“There is a story of a man—his name has been lost in history—who came to this area searching for the meaning of life. When he got here, he believed it was the place he was looking for. The strange phenomenon of the rain shadow effect and the protection of the mountains made the climate more moderate than surrounding areas, and the man took this as a sign. He was a clever survivalist and so began to build a home from local materials, eking out a small space where he could live and grow his own food.
“The indigenous peoples, the Kechaala, became curious and observed the man and all his activities. This was before other strangers had come and exploited them, so they were not biased or afraid, just curious. They watched him for weeks, careful not to be seen.
“The man, for his part, was not so blind as they thought him to be. He began leaving things for his silent watchers, food or trinkets he had made. He set them well away from his home, in the surrounding forest. The members of the local tribe did not know what to make of it.
“Finally, a young man, cocksure in the way only the very young can be, walked boldly into camp, his long knife thrust through his belt and his bow slung over his back. He bellowed for the man to come out and speak with him.
“When the man did so, the young tribesman almost lost his nerve, but he remained, though visibly shaking. The man’s face was kindly, and that calmed the younger man’s nerves, but when they tried to speak to each other, they found that they could not understand. They were speaking different languages.
“The other natives watched from the trees as the man drew pictures on the ground, made gestures, and tried his best to communicate. The young tribesman did likewise. At times, it was humorous to realize the miscommunication that had occurred, and at times anger flared in one or the other because of some perceived insult. The two kept at it. No other native showed his or her face to the man in all that time.
“After several weeks, the man and the local had forged a kind of friendship. They had learned enough of each other’s languages to communicate more effectively. Soon, the man was fluent in the native tongue, and members of the tribe started to come and visit him.
“They started to call the man by a title, an honorific: Teacher. He taught them many things from his world, but the most important was the knowledge that is universal, the ability to look within oneself and, regardless of spiritual or religious beliefs, find the goodness and balance there. He was a sort of philosopher and his teachings not only made the local tribe happier, but allowed them to think creatively and grow their society until they were the most powerful tribe for hundreds of miles.
“The tribe, having the balance and peace they had attained from Teacher, were peaceful and loved by every other tribe that encountered them. They nurtured trade, were able to stall hostilities, and coordinated the exchange of technology between tribes. And it was all because of Teacher.
“When he died, he was honored for five days’ travel in all directions, and the place where he had built his little home was named for him, Tchela Aenora in the native tongue, but translated and kept with the same meaning in Kasmali. Teacher’s Valley.”
When they reached Teacher’s Valley the next day, Sam had a better appreciation for the community.
The community was no larger than Shumashin, and in fact looked much like it, but dominating the landscape was a massive building. It looked almost a castle, though it had no defensive walls, only decorative ones. It looked as if it had been added onto many times, either to increase it or to repair sections that had been damaged or destroyed. This gave it an eclectic and almost eccentric look.
“The Learning Center,” Togo Cairn said, pointing to it. “The citizens long ago decided that they would carry on the Teacher’s work, so they created a university of sorts. Even the Great War could not destroy it completely, though it was a near thing. A few scholars survived, and they increased their number and thrived. It is still a small group, but it is the pride of the entire region. Of those who know about it, anyway.”
“That’s fantastic,” Sam said. “I didn’t know there were places like this on Gythe. I wish we could stay and talk with them, but we have more pressing business.”
“I agree,” Rindu said. “It is a mystery to me how the Zouyim did not know about this. We could have exchanged information…when the temple still stood and the Zouyim were still present.”
“It’s not that confusing,” Togo Cairn said. “They tend to keep the Center secret. I only know because it’s less than forty miles from my home town, and even then because I range farther than most. I would say not one in every hundred in Shumashin know about the place, if even that.”
The party skirted the main area of the town, passing by to the south, an easier route. As they came upon the Learning Center, Togo Cairn swung them around to head north, their path circumscribing the Center’s ground.
Sam gaped. This close, the building looked like some giant creature of stone and wood preparing to pounce. It seemed both tense and relaxed at the same time, perhaps the mixture being due to different styles of architecture melded together in a building that had been constructed piecemeal over hundreds of years.
Just in the relatively small section Sam and the others passed by, there were squat, solid stone structures—looking like battlements or a guard house—sweeping wooden-roofed portions that to Sam appeared almost whimsical, slat-sided buildings that were functional and unadorned, and many others. Sam was no expert on architecture, but even to his eye, some of the parts clashed with others adjacent to them. It surprised him when he felt a wide smile crack his face.
“What is it, Sam?” Nalia asked him.
“I don’t know. I think I find the Learning Center, the building itself, both comical and wonderful. All the different parts, they don’t really go together, and the whole thing should be ridiculous, but I find that when I look at it as a whole, it seems to fit. The different pieces seem to give it a character, and a noble one. Noble, but without pretension, as if it knows how important it is, but doesn’t let it go to its head.”
Nalia looked askance at him. “You speak of it as if it were a person.”
“Yeah,” Sam nodded. “I guess I do. It seems like that. When this is all over and we have time, I really need to bring Dr. Walt back here to explore this place. I bet the inside is even more fascinating than the outside.”
She shook her head at him and patted his shoulder, then walked toward her father, chuckling. Cleave followed her.
After leaving the Learning Center ground behind, Togo brought them into some thick trees and they continued to the north.
“There aren’t really any roads or paths to speak of from here until the other side of the mountains. It’s a rough, inhospitable land. We’re done with the easy travel for now. This is where nature reigns supreme, without the touch of man evident. Welcome to the Bein Bongana, the forest of the Bonganas.”
Togo wasn’t kidding. Sam had traveled quite a bit in Gythe, but as always, each forest had its own unique makeup of trees and vegetation. He scanned the foliage as they traveled, picking out trees and bushes, even some herbs. As always, the wild places and all the different types of vegetation reminded him of Inoria Dinn, Emerius’s sister. She had died outside of Gutu, so heart stricken over killing the creature her younger brother had mutated into that she threw herself at the enemy forces. An act of suicide.
She had loved trees and other plants, teaching Sam a little about how to identify them and how to use them as medicines and as sources of other useful compounds.
Sam looked over at Emerius. They had been twins. He wondered if a minute ever passed that the hunter didn’t think of his twin sister. Probably not. He thought of bringing it up, talking to Emerius about it, but didn’t know how to start that conversation. He’d have to think of something. Sam wanted to tell his friend that he was there to listen and that he felt a small part of his pain of loss as well. For now, though, they had work to do, and comforting others was rarely on the top of the priority list.
Not when the lives of hundreds or thousands were at risk.
They had traveled for two hours through the thick vegetation, Togo Cairn slipping through the undergrowth as deftly as a wild animal. The temperature was above freezing, if barely, and the snow crackled under their snowshoes, the crust bursting with each step to reveal the softer snow beneath. They were coming upon spring, and Sam was glad of it. It was just his luck that all of the traveling that had to be done was during the winter. Why couldn’t the threat of world domination happen in the warmer months?
“Stop.”
Rindu’s voice shook Sam from his thoughts. The party members all stopped, questioning looks on their faces, Togo Cairn most of all.
“Please remain still,” Rindu said. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and began to move off to his left.
The trees were a little thinner there. It wasn’t quite a meadow, but it wasn’t as choked as most of the rest of the terrain they had passed through so far. The Zouy continued to move slowly, hands out as if feeling something that wasn’t there. Sam softened his eyes and saw that the monk was casting his rohw out, probing. What was he looking for?
Rindu came to a stop and bent down. He carefully dug through the snow at his feet, cautious as if there were eggs buried there and he didn’t want to break them. After getting almost to the ground level, he grasped something and then straightened. It was a small box.
Sam gasped. It looked like the traps they had found before, like the one that had captured Ix.
“Is that what I think it is?” he asked.
“Yes,” Rindu said. “It is a rohw trap, waiting for someone to teleport into its general vicinity.”
Sam could see Ix gulp. Her face flushed and she looked toward the ground.
“They are still putting those traps down,” Sam said. “It’s a good thing we have been traveling in a more conventional manner.”
Ix whispered, “Point taken.” It was enough.
“Well,” Sam said, “there’s no harm in it if we don’t teleport into its field of effect. We should keep moving. We don’t know if the ones who set it are still around or not. Let’s be careful.”
The rest of the day’s travel was uneventful. At one point, Sam saw a pantor, one of the few he’d ever seen, crouched on a rock outcropping, eyeing them. It looked to Sam like the panthers he had seen in zoos and on television except that it was colored a dusty brown. It seemed unconcerned with the visitors into its domain. Game was probably plentiful here.
Rindu noticed Sam’s gaze. “Ah, the pantor, chief of the predators here on Gythe. Aside from humans, of course. Do you have cats such as that on Telani?”
“Yes,” Sam said. “We have a number of big cats. Tigers are probably the top of the hierarchy. They are much bigger than the sleek pantor there. Still, all types are dangerous, with their claws and their teeth.”
“They are marvelous creatures,” Rindu said with obvious respect in his voice. “Do you know that some of the forms of the kori rohw, as well as the more mundane martial forms, are based on the movements of the pantor?”
Sam looked sidelong at the monk. “On our world, too. There are tiger forms and strikes in some martial arts. Leopard, too.”
“I have not had the opportunity to observe a pantor using its formidable fighting skills,” the Zouy continued, “but Zouyim through the centuries have. I have of late been watching your cats, especially the small ones—kittens, they are called?—and can see in their movements what masters through the ages have seen. It is good to see how animals act instinctively, showing movements that are at once natural and sublime. It is enlightening, to say the least.”
Sam smiled at the thought of Rindu watching and playing with the young cats. He knew Skitter loved all the little fuzzballs dearly, but for Rindu, they were a window to a better understanding of the rohw and nature itself.
“Speaking of the rohw and proper movement,” Rindu said, “we have been remiss in our training lately. It is understandable with the attack of the bhorgabir and the injuries resulting, but we must continue if you would learn and progress.”
“Yes,” Sam said. “I agree. Maybe we can get back on track this evening when we go back to Whitehall. Spring is here, but the days are still fairly short, so we’ll have lots of time left when we stop traveling for the day.”
“Time for what?” Nalia asked as she moved up beside the two men.
“To do some training with your father,” Sam answered.
“That is a good idea, I think,” she said. “You are getting soft, physically and mentally.” She poked Sam in the ribs and he tightened his stomach so she would feel how hard his muscles were.
“Who’s soft?” he said.
She moved her hand to his hair, stroking it gently while looking into his eyes. He relaxed instantly at her touch. “You are.” He supposed he couldn’t argue when his knees felt like rubber. He scowled at her, but she only smiled and kissed his cheek.
“Anyway,” he said, trying to snap out of the spell she had put him under, “as soon as we get back, maybe you can work with me on the many things I still need to improve upon.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Rindu said.
Sam looked up at the pantor as he let Rindu drift away from him behind their guide. The cat had not moved, but its head followed the humans as they passed out of sight. Sam wondered what the animal thought of what was happening in the world. He supposed that things in its domain were the same as they had always been. All it had to worry about was finding enough food to eat. He envied the creature that.
Chapter 19
In the failing daylight, Togo Cairn stopped them for the day, and they were soon back at Whitehall.
Rindu sat in front of Sam in a small room in the fortress keep, both of them in their cross-legged position they usually used for rohw training.
“I will attempt to strike you,” the monk said, “with a concentrated burst of rohw. You will try to resist being struck.”
“Okay.” Sam prepared himself for the attack. He knew Rindu would not hurt him, and he was no stranger to sparring, but he still felt nervous. They had only worked a little on defensive use of the rohw, so it was still unfamiliar to him. As the experience with Ayim Rasaad had shown, though, it was important for him to develop these skills. Just when Sam thought he had learned, or at least been exposed to, all the things he would need, Rindu would let him know in no uncertain terms that there was much more that he didn’t know than that which he did.
The first attack came at him like a slow fist. It pushed toward him, slow but inexorable. It was an easy matter to project some of his own rohw to deflect it.
This type of attack was just a warm-up, Sam knew, with simple attacks much like physical sparring. He kept his eyes closed, but he could see the energy in his mind coming at him like a giant fist. It was almost humorous.
The second burst came at him like a hook punch. This one he stopped with his energy in a hard block. He even felt a jolt in the rohw he was holding. It was followed by two quick strikes, one toward his chest and the other to his forehead, both coming straight at him, not curving in the least. He slapped both aside simultaneously with his rohw.
That was one advantage to this type of combat. He was not limited to two arms and two legs. He could, if he had the power and the concentration, deflect or block many attacks at a time. In practice, his limit seemed to be six. Rindu said that was respectable, but encouraged him to develop so he could increase that number.
As if in answer to his thought, he sensed several rohw pulses coming at him. All thought left his mind as he prepared to defend himself.
To Sam, within his mind, it seemed as if several small missiles rushed in at him. Face, neck, left shoulder, right shoulder, abdomen, groin, left leg, right foot—all of these areas were targeted and attacked simultaneously. Splitting his attention in so many directions wasn’t possible, so he allowed the energy he held within him and his own primitive mind to do the job. Without thought
, his rohw deflected or blocked all of the attacks. Not one got through. But Rindu wasn’t done.
Another barrage of pulses came at him immediately after he had defeated the others. This time, there were just too many. He couldn’t even register the locations of most of them. All he knew was that as his energy swelled and he neutralized some of the attacks, others slipped in. First he felt a strike land on his left cheek, then on his right arm—with enough force to make the whole limb tingle—and then his concentration shattered and energy pelted him from many different areas at the same time.
It was over within seconds, but he smarted in at least half a dozen places, some of which felt like bruises were developing even as he thought about it.
Sam looked over at Rindu, who sat in a relaxed posture as if he was meditating. The Zouy’s eyes fluttered open and he looked into Sam’s.
“That was very good, Sam,” he said. “You defeated eight attacks at one time. Very impressive.”
Sam didn’t think so, not after being so thoroughly pummeled by the last barrage. “Yeah, but that last one made up for it, shattering my concentration and breaking down my defense completely.”
“Do not focus on the bad, Sam, but the good. You are improving, so I made an extra effort to introduce an attack that would be impossible for you to withstand. Do not allow your eyes to become downcast. You were successful in defeating two more attacks than your previous best. Continue to strive for success, and that number will become ten, or twenty, or forty. There is no limit to what can be achieved with diligent work. As it is said, ‘The tree grows tall, but not in one night.’”
That did make Sam feel better. He didn’t know why he was focusing on the negative aspect of his training. Eight was much better than the six he had previously been able to withstand at one time. “You’re right, Master Rindu. I don’t know why I’m being pessimistic. I think I’m distracted.”
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