Keeper's Knowledge (Balancer's Soul cycle) (25 page)

Yes! We actually get hot water for our baths.

“Were you expecting something else?”
Connor
asked
telepathically
,
entering
Sarah’s
mind
. He looked over at the bath house and smiled
, but it
seemed bittersweet
.
“I
t
looks
like a public bath. I
’ve
read in old
history book
s
that
m
any
ancient people
s
bathed together.”

She
reached
out
and grabbed his hand.
“Is there going to be any problems
in
doing that?”
She
asked because his emotions turned into jealousy.

His penetrating
hazel eyes were now aimed at her
.
“Yes.”
He said in
surprising
honesty.
“How will I hide my chest?
My other problem will be that everyone will see you naked.”
He now
offered
a sly smile.

She
squeezed his fingers gently
and then resumed walking down the stairwell.
“The bath houses are split between men and women. No other man can enter our side.
There were too many complaints
and fights
in the past.
Plus if someone uses their sonar
,
they will be
immediately
kicked out. As for your chest, they always give you a towel that is always extremely large and
can cover
even
your overdeveloped torso
.
Whoever finances
th
ese
meetings
always supplies the very best for all who come.”

“At least that is some comfort.”

About two minutes later
they
finally
reached
the bottom and turned to their
right to get off on level two. The stairwell kept on going down to the lower sections, but
they
needed to get off on this one first.

They
continued walking behind
her
parents as
they
traveled down the
stone road. Each building was
three
stories tall and had numbers written over the tops of the doors. The one to the far right had a sign that
numbered
1-
8
,000
. The middle held numbers
8
,001-1
4
,0
00 and the last building
held numbers
14
,0
01-
20
,0
0
0
. Connor spoke up saying “It looks like we need to take the right one.” Connor pulled his ticket from his pocket and opened it. “Yep, that’s where we
’ll
need to go.”

Following Jillian
’s lead
,
they
walked up to the front door. The door wasn’t painted
blue like the building
, but the wood door was beautiful by itself.
Jillian
opened the door and
they
all followed
in
behind
her footsteps.

Connor shut the door behind them
and walked up to
Sarah
.
She then
heard a loud yet feminine voice. “Welcome! May I see your tickets?” A young looking woman sat behind a desk and behind her was a wall covered with keys. She had short spiky black hair and a beautiful
,
tan
complexion. Sarah
knew she
was a Changer because of her
liquid
silver eyes. She has full and plump lips, a straight nose and high arched eyebrows. She was wearing a violet top and
Sarah
couldn’t see what her bottoms looked like.

Sarah
pulled out
her
ticket
,
as
did everyone else. Connor and Sarah
we
nt forward
first because
their
numbers were the lowest.
They
showed her the large numbered ticket and she leaned back to grab some keys. “Together or
separate?”
Sarah
told her
‘
together
’
and she handed
them
a room key. “Take the left hall dow
n until you reach room number seventy three
. If you need any help my name is
Ilizia,
Liz
for short
.” She sounded so
rt of
bored.

Connor grabbed Sarah’s
hand gently and
silently
led
her
down the
long
hall. Once
they
were out of sight
they
waited
in the well lit corridor
. He said
quietly
“We need to distance ourselves for my sister’s protection
when we can
, but also stay close.”

A few moments later Mark and Kara
appeared and
started walking down the hall and so did
the Brandersons
soon after
.
A
ll received keys that were right next to the other.

They
found
their
room
easily enough
. As
she
handed the
key to Connor to open the door Sarah
spoke to the others. “We’re going to the bath house to get cleaned up first. We’ll meet
back
here and go get
some
food after.
”

Connor unlocked the door and opene
d it. He went inside first and she
followed. The room
they
received
had a queen sized bed with a
white
cotton overlay and the bed frame was four posted and
flush
up against the windowless wall.
There were four pillows on the bed.
The floor was made of hardwood.
One
large dresser
sat
off to the right side of the room and a small nightstand
rested
against the other wall.
A lone
light s
witch
l
ed to a single
light
in the center of the room and the room lit up to reveal light blue painted walls
. That
i
s all there was. It wasn’t fancy, but no one comes here just to stay in bed.

Sarah
finally took
her
cloak off and sat it and the backpack on the
edge of the
bed. Connor
quickly
followed
her
lead
and began shedding too
.
She
opened
her
pack and grabbed
the
last clean pair of clothes and folded them neatly so
she
could carry it all in
one arm.
Sarah
also grabbed
her
hair brush
.
Connor stopped moving as she
took
her
top off and laid it on the bed.
She
first slid
her armguards off and put them in her
bag.
Sarah then
quickly slid
her
second skin of chainmail off
her
torso and put it away.
She
did the same things with
the
greaves
. She
slid
her
long sleeved black shirt back on and scooped up
the
clean clothes
and brush
,
with
her
left arm.
She
turned to look directly at him. “Are you just going to stand there or are you going to accompany me?” His immediate answer was to do exactly what
she
did with his armor and clothes.
She
also left
her
weapons in the dresser.

They
walked together
,
up to the bath house that
felt
more like a
stadium. Connor opened the
seventeen
foot
tall
door
for
her and followed after she
passed. The front desk operator was a female Keeper that looked exactly like Veronica except for her
pale
blue eyes and a red robe with a leather belt. She entered
their
mind as her ageless eyes looked
down
at
Sarah
.
“Welcome. Here is your human cleaning supplies, Hatchling.”
She handed
over
a small basket of scented soap, deodorant and shampoo with two towels on the bottom.
“And here is yours.”
She gave Connor the male equivalent of supplies minus a towel
,
but
plus a straight razor for shaving
.
He really needed to shave off his four day’s growth of beard.
He bowed and she smiled. She bowed slightly
back
to him
and said
“Thank you for that, little one.
I rarely get respected doing this line of work.
”

Connor
smiled;
went right
and entered the men’s area and Sarah
took the left.
She
opened the women’s door and was
assaulted
by
a warm blast of
steam. She
enjoyed
the new sensations
compared to the frozen wind
they’ve
ran with for the past three days
. She
walked over to the pink plastic baskets and chose the smaller ones becau
se a Keeper will get angry if the younger races
put
their
clothes in the
ir
larger baskets.
Sarah
stripped down until
she
stood
stark naked and then
wrapped the towels around
her
midsection and enter
ed
the bath
with
the
essentials
.
Before
walk
ing
through the second door she
saw where the bathroom stall
s
were and relieved
her
self.
She
exited and went into the bathing area.
The entire floor and walls were all made of white marble flooring
and it was huge.
All over the flooring were metal drains to collect any runoff.
Off to
the right she
saw
the
shower stalls, to the
lef
t was a sauna and in front of
her
sat
a massive
ly heated
pool, but it was more like the largest bathtub ever created and as far as
Sarah knew, it was. She
walked over
to the shower stalls and hung her
towel
and supplies on the platform. She
turned the hot water on and the streams that came from the faucet invigorated every
cell in
her
body.
Before long she felt like a new woman.

It was bliss.

She also
saw about six
other
women bathing
at the edge of the pool
along with two Keepers swimming up and down the pool’s length. They used their tails
like rudders
to swim
and
used their
long arms to propel themselves forward
,
doing the breast stroke.
It
became
mesmerizing
to watch
.
Sarah
shook
her
head and started shampooing
her
drenched
hair. While
she
was rinsing the suds out of
her
hair
she
heard “Sarah!”
the voice was undeniable
.