by J. M. Lee
“Is that what we should do, then?” Gurjin asked, voice quick with hope. “Find the Mystics? Can the Mystics stop their other halves?”
“NO!” Her response boomed over the sound of the machine. “Skeksis can’t destroy Mystics. Mystics can’t destroy Skeksis. What’s one is the other. You know! You saw it! Maybe a Mystic could keep a Skeksis in one place. Stop him from doing the really bad thing. Maybe the other way around, too. Skeksis stops a Mystic from doing the really great thing. But it’s just a wall. Just an impasse, not a defeat, not destruction.”
“Then what if we destroyed the Mystics?” Gurjin asked. “To get at the Skeksis?”
“No!”
This time it was Naia who protested, and Kylan agreed.
“You didn’t know urVa,” he said. “But he wasn’t the same as skekMal. It wouldn’t be right to use him to get to skekMal . . . or any Mystic, to defeat the Skeksis.”
He didn’t have a better argument. It just wasn’t right. He could feel it in his heart.
“Aughra, if the Mystics can’t help us defeat the Skeksis, and if you don’t know how we should deliver the message to all the Gelfling . . . can’t you tell us anything that could help? What do we do?”
“Don’t know,” Aughra said. She gave a big groan, clearing her throat, and spat, right on the floor. “Don’t know.”
It was a dead end. If Aughra had no suggestion for sending their urgent message, and no solution to stopping the Skeksis, then what other questions could they ask? Kylan chewed on his lip, worrying that Rian and Tavra had been right all along. Maybe it had been a waste to come here. Maybe the only one who could do anything was the All-Maudra.
Aughra went on.
“Skeksis, Mystics. Born at the Great Conjunction. Maybe they’ll die at the next. Maybe they’ll go back to wherever they came from. Maybe the whole world will end! No way to know but wait. Nothing to do but wait until the next one. The next Great Conjunction.”
When her words got nothing but a heavy silence, she scoffed.
“See? Told you it might not be what you wanted to hear.”
Kylan felt like a child for putting so much hope in Aughra, after all the songs celebrating her infinite knowledge. She didn’t seem to care about what was happening, but maybe it was because she didn’t understand. She spoke of the birth of the Skeksis and the Mystics at what seemed like the beginning of time, but said nothing of the things that had happened recently, when it mattered. When Gelfling had died. Understanding the Skeksis and Mystics would not prevent skekMal’s next raid on Sami Thicket or Stone-in-the-Wood.
“Did you know they’d started consuming our people?” he asked. “Draining our essence?”
“Eh?”
Her brow peaked above one eye, her mild surprise—if that’s what it was—a tiny victory. Kylan chased after it, hoping to unlock her wisdom if he could only form his words into the right key. Maybe Aughra had been so preoccupied with the heavens, she hadn’t noticed the problems that had taken place down on Thra. He tried again to explain, in less artful terms, hoping she had just misunderstood. They needed her, after all. She had to know what to do. How would they fix things if she didn’t?
“They steal Gelfling away and bind them to a chair in a chamber. The Skeksis scientist makes them stare into the Heart of Thra—the Crystal, that they’ve perverted with their experiments. We all entrusted the Crystal to them, and this is what they’ve done. Their influence has darkened the Crystal, and now that darkness is spreading everywhere. Like a sickness! This is happening right now. We can’t wait for the next Great Conjunction. We don’t even know when it will be! It could be hundreds of trine from now, and in that time the Skeksis may take every last one of our people.”
Aughra had become distracted by the contents of her worktable, sorting through it, though her motions were slower now, as if burdened. Kylan had never wished sorrow upon anyone, but at that moment he hoped the old woman felt at least a little. It might mean she cared. He stepped forth, still gripping the book in his hands so he had something to hold on to when it felt like everything else was slipping out of his grasp.
“At least tell us if it’s possible,” he urged. “Is this a battle worth fighting? Are you really saying the Skeksis are unstoppable and we should just . . . give up?”
Aughra sighed.
“The future is immutable. A single moment in the movement of all things—the Great Conjunction. More powerful than the Skeksis. More powerful than the Mystics. I haven’t seen far enough, yet. Not far enough to know whether there is hope. Be patient.”
Kylan didn’t know what he had expected coming here, but this was not it. It was no map to navigate their way out of the wood, no rope to pull them out of the swamp. Aughra was wise, but her wisdom couldn’t help them now. She couldn’t even tell them there was light at the end of the dark. They couldn’t wait for her to save them.
“I’ve had enough of patience,” Kylan said with a sigh that left him completely deflated. “And I’ve had enough of you.”
He regretted the words as soon as they escaped. Even Tavra looked surprised. Aughra fixed him with her one eye, the last of the three she’d once had. For the first time, he saw real emotion in her face. She looked down from his face to the book he clutched tightly in his arms.
He thought she would reproach him for speaking to her in such a way, but all she said was, “Take that book. Aughra thinks it was meant for you.”
Then she turned her back on them and shuffled away, making no further invitation to follow. He thought about apologizing, but the room had become so damp with sadness that he didn’t want to provoke it further. Their time with Aughra was over, and Kylan had been the one to end it.
“Come on,” Naia said. “Let’s get out of here.”
No one spoke a word as they left. They had no destination except away from the High Hill, Kylan so wanting to put it behind him that he almost considered asking Tavra to take them straight to the Black River as she’d wanted to from the beginning.
When they reached a wide, flat rock pocked with rain-filled holes, they stopped to rest. The water in the pools was clean and cool even as the suns shone down. Kylan tried to enjoy it and focus on the moment. He washed his face, hoping it might cleanse the memory of Aughra and her orrery from his mind.
Maybe it hadn’t been all bad. He held out the book she had given him. It bore no markings save for a symbol Kylan didn’t recognize written in black ink on the spine. The worn, dark blue-gray leather that bound it had long ago lost a corner but was otherwise in good shape.
He flipped through the book and found most of the pages filled. The writing within was in ink—not dream-etched like Gelfling writing. Some of the words were illegible, and the hand in which it had all been writ did not match the many other scrolls and parchments in Aughra’s orrery. Splatters of black dotted the paper around scrawled sketches, diagrams, and sometimes completely unintelligible shapes that did not fit into any category. Given it was done in ink and not dream-etching, he guessed the author was not Gelfling. Yet in many places, the writing was in Gelfling letters and very fluent for a non-Gelfling. The subjects of the text were unfocused, sometimes geographical, sometimes astronomical. Sometimes they even seemed to be a record or diary, longhand for a few pages. These entries were almost always in a writing Kylan could not read, but they were dense, often accompanied by messy ink splatters and sometimes the remains of torn-out pages.
“The message on the spiderweb rock was right, I think,” Naia said when they stood to continue their journey. Kylan would have loved to rest longer, but he knew better. Perhaps if they made it to the Black River and made a boat, he could read the entire way there.
“Oh?” Gurjin asked with a raised brow. “You decided what it meant?”
Kylan let Naia share the expired secret, glad to have it out in the open, even if it no longer mattered. Maybe there was at least some
resolution in that.
“It said do not trust her. We didn’t want to put stock in some anonymous warning, but maybe we should have.”
“Do not trust her, eh?” Gurjin echoed. “Strange thing to write about Aughra. It’s not as if she misled us. What was there to trust . . . or not trust? All she did was tell us nothing.”
“Someone was just trying to save us the time,” Tavra said. It was the first thing she’d said since they’d left Aughra.
“So first you don’t want us to read it, and now you use it as weight on your argument?” Naia retorted. “How very Silverling of you.”
“Perhaps if you’d told us about it and we’d heeded its advice, we could be at the Black River by now.”
Naia crossed her arms and faced Tavra full-on.
“No. We agreed to do everything we could to follow through. Sending the warning is the right thing to do. We’re all in this together. Even if we can’t rely on Aughra.”
“Then what is your plan?” To that, no one had an answer, and Tavra flipped her hair self-importantly. “I see. Well, then might I suggest while you formulate your plan, we descend to the river. By the time we reach it, surely you’ll have come up with something brilliant.”
The sarcasm was so palpable, Tavra might as well have been serving it for supper. Naia leaned and grabbed Kylan’s arm possessively, her grip tight and proud.
“Kylan will find something in that book. Won’t you, Kylan? Before we reach the river. I have every faith in you!”
And with that, the Drenchen girl stomped off down the path. Kylan folded his arms around the book when Gurjin and Tavra laid eyes on him. He wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or flattered that Naia had stuck him with the pressure of coming up with their next move, and under a time limit, no less.
Tavra shrugged and tossed her cape to the side so she could sheath her sword. She gave Kylan a challenging, dubious snort.
“Better start reading,” she said, then turned and followed Naia down the hill.
CHAPTER 12
They made it nearly back to the forest valley before making camp for the night. The spot Tavra picked was near a broad lake, nestled between the highlands and the wood. Through the sound of wind in the leaves and the awakening night creatures, Kylan could hear the lake, and maybe even the gurgling of a creek, one of the Black River’s tributaries. Over two dozen smaller rivers and streams originated in the tall mountains and fed the river channel, or at least that’s what he’d learned from the maps in the old book.
The maps were no help, though. In order to use a map, one had to have a direction, and that was what was sorely missing from the old text.
Kylan leaned against a rock. His eyes were sore from reading. To give his mind a break, he prepared his own scrolls and worked on the day’s record, recalling as many details as he could before the memories faded. In his journal, the memory of the orrery could be preserved forever. Their journey there could be smoothed over. Their interaction with Aughra could be just a stumble on their path to ultimate success. All it would take were more chapters to show that this dark disappointment was not the end, but just some dimmer part in the middle. Maybe it was better that way.
No, Kylan decided mid-etching, it is better. No maybes about it.
And so he wrote it into the diary that way to make sure that any future readers would understand it to be so. By the time the fire was lit, Aughra’s domed observatory and the metal-sphered machine that filled it felt like nothing but a distant dreamfast.
Naia and Gurjin were quiet, though when talk of who would be more successful in catching their supper began, an old rivalry came back to life between them. Whatever lingering moroseness they’d had over Aughra—and the following confrontation with Tavra—quickly faded as they hiked off in opposite directions, a bola in Naia’s hand and a spear in Gurjin’s.
Kylan put away his scrolls and stared at the book, willing it to cooperate this time. He had to believe that hidden in its pages was something they could use. Something that would make their trip to Aughra worth it in the greater song of things. Trying to renew his sense of hope, he picked it up and opened it once more.
“Found anything yet? I’ve never seen a Gelfling read so studiously, even among those who could.”
Tavra stood behind him, tying a laundering rope between two trees.
“I’ll probably never be a warrior like everyone else in my clan, but I might as well hone the few skills I have.” He set the book in his lap and watched the Vapra string the cord to another tree, knotting it off with practiced, dexterous hands. She tied it so quickly, it was as if there were no knot at all, yet from the weaving work, Kylan imagined the rope would stay taut and strong even in a gale.
“I didn’t realize you were so skilled with knots,” he said. He tried to sound friendly in the hopes the Silverling warrior might warm to him even a little. “I’ve heard that the Sifan clan’s weaving and sailing knots are unequaled, but it seems they may have competition!”
It was a weak attempt, and he knew it. Tavra merely said, “I have many skills.”
Then she unclasped her cloak and draped it over her arm, walking into the wood without any further explanation.
Kylan read, alone, as the suns began their nighttime descent. The book’s topics were all jumbled together, in no particular order. One moment they would describe a recent feast shared with the village; the next, the notes described the biology of a suri-wing in graphic detail, with drawings showing all the bones and muscles and feather shafts.
Kylan paused at the words on the next page. It was another diary entry, but this time it was written in Gelfling, instead of in one of the many other languages scattered throughout the book. Most remarkably, the passage finally gave a name, and Kylan read the words hungrily:
Mother forgot my name today.
I had to remind her: “Raunip. Raunip, Mother!”
I cried, “The name you gave me!”
How could she forget?
She has been consumed with the heavens. The heavens, and the shard, buried deep underground. She will not admit that neither above nor below will heal this sickness. Only we of Thra can be the antidote; and to heal our world, we must purge it of those outsiders who have taken our heart captive.
“Raunip,” Kylan whispered, placing his hand on the page as if he might dreamfast with it. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
He lost track of the pages he turned. Sometimes he read sections from beginning to end, and sometimes he skipped back and forth. In the beginning, he marked pages with leaves, but when the book began to bulge from the number of bookmarks, he realized that someday he would simply have to read cover to cover if he wanted to absorb everything it had to say.
“The song of the Heart of Thra can sing the hollow bone from the bell-bird wing.”
He had become so entrenched in the book that for a time, he even forgot the reason he was reading. When he heard himself read the passage aloud, his mind cleared. It was as if he’d been listening to the book speaking for so long, only half listening, but now it had called out to him by name.
Read this, it was saying to him. These pages are for you.
The page showed the illustration of a firca, the forked flute many Gelfling carried, but this firca was different. A song in verse that accompanied the illustration explained how: This firca was crafted by Gyr the Song Teller, crafted from the forked bone of a bell-bird’s wing. The song told how the legendary traveler had played on it in the Caves of Grot, deep in the mountains. As his song echoed through the endless caverns, the words to every song he knew were dream-etched across the walls. There, the book read, the Grottan Gelfling protected the songs, as well as the other lore of the Gelfling people.
Kylan didn’t know what to believe at first. It seemed impossible. Dream-etching was a slow and painstaking process, and the bell-birds were creatures of fantasy, long since di
ed out. Even Gyr had lived long, long ago—so long ago that his firca may well have crumbled to time. The whole thing was more likely a song romanticizing the invention of writing . . . and yet Kylan’s heart stirred, as if it knew there was something more real to this story than myth.
If the firca was real and could truly dream-etch simply by the power of its song . . . He worried it was a false hope, but Naia had believed in him to find something, and he didn’t want to let her down. It was enough that he decided to tell her.
Darkness had set in by the time Naia returned with Gurjin. They came back bearing the same game, fish caught in the lake. Kylan read and listened while they compared the size of the fish and argued over whether length or weight was more important. Finally, their hunger got the better of them, and they focused on preparing the food, Naia scaling and de-finning the fish while Gurjin made the spits. When they weren’t in competition, they worked seamlessly together, and in no time the scent of blackened fish filled the air. Kylan closed the cover of the mysterious book.
“Where’s Tavra?” Naia asked, circling the fire. The Vapra had not returned, and they didn’t wait for her before eating, though Gurjin moved her fish away from the fire so it wouldn’t burn.
“Went to take a bath in the lake, I think. She’s been gone a while . . . Naia, I have something to show you. I think it could be a clue to how we might send our message.”
Naia looked over Kylan’s shoulder and pointed at the sketch of the forked instrument. Gurjin joined them, and the three looked at the pages together.
“Is that a firca?” he asked.
“Yes. It was used to do a hundred dream-etchings at once in the Caves of Grot. Gyr the Song Teller did it just by playing the firca. The music echoed through the cave and etched the words on all the stone it touched.”
“Is this a song, or truth?” Naia asked. “If it’s true . . . Kylan, could you use such a thing to write our warning about the Skeksis? We wouldn’t have to do it one message at a time, we could do so many at once. So many the Skeksis wouldn’t be able to stop every one.”