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Tala Lokni

The Silver Lake Wilderness

Litla Deirfiúr, aka KOI-172.02

Tala and Arden set out early the next morning, meeting the rest of their traveling companions on the grounds outside the Abbey. Each group of missionaries always traveled in groups of six. Three of them were healers, two were healers of the mind and the third was a healer of the body. Each pair of healers of the mind was comprised of one man and one woman. Arden's companion on this mission was a tall and strong woman named Aina. She was almost as tall as Tala, who usually dwarfed even the largest of the men in the Abbey to say nothing of the women. Her long, black hair was tied up in a knot behind her head for better traveling, and she regarded Tala with friendly but wary eyes. She knew his background as well as anyone else at the Abbey, and like most of the others, she was initially cautious of him. It was something he'd grown used to.

"You must be Tala," she said by way of introduction when he arrived with Arden.

"Indeed," he replied simply, holding his hand in front of him for her to shake.

She took the offered hand and Tala didn't try to hide his pleasure at the firmness of her grip.

"Our mentors have spoken highly of you. Master Pietr even went so far as to try to recruit you away from your own studies, I hear."

"Yes," Tala said. "I declined."

"You're a man of many words," Aina said with a smile. Tala could see her relax at least partly with a sideways glance at Arden. "Well, if Arden trusts you, then you've earned mine as well. I hope we have many fair travels together."

"As do I," Tala replied, finally taking his hand back.

Tala turned away to another of the three women in the group. This one was of average height for the women of Litla Deirfiúr, just over six feet tall. With Tala standing just shy of eight, she was positively tiny to him. Still, she had a fierceness to her that Aina lacked, and across her shoulders was strung a complicated compound bow. She had short brown hair that always framed her face in soft spikes.

"It is good to see you again, Helena," he said, bowing shallowly.

"Hello, Tala," she answered. "I see you've packed light."

She indicated his pack slung over his shoulders, filled to almost bursting with supplies.

"I wished to bring books."

"The best way to learn is by doing," she replied. "You'll never learn exactly what needs to be done in a crisis from your books."

Her voice was light and she smiled as she spoke. Helena was his guardian, the one assigned to keep him safe at all costs. They had gotten to know each other quite well over the last month as they trained to leave the Abbey. Through their laws, healers, be they of the mind or the body, were not permitted to touch weaponry or partake in violence. To do so sullied their souls, and a healer must be pure before he could face a victim of cage sickness. The tradition was more relaxed for the healers of the body, since they had only to repair the body, but it was still frowned upon.

"I will learn much," Tala said, returning her smile with a toothy one of his own, "but I have forgotten at least some. I will carry my books."

"I didn't think you would have any problem carrying them, Tala. Did you sleep well?"

He shook his head and she smiled.

"Well, don't worry. You'll sleep plenty well tonight after the travels."

She leaned closer to him and stood on her toes, beckoning him down to her.

"I even managed a whole skin of mead for tonight from the kitchen," she said when his hear was close to her mouth.

He smiled and straightened, surveying the other two with them.

Arden's guardian was his own sister, Eva. The family resemblance was clear, from the long brown hair to the facial structure, though she was a few inches shy of Arden's height. She, too had the same fierce look as Helena, and Tala was absolutely certain that they instilled it into them during the guardian's training. Knowing Arden's family, however, there was always the chance that she picked it up just surviving growing up. His family raised and tamed horses, the large carnivorous beasts that roamed the prairies. Tala had visited Arden's home not long before, during one of their breaks from training and he was fascinated by the beasts. They were large enough for him to ride, though they never had the temperament to let him get close. One had tried to nip him with his back turned and before Arden could say anything, he'd given the beast such a shove that it rolled down the hill with a roar. He and Arden had shared many laughs over the ale since.

Aina's guardian was a man that Tala had never met before. The rumor was that Edward was a refugee upper dweller from the city. While upper dwellers leaving the city for other pursuits was not unheard of, it was remarkably rare, for they lived in the lap of luxury, all their needs seen to by servants, chosen from the most deserving of the under dwellers. Many of Tala's companions below the city wished and hoped to be chosen to serve an upper dweller. There was always the chance that if the service was exceptional, they could be promoted to an overseer, a promotion that came with many luxuries, including a home of their own on the upper levels.

Edward was smaller even than Helena and he had little muscle to speak of, looking with his pale skin and dark hair to be a sickly child. One that looked as he in the lower levels would have been given to the medical centers. Sometimes they would raise the child to work in the understaffed clinics, while sometimes, if the child was ill enough, it would be disposed of and studied to help ensure a fit and healthy population.

What Edward lacked in size and muscles, though, he made up for in gadgets. The man had glowing trinkets hanging off of every bit of his body, and the suit he wore was a dull black that covered every inch of his body from the neck down. Where Tala and the others were dressed in the common Abbey garb of plain brown traveling clothes, Edward seemed to delight in being completely different.

At the moment, he was looking at the screen of one of his gadgets. He touched a few buttons and then looked up to the group.

"If we're going to make it out of here today, then we're going to have to leave very quickly. There's a storm coming and it looks pretty nasty. We're going to want to get a move on before it gets here."

The nasal tone in his voice and the speed at which he spoke set Tala's teeth on edge, but he merely smiled and gestured for Arden and Eva to precede him and Helena. Together, the six walked through the large gate and off the Abbey grounds. Just before he left, though, Tala looked back at the Abbey. It had been his home for over a year, and though he was eager to set out on the adventure ahead of them, he knew that he'd miss the friendly people he'd met and most of all the wonderful food and ale. With a sigh, he turned and headed out the gate, closing it behind him so that he could hurry to catch up with Helena.

--

The group had been traveling for just over four hours when the sky began to darken. It had taken them this long to get to the edge of the crater in which the Abbey sat and they were beginning to make their way down the outside, following well-worn paths for now. As they got closer to the bottom of the mountain, they would eventually need to get off the established paths so that they would be harder to track. The patrols from the city made it a point to watch the routes they knew of, and it was impossible to simply blend into a population when there wasn't anyone around besides them for miles.

A harsh wind started to blow down the mountain, the gusts strong enough to make all but Tala stumble on the paths. Knowing that they didn't have long before the storm started, they hurried faster down the mountain, starting at some points to run, even with their fully loaded packs. Tala kept pace with them easily, but when the paths became steep, he risked leaving Helena's side, something he knew very well not to do. When he heard her getting farther behind, he stopped and turned around to wait. As he looked back up the slope, a small glint caught his eye against the dark sky.

"It is a scout!" he called to the rest of the party.

They all stopped and looked up to the sky, watching the sleek craft speeding across the sky. Instinctively, the guardians pushed the healers towards any cover they could find. They were not beneath the tree line of the mountain yet, and cover was scarce and hard to find, especially for Tala being as large as he was. It didn't help matters that his dark skin clashed with the light rock surrounding them. No one moved while they watched, all of them hoping that the scout would pass by on its way somewhere else.

There was no such luck, though. After a moment, the nose of the craft turned towards them and they heard its engine power up even further.

"He spotted us," Edward called. "There's a cave coming up, follow me!"

He leapt out from behind his boulder and started trotting down the path, each step carefully placed while still being quite nimble. Tala followed suit with Helena directly behind him. Arden and Aina took up places behind Tala and Eva brought up the rear, constantly looking over her shoulder with the rest of them.

Lightning flashed in the sky almost directly over them and the rumble that followed nearly shook Tala off the rock face. The rest stumbled with him, but only Aina lost her footing. Eva was quick to help her and push her ahead. A quick glance over his shoulder told Tala that the lightning strike hadn't done anything to dissuade the scout from following them, though it had slowed noticeably. If they could just keep up their pace and make it to the cave, they would be able to get away from it.

Further up the path, Edward stopped and called back to them. Tala couldn't hear what he was saying through the howling of the wind, but by his gestures, he knew that he was standing at the mouth of the cave. He picked up his pace and skidded to a stop next to Edward, turning back to look up the path.

"Go, Tala!" Edward shouted, pushing him into the cave. For a small man, Edward had more strength than he ever let on, and before Tala could object, he was in the safety of the cave. He didn't stay there for long, though. With a cautious glance, he leaned out of the cave far enough that he could see the others. Eva and Helena had fallen to the rear of the other healers and after a moment, they pushed their charges inside the cave as well.

Edward beckoned the other guardians in front of him while he pulled one of his gadgets off his belt. It looked to Tala like a small, oblong piece of plastic with one end that glowed and a mass of buttons on the top. Edward pointed it at the scout and pushed one of the buttons. With a whine that could be heard over the roaring wind, the scout's engine died and it began to fall.

Edward ducked into the cave with the rest of them, shooing them all away from the opening, then pointed his device at the mouth of the cave and pressed another button. Tala saw every hair on his companions start to rise and it felt as though a thousand bugs were crawling against his skin. The feeling receded as he moved away from the opening.

"Go, go!" Edward shouted again, motioning them deeper into the cave. After only a couple moments, just long enough for them to get away from the lighting and the roaring wind outside, there was a tremendous crash that knocked all of them off their feet. Tala felt as if the world was shifting beneath him, turning the horizontal cave floor into an inclined rock face. Sliding and rolling, he scrabbled for any purchase he could find, but no matter where his hands landed, there was nothing to grab onto, as if he was trying to grasp air that had somehow become solid beneath him.

Another floor loomed up beneath him and he readied himself for impact. He never felt it, though, for as the floor met his body, every bit of light was torn from the world and there was nothing but blackness surrounding him. For an immeasurable amount of time, he floated in the darkness, without any sense of time, or any feeling of anything around him. Before he could understand enough to do anything about it, though, the air was forced from his body and finally the pain that he was expecting came. He felt himself sliding across rough rock and then it felt as though his side was being crushed as his body collided with something solid and substantial. With a gasp and groan, his mind finally faltered and he lapsed into unconsciousness.