The Sage Seed Chronicles: The Unraveling (4 page)

Erin pushed open her door and stood in the
opening, taking in the beauty of the room. There was a balcony.
Currently the doors were open so Keir and Nuit could come and go as
they wished. She was sure they could tap on the panes if the
weather was cold and the windows shut. There was a lovely area rug
in the middle of the room done in burgundy, rust, a deep forest
green and touches of the palest of pink. The bed looked very
comfortable and had a green comforter that matched the shade in the
rug. A desk and chair were near the balcony doors. There was a
bathing room off of the bedroom and just to the other side of the
central heating panel. She didn’t know how long she had been
absorbing the beauty but she needed to wash up.

She strode into the bathing room and was
surprised to find clothing choices laid out. Erin stripped off her
soiled clothes. She quickly bathed then turned to the new clean
clothes. She chose a pair of soft grey trousers, a deep plum
colored silk shirt with a high collar and a fitted vest in a
lighter plum shade. Making sure she had her small pouch of stones
tucked into the shirt and the mementos and bloodstone into a
pocket, she turned again to the mirror. When she saw her
reflection, she was pleased to see her hair was growing out, though
it was still awfully short. The bracelet Ree had given her was the
only bit of ornamentation she wore and it was subtle. Erin smiled.
She felt like a young woman again.

Sterling returned for them five minutes
later. As they left their rooms Erin saw that Drune had new clothes
also. She grinned at him and gave him a wink of approval. He
laughed. “We’re looking mighty fine, Erin. I think we can go have a
meal with Gyan now.” He looked down at Tempo, who Erin had quickly
brushed, and Keir, sitting on her shoulder. “Sterling, lead the
way.”

They walked down the corridor and down one
staircase. Erin started paying attention to the small carving on
the lintels and door moldings. There was a door down the way that
had a sheaf of wheat and a bushel basket with something in it. Erin
was guessing that Sterling would lead them there. She smiled to
herself when he stopped and opening the portal gestured them
inside.

There were two men quietly talking by a
window. One of them was the one that she had seen in her vision
with Bure. They turned to greet the two young sages and the two
companions. Erin stepped forward and faced the tall man with the
streaked hair. She held out her hand. “Gyan, I presume. I am Erin
and this is Keir on my shoulder, and Tempo.” she gestured to the
little skunk.

The man seemed surprised. He glanced at Drune
who shook his head. “Erin, I am glad to meet you.” He nodded to
Keir, who bobbed his head back. “I understand that you knew Erin’s
parents well and also know my friend Ree.” The falcon made a low
sound deep in his throat. Keir was understanding Gyan’s speech
through Erin’s mind. The merlin nodded to Gyan again. The Great One
then knelt down and looked into Tempo’s face. “It is good to meet
you, Tempo. I know that there has been concern about the number of
skunks in the realm. I have also heard that as Erin’s companion you
have been a real asset on this journey and have helped with the
drawing poultice. Ree speaks highly of you!” He stood again and
turned his hand toward the strong looking man with the very short
haircut standing beside him. “This is Bact. He assists me
occasionally with security related tasks. I wanted him to meet all
of you. He has just returned from a job I had asked him to do.”
Gyan again addressed the wild companions. “You are free to come and
go in the Aerie. Bact will alert the staff that you are welcome
guests. I understand that there is one more companion, a Great
Horned Owl, called Nuit. I would like to make her acquaintance when
that is possible.”

“I am curious, Erin, How did you know which
of us was Gyan?”

“I beg your indulgence, Great One. I will
answer you but the tale is a little involved.”

“Well, let’s sit down and eat and you can
explain over the meal.” Gyan replied. As they all moved to the
table, Keir flew off of Erin’s shoulder and landed on the back of a
tall chair near the wall. Tempo curled up on the seat of the same
chair and watched the proceedings. Both continued to follow the
conversation through Erin’s mind.

The staff entered the room with trays of food
and soon all were served and eating their meal. Gyan looked at Erin
and raised his brow in silent encouragement to speak. She gathered
her thoughts. “You know that I have empathic skills. You sent Drune
to help me learn some buffering techniques because Bure’s thoughts
were so incredibly loud and draining for me. Drune theorized that
the pitch of Bure’s emotional energy is close to the frequency on
my natural mental resonance. One of Drune’s ideas helped keep me
stay grounded and prevented Bure from swamping me, but his emotions
still blasted in my mind.” Erin paused and Gyan nodded that he was
following her explanation. “With him, I have been able to glimpse
just a bit of where he is before his agitation fades. Drune’s
technique allowed me to push aside the force of the emotions and to
sort of see through his eyes until he settled down. He was really
screaming his temper as he was strapped into the tandem position on
the paraglider. You two exchanged a long look, perhaps a few words.
I don’t know about that, but your expression heightened his alarm.
When I saw you again in this room I felt that you must be the Great
One and in that role had seen him off to his banishment in Obsidian
Island.”

Gyan looked at her with interest.
“Interesting. Did you see any other faces? Did you see him reach
Obsidian?”

Erin finished a bite of steak before
answering. “I know that there were at least three paragliders. I
didn’t see their faces because they were frequently behind Bure. I
think he might have fainted during part of the trip but he was
aware as they approached and landed and he was very loud when he
was launched down the chute toward the valley floor. I lost him
before he got to the bottom. It is my guess that the crater
shielded the blast from his mind. I haven’t heard anything from him
since.”

Gyan kept Erin’s gaze as he gestured to his
security man. “Bure was riding tandem with Bact. It takes
considerable skill to make that trip to Obsidian. Because of the
winds it takes some time to make it back.” Erin looked at the man
and nodded. “Nice flying! I was impressed at the difficulty of
hitting that one place on the crater’s edge. Bure was
terrified.”

Bact gave her a quiet but satisfied smile. “I
know he was. The Great One’s security team receives considerable
training in many areas. We need to be the best to protect him and
the realm. That job fell under the latter category.”

As they finished their meal Gyan put down his
napkin. “Bast hasn’t been home yet except to clean up, so he will
be leaving us, but I wanted him to meet you. We have another job
and I need your wits for it.” They all stood and with a nod Bast
left. Gyan turned to the companions. “You need to come to so you
will know where the three of us will be spending a lot of time.”
Keir flew to Erin’s shoulder and Tempo walked beside her as they
left the room.

They went back up one flight of stairs but
turned the opposite way from where the bedrooms were. Tucked around
a corner was another small staircase which they also ascended. As
they were walking Gyan spoke. “In our lexicon are words like
‘founder’ and ‘ancients’. They were very real and were the ones
that devised a way for our planet to be habitable. As Lor has
explained to you, Erin, it has to do with something special in
those who are sages. We bond with the planet in a unique way that
stabilizes it. Without us... before we were here, the planet was
nearly totally uninhabitable because of tectonic and meteorologic
forces. The Aerie is not just the Great One’s home, it is also the
repository of knowledge that the ancients left us.” He walked down
the hallway to a door that had a small carving of a book and a
pattern in a circle half way down the right side. He paused and
looked at the carving and the door opened.

The room was quite large. You could probably
fit six caravan wagons in it length and width wise, and was at
least twenty feet tall. It had a balcony entirely around all four
walls that was one wagon length wide. The room was filled with
loaded bookshelves. There were some tables in the center of the
room. Standing aside so all could see, he gestured to the room.
“Somewhere on these shelves are clues on how we can pull back from
the precipice that we find ourselves. I ask that each of you,
before entering, step before the carving and look into the book as
if you were reading it. It is ancient technology and will know if
you are permitted into the library. Otherwise an alarm will bring
security. The information is not available to all. I have placed a
chair and a stool beside the carving. To anyone uninformed it will
look like just a place to pause and sit. But it is there for Tempo,
Keir and Nuit to get to the right level to be scanned. I respect
their input which has proven useful on your journey. Since you are
all with me now I can let the guardian system learn of each of you.
I will clear Nuit later.”

Drune walked to the carving and looked at it
for a moment then moved away. Erin moved to the carving next. As
she studied at it there seemed to be an almost imperceptible
flicker of light and she instinctively knew she could then step
back. Tempo scampered up to the footstool, onto the chair and
climbed upon the top of the back. He peered at the book for several
seconds then turned to Erin and nodded. As he jumped down Keir flew
to the chair back and repeated the movements that everyone else had
done. Then turned and looked at Gyan. “We can now all go inside.
This will be our task. It is too big for just me and we will see
what headway the three of us can make. I might need to add another
sage but that will not be right away. Your companions are free to
come and go. When they are here they can discuss with you
information as you turn it over in your mind, Erin. This problem
has never come up since the planet was stabilized. The knowledge
has been lost from the general knowledge the Great One passes down
to his successor. The ancients will have had a contingency plan and
it will be here.”

They spent the rest of the day familiarizing
themselves with the library. Erin was awed that the books were in
such good condition for being incredibly old. She credited it to a
lost technique or paper treatment that the ancients had. After
randomly going through the shelves, she started looking for a
pattern of why books of certain topics were where they were. She
had asked Gyan about the order and he had shrugged. “As far as I
know no one has reorganized the library. We have lived here about
two thousand years. I am the fifth Great One. It is possible that
the system of order has changed in the library since it was first
set up. Unfortunately, I don’t believe that the ancients have a
book on ‘realm troubleshooting’. I have been going through the
books for at least two months. I have concluded that they were
protecting us from inadvertent misuse of knowledge by hiding
information. It is here but won’t be easy to find.”

Each of the three took a different part of
the library to start looking. Erin was up on the balcony. Drune was
at the far end on the left side and Gyan started to the right of
the door. Keir had left through the window so he could watch for
Nuit at sunset. Tempo had decided to take a nap. He was going to
leave Aerie at sunset and try to locate some skunks. The companions
had taken Gyan’s word seriously and knew that their home was also
at stake in this crisis, but because they couldn’t read both had
felt that they would be of more use after Erin, Drune and Gyan had
spent some time trying to dig out some pieces of information.

The three sages did dig all afternoon. There
were books concerning natural sciences from land animals and
insects to herbs and trees and everything in between. Books about
meteorology, the tides and the planets seemed to be mixed with
those on anatomy and gemology. There were books with symbols and
some that appeared to be in other languages unknown to the realm.
There were books about everything imaginable but no book about what
they were looking for. They sometimes appeared to have an order and
every so often seemed to have no discernible arrangement at all.
They didn’t want to change the organization for fear that it was
meant to be this way for a reason. It didn’t take Erin long to
understand why Gyan had called for help.

During their dinner break Drune asked about
the steam plumes they had seen on their way to Kunscap. Gyan shook
his head. “I first noticed some peaks with bare spots in late
August. They have always had snow at those elevations. When you
were having quakes in the prairies, we were having rock slides and
some of the summits were changing shape. Some got thinner like rock
had sloughed off. Others appeared to be getting taller. Both types
began to have bare spots in their snow pack and started to steam.
This is only the beginning of the trouble we can expect.”