The Farwalker's Quest by Joni Sensel Read Free Book Online Page A

Namingfest and wondering how she’d be tested.
    Every test, like every person, was different. Aptitude mattered most. Skills could come later, once apprenticeship started, but some trades took talent or strengths. Someone who got terribly seasick wouldn’t be wise to sign on as a Fisher, for instance. Ariel knew the traits expected in a healer: caring, calm, a steady hand, a strong stomach, a good eye for useful plants. The most important was also the trickiest: a healer’s intuition. Wishing she could have used Zeke’s broken arm as her test, she sniffed her mother’s herbal concoctions and tried to feel a response deep inside. She noticed only her stomach craving a snack. If she had the Healtouch intuition, however, the test should bring it out soon enough.
    Her thoughts strayed back to the Finders. If the telling dart had been meant for either of them, the receiver’s mark would have been some modifiedof the Finder trade instead of a lightning bolt. The event the dart invited old Lightning Bolt to attend must be something quite special, too, since almost no one ventured much beyond his or her own village. Storian had told his students that people once traveled for fun, but the Blind War ended that.
    The Blind War nearly ended people, in fact. Uncountable hordes had crawled the Earth beforehand, although Ariel found that hard to imagine. Perhaps a struggle for land caused the conflict; nobody now remembered or cared. Entire cities had been flattened. Corpses piled up without a clear victor. And then someone had created an even more terrible weapon. Ahideous twist on the past’s wondrous knowledge of healing, this new weapon was meant not to kill, but to blind. If enemy forces couldn’t see, they couldn’t fight, no matter how great their numbers or reach.
    The invention worked too well. Escaping control, the blindness ran rampant. Within a few days, or perhaps as long as a week, no eyes in the towns, in the wild, or beneath the wide ocean could see. With no warning and too little food or water easy at hand, nearly everyone died. Animals fared better than people. Yet the hardy—and those with hidden talents—survived. They began to adapt. Generations later, when the blinding disease had run its course and people began to see again, they’d lost the desire and the means to travel.
    Ariel wondered what might lure travelers now. Maybe the dart announced some vast market or a dangerous contest with lavish prizes. More frightening, perhaps some mutual threat loomed, and every trade must send someone to meet and decide what to do. Unless the Storian had twisted the truth more than she thought, though, the time and place had been lost with the message inside. Even if they gained what they’d come for, the Finders would be disappointed.
    With a twist of spiteful pleasure at that thought, Ariel decided to join her classmates as they snooped on the strangers. She had just risen to leave when her mother, who’d been out hanging laundry, stepped in through the doorway.
    â€œAriel.” A troubled look darkened Luna’s face. “Come outside. You’ve been found.”
    Ariel’s first thought was that she’d never been lost. Then other meanings of her mother’s words gripped her. She gulped and walked out to the Finders.
    Both strangers waited outside the door. To Ariel’s surprise,Storian and Zeke stood there with them. A knot of gawkers hovered just down the lane.
    â€œAriel,” said Elbert, the big one. He put out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
    Ariel shot a glance at Zeke. His mouth remained a thin line.
    Her mother tapped her shoulder, so Ariel shook Elbert’s hand. It was meaty and warm, matching his face.
    â€œI’ve given your telling dart to the Finders,” Storian told her, his gaze on the cobblestones. He added, “They were looking for it,” as if she hadn’t known.
    â€œNot exactly,”