Gorinthians (13 page)

“
Who are you?” Lendel asked
roughly, “and why are you following my friends?”

“
I might ask the same of
you,” he replied, his voice hard and coarse. Cha’le wondered if
that were his normal voice. “Shouldn’t you children be preparing
for school tomorrow?”

Lendel reddened slightly.
“You haven’t answered my question stranger,” he said in a deadly
quiet voice. “Don’t make me ask again.”

“
Or what?” the stranger
asked contemptuously. “Are you going to skewer me?” he gestured
scornfully at Lendel’s sword.

Cha’le’s thoughts swirled
furiously. The man did not have a weapon but he seemed completely
oblivious to any personal danger. Even if he were a trained
warrior, he would have to pause against an armed swordsman. He must
have some kind of weapon, she thought warily, even if we cannot see
it. Cautiously, she scanned him with her
yar
, looking for the presence of an
object that was not in harmony with his
yar
. Beside her, she felt Li checking
him as well.

Cha’le heard Li gasped in
astonishment, just as she felt her own eyes widen in shock. She
could feel his
yar
, but it seemed to exist only in certain parts of his body, as
if there were gaping holes through him. Anything could be hidden in
what she could not sense.

“
Be careful, Lendel,” she
warned in a low voice. “He is more than what he seems.” She began
dipping her hand into her coat pocket where she carried rootsnare,
a powder that was made from a root that would ensnare a person’s
spirit rather than their physical body, trapping them until their
spirit adapted to the change and overcame it. As far as anyone
knew, the root only grew in the mountains of Chasel Ri’
Aven.

Slowly, Cha’le pulled a
pinch of the powder out of her pocket and concentrated her
yar
on the air around it,
ready to blow it in his face if he appeared to attack.

“
What in the two moons are
you?” Li asked in puzzlement. She did not look at Cha’le, but she
knew that Li was drawing his attention to her so that Cha’le would
have the opportunity to blow the powder on to him. The stranger’s
face darkened at Li’s question and abruptly he was no longer there.
He appeared behind Cha’le with a vice like grip around her wrist
that held the powder and a small knife held to the back of her
ribs. It was impossible that he could have moved that fast. Cha’le
inhaled deeply as the tip of the blade brushed her back rib. The
way that he was holding her meant a sure death if she tried to move
at all.

“
Now,” he said in a quite
growl, “you are going to tell me why you are following Terrance or
I will have to kill you, which I may do anyway depending on your
answer.”

Lendel dropped his sword and
raised his hands in front of him submissively. “Let her go,” he
said, barely keeping the anxiety out of his voice. “Kill me if you
do not like our answers, but let them go.”

“
You have to the count of
three to tell me why you are following Terrance and then I am going
to kill your friend.” He repeated the warning in his soft, growling
voice.

“
He and a gnome came to our
city and left with one of our friends and a teacher,” Li said
hurriedly. “We were going to join them. That is all. I swear it on
the Day of First Dawn.”

The stranger grunted
slightly without changing expression and shoved Cha’le away. The
oath that she had given could not be broken. No one knew why, but
everyone knew the oath the day they learned to talk. A person
trying to break the oath would begin having sporadic convulsions
that lasted for a week. “Did he ask you to follow him?” the
stranger demanded with a piercing look. “Or, was this your own
idea?”

Li opened her mouth, the lie
plain on her face, and Cha’le broke in, “He didn’t ask us to.” She
watched him closely to see what his reaction would be. She had a
feeling that he could hear a lie.

The stranger sighed, “Why
does he always have to complicate things?” he muttered resignedly.
He stepped back looking at them each in turn, his eyes appraising.
His face gave no indication of what he thought, as closed to them
as the rest of him was to the outer world. After a moment of quiet
study, he turned away from them and began walking back toward the
main trail.

“
Follow me, ask no
questions and do as I tell you to do when I tell you to,” he
demanded over his shoulder. “All you need to know is that I can
take you to where Terrance went, something that you will never be
able to do on your own.”

The three Avenry folk stood
looking at each other uncertainly for a few moments before Lendel
shrugged uncomfortably. “At least this way he will be under our eye
instead of sneaking around behind our backs.

Li nodded slowly and turned
toward the main trail. Cha’le grunted sourly without voicing the
obvious fact that having him under their eye had availed them
nothing the first time that he had attacked, but she also began
walking back toward the main trail. The stranger had disappeared
from sight, but Cha’le could feel his disjointed
yar
ahead of them on the
trail.

They continued down the
trail into the morning without any discussion, the three youths
keeping a slight distance between the black-swathed man and
themselves. Cha’le knew that the others probably had the same
questions running through their minds that she did: Is he trying to
harm this Terrance, or is he a friend? Cha’le’s initial impression
was that he wanted to harm them, but he did not kill them when he
had the chance. There was so much that she did not know about the
outside world that she could not make any educated guesses on what
his intentions might be.

As the sun began climbing
high into the sky and bringing them eventually into the afternoon,
the three youths were beginning to wear out. Cha’le wondered if the
black-clothed stranger intended to walk the entire way without
rest. He certainly showed no signs of fatigue that she could see.
He would glance back at them about once every hour, expressionless
and cold, and then continue without looking back until the next
hour came.

After what seemed like ages,
he stopped and told them that they would make camp in a small
clearing that was about fifty feet to the side of the trail.
Cha’le’s legs were shaking with exhaustion and Li looked ready to
fall over. Lendel looked a little better than the two of them, but
not much. They had planned to take turns at the watch throughout
the night, but Cha’le was not sure any of them had enough energy to
stay awake. They had been unable to acquire any weary bane from the
Guardian storehouse. Cha’le wished she had tried harder
now.

The three Avenry did not
bother with a campfire and the dark stranger did not seem
interested in lighting one either. The three of them pulled some
dried goat from their packs and began to eat ravenously. When they
were finished, Lendel stood up with a weary sigh.

“
I’ll take the first
watch,” he murmured quietly to them, making a discreet glance at
the black-clad stranger. He stood about twenty paces away with his
back to them as he studied the trees at the eastern edge of the
clearing.

“
You will all go to sleep
right now,” the stranger commanded without turning around. “I won’t
have you slowing me down any more than you already are by falling
over from exhaustion.”

Lendel scowled at his back,
but said nothing in return. Cha’le’s lips turned down in a small
frown. Does he have the ears of a cat? she thought irritably. She
would have to remember that anything that she said aloud would
probably be overheard. I will bet that Celdic does not have to put
up with this kind of nonsense.

Li already had her pack off
and lay asleep on the ground. Shrugging her pack off, Cha’le
stretched down on the ground beside her. She fell into a deep,
dreamless sleep almost immediately, with Lendel settling in on the
other side of her.

---

The black-clad stranger
stood over the slumbering youths from Chasel Ri’ Aven, studying
them once again. He had no need of rest. He shook his head slowly
as he studied them, marveling at the thought that existence itself
rested on the shoulders of four youths from this isolated province.
Standing up, he began to make a circuit around the camp, watching
as much with his
yar
as he did with his eyes and ears. Thinking of the look on
Terrance's face when he saw him with these three almost made him
smile. Happiness was not an emotion that his race was capable of,
but he felt a twisted satisfaction at what fate had brought
him.

Chapter 8

Selindria awoke in the
bedroom she had stayed in at the cottage and stared out the window
at the foot of her bed where dawn was just beginning to stain the
Eastern horizon. What will today bring? she thought ruefully as she
recalled the previous day's adventure. She felt her cheeks redden
slightly as she recalled the fool that she had made of herself. I
must have looked like a complete idiot, she thought with a shake of
her head. Not that I care what he thinks of me.

Rising out of bed, she went
over to the washstand and splashed some water over her face. She
stared into her own cat-like eyes, wondering what Terrance would
think if he knew the truth. He thought that she was just a Zeran,
that her eyes marked her as one for true. What he does not know
will not bother him. That was what she always told students when
they started asking her why her eyes were abnormal.

Drying her face with a
towel, Selindria looked at her reflection in the mirror. Picking up
her brush, she began stroking her waist-length hair in long, even
strokes. She noticed there was a large wardrobe next to the door
that had not been there when she went to sleep. Rising slowly, she
moved over to the wardrobe and explored the contents. Her eyes went
immediately to the white skirt with a tight fitting white blouse.
When she first arrived at Chasel Ri’ Aven, the Elders had tried to
talk her out of wearing her tight-fitting blouses that accentuated
her large breasts. They tried to convince her that it was unseemly.
The memory of the Elder’s faces when she asked them how she was to
fight in a loose blouse that allowed her breasts to bounce around
every time she moved still brought a smile to her face. She pulled
the white skirt and blouse from the wardrobe and dressed quickly,
examining herself in the mirror when she was done. For the last
century, she had worn nothing but unrelieved black, mourning the
sister she had lost. She almost did not recognize herself in the
bright color, which contrasted nicely with her midnight-black hair.
Slipping her feet into the soft brown sandals next to the door, she
walked out into the common room.

Celdic was already up,
sitting in a chair next to Jalorm talking animatedly. Jalorm had a
faintly amused expression on a face that just missed being
handsome. His broad chin always seemed to be stabbing at you as he
emphasized his arguments with sharp nods. The two of them stood up
as she walked into the room, staring at her with their mouths
hanging open.

“
Good morning, gentleman,”
she greeted them with a smile. “How did you sleep?”

She had to repeat the
question before they finally gave themselves a shake. They assured
her that they slept wonderfully, better than they ever had before.
That certainly did not surprise her. As soon as they had crossed
over the boundary to wherever this place was, she could sense the
web that Terrance spun around this place, bringing a sense of
wellbeing and happiness to those receptive to it. Selindria was
immune to such manipulations, an inheritance from her father’s
side. Had she been human, she would not even have been able to
detect the layers of the cocoon that Terrance wrapped around this
place. She had to admit that he was really quite good.

“
Where is our host?” she
inquired, looking around the kitchen. “Or rather, shall I say
hosts?”

“
We haven’t seen either of
them yet,” Celdic answered as he ran his fingers through his dark
hair, the way he did when he was anxious about
something.

“
Well I suppose that I will
start making breakfast, since the two of you are so busy,” she said
pointedly, walking into the kitchen. She looked around in
puzzlement for the necessary utensils. She moved the dishes onto
the counter with Terrance after the dinner the previous night, but
they were nowhere to be found. The cupboards were full of canisters
labeled in an alien script that she did not recognize. Opening the
lid on one of them, she peered into the contents, which was a dark
orange powder. Replacing it and opening up another one revealed a
yellow powder. She sniffed at it and smelled nothing. She put the
canister back in the cupboard and walked back into the sitting
room.

“
Never mind about
breakfast,” she said in annoyance. “Our glorious hosts seem to live
off colored sand.”

Celdic and Jalorm nodded
their agreement, and Selindria realized that they had already
attempted to make breakfast. So much for a better start today, she
thought ruefully. “Has either of you been outside yet?” she asked,
more to change the subject than out of any real
curiosity.