A few days had passed, and I looked at our newly finished rock shelter. It was not a pretty thing; the walls have followed the erratic pattern the rocks had forced us to follow, not to mention Helnion didn't seem too worried about how perfectly she aligned the rocks she moved. This led to a lot of gaps but none were big enough for even me to fit through, not to mention they made good windows. We had also made a roof that seemed very stable and would hopefully not prove otherwise.

I would have been satisfied with just this but Perrinu had insisted we make a second, longer wall to help keep out men we didn't trust away from those that would prove themselves willing to accept her help. Helnion had not looked happy at the thought.

"I still cannot believe Helnion could move all of those rocks," Perrinu told me as she too inspected our shelter. "I feel bad I cannot help."

I looked at Helnion.

She was wandering around the area, looking for easily movable rocks.

"Helnion!" Perrinu yelled to her.

Helnion slowly made her way over to us. She looked more mentally drained than tired. Most people looking at her would probably attribute this to all the rock moving she had done, but I would bet it was because there was nothing here to look at. She had long gotten over trying to associate the shapes of the rocks to animals.

"You should take the rest of the day off," Perrinu said when Helnion joined us.

Helnion immediately headed inside the shelter.

Perrinu and I followed her in.

It wasn't time to eat yet, but I headed for my drawers. I had specially requested a book from Usui and wondered if it had arrived yet.

I opened the drawer to find it had. It wasn't a book I wanted specifically for myself and was more pictures than words. It was a book on animals. I had tried to get her to read earlier, but she had put it down in a matter of minutes and had instead chosen to stare through a gap in the rocks.

I picked the book up and gave it to Helnion.

She looked at it for a moment with disinterest but eventually got to opening it.

I saw her eyes light up the moment she saw the first drawing and in moments was sitting down. I had never seen her look so blissful.

Little did Helnion know did I have other plans for her when she finished her book for, as soon as that happened, I would begin training her. This was as much for her as it was for me, otherwise, I wouldn't bother. I had never seen her hold a sword, practice or otherwise, but considering how bad she had been with a bow I expected much the same.

It ended up that I did not get to train her because she didn't put the book down until it was time to eat and she was soon fast asleep after. So, having nothing better to do, I read.

"Want to take a break from moving rocks today?" I said when she had woken up and eaten her morning meal.

Helnion glanced at Perrinu but not long enough for the latter to reply.

"Do you have another book for me?" She said with hope.

I picked up her sword and dropped it in front of her.

"Training," I said.

Helnion looked at the sword. She looked disappointed.

I turned to Perrinu. "You can…"

Perrinu jumped away from me and began waving her hands in front of her frantically.

"No. No. No. No. I…" She looked away. "I want nothing to do with weapons. Being around them so much would only remind me of…"

Perrinu fell silent, and I didn't press the matter anymore. Usui had mentioned she was one of the last of her people so I imagined she had seen many bad things.

"Come on Helnion," I turned back to her and tried pulling her to her feet by her arm.

It turned out I was too short to make any serious effort into pulling her up and she would not help so I moved behind her. I grabbed her butt and began pushing her forward and only pushed her onto her face.

Perrinu began giggling but offered no help.

I looked down to Helnion and saw she had one of her awkward smiles on her face.

I now knew there was no way I was getting Helnion up unless I convinced her to.

I lifted my finger into the air and willed a spark of electricity to appear and immediately saw large sparks shooting from it and dance wildly into the air.

It was much stronger than I felt safe to use on Helnion at the moment, but she didn't need to know that and I began moving my finger to her.

"Salis!" Perrinu said in surprise and disbelief. "You are not going to…"

I moved my hand even closer to Helnion and as expected she soon jumped up.

"Bad Salis!" She said, giving me her best attempt at a stern look.

"You know I really wouldn't do that Helnion," I said, not liking the likely comparison to me and Bad Kitty.

Helnion flashed her smile to me.

"I know," She picked up her sword and stood up.

Her smile went away as she did so and when she stood back, she gave me a look that asked if I would reconsider.

I walked past her and stood in front of the stone that Helnion rolled in front of the entrance before she went to sleep.

I heard a weak groan from her and the stone soon moved to the side.

I left the rock shelter and heard Helnion's steps in the sand showing she was following.

I did not move too far from the shelter when I turned around. Despite there being dozens of pits in the sand thanks to the rocks Helnion had moved, I wanted to stay near Perrinu so she wouldn't go unprotected.

"First, some warm-ups," I told Helnion and had her do stretches with me.

Helnion proved to be at least competent doing the stretches and I only needed to show her a technique once. It was her actual flexibility that she failed at. No matter what I had her do, the least flexible children I had trained with outdid her and that was at the start of the year. I didn't think it mattered. My goal was to train her enough, so she didn't kill herself if she ever needed to use her sword.

"Now for a nice jog," I said and began jogging at a pace I was fairly certain Helnion could handle, even if it was far slower than what I would prefer.

Helnion followed close behind me as I began winding my way around pits and rocks.

The terrain proved too much for Helnion. She had gotten too close to several pits trying to cut corners and had tripped over them. She also tripped over several rocks, both large and small, and had earned several scrapes and cuts because of it.

On our sixth lap around our shelter, I stopped.

I knew Helnion could do at least one more lap but figured she had gotten enough wounds for one day.

"Are you all right?" Perrinu looked up from her book when we came in the shelter for water.

None of Helnion's wounds bled badly, if at all, but Perrinu sat Helnion down and took care of them anyway.

"What did you do to her?" Perrinu said to me when she had finished wrapping Helnion's hands and knees with cloth.

"Took her for a jog," I replied. "Helnion's feet seem to find rocks easily."

Perrinu looked at Helnion and sighed.

"Let us hope she learns to watch her feet better."

"I hope so too."

I stood up from the place I was sitting and headed out the entrance.

"Perrinu…" I heard Helnion plead to the other.

"Go on Helnion. I can understand why one would not want to train, but it is for the better." Perrinu replied.

Helnion's real training began as soon as she joined me outside. I had went easy on her and only made her swing the sword while standing in place. I hoped this would show me most of her weaknesses before I had to try making her more potentially dangerous things.

I had her do this for about an hour, giving her breaks every few minutes. When I was satisfied I knew what I was up against, I stopped her.

"How did she do?" Perrinu asked when Helnion collapsed on the rock she used as her bed.

"Better than expected," I replied. "I was thinking the weight of the sword would have burned her out after a few minutes, but she lasted an hour. Probably because the lower gravity here makes the swords weigh like half as much as they do on Calorin."

"Gravity?" Perrinu asked me.

"How much do you like science?" I asked her.

"I never learned much about science…" She said with sadness.

I wondered. Would teaching Perrinu be a good way to pass time?

I watched her as she moved away from me and sat next to Helnion.

"The poor thing is so exhausted." She said. "It will not be like this every day, will it?"

"Only for the first week or two."

Perrinu grabbed Helnion's hand. "And look at these blisters."

Perrinu patted Helnion on the back and moved back to her usual spot.

"Once she stops dropping the sword as much as she does, she will hold her own here," I sat down.

"She drops her sword a lot?"

"I counted twenty-eight times in an hour. Most near the end when she was exhausted."

"Is that a lot?"

"I think it is a record."

Perrinu looked at Helnion and smiled. "Hopefully, when Martu gets back, she will not need training."

For the next few days, I kept up this training with Helnion. She improved slightly, but she was still more likely to hurt herself than whoever would attack her.

My training with Helnion for the day had just ended, and I had gone out on one of my patrols. I had already taken out four men that were too close to our shelter for my comfort when I came on one that acted differently than the others.

I raised my bow to shoot him, but instead of either ignoring me or attacking me he lept behind a rock. I tried going around the rock to flank him, but he did his best to prevent that.

Eventually, he called out to me. “No fight. I no hurt you. No kill. I want to see other girl, one that talked.”

I lowered my bow. No part of me wanted to trust this man but none had tried to talk to me before so I considered it might be worth the risk.

"All right," I said, "but you get only one chance."

The man nodded excessively and began to approach me slowly.

As he neared, I felt that I had seen him before but couldn't quite remember. Maybe Perrinu would remember.

"That way," I pointed back to the area our shelter would be, "And stay in front of me where I can see you."

The man nodded and began moving.

Just then I remembered. It was the insane man that had sat close to us when we had gone to the black pool last. Had he been looking for us all this time?

The walk back to the shelter was quiet as neither of us tried to speak.

"Perrinu," I said as loudly as I could. "Perrinu."

"Yes?" She said coming out of the shelter a few moments later.

"He wants to talk to you," I pointed towards the man.

Perrinu looked slightly frightened at the sight of the man but soon was looking at him curiously.

I climbed up on a rock that was between the two and a little to the side where I could watch the man and Perrinu.

"Don't get too close," I said to both of them.

Perrinu nodded but approached him and closed the gap to about three meters and began talking to him gently. I couldn't make out what she was saying.

The man talked back to her even more quietly so I could not hear what either was saying and even Perrinu looked like she was having a hard time hearing him.

They had talked for only a few minutes when they finished and Perrinu came to me.

“What an interesting man.” She said to me. “Much of his mind has been lost to this place, but he said he wanted to see me. He thinks I am some savior come to redeem him. Do you think…”

She didn't finish her sentence but I think I know what she wanted to say.

It made sense. Kel just might have sent us here to help the men here and if it was true, we just needed to figure out how we were supposed to help them.

The most likely thing we needed to do if this is the case would be to figure out each individual's problems and then what I could only guess at. How we would help them was beyond me.

“I think you're right,” I told Perrinu. “I think they sent here us to help these men.”

“So you think so too?”

“How we can help them is another problem.”

“Do you have any ideas?”

“We can just ask the sane ones about their problems and work from there. The insane ones will be a different story. Hopefully, we can find enough sane ones to satisfy Usui and Kel.”

Perrinu shook her head. “I think it should be the ones that have lost themselves to this place that we should help. I cannot see them being able to help themselves.”

“Suit yourself. Just don't be surprised if you can't help.”

“I know it will not be easy, but it pains me to see them lay about like that. I will not think about giving up before I even try.” She looked pained after saying that. “My father always told me to think like that.”

She had decided and a part of me knew she was right. I would say that I wasn't in a hurry to leave this place so it would be fine if she tried this but I would go crazy from boredom if I stayed here too long, then Perrinu would have to work on me too.

Perrinu ended up working with this man for several days and he became a common sight near our shelter. When Perrinu and Helnion went to sleep, I had to shew him away as he wouldn’t leave on his own. The man, whom I now called Bug, proved resistant to this, and I had to knock him out and carry him away more often than not. Suffice to say he hated me more every time he did this.

Perrinu hated this too but nothing she said persuaded me to change my mind and she eventually gave up and convinced Bug instead. I wished she had convinced him earlier because it would have let me avoid carrying his nasty body.