Lupi 08 - Death Magic

weren’t able to read your mind anyway, I’d have no idea what you said. What headache?
    “Have you ever taught anyone?”
    No. I thought it might be interesting. So far it isn’t.
    “You aren’t supposed to tell your students they’re pathetic.” She went on to describe her brief pain-in-the-skull, ending with, “. . . since kinspeech hurt me in sort of the same way, Rule wants to be assured the headache has nothing to do with my mindspeech lessons.”
    Kinspeech is not mindspeech.
    “Sam says they’re related.”
    You’re related to Beelzebub, since you are both mammals, but you are not Beelzebub. If mindspeech could damage you, Sam would have warned me. Find me in the flame.
    When Mika called an end to the session, Lily had found him three times. She lost him again each time, but she was encouraged. She hadn’t been sure how well her practice at finding Sam would translate to finding Mika. Turned out it was pretty much the same . . . a lot like groping in the dark with her hands tied behind her, trying to pick up a feather with her toes. Mostly she failed, but at least now she could tell what the feather felt like if she did come across it.
    And her head didn’t hurt. In spite of her insistence to Rule that her mindspeech lessons weren’t the cause of that brief headache, she was relieved.
    That was more interesting than I’d hoped.
    “Oh?” Lily felt as wrung out as if she’d spent the past hour running.
    Not your mindspeech. That remains pathetic. But human brains are interesting—much more elastic than human minds, fortunately, which I suppose is necessary, given your brief allotment of time. You wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to learn much of anything. Yours is forming new synaptic connections quite rapidly.
    “You’ve been watching my brain?”
    Perceiving is a better descriptive. I am uncommonly good at this.
    “Is this perception like what a physical empath does?”
    Closer to what one of your healers does. I need to observe that. I am not perfectly clear on the time frame, but since it will fall to me to—oh. You don’t know about that yet.
    “About what?”
    If you don’t know, I can’t tell you. There was a broody feel to his thoughts. This splintering of time can be disruptive. I am not accustomed to it.
    Alarmed, she sat up straighter. “What splintering? What are you—does this have anything to do with—”
    The troubles foreseen by your Ruben Brooks? Of course. Oh. You are thinking I meant that time itself splinters. His breath huffed out, hot and smelling of metal and spice, in what might have been amusement. No. I am newly arrived at . . . you lack a referent. It is the time when a dragon begins to grasp threads from not-now. It is a confusing period. Such threads are experienced much like memories, but they arrive tangled and before the events occur. Of course, “before” and “after” are poor constructs for out-time perception, but as usual, your language lacks more precise terms.
    Lily blinked. “Are you talking about precognition?”
    No, I do not manifest those threads the same way Ruben Brooks does. Not that you have the slightest understanding what he does, either, so there is little point in discussing it. You need to bring me your healer. Oh, and someone who is injured, also, so I can observe the process.
    “I don’t happen to have a healer,” Lily said dryly. “You know about Ruben’s—”
    I see. She is Rule Turner’s healer. I will tell him I require her.
    Rule didn’t “have” a healer, either, but he had access to two. Nettie Two Horses was Rule’s niece, Nokolai’s healer, and on the other coast. The Leidolf Rhej was also a healer and was much closer. Leidolf’s Clanhome was in Virginia.
    That one will do. I believe my observation of your brain is helping me untangle your muddy thinking. A definite tinge of satisfaction coated that thought. Why do humans all believe they are their thoughts?
    “I don’t know. You know about Ruben’s visions.”
    Why else would we ally with him? The wolves do not mistake their thinking for their selves, although they err this way when they are men. Li Lei, of course, has the advantage of having been dragon for a time, but I had thought that a human with a true name would know the difference. Yet you do not.
    “Wait. Wait. You’re allied with Ruben?”
    A contemptuous snort. We do not pass on his communications for the pleasure of reading your murky minds. If you could be a bit quicker to learn