Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“That’s so weird,” she says. “So. Wait. You mean, to the people on this ship, you are that man whose name they said on the ledger? Cactus Capricorn Sconeface? Or whatever? You can make anything be anything?”
Her curiosity is endearing. I will not be able to explain my ways in their entirety to her, but there are things she will understand.
“I can shift reality a little bit,” I say “When we are young, we practice on small things, little glitches. Duplicating washcloths, or making socks disappear. Then, as we get older, we start to be able to make bigger changes. The ship has a berth for us, because I decided it did.”
“Wow, so you’re like a space genie,” she breathes. “You can make anything into anything else.”
“I can do some limited things,” I tell her. “I know to you it seems like a sort of magic, but it is a power that can only go so far. The same way you can run, but only run for so long, I can alter reality, but not forever, and not always.”
She nods. “Okay, I get it. I think. Maybe. So this ship, it didn’t have this room until you wanted it to have one, and it has a weird name attached because you’re weird, and you kept me because you felt me, and you’re running from people who tried to quantum torture you.”
“Very good, pet,” I praise her. “That’s a very solid interpretation of what I told you.”
“So now what? Are you going to get vengeance on those who captured you?”
“I already have,” I say.
“Oh, my god. Did you kill them all?”
I wish I had, but the truth is that I made my escape and I took it. I have not been able to do anything to the creatures that took me captive. Not yet. That will come once I return to my home realm and consult with Alara. I know my rage is disproportionately affecting what I want to do. The power of a Psyon is considerable, and not to be deployed without thought and consultation.
“I bet you did,” she says. “Look at your claws, and look how big you are, and your teeth. I bet you ripped them apart! Or did you use your Psyon powers? Did you turn them into chickens?”
Clearly she understands some of what I am capable of, but not all of it.
“They are going to be handled,” I assure her.
“You mean they have already been handled at some future time because Psyons can work through time,” she says.
She is grasping these concepts very well. Some of it I have not explained properly as yet, and somehow she seems to understand it all intuitively. We are linked, she and I. When we mated we were connected physically. Our genetic material was blended. I believe that may have had deeper significance than I imagined. I can feel into her mind. I wonder if she can feel into mine in turn.
“Are you going to try to go home?” She asks the question in a way that reveals her own concerns. I can feel the yearning for home in her bones, but I know she cannot risk going back there. She will never return to the colony that sacrificed her. I know that for a fact. But I will not tell her that. She needs to experience events as unfolding, rather than as known quantities.
There is a legend that says one of my kind was once captured and forced to act as a fortune teller to a human king. After just a few weeks of knowing everything, that king went entirely mad. His mind shattered, and never healed. Humans are not supposed to know everything. Their minds require a certain amount of uncertainty the same way their lungs require a certain amount of oxygen.
“Yes,” I say. “I have a job to do. It was interrupted. I will need to speak with, well, I suppose you could call her my boss. She will be wondering where I am.”
Mara cocks her head to the side, even more curiosity flooding her mind. “Why weren’t you rescued?”
“I don’t believe they knew where I was. The facility was shielded in several ways that would have made it very difficult to detect me. Now that I am free, we will soon be in their presence. I will have to be more stern with you there, and you will have to be on your best behavior.”
“Why?”
“Because we are engaged in war,” I say. “There are battles taking place all around us. Most of them will go unnoticed by you. And that’s okay. But I will need you to start obeying me, my little human pet. I do not want you to be hurt.”
“A war with who?”
“There are forces looking to tear apart the universe as we know it. We are fighting them. It is complicated, convoluted, and has been taking place in every corner of reality for as long as existence has undergone the formality of occurring. These fights are happening at all times and in all places.”