Gorinthians (9 page)

They were far enough behind
the other two that Celdic felt he could share some of his thoughts
without anyone overhearing. He did not want Tarya Selindria to know
how badly he was taking the sudden departure.

"I never thought I would
have to leave Li behind,” Celdic complained morosely. "I always
thought we would marry eventually."

Thistledown laid his finger
along his nose slyly and said quietly, "Oh, but she will be joining
us, as well as the other two. You see, Terrance left a Suggestion
on them when they left. They will be meeting up with us in three
days."

Celdic looked at him in
astonishment. "He couldn't have done that with Tarya Selindria
standing there! She would have noticed."

Thistledown shook his head
ruefully, "You will soon learn that there is quite a bit that
Terrance can do that you wouldn't have believed
possible."

They rounded the bend in the
trail that led to the gates where a small pile of equipment and
packs lay. Terrance spoke briefly with one of the Guardians, who
tapped his fist to his chest and sprinted into the city. Tarya
Selindria was questioning one of the other Guardians, who looked
more uncomfortable by the second. When she finished the
interrogation, she stalked back to where they were scowling so
blackly that Celdic did not dare ask her what she had asked the
Guardian.

"Captain Jorbran will be
back with your supplies in a few minutes.” Terrance said as he
rejoined the group.

Tarya Selindria did not
bother responding. Instead, she studied Terrance closely as if he
were some kind of puzzle. Judging from the expression on her face,
it was a puzzle that did not smell very nice. “I will be back in
half an hour. There are several items that I will need to bring
along.”

Terrance nodded as Tarya
Selindria turned and moved quickly toward the road to the Rajan
Gardens. Her small cottage was near the border.

Celdic and Terrance did not
talk as they waited for Tarya Selindria to return. Terrance made
his way up and down the wall talking with various Guardians and
some of the watchmen. Captain Jorbran glanced at Celdic every few
minutes, his eyes seeming to know secrets about Celdic. He found
himself counting the bricks in the wall until Tarya Selindria
returned half an hour later, with a small bag hanging from her
shoulder. Terrance rejoined them, instructing Selindria to put the
contents of her bag into one of the packs that he had
prepared.

"You said you are called
Terrance," Tarya Selindria remarked, watching him as she
transferred her possessions from her pack to the one that he had
prepared.

"That’s correct," Terrance
acknowledged easily, as he begun to inspect the packs one last
time.

"Are you claiming to be the
same Terrance that founded Chasel Ri’ Aven?" she asked, doubt heavy
in her tone.

"I have made no claims,”
Terrance replied, stopping to look at her with his intense eyes.
"There is a bond that was created of which every human descendant
of the Mountain land is a recipient. There is no need for me to
claim to be anything. They all know who I am because the bond
connects us to each other. Those who are raised here are taught
about the bond while they are still young."

Terrance looked back down at
the pack that he was retying. Celdic looked at Tarya Selindria. She
was still watching Terrance but her mind was obviously in another
place. There was an uncertainty in her eyes that Celdic had never
seen before.

Captain Jorbran’s return
broke the silence. He had a large pack strapped to his shoulders
that he unbuckled and set in the pile in front of them. He clasped
his fist to his chest and went back to his post at the gate.
Terrance began separating packs and forming three piles. He
gestured Celdic to one of the piles. Celdic slung the pack over his
shoulders, grunting in surprise at the heaviness of the pack. It
must have been loaded with sand to be as heavy as it was.
Struggling with the new weight, he picked up the other bag that
contained a change of clothes.

Celdic looked around and
noticed that Tarya Selindria looked as uncomfortable with the heavy
pack as he did. Terrance finished loading his pack and then walked
over to where they were still struggling with the weight of their
packs. His eyes seem to grow in intensity for a moment and Celdic
felt a small taste of the power that he had felt the previous day
when Tarya Selindria had been teaching them evasive defense. When
the strange sense of power receded, the pack on Celdic's back
seemed to weigh almost nothing at all. He saw Tarya Selindria's
eyes widen in surprise. Neither of them had felt his
yar
at all.

"Right then," Terrance said,
turning away from the city and starting down the path. "Let's see
if we can make camp on the boundary tonight."

Still looking unnerved about
something, Tarya Selindria began following Terrance. Celdic decided
to chance her mood and ask her a few questions. Falling in line
behind Tarya Selindria, Celdic tried to formulate his
questions.

"Tarya Selindria," Celdic
ventured tentatively, "could I ask you a few questions?"

She slowed down slightly to
put a little distance between them and Terrance. "I will answer
what I can,” she said when Terrance was out of earshot. Celdic had
never thought of Tarya Selindria as secretive. Since the time they
had met Terrance, Celdic noticed that she was becoming increasingly
closed.

"Terrance mentioned there
was a bond between all of the human descendants of Chasel Ri’ Aven.
I haven't felt anything different since he arrived and it didn't
look like Cha' le, Lendel or Li did either.” Celdic left the
question unasked, hoping that she would finish it for
him.

She absently reached up and
brushed a stray strand of hair out of her eyes, looking thoughtful.
"If there is a bond, and I am not saying that I believe there is,
then it is possible that one of your ancestors is not from the
mountain."

"But we never have
outsiders!” Celdic exclaimed in astonishment. "That's one of the
reasons we have the Guardians."

Looking at him carefully,
Tarya Selindria seemed to be deciding how much to tell him. Celdic
felt a branch smack him in the face and decided to pay a little
more attention to the path.

"Over the years, the Elders
have sent scouts out into the world to gather information,” Tarya
Selindria explained carefully. "This is not widely known and I
wouldn't tell you now except I do not believe we will
return."

Celdic was stunned. From the
time that they were little children, their parents and teachers
instructed them that there was no contact with the outer world and
that there had not been in their entire history. After a moment of
thinking, Celdic realized that something did not fit.

"How is it that you know
about it, if only the Elders know?” Celdic asked with a small
frown.

"Because I am better at
eavesdropping than Li and Cha’le,” she replied with a toss of her
head.

Something that Terrance had
said tugged at his memory. "Tarya Selindria, what is a
Zeran?"

For a long moment, she did
not answer. Her eyes had clouded over and she suddenly seemed wary.
"Why do you ask?” she asked with a frown.

"It was just something I
heard Terrance ask you earlier.” Celdic watched her closely,
looking for a sign that she was not being honest. "I have never
heard of a Zeran. Is it another country?"

"I guess you could call it
another country,” she replied after another pause. She did not
elaborate.

"Celdic, I would like you to
call me Selindria from now on,” she said suddenly. "The days of the
Tar Ri’ San are done and strangers will probably become overly
curious if they hear you naming me with a title."

"Fine,” Celdic conceded,
thinking how strange it would be to call her by her name alone. All
in all, Celdic did not feel like Selindria gave him very good
answers to his questions. Deciding to try a different angle, Celdic
glanced toward Terrance. "What do you think of Terrance? Do you
think that we can trust him?"

Celdic witnessed the
uncertain look in her eyes for a second time that day. "I don't
know.” She frowned, staring at his back as if the sheer intensity
of her gaze could push answers out of him. "There is much about him
that is hidden. I have a few suspicions about his purposes if he
really is the same Terrance as the one of old."

"What do you mean?” Celdic
asked curiously. He suddenly remembered Thistledown’s amazement at
their ignorance of history before the founding of Chasel Ri’ Aven
and wondered just how much was left out of their
education.

"The Terrance of old was
reputed to be the head of an order that brought about the end of
the civilizations of old,” she instructed in her lecturing tone.
"He claimed that what he did saved the planet from ruin, but there
are more than a few schools of thought regarding that
claim."

Celdic was intrigued. They
had learned almost no history outside of their own civilization.
"What did he do?” Celdic asked. "To end their civilization, I
mean."

"No one really knows for
sure. The world was different then than it is now. It is said that
anyone could use the power radiated by the planet. It was that
power that made it possible to make the kind of civilization they
had, but it was also the same power that made it possible to
destroy the planet. This is because anyone could use it, almost
without limit. Fearing the planet was on the verge of destruction,
the Derinian Order used a talisman they created to focus vast
quantities of the planet’s energy and turned the power against
itself to create a shield that cut it off from the surface of the
planet. Their intent was to limit people’s ability to control
objects by making the planet’s power inaccessible to anyone. After
that, people would be limited to controlling their own
yar
and lay objects such
as plants.” She finished, and then added with a wry look, "After
two thousand years, it is hard to say what is myth and what is
true."

Celdic felt like a starving
man that had just been fed. Academic study was by far his favorite
hobby in life. He had been told about some of the schools of
learning called universities that existed in some of the larger
cities like Shalilayo. He had dreamed of creating another school of
learning at Chasel Ri’ Aven. The Tar Ri’ San taught them everything
that they needed to know about their own society, as well as some
in-depth study on a wide range of academic topics. Once your
twenty-fifth birthday came, however, you were done with school.
After that, you chose a trade to work for the rest of your life.
The only real research that was possible after that was working in
the Rajan Gardens.

Celdic walked silently,
trying to sort through all of the new information. Selindria sped
up to Terrance, throwing a warning glance over her shoulder at
Celdic to stay back. Celdic began to have his own suspicions about
where she had come from.
I guess you could
call it another country
, she had said when
he asked her about Zerans. Earlier Terrance had said there is a
bond that was created of which every human descendant of this
Mountain land is a recipient. Had he been suggesting that she was
inhuman? With his mind buzzing with unanswered questions, Celdic
followed the other two up the side of the mountain. They were
headed toward the Altar of Guardia, or the Altar of the Guardian,
as most people called it now.

It was said the Altar of
Guardia was created as a token to the founder of Chasel Ri’ Aven.
Some of the Elders claimed it had existed before the city was
built, however. Celdic and Lendel had visited it for the first time
the previous summer. It had been an odd experience that left them
both arguing about the true nature of the Altar for months. They
had set their blanket rolls out next to it that night and had a
fire crackling in a worn fire pit other youths had used when they
visited the site. Lendel had suggested the proximity to the Rajan
gardens might be affecting Celdic in some way, resulting in his
inability to use his
yar
. They had decided to try a few
exercises before going to sleep for the night since they were so
far from the Rajan Gardens. Celdic had felt an odd resonance in the
area as he opened his mind to the matter around them, as if there
was a river nearby. As he probed deeper for the cause, he realized
it was coming from the Altar and seemed to be going straight down
into the ground. Lendel had said that he could not feel anything.
Celdic had tried to push out with his
yar
to touch the source of the
resonance. As his
yar
touched the object, there was a sudden detonation from
thousands of feet beneath the hill. The entire hill began to shake
and Celdic hurriedly pulled his awareness back. There were a few
more slight tremors and then the hill was still again. Celdic had
looked at Lendel and saw his own shock mirrored in Lendel’s
expression. They had left the Altar and camped a couple of miles
away instead. It had stretched chance a little too far to pass the
occurrence off as a coincidental earthquake that happened at the
same time Celdic probed the Altar with his
yar
. They had spent months talking
about the possibilities of what the Altar might be. The fact Lendel
could not sense the Altar’s resonance had them both speculating as
to why Celdic could when Celdic could not even use his
yar
the way everyone else
did.