“Food!” Helnion called out to me after who knows how much time.

I went back into the rock house and opened my box. Inside was a breakfast meal. It had been longer than usual since our last meal so night must have gone by back at Usui's place. Now that I knew this, I might keep track of time a little better.

“Will you take me to the black pool Salis?” Perrinu asked me after our meal had finished.

“Are you sure? It's dangerous.”

“Kel would not have sent us here if we could do nothing. Sitting here will not help.”

I had no problems taking her there.

“Do you want to come to Helnion?” I knew her answer. If I was going, she had no problems going either. I could get her to stay here, but I didn't want to leave Helnion here by herself and bored. Helnion did things if she was left alone and bored. Either that or she would fall into one of her daydreams and get killed without even realizing someone had killed her.

After sealing our belonging is the rock house we went on our way. I now knew better where we needed to go so I wasn't worried about getting lost now. It wasn't too close to our campsite, so it took us a while to get there. Neither Perrinu nor Helnion were very athletic and the thin air only added to it. On a good note, we made slightly better progress than the previous time. We must be acclimatizing to this place already, if only a little.

We were now seeing men often. Helnion and I were at the ready with our bows and had Perrinu in between. I knew Helnion wasn't a good shot, so I told her to wait until they got closer. This meant she would only have to shoot if one got past me.

Some recognized me now. Many had turned away and shuffled off when they saw me. I don't know what they thought about being killed by a child but I would not ask and they didn't want to.

There was another group that recognized me too. These did not flee or attack. They followed us. It made me uncomfortable having them do that, but Perrinu stopped me and shook her head when she saw that I wanted to get rid of them. I hope she didn't regret that later when we were swarmed by the slowly growing number of men.

The closer we got to the crater the slower we went. We were being attacked regularly now, and I insisted on retrieving the arrows I shot so they would have to wait for me. When I did this, a man would attack Helnion and Perrinu from time to time. I knew that this might happen, so I had never let myself get too far away and would get back in time.

Perrinu soon became tired of all my target practice and began calling out to the surrounding men. She pleaded for them to not attack and come talk to us. I didn't know what kind of effect it had on the men, but none of them answered back.

We finally made it to the crater. Helnion oohed at the black pool below. Perrinu just looked with a grim expression. The sight of men materializing from the pool wasn't a pretty sight. I just wondered if seeing the men we had just killed coming back make her less restrictive on keeping us safe by getting rid of those tailing us.

“It is so sad. They are killed just to come back and be killed again,” She looked at me when she said the last part.

“If they don't want to die again, then they should be smart enough to not attack us,” I said.

“It is not only that,” Perrinu said looking back at the pool. “Do you think killing them just for following us will give them a good impression?”

Is that why she stopped me from killing the one's that were following us? Because she didn't want to give them a bad impression? I couldn't care less what kind of impression they had of me but deep down I knew that she was right. We had come here for a reason and shooting everything that got too close didn't help. That's why I hadn't shot them despite how bad an idea I knew it was to let them accumulate like that.

Perrinu started calling out again. We had made an impression on them now and we only got attacked by the most insane looking of the men. The rest either ignored us or watched us. Except for the few that had recently come out of the pit, I couldn't see their faces and what they showed. It was also eerily quiet. None of them were spewing out their insane rantings except the few that were still attacking, but that was only for the few seconds they were alive before I killed them again.

I don't know how long Perrinu would continue her pleadings but not only was I tiring of shooting my bow but all but the most insane one had tired of getting shot. One of them had even sat nearby and just watched Perrinu, giving me an occasional wary look.

To my relief, Perrinu finally stopped. She looked depressed. Aside from that one, none had shown any inclination to listen to her. I didn't even know if that one man was listening. He looks more curious about the young girl than what she was saying.

“I need to rest my voice,” She said to me. It sounded a little hoarse, “We should return now.”

Helnion also looked happy to be leaving. I hadn't wanted her to waste arrows, so she didn't do much during Perrinu's pleadings. She had been sitting and drawing in the sand for a while now.

The walk back was uneventful. Once we got away from the pool that one last crazy guy no longer attacked us. Other than that the men either lost interest and left or ran away when I decided it would be no longer good to have them follow us.

It took a while, but we had lost all the men following us and made it back to camp. Perrinu immediately checked her box and found another book. Helnion looked as bored as ever and looked like even she wanted a book now. I had also gotten a book. I was tired from shooting so many arrows and a break would be nice.

The time passed quickly. Lunch came and went. Helnion had yet another nap and Perrinu and I both finished our books.

Dinner had just come so everyone was awake now. Helnion was restless and watching her meander aimlessly was getting on my nerves.

“Helnion, want to do some training?” It was a good way to kill time. I don't know how long we could keep it up with the thin air, but the lack of things to do was even beginning to get to Perrinu.

Helnion looked at me worriedly but eventually agreed. We didn't have any practice swords, so we had to use the swords we had brought. Since the swords were dangerous, as they were, I found something to wrap around the blades. We didn't have much with us and nothing inside my bag would work. That left using some of our clothes. The clothes might work but each of us had only brought one or two changes of clothes and the swords would probably tear them up quickly. There was also the scabbard for my sword, but there was no way I would use it like that. Helnion and I just practiced swinging our swords.

We kept our practice up for a while, taking periodic breaks. While I trained with her, I saw that while she still didn't have much stamina it had improved a little over the past week. I guess all the walking and running she had been doing had had its effects.

I was glad that we had practiced sword swinging first. By the time we had finished I had lost count of how many times Helnion had dropped the sword and occasionally had even thrown it. She had dropped it more as we went on, especially after she had gotten blisters. I don't think she would practice for a while with her hands like that.

No one was ready to sleep. Helnion was tired, but she had already slept so much recently that she just rolled around. Perrinu had no reason to be tired. She had been sitting and watching us swing our swords but nothing else.

Eventually, Perrinu tried talking to Helnion. At first, Helnion either ignored her or had realized she was being talked to but eventually, Perrinu got her attention. Helnion was soon flooded with questions. She didn't care much about idle chit chat but answered most of them briefly.

It was when Perrinu started talking about herself when I became interested. I knew nothing about where she came from or who her people were.

Perrinu had come from a land she called Avan. She described how her country had fallen a few years ago when she was little and how the Animal Kin had attacked her people. It turned out that these animal kin were humans that could transform into various animals and even somewhere in between. She said that until that time her people had lived uneasily by these Animal Kin only having the occasional conflict.

Then she said that one day they were attacked without warning. Until that time, the Animal Kin were unorganized and only kept to the others of their type of animal. Bears with bears, rabbits with rabbits, etc. But something had changed, though Perrinu wasn’t sure what.

The different tribes of the Animal Kin were then united under one leader and attacked. She said that while Avan was much more advanced than the Animal Kin, the Kin could use magic and easily used it to overpower the Avan army. There was nothing they could do to stop the genocide and Perrinu's family was forced to flee with others. It was just a few weeks ago that they were found and only Perrinu had got away because of one of Usui's followers.

These Animal Kin. Could Bad Kitty have been one of them? It was the only thing that made sense. The big questions now were why there was an Animal Kin so far away from wherever the place was and why it was going after me. I hoped I never was in the position to find out, unless… unless it meant that I had gotten away from this place.

Since I was interested in finding out more about where she was from, I decided that I would have to stop my talking embargo with her and, well, talk to her.

“Do you know how far away your land is from mine?” I asked her.

She jumped when I spoke. She hadn't realized that I had been listening and probably didn't expect me to talk even if she had known.

“I do not know. From what my parents have taught me, our people have never had contact with anyone but the animal kin as far as I know. The ice to the south and the mountains to the east kept us from exploring that way. The seas to the north are too dangerous for ships for most of the year and even then those that left for deeper waters often never came back. Those that did, reported an invisible barrier that smashed ships that were unlucky enough to find it. The west is Animal Kin forest so our people rarely went that way.”

So her country was that isolated? From the sounds of it she was from much further south than Flaern was. No wonder she didn't look cold, she must have lived very close to the southern pole. I had never read about a continent being that far south before. No one had had any reason to go much farther south than the coast of Toa Mirr, the country to the east of Flaern. The ice burgs didn't help much either.

The one thing that caught my attention the most was this invisible wall. Did it surround the entire continent and if it did why did it? Until now Calorin had been remarkably devoid of magical creatures of any kind. Was this barrier there to keep the Animal Kin out of the rest of the world? And if it was there for that reason, how did the Bad Kitty get out? Perrinu wouldn't know the answers from the sound of it, so I said nothing.

“Did you think of anything about where I am from? It would be very helpful if I knew how to get back if Usui doesn't send me back there.”

I don't know why anybody would want to go back to a place where their people had been hunted down, but it wasn't my problem so I told her my thoughts.

“I think your land is south of ours, across the ocean.”

“So all I would have to do is get a boat and travel south?” She looked a bit happy at the news.

“If you can figure out how to get past the barrier that is.”

“Oh yes. That is a problem.” She frowned.

I could have told her about the Bad Kitty and that he might be one to ask, but I couldn't tell her where to find him. I guess it would give her hope that there was a way through, but it was better that she didn't try.

Perrinu looked deep in thought and Helnion was back to being bored. I had no reason to stay here, so I climbed up on the tallest rock. I wasn't expecting to see much through the haze, but it was something to do.