Prism

by Matthew D. Ryan

Chapter 4

  Akarra and Thaygos set out from the village shortly after the funeral, their mood subdued. They both knew what this quest meant, that it would be their last chance to be together. Neither one knew what to say.

  Akarra carried little else besides the Heartshard; she wore only a set of yenshi robes, held together by a yenshi belt around her waist. Thaygos, dressed in his armor, carried a spear. He also carried a yenshi sack full of several other necessities: a rope, a quartzite drinking shell, several miscellaneous prisms, and a few other odds and ends.

  In the beginning, they followed a wide, well-used path, guarded on both sides only by the occasional pile of tumbled quartz. The small protrusions stuck up from the ground like fallen soldiers or lay scattered in a haphazard fashion as if they had fallen from the nearby cliffs. Plentiful in number, they were often cracked and distorted. Akarra knew that natural quartz formed crystals with hexagonal columns that terminated in six-sided prism structures on the top and bottom. But a perfect such crystal was rare. More often than not, the quartz crystals formed twinned, distorted, or specific inter-grown shapes. Regardless, once the crystals had formed and lay exposed to the natural light, they would not remain so shaped; no, they often morphed and changed into a variety of geometric shapes. Like the ones she saw here.

  As Akarra and Thaygos travelled, the terrain changed. At first it consisted largely of quartz cliffs, rubble, the occasional stala, and, of course, numerous interspersed Lightshards. Then the cliffs became less frequent and the terrain opened into a vast plain covered with various skree and other quartz formations. They had not gone far before the Lightshards began to dim. The darkening landscape threw a crazy array of shadows.

  “We should stop and make camp,” Akarra said.

  “I agree,” Thaygos replied. “Wait here. I shall scout the terrain.”

  Akarra nodded. As Thaygos disappeared off the trail, she turned her attention to the Heartshard she carried. She had not consumed nourishment in several hours. So, she grasped the Heartshard on either side and summoned its power. The Shard lit up, glowing red, then orange, then yellow, and finally green. It stopped its ascension there and began to pulsate, generating green waves of stonelight.

  She opened herself to the energy, letting it cascade across her face and antennae. She drew it in, savoring its sweet flavor. The light coursed into her being, oscillating as it poured down her throat. When her hunger abated, she lowered the Shard.

  As she returned the Heartshard to the folds of her robe, her heart grew troubled. She thought back to those last moments with Yridia. She felt a clump of sadness constrict her throat and her antennae turned blue as she replayed the tragedy inside her head. Facing death always was difficult despite what the legends of Gorinna said. Yridia had faced her death well. She had been frightened some, but there was also a sense of expectant relief. And then ... something else. There had been a moment when she had looked haunted, as if by some terrible guilt she kept secret and closely guarded around her soul. She had looked at Akarra with pain. But what could have caused such a thing? Yridia had never done anything to wrong her, had she? Akarra wracked her brain to find such a thing, such a terrible event that had plagued her Mistress’ conscience at the point of her death. But there was nothing. They had had friction at times—something normal for any student-teacher relationship—but nothing serious. What could it be?

  Just then, Thaygos returned from the rocky lands on the left hand side of the path. He raised a hand to get Akarra’s attention and said, “I found a nice spot to make camp. There’s a small pool of water and a handful of yenshi roots. Come. Follow me.”

  Thaygos led Akarra off the path across the rocky quartz terrain. They rounded a towering Lightshard near a large pyramidal quartz formation—milky white, so it generated a strong aura of heat. On the other side of the formation, in the hollow of a massive quartz cliff—one of the last in the plain—they found, as promised, a diminutive pool of water and a few scraggly yenshi roots—long, brown flexible roots that sprouted from a series of tiny fissures at the base of the cliff. The roots wrapped around the edge of the pool and terminated several inches beneath the surface of the water. The points of the roots were covered with tiny hairs.

  The hollow maintained a comfortable temperature. The pyramid provided heat and the cracked, shattered cliff face provided a wall to enclose the warmth. It made an excellent camp site: warm and sheltered from view.

  Thaygos placed his yenshi sack on the ground in front of him, rummaged around in it for a few moments then pulled out his quartzite drinking shell. He offered Akarra the shell saying, “You must need refreshment after our long journey.”

  Akarra effused the yellow lifelight of amusement. She lifted the Heartshard. “I have all that I need to survive with this.” Then, to emphasize her point, she summoned the power of the Heartshard and began ascending through the colors of stonelight: red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. She stopped at blue, the color of water. She opened herself to the energy and absorbed the equivalent of three mouthfuls; then she offered the Heartshard to Thaygos. He effused the faint yellow-orange of good-humored chastisement. He lowered the drinking shell and took the Heartshard. After absorbing his fill, he handed it back to Akarra. Akarra took it without comment and returned the Shard to the inner folds of her yenshi robe.

  “You can make green stonelight with that, too. Can’t you?” Thaygos asked.

  “Of course,” Akarra replied.

  “Then I really don’t need this either do I,” he said. He lifted a small prism—just a standard nourishment crystal capable of extracting green stonelight from white.

  “No, you don’t,” Akarra said.

  “All right,” Thaygos said. “That’s two less things I have to worry about.” He took a moment to survey their surroundings. “We better settle down for the night. We are about halfway to the Plain of Stalas. If we set out at first light tomorrow, we should reach the plain around midday.”

  “We are making good time,” Akarra said. She sat, folding her legs beneath herself. Thaygos followed suit. Just then, the nearest Lightshard, which had been dimming consistently for the past half hour, dropped suddenly to baseline, a state in which it emitted just the barest traces of light.

  Another day had passed.

  In the pale ghostlight of Dimlight, Akarra glanced across the campsite at Thaygos’ face. He clasped his spear across his lap and looked out into the near darkness around them. “You should get some sleep,” he said, his voice faintly strained. “I’ll keep first watch.” Something was bothering him, but he seemed disinclined to speak.

  “What is it?” Akarra asked.

  “What do you mean?” Thaygos replied, turning now to look at her. Their eyes met in the darkness. His were strong, steady, and reassuring; yet, she knew him well enough to see that there was also pain.

  “Something’s bothering you,” she said. “What is it?”

  He hesitated several long minutes, looking down at his lap. Finally, he looked up and reacquired her gaze, his now tinged red with anger. “What do you think it is?” he said, tightly.

  “Me?” Akarra said. “What did I do?”

  He motioned to include their surroundings. “This,” he said. “This whole quest of yours. You know what this means. Once you are Shardshaper, we are no more.”

  “I can’t help that,” she said, defensively, “and neither can you. It’s Tradition. The Law of the Clan. As Shardshaper I must serve everyone. I can’t have close relationships. I am a servant of the people.”

  “But what about us?” Thaygos said. “We’ve spent seven grand cycles together. Does that count for nothing?”

  “You act like I have some choice in the matter,” Akarra said. “What would you have me do?”

  “Be my lifemate,” Thaygos said, jutting his chin forward stubbornly. “Give up your right to being Shardshaper and choose me.” His antennae flickered in the darkness oscillating from the red of anger to the pink of love.

  Akarra fe
lt a sickening sensation within. Part of her wanted to do as he asked. Part of her wanted to fling herself into his arms and whisper sweet promises of eternity. To be Lifemate of the Chieftain’s Son; it was a position as prestigious and honorable as that of Shardshaper. But who would replace her? The clan needed a Shardshaper. It was as critical to the survival of the clan as the position of Chieftain. The Shardshaper controlled the Heartshard, and by extension the production of light-splitting prisms—items which the entire clan relied upon. Theoretically, the clan could produce prisms the old fashioned way with hammer and chisel, but that was a long and laborious process, knowledge of which had almost faded from memory. If that had been the only issue, she might very well have taken him up on his offer. But she also possessed one of the most potent weapons against the Light-eaters. And that was not something to be tossed aside lightly.

  She looked down. She could not meet his eyes. Those accusing eyes filled so much with hurt. But she was not about to change her course. It was her calling to be a Shardshaper as much a part of her as her love for him. To remove such a part of her would change her in profound and unpredictable ways. Unthinkable ways. What else could be said or done? “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I wish you understood. I can’t—”

  “Don’t you care? About us?” Thaygos snapped. “About anything but your own desires?”

  Now, that went too far. Her head came up and her chin jutted forward. “I don’t care?” she retorted crisply. “If our positions were reversed would you be so willing to give up becoming Chieftain for me?”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. His antennae, however, betrayed him; they flashed the grey light of doubt.

  Akarra snorted. “It is not so easy to give up one’s life calling, one’s very identity for the sake of something as tenuous and unpredictable as love.”

  “You think my love is tenuous? Unpredictable?” Thaygos said, his antennae once again flashing red in anger.

  “All love is,” Akarra said. “Not yours alone. When we are through, you will find another—like Leanna. And I will be left with my life to live. Alone.”

  “I don’t want Leanna,” Thaygos said. “I want you.”

  “Am I supposed to go all weepy and weak in the knees because of that?” Akarra said, tersely. “My whole life hinges on this. Why should I be forced to give up who I am? It is unconscionable. My very identity is wrapped in being Shardshaper. I will not give that up. And as soon-to-be Chieftain, you shouldn’t even ask me to. The clan needs a Shardshaper; and I’m the only one who can fill that position. You should realize that.”

  Thaygos grunted. His antennae glowed red but he didn’t reply to her, he simply sat in the corner of the hollow shaking his head and muttering to himself. Akarra could not hear all his words clearly, but she caught several that were downright rude.

  “You’re being selfish, you know,” Akarra said.

  “And you’re being a martyr for your place in the clan,” Thaygos snapped.

  A martyr? she thought. Perhaps I am. But it is necessary. She reached out, leaned forward, and placed a hand on Thaygos’ shoulder. “Please understand, Thay,” she said. “I’m disappointed, too, my shinsin.”

  He gave her a matter-of-fact look and said, “Sometimes I think you look for ways to be disappointed.” Then he shrugged off her touch and turned so as to look out into the night. “You should get some sleep, now.”

  “But you’re still angry,” she said. “We have to talk this through.”

  “We’ve talked enough,” he said. “And I know you well enough to tell when you are not about to change your mind. Good night.”

  Her arm dropped to her side. She sat staring at Thaygos’ back for a while. And that’s it? she thought. He’s gone away; crawled inside himself to worry at a problem he cannot fix. He’d done such before, and she knew enough that pestering him to talk about it like he should would not help. He acted much like a Light-eater before a deathlight—or perhaps, like anything before a deathlight. Run and hide. Escape to safety. A typical he-quartz, unable to express anything meaningful when it mattered; always closing up.

  She sighed. Well, she could not resolve this all in one night. She lay down to get some sleep.

  Thaygos woke her in the middle of the Dimlight to change watch. He never said a word; he simply shook her awake, pointed to the front of the hollow, and lay down on the far side away from the opening.

  Once more, Akarra sighed. But rather than comment on Thaygos’ childish silence, she pulled out her Heartshard, and moved to the front opening. She glanced back at Thaygos, her antennae glowing with irritation, but said nothing and simply waited to pass the night away with her arms wrapped around her knees.

  In the morning they spent firstmeal barely saying a word to each other—nothing more than that which consumption of nourishment required. She wanted to press him, to make him talk, but she recognized his mood. He would have to break the silence first; else there would be no end of hurt feelings and unwise words.

  After firstmeal they gathered their things and broke camp. They returned to the main path and continued their journey on foot, Thaygos taking the lead with his spear at the ready. The terrain was much the same as it had been yesterday, but with fewer cliffs. A clear path wound through a field of broken columns and scattered pieces of detritus; pockets of spherical nodules lay near other short angular pieces of quartz, some cracked and fissured, others clear or cloudy; all misshapen and suggesting great turmoil. Occasionally they passed actual shapes on the landscape—small tetrahedrons, hexahedrons, and other perfect solids. Plus representatives of the imperfect arch-solids: truncated cubes, cuboctahedrons, and many, many more.

  They’d been traveling about an hour through another such field of shaped and broken quartz formations when they spotted a small pit filled with a handful of spherical quartz nodules on the side of the path.

  Thaygos glanced back at her. “I have always understood that quartz does not grow as a sphere,” he said. He nodded to the small collection of nearby nodules. “It makes only angular formations. Like all these others.” He waved his hand about as if to encompass the rest of the terrain. “Or so I have been told.”

  Finally, Akarra thought, he speaks. Sometimes she was surprised by his immaturity—to let matters set for so long. “Actually,” she answered, “the natural form of quartz is that of a hexagonal column capped by a six-sided prism on top and on bottom. It doesn’t grow any other way.”

  Thaygos stopped and looked at her. His expression was one of sheer bafflement. “Really? But there is a pile of spherical nodules right there,” he said, pointing. “And over there, there is a flat trapezoid, and there, a cube. How—?”

  “Natural deathlight,” Akarra said. It was good to hear him talking, even if the topic wasn’t particularly important.

  Thaygos still looked bewildered so Akarra explained. “There, there, and there are three Lightshards. They produce white stonelight which, in turn, contains deathlight—”

  “They do? But—”

  “Please, don’t interrupt,” she said, her words more terse than her tone. “Since the deathlight is contained in the white light, it is rendered harmless.” She reached up and scratched the base of her scalp. “However, as it flows across the land, sometimes the white light encounters a natural prism, which in turn splits the light into its various colors—including deathlight, which is of a color we cannot see. This deathlight, once it is split out of the other colors, may strike another crystal somewhere out across the landscape.” She turned and gestured to the surrounding terrain as if trying to convey a sense of majesty or the sublime. “This means that the crystal so struck will begin to take on a new shape as dictated by the presence of deathlight and the balance of other natural stonelight striking its surface.” She gestured to a nearby cube. “This hexahedron, for example, was formed by deathlight and a slight imbalance in favor of yellow stonelight.”

  “So, right now,” Thaygos asked, nervously. “W
e might be being barraged with deathlight?”

  “Yes,” Akarra said, laughing wickedly. “Most assuredly. But don’t worry too much about it. Natural deathlight is generally very dilute. You would have to stand in the same spot for a grand cycle or two before you really started to feel anything.”

  “Oh,” Thaygos said. “Good to know.”

  They continued walking in silence for a while. Then, Thaygos said, “I’m sorry I got angry with you, Akarra. It is your life and your place in the tribe. I should not have tried to press you to make a different decision.”

  “It’s okay,” Akarra said. “I understand.” She did. Truly she did. Part of her had wanted to take Thaygos up on his offer, to become his lifemate and cease to be Shardshaper, but she could not reconcile such desires with her duty to the clan. She owed the clan her service. There was no getting around that. It was all part of the decision she had made many grand cycles ago when she had decided to become apprentice to the Shardshaper. There was no going back now.

  Around midday the features of the landscape changed as they entered the Plain of Stalas. The path still held true, leading in a generally straight direction, but now instead of all the misshapen blobs and angular polyhedral shapes that had decorated the landscape previously, endless rows and other scattered patterns of enormous stalas—huge columns of natural quartz topped with six-sided prisms—spread across the landscape. Interspersed throughout was the occasional Lightshard, gleaming in the distance like a beacon at the heart of Dimlight.

  Akarra sensed Thaygos’ question before he even asked it. “If what you said before is true,” he said, “why haven’t these stalas changed? Surely there must be some natural deathlight around.”

  “No one knows,” Akarra said. “It is a mystery as old as this plain. Maybe there is some kind of foreign element in the quartz that keeps it from changing, or maybe the deathlight simply is not strong enough, or never split, or what-have-you. It is a mystery.”

  “Well, at least we’re not in any danger,” Thaygos said.

  “Not from the stalas or the Lightshards,” Akarra said, “but we’re now in Light-eater territory. So danger is still high on the list.”