Sky Lands: The Gift Stones

by TL Rese

I woke to a chirping in my ear. A flutter of feathers flapped against my nose accompanied by a sharp prick poking at my eyelids. My face wrinkled as I batted it away. Perched at the edge of my hammock was a bird with indigo feathers, twittering merrily.

  I looked down at the room. It was bathed in darkness. Only a wan light fell across the floor from outside. The rug was bare; someone had taken away the empty tray. How long had I been sleeping?

  I untied the knot around the hook, lowering myself to the ground. The indigo bird tilted its head curiously before fluttering to perch on a fern hanging from the ceiling. Several more birds flew in to join it, chirping among the red flowers of hanging fronds.

  Past the pillars, the orange lights of the city broke through the dark, extending into a black land. The last of the day was slipping away in a thin crimson line that reminded me of the Moreinen dawn. Overhead, the fading light revealed stars and the great arch of a crescent moon, so large it split the sky and seemed to touch the earth. The bloody line thinned and flickered out, as sudden as a blown-out candle. The land was plunged into night, and the colossal arch of the silver crescent dominated the landscape.

  The air was colder. As I crossed the room, I was aware of the textured stones beneath my bare feet, like sandpaper. During the day, the stones had been cool, but now they held a peculiar warmth in the evening.

  Cautiously, I drew back the tapestry door. In the empty hallway outside, nothing stirred. Only the moonlight lit the darkness. Quietly, I pattered across the hall to the adjacent tapestry door.

  “Audrey?” I tapped on the tapestry fabric. Pushing gently, I found that it was latched from inside. I figured Audrey must still be asleep.

  I didn’t want to disturb her, but I was wide awake. I wandered to the pillars at the end of the hall. The castle’s terraced gardens extended down towards the land. Within the foliage, golden flowers bloomed, their petals glowing like small suns in the night. Streams twisted through the grass. A shape leapt from the waters, with a flash of fins and an arched back, smooth and white with moonlight.

  There was nothing else to do, so I hurried down a flight of steps to the terraced gardens.

  I walked onto a veranda of stairs and pillars. In the quiet, only the gurgling of streams ran through the flowering earth. The golden petals bloomed throughout, intricate in a fragile radiance. Past the foliage, the next tier of the gardens stretched below.

  Fireflies shimmered blue against the stars. Just visible, they extended over the flora in a living canopy. The paths were paved with brown stone, even but rough, grainy with sand. Pillars flanked the paths, supporting nothing but air; vines grew around the pillars, some golden with the bloom of flowers. The petals curved, tendrils curling from the flower’s center where its light was brightest. I could feel its radiance on my hand, and when I touched it, its petals shied away. The unearthly garden seemed a fairytale, and it was as though I wandered through a wonderland.

  It seemed another lifetime when I was driving through the highways of Los Angeles. Los Angeles. I was in a world where there was no Los Angeles. I wondered what my family was doing now. Sleeping? Bloated from dinner? Passed out in front of the television? They would have watched a series of Christmas movies, ranging from The Nightmare Before Christmas to my own favorite, Scrooge. That was how things were, every Christmas season since I could remember. And now, for the first time, Christmas was different for me. I was in a place where there was no Christmas.

  A warm Moreinen wind brought the scent of roasted nuts and cocoa. At first, I thought it was only the wind that stirred. Then a deer stepped into the moonlight, its golden-brown fur patterned with a swirl of stripes. It lifted its head, its horns curving around the sides of its slender face. Fireflies glittered around its angular head. With a high leaping bound, it disappeared into the trees at the other end of the path.

  I listened for it again, but heard only the rippling of the garden streams.

  There was a splash.

  I held my breath. There was another splash, past the thick of the trees.

  I sprinted down the stones, chasing the sounds. The scene broke open before me. I stopped at the end of the path. The terrace ended abruptly, the ground descending sharply into the lower gardens. Above the garden tiers, the crescent moon reigned over the dark sky, a white sickle surrounded by stars. On either side of me, the streams poured past the edge of the terrace, falling in waterfalls far onto the gardens below.

  From the waterfalls, dolphins leapt, one after another, spilling from the waters and falling in arcs to the garden streams below. Their curving backs reflected the moonlight, the smooth rubber of their skins striped like a tiger’s, the patterns black against the tan of their flesh.

  Beyond the edge of the final garden tier, the waters of the rivers coursed through the earth, rising like the ocean tide.

  “The rivers’ tide is coming in.” Startled, I turned to see Hallain walking towards me, a pallid glow in the darkness. I wondered if he reflected the light of the moon, or if he gave a strange, natural radiance. “I saw you from up there.” He looked towards the palace windows, to the same set of pillars from where I had seen the gardens. “I came to wake you and Rylo, but you weren’t in your room.”

  “Sorry. I wanted to explore –”

  “There’s no need to apologize.” His words were open, airy on an Alhallren tongue. Around us, the dolphins still leapt through the waters, cascading into the lower gardens.

  Uncertain how to reply, I asked the question that lingered in my mind. “How did you learn to speak English?”

  “My sisters and I, we had a tutor when we were children. He was a philosopher who specialized in the philosophy of the gates. He studied your world closely. I was always a man of letters. So for the subject of the other worlds, he let me learn your language.” He paused, seeming to look back on images of his childhood. “He is retired. He doesn’t teach at the Krystalline anymore, but went into his own studies a few years ago in the Philosopher’s Corner. I miss Jesath sometimes.” His voice turned melancholy. His eyes focused far, to where the rivers rose so high, I was afraid the waters would swallow the city. But the waves curved around the city walls, pooling until the city was surrounded like an island in the sea.

  I wanted to ask Hallain if he was allowed to return to Alhallra, but somehow I knew the answer was no. And I wondered if he felt his sacrifice had been worthwhile. However, as I watched him gazing at the rising rivers, with the dolphins swimming through the falls beside us, I knew he would change none of his actions.

  He was so fair in the night. A thin golden band wound across his brow, like a halo that made him seem an angel in a night of stars. When he spoke, he answered the question he must have seen in my stare. “The Emperor Tekran says Moreina owes her life to me, so he’s adopted me as his son and as his heir.” And I understood the golden band was the crown of a prince.

  We stood for a while, looking at the rivers spread in a sea across the distance. “Your rivers remind me of the ocean,” I remarked. “Only oceans rise up like that where I’m from.”

  “Is that so? I vaguely remember learning that about your world. I knew it was strange, but forgotten how so. Here in Moreina, we believe the River Dabi is the blood of the goddess Reiya.”

  “Reiya,” I mused. “That’s this city.”

  “This city is Rei. But yes, it is named for Her, as is Moreina. Moreina means ‘the land of Reiya’.”

  The last of the dolphins spilled into the gardens. Their patterned figures swam away, the glow of the moon on their backs. Soon the night was quiet, bare of their splashing fins.

  “You have much to learn about our world,” Hallain said. He motioned me around so we walked back up the path. “My sister must be awake and ready by now,” he said. “We will have dinner, and then the two of you will be off towards Hallia; I’ve arranged for the border guards to let you through. Better go before all of Rei is awake and the sky is filled with hines.”

  “What? What time is it?”

>   “I forgot. You must not know. It is usual to sleep in the day here, for it is so hot during the daytime. We eat breakfast in the morning and lunch before we sleep. We wake in the evening before supper. In a few hours, we would have the midnight meal. But you and Rylo would have gone by then,” he said. “It is customary to have four meals here – breakfast, lunch, dinner, and the midnight meal.”

  “Oh, I’ve had midnight meals before,” I said. “I’ve eaten some strange things at midnight since I started college.” I chuckled, but quieted when he didn’t reciprocate the laughter.

  “Well, Kevin, we could discuss each other’s worlds over dinner.” We arrived at the foot of the staircase leading up to the guest rooms. “I’ll have someone help you out of your sleeping-wear,” he said. I was suddenly aware of the large shirt I was still wearing. “I will see you in the dining hall,” he concluded.

  Chapter 24