29ish

A black-garbed figure stood on the low cliffs that overlooked the beach by the large city. His black hair shone almost blue in the light of the moons, and his pale skin looked like the flesh of a drowned corpse. He wore a belt with a short scabbard, and carried a thick staff. He wore a plain black tunic over loose black pants, but did not yet wear the robes of a professed monk.
“Surely,” he whispered, “she cannot escape me this time. She is but a child and in an Astaldaki shell, no less.” He fingered the scar on the back of his head as he always did when tense; the wound from training had been his entryway into this particular shell.
A crunch on the sand behind him alerted the novice to an approaching presence, and he fell silent immediately.
“It’s long past curfew, Vedek. Why are you still out here?” The voice came from a large robed figure; he knew the rather rotund shape to belong to the assistant novice master, Herk Odom. Vedek despised him; no self-respecting priest would have so utterly failed to discipline his body. Herk visited the women’s island on Temalta more than any other priest, and would have been sent away llong ago, if not for his near legendary skill with the staff. As long as he could teach the arts of battle with such proficiency, he would stay.
When the novice did not answer, Herk did not hesitate to made his own interpretation. “Ah, well, as a novice, I myself spent many nights looking up at the stars, wondering what it was all about. Wondering if what the masters said about this world was true, and if I’d ever be able to free my soul from it.” He laughed, and slapped Vedek’s back; the novice gritted his teeth, and stood his ground.
“I dare say you’ll figure it out in time, boy. Now. Back to the dormitory with you; there’s plenty of time ahead to figure out the mysteries of the universe.” Vedek gladly turned and left the hill, but his mind continued churning, planning, waiting for the right moment to seize the girl.

Long before the sun peeked over the waves, the novices were up. They ran for two miles up the coastline and back, barefoot, before sitting down for their meager breakfast. Vedek ate only half of his loaf of bread, and after drinking the small bowl of broth allotted to him, walked into the city. The sun was only lifting his head above the trees, but the merchants were already setting up their stalls, not willing to waste the coolness of the early morning air. Vedek walked purposefully through the cobbled streets, until he came to the low stone building that housed the leaders of the Temaltans on the island. He walked through the door, and blinked as his eyes adjusted to the darkness.
“Yes, novice, what is it?” A voice came from the shadows, and Vedek prostrated himself on the floor in what he hoped was the right direction.
“I have come to ask for an assignment, masters.” His voice was slightly muffled , and he coughed, inhaling some of the dust from the floor.
“You? A novice? You should know that we rarely assign even fully pledged priests. And now you want an assignment, and not only that, but I would assume that you have a specific one in mind. Well, speak your desire and we will hear you.”
Vedek raised himself onto his knees. He could see a little better now. The black-robed masters sat on a large stone bench behind a table of polished granite. Through the door behind them, he could catch a glimpse of a hallway that might lead to many more rooms.
“I want to be assigned to the village of Leti, on the southern shore. I believe that there may soon be trouble there, and would like to be able to report on it first-hand. The situation with the Astaldi is unstable, and if anything were to break out on any of the islands, it could upset the balance of the whole.”
One of the masters rasped out a laugh. “And even if something did happen in a village on one island, what could a novice hope to do to stop it from happening?”
Vedek felt his temper flare, but kept the anger from showing in his face. “Of myself, nothing, but it would give you a set of eyes and ears in the village. However, while the presence of a fully-pledged priest might make the villagers nervous, a novice would be less threatening to them.”
The priests did not confer, but merely glanced at each other, as if to confirm a common thought, and Vedek’s heart sank.
“No, novice. We will not assign you to Leti, nor to anywhere. We have no need of eyes or ears in that village; the regular rounds have given us nothing of interest there. And in addition to this, you seem to have a great desire to go there. We do not know, nor do we care, what this desire is, but it is inappropriate in a novice, particularly one as old as you are. Root it out, novice, root out the desire and whatever causes it. Now, go back to your house, and do not ask such foolish things again.”
Vedek’s lips were set firmly in a stubborn grimace, but he bowed perfunctorily, and left the room. As he walked briskly back through the streets to the novices’ quarters, he fumed. Why was it his accursed luck that the only shell available to him was that of a novice? Unfortunately, the brutal training sessions made novices the most easily available shell for Projectors to inhabit; fatal blows were not uncommon, and Projectors found such young bodies easier to repair than older ones. He swore under his breath, and momentarily considered going to Leti on his own, but decided against it. If he went, they would pursue him, and that would be almost sure to cut off his access to the Suktisian girl if he did not capture her consciousness very quickly. And if he went to Leti alone, and tried to corner the girl, it was always possible that he would be caught in the act by the villagers. It was not unheard of for enraged Astaldi to kill a priest who offended them, and a novice would certainly pose no real barrier. No, he would have to wait until the next time his party passed through the village. He walked back into the encampment, and began to prepare himself for the day’s training.