Tales of the Misplaced - Books 1-4

Chapter 8-2

“Moisture?”

“Yes. Some find it therapeutic,” she explained. “They make the room very hot and also control whether the air is dry or has steam.”

“I have my own wet and dry sauna in my room?” This was going to be awesome.

“Your main bedroom is through there.” She pointed to another door. “You’ve shown me you already know how to use one of those, but I think you’ll find this one much more comfortable.”

“Main bedroom?”

“Yes,” she nodded, pointing to a door on the other side of the room. “There’s another one through there if you need it.”

Just then, there was a knock at the door.

“Enter,” Neelu called out.

Four Ulané Jhinura came in. The first carried place settings, the second and third had covered platters of what seemed to be the source of the rich and savory odors now filling the room, and the fourth carried some beverages. They set everything up on the table, and in a moment, Neelu and I were digging in.

Ulané Jhinura“Thank you!” I called to them as they went back out the door.

I had gathered from prior conversations that the Ulané Jhinura were primarily vegetarians. It wasn’t that they didn’t eat meat, but they kept the forest in balance and were careful about maintaining the ecosystem. If everyone ate meat every day, that would throw things out of balance. I had thought we had a wide variety of mushrooms on Earth, but it didn’t come close to what they had on Daoine. I had already discovered several mushrooms whose texture was like eating meat. Mushrooms in Daoine were like potatoes in Peru; there were thousands of varieties.

Ulané JhinuraThe palace chef—just getting my head around having a suite of rooms in a royal palace was going to take some getting used to—was clearly a genius. There was a peppery mushroom steak and a mushroom and vegetable soup. There was also another kind of mushroom that reminded me of fish and was covered with a heavenly cream sauce that had a soft citrusy taste with some kind of slivered nut sprinkled on top.

“I could definitely get used to this,” I said.

“You didn’t pay me such compliments. Are you saying my cooking isn’t this good?”

“Well,” I laughed. “From what little of your cooking I’ve tried…” I pretended to think for a moment. “Not even close!” I smacked my silverware down on the table in mock emphasis.

She chuckled at that. “I do miss the food when I’m out in the forest.”

“Seems to me there’s a lot here to miss when you’re out in the forest.”

She nodded, her face losing its levity.

“I heard about your sister and your cousin,” I told her.

Neelu seemed to be holding her breath, and I went on.

“I can’t begin to imagine what you went through, or what you still go through. I don’t even want to think about how I would feel if something like that happened to Nora. But I can see how it pushes you. I just want you to know I’ll do anything I can to help.”

She let her breath out and nodded, not meeting my eyes.

I reached for my knife and fumbled it. I hadn’t noticed that my play-acting a moment earlier had spun it so the blade was toward me instead of the handle, and I ended up pricking my finger.

“Ouch!” I brought it to my mouth, sucking on it.

Neelu looked at me, alarmed.

Just then, the front door burst open and six guards charged in, weapons drawn.

“It’s alright,” Neelu told them. “Just an accident with the cutlery.”

One of the guards nodded, but he checked all the rooms thoroughly before he and his men left.

“An injury or a single drop of blood in this wing is enough to set off an alarm,” Neelu explained. “And you see how quickly they respond.”

I nodded, impressed. I changed the subject. “I guess I’ll be in magic classes tomorrow. What will you be doing? Cooking lessons?”

“Hah! You wish!” She smiled. “I’ll be in meetings with my mother and with Grangor and others.” She looked at me. “The classes will really help you. They will give you a solid grounding. Learn as much as you can as quickly as you can. We probably only have a few weeks at most before we will be leaving. I’ll also set you up with martial training for the afternoons.”

“Martial training?”

“Basic fighting skills,” she explained.

I nodded. “I heard you’re the fastest in history, and the best fighter.”

“Veron is our weapons master and he is unparalleled. My advantage is that I can use the Ralahin speed with it. I can teach you that. Everything else about fighting, you can learn better from him.”

Ralahin “And the flitting? How are you so much faster than everyone else?”

“I have honed it. I have delved deeper than any other. I apply the same concepts, but I do them more fully. My connection to the Ralahin is not exactly that of my people, but something new. They can’t see it is different and assume I am simply better at doing what the Ulané Jhinura have done for millennia.”

Ralahin Ulané Jhinura “And that’s what you’re teaching me?”

“Yes. This was my pledge to you. But these classes will provide the foundation.” She stood. “But that is for tomorrow. Sleep well tonight and I will collect you in the morning. We have a general dining hall where most of us eat. We’ll have breakfast there, and then I’ll take you to your classes. I’ll either collect you for lunch myself or send someone.”

“That sounds good,” I agreed. “But before I hit the bed, I’m going to make use of that bathtub. And maybe even the sauna. What do we do about these?” I indicated the dishes.

“Don’t worry. Someone will have these cleared by morning and you won’t even hear them.”

She turned away, and then stopped. “Mira, it’s very important that you don’t try to move with the Ralahin on your own. The way other Ulané Jhinura do this, they anchor in all directions before moving. Magic is everywhere and in everything, but you can sort of project a path and be carried along by it. When I project the path, I surrender to it. This is why I am faster; I surrender to one direction and do not anchor. But such a surrender is very risky. Those who have tried this in the past, they lost themselves to the flow, to the Ralahin. Either way, traveling with the Ralahin is not something used for long distances; it’s too dangerous. If you get lost in the flow, you never come back. You can lose your projected path, and your body breaks down and spreads into the Ralahin in all directions. It is dangerous and not to be taken lightly. This is not something you would attempt if your mind is clouded or you can’t focus.

RalahinUlané JhinuraRalahinRalahin Ralahin “That’s…okay. I won’t try it.”

After she had gone, the hot bath felt so luxurious, I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. I was too tired to think, and I didn’t want to even try. I distracted myself instead by playing over, in my mind, one of the old classic movies I would watch with Nora. We’d watched Vertigo several times. Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart were such a good duo. Nora would have loved this tub.

Vertigo After a nice long soak, I tried the moisture settings and made the room very hot and the air dry. I was surprised at how quickly the temperature changed. I enjoyed the heat on my skin for about ten minutes, and then normalized the temperature before using the shower to clean off my sweat. I didn’t know what to do with my dirty clothes, so I left them on the floor for now. Wrapped in a comfy robe that was a little shorter on me than it would have been on an Ulané Jhinura, I headed for the bed, noticing the table had already been cleared. The thick carpeting felt like a dream under my feet.

Ulané JhinuraI didn’t have any PJs, so I dropped the robe and slid under the covers in my skin. I scarcely noticed much about the bed, as I was asleep as soon as my head hit that soft, wonderful pillow.