Across the Largo

by Mitchell Atkinson

  ***

  The mosaic was exactly as Esmeralda remembered it: a great tree stretched across the ground with a red circle in the center of the trunk. The brick pieces were brightly colored and showed no signs of what must have been their advanced age.

  “How do you get under?” Robert asked.

  “I don’t know,” Esmeralda said.

  “If I know the nature of Musical dreams,” Raahi said, “this spot must mean something in particular, something actual and not merely symbolic, or you would not have moved through it to the cavern. This should be the entrance, or it should lead to the entrance.”

  “Well,” Robert said, “what does it mean?”

  “What?” Raahi asked.

  “The tree and the circle. What does it mean?”

  “Of course, no one can be sure. Some say the tree is everything, with its many divisions and Worlds separating into branches of time. The circle, then, is the Largo, which is the Infinite Between, within and surrounding the Worlds.”

  “Okay,” Robert said, “what does that mean?”

  “I honestly am not sure,” Raahi admitted.

  Dorthea came out into the courtyard with Boots at her side. The dog was extremely excited, bounding in circles around her and wagging his tail.

  “What’s the story?” she asked.

  “We’re not sure yet,” Raahi said. “We’re trying to find a way down.”

  They walked the circumference of the mosaic checking for loose bricks or hidden triggers. Unsuccessfully, they stomped on what seemed like bright or key areas of the image. Boots watched them all happily, perhaps thinking about what strange creatures human beings are.

  Finally Esmeralda stopped and readied her flute. “Maybe if I just try to play again.”

  “It’s worth a shot,” Dorthea said.

  Esmeralda placed the flute to her lips and attempted to play. At first no sound came. She repositioned her fingers, not knowing in the least what she was doing, and attempted one more time. This time the flute played an ear-splittingly high note that rang through the courtyard and bounced off of the white walls of the Tower. They waited. Nothing happened. Esmeralda experienced no revelations or visions.

  “Well, that didn’t work,” she said, slightly depressed.

  She moved to put the flute away when a grinding noise began coming out of the ground.

  “The circle!” Dorthea gasped.

  They all stood back around the perimeter of the mosaic and watched as the red circle slid into the surrounding picture, leaving a wide open hatch, about ten feet in diameter, that led into the ground. A staircase fell beneath the hatch and into the darkness below.

  Raahi smiled. “Could it be that the Mother Turtle and her new son have been underneath us this whole time? If so, we are the most privileged of people to see what we are about to see.”

  They walked down into the darkness. Boots waited at the top of the staircase, unsure of himself, until Dorthea walked completely into obscurity. Then he stepped down and padded after the group. The stairs wound down in long spirals around the outside of a hollow cylinder cut into the stone of the earth. As they descended, it got ever more cool and damp until, at the bottom, Esmeralda wished that she had brought a jacket.

  A very large, open space led to a natural door cut into the far wall of the cavern; beyond this they saw a glimmering but not its source. They headed toward the opening, covering the fifty-yard expanse of the cavern in the not-quite-adequate light.

  “What’s in there?” Robert whispered.

  “Not one of us knows,” Raahi said.

  They came to the door and heard a booming, incredibly deep and powerful voice. “Hello, there!” it said.

  They stopped, listening at the opening in the rock.

  “Well, are you going to come in or aren’t you?” the voice chided them. “I have been woken up by you, and now a certain conversation is in order.”

  They crept through the opening and into a cavern that dwarfed the first. It, of course, had to be incredibly large, for in the center of the cavern, lying lazily on its stomach, was an exceedingly massive turtle. Of such great size that it was hard at that distance to contain in their visual field, it loomed above and regarded them with heavily lidded eyes. Its shell was not separated into regular shapes but was engraved with all sorts of swirling designs and unknown icons. The lines decorating the creature’s back glowed with a pure, white light that danced strangely throughout the cabin.

  “Hello,” the Turtle said.

  No one answered. The Turtle stared, perhaps waiting for a response.

  “Who are you?” Robert broke the silence.

  The Turtle chuckled; his laugh was deep and scruffy, like the laughter of a happy older man. “I am Grandfather. There was a time, long ago now I suppose, when just about everyone knew my name.”

  “Oh,” Robert said.

  “Sir.” Raahi stepped forward. “We are here because of the prophecy. Because we believe that another Great Turtle is soon to be born and we want to save it. Can you tell us where the creature will come to be born?”

  “Raahi!” The Great Turtle looked on him, surprised. “I thought I dreamed you. I am so happy to see that you exist. Or perhaps all of my dreams exist? I know they are all, at least, important. It’s hard to say from where I sit. Who has the flute?”

  Esmeralda stepped forward. “I do.”

  “Ah, good.” Grandfather’s eyes sparkled. “You look about right for it. Now, you awoke me from my sleep—I have been sleeping for a good long time—with that high note, and that is why I have let you down here to speak with me. Do you know what that particular flute is for?”

  “Not really,” Esmeralda said. “Raahi told me that it would find the new Turtle for us.”

  “And now all you’ve found is a very old Turtle.” Grandfather chuckled a little bit. “Well, I will tell you. Ko is something like me. Not necessarily for anything, at least not anything that can be explained. Ko isn’t good or bad, and yet Ko can do just about anything. Ko is full of potential. All you need is to learn how to play the right songs.”

  “How can I learn?” Esmeralda asked.

  “I haven’t a clue in the world.” Grandfather laughed. “I never had the hands for flute playing.” He pressed his great eyes together in concentration and stared down at Esmeralda. “Now, you all want to know where my grandson is and when he is going to be born. In order, really, for you to know this, I will have to tell you some history. So here goes. When I was younger, younger than I am now—I cannot recall ever being really young—the world was very different than it is today. I remember when we all used to live in the sea, playing and dreaming of the Worlds. In those days, my children and I would come up near the shore every once in a while, and the people would swim out in their little boats and climb up my shell and ask me things or tell me their secrets. Even when I couldn’t answer their questions, they were grateful that I tried. In those days I had a wife, Grandmother, and we would travel the oceans of the world talking to all of the creatures of the sea and earth and air.

  “It seems like only yesterday that my children started going missing, but it must be more than half a millennia now. We heard of a new type of dwelling, a strange city with a strange leader: an Emperor. And, of course, things like this come and go. I am very old. But no one before him understood how important my children and I are. He began, one by one, to lock us up. At first, all he had to do was ask, and they would follow him back to his city. That is how innocent and trusting my children were. And through these many years he has not died. He feeds on the tears of my children and they keep him alive. But what is interesting is that the Emperor had a brother who, at first, lived in the Emperor’s house and ran his armies. And the brother started to believe that he deserved to be Emperor. The brothers warred for years. And though it was a dangerous time in their lands and the territories nearby, it was a good time for us, because they were too busy with each other to bother my family. In the end, one broth
er had to flee and take the soldiers loyal to him. He hid in the wilderness and slowly changed his goals. Now he is simply a destroyer, a beast bent on consuming all of the Worlds. His people call themselves the Phoon. It is said that the brothers are two sides of the same coin. I am not sure. Also, I am not sure which is worse: to be like the Emperor and want to own everything and everyone; or to be like the Lord of the Phoon and want to devour everything and everyone.

  “But you want to know about my grandson. His mother is my eldest daughter, and was always the cleverest; when I came here to the underground to sleep, she went out to hide in her own way. I felt it when she laid her egg. It is very soon, perhaps today, that the boy will hatch. You need to go west, all the way to the sea. There you must take a boat, make sure it is a strong vessel and swift, and sail toward the island called Wane. My grandson is there. You will know how to find him by the flute. When near my grandson, the flute will sing. He is the thirteenth of us. The Phoon have destroyed so many, and the Emperor has enslaved even more. But my grandson will make our number thirteen again. He is, I think, a very special boy.” Grandfather slowly blinked his heavy eyes. “Now, I’m afraid all of this talking has made me terribly tired. If you could excuse me.”

  The Great Turtle slowly pulled his head into his shell and began snoring so loudly that Esmeralda thought her body might shake to pieces in the wide, rolling noise. The explorers turned and left, not worried at all that they might wake the deeply sleeping Grandfather.