Deep Waters

no one has ever had sex in this Jeep."
    She did not answer. Instead, she cradled him in one soft palm.
    And then she lowered her head and very delicately, a little awkwardly, as if she had never attempted anything quite like it before but was determined to experiment, she gently stroked the length of him with her wet, warm tongue.
    Elias closed his eyes. He could have sworn that he saw the spaceships finally land in Whispering Waters Cove.
    "It's called Tal Kek Chara. The same name as the exercises and the philosophy." Elias sat cross-legged on the mat that he had placed next to the small garden pool. He looked at his new student, who was seated on a similar mat across from him. The leather weapon lay stretched out on a towel between them. "Literally translated, it means, the tool that carves a new channel through which water may flow."
    Newlin picked up Tal Kek Chara and twisted it tentatively around his wrist, the way Elias had demonstrated a few minutes earlier. "I thought it was a belt or something."
    "The best weapon is that which does not appear to be a weapon," Elias said. Newlin's deep curiosity about the strip of leather reminded him of his own first youthful encounter with it.
    In fact, he thought with an odd sense of deja vu, this whole session brought back his own early lessons with Hayden Stone. Newlin asked the same questions he had once asked, and the intrigued expression on his face reflected the feelings Elias knew that he had had back at the beginning.
    Water never disappears forever. It may return in some new form, but it always returns.
    "What language is Tal Kek Chara?" Newlin shifted a little on the mat.
    Elias realized that his new pupil was probably getting stiff. Newlin had been sitting in the unfamiliar position for nearly thirty minutes, and it was chilly out here in the garden. The morning sun had not managed to burn through the fog yet.
    Last night he had dug out Hayden's journal and for the first time read a few passages. He had been looking for inspiration for his first session as an instructor of Tal Kek Chara. As if fate had guided his hand, he had stumbled across something Hayden had written early on in the journal.
    A good teacher must sense the natural rhythms of learning in his students and respond accordingly. The act of teaching is discipline for the teacher as well as the student.
    He must end this first session soon, Elias thought, even though Newlin seemed quite willing to continue.
    "The language no longer exists," Elias said. "The people that once spoke it were assimilated into a dozen different cultures over the centuries. The last place where the pure language and the knowledge that accompanied it were kept alive was in an ancient island monastery. It was a place that was cut off from the world for a thousand years. Now that monastery is empty."
    "What happened to the monks who lived there?" Newlin pushed his small round glasses higher on his nose. "Were they killed in a guerilla war or something?"
    "No. The monastery was well hidden. It was never discovered by the outside world. But the monks were all very old when Hayden met them. They eventually died and left only the temple stream to guard the monastery grounds."
    "How do you know?"
    "Because Hayden took me to see the monastery a few years ago. We hiked for three weeks through a jungle to find it. When we arrived, there was nothing left except the ancient stone temple and the stream that flowed through it."
    Images of that day returned to Elias in crystal-clear forms. The journey to the monastery with Hayden had been one of the most important events of his life. But he did not have the words to describe to Newlin what he had experienced as he had stood with Hayden beside the temple stream. He only knew that he still drew strength from the memories of that time.
    "Must have been kinda weird, huh?" Newlin watched him closely.
    "Yes. but I'll tell you what was even more weird."
    "What was that?"
    "It was realizing after Hayden died that I was probably the only man in the world who knew exactly what Tal Kek Chara meant, let alone how to use the tool."
    "Geez." Newlin considered that for a long moment. "I see what you mean. Kind of a lonely feeling, huh?"
    "Yes." Newlin was going to make a good student, Elias decided. "But that's changed now."
    "How's that?"
    "Now you know what Tal Kek Chara means, too." Elias took the strip of leather and knotted it around his waist.
    Newlin stared at him, astonished. And then a slow