Chapter 594
The mindlink at full capacity was nothing like I’d expected.
I’d been building toward it for weeks – the spoke system, the anchor channel, the thirty–wolf foundation and I’d thought I understood what the full connection would feel like from the inside. I’d felf thirty wolves through the link and thought I knew the scale of it.
Thirty was not two hundred and fourteen.
The full pack connection arrived like sound arriving after a long silence – not gradually, not building, but present and comprehensive and louder than anything I’d been prepared for. Every wolf in Shadowmere, back in their human forms, rediscovering that the link was active and having significant opinions about this discovery and sharing those opinions at full volume through a channel that had been quiet for three years
Silver said: “Oh.*
*I know, I said.
*They’re very loud,” she said.
“Yes,” I said..
*All of them.” she said.
*Yes, I said.
The link was-
*IT SMELLS, someone said, at a volume that suggested they’d discovered the mindlink’s broadcast capacity and had no concept of modulating it. “WHY DOES IT SMELL LIKE THAT. IT DIDN’T SMELL LIKE THAT BEFORE.*
*That’s Garrett,* someone else said. *Garrett has always smelled distance before.*
- You just couldn’t smell it from this.
*I HAVE BEEN EATING LUNCH WITH GARRETT FOR THREE YEARS,” the first voice said.
*I know,* said the second.
*RIGHT NEXT TO HIM,* said the first.
*Yes,* said the second.
*WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME,* said the first.
*We didn’t have the link, said the second.
*WE COULD HAVE LEFT A NOTE, said the first.
1/4
Sat, Sep 12
Chapter 594
Garrett, somewhere in the group, said: “I can hear this.
KNOW, said the first. “WE ARE AWARE.
A different section of the link: “I can see – why can I see so far. I’m looking at the eastern treeline and I can see individual leaves, I could not see individual leaves this morning.
*The wolf vision is back, someone explained:
“I can see Margo from here,” said the first person. “Margo, can you hear me.*
Margo, from somewhere in the pack: “Yes.”
*I’m waving,” said the first person.
“I see you,” said Margo.
“I’m very far away, said the first person.
“I know,” said Margo.
*This is remarkable,” said the first person.
A third section: “My hands feel different. Is anyone else’s hands feeling different.*
*That’s the strength returning, someone said. “Don’t pick anything up until you recalibrate.*
*I picked something up, said the original voice.
*What, said someone else.
*The bench, they said.
A brief silence.
“The stone bench, they clarified. *From the eastern garden.*
*Put it down,* said multiple people simultaneously.
*I’m trying,” said the original voice. “My hands are not listening.
*PUT IT DOWN.*
*IT’S VERY HEAVY FROM THIS ANGLE—*
The bench, apparently, was put down, because the next update was: *It’s down. It made a sound.*
*What sound,” said someone nervously.
*A significant one,* said the bench person.
*Is the bench broken,* said someone.
ON
19:17 Sat, Sep 12
Chapter 594
“The bench is in two pieces,” said the bench person.
THOSE ARE IVORY’S BENCH-*
CHOSE/
“I know,” said the bench person.
“She’s going to-
*I know,” said the bench person.
*Have you hidden-*
*I’m working on it, said the bench person.
I was standing in the middle of the main pack grounds, returned to human form, with Silver warm and settled in my chest, holding the link with the specific active attention of someone who was responsible for the architecture and was monitoring it the way you monitored something complex and new that was running for the first time at full capacity.
It was running.
Loudly. Chaotically. With significant enthusiasm and a complete absence of volume control from approximately half the pack and a great deal of commentary from the other half.
But it was running.
Kael appeared beside me.
He was back in human form with his clothes, which were wet from the pond, and his expression had the quality of someone who was receiving the full pack link for the first time in three years and was processing the specific experience of two hundred and fourteen people all having feelings simultaneously through a shared connection.
“How are you holding it,” he said.
“It’s—” I started.
*THE MINDLINK IS BACK, someone announced in the link, the specific volume of a person who’d decided everyone needed to know this immediately.
*We know,* said approximately forty people.
*IT’S REALLY BACK.” said the same person.
Yes,* said the forty people.
*I’M TELLING MY WIFE,* said the person.
*Your wife is in the link, said someone.
*MARGARET,* said the person. *MARGARET THE MINDLINK IS BACK.*
*I know,* said Margaret. *I’m in it.*
3/4
Sat, Sep 12
hapter 574
ISN’T IT WONDERFUL, said the person.
wonderful, Margaret confirmed, with the warmth of someone who’d been waiting to receive this specific enthusiasm and was glad it had arrived.
“-a lot,” I finished, to Kael.
“Yes,” he said, with the specific expression of someone who’d lived through three years of the link’s absence and was now experiencing its return at full volume and was locating his feelings about this somewhere between overwhelming and exactly right.
Khris, through the bond, said: “This is home.”
Kael said nothing for a moment.
Then: “Yes,” he said. “It is.*
The commotion started near the southern edge of the main gathering.
I heard it in the link before I heard it physically the specific quality of a concentrated emotional situation developing, the kind that had a shape to it, two distinct threads tangled around each other in the way that feelings tangled when they’d been building toward something and had finally arrived at it.
Then I heard it physically.
-not my fault you-”
-you were the one who-”
“-I said it first-”
-you didn’t say it. you implied it, which is completely different-”
“-implying it was saying it, you just didn’t want to hear it-”
“–because you were saying it WRONG—”
nt toward conflict that was both of needed addressing. We reached the
Kael and I moved toward it at the same time, the instinctive ours by now, the pack’s Alpha and Luna going toward the thing… edge of the crowd that had formed – a loose circle of people watching the specific event of two young men having a significant disagreement in close proximity.