And lo! behold! The sequel to Circles of Change, which you should probably read before you read this, otherwise you won't understand the Shored/Tenri/Jaron interaction.

What I love most about rivers is:
You can't step in the same river twice
The water's always changing, always flowing
But people, I guess, can't live like that
We all must pay a price
To be safe, we lose our chance of ever knowing
What's around the riverbend
Waiting just around the riverbend

Chapter One: Can't Step in the Same River Twice

"How far away are we?"

:Another couple of days, I think,: Gaelan said, craning his head back to look at Jaron with one ridiculously large blue eye.

"Ah." He lapsed back into silence, failing to notice the curious looks he was getting from his companions.

"Um, Jaron?" the girl beside him fumbled, blushing when he turned to look at him.

"Hmm?" He'd established days ago that he would be the one who would be "there" most often, so it was unsurprising that the freshly-graduated Collegium mage knew who she was riding next to.

Lori cleared her throat and fiddled with her brand new mage robes, refusing to look him straight in the eyes. "Do you--what do you think it will be like when we get there?"

"I don't really know," he said honestly. "The abandoned city is supposed to be fairly technologically advanced, but the building structures are supposedly fairly normal."

"Normal?"

"You know, walls and a floor supporting a ceiling?"

"Oh," Lori said, flushing. "I guess that makes sense."

She turned back to herself, offering no more conversation.

Jaron was glad of it, and turned in on himself, trying to figure out why he himself was here.

Little less than a month ago, the Haighlei Ambassador stationed in Haven had gotten a message saying that one of the floating barges headed up towards Valdemar had come upon what appeared to be an abandoned city.

No one knew where the inhabitants were or where they had gone, but it looked like the city had been deserted fairly recently, and one of the reports had mentioned fresh graves outside the city, indicating that whatever had driven them out, it had used death of some kind to propel it.

The curiousness of the combined Kaled'a'in and the Haighlei had driven them to search the city, but what they had found were things very similar to what had apparently been found in Urtho's Tower in the Dhorisha Plains. Smaller telesons and more advanced things that hadn't been specified, but enough to mount an expedition of Heralds, three mages fresh from the Collegium, and a few of the human Silver Gryphons residing in Valdemar. Added to that were packbeasts, Companions of course, and three dyheli, one of whom was a king-stag should they find anything regarding language and an emergency requiring the use of it. When two Artificers and a Healer had requested to come along, the "scouting party" had turned into a full expedition, and now Jaron was required to keep an eye on Lori, both artificers, and the mules. The other two mages could keep after themselves; both were teachers at the collegium, and apparently very responsible.

One was a White Winds Adept apparently descended from the great Adept Kethryveris, and he was damned proud of it. The other was a former Fireflower mage who had deigned to teach at the mages Collegium, and she got on Jaron's nerves immensely. Shored was the only one who really dealt with her; Tenri didn't come out much these days.

The Healer was less annoying, and mostly kept to himself and the other Heralds. Jaron himself was the lone Herald-mage in the party. He'd graduated from the Collegium as three people proficient in Fetching, Foresight, and the Mage-Gift, and after a four-and-a-half year intern--three times the normal length so that each facet of him could get all the experience that they needed--they'd been assigned to this journey to seemingly the ends of the earth, unable to Gate since no one in the Kaled'a'in party had been anywhere in or near Valdemar and no one in Haven had been where the Kaled'a'in were.

Another few hours passed quietly, and when they finally bedded down for the night again next to a stream in the middle of the uninhabited forest, Jaron took the first watch, easily falling asleep when it was over and waking up in the morning before anyone could shake him awake.

The next few days passed like that, blurring in with the rest of the long month, and when Gaelan finally announced in midday that they were within a mile of the city, Jaron could have wept with relief.

They hadn't passed any fields to supply foodstuffs for the city, which was strange in and of itself, and their arrival to the city was as abrupt as a fall in the Terilee.

One minute they were riding through thick undergrowth in a forest seemingly as old as the old Empire, and in the next everyone was halting, staring in wonder at the huge gray wall and open space that separated the wall from the forest.

:Masel says that the Kaled'a'in are inside,: Gaelan said.

"Well, if he says so..."

Taking on his authority as the leader, Jaron turned to Masel, the king-stag. "If you wouldn't mind leading us," he began reasonably, but before he could continue, Masel nodded his head in a very humanlike gesture and trotted off to the left of the wall, leading them south for a good ten minutes.

During that ten minutes, Jaron got a very good look at the wall, and what he saw puzzled him.

The wall was made of stone; he was sure of that much, but what kind of stone and how much of it he couldn't tell. The entire wall--for the seven or so furlongs that they traveled--seemed to be made out of one long piece of stone, unbroken and unmortared.

They came upon the entrance to the walled city suddenly, and from there Jaron took the lead.

I can't mess this up, he thought to himself. Nineteen he might only be, but he had to act like a true leader here and prove himself. This was his first real assignment, and he would do things the right way.

A circle of Kaled'a'in greeted them inside the gates, and from what Jaron could see beyond them, they'd been busy, taking the first houses near the entrance to inhabit and exploring the rest. Improvised flags of bright, extra clothing decorated all of the doors in sight, and Jaron guessed that they were there to mark which homes had been searched. He didn't see any Haighlei, but they could have been continuing the sweep of houses. The Kaled'a'in watched quietly as the members of the party came to a stop. The Heralds had carefully arrayed themselves to make the best impression, bracketing the sides of the party and placing one Herald between every two nonHerald.

Jaron dismounted neatly, swinging off of his Companion in perfect sync with the other Heralds. They made an impressive show of it, but the Kaled'a'in failed to look suitably impressed.

One of the women in the welcoming party came forth, and Jaron took that as his own cue. He stepped forward with a solemn smile on his face. "Zhai'helleva," he said, watching the other's face carefully, wondering whether she knew a language he was fluent in.

She smiled. "Welcome," she said in gently accented Valdemaran, much to his relief. "Was your journey long?"

:Too long,: Shored murmured.

"Long enough," Jaron replied neutrally.

"Then I welcome you to the city of Tansho," she said, waving her arm behind herself in an expansive gesture. "We've figured out the name, at least." The last was said in a slightly sour tone of voice.

"Tansho," Jaron said, wondering what it meant.

"Do you wish to unpack and settle in?"

"Please."

"Then be welcome."

With audible sighs of relief, the Healer, Artificers, and mages dismounted and filtered through the crowds, presumably to find somewhere to stable their horses and find some homes near the gates that hadn't been taken over yet. The Silvers wandered off, presumably to find people they knew.

Jaron was left with the welcoming committee and the Heralds, as well as the dyheli, who were waiting patiently off to the side.

:You can go,: he told Masel.

:Thank you,: the stag said, polite as always. He led the other dyheli off to destinations unknown.

Now Jaron and the Heralds were truly alone.

"Is there anything we can do to help you at the moment?" Jaron asked, and the other Heralds unconsciously shifted to stand as unified, tall, proud pillars of wisdom and ready assistance.

"No," said the only speaking Kaled'a'in.

Jaron smiled. "May I at least have your name? Mine is Jaron."

"I am called Treehugger k'Leshya," the woman said.

Jaron almost choked at the name, but kept his composure, though inside of him Tenri and Shored were dying of laughter.

"Nice to meet you, Treehugger."

Jaron spent the rest of the day exploring the city, going further than anyone else had. While the Kaled'a'in were methodical in their searching methods, going house-by-house, Jaron headed straight for the center of the city.

It wasn't as easy as he'd hoped. The streets were winding and difficult to navigate, and each house seemed too similar to the one like it. By the time one candlemark passed he was getting tired and dizzy from all of the repetitive scenery, and considered giving up.

:I can continue for you,: Shored offered, and Jaron "looked" at him in surprise.

"Would you do that?"

:I'm as eager to explore this place as you are. I may not like people, but I like this city, and it could be fun.:

Jaron acquiesced.

The familiar ease with which Shored slipped into using the body didn't bother Jaron at all, and he sat behind Shored's eyes as they wandered farther into the city.

They finally reached the center, and Jaron was hard-pressed to keep from snatching the body back and running for the building they'd come upon. It was a huge, wonderful slate grey structure, nearly like the drawings he'd seen of the Tower in the middle of the Dhorisha Plains

Tall and thin and magnificent, he wondered how they hadn't seen the strange tower from the outskirts of the city, and when Shored looked back, Jaron realized what had happened.

He hadn't really taken notice of it, but the buildings had gotten progressively higher and higher as they'd closed in on the tower, and there had been an incline on the street he hadn't noticed before, putting the tall tower seemingly on height with the rest of the buildings, when in reality it had to be at least three times the height of the buildings on the outskirts.

As they neared the base of it, he noticed something very interesting. The tower itself might be even taller than he thought; around the base of the tower was a chasm that stretched very far down; it turned black around what he guessed was forty feet down, and he couldn't see farther than that. Small stone bridges led into the tower itself, stretching over the gap around it, which had to be twenty feet wide at the least.

What was this place?

He didn't go inside; not today, for there might still be something sheltering inside it. So he made his way back up through the twisting streets to where the "camp" was--if you could call it that--and discussed his findings with the others; namely the other Heralds, one of the Artificers, and Treehugger.

They all agreed to head straight there the following morning, and with heavy feet but a heart light with the thought of tomorrow, Jaron turned the body over to Shored and went to sleep.