Author's Note: If I owned anything from the Elenium or the Tamuli I would be spending my time congratulating myself on my own cleverness...sadly I don't own anything from these incredible books. Places, characters, and ideas from Elenium/Tamuli belong exclusively to David and Leigh Eddings.

I would like to thank all my reviewers for their time and great ideas. For some reason I can not fathom (though my imaginary psychiatrist insists it is a subconscious approval complex,) review comments/ideas seem to have strange effect on my writing. (ie readers can thank Fire-Shark for Aphrael referring to herself in the fourth person...)

The moral of this tiny aside? Please read and review!!please, please PLEASE...okay my imaginary psychiatrist just threatened a straightjacket so...on to the story!

Chapter 5 Threads

The first thing Talen became aware of was a splitting headache.

"Look who finally decided to wake up," observed a familiar and rather waspish voice.

"Aphrael?" he asked.

"Aphrael? No, sir Talen, it's me," answered a different voice.

Talen slit his eyes open and immediately closed them as he was assaulted by light.

"Are you seriously going back to sleep, Talen? Don't you think three days is enough?"

"Talen are you alright?"

"Three days?" Talen asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Yes, three days and you had me worried sick! How many times have I told you not to…"

"Please save it. You can lecture me after my head stops hurting."

"Sir Talen? Who are you talking to?"

Talen ventured to open his eyes again. A lavender eyed woman with shimmering red hair was staring down at him.

"Ah…hullo Olet," he said contritely. Olet's dark brows were creased with a look of consternation. "Talen, who were you just talking to?" she asked again.

"No one, milady, I was…dreaming."

"I see," said Olet, though her tone stated otherwise.

"Is Kyyis alright?" he asked.

"Yes, he is quite well. He recovered much faster than you. He is with your other brothers at the Chapterhouse," Olet answered.

"Is he awake?" asked yet another voice Talen recognized as Berit's.

"Yes, milord, but he does not seem to be entirely lucid…" Olet answered.

Talen struggled to sit up in bed. "I'm perfectly sane!" he protested. As he pulled himself into a sitting position, he finally recognizing that he was in his own room at the farm in Demos. How did he get here? The thought was forgotten as his stomach churned painfully. "I'm starving! Is there anything to eat?"

"I'm sure your mothers will be able to put together something," Berit answered as he turned and left Talen's room. Talen groaned.

"What is the matter?" Olet asked, concerned.

"I'm never going to hear the end of it…do you have any idea what it's like to receive lectures from two mothers?"

Olet's laughter filled the room.

After Aslade and Elys finished delivering long, blistering lectures and bone crushing hugs, Talen got up to eat, bathe, and take care of other bodily functions long overdue. While Talen was finishing his dinner, Berit filled him in on what happened while he was unconscious.

"Two ruffians brought you and Kyyis back to the Chapterhouse, I don't remember their names…" the blonde knight started.

"Was one man tall and thin while the other one short and stocky?" Talen asked in between bites.

Berit nodded giving Talen a questioning look. "That sounds right. Anyway, Flute was with them. That was probably the only reason they weren't killed on the spot. Flute asked for Olet and between the two of them they got you stitched up and gave Kyyis some hideous looking tonic to counteract the poison."

"Poison?" Talen asked, alarmed.

"Apparently the cross-bolt that hit him was covered with it. Olet's sure it was of Styric origin, but the ingredients are rare and considered contraband in Eosia. She said it was probably smuggled over, but she doesn't know how."

Talen nodded. "If Olet says it's a Styric poison, it's a Styric poison."

Berit nodded in agreement. Despite being an Elene, Olet's knowledge of the Arcane branch of the Secrets rivaled even Sephrenia's; a fact that she had demonstrated when he and Berit first met the lavender-eyed Arcane Master. Talen shuddered as he remembered tumbling down several flights of stairs after her vertigo spell hit him. Olet had earned second place on the list of women Talen refused to cross.

Berit continued on. "After the first day you didn't wake up, Olet suggested we bring you back to the farm. So we all packed up and came here."

"How come it's just you and Olet here?"

"Well, your brothers were rightfully concerned, and they were driving Olet insane with their questions and 'what ifs'. After an hour she banished the lot of them back to the Chapterhouse." Berit grinned wryly, "She tried to banish me too."

"I see she wasn't very successful," Talen smirked. "Have you set a date yet?"

"Not yet…but Olet wants to get married sometime this winter."

"That's typical of her."

"What do you mean by typical, sir Talen?"

Both men looked up as Olet walked in to the kitchen. She crossed to Talen and laid her hand against his forehead.

"Feeling any better?" she asked.

"Much better," he said to the lavender eyed woman. Talen got up and stretched. "I'm going to take a walk and stretch out these kinks; I'll be back in a little while," he told Olet and Berit as he left the kitchen.

Walking outside, Talen exhaled slowly, letting the anxiety drain out of his taut body. What part was real? What part was a dream? Though he didn't realize it, he had been making his way slowly to the oak where his father lay buried. Talen stared up at the wide spreading branches sweeping to either side. The tree was filled with rich, verdant leaves that rippled and undulated with the breeze, their deep green hues bursting with vitality, life and promise.

All those leaves holding so much potential and vigor… would wither and decay, fading as dust in the wind. Talen felt his mortality keenly.

"But you know, spring always returns." Aphrael interrupted his thoughts.

Talen looked up, surprised at the lower timbre of the familiar voice. Aphrael wasn't in her usual form of Flute, but instead wore her adult form, though she was dressed modestly in a long, snowy robe. Her face held all the perfection of a goddess, but her dark eyes sparkled with the same whimsical, mischievous glint. She sat sedately on a low hanging branch above Talen, her petite, grass-stained feet crossed at the ankles.

The Styric goddess grinned at the Pandion and extended a hand. "Help me down!"

Talen crossed his arms as he stared at her. "You got yourself up there, why can't you get yourself down?"

"Stop being difficult, Talen," she said wrinkling her nose. "I didn't say that when you were bleeding to death in Cheadin."

Ignoring her proffered hand, Talen reached up and took the Styric goddess by the waist and easily lifted her off the branch. A surprised expression skittered across Aphrael's face reminding Talen strangely of Danae. The sudden thought slipped from his awareness as Aphrael twined her arms around his neck and set her lips against his. Warm, soft and inviting, her kiss was compelling and insistent. Talen wrapped his arm fully around her waist keeping her pressed against him, deepening the kiss. After the space of several heartbeats Aphrael pulled her head back, running her fingers through Talen's hair. Her eyes were darker than usual and set with an unfathomable expression.

"You're getting better at that," she said softly, giving him a faint smile.

Talen shrugged, "Comes with the territory when you appeal to a goddess who prefers kisses over anything else," he said, setting her on her feet. "But I've got to admit it's a lot more fun kissing a grown up," he said smirking. The goddess's eyes widened considerably, and her cheeks were stained with a faint pink.

"Aphrael, are you blushing?" Talen asked, incredulous. Then he burst out laughing.

The Styric goddess fixed him with a withering stare. Talen grinned insolently and dropped to the ground, leaning his back against the oak tree.

"Maybe you could help me out?" he added, leaning forward. "Princess Danae is having delusions of marriage that all girls seem to get. Perhaps you could get her to fall in love with one of those idiotic courtiers? I wouldn't be able to give you much attention if I was married, you know," Talen pointed out in his most appealing manner.

"But I thought you liked Danae!" Aphrael said in a voice tinged with alarm.

Talen sighed. "Of course I like her, Aphrael," he said with exaggerated patience. "I just don't want to marry her. I've had my freedom constricted enough becoming a knight. Can you imagine adding a nice, hefty Prince Consort title to that? I would never see the outside of the palace walls again. Besides, who wants a former thief running a country?"

Talen looked up when Aphrael didn't respond. The goddess was scowling as she looked into the distance. Talen leaned back against the tree and absently produced his favorite gold coin out of thin air as he studied her. Aphrael looked back down at him and her brows knit. "Did he give you that?" she asked.

Confused, Talen followed her line of sight down to his hand where he absently twirled his favorite gold coin-- except instead of his gold coin he was spinning a small quartz disk engraved with the familiar symbols from his dreams.

Dropping the quartz disk as if burned, Talen stood so fast he was slightly dizzy.

"My god…It was real!"

It was Aphrael's turn to laugh as she regarded him.

"Of course it was real, Talen. Though why the Elene god would choose you for such an important task is beyond me," she said with a hint of amusement in her tone.

Talen's face drained of all its color. "The Elenegod? That pale eyed-man?" he asked quietly. Aphrael nodded and knelt to pick up the shinning disk Talen had dropped. She handed the disk back to the thief's trembling fingers.

Talen fought to make sense of what the Styric Goddess was telling him. His mind was quick, easily fitting together the various bits of the puzzle, but his heart couldn't fathom being chosen by god to take on the task of what was essentially theft.

"Why are you helping him?" Talen finally asked.

"I have my reasons," she said simply, filling the young Pandion with a sudden urge to throttle the lovely goddess.

Talen tried a different track. "What did he mean…when he said I was 'marked by the errant path of Anaka'?"

Aphrael looked at him for several moments before she stood, the mirth in her eyes replaced by a gravity he had never seen in her. She stared out into the distance as she addressed his question, hesitant in her words.

"Lives are connected and woven together like a tapestry, Talen; each thread playing its role for good or ill. The weaving of lives goes on and sustains this world. Each destiny is a threaded path that contributes to the preordained pattern."

"Aphrael, I don't buy that," Talen interrupted. You make it sound like nothing we do matters, that everything is already set. Like the choices we make have no bearing on what happens to us."

Aphrael shook her head. "The tapestry doesn't work like that, Talen. Free will is variable; you always have a choice. However, the law of the universe is constant."

"Law of the universe?" Talen asked.

"Cause and effect. You make a choice, and there is a corresponding effect. It's not the choice that keeps the pattern set, but the consequence," she explained a slightly impatient look on her face.

Talen shrugged. It seemed simple enough to follow. "Why's Sparhawk different?" he asked.

The beautiful goddess turned back to him and shrugged. "We know that it has to do with the Bhelliom, but besides that fact, none of us are really sure," she wrinkled her nose "All we know is that he and those closest to him are starting to affect the tapestrey's intrinsic pattern."

"So what happens if the tapestry gets messed up?" Talen asked, noting the apprehensive look on Aphrael's face.

"No of us know, Talen. It's never happened before."