Let's Push a Planet! A Scene from Mind Over All

I'm charging (or more realistically, walking) toward the ending of Mind Over All, the third book in the Mind Over trilogy.  Deryl and Tasmae team up to save their world, Kanaan, and the neighboring world, Barin, from crashing into each other.  For millennia, Tasmae's kind have done this by psychically pushing the other planet away, but that won't work this time for reasons you can read in the book.  Instead, Deryl needs to come up with an alternative.  He'll create a way to direct Tasmae's "push" to guide Barin into a stable orbit.

He didn't just think this up.  Tasmae sends out a physic push, which he interrupts, but not soon enough to keep it from damaging Barin if it hits the planet.  He teleports there and in the heat of crisis, comes up with a plan:

It’s not a gravity pulse, the scientific knowledge Deryl had absorbed on Earth told him.  Otherwise, the effect would have been instantaneous.  It’s a force, a targeted force.  Force can be absorbed, deflected, dispersed…

I’ll make this right, Deryl told Alugiac.  Get out of here.

Despite being on his knees and wheezing, Alugiac argued.  What?  What can you do?

The ground shook, nearly knocking Deryl off his feet.  With instincts acquired from his bond with Tasmae, he reached into Barin and drew the energy of the earthquake.  Rather than sending it elsewhere, however, he pulled it into himself.  His muscles shivered, a strangely pleasant sensation.  The ground below him stilled.  He stifled a laugh Alugiac wouldn’t understand.

Alugiac coughed and wheezed.

You can’t help me, Alugiac, and you can’t help them if you die here.  Trust me and get out of here.

When he had left, Deryl pulled off his shirt, wiped his eyes with it, and tied it around his face, covering his nose and mouth.  It didn’t help much, but enough that he could concentrate. 

Five minutes.

Dispersing was not an option; he didn’t even know how he’d do that.  How long had it taken Tasmae to absorb the energy she then sent on a collision course?  He already felt a little shaky just from what he’d pulled—was still pulling, he realized—from Barin.

Four minutes.

Deflect, it is.  And Barin, if you want to survive, you’re helping me.  Deryl called upon Tasmae’s memories and his own experience with Kanaan and opened his mind to Barin. 

Where Kannan had been furious tyranny, Barin was panicked anarchy.  Ironically, Deryl’s confidence rose.  How many years had he dealt with the anarchy of thoughts impressing upon his mind?  The unorganized sensations of a planet struggling not to be torn apart?  Walk in the park.

Deryl braced his feet, splayed his hand palm downward, and sucked the energy from Barin. 

When Deryl had first been learning to control his abilities, particularly to deal with the legion of impressions coming at him from others around him, Joshua had taught him to shield himself from the mental/emotional aspects.  Over the past year, he’d taught himself to filter those aspects out.  It was energy, all energy, pure and neutral, like food once through the digestive tract.  Now, he applied the same skills to Barin, stripping away the pain of the turmoil, taking the energy into himself, storing it, letting it build.  The tremors under his feet stilled.  The waves crashing against the rocks calmed.  The wind that drove the poisonous air against his makeshift mask quieted.

In response, Deryl’s breathing accelerated, his blood raced, his stomach churned.  Adrenalin coursed through him, making him shake.  He ignored it, pulling further on Barin, reaching into the ground, through the air, and to the ley lines that arched weakly overhead.  A detached part of his mind worked physics problems of angles and forces.

Sheilds?  Ha!  The key to his sanity lay in creating shields—barriers against unwanted thoughts and emotions, clumsily erected until Joshua and his neuro linguistic programming style of psychology had taken him at his word that he was truly psychic and helped him create stronger, more clever shields.  Then again, training on Kanaan, training under Salgoud in anticipation of a Barin attack:  manipulating energy to protect himself, then Tasmae, gradually expanding…

He could do this.  It was just a matter of size and energy.

Get Mind Over Mind and Mind Over Psyche on Amazon.

Mind Over Psyche Excerpt: Tasmae Kicks Butt

I was asked by Beth Barany if I had kick-butt heroines in Mind Over Psyche, so I thought I'd share a little about Tasmae, who is the heroine of the trilogy.  Tasmae is immensely powerful, physically and psychically.  She's also way out of her element, half trained in her true Talent and saddled with the responsibility of protecting her entire planet--from another planet.  I don't mean the people; I mean the planet.  How does one woman stop another world from crashing into hers?  Ah, spoilers!  Read the trilogy, lol.  I can tell you she can't do it alone--Deryl, also known as the Ydrel, is going to work with her.  In the meantime, she's also been trained as a warrior, and she's really good at that and a bit vicious, as you can see in this scene.

Tasmae left Joshua and Deryl brooding over the last of their meals. Leinad would not have approved, but he did not know Deryl like she did. She trusted Deryl, as the Miscria had always trusted the Ydrel. Still, it bothered her that Deryl refused to answer her questions until he’d taken care of his friend. In truth, he seemed as confused about his arrival as they were. Perhaps Leinad was right that the answers could only be found in the Remembrance.

She reached out with her senses, determined where Salgoud and Leinad stood conversing, and headed in that direction. The earthquake had stilled under her care, and she thought she had a few days’ respite. If Deryl could advise Salgoud directly on the strategies she had tried to adapt, she could take time to experience the Remembrance. Not that she had a choice, but she would do it on her terms.

She found them, as expected, leaning against a wall in the outer courtyard where many of the warriors busied themselves with sword practice. Salgoud’s eyes were on his troops, taking in flaws of step or swing, noting improvements, but even so, he kept his attention on what Leinad was telling him—about the Ydrel and probably her, no doubt. She did not interrupt. She would know what she needed to know soon enough.

Leinad pinned her with his stare. She felt his urgency, the call of the Remembrance—

And I shall, she agreed. But that is not my only duty now, and I cannot allow it to monopolize me. She shared with him a hint of the obligations pulling on her: the preparations for war, the increased needs of Kanaan, neither of which she could tend to while under the influence of the Remembrance. Add the sudden, mysterious arrival of the Ydrel—

That is why the Remembrance Calls! he protested.

Salgoud, whom they’d included in their conversation, added that Ocapo and his everyn, Spot, understood their roles well enough that they could do without her for much of the training. For whatever reason, the Ydrel is here. Let him teach us directly, Salgoud added.

She projected warmth—how often they thought alike. She told Leinad that she would take time to make the arrangements with Deryl, and then—if Kanaan were still—she would give herself to the memories of Gardianju. She felt his sullen assent, turned to go.

Salgoud pushed her into the middle of a sparring circle. She managed to duck and roll to avoid getting smacked by a practice blade. She came up in a crouch, her short sword out of the scabbard she wore and a dagger from her hairpiece in her other hand. The two sparring warriors hesitated only a moment before turning on her. She ducked below the swing of one, scored on the side of the other, barreled between them, and spun toward Leinad and Salgoud. She swung her sword toward the unarmed Leinad, forcing Salgoud to defend him, while with her other hand, she jabbed her dagger toward the warrior’s gut. He anticipated the move, blocked it, and the two stood, weapons locked, until neither could stand it and both broke into snickers.

Leinad, still flat against the wall, gave them the full brunt of his displeasure.

You know what happens when you bring a Remembrance into a ‘war’ zone; besides, we need to work on your reflexes, she chided lightly as she backed more carefully away from her general and left the practice grounds.

The Ydrel and his friend had had enough privacy, she’d decided. It was time they spoke with her.

Purchase links for Mind Over Psyche: 

Epub: https://www.getonic.com/EmbedStore/76200/1734

Kindle: https://www.getonic.com/EmbedStore/76202/3746

Print: www.amazon.com/Mind-Over-Psyche-Karina-Fabian/dp/1897492685