Mikol looked at the strange figure that stood in the doorway. He was taller then any of the three of them but he looked gangly and fairly weak with his skinny arms and legs. His hair was white as was his long flowing beard. He looked old physically, but there was some kind of youthful aura that surrounded him. The only clothing that he was wearing was a long greenish brown robe. It looked as if it had been made of some kind of plant. The oddest thing, besides his speech, was the staff he was leaning on. It was perfectly strait and about as tall as the man himself. All up and down it's length where carved symbols and writing. Mikol found it vary easy to loose himself in the designs.
"You let Rokna in? Or stand in way whole time?" Mikol realized that Rokna wanted him to move aside so that he could enter the shuttle.
"Oh. . .um sorry." He stepped aside and the old man entered with surprising speed due to his long stride. He looked around at the passenger compartment and sighed.
"Why need you to fly? Birds fly, we do not. Fish try not to fly, why you?" Tech answered the old mans questions.
"We fly so that we can learn more about the universe."
"What good is smart of that kind?"
"When we understand it we can think of how to change it."
"Why change?"
"So that we can survive in places that we couldn't before." At this the old man laughed.
"All problem stop when you not fly." That stopped Tech dead in his tracks, he had been outsmarted by this old man. Maybe he shouldn't have underestimated him. Suddenly the old man twitched his head toward the hatch. "They come. You take friend, follow Rokna." He started to leave but Mikol and Tech held back.
"Hey Rokna, we can't just carry Chan for long distances without something to carry her on, where're a little exhausted at the moment." Rokna stopped and turned towards the three of them. He held out his imaculet staff horazontaly in front of him and closed his eyes. He started chanting in some strang language.
"We don;t have time for this. . ." but Tech was cut off as the staff in the old man's hands started to change. First it doubled in thickness and then it streched into two identical staves that where just barely joined together at the length. Then they pulled even further apart until they where almost half a meter apart and only connected by thin strips that where placed about every then centimeters up the length.
"This good?"
"Umm. . .yah, that's good." They placed Chan on the stechers and they each grabbed an end, Mikol at the front with Chan's feet and Tech in the back supporting Chan's head. They emerged from the shuttle into a small clearing at the edge of a thick forest. The sun was bright and still riseing in the east, that meant that the city was in the opposite direction, away from the part of the forest they where closest to. For that reason Mikol was a little perplexed when the old man ran into the forest. Oh well, he seemed to know what he was doing and Mikol was to tierd to think much of it. So he just ran. He didn't think of anything, anything at all.
He didn;t even know how long he had been running before he stoped. Without warning the old man halted at the base of a of an enormous tree. Mikol wanted to ask why tey had stopped but he found that he had no breath left. In fact, he had just enought strenth to set Chan down gently before he collapsed in a heap on the forest floor. He was still consious, he just couldn't move. He watched as Rokna stood in front of the enormus tree and mumbled some strange words. Right before his eyes a section of the tree just opened up, as if on hidges. He tried to get up but he just couldn't move.
"Fly noot help run." Rokna gave a little chuckle as he picked up Chan and carefully carried her inside the tree. After a few seconds he emerged and picked up Tech and swung him over his shouldure. Mikol watched as Rokna walked towards him and then put him over his other shouldure. All he could see as he was carried into the tree was the wodden flooe. Then, as he was flipped around and placed on a comfertable horizontal surface. Must be a bed he thought. As he stared up at the ceiling, also made of wood. Soon he sensed that someone was approching him. Once again he tried to move and failed. Suddenly he was smelling something strange. What is that? As he thought about it he drifted into a deep sleep.
When am I going to stop wakeing up in strange places? This was starting to get annoying. Just then he realized that he was feeling good. No, wait. He was feeling amazing. He had never felt this good before. He wasn't the slightest bit tierd, he didn't have a headach and he felt full of energy. As he sat up he found himself looking directly into a pair of wisdom filled eyes.
"Troubled mind you have."
"What makes you say that?"
"Sleep heal all. You sleep three days."
"Well let's just say that I've had a lot on my mind. . .did you say that I've been asleep for three day?"
"Yes." At that Mikol jumped out of bed.
"Where are Chan and Tech? We've got to get going."
"Why?"
"We've go tto clear up whats happening to us. We need to get to Saduklari as soon as possible." He got up and headed off to the door, witch he could just make out due to some lines in the wall.
"That's not what your mother wants." Mikol just stopped. He turned around and stared at the old man before him.
"What did you just say?" His voice was trembaling.
"I said: Thats not what your mother wants." Mikol just exploded.
"What the hell is with you? All of a sudden you're talking normaly and you don't even joke about my mother."
"Calm down and listen to what I have to say." The man just sat there with is face tilted toward the floor with his eyes closed and his forehead resting on his index fingers.
"Why should I?"
"If you do not sit down I will make you sit down." He didn't even look up and his voice never changed tone.
"Go bother someone else old man." Mikol turned once again and started on the way for the door.
"So be it." Rokna raised one of his hands, palm foreword, toward Mikol. Mikol stopped walking. Then he turned around and walked back to his bed and sat down.
"How. . .how did you make me do that?" Mikol had calmed down a bit now.
"You can not 'make' the humain mind do anything. I simply convinced it that this is what it should do. As you can see I was able to convince it."
"How can you do this?"
"We are not so different, you and I."
"You have the same abilities that we do?"
"Yes I do. But I have aquite mind and was able to indentify these abilities at a young age. I've spent my life honeing them." "Why didn't you just tell us this in the first place?"
"Would you have belived me? Or trused me? In your mind you thought that all of scociety was out to get you so I made it appear that I was a compleat outcast."
"And what about my mother?"
"Your mother. . .she was a beautiful woman with a mind to match."
"You knew her? You knew my mother?"
"Yes, I've had the pleasure of her company. She trained with me here for a while. But she was like you, she could never stay in one place vary long. She left and went out into the universe with her newfound powers and the idea that she could change it for the better. But before she could prove herself she was captured by the military and imprisoned for a life of experimentation. I was deeply saddened at the news of her death."
"And how do you know that she wants me to stay here with you?"
"She told me. Last night I had a vision of her and she asked me to tech you and your companions about these abilities that you have been gifted with." Just then Chan, now fully healed, and Tech entered the room. Mikol had never noticed that ladder on the other side of the room before. Chan was the first one down.
"About time you're up, you've been sleeping forever."
"Now that your up hoe about we get going?"
"Acctualy Tech, we're going to stay here for a while." For a few seconds they where both speechless.
"What? Why would we stay here?"
"You will stay with me because I will teach you to expand your abailities and prepair you for the future." Now they where speechless for the second time. Chan looked at Mikol.
"He telling the truth?"
"Yah. And I don't think we can pass up his offer."
"No. . .I don't think we can." Rokna looked pleased.
"Sit down my children, we have much to do and vary little time to do it in."