by J. M. Lee
Kylan held on to his elbows and hugged himself.
“Even with your powers, Naia . . . we’d have to touch hands with every Gelfling alive. We simply don’t have time for that.”
He hated being the one to bury the idea, but it was true. The three fell quiet. Kylan hoped Naia or Rian could come up with another plan, because when he tried to put his mind to work, all he could think of was Maudra Mera’s message.
“There is always the path to the High Hill.”
The voice was Shoni’s, who had joined them after they had said nothing for a long time. Rian groaned, shaking his head.
“No, Mother. Aughra will be no help.”
The name was like a beacon in the dark. Kylan struggled to respond, not sure if he had heard correctly.
“Aughra? As in . . . The three-eyed? The Helix-Horned? Mother Aughra?”
Shoni nodded.
“Her home is near our wood, though few make the trek to see her. Even those who arrive often do not find the answers they are looking for . . . Some find nothing at all. But I think, given how empty our table is, even a crumb would look like hope.”
Kylan couldn’t believe how casual Shoni sounded; she was speaking of a figure Kylan had only heard of in songs—songs that were as old as the three suns that crossed the sky each day. Mother Aughra—the mother of three, some called her, or the maudra Thra. She had been there at the first conjunction, and the second. She had known the world before the Gelfling had even come to be, or so the songs said. Yet Shoni spoke of a journey to her home as if it were a spring trip to the mountains.
“She’s nothing but a mad witch spouting nonsense and riddles,” Rian grumbled.
“You’ve met her?” Naia asked, as surprised as Kylan but more practical about how the news could serve them. “So you know the way! We can ask her if she knows how we can send our warning.”
“She won’t help!” Rian snapped, his voice escalating suddenly. When Kylan and the others fell quiet, he tried to settle down. Still, his fingers twitched and his thick brows drew tight. “She’s existed since the beginning of time, and the years have eroded her mind. She’s not interested in us. In the Gelfling. She won’t help, and I’m not about to waste my time on her.”
His irreverence was astounding. He had met Aughra, yet described her as a senile nana, all raving and superstition. Kylan would have given anything to merely step foot in her presence, to hear any word at all that she might have to bestow on him. If anyone would know what to do about the Skeksis, it was Aughra!
“Listen. Look.”
Rian removed the object he’d pocketed earlier and held it out for them to see. It was a glass vial, plugged tight with a cork stopper. Inside was a sparkling blue liquid. The same Kylan had seen in Rian’s dreamfast. It was vliya: bottled Gelfling life essence. It was beautiful and grotesque all at once, and Rian put it back in his pocket before they all grew sick from the sight of it.
“This is the fastest way to fight the Skeksis,” he said. “Our time is best spent getting it to the All-Maudra before the Skeksis find us. Aughra’s riddles will only waste our time. I choose to put my faith in Ha’rar and the All-Maudra.”
Naia sighed. “There are so many things that could go wrong between here and Ha’rar! I don’t like putting all our reeds in one satchel.”
“Great. I already said I wanted to go alone,” Rian replied.
“And I already said we’d go together!”
“We should split up.” Naia, Rian, and Shoni looked at Kylan when he finally spoke. “You’re fighting over it, but you’re saying the same thing. If we all stay together, it will be easier for the Skeksis to find us and capture us all at once. Rian’s right that the All-Maudra needs to know, and Naia is right that we shouldn’t put all our effort into something that may not work. If we can ask Aughra for help—for a way to send a message to all of the Gelfling—then maybe we could save others. We need to work together, apart.”
Kylan shrugged, in case they didn’t like the idea. They were both leaders, and he was a follower, but they weren’t looking at the big picture. To his surprise, though, the suggestion brought a calm to the room. Naia nodded at Kylan, a flash of respect in her eyes.
“Just so,” she said. “That settles it. Rian will go to Ha’rar and see the All-Maudra. Kylan and I will find Mother Aughra and get her help. There has to be a way to tell all the Gelfling about the Skeksis, and we’ll find out what it is. Maybe she knows more about the Skeksis, too. We’ll put an end to their fearmongering, and make sure what happened in Sami Thicket never happens again.”
“Fine,” Rian said, but his steam had run out. He waved his hand in peace. “As you like. It won’t matter, anyway. Once the All-Maudra sees the vial, she’ll know what to do.”
“You’ll tell us the way to the High Hill, then?” Naia asked, raising a brow.
“I’ll even walk you partway there if it’ll keep you out of my way.”
Naia accepted the offer despite the cheeky remark. She glanced at Kylan, and her confidence was like a wash of cool water from the wood creek.
“When should we go?” she asked.
Though he wasn’t eager to forsake the warmth of the stone hut for the cold wilderness of the wood, he felt it was the right thing to do. He had wanted to rest, but it seemed rest was a luxury for which they would find less and less opportunity. Knowing that Maudra Fara thought they were endangering all the Gelfling of Stone-in-the-Wood—and that they were under orders to leave—robbed the warm hut of much of its comfort.
“It is safer for us and the Stonewoods,” he said. “I say we leave right now.”
CHAPTER 6
In the dark of the night, they walked with Rian and Mythra to the edge of Stone-in-the-Wood. The gentle glow of the village was barely visible through the trees, and only a sliver of the rock on the rise could be seen, illuminated in the moonlight.
“Best wishes!” Mythra said. “When I’m big, I’ll come and join you. I fear no lying Skeksis!”
Rian gave his sister a friendly shove, sending her toppling onto her rear in the moss. He came prepared for a journey, with his pack strapped on his back and his walking spear in hand.
“Once you’re big enough to not be eaten in one gulp. Then I’ll welcome you.”
It was the first playful thing Kylan had heard the soldier say, and it was endearing. Mythra jumped to her feet and gave her brother a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“Please don’t die,” she said. “Any of you!”
“We’ll do our best,” Rian replied. Then the three of them turned away from her and the village, and went into the wood without a glance back.
For the first part of the journey north, they said little. Rian’s steps were solid, never wavering, and Kylan followed with Naia behind. They had taken the formation instinctively, with the soldier guiding at the front and the warrior at the rear. Kylan was the song teller in the middle, telling himself he did bring value to their party in some way, even if he didn’t know what that was yet.
After they had traveled for some time, Kylan felt the initial wariness of the unknown fade away. Their footsteps crunched against the underbrush, and he lost track of their direction, trusting Rian to know the way.
“The Skeksis have been doing this for a long time, I think,” Kylan murmured, more to Naia than to Rian, who turned his ears back to listen. “Do you remember the night you came to Sami Thicket? It was the night of the census, and Lords skekLach and skekOk were there. They came twice a trine and recorded the numbers of all our people.”
“They do the same in Stone-in-the-Wood,” Rian said. “And in Ha’rar, I hear. Probably along the Sifan coasts as well. Do they not in the Swamp of Sog?”
“No. I’d never seen a Skeksis before I left Sog.”
“Do you suppose they take the census as part of their . . .” Kylan swallowed, unsure of what to call the S
keksis’ apparent plan.
“Harvest?” Rian asked bluntly. The word sounded awful, but Kylan couldn’t think of a better one. He tried not to think of Maudra Mera’s message, and his clanfolk who had been taken.
Taken, he told himself. Not harvested . . . but is “taken” really any better?
Rian whacked an errant shrub with his walking spear.
“We count the peach-berry trees every spring, and pluck half the blossoms so they bloom in the summer. That way we know they will all bear fruit, and how many. Mother Aughra taught the Gelfling these things long ago, and we’ve performed the counting and plucking every year since the Age of Innocence . . . and yet we couldn’t see that the Skeksis were doing the same to our people, in front of our very eyes.”
Naia said, “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“I’ve had a lot of time to consider.”
“What about the other clans?” Kylan asked aloud, to no one in particular. “The Dousan and the Grottan? Do you suppose the Skeksis send skekLach the Census Taker to them as well?”
“We had only one Dousan guard at the castle, and none from the Caves of Grot. Who knows if any Grottan even exist. Perhaps the Skeksis finished them off long ago and no one even noticed.”
It was hard to tell how much of Rian’s depressing attitude was because of the nightmare he had endured. In their dreamfast, Kylan had seen a Rian different from the serious, angry soldier who walked ahead of him. Someone who had taken pride in his work as a guard, but also someone who had been sentimental. In love, in fact, and vulnerable enough to be terribly wounded from what had happened in the Castle of the Crystal.
He knew that he could do nothing about Mira. Nothing except know that it had happened and understand why Rian might behave the way he did. It was tragic, but in it Kylan saw beauty. Like a song-for-tears, crafted to sing to the heart in sadness.
Maybe there was something to that. There was kindness hidden in Rian; Kylan had seen hints of it around Shoni and Mythra. He had seen it in the dreamfast. Rian had hardened himself against other Gelfling, but maybe there was another way to ease his troubles. Maybe there was something Kylan could do.
“Uh . . . I was thinking. Well, there was a song I read on the stones on the rise, about Jarra-Jen. I could tell it to you both, if you’d like?”
Rian didn’t respond, but Naia said, “Yes, do. I could use a break from the stories of our real life.”
He could do this. Or if he couldn’t, he might as well try. Reassuring himself, Kylan put his thoughts in order, cleared his throat, and sang:
Many songs of our lightning-born hero are known
From courage and cleverness are these stories grown
But no song is filled with such heartache and yen
As this one of the Dew-Tree and brave Jarra-Jen
Jarra-Jen was known well through all of the land
As a brave hero: kind of heart, quick of hand
But little is told of Jarra-Jen’s first love true:
Amiris of Darkwood, the Singer of Dew
Brown of skin, green of hair, with the bluest of eyes
Amiris sang Sister Moons sweet lullabies
And then every morning to break nighttime’s fast
She laid one loving raindrop on each blade of grass
Jarra-Jen loved Amiris, as a singer loves song
So often he’d visit her Garden of Dawn
Together they’d dance till the morning light glowed
And away to her dew-singing Amiris would go
Now, the Garden of Dawn was the life of the land
And its melody charmed Kaul, the Dark King of Sand
His thirst for its power could not fast be quelled
So he kidnapped Amiris to the dunes where he dwelled
On the next evening when Jarra-Jen came to call
The Garden of Dawn was barely living at all
Without the Dew Singer, all green turned to brown
The tree-branches withered with the roots in the ground
In Kaul-Dunes, the Dark King bade Amiris kneel down
And call forth green life from the parched golden ground
She tried, but no seed could grow root in the sands
Not even when bidden by a Dew Singer’s hands
So the King, at her failure, grew wrathful in spite
He took her out in the desert, upon sands hot and white
There he punished her, holding her face to the suns
“If I can’t have the Garden, then neither will no-one.”
There he left her, the sands draining life from her eyes
Amiris sank to her knees, sang a song of goodbye
For three nights and three days she prayed, and then
On the fourth morning dawn, from the dunes came her Jen
He ran to her, held her—she wanted to cry
But even joy-tears had long since been burned from her eyes
Though he’d found her, she knew she was headed to rest
So she blossomed blue fire, drew a seed from her breast
Jarra-Jen pleaded and begged, cried for her not to go
She put the seed in his hand, bade him help it to grow
Then she melted to stardust. The wind took her away
Jarra-Jen left with the seedling on his loneliest day
Sad one in the desert, the seed cracked in his palm
Jarra-Jen had to act soon. He didn’t have long
So in the sand did he plant it, though futile it seemed
As the desert had nothing to water the seed
He called to the earth. He called to the sky
But nobody answered. The dew-seed would die
With no other hope, Jarra-Jen fell to his knees
And wept . . .
Bursting forth from the sands came an enormous tree
Brown of skin, strong of branch, and emerald of leaf
Its roots rippled the earth, its crown brushed the sky
And Jarra-Jen poured forth every last tear he could cry
Kaul-Dunes and its Dark King were lost in the storm
In the desert, a new Garden of Dawn became born
The Dew-Tree split open the sands of the dunes
Strong, graceful, at peace, and with silver-drop blooms
And from that day forward, and for all the trine after
When the Sisters grow tired of twinkling star laughter
In the Garden of Dawn, the Dew-Blossoms appear
Left on each blade of grass
Nectar shaped like a tear
It seemed as though the entire wood had been listening, hushed in anticipation, and when Kylan finished telling the song, it was quiet for a moment longer in reflection. Naia gave a hum of approval from behind.
“I liked it,” she said. “I think it’s a good lesson . . . We will always face hard times, but it’s important to remember that our sadness can often be what becomes our strength. There’s no weakness in sorrow or grief.”
Rian said nothing from ahead, treading on with the same steady cadence as before. Just as Kylan thought the soldier had been unaffected—or maybe not even listening—he sniffed once and raised his hand to wipe his cheeks. He cleared his throat and said, “We’re here. This is where we part ways.”
In the dark and so focused on Rian’s reaction, Kylan hadn’t realized they’d come abreast of the Black River. It gurgled, inky and wide, on the other side of a line of straight trees and reeds. The path they’d taken ended in a short wooden dock where two small boats were tied. The river flowed north, where it would eventually empty into the Silver Sea at Ha’rar, the Gelfling capital.
Rian pointed upward, almost to the Sisters themselves.
“Head northeast, toward the cliffs, a day. Moss in these woods grows on the nor
th side. Follow the incline through the night. On the second morning, you’ll see the High Hill. You can’t miss it. That’s where you’ll find Aughra. The river will take me all the way to Ha’rar. If I’m lucky, I may finally fall asleep and wake up in the All-Maudra’s keep.”
Farewells were in order, but no one was eager to be the first to say goodbye. Circumstances were dire now, and it was all too possible that they might never see Rian again. Naia clasped wrists with Rian, and when Kylan’s turn came, he held on to the other boy’s arm a moment longer.
“You’re not alone, Rian,” he said firmly. “We may be strangers by blood, but we’re family in arms. Please trust us as you trusted Gurjin.”
Naia saluted. “Yes. If you should need us, we’ll find a way.”
It took a moment, but Rian’s callous features softened, and he let out a sigh. For a moment, Kylan knew he was seeing the real Rian, from before the nightmare at the castle.
“I miss Gurjin and the others very much,” Rian confessed. “I don’t want to put anyone else in danger. Every night I dream of the Skeksis hunting me, killing anyone nearby. Gurjin, Mira. Mythra, Timtri, my mother . . . The only way I can rest is if I’m alone. Once the All-Maudra has been told, maybe I will stop looking over my shoulder, but until then . . . I couldn’t see you in danger when Gurjin died to protect us.”
They helped him untie one of the boats and steadied it as he climbed in. Kylan regretted meeting this Rian so late, now that they were parting ways. As if feeling the same, the soldier let slip a small, sad smile.
“I do trust you both, though. As I trusted Gurjin. I only fear that my sorrow will not be enough to grow anything.”
“Only if it’s salted with remorse,” Kylan said. “Good journey to you, Rian. We’ll meet again in Ha’rar, with help from Mother Aughra and stories of our adventures on the High Hill.”
They pushed him away from the dock, and Rian pulled the oar out from beneath his feet, handily maneuvering the little boat so it was pointed downstream.
“Till Ha’rar, then!” he called. “Be safe . . . Oh! I forgot to mention one other thing about the High Hill!”