Gorinthians (38 page)

Celdic looked at Cha'le
disapprovingly, to which she just returned a bland look. Li thought
she understood why Cha'le had suggested the most brutal solution.
Cha'le had more talents than any other ten women Li knew, and a
mind to guide those talents. Matched with her innocent beauty, she
should have had everything a woman could want; but for some reason
she still had a tendency toward jealousy. Lendel’s obvious concern
over the new addition to their party was definitely having an
effect on Cha'le as she stared down at Lori
dispassionately.

Jalorm had been sitting on
his bedroll watching the exchange with an amused expression. "You
know, I think that it is very sweet of Lendel to be so concerned
about her.” His tone had the sweetened pitch Li remembered him
using to mock her when she had been unable to stick an arrow into
him on the combat field.

Cha'le's cold gaze turned to
him, one eyebrow rose, "Would you like us to leave the two of you
alone?" she inquired solicitously, her sense of humor acquiring a
biting edge to it.

"I don't think that will be
necessary," Jalorm assured her with a mocking smile. "Lendel?" he
asked questioningly, patting the bedroll beside him.

Lendel looked from Cha'le's
humorless gaze to Jalorm's twinkling eyes. With a sigh, he turned
to Cha'le and leaned close, whispering something in her ear. A
moment later, a smile bloomed on her innocent face, and she took
his hand, pulling him away from camp behind her. Li never ceased to
be amazed at her brother's ability to change Cha'le's
mood.

"Jalorm, one of these days
your mouth is going to get you into trouble," Li said in
exasperation.

"Nothing I can't handle, I'm
sure," he said confidently. He had always had a high opinion of
himself, but he seemed to be worse the last few days. "Why should
they-" he broke off as Lori awoke, stretching and
yawning.

She blinked around at them
blearily, as if she was not sure what to make of them. "Who are
you?" she asked with a puzzled frown on her smooth
features.

"We met last night," Li
said, talking slowly. "Don't you remember? You are from a place
called Earth."

Suddenly she was wide-awake,
staring around her in alarm. "You mean it wasn't a dream?" She
looked around her, from face to face, as they studied her in
turn.

"No, it wasn't a dream," Li
assured her. "Are you all right?"

She flung off her blankets
and quickly stood. "No, I am not all right. I need to get back
home." She started walking away from their camp, into the thick
sagebrush around them.

Li shared a look with Jalorm
and Celdic. Stubborn and stupid, she thought in annoyance, quickly
following the girl. "Lori!" she called to the girl fighting her way
through the sagebrush. "Lori, wait! It's dangerous out
there!"

Lori ignored her and
continued trying to step over some of the smaller sage, tripping
more often than not. A moment later, she stepped in a rabbit hole
and Li winced as she heard the sharp crack of bone splintering.
Lori cried out in pain, falling to the ground to nurse her broken
shin. Li felt a flash of admiration for her as she stubbornly rose
to her good leg and tried to hobble forward. She winced at each
jolt, but her cheeks were clean of the tears that Li knew probably
would have been on her own face had they switched
places.

"Lori, please come back," Li
pleaded with her. "At least let me look at your ankle. You’re going
to make it worse walking on it."

Without so much as a look
back at her, Lori continued hobbling forward, as if ignoring Li was
her way of denying the reality around her. Her face was white with
strain from trying to ignore the pain, but her jaw was clenched
tightly, making her appear more angry than hurt. A second later,
she tripped over a piece of sagebrush that was lying across her
path. She crashed face first into the ground, followed by a scream
of pure rage. Li watched in amazement as the strange shield that
Lochnar had trapped her
yar
with, suddenly hardened as if it were a part of
the Physical Realm and then shattered as all of the brush and cedar
trees in front of Lori disappeared for as far as the eye could see
in a sharp detonation. For a swath twenty feet wide and all the way
to the horizon, debris rained down around a suddenly clear
path.

Panting, Lori pushed herself
back to her feet and began hobbling forward once more. Li stood
rooted to the spot, stunned at the devastation in front of her.
Celdic and Jalorm appeared next to her, alerted by the explosion,
and were followed a moment later by Lochnar.

"What happened?" Lochnar
demanded angrily, gesturing at Lori's departing back.

"She wouldn't stay," Li said
with a glare at Lochnar. "She broke her ankle in a rabbit hole, and
just kept going. Then she fell down again, and did whatever it was
that she did."

Lochnar's brows drew down
into a glare so fierce that Li hastily stepped back. Before he
could say anything, Terrance appeared out of nowhere. "What's going
on?" he asked her quietly.

Li explained the morning’s
adventure quickly to Terrance, who just nodded when she finished
and went down the new road Lori had made. It did not take him long
to catch up to her limping form. He walked next to her, talking
quietly for several minutes, until she finally stopped. He reached
down and felt her broken leg, running his finger up and down it
slowly for a moment and then stood back with his arms folded. She
slowly put pressure on it experimentally, then stamped it to the
ground a few times in amazement, exclaiming loudly. Finally, the
two of them started back toward the camp.

Looking around, Li realized
that she and Celdic were the only ones still standing around
watching them, as if it were some kind of show. Turning quickly,
she and Celdic went back to the camp. Thistledown and Selindria
were making breakfast with the strangely colored sands Terrance
carried with him, while Lendel and Cha'le broke the tents down and
folded the bedding up.

"I suppose we could help out
too," Li said ruefully, walking over to help load the blanket rolls
into the traveler sacks.

When Terrance came back into
the camp with Lori, she walked over to Li. "I am sorry for treating
you like that back there,” she said contritely. "I know you were
just trying to help. I am just having a really hard time with
this."

Li smiled at her warmly. "I
understand. I don't think I would have handled appearing in a
strange world nearly as well as you have.” Li held out her hand. "I
know you were a little out of sorts last night, so I will introduce
myself again. I am Li."

Ignoring the proffered hand,
Lori stepped forward and hugged her. "Thanks for caring,
Li."

Li stood still for a moment,
unused to this kind of affection from anyone other than Celdic or
her mother. She tentatively reached her arms around Lori and patted
her back. "That's what friends are for, right?"

Lori stepped back, smiling
with tears in her eyes that breaking her ankle had been unable to
produce, "I wouldn't know. You're my first."

Li stared at her in
astonishment, unsure if she understood her correctly. In Chasel Ri'
Aven, it was usually the beautiful girls that had all of the
friends. As young as she was, Lori was still breathtakingly
beautiful. "Why don't you have any friends where you are from?" Li
blurted before she could stop herself.

"It's complicated," Lori
said with a sigh. "I am from a wealthy family that sends me to a
school with other wealthy families. Who you are does not matter at
places like that. All they care about is what you are. I am the
only daughter of a mayor that has done some very bad things, so
none of the other families want their daughters around me, because
it will make them look bad."

Li began to have a better
understanding of the stubborn independence that Lori wore like a
second skin. "Well, you have a friend now," Li said with a smile,
"and the parents I was raised with wouldn't care what kind of man
your father is."

Lori impulsively hugged her
again, whispering "friends" in her ear before she stepped away.
Terrance walked over to them with a serious look on his face as his
powerful gaze rested on them.

"Lori, we are going to need
to teach you how to use your
yar
, for your safety as well as
everyone else’s.” Terrance smiled to take the sting off. "Li is
among the best at her school, so I would like to have her teach you
all she knows. Thistledown will be able to answer any questions Li
doesn't have the answer to."

Li looked at Terrance
sharply, "Where are you going?"

"Going?" Terrance asked,
blinking at her. "What do you mean?"

"You said Thistledown would
be able to answer any questions I couldn't," Li said, staring at
him pointedly. "Why couldn't we just ask you?"

"Oh!" Terrance coughed into
his hand. "Of course you can ask me as well. I just meant
Thistledown would also be able to answer your questions.” His eyes
continued looking into hers, giving nothing away, until she finally
broke her gaze, nodding.

"Let's eat!" Thistledown
called from the fire pit, where the smells of sausage and potatoes
drifted through the camp, making Li's stomach grumble
loudly.

As they ate around the
campfire, Terrance stood up to address them. "We will be arriving
in the village of North Fork tonight. I know that most of you have
never stayed in a village for very long, so I want to make you
aware of a few things. The people who live in these small villages
are very provincial and superstitious. Try not to get into any
fights with the city watch or local villagers. Some of the men will
probably make certain comments at the ladies in our party. Just
ignore them and move on. If someone does pick a fight with you, try
not to kill them. The local authorities usually don't pay too much
attention to fist fights, but murders are a different story. Women
outside of Chasel Ri’ Aven don't learn to fight like men, so try
not to attract attention by demonstrating your ability to defend
yourself. In most cases it will just attract more trouble.” He
paused for a moment, looking at Selindria. She wore a determined
look on her face, nodding at him to continue. "On our way to North
Fork, we may encounter a stranger that seems slightly out of her
head. If we do, I want all of you to promise to keep moving and do
not look back, no matter what."

As everyone nodded, he
relaxed a little. "You will be purchasing horses in North Fork to
finish the journey to Shalilayo. I know most of you have no
experience with horses, but Selindria or Thistledown will be able
to teach you to ride.” He looked at Thistledown, who shook his
head, and then at Lochnar, who looked uncertain for the first time
since Li had seen him. Finally, he also nodded and Terrance pulled
his pack on and started moving back to the road.

Li followed behind Celdic
with a nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had no idea
what was going to happen this morning, but the effect it was having
on the older members of the group began to scare her. She jumped
whenever a bird sang too loud, or when a ground squirrel ran in
front of them. They followed the road for several hours, with
Terrance leading the way. She could feel his
yar
reaching out to distances much
further than she could reach. His
yar
made odd ripples pass through the
land around them she could sense with her own
yar
. Lochnar disappeared again,
breaking all of the rules Li had learned about the Spiritual Realm
at the Tar Ri’ San.

As she peered off the road
to their right, her eyes caught a flash behind a clump of cedar
trees several hundred feet away from the road. She reached out with
her
yar
, looking
for the source of the disturbance. At first, she felt nothing.
After a moment, however, she noticed the ground was being pressed
down by something, leaving what felt like three-toed tracks. She
felt herself go cold as she realized it must be more of the
creatures they had discovered after finding the corpse in the field
the previous day.

As Li started to shout to
Terrance that the creatures were next to them, she suddenly felt
a
yar
unlike
anything she had ever felt before. It seemed to be filled with
confusion and pain more intense than anything Li could imagine. In
the road in front of them, a figure shambled toward them. It
half-crouched as if it could not walk upright.

"Everyone, continue on,"
Terrance instructed loudly. "Selindria and I will rejoin you later.
Skirt off the road to the left until you are around her," Terrance
finished, gesturing at the shambling figure that was making its way
toward them.

Thistledown gave Terrance’s
shoulder a pat. Motioning the others to follow him, he turned off
the road to the left. Li watched the odd figure in revulsion as
they went around her. She was close enough to see the dirty blonde
hair that was snarled and knotted, and strips of clothing that hung
from her like rags. Layers of dirt and grime hid her skin. She made
odd mumbling sounds interspersed with small whimpers as she moved
forward. They were twenty feet to the side of them when Terrance
and Selindria intercepted her.