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Updated: May 11, 2025
"You are saying the gods are to us as we are to our ancestors." "Yes. You see the difference perhaps ten thousand years has had on what your race can do; now try to imagine the difference had you had a thousand times as long to develop." Kranath did try, struggling to grasp the immensity of ten million years of progress. He failed. "Don't let it concern you," Godhome said.
If the Traiti saw Kranath as a father figure, and the other ten Lords as n'ruchaya, sharing that parenthood with the Supreme Lord, but saw Tarlac as the "youngling" of the Circle, that was fine with him.
Impossible as he'd thought such a thing in Tenar's stories, it had to be the voice of the gods. Then it was true, all of it! Stunned by the sudden realization, and awed despite himself, Kranath could only sink to his knees and cross arms over his chest, his head bowed. The gods were real! They were real, they had returned, and he was the first to know!
"In body," Kranath agreed, smiling. "In mind you are both, and have been since your conception. We insured that. The human body on Ch'kara's altar means nothing. Here you and we can be either. Think of yourself as Traiti, Ruhar." Remembering his Vision of being Kranath, and before that the time at the altar when he'd felt as much Traiti as human, Tarlac did as he was told.
Kranath nodded. "Yes, and you learned it quickly, despite your human conditioning. I had to learn to be alone, you to be close even the most minor of gods must know both. "Someone subject to external limitations, as a Ranger or ruler is, should have no bias. We are limited only by our own feelings, though; everything we do must be tempered by love for our charges." "External limitations?"
The prop would be shattered, of course, but the engine might be salvageable, if the brush that had cushioned the crash for him had done the same for it. Engines were handmade and expensive, not to be abandoned lightly even by a rich clan which St'nar was not. Kranath was relieved to see only minor damage.
"Welcome, Ruhar," said the one Tarlac recognized as the presence which had brought him here. The voice was as clear and pure as the light. "And welcome to your place in the Circle of Lords." Tarlac recognized him from the statuettes and from his Vision. He took a deep breath of the sweet, vital air before he spoke. "My place, Lord Kranath? I'm human, not Traiti."
Bitterly sure it would be useless, that he was as much a prisoner as if he were surrounded by armed guards, Kranath stopped again. What had he done to deserve captivity? Madness at least brought no disgrace to the victim; why should his accidental trespass be any worse than anyone else's, that he should be humiliated and dishonored? The next prompting he got wasn't a nudge.
He checked the condition of his friend, James Medart; if Kranath hadn't assured him Jim would live, Tarlac would have been sorely tempted to intervene. Knowing the older Ranger was in critical condition hadn't prepared him for the sight of Jim hooked up to a roomful of life-support machinery, not in even a low-grav bed but submerged in a tank of rapid-heal solution.
"Did you need it?" Kranath repeated. "It seems to me that you had already made the choice." "Ruhar," Carle said gently, "you have been both Ranger and Cor'naya, earning high status in both societies, and Daria was right when she told you that was vital to peace. Tell me, though: would that have been enough?
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