by Mary Coffin
Adele required no explanation from Gwynn. On her early morning walk, she sensed Gwynn’s intentions through the ethers. When she returned to her cottage, she packed a satchel with some light food and water and saddled up Gwynn’s horse. Everything was ready when Gwynn arrived.
They spoke very few words but their eyes revealed a bond that went beyond words. It was an understanding shared by long time Overseers...and long time friends.
Gwynn hugged Adele. “Thank you.”
Adele smiled and placed her hand over Gwynn’s heart. She looked like she might say something. Instead she searched Gwynn’s eyes for a moment, trying to determine whether Gwynn was aware of the same sense. “Do ya’ know what the wind is saying?”
Gwynn gazed into Adele’s eyes and thought they looked sad. She was barely aware of feeling the same sorrow but didn’t understand it. She was so focused on her decision that she didn’t give it much thought. She felt a strong pull to get moving, so she gave the standard reply. “Listen with your heart and you will find the way.”
For a fleeting moment, Adele’s face registered disappointment. It wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear or perhaps Gwynn didn’t want to talk about it. She resigned herself to remaining neutral and gave the expected reply. “Yer mistakes can also lead ya’ to the truth.”
“You have only to ask and the answer will be given.” Gwynn sensed a different undercurrent but wasn’t receptive to what it was telling her. She gave Adele another hug, walked out the door and mounted her horse.
A surge of emotion surfaced and she wanted to cry, but didn’t understand why. There was a sense that she was leaving for good but she told herself that was ridiculous. She would be back soon. She fought back the tears and spurred her horse up the canyon.
She refused to look back at Adele, who, she was fairly certain, was watching her ride away. She stuffed the tears back inside and focused ahead. Any other time, she would have made herself stop and contemplate the meaning behind this sudden emotion. It obviously had something to tell her and, apparently, some part of her knew what it meant. She promised herself that she would take a look at it after she destroyed the journal.
She intended to go the most direct route to the north, which meant going through the Great Mountains instead of around them. She knew of an old trail that would take her over one of the lower passes and it would be tough going at times so she had to keep her wits and stay alert.
THIRTY SEVEN
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Tannis
Great Mountains
After they broke out of the fog and had gained a safe distance from the Brethren, who were still underneath it, Tannis tried to make small talk with Noya. He figured the first place to start was to thank her for saving him.
He cleared his throat. “Thanks.”
Noya said nothing.
Tannis thought perhaps she didn’t hear him so he spoke louder. “Thanks for your help back there.”
Still she said nothing but because of their close proximity from sitting together on the same horse, he thought he felt her muscles tighten, as if she grunted a reply.
Tannis continued. “That was a strange fog. It wasn’t the two Brethren who did it. They were as surprised as I was. I think someone else was there.”
Noya held her tongue.
Tannis said no more and they rode in silence for awhile. They rounded the southern end of the Great Mountains and Noya pointed the horse toward the Northland.
Tannis decided he had kept quiet long enough while Noya’s horse carried them farther and farther from their objective. At first, he was relieved that she had come for him and got them out of the mystical fog but he had expected her to stop so they could discuss their new approach. Perhaps they would hide out until the Brethren left the area. They could stay the night and resume their search in the morning. By then, Simon and Katarina would be with them and, certainly, four people would make more headway than one or two.
Now, he realized that Noya had no intention of taking them back to search for the crystal.
“Where are we going?” he asked. “Why aren’t we going back there?”
“Because it’s pointless.”
“The crystal is not pointless, Noya!”
“Yes, it is.” Then her voice lowered, and she added, “We never should have left.”
Tannis slid off the back end of the horse and hit the ground. Noya stopped her horse.
He looked at her as though she were crazy. “How can you talk like that?!?” His face turned crimson and his voice raised an octave. “You don’t want Markus to have the crystal! You never did! You’ve tried to undermine this entire search and you’ve belittled me in the process.”
He put his hands on his hips as he paced back and forth, his mind racing to find a solution to going back to find the crystal. He stopped and glared at Noya.
“I don’t care if I have to walk back there, I’m going after it. This is what Markus wants and this is what I want for him. It will help the Guardians. It will help the people. How can you not see that?!?”
Tannis turned and started walking away.
“He’s sick, Tannis. He’s ill.”
Tannis stopped in his tracks, his back to Noya. He slowly turned to face her. “What did you say?”
Noya stared at the ground near his feet, not quite ready to repeat it. Finally, she gazed in his eyes. “Markus is ill.”
His tongue suddenly felt too big for his mouth. “Huh...wh...he told you?”
Noya shook her head. “He doesn’t know that I know. And, he’d better not find out that you know, either!”
Tannis pointed behind Noya. “Do they know?”
She turned to see Simon and Katarina trotting toward them.
“No. So, don’t say anything. He has a heart condition, just like his father had. He’s done well for a long time but I think that’s starting to change. It will eventually kill him. Stress and excitement don’t help it, either.”
Simon and Katarina stopped their horses next to Noya; all three faced a dumbfounded Tannis. He was stunned. Suddenly his dream of finding the crystal for Markus and the Guardians didn’t seem all that important. If Markus died, he realized, Noya would take over and that made everything look different. The very thing that had occupied his thoughts and his time for the past several years had, all of a sudden, been pulled out from under him.
“What happened to your horse?” asked Simon.
Tannis didn’t respond at first, he was too busy trying to imagine what the Guardians would be like under Noya’s authority. Then, he glanced up at Simon and simply shrugged his shoulders in reply.
“Can I ride with you?” asked Tannis.
Simon glanced at Noya, wondering whether she would offer Tannis a ride since she had obviously brought him this far but she had already turned her horse toward the north and was riding away.
“Sure.” Simon held out his hand to help Tannis up.
Simon and Katarina kicked their horses to catch up with Noya.
“We need to watch ourselves, Noya,” advised Katarina. Her eyes searched ahead as she rode next to Noya. “One of the Brethren got away. Last we saw, he was headed east but he could have backtracked by now.”
Noya simply nodded but her eyes came alert as she watched for any movement beside the trail.
Simon craned his head to the side and whispered to Tannis. “What happened back there?”
The defeat in Tannis’s voice was apparent when he responded. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
THIRTY EIGHT
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Gwynn
Northland
Gwynn moved swiftly to reach the Northland, even though navigating the steep descent of the Great Mountains was slow. She had to dismount a couple of times to lead her horse through narrow passages. Beyond that it was a mixture of rolling hills, open meadows, and patches of forest heading north until she reached the mountains of the Northland. Her objective
was clearly embedded in her head, driving her onward with such clarity and purpose that she didn’t tire from the ride.
Once she reached the Northland, going was easy. Almost too easy, thought Gwynn. There were trails all throughout that lead to villages scattered around the mountains. To keep from being seen by anyone, every so often she’d leave the trail and travel as the crow flies through the forest, in the general direction of the Guardians’ headquarters. The one thing that bothered her about doing that was that she’d startle the various avian life forms from their hiding places, which could potentially give her away to anyone else in the area. Fortunately, it wasn’t long before she’d come across another trail and would stay on it for a short time before traipsing cross country again.
A couple of times, she thought she was being followed, but after cutting through the woods and checking behind, there were no signs that this was the case. She thought it strange that she hadn’t encountered anyone along the way. Was it that she succeeded at being obscure in her route? She didn’t give it much thought before her thinking returned to the journal.
She mulled over her plan as she rode. Once she reached the Guardians’ post, she would observe the area until she saw an opportunity and then make her move. She was eager to destroy the journal and hoped she could get to it without being discovered. Quick in; quick out. No one would know she was there.
She especially didn’t want Markus to see her; he might remember her. She thought back to the last time she saw him. It was when her brother, Theo, was still alive. Markus and Theo had been roommates when they first joined the Guardians. In fact, they were close enough in age that Gwynn wondered if Theo would have become the head of the Guardians if he had lived long enough.
Theo was good at rallying people for a common cause but Gwynn recalled how narrow minded and tenacious he was in his views, to the point of neurosis. Once Theo latched onto a belief, he wouldn’t consider alternatives, even if reason or logic suggested he do so. Getting him to consider something different would be like trying to pry the jaws of a hungry wolf from its prey. The more Gwynn thought about it, she concluded that Theo probably would have turned the Guardians into fanatics. After all, it was his phobic viewpoint that got him killed.
Gwynn was a young Overseer at the time but had gone to see her brother regarding a personal family matter pertaining to their parents. Morten thought it would be a good opportunity for her to visit the Guardians’ compound and to have some exposure to them. What Gwynn didn’t know at the time was that she was going to anger her brother to the point that he would become a threat to her. Morten, on the other hand, knew what was going to happen. So without Gwynn’s knowledge, he sent Silas to follow her to ensure her safety.
While Gwynn waited for Theo in his room, she saw an old journal lying on his table. She picked it up and was looking at some of the worn pages when Theo and Markus arrived. Theo was immediately enraged. If Markus hadn’t been present, it might have been worse but he got Theo to calm down and then Markus left them alone for their visit.
As they spoke, Gwynn could tell from Theo’s dark, shifting eyes that he was still angry and even appeared to be paranoid. His superior attitude made Gwynn wonder why she bothered to talk family matters with him. He acted as though he didn’t have time for such petty concerns. Then Theo glanced at the journal and started boasting about the important assignment he had been given to find an object of immense value.
Gwynn didn’t know about the crystal at the time; she only knew that certain objects had to be kept from both the Guardians and the Brethren but she hadn’t been an Overseer long enough to learn what those objects were. She wondered whether the journal contained something of importance to the Overseers.
Their visit had ended and Theo was about to escort Gwynn out of the room when another Guardian stopped in the hallway to speak with him. Gwynn lingered a step behind, in the open room, and glanced at the journal again but didn’t readily notice anything of value. She picked it up and was ready to hide it under her shirt but then changed her mind, reasoning that Morten might know what item of value would interest the Guardians. She also didn’t want to interfere with her brother’s free will and knew that if she took it, he would come after her.
Theo acted strangely as he walked her out of the Guardians’ compound and stayed with her for a short distance, beyond sight of the compound, which was unusual for him. Suddenly, he grabbed her by the neck and began ranting about Gwynn being a spy, sent to stop him from his important find. She couldn’t reason with him and tried to fight him off. His grip was tightening around her throat and she felt herself begin to lose consciousness when Theo was struck from behind and dropped to the ground.
As she gasped for air, Gwynn saw Silas standing over Theo, holding a boulder in his hand. She saw the blood on the boulder and knew her brother had been hit hard. She reached for Theo’s neck and barely felt a pulse.
“We have to get him back to the compound,” she said to Silas. “He needs help.” Then they heard voices coming their way and left, knowing he would be found and given help. Gwynn later learned that he died from his injuries. Silas felt bad about hitting him so hard but Gwynn let him know that, if he hadn’t intervened, she was certain that Theo would have killed her.
She recalled growing up with her brother and remembered how he gave the appearance of being in control of his emotions but his energy told her otherwise. Being around him was like standing on an unpredictable volcano; you knew it was building pressure and would blow at some point but you never knew when to expect it. She never knew what was really going on in his head. But in that moment, when his hands were gripping her neck, she had no doubt that her brother would have killed her if Silas hadn’t intervened.
As an Overseer, she learned a valuable lesson from that experience. She hadn’t kept her mind as clear of ulterior motives as she had thought and her brother picked up on it. He was simply reacting to feeling threatened by her, even if it was subconsciously.
THIRTY NINE
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