the sand?" Pagonel stopped and smiled, then chuckled aloud at Brynn looked away, but she couldn't resist. The mystic was right - and she felt foolish indeed at her fiery declaration.
"Consider your feelings honestly concerning the Behrenese," Pagonel dvised. ?Recognize that they are not all of one mind, and not all deserving of retribution. Recognize that they, even those you hate the most, are hu-man beings, are creatures with hopes for themselves and for their children not so different from your own."
"Do you ask that I abandon my cause?"
"No. I ask that you remain truthful to yourself. Nothing more. Your path will not be bloodless, should you walk the road of war again. There will be a heavy price to be paid, for the Behrenese and the To-gai-ru. Is that cost worth the prize that will be freedom?"
"It is!" Brynn said without the slightest hesitation.
"That is all."
Pagonel turned and walked away from her then, leaving her standing on the short stone bridge connecting two wings of the Walk of Clouds monas-tery, far, far above the floor of a deep and misty gorge.
With just a few words, the mystic had changed her line of thinking, had shifted her perspective - just a bit, but in a direction that Brynn was already thinking might prove to be very productive.
She knew that this would be but one of many, many lessons Pagonel and his brothers and sisters of the Walk of Clouds would teach her in her stay there.
"I am often struck by how similar we all are, though we paint different la-bels upon our common beliefs, different names upon our common gods, and enact different rituals to reach the same elevated state of conscious-ness," Pagonel remarked as he exited the darkened room to face the eager Brynn Dharielle.
Brynn looked at him curiously, surprised by his smugness, and more than a little disappointed. She had just taken one of the greatest chances in her life, had just shown to this mystic who had become so dear to her during the last few weeks at the Walk of Clouds one of the greatest secrets of the Touel'alfar. Her teaching of Oracle to Pagonel was a huge expression of trust, for the gifts that Lady Dasslerond's people had shown to Brynn were not to be passed along. She had expected that the mystic would be over-whelmed, would walk out of the room with that same look of disbelief upon his face that Brynn had worn in her first successful Oracle, when she had communicated, she believed, with the ghosts of her dead parents.
He had been in the room for a long time, and Brynn was certain that he had succeeded in reaching a height of intensity, a level of consciousness that transcended the bounds of mortality. And yet here he was, obviously less than impressed.
"There is only one direction, after all," Pagonel started, but he looked at Brynn, whose face showed her disappointment clearly, and paused.
"You know of the Abellican Monks of Honce-the-Bear?" the Jhesta Tu asked a moment later.
Brynn nodded.
"They derive their power through use of gemstones that they consider sacred."
"The ranger who trained beside me was also being trained in the use of the gemstones," Brynn remarked, and Pagonel nodded.
"The Yatols view the stones as sacrilege."
Again Brynn nodded. ?And the Jhesta Tu?"
"We have used them."
"And were you impressed enough to incorporate them into your reli-gion?" Brynn asked, a bit sarcastically, given the mystic's quiet attitude toward Oracle.
"Jhesta Tu attempt to find the same powers as the gemstones offer, the same power that your Oracle offers, within ourselves," the mystic explained. He walked over and tapped Brynn on the forehead. ?There is as much magic and power in here," he said, and then he surprised her by running his hand down her face, down her neck, between her breasts and over her belly, all the way to her groin. ?A line of strength from there to there,"
he explained stepping back. ?This is the core of your life energy, your Chi, and few are the people who can truly come to appreciate the power of that energy."
"Only the Jhesta Tu?" the somewhat shaken woman asked.
"Only a very few of Jhesta Tu," Pagonel explained. ?And only after years and years of study. Internal study."
He reached down and untied the black sash from around his waist, holding it up before the woman. ?The Belt of All Colors," he explained. ?It is the symbol of understanding. Three in the Walk of Clouds now wear it, and of