Station Of Seers : 08

For three days and three nights Orietta was confined to the aerie inside the dome, watching the sun slowly rise and set over the downs of Illunon through the thick green glass. The air was warm and dry and the temperature varied little between day and night. Hirrilow bought her food regularly; salads with red beans, green pepper leaves and tiny baked white fish, apple juice and dwarf limes. He showed her how to summon a smoothly morphing opaque cylindrical module which seemed to fold out of the structure of the platform and which opened to reveal bathing and toilet facilities. When she was finished it folded silently away. Orietta had never seen anything like it. Over the edge of the platform she peered down into a world of complex angular shapes and spiral slopes where soft hums and muffled clicks were the only sound, but she was not allowed to explore.
"You are still too weak," Hirrilow told her when she tried to pass the portal at the top of the ramp, although the rider thought herself fully recovered from the effects of the enclave's weapon. She suspected there was some other reason she was being kept in isolation and she was right. Orietta was the subject of fierce debate between the seers.
On the fourth morning when she was absolutely sick of the sight of the heavy green light and longed for nothing more than fresh air and clean sunshine, Hirrilow escorted her outside the dome. There she had a joyful reunion with her faithful mare Cassia, and a slightly tearful one with Asanka's horse Paramal.
"These lands behind the dome all belong to the Enclave of Kalonia," Hirrilow told her. "They are encircled by the Kalonia gorge and the only safe exit to the expanse of the Illunon downs is over the mirror bridge where you crossed. Here we farm a little and gather other forms of energy, but much is empty. You are free now to ride over these lands as far as you like, to exercise your horse and perhaps to find some solace for your grief. Do not try to cross the gorge. A lone person may just be able to find some difficult pathway out of our lands by climbing and scrambling but your horse would certainly find it impossible. Then too, the alegoyle often fly in these skies and you could never outrun them on foot! If you were attacked so far from the enclave we would not be able to protect you again.
"Ride over these lands now! Ride hard and breath deep. Return to me when you are tired and we will speak of your future."