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. Saöri? His voice was the dry rustle ofdead leaves.Korimenei bowed and held out the chest. This unworthy student will be muchhonored if the Satir considers accept-ing this handful of miserable tea. He took the chest, tucked it into a pocket of his robe. Leave the mountain asyou found it, he said. This one hears and swears it will be so, SaOr. He grunted,.swung round still squatting and began pulling grass from around aset.Korimenei flared her narrow nostrils, but swallowed the laughter bubbling inher throat; the Old Man could be touchy about his dignity at the mostunexpected times.She resettled the rucksack and began walking again,following the path.3The tiny meadow was stony and dry in its upper reaches.An ancient conifer hadPage 39 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlfallen to a storm a decade or so past and now lay denuded of bark, slowlyrotting into the earth it had grown from.Thinner now and noisier, the OldMan s Stream curved around the stubby root-shield and squeezed pastboulders at the bottom of the roughly circular meadow and disappeared intoshadows under the shivering gold leaves of a grove of aspen saplings.Korimenei shrugged out of the rucksack, set it on the dead trunk.She wriggledher body, reached high, stretching all over as she did so, stayed on her toesfor a long long moment, then exploded out a sigh and dropped on her heels.She pulled loose the thongs binding her dream-blanket to the rucksack, shookit out and spread it on the grass.To-ward the end of her first year at theschool, she d bought wool in Silili Market.She dyed it and wove it into adreampattem blanket which she kept wrapped in silk for the day she d need it,for now.She sat on the trunk and smiled at the sharp-angled patterns and thebrilliant colors.I did good, shethought, pleased with herself.She unbuckled her sandals, closed her eyes andflexed her toes; the earth was cool and silky against her soles and she had acurious sense that she was momentarily cut off from the flow of time, that shewas a part of the Mountain.Her mind drifted into phrasemaking, ephemerallyeternal, eternally ephemeral.The Mountain and the life parasited on itchanged, died, was continually reborn.She sighed and yanked herself back toher own purposes.Settling herself on the blanket, she folded her legs anddropped her hands onto her knees.Her mind drifted to yesterday.##Shahntien Shere sat behind her desk and frowned at Korimenei.She was a tallwoman, thin, her abundant gray hair dressed in a soft knot at the nape of along neck.She wore a simple white dress with close fitting sleeves and a highsoft collar, over that an unadorned sleeveless robe of heavy black silk.Itwas her customary dress, effectively elegant, underlining her authoritywithout making too oppressive a point of it.Abruptly, unexpectedly, shesmiled, her dark eyes narrowing into inverted echoes of her mouth. The tenyears are up, she said. Of course you know that.You ve done well, better than I expected.Maksim is most pleased withyou, though he seems rather shy about telling you himself She paused,rubbed the tips of her fingers together. I don t know what his plans are,Kori; I expect he ll show up when he s ready.I ve taught you all I can, the ends of her thin mouth tucked deeper into their brackets, turned into amirror image of her earlier smile, All anyone can, I think.The rest is up toyou. Korimenei laced her fingers together and stared down at them.She couldn tthink of anything to say, so she said nothing. Yes, the Shahntien said, and that is essentially what this is about. Shesighed. To it, then.I have consulted yarrow and water and tortoiseshelland considered your family lines.Your people are.urn.remarkablyuntouched by Tal-ent, always excepting that imposed by theChained God on his priests; however, that has nothing to do with you since thepriests are always male and as far as I can determine chosen by the Godhimself without much concern about any inborn Gifts.Your Talent has come toyou from your Ancestress Harra Hazhani, the Rukka Nagh;there were, no doubt, other women before you with much the same abilities, butthings being the way they are among your people, the Gifts were denied andthey withered without being used. She tapped her nails on the desk top, a tiny clatter like a flurry ofwheatsized hail against a window. An obscenity. She spread herhands flat on the desk, frowned at them. Which is a digression.I mexplaining too much.It s not needed.More than that, it s probablycounterproductive.You are to go to the Old Man s Mountain across the bay.Youare to find a sufficiently quiet and secluded place.You are to fast andmeditate for three days.Do nothing.Page 40 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlAccept what comes to you.Forget nothing.You won t understand most of it now,you don t know enough about the world or yourself.Accept for the moment whatI tell you, it comes from my own experience, Kori Heart-in-Waiting; youwill return again and again to this time, finding new richness, newmeaning in it. She straightened her back, looking past Korimenei. Again Iexplain too much.You seem to have that effect on me, young Kori.Go and do. ##Korimenei settled into her fast-vigil.She sought to re-find that sense ofconnectedness with air and earth, with plant and beast that she d gotten as agift for those few moments when she sat on the trunk and dabbled her feet inthe dust.The sun rose higher, dust motes danced in the rays that slid through openingsin the needle canopy above and be-hind her.She was all sensory data,perception without self-awareness.Then lost it.Then had it again.Then lostit.And lost it.And sank into self-doubt and sourness.Shadow shrank abouther, hot yellow sunlight crept toward the blan-ket, came over it, touched herknees, her fingers.She rubbed at her eyes, looked up.The sun was almostdirectly over-head. Three days, she said aloud. Three days. She rocked on her buttocks, straightened her legs, flexed and loosened themuscles in them until the stiffness was gone.She stood, stretched, shiveredall over.Two hours only and already the exerciseseemed futile, a fanatic s flag-ellation of body and spirit.She let her armsdrop.There you go again, you silly maid, aping Settsimaksimin, roaringphrases in your alleged mind.Her fast had begun this morning with a breakfastof juice and a hardroll.She was hungry, her stomach was grumbling and she hadthat all-over sense of debilitation she got when she went too long withouteating.Three days, she thought again and just managed to stifle an obscenity,one of the many she d picked up when she was a rebel child wanderingSilagamatys waterfront when she was supposed to be in bed.She fished a tin cup from the rucksack, filled it at the stream and sat on aflat rock with her feet in the water.The stream went down a longshallow slide here, with a steady brushing hum punctuated occasionallyby the pop of bubbles or a troutling breaking surface.She sipped from her cupand watched the clear cold stream smooth as glass slip over her baretoes.The sun was hot on her head and shoulders; behind her she couldhear the buzz and mumble of insects.Her stomach cramped.She closed her eyesand willed the nausea to go away.It was mostly imagination, she knew thatwell enough, but knowing didn t seem to help.Three days
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