Chapter VII
For a moment, Tarlac felt strange back in his own body. He moved his shoulders, trying to readjust almost as if he were trying to get a new shirt to fit properly. What he'd just experienced hadn't been a dream, he was certain. Four thousand Homeworld years ago, it had happened.
The facts were enough to stagger him. He wasn't sure what he was to do about them, or about his Vision, though he was positive that it would be essential. The Lords only intervened when it was vital.
He wondered briefly if Hovan had been granted a Vision, and if so what it had been, then he decided it didn't matter. Rubbing sleep out of his eyes, he sat up and began munching on a cold salvis root.
He was only marginally aware of something white at the edge of his vision, until the something said, politely, "Yerroo?"
"What the—!" Tarlac exclaimed, dropping his breakfast and turning.
Then he smiled, recognizing a cloudcat's distinctive soft, thick fur and graceful shape. He guessed that it was one of those who'd been captured; an animal's cage wouldn't hold an unwilling cloudcat. "If you're hungry, I've still got some salvis from last night."
The big cat rose and padded over to sit across the coals from him, extending the two forked tongues that were its speech, as well as its manipulative, organs. "I have eaten well since my escape," it said, gesturing with them, "but I thank you. You handle yourself well in the woods, for a human."
"You're the one who's been following me, then?"