Meet a Mutant Dwarf with Strange Psychic Abilities

This morning, it dawned on me that posting something fresh every day here is really overdoing it. So, as of today, I’m going to try to keep to a Tuesday, Thursday schedule unless I have special announcements I want to share in between. After all, a fifth book is coming . . .

Returning to my character descriptions from The Blind Alien, I thought it time you meet the very unusual Doret Galess, the mutant dwarf initiate “Dream Guesser” of a unique religious school.

For a little set-up, the following scene takes place after Tribe Renbourn has suffered a series of painful trials. After the catastrophe in Bergarten, the Balnakin government openly encouraged its citizens to seek out and kill the alien from Alpha-Earth. They extorted the rights to all of Malcolm Renbourn’s books as partial compensation for the horrible pit that destroyed much of Bergarten. As a result of all this, Dr. Malcolm Renbourn suffered a near fatal heart attack. Tormented for the role she feared she played in all that, Bar Tine Renbourn left the tribe.

So the extremely talkative Helprim Annijol Hod, Malcolm’s heart doctor, thought it wise to bring a spiritual healer to the tribe. Here’s that first encounter where you’ll not only meet Doret but read many insights into Tribe Renbourn as a whole.

Defining a few terms: “Hearthstone” is the name of the Renbourn home and estate. “Sojoa-sheets” are solar panels. “Togs” are clothes and “pravines” are wine-like alcoholic drinks.

While I’m thinking about it, remember The Blind Alien is currently on sale for 99 cents at Amazon. I have no idea how long that will last—

Most of this introduction is in Doret’s voice with a few observations from Alnenia and Lorei Renbourn along the way:

Doret: I met the Renbourns one wet and humid day when I accompanied Annijol Hod on one of her trips to Hearthstone. She had told me much about their situation in her usual style, trying to prepare me for the experience. "You've been seeing them on the news for years," she said, "but films are flimsy Sojoa-sheets into their tribal soul. You have been reading up on their trials? Good. I knew you would. I predict you are in for the challenge of your young career. But I know you, young as you feel, are better equipped than any senior Hollow-Bone at Appool. You are limber enough still to be creative, intuitive, adaptable. This is no test for dry skols and formulaic lists, I promise. Did I tell you, yes, I'm sure I did. Here we are. Open your six senses, Initiate Galess.
You will sense much before you see a face. This will be a true test of your dream-Guessing skills."
Annijol spoke true. But one step out of her trans, I felt the aura-cloud hovering over this place. I looked to the sky and shivered. Before that moment, All I knew of evil was what I had studied — evil comes in currents, vibrations, in parasitic funguses and pollutions that scurry like crabs in sea mud.
I had heard this and read this. But I was young. I had touched or sensed it not in my life. But there it was, unmistakable. Walking to the guest-arch of this gray house, I thought The untrained might have sensed the cloud as an invasion of resentful or angry spirits trapped in this world of matter. But even I knew this was an aura of dead ones not. It was a cloud of psychic despair.
Annijol was in full stride when we reached the door arch and a young woman answered her ring. "Ah Sari, how are things this day? You look not good. Is your face what all in the house wear? I thought so. Come Doret, you are here not a day too soon." I followed Annijol down a short hall and paused in the doorway as she went forward to a dining-table where most of the family sat. I scanned the room, focusing my aura-eye on a thin woman to my left. She was bending over very small children being herded into a room I saw not. She turned in our direction and smiled at me behind a veil of dry tears. I recognized her from the news films. This was Elsbeth. Yes, she was wife and mother and nurturer by birth.
I then looked at the table and scanned the seated group. First was Joline, the sad beauty whose spirit-womb ached. She was with child, but the child was her affliction not. Next to her sat the tight-lipped and determined Alnenia. Yes, she was solid, brash, an anchor. I could see the Husband not through Annijol blocking my vision as she stood by the other woman whose back was to me. From the long brown hair, I presumed she was Lorei. I keenly awaited sensing her presence. One was missing, the Balnakin slave. So I listened and heard Annijol talk, a strange, clear voice in the atmosphere of grief.
"What mean you, gone?" Annijol sat heavily by Lorei and I finally saw the side of the unsighted's face as she turned to speak to Annijol. Oh yes, I sensed her gifts even from this distance. Raw, untrained, unschooled, but unmistakable. A priestess by birth and inclination. I moved forward and stood by Annijol, noticing Elsbeth coming to join her clan. I heard, or rather, heard not, one remarkable occurrence. Annijol was silent.
After a long pause, Annijol collected herself and said, "I sorry. I have no words." Then, she remembered. "Perhaps the friend I told you about arrives on the very day she is most needed." She turned to me and offered me the chair next to her. "This is Doret Galess, a Hollow-Bone from the Appool Ordinum. She is not only trained in spiritual and mental understandings, she was raised in that Seminary from birth. Introduce yourself, Doret. Give these Renbourns something to hear that will distract them from their bad news. I presume you heard. One of their Sisterhood has departed. A spoke of their family wheel is broken."
I looked over the faces and saw Malcolm for the first time. I had to hold back my surprise. His aura was incredibly intense, filled with vibrating colors from the entire spectrum. But there was more. A separate unseen aura was beside him but not in him. His Alpha god? Alien chemistries? It was as if all the auras I had ever sensed had been painted by one artist. A different creator had blended the alien's colors. I sensed that, like Lorei, there was a presence inside him of unique power. But his face told me he was unaware of such presences. Rather, he looked like a man too familiar with cages. He was a mind who had to calculate every thought, each action processed through layers of questions. He was a creature who had lost all instincts. I saw Alnenia
reach over and whisper in his ear. His eyebrows rose. I laughed.
"Alnenia Renbourn," I said, you need not whisper. Immediately I will tell our unsighted company that, yes, I am remarkably short. I expect Joline's legs are taller than I stand. Against most, I stand to the breasts. Still, I am twenty-six years of age. I am short because I was birthed from two parents who participated in an unsanctioned experiment to see if certain chemicals wetted to a fertilized egg might make male offspring more certain. I was the result. A perfect female in all ways. But one who will always wear children's togs. I know not who my parents were. I was a strange creation brought by one Icealt to the school, a little thing apparently no larger than a hand."
I smiled. "Like you, Doctor Renbourn, I am product of strange science. This is one reason Annijol felt I might be of special use here. I am, like you, familiar with being unique."

Alnenia: Looking at Doret that first day, I saw the quiet, certain compassion in her. I drew her story out while the others listened, I know, with only half minds. I intrigued to meet a woman abandoned by her parents at birth to a religious school where she grew up without other children around her. To grow up in prayer-cells and pravine-yards and libraries seemed a sad beginning in life. But I saw no sadness in the short one. She looked complete in herself, a soul with quiet waters in her womb.

Lorei: I gratefulled when Annijol rose and told Malcolm it be time for him to sit in the large-chair so she could examine his chest. As they walked to the other side of the room, Annijol still offering quiet consolations, I turned to Doret and asked, "So what be the help you believe you can offer us?"

Doret: In some moments, I can feel Lorei's strength and it almost drops me to my knees. Perhaps I am too attuned to such waves. Perhaps, no, I certain, that in some moments her Olos-force is beyond anyone I have known. On that first day, I knew the source of her terrible grief and how this shaped her aura. This was a family of extraordinary shared power, tightly inter-woven auras, survivors of incredible adversity. When Annijol had promised me a challenge, she spoke half-truth. This tribe was self-aware, knowledgeable, and so unique I could share not simple consolations. I looked at the man and one list leaped to my mind — "If you can find bearings not, make no short-cuts through the trees. Any explorer knows — return to your starting place instead." But I felt unprepared, unable to reach into my toolbag of skols and phrases and techniques to grab ahold of a starting point. After all, this alien, well, his starting place was another planet. And his starting place on my world had become as cursed a site as any in history. And many placed the curse on his brow.

Beta-Earth website:

https://drwesleybritton.com/

Author contact:

spywise@verizon.net