Clarion

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

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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.

Two wasted lives, and Paul was aware that he had been traveling down the same road when he met Doriand. Becoming Dorland's business manager had been the first major step toward getting Paul's own life straightened out. Then he'd met Trisha, and the rest had fallen into place.

Paul heard a sound and turned his head to find Selmer Ogram standing beside him.

"Sabastian wouldn't ask him to do it if he didn't have to."

Paul turned back to face the city.

"He's up against a wall," Selmer went on. "He knows he has to do something. High Elder Brill and Elder Jacowicz have to be stopped."

Paul kept thinking about what Doriand had said when he had at last looked at Sabastian and agreed to go into the temple. Paul had tried desperately to talk him out of it, but Doriand had already made up his mind.

I've always known I would go into the sacred chamber and speak to Lord Tern. The certainty in Dorland's voice sent a new chill down Paul's spine now as he remembered the words.

"Who's Jacowicz?" Paul asked.

"He's the elder in charge of obedience. Brill's right-hand man, and maybe even more dangerous. He's the one who set up the Sons of God." Selmer lowered himself carefully to another benchlike outcropping of rock. "Jacowicz is determined to get each of us on his God Wall."

78 William Greenleaf

"You need help," Paul said. "That's obvious. But you should ask UNSA for it. I don't see how you can expect Dorland to go into that temple alone."

"We've got it all worked out. There shouldn't be any problem—"

"Is that what you thought when Cleve Quinton went in?" Paul asked. "If Dorland has to fight for his life, he won't have a chance. Dorland hates violence. Sabastian should know that."

"He does," Selmer said. "After all, Dorland's his nephew. If everything goes as planned, there won't be any violence."

"If everything goes as planned," Paul said bitterly. "All you're betting is Dorland's life."

"We're betting all our lives." Selmer held out a pair of binoculars. "Here, you can see better with these."

"I can see all I want to."

"I'd like to show you something." Paul grudgingly accepted the binoculars and looked through them at the city. Light slanted across the valley from the setting sun. Although most of the ruins were hidden by vegetation, he could see that the patches of pale pink were the remains of domed structures. Some were still nearly whole, thrusting up through the vegetation like the top halves of pink skulls. He lifted the binoculars and focused them on the village of Fairhope—a rambling collection of small, square buildings and narrow roads, canopied by a blue haze of woodsmoke. The river snaked along one side of it. Small figures moved around. Narrow roads led between the fields toward Chalcharuzzi. He found the zoom control and expanded the

image of one of the buildings. A cabin, he realized, made of cut logs. A thin spiral of smoke rose from the chimney.

"On the far right you can see the temple," Selmer said. "That's the building with the white spire."