Everyone stared at Michael and Kallath with expressions of astonishment. No one ever left the Mountain. Domai Selindria looked at Kallath with narrowed eyes.
"What makes you think we're going to allow you to take Michael with you?" Domai Selindria asked finally. "For that matter, what makes you think you'll be allowed to leave this mountain yourself?"
Kallath glanced wryly at Thistledown before he answered. "I've already talked to the Elders and explained the situation to them. They've given word to all of the Watch and Guardians, so if you doubt my word, we can stop by the gate."
"Why would they have allowed an outsider to come and take one of our children?" she demanded suspiciously.
"Children?" Michael protested in annoyance, but before he could say another word, Domai Selindria silenced him with a glance.
"The arrangement that I made with the Elders is between them and myself," Kallath stated firmly. "If they choose to tell you, that's up to them."
"Then plan on having an extra companion, because I will not allow you to take him away from everyone that he knows with no more explanation than that," Domai Selindria announced resolutely. "For all I know, you plan to use him in some twisted ritual that will end with him worse than dead. I sense there is much that you are hiding. I don't trust you and I will not leave him alone with you."
At this, Thistledown began laughing uproariously, drawing everyone's attention to him. "Finally, someone to tell it to you the way it is!" he gasped, shaking with mirth.
Domai Selindria looked at Thistledown with a look of disdain. "Is this your pet or just a pack rat that you keep for sick amusement?"
Thistledown's laughter cut off sharply and he grimaced at her so fiercely that Michael thought that he was on the verge of attacking her. It was Kallath's turn to chuckle. "He usually says whatever he wants, no matter how embarrassing. You get used to it."
"I have news for you if you think that you're taking Michael and leaving me behind," Leanne declared, before either of them could continue their conversation.
"Or me," Shalay and Thalian chimed in together.
Domai Selindria whirled around to pierce them with her catlike stare. "It is bad enough that they are taking Michael. I will not allow you three to go as well." Her gaze softened slightly. "Now go along to school before you're later than you already are."
Leanne and Shalay appeared to be on the verge of protest, but the look on Selindria's face convinced them to keep their objections to themselves. Glowering, the three of them moved off toward the school.
"You should have let them come with us," Kallath said conversationally. "They're going to follow us when we leave anyway."
Domai Selindria glared at him. "They'll do as they're told. They know better than to disobey a direct order." She tossed her head impatiently and gestured in front of them. "Well, are we going or not?"
Kallath gave her a small bow and proceeded in front of her toward the gates. "We will need to pick up the packs and add a few supplies before we leave."
Domai Selindria just nodded and followed behind him, with Michael bringing up the rear. Michael's thoughts were roiling inside his mind, never pausing long enough for him to examine them. In one afternoon, everything he knew was changing. Not only had he grown up in Avenry, all of his ancestors on record had been born and raised there as well. The thought of leaving Leanne behind made him feel like he had swallowed a rock that sunk to the bottom of his stomach.
As Michael walked slowly behind Domai Selindria and Kallath, Thistledown jumped down from Kallath's pack and waited for Michael to catch up.
"Do you mind?" Thistledown entreated, looking up at Michael.
"Sure," Michael replied dully, bending down on one knee for Thistledown to scamper up to his back and perch behind his head.
"Why so glum?" Thistledown inquired cheerfully. "You have an adventure ahead of you; people and places very few of you have had the chance to experience. Not to mention the most gifted guide in the known world at your service."
They were far enough behind the other two that Michael felt he could share some of his thoughts without anyone overhearing. He did not want Domai Selindria to know how badly he was taking the sudden departure.
"I never thought I would have to leave Leanne behind," Michael 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, Kallath left a Suggestion on them when they left. They will be meeting up with us in three days."
Michael looked at him in astonishment. "He couldn't have done that with Domai Selindria standing there! She would have noticed."
Thistledown shook his head ruefully. "You will soon learn that there is quite a bit that Kallath 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. Kallath spoke briefly with one of the Guardians, who tapped his fist to his chest and sprinted into the city. Domai 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 Michael did not dare ask her what she had asked the Guardian.
"Captain Dobraine will be back with your supplies in a few minutes, " Kallath said as he rejoined the group.
Domai Selindria did not bother responding. Instead, she studied Kallath 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."
Kallath nodded as Domai Selindria turned and moved quickly toward the road to the Altered Gardens. Her small cottage was near the border.
Michael and Kallath did not talk to each other as they waited for Domai Selindria to return. Kallath made his way up and down the wall, talking with various Guardians and some of the watchmen. Captain Dobraine glanced at Michael every few minutes, his eyes seeming to know secrets about Michael. He found himself counting the bricks in the wall until Domai Selindria returned half an hour later, with a small bag hanging from her shoulder. Kallath 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 Kallath," Domai Selindria remarked, watching him as she transferred her possessions from her pack to the one that he had prepared.
"That's correct," Kallath acknowledged easily, as he begun to inspect the packs one last time.
"Are you claiming to be the same Kallath that founded Avenry?" she asked, doubt heavy in her tone.
"I have made no claims," Kallath replied, stopping to look at her with his intense eyes. "There is a bond that was created of which every human descendant of Avenry 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."
Kallath looked back down at the pack that he was retying. Michael looked at Domai Selindria. She was still watching Kallath, but her mind was obviously in another place. There was an uncertainty in her eyes that Michael had never seen before.
Captain Dobraine'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. Kallath began separating packs and forming three piles. He gestured Michael to one of the piles. Michael 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.
Michael looked around and noticed that Domai Selindria looked as uncomfortable with the heavy pack as he did. Kallath 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 Michael felt a small taste of the power that he had felt the previous day when Domai Selindria had been teaching them evasive defense. When the strange sense of power receded, the pack on Michael's back seemed to weigh almost nothing at all. He saw Domai Selindria's eyes widen in surprise. Neither of them had felt his aeri at all.
"Right then," Kallath 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, Domai Selindria began following Kallath. Michael decided to chance her mood and ask her a few questions. Falling in line behind Domai Selindria, Michael tried to formulate his questions.
"Domai Selindria," Michael ventured tentatively, "could I ask you a few questions?"
She slowed down slightly to put a little distance between them and Kallath. "I will answer what I can," she said when Kallath was out of earshot. Michael had never thought of Domai Selindria as secretive. Since the time they had met Kallath, Michael noticed that she was becoming increasingly closed.
"Kallath mentioned there was a bond between all of the human descendants of Avenry. I haven't felt anything different since he arrived, and it didn't look like Cha' le, Thalian or Leanne did either." Michael 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 Avenry."
"But we never have outsiders!" Michael exclaimed in astonishment. "That's one of the reasons we have the Guardians."
Looking at him carefully, Domai Selindria seemed to be deciding how much to tell him. Michael 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," Domai Selindria explained carefully. "This is not widely known, and I wouldn't tell you now, except I do not believe we will return."
Michael 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, Michael realized that something did not fit.
"How is it that you know about it, if only the Elders know?" Michael asked with a small frown.
"Because I am better at eavesdropping than Leanne and Shalay," she replied with a toss of her head.
Something that Kallath had said tugged at his memory. "Domai Selindria, what is a Serran?"
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 Kallath ask you earlier." Michael watched her closely, looking for a sign that she wasn't being honest. "I have never heard of a Serran. Is it another country?"
"I guess you could call it another country," she replied after another pause. She did not elaborate.
"Michael, I would like you to call me Selindria from now on," she said suddenly. "The days of the school are done, and strangers will probably become overly curious if they hear you naming me with a title."
"Fine," Michael conceded, thinking how strange it would be to call her by her name alone. All in all, Michael did not feel like Selindria had given him very good answers to his questions. Deciding to try a different angle, Michael glanced toward Kallath. "What do you think of Kallath? Do you think that we can trust him?"
Michael 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 Kallath as the one of old."
"What do you mean?" Michael asked curiously. He suddenly remembered Thistledown's amazement at their ignorance of history before the founding of Avenry and wondered just how much was left out of their education.
"The Kallath 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."
Michael was intrigued. They had learned almost no history outside of their own civilization. "What did he do?" Michael asked. "To end their civilization, I mean."
"No one really knows for sure," Selindria answered pensively. "The world was different back then. It is said that anyone could use the power radiating from 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 Delphite 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 aeri and lay objects such as plants. After two thousand years, it is hard to say what is myth and what is true."
Michael 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 Anopolis. He had dreamed of creating another school of learning at Avenry. The school 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 Altered Gardens.
Michael walked silently, trying to sort through all the new information. Selindria caught up to Kallath, throwing a warning glance over her shoulder at Michael to stay back. Michael 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 Serrans. Earlier, Kallath 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 a non-human? With his mind buzzing with unanswered questions, Michael followed the other two up the side of the mountain. They were headed toward the Altar of Avendale, or the Altar of the Avenry, as most people called it now.
It was said the Altar of Avendale was created as a token to the founder of Avenry. Some of the Elders claimed it had existed before the city was built. Michael and Thalian 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 firepit other youths had used when they visited the site. Thalian had suggested the proximity to the Altered Gardens might be affecting Michael in some way, resulting in his inability to use his aeri. They had decided to try a few exercises before going to sleep for the night since they were so far from the Altered Gardens. Michael 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. Thalian had said that he could not feel anything. Michael had tried to push out with his aeri to touch the source of the resonance. As his aeri touched the object, there was a sudden detonation from thousands of feet beneath the hill. The entire hill began to shake, and Michael hurriedly pulled his awareness back. There were a few more slight tremors, and then the hill was still again. Michael had looked at Thalian and saw his own shock mirrored in Thalian'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 that Michael had probed the Altar with his aeri. They had spent months talking about the possibilities of what the Altar might be. The fact that Thalian couldn't sense the Altar's resonance had them both speculating as to why Michael could when Michael could not even use his aeri the way everyone else did.
Michael brought his mind back to the present and realized they were nearly to the top of the hill. He could see the Altar of Avendale now and suddenly realized why it had been given that name. It consisted of a large slab of basalt lying horizontally across two vertical sides of basalt. Engraved on the lip of the six-inch-thick slab was a depiction of an armored warrior with his head thrown back and his arms raised to the sky where lightning bolts were shooting into his upraised palms. Michael had not noticed the depiction the last time he and Thalian had visited. As they approached the Altar, Michael once again felt the same resonance he had felt the previous summer. He motioned to Selindria as they all stopped next to it. She walked over to him with an eyebrow raised questioningly.
"Where is that resonance coming from?" he asked curiously.
"What resonance?" she replied blankly.
Michael gestured toward the Altar. "It seems to be coming from underneath that. It almost feels like a river is running under it."
Selindria looked at the Altar and Michael could sense her reaching out with her aeri. After a moment, she turned back to Michael. "I don't sense anything."
"You can sense aeir-astra?" Kallath asked suddenly, looking strangely at Michael.
"What?" Michael asked in puzzlement.
"Aeri-astra," Kallath replied, still watching Michael intently. "It is the planet's aeri."
"The planet's aeri?" Michael said, still feeling confused. "I thought that people could no longer feel it."
"It can't be felt," Kallath said slowly, "by most people. There are a few living that can still sense it. There will be more over the next couple of years. Have you ever been here before?"
Michael wondered if Kallath had just read his mind. Nodding, Michael told him of his last visit here with Thalian and the odd phenomenon. When he finished, Thistledown let out a low whistle.
"You are lucky to still be here," Kallath said gravely. "You tapped into aeri-astra without any knowledge of what you were doing. It's about as dangerous as opening the door of a dam without being killed from the current. This Altar was made for tapping into more of the aeri-astra without being overwhelmed, but it sounds like you bypassed the Altar and went straight to the core." Kallath looked slightly impressed.
"Are you saying that I can use the planet's aeri?" Michael asked incredulously.
"Aeri-astra," Kallath corrected absently. "And yes, you can use aeri-astra."
"Impossible," Selindria said flatly. "No human can use aeri-astra. Even non-humans are extremely limited in their ability to use aeri-astra and their generations are much fewer."
"That is true, with a few exceptions," Kallath admitted calmly. "However, I do believe Michael is one of those exceptions."
"Michael is from Avenry," Selindria protested. "They are all of pure human descent."
"What are you talking about?" Michael interrupted. "Why does it make a difference how many generations exist for determining whether a person can feel aeri-astra?"
They both looked at him in surprise. They had obviously forgotten that he was there. Thistledown chuckled evilly as if it were some kind of joke.
"We'll get to that in a minute," Kallath said brusquely. "I need to take care of something before we leave."
Kallath walked up to the Altar and put his hands in a small indention on either side that Michael realized was made for the palm of a hand. Kallath's eyes grew suddenly brighter, and Michael felt a huge surge of power coming from the Altar into Kallath. For the first time in his life, Michael could see something's aeri. There was more power pouring into Kallath than Michael would have believed was possible. There were threads splitting off from Kallath in all directions, shooting into the ground and up into the sky. Even as the threads buried themselves into the mountains and disappeared from sight, Michael could still feel every tendril of power as it twisted and turned. It reminded him of a root burrowing into the ground. It was going into people as well, Michael realized. He could feel it going into various Elders and other people that he knew. There was something odd about the pulse of the tendrils that Michael did not understand. The scope of what was happening was so complex it astounded Michael's mind that a person could manage something so complicated. Kallath's face was glistening with sweat and his eyes were tight with concentration. His neck muscles were corded with strain, as if the effort was physical as well as mental. The tendrils slowly began to pull back toward the Altar where Kallath stood. It looked like he was exerting as much effort to pull everything back as it had taken to do whatever it was he had done. Finally, as the last tendril pulled back within Kallath, the power surge that Michael had sensed rushing through Kallath abruptly cut off.
Feeling slightly shaken, Michael looked at Selindria with a questioning look. There was shock wide in her eyes, another expression that Michael had never seen on her face. After a moment, she seemed to come back to herself.
"I felt that," she commented, sounding impressed despite herself.
"I think everyone felt that," Michael replied with a somewhat strained laugh.
Kallath staggered away from the Altar to sit on a rock by the firepit. Selindria wordlessly handed him a water skin, which he accepted with a grateful nod and promptly drained. He sat panting for a few minutes as he caught his breath. Eventually, he arose again and handed the water skin back to Selindria with murmured thanks.
"I suppose we better start moving again if we want to make it to the boundary by nightfall," Kallath said as he scanned the horizon before them. He hoisted up his pack and began walking down the trail.
Selindria had been patiently waiting for him to start moving again before barraging him with questions. She had such a preoccupied look on her face that Michael had held off some his own questions.
"What exactly did you do?" Selindria finally asked him, her expression a blend of curiosity and suspicion.
Kallath gestured at Thistledown, who had managed to perch himself on Michael's pack again. "I'll let him explain it to you. I need some time to recover."
Thistledown stood up eagerly and cleared his throat. "I will need to give you a little bit of background in order for the answer to that question to make any sense." He paused and then added, "A lot of background in Michael's case. The Altar of Avendale is only one of many Altars like it scattered throughout the world. When Kallath first started the Delphite Order, one of the members discovered that a person could tap into more aeri-astra by creating a conduit that embedded itself deeply into the planet's crust. Kallath took that discovery one step further and found that if these conduits were placed in specific places around the world, a person could unite their power." Thistledown rolled his eyes. "He spent weeks on the chalkboard playing with formulas and mathematical figures before he could make it work."
Kallath finally looked back at them, scowling. "What does this have to do with her question?" he demanded.
Thistledown blinked and then laughed. "I just wanted them to know how the Altars were first created."
Kallath shook his head in resignation. "The Avenry were put in this valley for several reasons. One of the most important was to protect the human bloodline. There will be those that can use aeri-astra who will soon try to alter the Avenry. What we did back at the Altar was create a shield that connects all the Avenry together with a kind of energy. I have hidden the building blocks that make up their physical bodies in an algorithmic code that pulses through the energy link, disguising their true identities."
Michael suddenly remembered the pulsing that he felt as the tendrils of power emanated from the Altar. "Is that what that pulsing was? A code?"
Kallath nodded, looking pleased for some reason. "It was a trick that I learned in another lifetime, in another place." He slowed down as they came to the edge of the hill. "They have what you could call a reinforced aura now. They will not be able to use their aeri as effectively anymore, but they are immune to the Evictor's power, as well as others that would try to change them."
"It is all downhill from here," Selindria said, as she began walking down the thickly vegetated path. "You should have plenty of energy to tell me why that was necessary."
Kallath muttered something to himself. Michael thought he heard something about a mule but could not be sure. "The people of Avenry were put here as guardians." Kallath said when he had finished muttering. "They have forgotten they are guardians of more than the Foresight Stone. They guard the pure blood of the human race, some of the only human blood that will be able to sense aeri-astra. We quarantined them from the rest of humanity and kept them close to the Altered Gardens so they could preserve a seed with the ability for humans to touch aeri-astra once the planet has healed." Kallath gestured to the valley down below them. "The humans down there will never touch aeri-astra on their own. It has been bred out of them because generation after generation passed away without sensing enough of the planet's spirit to bond to it. For a long time after the Sundering, nothing would grow except in the Altered Gardens. It was three hundred years before people could begin traveling throughout the continents again."
Kallath walked for a while in silence, brooding over the past. Michael shuddered, thinking of what it must have been like watching the planet die all around you, being forced to share hot spots on the planet with anyone else that survived.
Thistledown picked up where Kallath left off. "After they saw what they had done to the planet, the Delphite Order selected a group of people to live in isolation in these mountains. Kallath visited often for a couple of centuries, helping them build a society and shaping them to be guardians of the Foresight Stone as well as their own bloodline." Thistledown shook his head slowly. "I would never have thought the Avenry folk would turn out so well sitting in isolation that long."
"It's called the power of tradition," Kallath interjected flippantly. "Give someone a tradition to pass on to their descendants, and it will last longer than anything else man can make, even if it does become somewhat corrupted."
Thistledown looked at him oddly for a moment before continuing. "Anyway, the idea was to bring the Avenry folk back into the world once the planet's spirit healed completely and reintroduce their pure blood into the mainstream bloodline." Thistledown barked a laugh. "They certainly didn't anticipate what the aeri-astra hotspots would do to humanity. Now we have Graelins, Serrans and thousands of odd creatures that never existed back then. There aren't any full-blooded humans left in the world except in Avenry."
Michael pondered what they had said. His entire world seemed to have shrunk to insignificance in the last couple of hours. Avenry had been his world when he woke up that morning. Now they were just an abnormal offshoot in a sequence of freak accidents in a world gone crazy. Where has all the order in the world gone? Michael thought desperately.
Selindria pursed her lips thoughtfully as she glided down the steep mountainside, avoiding obstructions without any conscious effort. It was said that she could sneak up on a fox through a bed of dry leaves, and Michael believed it as he watched her smooth descent through the thick foliage. It was all Michael could do to keep from being twisted up in the long vines hanging from the green canopy of trees above them. Michael noticed that Kallath had no more difficulty than Selindria making his way down the lush path.
The sky darkened as the sun dropped lower on the horizon. Abruptly, Kallath stopped and raised a hand for them to halt. Michael looked around for the reason they had stopped. Immediately, a Guardian materialized out of the forest and tapped his hand to his chest in salute. Michael recognized him as he drew near. It was Josh, one of the Guardians who came to the school to teach them stealth. He was taller than average, with piercing blue eyes and a strong chin. He wore a watchel, a uniform that was made from the watchelnise plant that grew in the Altered Gardens. The plant was a predator that was invisible to the naked eye. It could bend light around itself so that only a person adept at sensing other being's aeri could sense it.
"Well met, Kallath, my friend," Josh greeted him with a twinkle in his eyes. "I see that you're taking more than you bargained for."
Kallath was very conspicuous in not glancing at Selindria. "I tried to leave Thistledown, but the Elders didn't want him hanging around causing trouble. You know how they are."
Josh chuckled as Thistledown shot up behind Michael's head with an outraged expression on his face. Before he could begin his tirade, however, Selindria broke in.
"You've met before?" she asked Josh coolly, ignoring the interplay.
"Many times," Josh answered with an abashed look. "It was Kallath who taught me a lot of the new ideas that I brought to class after I started training on the borders."
Selindria just shook her head with a disgruntled look on her face. It seemed that everyone in Avenry knew about Kallath except Selindria and Michael.
"Josh will accompany us from here," Kallath announced in the silence that followed. "He is one of the best Guardians in Avenry, and some of his talents will be very useful."
Josh didn't say anything, but he did flush slightly with the compliment. Michael felt somewhat better knowing that another person he knew would be joining them.
"Shall we press on?" Kallath suggested briskly. "We need to reach the border by sundown."
"Impossible," Selindria stated flatly. "The border is still another full day ahead of us."
"Just take my word for it," Kallath replied wearily, starting down the path once more. They followed him for another quarter of an hour, when he unexpectedly veered off the barely recognizable path into some dense foliage. Michael glanced around curiously as they made their way toward a small hill that rose from the side of the mountain. As they drew closer to the hill, Kallath slipped out of sight without warning. The others continued following, walking into the seemingly substantial side of the small hill in front of them, each of them disappearing in turn. Michael looked closely as he stepped into it as well and realized that the watchelnise plant covered the hillside in order to disguise it.
Michael stumbled to a halt as he came out the other end and then spun around to look behind him in amazement. Above them reared the steep mountains that they had been descending. Looking around, he realized that they were in the foothills at the base of the mountain.
"What happened?" he blurted out in astonishment. Selindria was also staring around her in wonder.
"We had to take a small shortcut in order to make it to the border by nightfall." Kallath allowed himself a small grin as he continued down the gradual descent of the foothills.
Josh did not look surprised, already following closely behind Kallath. Michael shared a glance with Selindria as they both began the descent as well, wondering if she was thinking the same thing that he was. If there were shortcuts throughout the passes that could take you through the mountain in the blink of an eye, what would happen if an enemy discovered them?
"Only those who know how to activate a wave-gap can use one," Thistledown piped up behind Michael, as if reading his thoughts, "and Avenry is protected from random wave-gaps. Only wave-gaps that have been synchronized with those on the inside can enter the mountain."
"How many of these wave-gaps are there in this mountain?" Selindria inquired with a twist to her mouth, as if she were tasting the word.
"Quite a few, actually," Thistledown returned in his high voice. "Originally they were made for emergencies so Guardians could report from the border much quicker, should an army invade."
Michael could immediately see the advantage of such a tool. He wondered how it was kept such a secret that even Selindria did not know of them. A glance at Selindria showed that the same thought had occurred to her.
"How is it that I have never heard of these shortcuts?" Selindria questioned, her eyes narrowing.
"As I understand it, the Guardians have secrets that they only share with other Guardians." Thistledown shrugged. "Even the Elders don't know all of their secrets—except, of course, for the ones that used to be Guardians themselves."
Michael could only shake his head in wonder. There seemed to be no end to the surprises regarding his ignorance of his homeland. What he thought of as a very simple lifestyle turned out to be more complex than he ever imagined. He needed time to think, to meditate through all that he learned in the last day. Glancing up at the horizon, Michael could make out Lunitra, the larger of the two moons that orbited the planet, creeping over the plains to the North. They would need to bed down soon, and then he would be able to put everything together. He had always been quick at adapting after he had time to study a challenge out in his mind and come to understand it from all sides. He had always surprised his instructors at the school when he left class as clueless as the other students and then came back the next day with a perfect understanding of the subject. Selindria had told him once that he had a gift for understanding that went beyond mere intelligence and that his mind did not work in the same way as those around him. She thought it might account for his difficulty in using his aeri, though she did not say how.
Michael slowed down, a feeling of foreboding tingling up his spine and into the base of his skull. Kallath had also slowed, his stance immediately wary. The others looked at Kallath questioningly, noticeably unaffected by the phenomenon that Michael and Kallath alone appeared to be experiencing. Michael looked around them, trying to determine from where the ominous feeling emanated. They had reached the lower stretches of the foothills, and the trees had thinned out to a sparse forest with meadows interspersed throughout. Large boulders were clustered throughout the forest, varying from the size of a small cottage to the size of a large house. Michael realized that the feeling of foreboding felt as if it came from the boulders. As he peered closer at one of the larger boulders, about twenty feet from them, it suddenly unfolded into a nightmare. It stood twenty feet tall, with arms as large as tree trunks and legs even larger. Its limbs were covered in orange moss, giving it the appearance of clothing, but there was no head to the enormous creature. Headless or not, it appeared to know where they were. It raised a fist as if to smash them into the ground.
Michael felt a rapid concussion go through the air that carried the lowest tones of a subterranean boom with a counter pitch that could shatter the thickest glass. Had it been directed at Michael, he was sure that his skull would have exploded. The monstrosity in front of them reeled back as cracks appeared throughout its huge form. Michael looked to his right to see Selindria gazing intently at the thing, the way she did when she was using her aeri. As he watched, the air between the beast and them shaded as if there was tinted glass between them. An ear-shattering explosion followed this as the monster blasted apart into chunks of shrapnel that bounced harmlessly off the tinted shield between them. The shrapnel continued on, snapping trees like wheat from a scythe as they hurtled through the air. Many of the other creatures, which had begun to unfold, were also knocked over by the blast. Michael felt something recede into the distance at enormous speeds before fading from his awareness altogether.
Kallath had pulled something out of one of his pockets and now held it in his hand, pointing down toward the ground. It looked like a steel ball with a spike sticking out of it. Kallath drove it into the ground as the other creatures recovered and began to move toward them. Selindria was turning to the next closest creature when Michael felt the sense of overwhelming power he had felt at the Altar of Avendale rush past him and his companions, making a wide arc that swept through all of the stone giants. As the wave swept through them, they crumbled into fine powder and blew away with a sudden wind that gusted through the devastated forest.
Josh was still crouched, ready to attack with a long mace that he must have thought would be his only chance against beings made of stone. Slowly he stood up, his eyes still wide with the adrenaline rush that always came before combat. Michael burned with the shame of his inaction. He had just stood there, stunned with the immensity of the creatures, unable to even draw a weapon.
"What were they?" Josh asked somewhat shakily. Michael had always been friends with Josh, who had left the school four years before Michael. Michael was glad that Josh was not as calm as Selindria and Kallath appeared to be. Thistledown was already making himself comfortable on Michael's pack again.
"Evictors," Kallath grunted with a frown. "Somehow they managed to make their own hosts." He looked troubled as he stared at the remains of the first one that Selindria had blasted. "This is something new. Always before, they had to inhabit human hosts that were made to house spirits. It seems that they have discovered a way to enter the world before aeri-astra has healed completely."
"What does that mean?" Josh looked just as troubled. "Will we be facing entire armies of stone giants?"
"Not unless they've learned how to reproduce with these new hosts," Kallath answered with a dry chuckle. "There were very few Evictors left when they were banished near the end. Their numbers have only diminished since then."
Kallath readjusted his pack and started down the path again. "Let's keep moving. The border is just ahead."
As they started down the path through the blasted trees and shrubs, Thistledown began singing a bawdy song about a highborn lady dallying with a dwarf. Michael's ears grew redder as the song progressed while Kallath's eyes crinkled with quiet mirth. Selindria also looked amused, while Josh looked as uncomfortable as Michael. The second time around, Kallath joined the singing, punctuated frequently with laughter at the more obscene aspects of the song. It was at these parts that Thistledown cried out even louder, as if to make sure that the best parts were not missed.
Trying to find a way to ignore the song, Michael turned to Josh. "When did you first meet Kallath?"
Josh looked glad of the excuse to do something besides listen to the song that had climaxed to the highborn lady riding the dwarf around the bedchamber like a horse. "He showed up while I was on watch during my first year," Josh replied loudly, trying to talk over Thistledown's high-pitched cries coming from behind Michael's shoulder. "I recognized him as soon as he came near of course, but it was still a shock."
Michael shook his head. He must be talking about the bond. Michael thought about telling Josh that he shared no part in that bond but decided to keep it to himself. He would just think that I was a freak or something. A little voice in the back of his mind piped up that it might be true. "Why did he come to see you?"
Josh looked into Michael's eyes for a moment before answering. "He thought that I had some special talents that he said would be useful if I learned how to use them." Josh scratched his scraggly bearded chin thoughtfully. "He told me that I would need to go on a journey in the not-too-distant future and that he needed to make sure that I was prepared for the journey."
"What special talents?" Michael asked curiously.
Josh gave him that searching look again, as if wondering how he would react. Finally, he heaved out a deep breath. "I suppose that you'll find out sooner or later. I'm Aetherborn."
Michael's eyes widened in surprise. He would have never guessed Josh was Aetherborn, the elemental power that so few were born with. The power, triggered from fear or excitement, caused someone Aetherborn to move at speeds impossible for normal mortals to achieve and possess strength much greater than the ordinary person. Most who were born that way were dangerous to be around because of their unpredictable nature. He had known Josh for most of his life and he had never shown any signs of instability. He said as much, and Josh nodded slightly.
"I learned to control it to a degree when I was still very young. The Elders knew about it and so took extra precautions in training me on the combat field. That is why Domai Selindria taught me alone." The last he said with a sheepish grin, and no wonder. The others had been told that he had progressed too far to combat with the other students and so had to be privately tutored by Domai Selindria.
"She wants us to call her just Selindria now," Michael offered in a low voice. It still sounded strange just saying her name without the honorary title.
As quiet as he had said it, she still heard her name and glanced over at them. Sometimes Michael thought her ears were sharper than her eyes, which was saying a lot. She opened her mouth to say something when Kallath's singing cut off.
"Here we are," he exclaimed with satisfaction. The path opened into a clearing where a medium-sized cottage stood, smoke already climbing out of the chimney. Michael looked around suspiciously. He would have sworn that there had not been a cottage down here when they were descending the foothills, especially with smoke coming out of the chimney. As they drew closer, he felt an odd sensation flow through him, as if he had passed through some invisible screen. Surprisingly, the worry of the past couple of days seemed to fade. His heart felt as light as it ever had, maybe more so.