NEW TO “THE TRINING” ADVENTURE?  You'll find summaries beginning with Cha. 2 and continuing to Cha. 19   What follows is a summary of Cha. 20:
Doctrex opens his eyes to Axtilla’s fingers on his lips. She is leaning over him on the bed, urging him to be quiet. She guides him out of the room.  They kiss outside the door, in the hall.  He pulls her farther away and they embrace passionately.  Tearfully, she asked him why he left.  He explained how it happened.  She told him little Sarisa pulled her through the same way.  She told Axtilla that Doctrex was with her daddy in Kabeez. When he asks her how she knew to find him at the inn, she jokingly asks why they are wasting their time thus.  She wanted to take him outside where they could be alone.  She opens the door and they go out into the darkness.  Darkness!  He stared at her hopelessly.  Her smiled turns into a malevolent smirk.  He awakens in tears. 
In the morning Klasco tells him he needs to go.  He gives Doctrex money for the trip, tells him he made arrangements with Klynch to teach him the rudiments about his crossan.  Reluctantly he tells Doctrex about his vision that he had while sleeping.  Glnot Rhuether was trying to get him to be reckless.  He must do everything he can not to be.  Rhuether said in his vision that Axtilla was there with him and she was to be his bride.
   
I got to the stables before the brothers Profue, but not before Zurn.

"I'm an early riser, but he was here to wake me up," said Klynch, "He had to take his crossan to exercise.  That was what he told me, and I reminded him that he'd get plenty of exercise on your journey today.  He just loves that crossan, though.  Zurn has such a gentle spirit."

I agreed.  And, then I asked if my brother had spoken to him.

He smiled mischievously.  "The way you were with your sorrel, I'd have taken you to be the most experienced of the lot.  You even tricked her into believing you were in control.  You must just be a natural.  Your brother tells me you've never even been on a crossan before.  Is that right?"

"Not that I remember."

He started chuckling as from a source of hidden knowledge.  "She'll be reminding you a time or two.  Yes, I believe she will."

He brought her to me from her stall.  Her ears twitched and she pulled back from the reins he guided her by and the pressure of the bit in her mouth.  But when she got to me she seemed to visibly relax and stretched her head out for me to pet.

"I can't believe what I'm seeing," he said, handing me the reins.  "Your brother's playing with me, isn't he?  You breed crossans, don't you?  No, no, you're a trainer.  That's what you are.  A trainer.  Were you planning to wait 'til I started to show you how to cinch on the saddle to laugh at me?"

"I assure you, Klynch, I'm as amazed as you are.  And, we don't have much time, so I would like it if you would show me just that.  How do you put on a saddle?  How tightly should I cinch it?  Right up to how I climb on the crossan, how I stop it or get it to turn left or right."

With a smile that seemed to say I'll play along with your little ruse he proceeded to show me how to swing the saddle up onto the sorrels back, adjusting the stirrups on either side, cinching up the girth straps so the saddle would be snug without the straps galling her.  "She has sensitive skin," he said, realizing now, I'm sure, that I was, indeed, a neophyte in the crossan business based on the intensity with which I was watching his movements.  "All it would take is a wrinkle of skin tightened under the girth to chafe and gall her over the course of a ride."

Klynch was in his element now.  He showed me how to mount from the left side, and in guiding her to the left or right, how to use the left or right rein while pushing forward the same leg, pressing it into the crossan's side.  How far forward or how much pressure I would apply, my crossan and I would have to learn together.  I gave him a quick look at those words.  He caught it and said, "Seriously, sir, she hasn't had much saddle experience and I have been her only rider.  She will learn quickly what you want her to do and she'll do everything she can to make you happy."  Then he laughed.  "But no matter how hard she'll try there's nothing she can do to keep your bottom from feeling like it will fall off at the end of the first day's riding.  I wish I could be there to see it!"

I gave him a withering look and he smiled.

"You'll see, sir."

"But, in the mean time I need to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can before the brothers arrive.  I've got a quick mind, Klynch, so just start in.  I don't know anything.  How do you get him to go? How do you stop him?  How do I keep from falling off when he goes too fast?  Tell me everything."

"Start with her, sir."

"What?

"She's a her."

"Ah," I chuckled. "I knew that. I just forgot. Tell me everything about her."

He started, and I shut up.  I had never known anyone who loved crossans as he did.  His eyes lit up and his whole body was filled with nervous energy as he answered not just my questions from the standpoint of the rider, but also what was going on in the mind of the crossan during the rider's command.  It was more important to bond with the crossan than to learn a lot of rote activities.  But, still, since bonding took time, he instructed me on the basics.

"And, have you named her?" he asked.

I told him I hadn't.

"You need to name her, sir, and she needs to hear it first from you.  That's why I never named her.  It's the owner's job.  The name's the invisible rein.  Now,” he indicated with a nod in the direction of the inn, "there come the brothers for their crossans."

I waited for their approach, stroking the mane of my nameless crossan.  I figured I should name her to help us bond, since he seemed to think it was so important.  I didn't understand the connection between a name and invisible rain.  I liked the thought of rain, though.  Then, I remembered the first thing Klynch said about her.  She was the most spirited of the lot!  I was getting close.  Spirit of the rain.  No, too long.  Spirited rain.  No, that said more about the rain than her characteristic spirit.  Rain Spirit!  That was it.  I said it aloud.  "Rain Spirit."  She threw back her head and whinnied.  "That's it, then, isn't it girl?"

"Doctrex," the brothers sang out in unison.  "Appears we caught you in the act of talking to your crossan," Giln said.

"I was just testing out her new name on her.  She seems to like it."

"What is it?" asked Sheleck.

"Rain Spirit."

"Oh," Sheleck said.

"Rain Spirit," Giln repeated.  "Hmmm."

"And, yours, Giln?"

"My crossan?  Freckles."

"Sheleck?"

"It was going to be Blackie, but Zurn got that."  He sounded disappointed.

"You could call him Mud since that's where he'll throw you," said Giln.

Sheleck growled and peppered his brother with pretend blows to the belly, which caused Giln to laugh uproariously.  "So, that's what it will be, then," Sheleck said, raising his hand.  "I officially dub my crossan Mud."

Klynch came out of the stalls guiding Freckles with his reins in one hand and Mud with his reins in the other.  Leaving Rain Spirit with Klynch, I excused myself and returned to my room with the brothers' agreement that we should meet in front of the inn as soon as they rounded up Zurn.
   
On the way back to my room my mind was occupied with my dream of Axtilla.  It had been so vivid that, when it finally crashed at my feet, I was as devastated as though it were real.  But, I still recognized it as a dream.  Klasco, on the other hand, refused the dream designation.  His was a vision, he insisted.  When I woke I was heartsick to find she was not with me, after all.  When Klasco woke, it was to a vision of reality.  And, whether I admitted it to myself or not, he had invested Glnot Rhuether with the power of magic over us.  I was letting part of it exert power over me, though I wanted to deny it.  I knew that Glnot Rhuether and Axtilla were mortal enemies in life.  It was absurd that they would marry.  She would die before agreeing to that.  Yet, here was Rhuether's magic working through me, now.  I was feeling a renewed sense of urgency.  I had to get to him before Axtilla—before she—but it was a dream, after all!  It wasn't a vision!

I went into the room and closed the door behind me.  I was sweating above my lip and felt weak in the joints.  "We have to go, without delay" I said aloud.  I was here to make a final check of the room, to make sure nothing was left behind, but even that seemed less important to me now than just getting on the road.  I noticed on the writing desk a credit bill, five Fleckets and twenty-five Faerns.  I was sure that leaving them was not an oversight on his part.  His generosity would be considered almost decadent to anyone other than the four of us new enlistees who experienced firsthand his overwhelming respect for our willingness to serve.  I pocketed the bill and the coins.  Taking one more glance around the room, I left.

We no longer had the luxury of time.  I knew I was being driven by the magic within me to come face-to-face with Glnot Rhuether before it was too late.  Ever since my separation from Axtilla, my need—right up until Klasco's vision—was to get to Rhuether before Axtilla did.  But, now, that peculiar, but powerful magic was working though me.

I needed to take control.
 
The time had come when the others needed to know of my rank over them.  Part of me dreaded that with every fiber in me.  Now we had an easy-going friendship among us.  I genuinely liked the brothers Profue.  And there was nothing not to endear one to Zurn.  There was a superficial, but warm, comfort and trust among the four of us.  That was fine for a time of drinking and carousing.  But, friendship and camaraderie were slow mediums for getting things done quickly and decisively.  Sheleck took a knife for me, but he would just as spontaneously deliver a flurry of baby punches to my belly if I told him I needed him to do something or other.  It was important for me to demand respect of them.  As any other leader would.  When I needed them to do something and do it now, there could be no time for teasing, or their even asking—especially their asking—"Brother, why?"

"Why, soldier?  Because, I command it!  That's why!"

Yes, I had to have a talk with them.

I pushed open the door to the outside.

The brothers Profue and Zurn sat mounted on their crossans as comfortable as any Texas Plains Cowboys would.  My crossan was reined to Giln's saddle horn.  She swung her long neck in an arc to look at me.