree on
Muraii and the fact we live in another dimension. For over thousand
of years, we were convinced that the barrier between the other
dimensions of reality was unbreachable, except the one between
earth and Muraii, and we suspect that barrier is breachable by us
due to some intangible link between the two. All other dimensions
have been unreachable. That is until now or basically some time in
the past."

We all except the Ladies had looks of
confusion on our faces. We had learned from experience though to
listen up and all will be made clear.

"Centuries ago when our dimension was
discovered, and Muraii was still located on earth, the first mages
to go through did so only after having some other mages on the
earth side establish a link to pull them back. We did not know if
the Power existed in that dimension, and if not the mages would not
have been able to transit themselves back to Muraii. To our
surprise, not only did the Power exist in that dimension, it was
actually stronger. Further investigations over the centuries have
convinced us that the Power exist in all dimensions although in
varying degrees. We are now afraid that the creature we have been
battling is from another dimension. Even though we had always
thought that was impossible somehow it has happened. Furthermore
the creature did not come over to this dimension alone"

At this point Serona stood up and spoke.

"We came to Woodspirit some
months ago because we felt what could only be described as great
ripple in the Power that none of us in Muraii have ever felt
before. The effect of the ripple was so great quite frankly it
scared all of us. It felt as if a part of reality was literally
being ripped apart. Nothing like that was ever felt before by any
one in our history. The ripple was felt to be on the earth side of
the barrier, and was located in this area. Since Woodspirit was the
only village located near the effects of the ripple, we set up here
to conduct our investigations. For months now we have not been able
to locate any traces of the ripple. We now know why. It never
crossed our minds that the ripple in the Power might have a
different feel to it. That the ripple we felt was the Power being
used in a way it should
never
be used. Someone or something violated the Power
for a most unsafe purpose.

Someone... Something???

"Hold on. Are you saying the creature we have
been chasing came from another dimension? And more than one at
that. That there are two or more of those creatures out there?"

"Not exactly. Our finest mages have
researched the information Conrad gave us on his encounter with the
creature in the woods. The incident was also reported to us about
its attack in the village a couple of days ago. From all of our
previous encounters with this creature and our inability to track
it, they finally figured out what it was. Testing that theory, they
found enough evidence to confirm it. Two entities came through the
barrier, but one or both of them must be remarkably human looking
and has blended into earth’s society. Something has occurred to
cause one of these entities to be created as this creature. It also
is a process we had believed was impossible. Gentlemen, the
creature we have been hunting is what we would call a Bond Beast.
Tessia will explain"

"Centuries ago we had two extremely powerful
mages born. The truly unique thing about their birth though was the
fact they were twins. Identical twins, a boy and a girl.

Now before you say anything let me explain
about Muriian twins. They are extremely rare. About one twin birth
occurs every ten thousand years or so and they are always an
identical boy and girl. As they grew up and was around twenty-seven
years old, they were both more powerful than some of our most
powerful mages including the Elders. Both became Sakquains. During
a battle with some of the most dangerous of The Xantu, a cliff
collapse badly injured the twin boy mage. His injuries was so
severe that even our healers could not save him. He was expected to
die within days. The twin sister refused to let her brother die.
She went off alone and did what was never done before, and after
the results, we hoped would never be done again. She found a way to
bond her brother's dying life force to hers. This allowed her
brother to draw on her life force and thus heal himself. Now you
must understand that what she did went against the laws of the
Power. These laws are irrefutable, like the laws of physics. What
she did could not be done. It was a violation of nature's law. For
almost two days her brother got better where he was up walking and
talking as if he had not been injured. The healers insisted he
remain in the ward so they could observe his healing progress. The
sister was ordered to attend a council meeting after her brother
had healed enough to be sure he would fully recover. There the
Elders would determine the consequences of what she had done. Well
a few days later while the twins were eating dinner together, they
exploded"

That got our full attention.

"Exploded?"

"Yes, exploded. Violently. The explosion was
so powerful it destroyed the part of the ward they were in. The
explosion also killed nineteen and injured forty-one other
Muraiins. A full investigation by our top mages determined that the
violation of the laws of the Power cannot be broken as they had
been by the sister. The channeling of power back and forth between
the two caused the power to build up in some type of cascading
effect which either one or both of their bodies could not contain,
which caused the explosion. It was also determined by the mages
that the explosion could have been a whole lot worse. If others
attempted the same, the resulting cataclysm could destroy all of
Muraii. A formal declaration of laws concerning the Power was
written as to what could be done and what must never, ever be done
or attempted. A bonding of spirits using the power energies must
never be attempted again by anyone. It appears the laws of Power in
this other dimension is either different, or these two entities
have found someway to alter the Power’s laws and how to use them.
Either way we believe that there is a female out there who has
managed to bond herself to this creature. The ripple we felt in the
Power was the result of their unclean bonding. That is why the
creature has been able to regenerate itself after all the injuries
inflicted on it. We must find her and stop her. The problem with
that is that we do not believe we have enough power to do so"

It was Stallings who asked, "Who? Are you
referring to us or to yourselves"

"I am referring to all of us together. A
person who can accomplish a bonding is powerful beyond imagining.
Even at the height of our civilization, there was only a handful of
mages who could have even attempted a bonding and the probability
was great that they would not have succeeded. Not only have this
female succeeded, but she has been sustaining this bonding for
weeks, if not months. The upside of all of this is we now know what
to look for, and if she uses just a little of her power again we
will have her. What we will be able to do with her after that is
very questionable"

"Do you have any idea who she is, and is she
living here in Woodspirit?"

"No we have not been able to figure out who
she is, but we do believe she is here in Woodspirit. We believe
that is why the creature is drawn here"

I got everyone's attention as I spoke.

"The attacks started a few weeks ago, but the
parties involved may have been here longer. Has anyone new recently
arrived at Woodspirit around the time the ripple was felt or soon
thereafter?"

"No" answered Serona. "The last new arrivals
to Woodspirit was a few years ago and that was due to our active
recruiting of people to a quiet lifestyle"

"If the parties from the other dimension has
been here for some time with nothing unusual happening, then
something must have happened to change their situation. Has anyone
been badly injured in the past few weeks before the attack?"

"We thought of that, but did not find any
records of any serious injury that would require her to do a
bonding" stated Sessa

"Now that we know what we are dealing with,
we do believe we can possibly kill the creature with our abilities,
but only in close proximity to it. Earthly weapons will injure it,
but it will rapidly heal. If you can track and lead us to it, I
believe with our power modulated accordingly, we can kill it. Also
once attacked, we believe the female will react badly to our attack
and she most likely will reveal herself by using her powers. We
would then know who she is and attempt to stop her also"

"Are you able to determine if she is still in
the village right now?

"Yes we believe she is"

"We need to stop all transports and have the
ones en route return here immediately.

We do not want this person to get away. There
will be questions. Tell them there is a

logistics problem at the HQ, which is being
worked on and transport will continue

tomorrow or the day following" stated
Hennings to Danvers

"On it sir. Stallings, Williams with me"
Danvers said as he left the meeting with the two soldiers
following.

"Tessia am I right in that you have no
offensive abilities?"

"That is correct"

"Then the tracking will have to consist of
two Ladies with me, and the rest of you will wait for the female to
reveal itself"

"That is a good plan with one exception"
stated Sessa.

"I will be the only one going with you.
Serona and my Ladies will remain here for the female. As we stated
before we do not know if we have enough combined power to stop
her."

"You all believe her to be that powerful to
stand up against all of you? And you Sessa. Will you be powerful
enough to stop the creature by yourself?"

"We all believe one of us should be enough,
especially now that we know what we are dealing with"

"Can you get additional help from
Muraii?"

"Unfortunately, they are engaged in a battle
with some Xantu at this moment and our resources are thin. We have
lost quite a few people lately, and cannot as yet put our trainees
in the field. However once she is revealed, if she proves to be as
powerful as we suspect and we cannot stop her, The Elders will sent
powerful help immediately"

I didn't say anything, but looked at Sessa
closely. I then glanced at the other Ladies and I could tell they
were all keeping something secret. On a hunch I tested it.

"Okay, what is it. You all are keeping
something from us?"

Hennings and Forne reacted startled, and then
focused on the Ladies.

"Tracker, let us get through this part of the
plan. I promise I will tell you the rest afterwards, but it would
be ill advised to say anything further at this point"

Tessia's look had an almost pleading quality
to it, and I believe a touch of fear. Going on a gut instinct, I
let the matter drop for now.

"Okay, that will do. Do you agree Major?"

Hennings looked at Tessia for a few seconds
before answering.

"The Ladies have been truthful to us so far.
If they want us to wait before telling us more, I can assume it is
for a good reason. I will wait, but I have to tell you all,
withholding any information from your allies is not a good idea. It
doesn't foster trust. I have been instructed to follow your leads
in this, but for the record I don't like putting my men in the line
of fire without knowing all the facts and all the threats."

"I understand Major and I do apologize since
all decisions of actions are from me. Please forgive me, but again
I ask that you, all of you trust me"

The major and Forne looked at Tessia for a
few seconds, and then the major nodded his head.