Chronicles Of Tonath Collection

Chapter 10

The train shuddered to a wheezing hiss and fell silent. The constant pounding of the last three weeks faded from the head, but the body still seemed to jolt involuntarily. Loren and Brother Herman stepped down from the train, both grateful for the unmoving surface beneath their feet.

Loren used his free hand to wipe the cinders and loose ash from his suit. Brother Herman was busy whacking the ash from his black skull cap. His new status entitled him to the brushed black cap and a prominent black banding running the length of the robe. It also entitled him to a black, cinch belt freeing him from the annoying swing of the novice"s long, brown, rope belt tied in a slip knot.

After blowing the ashes from his wide brim hat, Loren offered his hand to Brother Herman. “Good luck on The Way and may your learning be easy.” The words now had a certain contextual meaning. People swarmed and jostled around them. There were “hellos” to arriving passengers, calls for hacks, men shouting directions, and noises from the platform and train yard made hearing and speaking difficult.

Brother Herman clasped Loren"s hand and smiled, his blue eyes warm with the friendship they had shared over the last few months. Then he pointed to a curving walkway running parallel to the wagon and cart traffic and they walked towards it.

Once they were out of the crowd of people detraining and boarding the trains, Brother Herman pointed to a road running to the west. “You take this road until it says Minute Lake. Then turn to the right and go about five miles or so. You should be able to make the Donaldson estate well before nightfall. When you return to Anoth, go to the Academy of Arts to enroll. It"s over there.”

Brother Herman paused long enough to point to the east and a white, gleaming building towards the far end of the traffic hub. Even now, during the noon day heat, figures could be seen on a portion of the roof, continuously scouring away the fall of blackened soot, the debris of human making, and bird droppings. “If by some chance, Donaldson does not offer you employment, you are allowed to board at the Academy for free for a week until other arrangements are made.” He extended his right hand.

“We"ll meet again on The Way.” He turned and hurriedly made his way through the crowd.

A slight smile tugged at the corners of Loren"s lips as he hoisted the carpet bag and began the unlikely task of walking. He would need to shanks mare it. Now where had that phrase come from and why should it be incongruous for him to walk? He mentally shook his head. This must stop. No more tries at remembering. He couldn"t afford the risk of ill health.

Brother Herman"s tone had been a goodbye. Loren was being sent to deliver a letter to Donaldson from Teacher. It didn"t make sense. Why him? Why was it not given to a trusted Brother? Loren knew that eyes were watching him. But who? Was it the Brothers or someone else? Were they watching to see if he read the letter? He knew there were ways to unseal and reseal a letter. Was this a test? If so, a test of what?

As the crowd thinned, the intensity of the eyes burning into his back lessened. Loren reckoned there were only one or two watchers now. How did he know these things? How could a mind that was unable to remember the past lock onto the intentions of someone he couldn"t see? Even his physical body seemed to alert him to danger. Every sense seemed magnified as when he was in the Green Belt and the connecting Beltway of Belt Land as Brother John called it.

It had taken him a long time to realize that to the beings in the Green Belt, he had been as alien to them as they were to him. This world where he could breathe and walk would be deadly to them. How many times had the stars shifted and the earth wobbled back and forth between zones to create two different worlds of mammals and plants? Had there been a third zone of half light and half air? Could there really be such creatures as Halflings? He had heard the small children snickering and whispering the one time he had accompanied Brother John into the settlement of Beltran. They were afraid of him, but they loved Brother John.

It took about an hour to reach the Minute Lake signpost, and he turned to the right and increased his speed on the new road. It was less crowded and the going was easier. Whoever had been trailing him had drifted away. Surely, it wasn"t the Brothers. They would have stayed with him on the road until his task was completed. He could ask Brother Herman when he returned, but knew it would be futile.

Brother Herman had his assignment: Obey The Way. Loren wondered if the Brothers saw only the ways of the Way Book and if they were blinded to the ways of the people he had seen in the towns and fields on the train trip. Somehow he sensed the inhabitants were not completely enraptured with the teachings of the Way. Like the Brothers, they were dependent on the Teacher for the Readings that warned of a coming Star Shift.

Movement far ahead attracted his attention. Someone was crossing onto the road, running at full speed. Why?

Instinctively, Loren knew it was the man who had trailed him. The man must have known about a short cut not connected to the main road. Whoever the runner was, he must be young as the strides were an easy lope. The man was intent on out distancing him. That meant someone would be waiting to ambush him.

Who was waiting, wondered Loren. Was it was someone in Donaldson"s employment checking his progress or an unknown factor? Loren clenched his free hand and then shifted the carpetbag. Once again he clenched and unclenched his free hand. Since he did not know who waited for him it was best not to tire either arm. Right now he wished he had a weapon: g*n or knife. He"d seen holsters on a few men in the far settlements and towns. While crossing the land of cultivated fields, he had observed men carrying rifles in their scabbards. When he queried Brother Herman about the men carrying the rifles and pistols, the response had been enlightening. “Many are the appointed Way Keepers, the law keepers. Some carry the rifles for protection from snakes, and some are ruffians waiting in isolated spots for the unwary traveler. The custom of carrying a firearm is discouraged, but it crops up every time there is a Star Shift.”

The afternoon skies clouded over and a stiff, moisture-heavy north wind swept over the hills and land forcing Loren to button his suit jacket. It would be a cold walk back to Anoth if Donaldson didn"t provide sleeping quarters as it was obvious he would not return to Anoth by daylight. The road itself was mostly vacant with only an occasional rider or wagon. Once a smart, fast moving carriage swept by him as it spewed a coating of dust over everything and anyone on the road. The finely clothed occupants of the carriage disdained to look at him. The road led towards a large stand of trees that looked out of place in a land of gently rolling hills and pastures. Beyond the trees, he could see smoke wisps spiraling upward. A white fence seemed to dance on the distant green carpet covering the fields of spring. He wondered if this was finally Donaldson"s estate.

Instinct, that deeper self, prodded him to alertness. Danger! He felt his muscles tense as he began to flex his free hand again. The shrubbery and trees offered cover to someone. How long had they waited?

He halted, and studied the sky while wiping his brow with his handkerchief. The huge tree shading the road would offer a waiting assailant the same type of perch he had used against the two Greenies. How many, he wondered. Probably two of them he decided. The running one would be rested by now. Loren bent down and wiped his boots and palmed a flat rock in his right hand and used his left to heft the carpetbag. Deliberately he held to the middle of the road and stopped short of the overhanging branch and looked up.

A green robed man who was clinging to the branch glared down at him. The distance was too far for a square impact and the man would now be at a disadvantage when he landed.

“How many are you?” demanded Loren.

In response, two figures emerged from behind the girth of the tree. One was a tall, bald man in an olive robe with a cowl spilling down the back. His body was heavy with flesh from good eating and the side jowls jiggled. Two black eyes were sunk behind full cheeks. His eyebrows were scant, allowing the ridges of flesh to move upwards towards the head devoid of hair.

The other figure was smaller, her body swaying in lithe movements. As she neared Loren, she raised her arms to lower the cowl from reddish-brown hair that curled around the soft, green-tinted face. Her dark eyebrows winged over two brown eyes. The nose was perfect, the mouth cranberry. Her eyes never left his face and she smiled slowly. An olive green belt snugged her small waist and a robe of the same color draped to the ground. They stopped a short distance from the branch.

“We greet you as a brother, Halfling. Word of your presence has reached us from the prairie province.” The man"s rich voice rolled towards him and the man lifted his green surplice and swayed it at his chin level as he spoke.

Loren studied the man. It was a fascinating performance and the man"s brilliant eyes tried to lock his own. This, Loren decided, was a dangerous man: clever and ruthless. “Is that why you tried to ambush me?” he asked.

“That is a harsh surmise. We felt you might have been warned to avoid us at all costs.” He continued to sway the green surplice as he responded. “I am Brother George and this is our Sister Tiffany.”

Loren glanced at the smiling woman and she smiled more deeply. He avoided looking at the swaying surplice. The son-of-a-b***h is trying to mesmerize me, he thought. “And who would be the man skulking on the branch?” he asked aloud.

Brother George dismissed the foiled attacker with a wave of his surplice. “He is of no importance now. Sister Tiffany has delights that far exceed those offered by the Teaching of the Way.”

Sister Tiffany stepped forward, dropping her belt as she swayed. Her hands pulled open the robe and it fell at her feet. Her skin was an olive bronze. The last part of afternoon light dappled shadows across her lean flanks and she caressed her full breasts, jutting them upwards toward him.

Loren felt himself hardening. He had long been away from women and this one was offering exotic olive flesh and inviting lips.

“A new race from your loins and her belly,” Brother George intoned, almost chanting, while the sound of his full voice rose and filled the air.

Loren heard or sensed the running man behind him as gravel skittered and rolled. He spun full left, smashing his rock filled fist into the man"s temple. The man crumpled as Loren turned to the man who dropped from the tree and was lunging towards him, fists upraised. Loren threw the bag upward and towards the man"s chin. The man instinctively grabbed for it with both hands.

As though performing an exercise he had done over and over, Loren moved out and to the right, threw a right into the man"s nose and swung up with his left connecting to the chin. He clipped the man behind the ear as the man went down, blood from the broken nose puddling into the dust of the compacted road.

Suddenly the woman was on him, claws raking at his face. He enfolded her in his arms, pinioned her hands behind her back, and pulled her tight against him, her hair scent and fear mixing in his nose. It was a temptation to grab her hair and bend her head to taste her lips. From somewhere his own mad rage swept up and he spun her away and aimed a kick at Brother George"s head to stop him from tearing the remaining contents from the carpet bag.

Brother George rolled over and came up holding a knife. It was a neat maneuver for one so heavy. “Now the letter, if you please.”

Loren laughed. “You wait to attack me until I"m practically in sight of Donaldson"s holdings and then think a little toothpick like that will get you what you want?”

Sister Tiffany was back on her feet and looking first at him, then at Brother George. All three ignored the men on the ground.

“We offer more than the Teacher and the Way will ever offer you. “With us you will find a family, friends, good food, and an easy living,” intoned Brother George.

“You left out death by ambush and talk filled with lies.” Loren held up his hands to show the faint green stain from Tiffany"s body. “Everything you have done is with trickery. Halflings!” he spat out the last word. “Do you actually expect anyone to believe in them?”

Disappointment showed in Brother George"s eyes. “So the dye didn"t have time to dry.” He shoved the knife back into the folds of his robe. “Tiffany, my dear, your delights are getting cold. It"s best you cover them.” He turned back to Loren.

“Perhaps, when you become disillusioned with the Way, you"ll remember our offer. We can be found at the Green Institute in Anoth. Our group has no secrets. We simply seek a better, more peaceful existence.”

Brother George and Tiffany helped the two men to their feet and they began to walk back towards Anoth. Loren watched them with a set face and tense body. They probably had hidden horses and a conveyance somewhere near. He did not believe Brother George had hoofed it all the way from Anoth. He re-packed his bag and strode towards the far fencing as day slid into twilight time; the softening light darkened the shadows blending into the green earth.