Taelin Kaan

Impact
* 1 *
3rd of Mecra
The Year of our Founder 3003
Capitol City, Country of Arana
Fifth Planet around the star Beta Five

Taelin stood with his back to the wall, gun raised and listening intently to the noises of the basement around him. There was the sound of water dripping somewhere, an uneven fan thrum from the old limping air-conditioning unit and random traffic noises from the street above him, but no discernable sound of the intruder.

Silently he leant around the door frame to look into the next room. Through the doorway the room was empty, except for a battered dusty old desk standing in the middle.

“Tae, third floor cleared, over.” Came the tense voice of Hiran over his radio ear piece. Lifting his hand to his ear he pressed the earpiece with one finger, this sent a noise pulse over the radio letting Hiran and the others know that he’d received the message but was currently unable to respond with audio. He stepped carefully into the dusty abandoned room both hands on his revolver ready to fire if this assassin was in the room. He sidestepped slowly, his back touching the wall and made his way around the desk as quietly as possible.

The desk had once been a fairly decent one: long and wide, and made of a nice dark hardwood. Decent that is had it not spent twenty or so years in a dank dirty basement slwqly rotting away. As he rounded the other side of the des, he saw that there was just more clutter and debris; there was no armed intruder hiding behind it or under it.

Stepping quietly back the way he came, towards the door and the hallway outside, he wondered what this assassin was after. It made no sense; they weren’t even a particularly big Rebel Cell group. They had no precious intel or strategic advantage. All of the ex-Agent cell members had been low security rating at A4 and A5, and no one was a particularly high rated Psi either. There was just nothing or no one threatening enough in his small Cell group to be of any use in attacking. Not that that mattered to the twins now. He suppressed a twinge of sadness. At least they’d died together and by the looks of their wounds, thank the Founder, they’d also died quickly and painlessly.

He stepped back into the hallway and walked down towards the far end of it where the final door stood. Once he cleared the last room he could call in the clear sign for the basement and meet the others on the ground floor. The last door led to the generator room. There wasn’t much space to hide in there as the huge generator took up most of the room and what space there was left was filled with clutter. The door was closed and he took a moment to focus himself before reaching for the handle.

The door was silent as it swung open and he waited a moment with his back against the wall near the open doorway listening for any sounds from in the room; there were none. He leant around the doorway to get a quick look inside. To the far left of the room were the boxes of tools and junk piled up against that far wall, the generator covered most of the back wall and centre of the room with huge rusting dripping pipes surrounding it in the ceiling, on the right the far wall was covered in clutter and debris. Before he moved his head back under the cover of the doorframe something moved on the right hand side of the generator behind a large pipe.

The assassin was in the basement, in their generator room. Wonderful, he thought cynically.

“You don’t think hiding in there is going to keep you safe do you? There’s no way out and I can stay here all day.” His voice was calm and far more confident than he felt.

There was a tense silence in the room and he checked his weapon was loaded and ready to fire as he spoke. “Come out assassin with your arms up or I will come in with guns blazing. That generator is not bullet proof it’s ninety percent rust, so don’t think it’ll be any use for cover.”

The tension in the generator room increased but he heard no sounds of movement in the tiny room.
“You’ve got about ten seconds.” He called out as nonchalantly as possible.

The voice that came through the door sounded young and frightened.  “Please, sir, I’m not armed… please don’t shoot me… I fell asleep here.”

One black eyebrow rose distrustfully on his face and he lifted his gun. Keeping as much of his body behind the cover of the door frame Taelin leant around to look into the room. A teenage girl stood in front of the generator with her hands held up at ear-height. She had long black hair tied back loosely and plaited down her back, vivid green eyes looked frightened and uncertain. She didn’t look very old, maybe fifteen, but she was tall and skinny. She didn’t look like she had a gun on her either and the dark pants and long sleeved shirt weren’t baggy enough to conceal a weapon easily. Though, that didn’t mean she wasn’t armed.

He raised his revolver at her as he stepped out of the cover of the door frame. “What’s your name? What are you doing in my basement?”

Her body started to shake slightly in her fear as she stared with wide eyes at the gun. But there was a sense within him that something was wrong; that he mustn’t drop his guard.

“I’m Abi. I just needed somewhere warm to rest… there’s a snow storm coming… I didn’t know it was your basement, I’m sorry, I’ll leave if you like.”
She stepped closer to him, but he stepped quickly back and put the gun in her face.

“Not so quickly, Abi. How old are you?”
“I… I just turned 17 last week… please don’t shoot me… I haven’t stolen anything, I promise.”

Everything about her seemed to be genuine: her body language, the tone of her voice, the fear in her eyes, but… but… there was a deep feeling of distrust in him. He wasn’t about to make a mistake by not listening to that instinct and find himself joining the twins in the afterlife.

Taelin lifted his other hand to the earpiece of his radio. “Hiran, Ana, I’ve found a trespasser in the basement, can you come down to the generator room, ASAP. Over.”  He only took his eyes off her for a moment, but in that moment she stepped up to him and disarmed him with a twist of his wrist. A shot fired near his ear, something hit him hard in the temple and he found himself falling into a stunned greyness.

* 2 *

A loud noise forced his awareness out of the grey fuzz in which he’d been hovering. What does that noise mean? He thought dimly to himself.  That noise is important. But why? He searched in the grey of his mind for what that sound must mean.

Slowly he became aware of his body and that he lay on his back somewhere cold. A second gunshot fired nearby and he felt his body twitch in reaction to the noise. Someone was yelling and he could hear the sounds of feet running away from him. Another gunshot fired further away.

The sound of running footsteps came closer to him and someone yelled. “Tae! Tae! Are you alright?” The voice was near him, it sounded stressed and he tried to answer the voice in the dark fuzziness, but he couldn’t yet.

A cool hand touched his cheek. Through the touch he sensed a string of jumbled thoughts and feelings. Fear, confusion, adrenaline and a sense of desperate concern all of these emotions stabbed at his consciousness painfully.
Is he alive? Her thought cut into his mind sharply and he moved his head away from her hand. Oh, thank the Founder!

“Tae, wake up, come on.”
His eyes opened slowly and he lifted a hand to shield the overhead light from his eyes.  A groan left his lips. “Ouch.”

“Come on, get up, you lazy shit! Get up!”
Firm hands pulled at his arms to get him to stand. He was thankful that now he was conscious enough to block, nothing Telepathic or Empathic leaked from her touch into him. He let her help him to his feet. As he stood unsteadily leaning on a nearby wall, he looked up at her.

“What happened, Hiran?”  Her shoulder-length black hair was loose around her long face and her dark blue eyes looked angry.  Then a sarcastic smirk lifted one corner of her thin lips and eased the anger out of her eyes.
“You found the assassin, Tae, that’s what happened.”  She laughed.  “You’re bloody lucky you’re not dead.”
He nodded slowly with a chuckle.  “Yep.”

Standing fully upright from the wall he motioned her to follow him. “Come on.”
Even though his head throbbed and the edges of his vision were terribly fuzzy he walked steadily past Hiran towards the basement stairwell at the end of the dank hallway. His head would clear he just had to ignore it as best he could until it passed.

A thought struck him and he turned to look at her again: “Ana, where is Ana?”
“She followed the assassin upstairs.”
Tae ran to the base of the stairs and Hiran kept pace with him.  They alighted the stairs at the same time hurrying up to the ground floor.

“Ana, come in Ana.  Do you read me?”  There was no response in his earpiece.

“What are we going to do, Tae?”  Hiran’s voice was tense.
He turned his head to look at his second in command. “One thing at a time.”

At the top of the stairs in front of the stairwell door was a small pool of blood. Tae stopped and looked sideways at Hiran.  He put his finger to his lips then pointed at the blood on the floor.

“Gun?” He whispered lowly. She handed him a small revolver and a handful of bullets from a pocket in her jeans. He continued whispering quietly as he reloaded the gun. “Go upstairs, tell Nala to take the children down the back fire-escape and get to Kala and Nama’s base. After they’re out, get back down here.”

Hiran nodded then made her way around him to continue upstairs. He dropped the remaining bullets he held into a jacket pocket and waited for Hiran to be out of view of the door.

One hand on the door handle he took a deep breath then half opened the heavy metal door. With his gun aimed out he looked down the ground-floor hallway towards the main entrance. There seemed to be no alien sounds, although someone’s footsteps or breathing might be covered by the noises from the busy street. None of the office doors were open in that end of the building but near the front door there seemed to be something lying on the faded black and white chequered floor.

He could sense no danger around him; there were none of the normal instinctual signs that he was in any immediate peril.

He turned as he opened the door properly. Stepping out into the hallway with his gun aimed up he checked the other end of the hall. None of those doors were open either; not that they should be (they should actually all be locked).

It seemed quiet.

Down a few meters towards the main door in a white square of the old lino lay another splatter of blood. Walking slowly and quietly towards the blood he listened intently for any sign of the assassin. The old office block was very quiet around him as if it too held its breath.

The blood looked as if it had been dropped by someone running with a line of droplets across the white square of lino. There was more blood further ahead closer to the person lying on the floor. There were still no other sounds in the ground floor as he quietly stepped closer to the unmoving body.

The dim entrance hall was wider than the rest of the hallway and the person lay in the middle of it sprawled on their stomach with a large jacket covering much of their body.

He squatted next to the person and reached down amongst the folds of cloth to find a pulse in their neck. He waited a few moments but it was obvious that whoever they were they were dead. Pulling at the person’s shoulder he turned them over to see their face.

He saw a flash of long golden hair and the side of her face before he realised who it was. Her grey-blue eyes were wide with surprise and her lips were parted slightly; the assassin must have caught her unaware. Ana was dead; the coat had covered the puddle of blood underneath her that was seeping from a gunshot wound to her heart. Whoever this assassin was they were good. Very good. Too good for a seventeen year old girl to have done surely even one who’d grown up in the Agency.

Tae sadly reached down and closed Ana’s eyes. Then he stood lifting his hand up to the radio earpiece. “Ana is dead, I repeat, Ana is dead. Everyone else, check?”

“Braan here, check.” Braan’s voice was very deep over the radio.
“Hiran here, check. The others are safely away, Tae.”
“Good, Hiran. Can everyone get down here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“On my way.”

He waited another moment for the other two adults left in the building to check in. But no radio call came through. “Bez? Ella? Check?”
There was no response and he swore under his breath.

* 3 *

Nala and two of the children were out on the fire escape, Ella had already anticipated the evacuation order and had them half-organized by the time she got up to the third floor. Hiran turned around to take the baby from Ella; Ella smiled at her as she passed the baby over.  Ella had a hard serious face most of the time, but it became gentle when she smiled.  Long strawberry blond hair framed her face and grey-blue eyes sparkled with her smile.

“We’re going down to the weapons store.”  Ella flicked her head to indicate her husband who stood behind her near the door.

Hiran nodded.  “Of course.”  Both Ella and Bez were ex-A3 Taskforce; they were probably the best of the group to guard their weapons.

She turned again to Nala as she handed the baby to her.  “Here, take Heth.”

Nala pulled a funny face at the baby as she took him from Hiran.  The baby giggled at his new best friend and wriggled his little legs in his innocent happiness.  Hiran couldn’t help but smile at the little one.

“Ana is dead, I repeat, Ana is dead.”  Tae’s voice was sad even over the crackly radio.  Her face dropped as did Nala’s.  “Everyone else, check?”
Hiran leant over to close the window.  “Go!”

Nala nodded at her through the window, her dark brown eyes tense for a moment and then she started down the narrow fire escape stairs with the children.

“Braan here, check.”  Braan’s very deep voice came over the radio in her ear.
She touched the radio with one finger.  “Hiran here, check. The others are safely away, Tae.”
She turned away from the window and towards the door out of the flat.

“Good, Hiran. Can everyone get down here?”
Hiran pulled out her second gun from the inside of her coat and made sure it was loaded.
“Yes, sir.”  Answered Braan, his voice calm and firm.
Swapping hands with her gun, she touched the radio again.  “On my way.”

A noise sounded from somewhere in the building, it was too quiet for her to identify it specifically and she stopped in the doorway to listen.  Another noise sounded and she realized it was a silenced shot.

“Bez? Ella? Check?”

“Tae, shot’s fired, I’m en-route.”  Closing the door behind her, she ran out into the hallway towards the stairwell.
“Where?”  Tae’s voice was flat.
“I’m not sure, second floor?”
“On my way.”

Hiran pushed open the heavy stairwell doors and jogged down the stairs.  As she got to the second story stairwell door another shot fired somewhere below her.

She touched her earpiece again.  “Tae?  Did you hear that one?”
“Yes.  It sounded like it was just above me.  I’m going to investigate.”
“Copy.”  Using her shoulder she pushed through the large metal fire-proof doors into the second story hallway.

The hallway was dark and dingy, most of that level was dangerous and had been locked up, but one small section was safe enough to walk around in.  In that small section was where they slept and lived, in one corner of the living space a big old bank vault had been installed in the wall and in this (once they’d cracked it open and changed the pass code) they stored all of their spare weapons and ammo.

She looked down the dingy hallway towards the door to their living space.  Lifting her gun up, Hiran moved slowly down towards it.  Someone lay in front of the door but in the dim light she couldn’t see who it was.  It could be this intruder laying a trap.  Cautiously, she stepped closer to them, there was no movement and no other sounds.  The body was facing her direction with its face down as if they’d been running out of the door when they fell.

Coming up next to the body she crouched down carefully to check them.  There was a very definite gunshot wound to the middle of their back and no pulse.  Already knowing who it probably was she pushed his long black hair away from his face.  Hiran sighed as she stood up.

“Tae, I’ve just found Bez, level 2 apartment.”
“Copy, be there in a minute.”

This is getting grimmer by the second. She thought fearfully.

Her heart was already racing but it increased in her fearful thoughts; this intruder could be in the next room.  Pausing, she took a moment to calm the rising panic in her.  She’d done some combat training and was a fairly good shot with a handgun but that training would be useless against someone who was a trained assassin.  In the Agency she’d been a computer technician, which meant totally non-combat.  Bez had trained from the age of twelve as a taskforce member, he was one of the most combat-oriented members of their Cell and here he was, dead.  She swallowed and put her shoulders back.  Panicking about it would not bring Bez back or give her a better shot at surviving this.  She would just simply have to remain calm and aware and hope for the best.

Hiran lifted her gun again and went to the door of their living space.  The old battered wooden door was slightly ajar and she looked through the narrow gap.  On the other side, lying within a meter of the doorway was another body.  She put one hand on the door and took a deep breath before she pushed it open.

Her gun followed her eyes as she looked quickly around the large space that served as their lounge room.  To the left stood the open kitchenthe door leading from it to the children’s bedrooms was closed, in front of the breakfast bar a two seat-couch sat.  Her eyes followed around from left to right over the couches along the walls past the closed door to the second area of bedrooms, more couches with children’s toys scattered over the floor in front of them and to the far right the final doorway that lead to the bathrooms and the last of the bedrooms.  All doors were closed and she could see or hear no intruder.

Stepping closer to the body she knelt down.  Ella lay on her back with a surprised look on her pale face and a tidy round bullet wound in the exact center of her forehead.

* 4 *

“Bez? Ella? Check?” Tae dropped his hand from the earpiece and gripped the gun tighter. This was not good. Three people killed in a matter of minutes and now Bez and Ella were missing.

A slight draft blew in under the closed entrance door up into his face and he looked cautiously around him. Except for the blood trail leading to Ana there were no more clues as to which way the assassin went.

“Tae, shot’s fired, I’m en-route.”  Hiran’s voice sounded tense.
He touched the earpiece again. “Where?”
“I’m not sure, second floor?”

“On my way.” He gripped the gun with both hands and headed quietly back down the main hallway to the stairwell door. It was very quiet around him. He wondered how this assassin got from the ground floor to the second floor so quickly without using the stairwell.

Pulling the heavy metal door open he entered the stairwell. But before he even got to the first step a single muffled shot reverberated down the stairwell towards him. It was so close it had to have been inside the stairwell and probably immediately above him.

“Tae?  Did you hear that one?”
“Yes.  It sounded like it was just above me.  I’m going to investigate.”
“Copy.”

Tae reached the first floor stairway entrance and nearly stepped in the line of blood droplets at the top of the stairs. The assassin must be injured. Good!

She couldn’t have gone upstairs or Hiran would have heard or seen her, or downstairs otherwise he’d have met up with her. So the assassin must have gone into the first floor hallway.

“Tae, I’ve just found Bez, level 2 apartment.”
He lowered his voice before speaking into the radio. “Copy, be there in a minute.”

He paused only a moment; unsure if he should call Hiran downstairs for back up or not. But, probably against his better judgment he put his shoulder to the door and looked down his gun at one side of the first floor hallway.

The first level was mostly big empty storage rooms some of which on the South side of the building were so water damaged that they were locked up for safety. The hallway ran the length of the building with doors coming off it the whole way along and down the half he was facing he could see that it was clear.

Flaking paint and faded carpet colored the hallway all the way down to a window at the end. Through the window late afternoon light illuminated a patch of faded blue carpet and some of the wall. There were no sounds around him, at least none that he could discern anyway.

Turning and coming out of the cover of the big metal stairwell door he faced the other direction down the hallway. It was clear in that direction, but someone lay on the floor next to the door. He let the door click closed behind him and crouched down next to Braan’s unmoving form to check on him. Braan had been hidden behind the door and lay in an awkward position curled up on his side.

He lifted his hand from Braan’s neck and sighed. And Braan is dead as well. It looked as if Braan had been moved from where he died; it was difficult to fall into that awkward position. He wondered if Braan had been moved by the assassin to cover her retreat.

Hiran’s voice was very stressed on the radio. “Tae, Ella is down as well.”
He made sure his voice was very low when he replied.
“Copy. Level one. Now. Be cautious.”
“On my way.”

Tae gently pulled Braan’s broad form a little further away from the door: he straightened up his legs and arms so that he looked more peaceful. Braan’s square face was completely relaxed and his eyes were closed. Tae could almost believe the older man was sleeping; if it weren’t for the bullet wound in his chest, of course.

He sighed and brushed a hand through his short black hair. This assassin had wiped out six people; two thirds of the adults in his small Rebel cell and in less than an hour. This was terrifying. He’d seen worse in his short time as a cop, but not much worse.

The door near him opened a little and he stood quickly as he aimed his gun. A head popped around the edge of the doorframe and Hiran’s tense oval face came into view. He returned her tense look and lowered his gun.
“Lucky.” He whispered.

Hiran’s deep blue eyes dropped to the ground next to him, and her face fell. She stepped out of the cover of the door and into the long hallway.  “Braan?” She whispered.
He nodded grimly. “I think she’s here on this level. She’ll have to come through here to get out.”
“Unless she’s got wings.” She smirked at him sarcastically. He suppressed a chuckle and looked around them at the quiet hallway.

He pointed at a door at the far end of the hall. “We’ll go one room at a time, we’ll start with the locked ones at this end, and then we’ll make our way up room by room to the rest. Got it?”
She nodded.

They made their way quietly towards the sunny window at the end. The doors to the left and right of the window had been locked the whole time they’d been squatting in the old building; few people knew what was on the other side of them. He hoped that the assassin didn’t have a master key because if she did it would make their search for her much more complicated.

He signaled to Hiran “Are you ready?”  She nodded and replied with the “Ready” signal.
Reaching for the tarnished brass handle Tae turned it slowly and pushed. The door remained closed; it was locked. He suppressed a flare of relief and signaled the next door opposite the first, and she nodded. He carefully turned the handle of the second door. It was locked also.

There were three more doors up the hallway all on one side that should be locked. And, as they made their way up the hall, careful to be quiet, they discovered that all of those doors, thankfully, remained locked.

He and Hiran had gone up the fire escapes two years ago when they’d found the place to look through the windows at those locked sections. What they’d seen was surprising: rotten floorboards, gaping holes that seemed to go all the way from the third floor to the ground floor, exposed wires and other dangerous hazards. It would have been a minefield for them if this assassin had somehow unlocked one of those doors. So he was very relieved that nothing had been unlocked.

Quietly they walked past Braan’s body to the next door; it was one that was not normally locked. It was a large empty room, which had possibly once been a meeting room because the patterned brown carpet was worn down in an oval pattern around an almost untouched center.

He signaled a countdown from three with his fingers and opened the door wide. Hiran was on his left as they entered the room together. She checked left, he checked right.

A silenced gunshot echoed around the huge room and he turned to watch Hiran fall to the ground with a slight choking sound. To his left the assassin stood with a silenced handgun aimed at him.

It was the same girl from the basement. But instead of looking very young and innocent as she had her face and body language were cold and she looked strangely older. The coldness made her green eyes vivid. They stood there guns aimed at each other for a few moments of tense silence.

* 5 *

They both stood with their guns aimed at each other.  Her emerald green gaze was firm and cold, almost confident.  Her upper right arm was bleeding from a bullet wound but there was no shake in her gun hand and it was as if she felt no pain at all.  This was a person who was in complete control of herself.  He felt way out of his depth but kept this feeling out of his body language instead he focused on being confident.  He was an ex-cop; he’d stared down dangerous people before.  This was a piece of piss, easy as pie, all in a days work.  Well, he thought to himself behind the strongest Telepathic shield he could create, at least she has to believe that anyway.

Hiran lay less than a meter from him on the floor but if he looked down to see if she was alive the assassin would surely shoot him.  Instead he stared down his barrel at her.

Aside from those aged eyes her long face looked young; maybe she really was seventeen. He wondered for a moment what kind of monsters could create such a creature.  This young woman should be still at high school worrying about sex and fitting in, instead of being a walking talking embodiment of death.

“My mission is complete, Taelin Kaan.”
Her voice was as icy as her entire demeanor and he tried not to shiver from the strangeness.

Continuing to control his body language, he frowned slightly.   “And?”
“You are not part of my mission, Taelin, otherwise you would be dead.”
“So?”
“Let me pass and you will live.”

He was careful to keep his voice calm and confident least he betrayed the very real fear trying to bubble out of him.  “You have killed everyone and I’m supposed to believe that you won’t kill me if I let you pass?  What do you think I am?  Stupid?”

“You’re not hearing me.  My mission does not include you; neither does it include the healer who escaped down the south-west fire escape or the three children with her.  Unless you make me I will not kill you.  I am simply giving you a chance to live.”

Tae was unsure if this was a trick and realistically could he let someone go who had just killed seven of his friends?  Re-gripping his weapon he shook his head.  “I don’t believe you.”

The moment he said it he felt a terrible pain in his head, as if someone had suddenly thrust a thick rod through his temples and into the center of his brain.  He let out a yell of agony the gun fell from his hands as he involuntarily dropped to his knees.  Reality warped strangely around the edges of his vision but he watched helplessly as the assassin came right up to him and crouched down to look him in the eyes.

“You are a Quad Psi, Taelin Kaan.”  Her physical words echoed Telepathically and cut sharply into his mind.  “If you had trained that Psi you might have had a chance to kill me and save your friends.  Then everyone would be satisfied.”

She walked past him, her strong Telepathic grip still causing reality to blur and shimmer in his sight and he heard her stop behind him.

“You have until dawn before the sweeper team come to confirm my kills.  I suggest you use your Telepath ability to call for help.”

A gun clicked behind him and he heard the muffled shot fire.  Pain permiated suddenly in his leg.  But, thankfully though, his mind let go and he floated back away from the pain into darkness.

—

When he came to it was dark in the room.  He lay on his back.  His head throbbed and one of his legs felt like it had been chopped off: there was an un-ignorable aura of agonizing pain just above his knee and not much sensation below it.  He tried to lift his head off the ground to look around but the world spun around him.  He let out a groan and closing his eyes he let his head rest back down on the matted carpet.

He needed help but he’d always been a touch-only Telepath Psi, at the best of times he couldn’t even get out of a room let alone across six blocks to Nama and Kala’s base.  He turned his head to look around him in the dark room.  Somewhere near him would be Hiran he still didn’t know for certain if she was dead.  He couldn’t see much in the dim light just the outline of the door nearby and the boarded windows on the other side of the room.  It was too dark to see any more than that.

Ignoring the dizzy spinning of the world he sat up on his elbows.  He took a deep breath to prepare for the very certain pain that would come when he tried to move.  When he thought he was ready he attempted to pull himself towards the doorway on his elbows.

The yell of abject pain that came from him was involuntary and he was lying down on the carpet again.  That won’t work. He thought cynically.

Eyes closing slowly Taelin hovered in and out of a hazy pain-induced fuzz.

—-

Something brought him out of it.  He wasn’t sure what it was but he was suddenly awake and listening to the building around him.  There were no sounds to hear but he still listened.

Something rumbled in his mind, he didn’t know what it meant but it rumbled again.  It was almost as if his mind was a still pool of water and someone had just come along and brushed the surface of it.

The strange sensation started again but this time it vibrated with words.  “Taelin!  Where are you?”
He couldn’t believe it: it was a voice, a Telepathic voice and it came from the air; the air relatively near to him.  He tried to reach out to it in his mind but failed.

“He’s got to be here somewhere.” Again he reached, with what arms he didn’t know but this time he felt like he reached the other person’s mind.  The connection was rough and painful but he managed one word before it broke off again:  “Help.”
“He’s here!  This way!  Taelin, we’re coming.”

The mental voice was stronger and sharper and pain shot into his mind.  He called out wordlessly.

“This way!”  Torch light suddenly blinded him.  He covered his eyes with an arm.
“Thank Divinity, Taelin.  I thought we’d never find you.”
He couldn’t see anything with torchlight flashing around him but it was a relief to hear a familiar voice.
“Nala?”
“Yes, hun.  You rest and we’ll get you out of here.”

Hands touched his temples gently and he felt his eyes close.  Reality fell sideways and away from him and he slipped into a peaceful darkness.