Michael looked around him in wonder. "What is this place?"
The others, aside from Selindria, were also inhaling deeply, as if the very air was nectar to their lungs, filling them with peace and well-being.
"This is home," Kallath explained with a smile that seemed more relaxed than it had from the time that Michael had met him. "It isn't much but make yourselves comfortable. Dinner should almost be ready." He went through the front door, beckoning the others to follow.
Inside was a medium-sized entry room with chairs scattered throughout. The walls were made of a substance that Michael didn't recognize. They radiated a warmth that filled him to his core. The furnishings were plain, if finely made. Small tables sat next to the chairs on which people could set their drinks. There were several doorways along the walls to their left that Michael assumed led to the bedrooms and washroom. The kitchen and dining room were extensions of the main entry room, with sturdy beams supporting the roof between the rooms.
They set their packs on the ground in the sitting room and followed Kallath as he herded them to the dining room table. They sat down in high-backed padded chairs, still feeling a blissful sense of comfort and security. Kallath walked into the kitchen and began to bring the cook pots of food to the table. When Selindria saw what he was doing, she rose and began to fetch the teapot, ignoring his protestations that she sit down and relax.
Michael realized that he had not seen Thistledown since crossing the strange boundary in front of the cottage.
"Where is Thistledown?" Michael asked curiously, glancing around the room. "He was just over my shoulder in my pack."
Just then, the front door opened, and a man came in whistling tunelessly. Michael gave a start of surprise. It was Thistledown, except that he was big now. He still had those fanged teeth and sharp claws on his hands, but now that he was the same size as the rest of them, he looked more human and less monster.
Thistledown stopped when he saw Michael staring at him. "You would think that you had never seen me before," he commented with a short bark of a laugh. "It's as if I didn't spend the whole day riding over your shoulder."
"But you're big!" Michael blurted out before he could stop himself.
"You can't get anything past this one," Thistledown observed to Kallath in mock seriousness.
Michael's ears reddened slightly as everyone at the table began to laugh, but the feeling of well-being was too strong for embarrassment to last, and after a moment he began to chuckle with them. He was starting to catch on to the way that Kallath and Thistledown would either make a joke or give an explanation that made no sense if they didn't want to talk about something.
They spent the rest of the evening relaxing in the sitting room, with Thistledown reciting stories of his heroic—if slightly exaggerated—deeds as he traveled across the continents meeting strange creatures in even stranger lands. Michael was not sure if any of it was true, but he had always liked a good story, so he didn't question him on any of the irregularities.
Selindria seemed more interested in the stories than Michael would have thought. She was watching Thistledown intently, which did not go unnoticed by Thistledown, resulting in even more embellishment. Her eyes were intense, like a stalking lion. This was a look that Michael was used to seeing when they were on the combat field.
Josh grinned expectantly as Thistledown reached the climax of his current story. At the moment, he had slain a Swamp Dragon, rescued Kallath from a Serrater and saved a village from a rampaging herd of Skeechas. As with his other stories, he ended this one with himself as the hero, Kallath as his sidekick, and a beautiful Lady offering him her undying devotion, which he modestly refused.
Michael had never heard of any of these creatures. He wondered if they were made up with the rest of the story. Thistledown had described a Swamp Dragon as a giant lizard that spat poison at its victims, paralyzing them so that it could eat them alive because it would not eat dead meat. It only lived in the vast swamps on the very southwestern corner of the Serran continent. He had described a Serrater as a giant bird of prey whose beak was razor sharp like the cutting edge of its wings, which could behead a man and horse alike in a swooping dive called the Wind of Death. He did not describe what herds of Skeechas were, and Michael felt surprised at his own disappointment at missing the description.
Michael decided that it would be a good time to ask a question that had been bothering him since the attack of the stone giants.
"How do you kill a spirit?" he asked Kallath, who was lounging with his feet on an ottoman, with eyes half-lidded as if he were asleep.
"You can't," he replied without opening his eyes all the way. "The matter that spirits are created from is eternal. There is no force that can kill it."
"But you said earlier that some of the Evictors had been killed," Michael noted pointedly. "Aren't they beings of spirit?"
Kallath shook his head slightly without raising it, "I said they had been destroyed, not killed. Spirit can be destroyed, after a fashion." He finally opened his eyes all the way to look at Michael. "The spirits that inhabit our bodies are very complex and mature spirits in the grand scheme of existence. As you know from working with compounds from the Altered Gardens, there are beings of varying levels of spiritual complexity. Some spirits are so elemental that they have no power to act on their own. They only exist until something changes them or compounds them with other spiritual elementals. Once, longer ago than you can possibly imagine, you and I were nothing more than a spiritual elemental, without thought, personality, or character. Not all of the things that make us unique and who we are existed when we were in that state. When I say that the Evictors were destroyed, I am talking about the disintegration of their spirit down to the basest elements."
Michael, along with Selindria and Josh, stared at him in horror. Michael could not fathom anything worse than the end of who he was, like being blended into a mixing pot to make a different recipe since the first one didn't work.
Kallath looked back at them calmly. "Remember, those who we are fighting against will not bother destroying your soul. They can and will, however, tear it open and change it to something evil. I would destroy my own soul before allowing that to happen to myself or any of you."
Even in the warmth of the cottage, there was a chill that ran down Michael's spine at the certainty in Kallath's voice that he would do just as he had said. Would I want to live, knowing that I would become one with the enemy? After thinking about it for a moment, Michael realized that either way, the things that made him who he was would be gone. The only difference was that if the Evictors caught him, he would become a monster, hurting those that he had once loved. Hurting Leanne. That thought was enough to convince him he would rather be unmade than remade to evil ends.
Clearing his throat, Kallath stood up. "I think that we should all get some sleep. We have a long, long road ahead of us."
Kallath showed everyone to the different rooms adjacent to the sitting room. Terrence led Michael to the room at the opposite end of the cottage, with Josh and Selindria in the rooms between his and Thistledown's.
Michael's room was comfortable, if plain. He walked to the bed in the corner and pulled his boots off before lying down on the bed with a sigh. It had been a very tiring day, both mentally and physically. He tried to think about all that he had heard throughout the day, tried to make sense of the mess his world had become. Sleep overcame him before long, with dreams of Swamp Dragons and giant birds wielding swords.
* * * Scene Break
In the valley of Avenry, three dark shapes moved slowly through the twilight, laden with heavy packs that made them look like beasts of burden out grazing. The sky was overcast, making the darkness around them almost palpable enough to touch. The darkness did not seem to bother or hinder the trio as they walked slowly, but confidently, up the trail that led to the Altar of Avendale.
"You haven't said how you plan to get past the Guardians on the border," Shalay's voice whispered out of the darkness.
"Just trust me," Thalian whispered patiently, as though he had already been through this discussion.
Shalay glanced at Leanne, who rolled her eyes despairingly toward the heavens. "I wouldn't trust you if I had you tied in a sack," Leanne said dryly.
They had stolen some of the Everbright vapor that was in the Guardian storehouse before they left, so they would be able to find their way in the dark. It was not the first time Shalay had sneaked into the Guardian's private stores, so she was fairly good at it. They made good time as they crossed the summit up to the Altar of Avendale and then down the steep slopes that led into the lowlands. Thalian would stop them from time to time as they made their way down the mountain to make sure they were still following Michael's tracks.
Shalay collided into Thalian's back, almost knocking him over as he came to a halt in front of her. "Why have we stopped?" she asked impatiently.
Thalian gestured toward the ground in front of him. "There is another set of tracks that joined the others; another Guardian, from the looks of it."
Leanne walked closer and crouched down to study the tracks. "It looks like he joined them," she said slowly. "Some of Michael's tracks are stepping into his, so he must have joined their party."
"Who was on duty tonight?" Thalian asked as he began down the trail again.
"Josh, Silveresti and Grey were covering this section." Shalay replied absently. She had overheard Captain Dobraine passing the information on to Elder Gibbons earlier that night.
"What is it?" Thalian asked curiously.
"I think that it might have been Josh," she replied uncertainly. "I overheard him talking with Domai Selindria once when they were doing his private training." She paused again, "I think that he's Aetherborn."
Thalian let out a loud guffaw. Shalay and Leanne both made shushing noises at him, but he ignored them. "Aetherborn? Josh? He is the most ordinary person I know! There is no way that he's Aetherborn. Everyone would have known by now."
"If you would close your mouth and let me finish," Shalay retorted dryly, "I heard her giving him instruction on how to control his emotions so that he could use Aether whenever he wanted to, instead of whenever instinct took over. I'm assuming that she was referring to Aetherborn."
"Even so, I don't —" Thalian cut off and stopped walking again, studying the ground. "Another set of tracks," he said in surprise.
"These don't belong to a Guardian," Leanne stated emphatically. "These tracks weren't made by anyone from Avenry. We don't make soles like this on any of our boots."
Shalay looked at her in consternation. "An Evictor from one of the towns?" she whispered worriedly.
"Maybe," Thalian frowned doubtfully. "It could be anyone. Let's see if the prints keep following Michael's." Thalian stood up and continued down the trail as the other two followed. They didn't go very far before they saw all of the tracks veer off the main path and into the thick foliage to the left.
"Where were they going?" Thalian wondered aloud.
Leanne pushed passed him "Well, let's find out, shall we?" She glanced back at him to make sure that he was following and then continued on with Shalay bringing up the rear.
They traveled for another quarter hour before all but one set of tracks dead-ended in the side of a small hill. Shalay walked around the perimeter of the small hill looking for some sign of where they went.
"Where did they go?" Leanne asked in confusion.
"Indeed, where?" a voice responded behind them. The three youths spun around, instinctively pulling their weapons from their sheaths. A man of middle years stood before them, wearing unrelieved black trousers, shirt and coat with gleaming black boots that rose to just below his knee. His hands were empty and, as far as Shalay could see, he had no weapons on him. He gazed at them with eyes as black as the night around them, towering over even Thalian by a hand or more. His face was so alien from anything that Shalay had ever seen that she wondered if he were even human. The differences were very subtle, but there were so many of them that it gave the overall appearance of a non-human. His eyes were angular, set inside of deep sockets, with a nose that did not miss being too large and pointed ears.
"Who are you?" Thalian asked roughly. "And why are you following my friends?"
"I might ask the same of you," he replied, his voice hard and coarse. Shalay wondered if that were his normal voice. "Shouldn't you children be preparing for school tomorrow?"
Thalian reddened slightly. "You haven't answered my question, stranger," he said in a deadly quiet voice. "Don't make me ask again."
"Or what?" the stranger asked contemptuously. "Are you going to skewer me?" he gestured scornfully at Thalian's sword.
Shalay's thoughts swirled furiously. The man did not have a weapon, but he seemed completely oblivious to any personal danger. Even if he was a trained warrior, he would have to pause against an armed swordsman. He must have some kind of weapon, she thought warily, even if we cannot see it. Cautiously, she scanned him with her aeri, looking for the presence of an object that was not in harmony with his aeri. Beside her, she felt Leanne checking him as well.
Shalay heard Leanne gasp in astonishment, just as her own eyes widened in shock. She could feel his aeri, but it seemed to exist only in certain parts of his body, as if there were gaping holes through him. Anything could be hidden in what she could not sense.
"Be careful, Thalian," she warned in a low voice. "He is more than what he seems." She began dipping her hand into her coat pocket where she carried Spiritsnare, a powder that was made from a root that would ensnare a person's spirit rather than their physical body, trapping them until their spirit adapted to the change and overcame it. As far as anyone knew, the root only grew in the mountains of Avenry.
Slowly, Shalay pulled a pinch of the powder out of her pocket and concentrated her aeri on the air around it, ready to blow it in his face if he appeared to attack.
"What in the two moons are you?" Leanne asked in puzzlement. She did not look at Shalay, but she knew that Leanne was drawing his attention to her so that Shalay would have the opportunity to blow the powder on to him. The stranger's face darkened at Leanne's question, and abruptly he was no longer there. He appeared behind Shalay with a vise like grip around the wrist that held the powder and held a small knife to the back of her ribs. It was impossible that he could have moved that fast. Shalay inhaled deeply as the tip of the blade brushed her back rib. The way that he was holding her meant a sure death if she tried to move at all.
"Now," he said in a quiet growl, "you are going to tell me why you are following Kallath, or I will have to kill you, which I may do anyway, depending on your answer."
Thalian dropped his sword and raised his hands in front of him submissively. "Let her go," he pleaded, barely keeping the anxiety out of his voice. "Kill me if you do not like our answers but let them go."
"You have to the count of three to tell me why you are following Kallath, and then I am going to kill your friend," he repeated the warning in his soft, growling voice.
"He and a gnome came to our city and left with one of our friends and a teacher," Leanne said hurriedly. "We were going to join them. That is all. I swear it on my soul name."
The stranger grunted slightly without changing expression and shoved Shalay away. The oath that she had given could not be broken. No one knew why, but everyone knew the oath the day they learned to talk. A person trying to break the oath would begin having sporadic convulsions that lasted for a week.
"Did he ask you to follow him?" the stranger demanded with a piercing look. "Or was this your own idea?"
Leanne opened her mouth, the lie plain on her face, and Shalay broke in. "He didn't ask us to." She watched him closely to see what his reaction would be. She had a feeling that he could hear a lie.
The stranger sighed. "Why does he always have to complicate things?" he muttered resignedly. He stepped back, looking at them each in turn, his eyes appraising. His face gave no indication of what he thought, as closed to them as the rest of him was to the outer world. After a moment of quiet study, he turned away from them and began walking back toward the main trail.
"Follow me, ask no questions and do as I tell you to do when I tell you to," he demanded over his shoulder. "All you need to know is that I can take you to where Kallath went, something that you will never be able to do on your own."
The three Avenry folk stood looking at each other uncertainly for a few moments before Thalian shrugged uncomfortably. "At least this way he will be under our eye instead of sneaking around behind our backs."
Leanne nodded slowly and turned toward the main trail. Shalay grunted sourly without voicing the obvious fact that having him under their eye had availed them nothing the first time that he had attacked, but she also began walking back toward the main trail. The stranger had disappeared from sight, but Shalay could feel his disjointed aeri ahead of them on the trail.
They continued down the trail into the morning without any discussion, the three youths keeping a slight distance between the black-swathed man and themselves. Shalay knew that the others probably had the same questions running through their minds that she did: Is he trying to harm this Kallath, or is he a friend? Shalay's initial impression was that he wanted to harm them, but he didn't kill them when he had the chance. There was so much that she didn't know about the outside world that she couldn't make any educated guesses on what his intentions might be.
As the sun began climbing high into the sky, the three youths began to flag. Shalay wondered if the black-clothed stranger intended to walk the entire way without rest. He certainly showed no signs of fatigue that she could see. He would glance back at them about once every hour, expressionless and cold, and then continue without looking back until the next hour came.
After what seemed like ages, he stopped and told them that they would make camp in a small clearing that was about fifty feet to the side of the trail. Shalay's legs were shaking with exhaustion and Leanne looked ready to fall over. Thalian looked a little better than the two of them, but not much. They had planned to take turns at the watch throughout the night, but Shalay was not sure any of them had enough energy to stay awake. They had been unable to acquire any stamina tinctures from the Guardian storehouse. Shalay wished she had tried harder now.
The three Avenry did not bother with a campfire, and the dark stranger did not seem interested in lighting one either. The three of them pulled some dried venison from their packs and began to eat ravenously. When they finished, Thalian stood up with a weary sigh.
"I'll take the first watch," he murmured quietly to them, making a discreet glance at the black-clad stranger. He stood about twenty paces away with his back to them as he studied the trees at the eastern edge of the clearing.
"You will all go to sleep right now," the stranger commanded without turning around. "I won't have you slowing me down any more than you already are by falling over from exhaustion."
Thalian scowled at his back but said nothing in return. Shalay's lips turned down in a small frown. Does he have the ears of a cat? she thought irritably. She would have to remember that anything she said aloud would probably be overheard. I'll bet that Michael doesn't have to put up with this kind of nonsense.
Leanne already had her pack off and lay asleep on the ground. Shrugging her pack off, Shalay stretched down on the ground beside her. She fell into a deep, dreamless sleep almost immediately, with Thalian settling in on the other side of her.
* * *
The black-clad stranger stood over the slumbering youths from Avenry, studying them once again. He had no need of rest. He shook his head slowly as he studied them, marveling at the thought that existence itself rested on the shoulders of four youths from this isolated province. Standing up, he began to make a circuit around the camp, watching as much with his aeri as he did with his eyes and ears. Thinking of the look on Kallath's face when he saw him with these three almost made him smile. Happiness was not an emotion that his race was capable of, but he felt a twisted satisfaction at what fate had brought him.