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  A polite cough from the front row brought her back from her wandering thoughts and she silently berated herself for losing focus. Focus was the primary element that she hammered into all of her classes. Without focus, none of the talent in the world would save you from your enemy.

  "Welcome back class. I hope that you have had a good morning so far.” Tarya Selindria always started her classes off with a polite welcome. Her voice possessed a pleasant lilt to it that made people stop to listen to her. "Today we are going to be studying evasive defense. To start off with, can someone please tell the class what is involved in evasive defense?"

  Andaya immediately raised her hand. She was a short girl with a long, dark braid hanging over her shoulder.

  Tarya Selindria nodded at her, "Go ahead, Andaya."

  Andaya cleared her throat; "Evasive defense is using your yar to create elements of confusion, doubt, fear and other emotions to put the opponent off-balance. It can cause temporary paralysis by keeping the opponent too worked-up in his or her own emotions to compete competently. This form of blindness opens a perfect window for escape.” She finished with satisfied smile on her face. She was always the first student to raise her hand to questions and almost never answered wrong. Tarya Selindria was fairly certain that Andaya would become a Guardian at the Time of Choosing.

  "Very good, Andaya.” Tarya Selindria told her with a brief smile. "One of the things we will discuss today is how to create these emotions in others. Most people do not have a yar powerful enough to alter another human being’s yar.” This caused the class to pause for a moment. She knew that the other teachers taught them that no one could affect another human’s yar, but she knew differently. "Because we cannot change their emotions by altering their yar, we must change the atmosphere around them so it will cause an instinctive reaction.” She looked around the room at the different faces raptly watching her and noticed that Lendel seemed to be woolgathering. "Lendel, what is the raw emotion that you feel when a summer thunderstorm passes through?"

  Lendel jerked out of his reverie, blinking at her uncertainly. "A thunderstorm?"

  "Yes, a thunderstorm,” Tarya Selindria said with exaggerated patience. "Lots of rain . . . loud bangs and crashes . . . lightning."

  Some of the students laughed as Lendel flushed slightly. "A little uneasy, I guess,” he replied with a shrug.

  "Why do you think a thunderstorm makes you feel that way?” Tarya Selindria probed. "You have been through many thunderstorms before, so you know they really don't hurt you."

  "Not unless you happen to be standing under a tree at the top of a hill,” Lendel said dryly, grinning slightly as the class laughed. When he saw Tarya Selindria staring at him humorlessly, his grin disappeared. "I guess it is probably the noise. I don't really mind the lightning too much, but it is the low rumbling noise that makes me feel uneasy."

  "Thank you, Lendel.” Tarya Selindria had trouble keeping the smile from her face, but she knew that if she let the class draw her into their humor, she would lose their focus for good. "That is exactly what we do to cause emotions of doubt and confusion in others. We alter the yar of the atmosphere around us to create low, subterranean vibrations. These extremely low sounds cause this discomfort; much like a thunderstorm does for Lendel. With practice, you will be able to create tones that cause much stronger effects than mild uneasiness. With a strong enough tone, you can overpower someone's senses, causing them to lose consciousness. I am going to do a demonstration on how to do this and then we will spend the rest of class practicing on each other. I want you all to pay close attention to what I am doing with my yar."

  Tarya Selindria carefully gathered her thoughts and concentrated on her yar. She could feel the power of her spirit reach out from her body and begin altering the room’s noises to a lower tone much too low to hear. As her yar touched the elements throughout the room, she felt her being expand as she always did when using her yar. It made her feel like she was no longer just a body with arms and legs, but a much larger entity with no limits to what she could become. An intensely ominous feeling began to pervade the room. Some of the students began to look frightened; others glanced around nervously. As she increased the intensity of the tone, more of the students began to panic, unable to control their bodies as their instincts took over. She abruptly felt something building from where Celdic was sitting, as if a miniature sun was charging with energy. With a sudden feeling of foreboding, she immediately pulled her yar back in. As she did, she felt the energy that was charging Celdic fade away. His eyes, however, shone with an ecstasy, as if he had indeed been a sun for a moment. Slowly, his face returned to its normal countenance.

  Looking around the class, she realized that it was somewhat of a mess. A few of the students were on the brink of panic, and most of the others were still looking uncomfortable from the experience. "Are you all ready to try it now?” Tarya Selindria asked, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  Tarya Selindria paused, noticing the reluctance on almost every student’s faces, "There isn't anything to be afraid of,” she assured them. "Most of you will not be able to detect the vibrations you need to alter today anyway. This skill takes a lot of practice. I am sure you can see how useful it will be when you are up against a large number of people. Let's start with...”

  Tarya Selindria broke off as the door flew open and Tarya Dekel rushed into the room. He was a short man in his later years with a few white wisps of hair sticking out above his ears, leaving the rest of his head a shiny bald egg. His face was white as a sheet as he walked quickly over to her, stretching on to his toes so that he could reach her ear.

  "Someone has breached the barrier,” he whispered nervously. “We need you in the council right now."

  It was not easy to conceal the sudden tension that she felt. She nodded slightly and turned back to her students. "All right class, we are going to stop here for the day,” she announced with a feigned calmness. "I don't want any of you practicing evasive defense without supervision. The rest of the day is yours to do with as you please. Try to stay out of trouble."

  Tarya Selindria followed Tarya Dekel out of the room and into the hall where students were already leaving their classes. The students were talking to each other excitedly as they tried to guess what could have disrupted class. She had to lengthen her stride to keep up with Tarya Dekel as his short little legs pumped furiously ahead. He taught mathematics, a subject that most of the students detested until taking his class. He had developed a gift for introducing concepts that made math fun for his students, such as pointing out that a ninety-year-old man that averaged eight hours of sleep a day throughout his life, would spend thirty years of his life sleeping. In his class the previous year, he assigned several students the task of tracking the amount of idle conversation versus productive conversation that occurred throughout the day. At the end of the year, they were able to prove that ninety-eight percent of all conversation did not move the sum of human knowledge whatsoever.

  They made their way out of the Building of Practical Application and moved down a path that cut through the combat field. They headed toward the Staff Hall that was on the far edge of the field. She saw several other teachers and Elders moving toward the Staff Hall, all of them looking nervous. Underneath all of the nervousness, she sensed another emotion, almost like expectation, which made no sense at all. She remembered teaching most of the teachers she saw moving toward the Staff Hall when they were students. For the most part, the teachers were among the most gifted of her students, with a few glaring exceptions. She remembered Tarya Frasna as a rather unfocused girl who never wanted to concentrate on her work. She finished her education and moved on to work as a laborer for the Department of Metals. It was there that she unexpectedly discovered that she had a gift for locating veins of ore and other materials that grew scarce in the mountain around them. Frasna had a complete personality change when she was placed in charge of a team that specialized in locating new mining sites, showi
ng a talent for organizing and leading other people Selindria would never have guessed existed in the dreamy young woman who had left the Tar Ri’ San over forty years ago. After identifying enough mining sites to last the city for several hundred years, the Council of Elders offered Frasna a position at the Tar Ri’ San teaching geology, a subject that had not existed before they chose Frasna to teach it.

  Within a matter of minutes, they reached the Staff Hall, a building large enough to house several hundred people comfortably. They entered large wooden doors surrounded by the Snake Vine that grew along the walls of the building. Once inside, Selindria swept her eyes swiftly around the room and realized that the entire council of Elders had assembled in the large hall, a rarity that usually only occurred on holidays and the sustaining of new Elders.

  The inside of the hall consisted of two large ring-shaped tables, one facing inward and one facing outward, so that the people seated on the inner ring would be facing those on the outer ring. Wondering why a breach in the barrier warranted so much attention instead of merely the Guardian Council, Selindria made her way to her seat on the outer ring. The hall echoed loudly as Elders and teachers talked excitedly among themselves in little groups.

  Selindria sat down, watching the three Elders who made up the Presidency. They were sitting on the inner ring directly across from Selindria, watching silently as the hall filled with people. The Elders of the Presidency were the only ones allowed to communicate with the Chasel, informing the rest of the Council of Elders what the Chasel showed them was to come. Selindria wondered what they saw to cause the haunted look she could see in their eyes. The oldest of the three, Elder Chendan, had been a boy when Selindria arrived in Chasel Ri’ Aven. She could still remember him staring at her strange eyes with delighted fascination as she made her way toward the Council of Elders under the watch of a ring of heavily armed Guardians.

  The ancient Elder Chendan slowly rose to his feet and Selindria felt his yar reach out to the four chimes that stood in each corner of the hall. He began stroking their resonance and within a few moments, she could hear their soft tones reverberate throughout the room. By tradition, this indicated that the meeting was to begin. The Elders and Teachers around the hall broke off their conversations and sat at their assigned seats. Once everyone was seated and quiet, Elder Chendan sat down too, sighing as he did so. Selindria knew that he did not have much time left before he would join his predecessor in the Tombs of the Dead.

  "I hope that you will forgive me if we keep this meeting short,” Elder Chendan said in a quavering voice. He had enhanced his voice with his yar so that everyone could hear him. "My bones just can't handle these council chairs anymore.” There was a scattering of nervous laughter.

  "Most of you know why we are here," he continued in his feeble voice, "but for those of you who do not, I shall expound. Last night a man breached the barrier, rendering one of our Guardian’s unconscious. We received a message describing the event from the Guardian via pigeon about an hour ago. The Guardian described the stranger as a black-cloaked man that kept his face shrouded. The Guardian informed us in his message that the man had not raised a hand against him, nor did he use his yar in any way. Yet, even so, moments after making eye contact with the stranger, the Guardian lost consciousness.”

  The ancient looking Elder paused to take a drink of water from a glass in front of him, allowing his words to sink in.

  "The second event is the one of which most of you are aware. This morning, the Avenry Bond awoke for the first time since this city was established. When we came to this mountain, the Avenry made an oath to protect the Chasel. We were to raise our children with the skills necessary to defend against any enemy that would try to take the Chasel. He who we made the oath to has returned. For many ages, his coming has heralded a dark time to come. I would caution all of you to prepare yourselves for that which we have been trained from birth to do. The time will soon be upon us when we must protect the Chasel from a threat more dire than words can describe."

  Elder Chendan paused again to take a drink from his glass, looking tired from the exertion of talking so long. "The last thing that I have gathered you together for is to announce that we have chosen a successor for the Presidency. Elder Rinchav will replace me when I move on. We would like him to join our Presidency now, so that we can teach him his new responsibilities.” Elder Chendan finished to a shocked silence. There were never more than five Elders in the Presidency and the expiring Elder in the Presidency certainly never participated in choosing his successor. Elder Rinchav, seated several seats to Selindria's right, looked flabbergasted. Selindria realized that he had not been told about his change in status in advance, another unheard of breach in protocol.

  Not being raised in the mountain city, Selindria had no idea what the Avenry Bond was. It sounded to her like the man who had breached the barrier was the same man they thought they had made an oath to. Considering that Chasel Ri’ Aven was almost two thousand years old, Selindria was fairly certain the man they were looking for was long dead.

  The familiar resonances of four of her students brought Selindria out of her musings. She could feel them outside the building. Cursing to herself silently, she vowed to wring Cha'le and Lendel's neck when the meeting ended. Selindria had little doubt about who came up with the plan to eavesdrop on the meeting. As she thought of different ways to show Cha'le and Lendel what a bad idea it was to eavesdrop on the Council, she suddenly felt the same flaring energy that she had during class from Celdic. This time, however, it rushed in like a thunderclap. The whole building shook like a leaf, causing Elders and teachers to cry out as they jumped to their feet. Selindria jumped up and hurried toward the doors, arriving at the front of a knot of Elders that were rushing out of the building to see what had caused the disruption.

  Chapter 3

  An excited buzz filled the room after Tarya Selindria left. She had never cancelled class in such an unusual manner. Everyone asked the person next to them what they thought could have happened to cause such a reaction.

  Celdic sat at his desk reveling in the residue of the euphoria that had filled him moments before. He felt for a brief moment as if there was nothing that he could not do. He struggled to find the floodgate that had almost opened within him, but found only emptiness.

  “What’s the matter?” a voice asked right in front of him. Startled out of his thoughts, he saw Lendel staring down at him in concern.

  Not wanting to share the strange phenomenon that he had just experienced, Celdic shook his head. "Nothing. I'm fine," he assured Lendel. The feelings that he felt were too personal and confusing for him to share with anyone else yet.

  Lendel still seemed suspicious, but the prospect of an afternoon to do whatever they wanted seemed to outweigh his desire to probe further. “Let’s go out to the practice yard and get some fresh air,” Lendel suggested, stretching exaggeratedly.

  Celdic nodded and stood up. As they started toward the door, he saw Cha’le and Li appear outside in the hall that was rapidly filling up with students.

  “Was class cancelled for everyone?” Lendel asked in surprise, peering up and down the hall.

  Cha’le nodded, her eyes glowing with excitement at the prospect of an adventure. “Do either of you know what’s going on?” she asked, her bright, green eyes shining with anticipation.

  “Not a clue,” Lendel replied. “We were just on our way to the practice yard to play around for the rest of the day. It just happens to be next to the staff building, so we might be able to overhear some of the council.”

  Celdic gave him a disgusted look. “I should have known you had something else in mind.”

  Lendel's eyes widened innocently. “I don’t know what you are talking about.” He rubbed his hands together. "Shall we go before they finish?”

  Not waiting for an answer, Lendel began making his way to the practice yard. Sighing in resignation, Celdic retrieved his book and followed Lendel, with Cha’le and Li trailing behind
him. Other students holding excited conversations filled the halls of the complex. As Celdic and his companions continued their trek, he began thinking about the odd vision that he saw while standing over the washbasin. A few things began to fall into place. He had a sudden hunch of what the council members were discussing.

  “Celdic?” a light voice questioned.

  Celdic glanced over at Li, who was staring at him with the same concerned expression that Lendel gave him earlier. Celdic realized that Li had asked him a question.

  “What did you say?” Celdic asked her, trying to focus.

  “I asked you if you would help me work on my technique with the bow staves,” Li repeated, still watching him closely. Her eyes seemed unusually dark in the morning light. Celdic thought he could spend the morning just staring into them.

  “I would love to,” Celdic replied, feeling a warm flush climb up his cheeks.

  As they reached the Practice yard, Lendel grabbed two wooden swords from the weapons rack and tossed one to Celdic. "Remember, we have a duel later,” Lendel reminded him with a grin.

  "Wonderful,” Celdic replied, rolling his eyes at Li as he snagged the practice sword out of the air. She laughed a warm, throaty laugh that made little pinpricks run up Celdic's neck.

  Li walked up so she was right next to Celdic, while Cha'le's tall, slim form went forward to join Lendel. Celdic watched Cha'le suspiciously as she passed him. Her eyes widened slightly in surprise, as if Celdic had not lived with her long enough to know when she was up to something.

  "Will you do me a favor, Celdic?” Li asked quietly, as she walked close enough to brush shoulders with him.

  "Of course,” Celdic replied quickly, sneaking a glance over at her. She was coyly twisting a small blade of grass around with her slender fingers.

  "Could you let Lendel win your duel?” Li still had not taken her gaze from the blade of grass she was toying with, but a slow blush crept into her cheeks. "I think he wants to show off to Cha'le and he would feel a lot better if you let him win."