Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [209]
There was nothing the emissary could do. Osira'h was the bridge. She had to move swiftly, before he understood his true danger. Seizing his mind, the half-breed girl became a conduit through him to all the hydrogues in the sixty warglobes overhead. She crashed through their individual walls, pooled into their common minds. Osira'h instantly sensed their confusion, heard their demands, even detected a glimmer of fear at their inability to understand the unbreakable bond.
It was exactly what she needed.
Without releasing his daughter's grasp, Jora'h drew her closer to him. More important, Osira'h knew that her mother had arrived as well.
Nira emerged from a hidden side alcove carrying her newly sprouted treeling, its fronds green and golden from the lump of worldtree wood. The moment the female green priest revealed herself, the alien emissary recoiled inside his environment sphere. He struggled desperately to disconnect the mental link, to close the gate that Osira'h had blasted away, but she held his mind fast, refusing to let him go.
With the treeling in one hand, Nira touched her daughter's shoulder and connected through telink. As soon as Osira'h and her mother were united, the telink flooded in. Her parents acted as amplifiers, augmenting Osira'h's power with the thism on one side and telink on the other. Osira'h, the bridge, now became an aqueduct through which the power could stream.
Nira set loose the worldforest mind.
The vast and forceful mind of the verdani--every ancient and knowledgeable tree throughout the widespread worldforest--surged like a locomotive through the new and unorthodox conduit. Osira'h let it all flow. The hydrogues could not stop any of it.
Thousands of years of verdani thoughts, resentment, and horrifying memories spewed into, and overwhelmed, the raw mind of the emissary--and soared through him to the warglobes overhead. It was as if she had planted and then detonated hundreds of explosives within the warglobes.
Together, Osira'h, Jora'h, and Nira moved closer to the containment sphere. Shrieking, spasming, the hydrogue's shape dissolved within his chamber. The feedback hammerblow also destroyed many of the quicksilver creatures aboard the looming warglobes. The hydrogues were components of a shared species like the verdani, like the wentals. If the mental shockwave continued long enough, the force would eat away all of the hydrogues, even the far distant ones. The corrosive thoughts of the trees, their enemies, were poison to them.
The deadly thoughts shot outward, streaming toward the hydrogues overhead. The sixty diamond spheres reeled in the Ildiran sky. Blue lightning weapons discharged erratically, but most of the blasts went wild, firing off into the clouds. With sonic booms from their roaring descent to defend the Prism Palace, Solar Navy warliners plunged toward them--but the warglobes were already dying.
The deep-core aliens chose to sacrifice themselves and break the link, saving the rest of the hydrogues across the Spiral Arm. They forcibly cut the bond with their race rather than let the poisonous thoughts spread. Reeling out of control, warglobes tumbled out of the sky like crystalline asteroids. They bowled through the streets of Mijistra, crashed into the hills, exploded over dwelling complexes. The dying warglobes shattered ornate towers, leveled tall buildings, and killed thousands. Around them, concussions and flames and collapsing buildings created great havoc.
Osira'h could sense many of those deaths through her own partial thism, but she felt the end of the hydrogues more keenly. Tears streamed down the face of the Mage-Imperator as he endured so much death and destruction. But her father knew this also meant the liberation of his people. Osira'h could