The morning air was cold and crisp, with the sun still hiding behind the eastern horizon. The morning seemed to be holding its breath, and even the crickets had quieted their evening serenade. Several leagues outside the city, a covey of quail launched themselves into the air, startled out of their roosting. Near the cottage where Michael and his family lived, the roosters were beginning to crow into the still air. It was time to wake up. A few groans from within the house made it clear that some of the inhabitants did not agree.
Michael seriously considered not getting out of bed. The morning noise had interrupted a dream he was eager to return to. He thought it had involved Leanne. They were in one of the meadows in the small forest outside the city. She had said something to him that had brought a warm flush to his skin. He was just getting ready to respond when another rooster crowed right outside his window, demanding he arise. Then he remembered what had happened the previous day, and he jumped out of bed—only to hear a small yell and immediately jump back in.
"Watch where you're putting those boats, human!" a small voice threatened. "Next time you try to stomp me like that, I'll bite them off!"
Michael looked down at the floor in amazement, then shook his head several times. Still, the sight remained—a three-inch-high human, except this human had fangs and clawed hands. It wore a loincloth and sandals that looked homemade. Its hair was shoulder-length and looked like it hadn't been combed in a year. Its bare upper torso and legs were mud-stained and dirty. Certain he must still be dreaming, Michael went to the washbasin on his nightstand and splashed water onto his face. He turned around to see the odd creature blinking at him curiously.
"Are you real?" Michael asked, only half expecting an answer.
"I could bite you," the creature offered with a feral grin. "If you bleed, then we can agree that I am real."
"Wha— I mean, who are you?" Michael caught himself, trying not to be rude.
"What am I, or who am I?" the creature asked, sounding amused.
"Either, I guess," Michael replied, "or both."
"My name is Thistledown, and I am a descendant of the Tree Gnomes. I seem to have changed a lot, though, from what my parents were. I suppose you have to expect that, living next to the Altered Gardens."
"Wait a minute," Michael contended. "Tree Gnomes don't look anything like you. They're just rodents."
"Rodents, eh?" Thistledown said, scratching his head thoughtfully. "Well, I guess they would look like rodents if I were as big as you are. Like I said, I've changed quite a bit."
He seemed somewhat saddened by the change, and Michael wondered what it must have been like for him to be so different from the rest of his people. Suddenly feeling a kinship to the little man because of his own oddities, Michael was unexpectedly pleased to have met Thistledown.
"So, what are you doing here?" Michael asked curiously. He wasn't sure what Thistledown's kind did. "Are you just exploring, or is something wrong?"
"I left my dwelling when the Dray Grass stopped growing." Thistledown stared at the floor. "The others thought it was my fault the Dray Grass no longer grew, because I am different from them, so they told me to leave. The Dray Grass is our primary food source."
"Where will you go now?" Michael asked, as an idea formed in his mind. If the Foresight Stone was correct, Michael would be leaving soon. Perhaps the two of them could travel together.
"Wherever my feet take me, I guess," he replied in a carefree voice.
"You could stay here for a while," Michael offered tentatively, unsure how the little man might react.
"Mmm. I suppose that might be interesting," he mused. "I have always wondered what you humans do in your big cities."
A knock on the bedroom door interrupted their conversation. Thistledown spun with a hiss as Shalay opened the door and looked in.
"Who were you talk—" she cut herself off with a startled exclamation when she saw Thistledown.
"Calm down, Shalay," Michael insisted, hoping to quiet her. "This is Thistledown. He used to live by the Altered Gardens. He came to visit the city, so I thought we would give him a tour. Thistledown, this is my sister, Shalay." He said it all in a rush, trying to overload his sister with enough information to blunt her surprise.
"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Thistledown," Shalay replied in a bewildered tone.
"Just Thistledown, please; no need for formality. And I am very glad to meet such a ravishing young lady, pretty Shalay," he replied with a florid, slightly overdone bow. Halfway down, he winked at Michael, who began to think of Thistledown as a very complex little fellow.
Shalay laughed aloud. "I'm sure we'll get along just fine, Thistledown. In fact, there are a number of things I've wanted to do for a while now that I may be able to do with your help."
"Anything for you, pretty Shalay," Thistledown replied with a roguish grin.
"Don't let her get you involved in her pranks, Thistledown," Michael warned.
"Pranks?" he asked, tilting his head. "I don't think I'm familiar with that term."
"That's all right, Thistledown," Shalay assured him with a mischievous smile. "I will educate you."
Michael sighed. "Maybe you should stay away from him, Shalay."
"Uh-huh, right," Shalay drawled noncommittally. "We should get going. We're already running behind." She turned and left, closing the door behind her.
Michael stretched, then hurried out of his nightclothes and into some clean trousers and a gray shirt that he laced up. Pulling on his boots, he grabbed his book from the nightstand, dropped it into his bag, and turned to Thistledown.
"Would you like to travel in here?" Michael asked, indicating his bag.
"Who could refuse such a luxurious mode of travel?" Thistledown replied with an ironic laugh. "Thank you, kind sir."
Holding the bag down to the ground, Michael opened the top and allowed Thistledown to climb in. He rushed out of the room and into the kitchen, where his sister was eating porridge. She had changed into black linen trousers and a gray blouse. She looked up as he came to the table, then flicked her eyes toward their mother, who was washing breakfast dishes in the sink. Michael shook his head slightly. He didn't want their parents to know about their new companion.
Michael wolfed down his porridge, and then he and Shalay both got up to leave. They hugged their mother tight, said their goodbyes, and went out the front door.
"We're going to tell Thalian and Leanne about Thistledown, aren't we?" Shalay asked as she pulled her hair into a ponytail over her shoulder.
"Did someone call me?" a voice piped up, and Thistledown's head popped out of the bag.
"I think so," Michael replied to Shalay's question. "They'd find out soon enough, anyway."
"Where are we going?" Thistledown inquired, peering down the trail.
"To the school," Shalay answered, taking the lead. "That's where we get our instruction in academics and combat."
"What kind of academics do they teach you there?" Thistledown asked casually, as if he were only mildly interested.
"Just about everything you can imagine, " Shalay replied with a wave of her hand. "Mathematics, language, art, physics and a whole range of classes on how to use Altered compounds."
"Altered compounds?" Thistledown asked curiously. "What are those?"
Shalay glanced over her shoulder at them and then continued. "Yes, Altered compounds. We take the plants from the Altered gardens and learn to mix their aeri with other materials in order to achieve certain effects. For example, we can make a sword that will not break or a ball that will give off light forever. The possibilities are endless, as long as the Gardens keep producing plants with special aeri."
They were approaching the split in the trail where they would meet Thalian and Leanne. As they neared it, Michael noticed a man half hidden in the brush at the split. Feeling a sudden foreboding, Michael quickened his pace to catch up to Shalay.
With a surprising suddenness, the dark outline rushed onto the trail and reached for Shalay's throat. Shalay's hand shot up, her palm catching the stranger under the chin, and he flew backward several steps. Assuming a defensive stance, Shalay waited for him to recover. Michael moved past her swiftly and met the stranger's advance with a solid kick to the solar plexus that put him on his back, gasping for air.
Michael advanced on the fallen enemy with the intent to force some answers out of him.
"Don't touch him!" Thistledown's voice cried out urgently.
Michael looked down to the ground to where Thistledown had jumped, still keeping one eye on the stranger. "Why shouldn't I touch him, Thistledown?"
"He is an Evictor," Thistledown explained with an intensity that froze Michael in his tracks. "If you touch him, he will be able to take your body."
"What are you talking about? How could he take my body?" Michael demanded, somewhat confused.
"It is nothing but a spirit, and it can move from body to body. Kill it before it takes yours!" Thistledown shouted shrilly as the stranger began to rise again.
Michael looked in the attacker's eyes and saw a fire burning in their depths that chilled his heart. Reaching for his belt knife, Michael jumped to the side of his attacker as his arm shot out with fingers extended for his throat. Spinning around behind it, Michael flicked his knife around its neck and pulled, being careful not to touch it.
The now throatless body dropped lifelessly to the ground. Michael felt an odd sensation, as if he were feeling a scream, rather than hearing it, a scream filled with hate and rage.
Wrinkling his nose in disgust, Michael stepped away from the corpse. It had already begun to decay, and its stench soon filled the clearing where the trail split.
Michael looked up quickly to see if Shalay was all right. She stood a few paces away, gagging at the smell.
"Are you all right?" Michael asked her urgently. "You touched it with your hand."
"I am fine," Shalay replied, still gagging slightly as she moved away from the stinking carcass. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Michael assured her. "It didn't touch me."
Michael stared at the corpse with a slightly haunted look in his eyes. He had never killed anything more than a chicken before, and now he had a killed a man.
"You did the right thing," Thistledown assured him from the ground, looking at him shrewdly. "You would be worse than dead if it had been successful in grabbing your throat."
Shalay let out a small gasp as she stared at the decomposing corpse. "That's one of the gardeners! We've passed him on our way to school."
Thistledown shook his head. "That may have been someone you knew once. An Evictor evicts the former spirit of whatever body it takes. All that you did was destroy the vehicle this Evictor was using. I would imagine it's already on its way back to the Altered Gardens to steal another body."
Shalay was looking at Thistledown suspiciously. "You seem to know a lot about these creatures. Where did you learn so much about them?"
Before Thistledown could answer, Thalian and Leanne came down the fork in the trail. They were both wrinkling their noses as they approached the small clearing.
"What is that stench?" Leanne demanded in disgust.
"Is that you, Michael?" Thalian asked with one eyebrow raised. "Just because you have visions when you look in the wash basins doesn't mean you can stop bathing."
Michael didn't bother to respond. He just gestured up the trail toward the rotting remains.
Leanne let out a loud gasp and Thalian bit off an oath.
"What happened?" Thalian demanded, holding his nose as he moved closer to the rotting corpse.
"He attacked us on our way down the path," Michael explained, gesturing toward Shalay. "Well, he attacked Shalay actually, and when I went after him, he tried to attack me."
"Who was it?" Leanne's voice had a small quaver to it and her face was white.
"It was a gardener," Shalay replied with revulsion. "I think that we should alert the Guardians. There may be more of them."
"A gardener!" Thalian gaped in shock. "Why would a gardener attack you? And why would there be more?"
"Shalay is right," Michael muttered in a subdued voice. "Let's go let the Guardians know about them. Thistledown can tell you about them as we go." Not waiting for Thalian to question him further, Michael began walking down the worn path into the small forest.
"Who is Thistledown?" Thalian asked, looking around as he caught up to Michael.
"I'm Thistledown," Thistledown replied from Thalian's pack. He had somehow managed to climb in without Thalian noticing.
Thalian gave a startled exclamation as a voice appeared to be coming from behind his ear. Jerking around, he looked behind him. Not seeing anyone there, he turned again.
"Up here, big guy," Thistledown called out again.
Thalian spun again, this time so violently that he almost fell over. Shalay snickered behind him. Leanne blinked uncertainly at Thalian, where the voice was coming from. Thistledown patted Thalian's shoulder with his palm and Thalian spun around yet again, his eyes wild.
"Is he invisible?" Thalian asked, his eyes darting around the clearing.
Shalay doubled over laughing as she watched her befuddled friend. Leanne watched Shalay uncertainly, her lips twitching slightly at her friends contagious mirth.
"He is a three-inch-tall man sitting in your pack," Michael answered, rolling his eyes. "If you two are done playing, we have this other matter to attend to."
Thalian pulled his pack around and looked into it. Thistledown sat on the top of the pack with his legs crossed.
"Good morning," Thistledown greeted him amiably.
Thalian almost dropped his pack and Thistledown jumped clear of it.
"Very clumsy," Thistledown commented reproachfully. "Pretty Shalay, would you mind?"
"Why of course, my dear Thistledown," Shalay replied with exaggerated formality. She lowered her pack, and he climbed on.
Michael had already started down the trail again. They continued through the small forest as Thistledown described their encounter with the Evictor, somehow making Shalay out to be the grand heroine that had saved them all. Michael began paying closer attention when he described the Evictor's odd nature.
"A long time ago, they were extremely deadly," Thistledown expounded. "They didn't need to touch you to steal your body. They could hop from body to body at will. After the Delphite Order wounded the planet's spirit, Evictors were no longer able to draw the extra energy they needed to penetrate a person's aura. I guess they get all the energy they need at the Gardens."
"What do you mean when you say the planet's spirit was wounded?" Michael interrupted with a frown, glancing at his companion's equally blank expressions.
Thistledown looked at him suspiciously for a minute, as if he suspected some kind of joke. When Michael did not respond, Thistledown's expression turned from suspicion to amazement. He looked at each of them in turn and saw the same blank look of incomprehension on their faces. "Are you trying to tell me you don't know anything about your own history?" he demanded incredulously.
"Sure, we know about our history," Thalian replied impatiently. "We have whole classes that teach us about finding this valley and building a city where no one else dared."
Thistledown waved his hand dismissively. "I mean before that—back when there was still a civilization. Before the great war that ended civilization."
"What are we, barbarians?" Leanne asked dryly.
Thistledown looked at her for a moment before answering. "I think I will let Kallath give you your history lesson. I seem to have a gift for offending people."
Thalian frowned. "Kallath? That was the name of the man who founded this city."
"Yes, and now that things have returned to the state that I predicted, he has come back to use the Foresight Stone." Thistledown rubbed his chin musingly. "I must say, I had my doubts about setting a whole city up to guard it, but he obviously knew what he was doing."
"Are you saying the same man who founded this city is here today?" Michael exclaimed, his eyes widening.
"I thought I just said that." Thistledown shook his head resignedly. "I see that we have a long way to go with you."
They were just leaving the edge of the forest and starting down to the city gates. Something made Michael stop and look closer at the gates. The normal city watch was there, but there were also two Guardians at the gate, each on one knee with their left fist placed on the ground, their heads bowed. A man appeared, walking out of the city and between the two Guardians. As he passed them, he made a curious salute with his fist to his chest and both Guardians arose. He started to climb up toward the four students but did not look up to where Michael and his companions were winding down the trail.
"Is that an outsider?" Leanne asked in wonder. "Do you think it's the person that breached the barrier?"
Michael had started to think that Thistledown might have been the stranger who came through the barrier, but after seeing the stranger below, he knew it was not Thistledown. He had seen this man before.
"That is the man I told you about," Michael whispered quietly to Thalian, "the one that I saw in the washbasin reflection."
"Are you sure?" Thalian asked with a troubled frown.
"I think so. I will know for sure when I see his eyes. They were like twin suns radiating power." Michael broke off when he saw Thistledown looking at him appraisingly from Shalay's shoulder.
"Twin suns radiating power?" Thalian chuckled. "How poetic."
Michael wasn't really paying attention. He was too busy watching the man as he quickly shortened the distance between them. Michael could now make out what the stranger was wearing. He wore garb similar to what the Guardians wore, in that it would fade into trees and rock easily. It was more finely made, however. He wore black boots that rose to his knees, with the hilt of a dagger at the top of each one. He also wore a sword on his hip and had another dagger sheathed at his right hip. He had steel cuffs around his wrists and an odd knife strapped to each elbow. These would point outward when he bent his elbows, baring two inches of blade. Michael looked up at his face. He had a strong jaw with well-defined cheekbones. His hair was cropped close and his face was unlined. His eyes radiated the same power Michael remembered from his vision. He could not have said how old he was. He walked like a hunting lion, with a grace that not even the Guardians could match. The only person he had seen come close to matching it was Domai Selindria.
Michael stopped and waited, feeling his muscles tense like they did before combat. He breathed deeply to try to relax. He noticed that the others seemed somewhat tense as well. The way the stranger moved made one think of impending violence.
The stranger stopped about ten paces from them, as if he were aware of the effect he had on others. Michael stood looking at him with a look of recognition. There was no doubt this was the man he had seen. When the man saw the way that Michael looked at him, he blinked and then surveyed the others. As his gaze swept over them, there was an invisible ripple like wind disturbing the leaves of a tree. Finally, his gaze settled on Shalay. Shalay stepped back a pace as he scowled down at her, then stiffened her back and held her ground.
"Why did you bring all of these others with you?" he barked suddenly, still glowering down at Shalay. She looked around at the others in puzzlement.
"Have we met?" Shalay asked in bewilderment. "What others are you talking about?"
"I'm still waiting for an answer, Thistledown," he said, annoyance clear in his voice.
All eyes turned to Shalay's pack where Thistledown reluctantly poked his head out of the top.
"Kallath!" he exclaimed jovially. "Good to see you! You've been well, I trust?"
"I have been well, yes," he replied ominously. "I will wait to ask how you've been after you answer my first question."
Thistledown winced slightly. "Well, I thought that if he had a couple of friends with him on the journey, he might be more willing to go."
"And did it occur to you to talk this over with me first or are you running things independently now?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I was going to mention it, but you seemed to have a lot on your mind, so I thought that I would just—" Thistledown cut off as another person entered the clearing from behind them.
Michael let out a small groan. It was Domai Selindria. She looked like she was going to give them all the lesson of their life, probably one that would leave them all limping for the rest of the day. She stopped several paces from Kallath, studying him with an intense gaze that missed nothing. She was in her usual tight black trousers and blouse, with her dark black hair spilling down to her waist. Michael had faced her many times on the combat field, so he recognized the pending danger as she leaned her weight back slightly so that one of her legs was slightly in front of the other. Domai Selindria had shown him what it was like to fight someone that fought with their aeri. Using their aeri gave them the ability to feel every movement their opponent made as they made it. It also allowed them to control their own body with the power of their aeri as they felt every particle around them as if it were a part of them. When she had used him as an example to the other students—he was the best among them—she had pinned him to the ground in painful contortions before he had even finished making his first jab at her throat. After a dozen humiliating defeats that lasted no more than a second as she sped through the air at lightning speeds, she added ten more of the best students to the fight. She offered her blue-bladed sword to the first person to strike her. None of the students had come close to making contact with her as she spun through the air like a deadly whirlwind, leaving groaning bodies in her wake.
Michael watched apprehensively as Kallath and Domai Selindria eyed each other intently, hoping that his teacher did not kill the stranger before Michael had a chance to learn who he was and why he had appeared in a vision to Michael.
"Who are you?" Domai Selindria demanded curtly, her attention never flickering from his razor gaze.
Kallath looked at her for a moment, as if deciding what to tell her. Finally, he nodded slightly and said, "I am called Kallath."
"Why are you here?" Domai Selindria pried in the same curt tone, bordering on rudeness.
"For a number of reasons," he replied evenly, gazing at her with an expression that Michael did not recognize. Then he began to speak to her in a foreign language. It was a very musical language, almost hypnotic in its rhythmic cadences.
Michael could see from the expression on Selindria's face that she could understand him, but she just shook her head and announced, "I can't understand you. Speak normal."
"Forgive me. I mistook you for a Serran," he returned, his gaze searching her face. "I was wondering how a Serran had become a part of Avenry."
"Apology accepted," Domai Selindria stated coldly. "You still haven't answered my question. Why are you here?"
A crease appeared in the corner of Kallath's eyes and Michael realized that they were laugh lines from a person that spent a lot of time laughing. "I have come to gather up Michael for a journey he will be making. I am afraid I cannot tell you very much more than that. It would put us both in more danger than we are already in."