Gorinthians (31 page)

As he walked up to the
breakfast table and sat down. He could feel the covert glances of
the others as they wondered how he would react to his daughter’s
most recent development. Ignoring them, he began thinking about
Morindessa and her two companions of the previous evening.
Thistledown had known that he had appeared and followed the trio,
but as far as Lochnar knew, he had not told Terrance, which was a
surprise.

He wondered how Morindessa
had attracted the wrath of the Gorinthians. He had left a small
marking in one of her pouches to let her know that he was in the
area. During the time that Morindessa had lived with Riah and him,
he came to love her almost as much as his own daughters. After what
had happened to Riah, he was not willing to leave Selindria or
Morindessa completely alone.

He felt a flash of
irritation as he felt Lendel's gaze on him once again. From the
time that he had arrived at the cottage, he had felt Lendel
studying him as if he were some sort of puzzle to piece together.
At first, he had thought that the youth was bitter about his
treatment on their journey to the cottage. He never sensed any
bitterness, though, only respect and determination. Both were
traits that Lochnar valued, but he would have been happier knowing
what the determination represented. Once again, Lochnar cursed
himself for getting mixed up with humans. They always wanted to
complicate things that should be left simple and simplify things
that were meant to be complicated.

At that moment, Selindria
and Terrance came out of her room. Terrance was watching Selindria,
not seeming to realize that anyone else existed. Selindria glanced
around the room and saw Lochnar watching her and smiled, a smile
that was so reminiscent of her mother that Lochnar felt himself
smiling back. The unused muscles in his cheeks almost squeaked in
protest. When she saw him smile, her face grew so radiant that her
face seemed to glow and he found himself as close to happiness as a
Talon ever came, waves of contentment emanating from
him.

The two of them sat down at
the other end of the table next to Thistledown, much to Terrance’s
obvious displeasure. Lochnar felt a small lump in the seat of his
chair begin moving around as if a creature was struggling beneath
the lining. Without looking around, he reached out with his
yar
and dissolved the
Protrubent Node. He looked across the table at Cha'le who was
studiously looking the other way, as if she were interested in what
Li and Celdic were saying, except that they were not saying
anything. Lochnar reached into the realm of negatives, where
his
yar
would not
be felt. He could sense Thistledown falter in his conversation
slightly as he realized what Lochnar was doing. A moment later
Cha'le let out a scream that should have brought down the roof and
jumped out of her seat. Or tried to jump out of her seat, because
it followed her into the air as she beat at it and tried to pry it
off of her back side. Everyone at the table had jumped when she
screamed. Thistledown reacted first because he already saw what it
was that Lochnar had done. He rushed over to where Cha'le was
jumping up and down trying to get the chair off her and pulled the
chair backward. It came off her as he jerked it away, allowing the
others to see the small gaping maws that had replaced the seat of
her chair and had been biting at her backside.

Lochnar continued studying
the group as if nothing had happened, while Li looked around in
confusion. "What happened?"

"I forgot to warn you about
that,” Thistledown said to Cha'le. "Don't try any of your pranks on
Lochnar. He probably doesn't mind them, but where he's from, they
have a somewhat morbid sense of humor."

Selindria was looking down
the table at him disapprovingly, while Terrance was trying not to
smile. The others looked at him in shock while Cha'le rubbed her
backside surreptitiously. "I'll remember that," she said with a
sour look in his direction.

"How did you do that?”
Lendel asked curiously. "I didn't feel your
yar
at all.” Lendel looked at Lochnar
in wonder, instead of anger or indignation, though Lochnar knew
that he and Cha'le were courting. Humans just did not make any
sense at all most of the time. Lochnar thought about ignoring him,
but at the last moment decided to elaborate a little
bit.

"You have been taught how to
react to matter that exists in what is known as the Light Realm or
the Positive Realm,” Lochnar said finally, "everything has it's
opposite. In the Light Realm, you are able to sense everything that
happens around you, as if there is a light in the room that reveals
it to you. In the Negative Realm, there is no light or Communion
Plane. No other plane exists with which to sense objects. There is
only Shaesence, lay spiritual matter, that you can use to affect
objects around you."

"I thought that Shaesence
was in the Light Realm,” Celdic said with a frown.

"Shaesence is in every Realm
and in everything,” Lochnar replied shortly.

"I don't understand,”
Cha'le said, seeming to have forgotten the biting incident already.
"How did you know where to use your
yar
if there is no way to sense other
objects?"

Putting one hand underneath
the table and the other on top, Lochnar moved them until one hand’s
finger was positioned above the hidden hand’s finger. "How do I
know where to place the hand that is under the table so that it
lines up with the one that is above, even though I can't see it?”
Lochnar asked her. "I use the one that I can sense as a reference
point. From there, it is guess and hope that you have it
right."

The five youths were nodding
slowly in understanding. Despite his attempts to suppress it,
Lochnar felt satisfaction pulse through him at the small lesson. He
remembered the years spent with Riah and Morindessa. He tried to
avoid anything to do with the human while Morindessa did everything
in her power to win his respect. When he left with Riah in the
middle of the night, she had not even known his name.

Terrance cleared his throat
at the head of the table and everyone looked at him expectantly. "I
think that it is time to go. I have taken care of all of the
packing and supplies.” Rising, Terrance led them out the front door
of the cottage and into the yard where a small pack was set-aside
for each of them. All except for Lochnar, that is, who had his own
pack.

Lochnar noticed Terrance
pausing as he walked away from the cottage, looking back at it
wistfully for a moment before continuing on to the portal that led
out of Terrance's haven.

---

The creature that had been
Riah scampered around the road that led into Mill Port on the north
edge of Lake Magnus. She stared up and down the road, trying to
decide which way to go. She had been drawn to a familiar presence a
few days previous. After fleeing from the murderous rage that had
erupted from the figure, she felt him following her, studying her
from a distance. Then he disappeared from all of her senses and she
realized she missed him. As she wandered back and forth over the
places from which she felt him watching her, she suddenly felt his
presence far to the South, where the lake was. She rushed South as
quickly as she could, not sure what she would do when she found
him, but knowing that she needed him for something. As she had
drawn closer to his presence, she had felt two other familiar
presences. Every time that she tried to focus on what these
sensations of attachment were, she would become more confused and
pain would wrack her body until she passed out. Still, she knew
that if she found the figure that had followed her, somehow he
could make the pain stop.

Chapter 18

The morning air was still
slightly brisk in what was considered late spring in the low
country that Selindria and her companions were traveling through.
She could smell the pollen in the air as the frost melted on the
sagebrush that lined the road. The group made their way south,
toward Shalilayo. A small stream wound throughout the meadows to
the side of the road, enshrouded by willows. The world seemed a
different place to Selindria than it had just one day ago.
Everything smelled different, tasted different and even looked
different. She found herself marveling at the exquisite grace of
the sparrows and robins as they flew across the road and through
the fields, something that had never really interested her
before.

Terrance walked beside her
with a slightly bemused expression on his face. He tried to stay
alert to what was around them and at the same time glance at her
every few seconds. Selindria still felt like she was living in a
dream after waking and seeing Terrance next to her bed with his
fingers sliding through her hair. In all truth, if she would have
realized that she was really awake when she found him next to her
bed, she would probably have cleared her throat, turned red, and
started eating the breakfast that he had brought her. Until now,
love had been something that she believed she would never
experience because she would outlive anyone that she had a
relationship with. With Terrance, she would not have to worry about
that. He was already ten times older than she was now, and she
assumed that he would continue living without aging.

Ahead of them, Lochnar
squatted down by the road where it made a slight bend, studying
something on the ground. She had never seen her father act the way
he was behaving before. When Lendel had questioned him regarding
his method of using
yar
without detection, she had assumed that he would
insult him or ignore him completely. She wondered what had happened
to him to change his attitude.

As they approached Lochnar,
she saw that he had been studying some tracks that made a large U
with three points. The points could represent clawed toes, the
middle one sticking into the ground much further than the others.
The track was as large as her head.

"What is it?” Celdic asked
in puzzlement. He had come up from the rear where he and Li had
been talking quietly. Now he was also squatting down next to the
track.

"I don't know,” Lochnar
replied irritably. Selindria knew that her father prided himself on
knowing just about every creature that existed on the continents.
Lochnar looked up at Terrance with an eyebrow raised slightly.
Selindria could not sense Lochnar's
yar
emanating from his left side
today. It seemed to shift, though she did not understand why he
would want to hide portions of himself randomly. The rest of him
was swathed in his usual black.

Terrance turned away from
the tracks to share a troubled look with Thistledown. His eyes
looked over at the grasslands to the sides of the road and
Selindria could feel his
yar
pass through her as he searched the area around
them. A moment later, he was striding off the road and into the
thick grass that rose to his shoulders. Following closely behind,
Selindria wrinkled her nose slightly as the smell of blood and
death washed over her. A few more paces led them to a flattened
part of the grass where the remains of a mutilated body lay covered
in its own blood. The head had been crushed as if a giant had
stepped on it and the meat had been torn from his legs and arms.
The rest of the body was relatively unharmed, aside from scrapes
and bruises from the apparent struggle.

The rest of the party
gathered around the remains in a small circle, none of them willing
to break the silence. Lochnar cleared his throat as his head
swiveled around to stare at a tree line about a mile distant.
"They're still out there,” he murmured quietly to
Terrance.

Terrance jerked his head up
in surprise and looked toward the tree line that Lochnar was
staring at. "Why can't I sense them?” he asked Lochnar as he
reached out with his
yar
once more, probing the area that Lochnar had
indicated.

"Their
yar
is matching the land around them,
making them appear as a part of it,” Lochnar said musingly. "I can
feel their impression in the Negative Realm, but I cannot sense
them."

Standing up from where he
had been studying the remains of the body, Terrance peered at the
tree line intently for several moments before turning back toward
the road. "Very odd. I can sense the impressions that their feet
are making in the ground as they move, but they are completely
hidden from any other sensory."

"Do you think that they will
attack us?” Lendel asked from behind, unconsciously stroking his
sword hilt.

"No,” Lochnar answered
shortly. "They can sense power when they look at us. Most creatures
avoid the unknown whenever possible."

They continued down the road
for the rest of the day without any other incidents, though Celdic,
Cha'le and Li kept looking back as if they expected the strange
creatures to pursue them. Selindria was confident that her father
knew what he was talking about, whether his knowledge was
instinctive or just another part of his past that he was unwilling
to share with Terrance.

They made camp several
hundred
yar
ds away
from the road. They dug the fire pit deep into the ground to hide
the light from any other travelers that might be passing through,
whether friend or foe. The packs they carried turned out to hold
anything that could fit through the opening. Terrance pulled all of
the cooking utensils out of his pack, along with the odd powder
that they used to make their food. Selindria helped him prepare
dinner as Celdic and Jalorm pulled the tents out of their packs and
began erecting them. Cha'le and Lendel scavenged firewood from the
dead sagebrush and Li pulled what appeared to be canvas foldout
chairs out of her pack, peering inside curiously as she pulled
chair after chair out without the weight of the pack changing.
Lochnar had already begun patrolling the area, as if he expected
intruders under every bush and rock. Selindria realized that
Thistledown had disappeared.