Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [116]
"Save Cesca! Help her fight!" Jess said through clenched teeth.
The tainted wental has not propagated inside the worms. As Karla Tamblyn resists us, her control over them weakens.
Jess managed to stretch out a hand, but Karla fought harder, demanding his attention. "Cesca! Keep fighting!" He couldn't break his concentration away.
From somewhere within, Cesca found a focal point, drew upon her own wental energy. She released the power in a dazzling explosion, frying, freezing, and detonating the nematodes swarming around her.
Then she stood free, her dark hair snapping about, her eyes crackling with power not unlike Karla's. Sparkling, she stepped forward, ignoring the torn scraps of dead worms strewn across the ice.
When she grabbed Jess's hand, an increase of power rushed through his head like a torrent of water over a cascade. An incomprehensible sound came from the combined wentals, and something expanded. He and Cesca moved in unison, guided by the forces inside them. Jess felt as if something essential were pouring out of him, something he hadn't even known was there. The wentals drew upon that.
The desiccating cyclone increased around Karla Tamblyn's trapped body. She held up both pale hands, defending herself with bursts of lightning, waves of cold, and geysers of water that spun in a howling storm. She let loose wild destruction in all directions, bursting against anything that could be shattered.
But in a rush the combined wentals began withdrawing the contaminated moisture from Karla. Her waxen skin glistened with droplets that wept from her pores only to be whipped away by wind.
Seeing what was happening, frantic to find another way, Jess tried to hold the wentals back. He wanted to persuade them to save his mother, rather than annihilate her. Previous battles with a tainted wental inside the Klikiss breedex had broken an entire planet, and the possessed Ildiran septar had wrought as much destruction as a full-fledged battlefleet.
The wentals had to contain Karla here, even if it meant the obliteration of Plumas itself.
His mother's ivory-cold body shuddered as more and more of her flesh's water was stolen away and purified by the unified wentals. Jess moaned as the water elementals continued. He couldn't stop them.
Karla's expression changed, softened, became human again, actually . . . maternal. A trick? "Jess--you know what you have to do." She had ceased blasting the grotto around her, stopped her assault on him and Cesca. Instead, his mother seemed to be withdrawing into herself, blocking the tainted wental, lowering its defenses.
She was doing it on purpose. Jess saw it. He knew that this was real, a genuine glimpse of his mother. With the last ghost of her memories, she fought the warped elemental presence. Karla understood the horrific damage she could cause--and refused to continue. Yes, that was his mother. He was sure of it.
But the wentals had told him that was impossible. Jess knew what he saw, looked into the sudden flickering humanness that appeared in tiny static flashes in Karla's eyes. How could the wentals be wrong? And if they were wrong in this, what other errors might they have made? The sudden doubt in his heart seemed as damaging as a tainted wental could be.
And so he drove it away. He had already made his decision. He had thrown his lot in with the water elementals, had accepted the loss of his own humanity to join them and fight their battles with them. He could see the damage this warped life force was causing, and he knew what tainted wentals had done in the past. He knew she had to be stopped. Here.
Without tearing his eyes from his mother, Jess ceased resisting the wentals' efforts from within him. He threw all his energy into the grim task, and drew on everything that Cesca could give him. He could feel the strength of Cesca's human heart as well as the unearthly power inside her.
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