'Send someone else to the temple,' Paul said at last to Sabastian. He waved a hand toward the thin, rough-looking man who had been waiting with K-aryn when the streamer landed. The man squatted near the fire pit talking to Olaf. He noticed Paul's attention and grinned. 'He seems more the type to try something like that.'
'Jacque Hakim is expert with weapons,' Sabastian admitted. 'But Doriand has been trained in the ways of the Holy Order and Lord Tern.' He paused to concentrate on the fine work of removing the wiring from the cylinder. Paul wondered how he could have the patience to keep at it so persistently. Then he remembered what Sabastian had said. When these are gone, we will be forced to light wooden torches at night. 'It is said that one must be properly trained before an encounter with Lord Tern. If not, his power will destroy your mind.'
'How can—' Then Paul stopped and shook his head in confusion. 'You're saying something happened to Cleve Quinton because he wasn't properly
. . . trained?'
'We don't know what happened during the ceremony, but we know that he was subjected to a mental trauma.' Sabastian got up and moved to a small wooden box that was set against the cave wall. He opened the lid carefully and removed a tool. When he came back, Paul realized he walked with a heavy limp. He remembered something
Ogram had said to Doriand: He lost a leg to the deacons. 'I don't know what happened to Cleve. There is much about the temple and the sacred chamber that we do not understand—secrets that are closely guarded by the Holy Order. I am hoping that Dorland's training will help him understand some of those secrets.'
'You keep talking about Dorland's training. What do you mean?'
Sabastian's eyes flicked to Doriand, then back to Paul. 'The deacons and elders go through a program of mental training that is meant to prepare them for communication with Lord Tern.'
'The deacons and elders? But—' Paul stopped, his eyes going to Doriand. Doriand had pulled into himself and was seemingly oblivious to the discussion.
'Doriand was once in line for eldership in the Holy Order,' Sabastian said.
Chapter Seven
PAUL SAT ON AN OUTCROPPING OF ROCK THAT
overlooked the valley. Clarion's butter-yellow sun hung low over the horizon. The woods around him were filled with the sounds of countless insects. He'd been sitting there for an hour looking down at the valley and the ruins that were stretched out below him. He was only a short distance from the camp, but he felt a much-needed solitude. Too much had happened today. He had to put it in some kind of order.
But his thoughts were continually drawn to the Tal Tahir city below him. Even after fifty thousand years the vegetation had not succeeded in covering it entirely. Farther back he could see the village of Fairhope, and beyond it the speckled white fields of a crop called cotton that had been brought with the original colonists on Vanguard. Selmer had told him it was used to make most of their clothing. The dinner he had eaten with the others at the cave lay heavy and sour in his stomach. Olaf Blackburn's stew was made from something called poca—a vegetable root that grew in the forest 75
76 William Greenleaf CLARION 77
below the cave. Olaf boiled the poca in a big pot, adding other ingredients that did little to improve the root's bitter flavor. According to Selmer Ogram, poca was often dried into cakes because it was easy to pack and would keep for a long time without spoiling. Paul shuddered when he thought about dry cakes of the foul-tasting plant.
In some ways the area that was spread out below him reminded Paul of the woodlands that surrounded his house on Farrady. He and Trisha lived in a two-story flydown that was isolated from all but air traffic. The house was large and luxurious, nicer by far than anything he'd ever expected to own—one of the many benefits of being Doriand Avery's business manager. He had bought it shortly after he and Trisha had taken residence together. Trisha. He'd hardly had time to think of her during the past few hours, but now he felt a pang for home like he had never felt during a tour. Of all the unpleasant chores he'd had to take care of to make this unexpected trip, lying about it to Trisha had been the worst. She and Paul had been together for more than a year, and Paul was proud of the fact that he'd always been honest with her. It was a symbol to him that his hell-raising days were over
—and he had felt increasingly comfortable with that. Now and then he found himself thinking of suggesting a permanent bond with Trisha. He had even considered the possibility of children. You're overreacting, he told himself. You lied to her, but it was for her own good.
She would only worry if she knew the truth, and he couldn't discount the possibility that Parke Sabre would question her about their whereabouts. Trisha was a born innocent—Paul knew that Sabre would see through her if she knew the truth and tried to withhold it.
But if he was oversensitive to the relationship he shared with Trisha, it was because he was so careful to avoid the mistakes his parents had made. His father came from a wealthy family and had squandered away every udit during a lifetime of waste. His mother was practical and ambitious, and the result of their conflicting personalities was constant bickering. Both of them had eventually sunk into the oblivion existence of drugs.
