“Impressive,” Chris Alan mocked in his turn; his anger was not yet subdued. “My dad says that the laws of chance don’t work normally around me. Want to try your ‘bad luck’ against my ‘good luck’, cat? You’ll lose– depend on it.”
“Can you help your friend keep calm, Guardian?” the Archon asked, speaking with a quiet forcefulness that was kind, yet brooked no disobedience.
*Is he another Protector?* Chris Alan thought in wonder. *He must be! Some people call us Sages – and he’s a sage if there ever was one.*
“I am Rafael Goldwing, Archon. I will try,” said the Guardian as he dissolved his blades. “Chris Alan, I do not calculate that any of us are here either by chance or by malice. This Archon is a being of good will, but also of tremendous power. Make an enemy of him needlessly, and you might die even as you killed him. There is no point in your being lost to the Metacosmic Realms for no good reason.”
Chris Alan sighed, quenched Shalhevetyah, and sheathed it. He didn’t even have to watch what he was doing. A simple flip of the hilt from the right hand to the left hand, then a rotation of the blade downward by the left hand, and the Starblade went into its scabbard quickly, smoothly and all but soundlessly until the cross guard clicked into place.
The Archon nodded his approval. “If the knights of our King’s castle saw you do that, then they would either revere you or challenge you – despite your tender age. I have never seen anyone save Realmwalkers show that level of skill with their swords.”
“I’ve had some tough teachers, sir. Besides, these things practically aim themselves – and people do that with projectile and directed-energy weapons all the time.”
“Not with holsters as narrow as your scabbard, they don’t.”
“Fair enough,” Chris Alan replied, eager to dismiss what he considered unimportant. “How do you know about Standard Years – and what do you mean by Realmwalkers?”
“You don’t miss much, do you? Well, you wouldn’t know about Realmwalkers; even among your kind, they’re not exactly common knowledge. Come on inside. You look as if you could use some nourishment – and some sleep; you’re obviously out of your personal time zone. Amethyst, put that … thing back in its den, and then come join us – without your present attitude, mind you. Take as long as you need, but lose it!”
= = = = =
“Amethyst,” the Archon explained to Chris Alan as they ate and drank (they had the local equivalents of First Realm hummus, gyro meat, pita bread, fresh fruit and refreshingly cool white wine) “has been getting restless. I concluded that she needed a change of pace with someone more or less like herself. But when I said I’d sent her out looking for a companion, I didn’t mean in a sexual sense. Amethyst has all the equipment needed to mate with an Adami – or a Lightchild – but she has the character needed to keep her from trying.”
Chris Alan raised his right eyebrow. “Yes,” said the Archon, “I perceive that you respect ‘straight talk’, even when you think it’s impolite. So do I. If you can master your righteous indignation, young man” – the Archon had decided that “boy” was no fitting word for this precocious Adami – “and let it work for you rather than against you, you’ll become powerful indeed.”
“Power doesn’t interest me all that much, sir – begging your pardon.”
“But letting the Lord of the Realms work through you does. Hear me, then. Sometimes the Lord chooses one or more Lightchildren to pass through the Portal of Twilight in your Realm. They travel through other Realms – one or more – going from world to world, gaining experience, and bringing information back with them that will help their mortal charges. Some have even gone to the Realm of Judgment itself; they bring back the most useful information of all.”
Chris Alan was dumbfounded. “Rafael, do you have any record of a Realmwalker program like this?”
“Not in my own data base. No other Guardian has ever informed me of such a thing. I suspect that were we still linked to the Nexus, the information would be password-protected – securely so. What this Archon is saying must be a very closely guarded secret, even among Lightchildren.”
