Clarion

CLARION 115

William Greenleaf

"Came from where?" Selmer asked, making no effort to hide his skepticism. "You said the chauka was shaped like a shallow bowl. That's the same way Cleve described it. You also said Lord Tern was almost as big as a man. How could he come out of a shallow bowl?"

"Well. . ." Paul thought back to what had happened when High Elder Brill waved his hands over the chauka, and the appearance of the creature above the chauka like a spindly insect. "We saw something.'1'1 But Selmer was right. There was no way Lord Tern's body could have been concealed inside that shallow dish. And there was something else—

He looked up at Dorland. "But I'm beginning to wonder if what we saw was really Lord Tern."

"High Elder Brill called him," Dorland said. "He came. How can you doubt it was Lord Tern? We saw him."

"I know." It was clear that Dorland's statement carried a deeper meaning. We felt his black heart. That was the bothersome part. "But he didn't look . . . solid. I could see through him." K-aryn's brow pulled down. "Lord Tern was . . . transparent?"

Paul shook his head. "Not exactly transparent. But he didn't look completely solid. He moved around a lot. A couple of times, when he turned at the right angle, I could see the light globes shining through his body."

Karyn was watching him with interest. "I don't understand."

"I'm not sure I do, either. I guess—" We felt Lord Tern in the room with us. He could come up with theories about Lord Tern's appearance, but how could he explain what he and Dorland had felt inside that room? "Maybe the Tal Tahir transmitted the image from somewhere else."

"Transmitted?" Selmer asked.

"Like fartalk, but with pictures as well as words." That would explain why Lord Tern hadn't left the chauka, even though Paul was sure the creature had sensed their presence in the cabinet. If he was only a projected image . . .

But if he was only an image, how could he detect our presence^

Karyn shook her head. "I don't get it."

"Paul's suggesting that the picture of Lord Tern was sent from someplace else," Selmer said. His eyes returned to Paul. "There would have to be a receiver." He hesitated. "The chaukaT'

Paul shrugged. "Could be."

Karyn's brow furrowed. "If the picture was transmitted, where did it come from?"

That was the obvious question. "There's no way to know," Paul admitted. "If the transmitter's powerful enough, it could send the image from anywhere on the planet. Most of Clarion hasn't even been charted. There might be a Tal Tahir city that hasn't been found yet. Or the Tal Tahir may not even be on Clarion anymore. The chauka may be capable of communicating over a long distance."

"Well . . . maybe," she said doubtfully. "But that would mean they've been communicating with elders of the Holy Order for two hundred years. Why wouldn't they come here?"

Paul shrugged. "There are a lot of questions. We may never know all the answers."

"We know one thing for sure," she said. "The chauka is the link between High Elder Brill and Lord Tern. There's no doubt of that. That means we have to get back to the temple and destroy it."

"No."

Everyone turned to look at Dorland.

"We can't do that," he said. His eyes were clear now, and filled with a certainty of purpose that Paul had never seen before. "The chauka is our 116 William Greenleaf CLARION 117

only way to contact Lord Tern. We have to keep it open."

Paul issued a harsh bark of laughter. "You can talk to Lord Tern if you want to. I never want to see him again."

"We have to."

"No, we don't. Maybe arkies will someday, but not us. Besides, you're forgetting something. We can't reach Lord Tern or anyone else with the chauka because we don't know how to operate it."

"Let's go back and break it," said Selmer.

"Nobody wants to do that more than me," Paul said. "But I don't think we'll be able to get back into the temple so easily. There were more sentries than you expected tonight. Brill has obviously pumped up security around the temple. Now that he knows we got inside, he's likely to take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again."

"They haven't had time to get organized," Karyn argued. "They won't expect us to hit them again so soon."

"I think there's someplace else we should go," Dorland said.

Karyn opened her mouth, then looked at

Dorland and kept silent.

"The pedestals we saw inside the chamber—I've seen them before."

"Where?" Karyn asked.

"A place my father took me to," Dorland said.

"We were exploring. My father was Second Speaker. He could move freely through Chalcharuzzi. We had gone to the other side of the city, close to the river, when we came across a building that caught my father's interest." He looked up as if suddenly remembering that the others were there with him.

"There was little damage."

"Why was your father so interested in it?" Karyn asked.

"The building was not a dome. It had a square shape, like that of the temple. And it had a spire. Part of one, anyway—most of it had fallen into the river."

"A spire?" Karyn repeated. "Like the one above the temple?"

Dorland nodded. "Vines had nearly covered the building, but we searched until we found a way inside. That's where I saw the pedestals. Father went inside, but I was afraid. I only looked through the doorway. When my father came out, he was even more excited. I'm sure he intended to go back, but he was killed not long after."

A brief silence was broken by Karyn. "Do you think it was another temple building?"

"I don't know," Dorland said. "If so, it had not been used in a long time."

"Even if we can find the building," Selmer said,

"how could it help us?"

"I didn't go inside," Dorland said, "and my father did not say what he saw in there. But I know he was very excited. I think he may have seen another chauka."

"A chaukaF

"Possibly."

"Well . . ." Selmer fell silent.

"Could you find the building again?" Karyn asked.

Dorland hesitated. "It happened a long time ago. I remember only that it was close to the river." Paul's mind had gone to something Selmer

Ogram had said the day before as they sat watching the sun set over the valley. The Tal Tahir used the spire in a lot of their architecture. And: The Holy Order had the others torn down. He thought about the symmetry of design that had been preferred by the Tal Tahir, and remembered his confusion about the position of the temple and the lack of similar buildings in the same area of other quadrants.

"There were hundreds of them," he said. 118 William Greenleaf CLARION 119

The others looked at him, and he realized they were waiting for him to go on. He licked his lips, thinking it through.

"The tubeways may have been the main source of transportation for the Tal Tahir," he said. "But they served another purpose. They effectively broke the city up into small sections. I noticed the pattern yesterday."

"Pattern?" Karyn asked.

"The city's divided into squares by the tubeways. Each square also has a pattern, and I'm willing to bet that each square was a functioning unit on its own. In each section the domes are arranged in concentric circles that radiate out from an open area in the middle."

"The Tal Tahir lived in the domes," Karyn said. She still didn't see what he was getting at. "Maybe they left the open areas as parks, or communal meeting places."

"Think about the temple's location. It's set back about two hundred meters from the intersection of two of the tubes."

"David's Tube and Tube Four," Selmer said.

"Right. The Holy Order has cleared the area around it. But there are enough roadways and domes left so that the temple's location would put it just about in the same position as the open areas in the other sections."

Karyn thought about that. "You're right."

"Have you seen any of the original arkie photos of the city?"

She shook her head. "The Holy Order destroyed them a long time ago."

"I think I know why," Paul said. "The Holy Order says the Tal Tahir built the temple as a special building for them. The elders didn't want anyone to know there used to be many buildings just like it. They had them all destroyed, except the one they use for their temple. But they missed the one Dorland and his father found."

"I still don't see what that does for us," Karyn said. "How can it help us even if we find another temple building?"

"It might give us a clue about what the Tal Tahir used the building for," Paul said. "And if there's another chauka in there—"

"We can poke around it without worrying about the Holy Order busting in on us!" Selmer exclaimed. "Let's go!" Karyn was already opening her fartalker. "First we'll find out what Sabastian thinks."