No reaction.
‘Cassandra!’ This time he shouted loud enough to scare a bird high in the foliage, out into the sky. He didn’t have his crooked arrow ready.
Nothing.
He’d had enough of this, there had to be some way they could communicate better than pointing. Totelun caught up and tapped her on the shoulder as they reached a small clearing caused by an upended tree trunk. Leaves covered the ground and there were vines climbing up all the nearby trees that he recognised from his Islands.
Cassandra looked at him, frowning. She raised her brows in a question.
‘We have to work out some kind of sign language,’ he said loudly. He was talking to himself. He pointed back and forth between the two of them, ‘You and me,’ then gestured at his throat and mouth, ‘we need to talk.’ She looked at him blankly, but he did think he was getting his message across. ‘Any ideas?’ he said, tapping his head.
Suddenly she was saying something. There was no sound, but she was clearly talking. He stared at her lips, watched them move, and got nothing. Three syllables, maybe. They would have had harsh sounds, he thought, if she’d made any noise, like the beginnings of words. But he couldn’t work out any of them. He found himself just staring at her lips and tongue, and slowly losing track of what he was doing.
‘I clearly can’t read lips,’ he said slowly, mouthing his own words back to her. ‘Can you?’
She winced and then shook her head. Totelun guessed she meant a bit, sometimes. Then she seemed to remember something and held out one finger. Wait a moment. She fished about in her small pack and drew out a sheaf of paper, maybe three or four sheets, and handed them to Totelun. They were covered in a handwritten scrawl of tiny markings. She looked over his shoulder and pointed.
He was getting his point across at least. She wanted him to read them, she wanted to communicate too. Totelun squinted, trying to make sense of the script, or the words. He couldn’t make any of it into the words he knew. There was a colossal void between speaking words and writing them down, an entirely different yet complimentary system to represent the same things in two entirely different ways. Like the void between them. He was momentarily in awe of written language, except that it didn’t help one tiny bit.
Every page was meaningless.
‘I’m just talking to myself,’ he said aloud. ‘And I will be for the rest of this journey.’ He threw the papers on the ground in frustration but felt guilty immediately as Cassandra scurried to pick them up again.
He grabbed one for her. The markings were meaningless, but they weren’t ridiculous. He knew how to make them himself. There was no spare paper, and he had no clue if she had also brought a quill, but he did have an idea.
Totelun hurried over to the shrubs and vines around them, looking for something. There was a particular type of leaf. He could sense Cassandra behind him, probably wondering what had come over him. But it wasn’t long before he found the right plant. Broad velvety leaves grew out in a splayed concentric fashion; Totelun picked one and broke off a small twig from a low hanging branch.
Last chance, he thought.
He took the twig and wrote on the velvety leaf pushing in one direction to make markings that would remain. He wrote in the language of the shamans, the only written language he knew. When he’d finished, he turned it over carefully and showed it to Cassandra.
[Can you understand this?] it said in bold strokes.
Cassandra looked at him and beamed, her grin rising from ear to ear. She can understand it!? She took the leaf and twig from him.
Totelun used his thumb to wipe away his words just by pushing the soft fronds back in the opposite direction. Write and erase.
She wrote back. [Yes.] Totelun could feel a tear forming.
Totelun tried to take the leaf, but Cassandra started to write something else.
[You speak Gathralt?] The last word was meaningless, but Totelun guessed it was Gathralt – the word Naus had used to describe the ancient language that Velella’s prophecies had been written in. Hadn’t Naus said only dedicated scholars and very highly educated nobles could read Gathralt. But even as he thought it, he kicked himself. She is a princess. How much more of an educated noble is there?
She handed him the leaves and stick.
[I can write it. I don't think anyone can speak it,] he wrote.
They exchanged the leaf. Totelun ripped off another twig so they had two.
[How?]
She handed over the leaf again. This is a slow method of communicating, thought Totelun. But you can’t argue it’s not precise.
[This is the language of the shamans where I come from,] he wrote. [All children are taught to write, at least for a few years.]
[From the Floating Islands?] she asked. [I learnt Gathralt in the palace, my tutor taught my sister and I.] There was a marking for what Totelun guessed was the tutor’s name, but not one for Aurelia.
[Names don’t really work,] he wrote back.
She nodded.
Totelun thought they must look faintly absurd standing in total silence in the middle of a forest clearing writing messages to each other on a leaf, but when there was no other way…
He hurried away and found the plant again. You must make a sacrifice for me to keep my sanity, he thought, and plucked every last leaf that was bigger than his hand and packed them carefully. He could probably carve or whittle and a better quill as well. More precise.
Thank the Overlords for small mercies, he thought. They could communicate.
She’d written more while he’d been gathering. [We can work names out. This marking means my sister’s name.]
Totelun took note to remember the soft circular characters that spelled out Aurelia’s name.
He wrote his own message. [Let’s keep moving. We can write as we go.] He handed it to her and beckoned her on into the trees.
They still had miles to cover, but at least now they had company.
*
It was late that evening when Totelun called a stop to their journey for the day and made camp. The moon was rising, a disc of blue ice, seen only intermittently through the claustrophobic branches. Though Totelun was loathe to stop and camp in a forest, what choice did he have; it was worse to travel at night, negotiating roots and rodent burrows and constantly worrying they would rediscover the river by falling into it.
Cassandra had impressed him; she had kept pace all day, not once writing him a leaf of complaint regarding pain in her feet, or that she was cold, even though they hadn’t yet tackled where they were going or what they were doing. She was tougher than he had first thought. And more patient than him by half.
Totelun threw out Naus’ prohibition on fires immediately, skinning and skewering the lean chicken and the squirrel and propping them up on sticks to cook. Soon the meat was fizzing and popping over a healthy flame.
When Cassandra eventually stopped rustling around on the outskirts of the firelight, she came to sit with a handful of berries. She had written him a leaf.
It said simply, [I don’t eat meat.]
He wrote back. [What do you mean, you don’t?]
[I mean you’ve cooked for yourself, but not for me.]
[This is good meat. You need strength for the journey ahead.]
[I was trying to tell you earlier,] she wrote. It was true, he thought, she shook her fist at me each time I took down an animal. Now it makes sense.
[Then what do you eat?]
[I will eat these berries.] She looked at him, daring him to stop her as she took a berry and chucked it up in the air. As she went to catch it in her mouth, Totelun beat her to it with his hand.
He shook his head, then wrote, [This species will give you stomach cramps for the next two days. The blue ones will help you sleep, but you won’t wake for a day. The black ones are very poisonous, and you won’t wake up at all.] It was a long note and he had to stop her eating another berry while he finished.
After she read it, Cassandra simply poured the berries onto the ground
behind the rock they were sitting on. She didn’t try to argue the point or try to make out she knew best.
[It’s my first time,] she wrote. When he looked blankly at her, she added. [Out in the wild.] She seemed embarrassed if anything.
[Don’t worry. It’s easily done. You’ve actually done well if that’s true. We walked a very long way.]
She nodded, but he could tell she was telling herself off inside. She’d not told him about the meat thing until it was too late for him to help. She had intended to fend for herself. He could respect that. She was independent, and he would do well to remember it.
[Are you sure you don’t want the chicken?] He let her read and took the two tiny carcasses off the spit. Each was charred on the outside, but as he’d turned them carefully in between writing notes, they were succulent and delicious inside. Even the scrawny chicken, though it was meagre fare.
[No. You can eat the disgusting meat if you want. I will not eat a living creature.]
Totelun did, eating the bird while it was hot and fresh. The squirrel he would dry overnight and take with him.
[So it’s a preference,] he wrote when he’d finished. It hadn’t been much of a meal. [It’s not poisonous to thralls?]
[No, it’s a creed. I will not eat animals. End of discussion.]
Totelun sighed. However difficult she was being, it was herself she was hurting. She’d go hungry tonight, but tomorrow, well, maybe he could help if she let him. [I will find tubers and roots and vegetables for you to eat. Tomorrow.] He wished he’d known sooner, they had passed through a number of fields before the forest with root vegetables underground.
[You can do that?]
[You saw me kill the squirrel, didn’t you? I’m a hunter. I know how to find roots we can boil. And I know which berries are good, rather than poisonous.]
[There are good ones? Those looked so delicious.]
Totelun smiled. [First rule in the forest. The most dangerous things always look the most attractive.] She looked at him for a second, reading over his shoulder, but then quickly looked away. She took out another leaf.
[This is just an example,] she wrote.
[Of what?]
[Sorry. Something I never actually wrote down. You know nothing about me. I know nothing about you.]
[You know plenty,] he wrote.
[All I know is you’re from the Floating Islands, supposedly.]
[You will have to get to know me as we travel. I can’t explain my life story on a leaf.] There probably wasn’t that much to write, he was only seventeen, but still. It was the principle.
[Fine,] she wrote. [But I have some questions. There are some things I need to know.]
[Okay.] He let her write while he brought out some of the thick fabric he’d taken from the town and farmstead. He took the rusty shears and began to cut, judging as best he could. He could always patch it later with the needle and thread.
Her response came quicker than he anticipated. [What are you doing?]
[That’s what you wanted to ask?]
[No, but now you’re cutting up our blankets. I had to.]
[I am making you some trousers. It’s going to be cold where we’re going.]
She didn’t respond immediately, and he couldn’t see her eyes with the goggles and the dim light. [Thank you. That’s so kind. How do you know how to make trousers?]
[I am a hunter,] he repeated. [I know a lot of survival skills. Sewing and patching clothes is just one of many.]
[Okay, you are a hunter. I think I’m getting it.] She grinned, then passed him the note she’d already been writing before she’d interrupted herself. [Firstly, where is Naus? What happened between you? Why isn’t he here?] They’d worked out a few of the names they might commonly need earlier that day while walking.
Totelun finished the rough outline of the trousers and stood, beckoning her to do the same. The firelight was slowly dying, but her little Medusi was growing stronger all the time, and provided enough light to see and read by. Totelun held the trousers out against her legs. They were a pretty good shape; with a little extra on the next cut he could patch them together without too much trouble.
He set them down and wrote a response. Cassandra huddled closer to the fire, making the best of what little warmth there was left.
[I don’t want to talk about him.]
She shook her head. [You owe me some answers.]
It was like his last conversation with Naus. People just asked so many questions. Didn’t they realise you ended up getting answers you wouldn’t like?
He didn’t want to argue with her.
He wrote angrily. [Naus wouldn't come with me and I wouldn’t go with him. But I never expected him to just leave. He thinks I’m stubborn. He is going to the Temple of the Order. He wants answers to a hundred questions.]
[I’m sorry to hear that. I liked Naus.]
[Well, he’s dead to me.]
To her credit she left it alone. [But, the Temple!] she wrote. [That’s where I got this.] She tugged gently on the tube that connected her to the Medusi. [I could have answered his questions.]
[Really?] Totelun tried Naus’ top questions. [You know who Noctiluca is? You know how to destroy the Medusi? You know what happened to the Overlords?]
[No, no, and no. She’s a sadistic bitch, I know that. And destroy the Medusi?]
Maybe he shouldn’t have written that. He’d been more careful when broaching that subject with Chrysaora and they were both thralls. If what Naus had said was true then they’d both die if he managed to destroy the Medusi.
[That used to be the plan. There’s a prophecy that I am supposed to be the one to rid the world of the Medusi.]
[Was it one of Velella’s?] she asked.
He nodded. [You know about her?]
[Yes. I remember you’re a hunter. You need to remember I had an extensive education. My tutor was full of information about the ancients and their myths, but I know nothing about telling good berries from poisonous ones.]
[Well, unless I can get home, I won’t be destroying any Medusi anyway.]
The second portion of the trousers was cut, and he’d only made a couple of mistakes. Not that Cassandra would know. He set down the shears and took up the needle and thread. Thankfully it was sharp and went through the tough fabric with ease.
[I’ll tell you a secret,] he wrote after a while. [If you know about Velella and those ancient legends, you’ve probably heard about the Thorn.]
She nodded. [Eleutheria’s attack dog. Her assassin. He did some terrible things.]
[I’m not surprised. He’s a selfish old fool.]
[The Thorn?]
[Naus is the Thorn,] he wrote, in between sewing the rigid cloth pieces together. This was going to be a tough pair of trousers. But she could hardly complain. It would be better than a night-dress and bare legs on a mountainside.
[I don’t know whether to believe you or not.]
[Up to you, but Naus is over a thousand years old, and those legends are all true. He was the Thorn.] It remains to be seen if the prophecies are, he thought, but the less said about that the better. [He left without telling me almost any of his previous life. If there’s one thing I regret it’s not having asked my own hundred questions.]
[So he’s not coming back?]
[I don’t care. Can we talk about something else?]
She watched him sewing intently for a few minutes, then handed him a leaf. The thing was already battered from their stick quills and being erased and used again and again. He’d have to pick up as many as he could before they left the forest and hit snow.
[You said its cold where we are going. Where are we going?]
[When we get out of this forest, take a look up in the sky. The Floating Islands are converging, lining up with the top of-] he tried to puzzle out the characters for Cartracia, but gave up and wrote, [-the mountain. I intend to climb to the top and get there before they move on. Maybe I can get home from up there.]
[But it will take weeks to
reach the top, and supplies, and warm clothes.]
Totelun shook his head and just held up the trousers he was making. Cassandra wrote, [Sorry.]
[I thought you knew where we were going,] he wrote, setting the trousers aside for a moment. [The only thing you said to me before yesterday was through Aurelia. You said, not to give up, there was another way for me to get home. I held on to that while I was tortured by the Order. That there was a way home. And now I know how.]
She looked troubled and took a long time over her response, erasing words and trying again. Totelun continued his own silent work on the trousers, wondering absently if there was anything in these woods. He’d got so involved in the conversation and the notes that someone could have snuck up on them and knocked them both unconscious. Their own silence counted in their favour though. Neither had uttered a word to give themselves away and the fire was almost invisible now. Only the quiet Medusi provided light, and he was counting that few people would approach a Medusi deliberately.
She handed him the leaf. [I didn’t know where we would go or how you would get home. I have visions-] she’d erased ‘dreams’ but he could still see it, [of future events. I saw you riding a great beast with thick wings. You flew over an island in the sky. I interpreted it as proof that you would get back there.]
[How do you know it’s the future? I have ridden one of those things before, with my father.]
[I saw you on your own. And once with me.]
[Well, I have never ridden one alone.] And obviously she hasn’t.
[They are always the future,] she wrote back. She wore an expression of intense concern and concentration. I may not have wanted to talk about Naus, but she didn’t want to talk about this. [But Aurelia is at pains to point out they are only possible future events. They have already been proven both wrong and right.]
[Wrong how?]
[I am beginning to question them myself.] She shook her head.
Totelun just pointed at his original question, no need to scratch it out again.
Cassandra sighed. [I saw you dead at Harling’s hands. I saw you die strapped to a slanted table. But here you are, alive and well. You see? I don’t know what to make of them already and it’s only been happening for a few weeks. It’s like I see both outcomes at once. If there is an important decision, then I see each of the different paths your life could take from there.]
Embrace of the Medusi (The Overlords Trilogy Book 2) Page 19