Rexrider (First World's End Book 1)
Page 28
Under the bright gas lamps, Bakarma seemed to be examining archived data charts. On the table were several documents drawn on the yellowed parchment, all relating to recent cycles of continental cooling, diminished annual rainfall and the expansion of the polar Ice Island. Now, however, his eyes were closed in what he liked to refer to as “heavy contemplation.” His fatigue was more a factor of his age and physical condition than the angle of the turn.
Navivanu settled down on a sturdy three-legged stool in front of the fire. She pumped bellows with her foot that circulated heated air through vents around the hearth, bathing her freshly washed hair in gentle warmth. Her skin glowed in the firelight. Once her hair felt dry, she put it back and took the food tray over to the work table.
"Father," she said gently, setting the tray on the table.
The old man’s eyes slowly opened and he cleared his throat. "Yes, Vivy Dear?" He lifted his chin off his chest to look at her warmly.
“What are you going to do about the anomaly in the Wildstar orbit that I am investigating?” She pulled back the sleeves of her house-gown, and tucked the cuffs neatly under her collar hem. “I have been at the scope again and my findings remain troublesome.”
“You and your star-gazing,” Bakarma sighed dismissively while scratching his bulbous nose. “I wish you would focus more on important matters, like these cursed weather changes. If anything threatens our existence, it is this drought. Besides, you were barely Named the last time the Wildstar passed. You have too little experience to influence the Elders.”
“The Wildstar’s changes must not be taken lightly,” she insisted, giving him a solemn look as she poured him a cup of hot tea. “Something is different this time. It is no secret that the ancient records show it edging closer to an intersecting path with Rex. But this new orbit is not a result of an incremental change. It could be on a collision course!”
Bakarma pushed himself back on his chair in exasperation. “We sent out the message as you requested,” he grumbled. “That is all we can do at this time. Now you need to focus on what you are going to present at the next meeting of High Council. And by that I mean the changes in climate and the expanse of the Ice Island, and their direct effects on the weather all Rexians have been recently experiencing. You will never get a second chance to make a good first impression on the Council. Be sure of what you have to say, and say it with the full authority of the Venerable Master Skywatcher you will have become.”
He bent forward again to fumble through his scrolls. Navivanu kept her eyes on him as he had not answered her question, and it was not long before he took a deep breath and addressed her again without looking up.
“What more do you want? We have yet to hear anything from the Elders in the other kiths, so there is still no confirmation of your calculations. They likely do not see it as a priority. After all, the Wildstar has been orbiting our sun peacefully from time immemorial.”
“I have checked and double-checked my calculations,” Navivanu insisted. “The Wildstar has altered its course.”
The old man lifted his mug and began sipping the steaming beverage through his red-stained lips. After he put it down again, he began to furl his scroll, habitually flipping his voluminous sleeves over his shoulders to expose his sallow arms. “You know you cannot verify observations from a single observatory. Others must make their measurements and independently confirm your findings. And to be certain of the motions of the stars, one must make observations during opposing sides of the sar. Now, of course, there has not been enough time for that. And the chances that the Wildstar could actually pose any threat at all to this planet are so remote that . . . well . . . if I were a gamester, I would bet all I had that it would not.”
“Yes, Dear Father, and you would be wise to do so, for surely you would win handsomely when the bolide passed without effect. And as surely would we all be dead if you happened to be the loser. Father, with or without corroboration, we must tell the Council.” Her voice was soft but filled with resolve. “The bet is not worth the risk, however slim you may think it is. And I have done the numbers . . .”
“You are so persistent,” he replied, the thinness of his voice belying its frustration. “We cannot afford to frighten anyone. Administering a false alarm could prove disastrous to us skywatchers, and you know there are those who already call our value into question.”
Navivanu’s jaw was set firmly, making her delicate features appear brittle. But she softened her expression and moved behind her father to rub his shoulders. At her touch, Bakarma relaxed slightly. “I am sure the elders of our order are taking your discovery very seriously,” he said, stifling a yawn.
After the brief massage, Navivanu returned to the refreshments on the tray. She lifted the cover from the platter and deftly served herself some prepared meats using two thin eating sticks. Her father joined her at the far end of his worktable, its edges inlaid with dark blue stone tiles. Using his own pair of eating sticks, he took a square piece of flatbread and spread it with aged skaw curd and pickled mustard seed, then applied some thin slices of meat. After rolling it, he took a bite, followed by a nibble of green herbs, never once touching the food with his hands.
“I have not made you feel better, have I daughter?” Bakarma looked affectionately at his extraordinary child and patted her free hand, the other of which was engaged in stirring a dripping chunk of honeycomb into her tea. “I promise I will send another message to the Elders and urge them to hasten their investigations of the Wildstar’s orbit. On the morrow, you can visit the smuggler’s aviary personally to dispatch dactylite homers to skywatchers in all four kiths.”
“People have already started to talk about what the Seer said at the fountain. Once they know my findings confirm his ravings, based on his visions while he navigated the Beyond . . .”
“That man is no Seer!” Bakarma snapped. “He is mad! And there is no such thing as Beyond!” The old man held his breath for a moment, and Navivanu understood he was attempting to quell his temper before he again spoke.
It was not the first time such an exchange had taken place under this roof. She and her father differed greatly on their interpretation of Beyond. To him it was analogous to the myth of death, defining a spiritual rebirth into the mysterious place where all Manifestation would be revealed.
Navivanu knew him to be only partially correct. The Beyond of which she was familiar was much more, a place of great power and very real potential. It was something she had touched, between the very fabrics of Manifestation, even if it was forever out of her father’s reach. He forbade her from speaking of her alleged contact with other dimensions as if her words alone were heretical. But some of her grandfather’s writings—which she had found on hidden scrolls in secret places—defined the Beyond as the epitome of the skywatcher’s nature, at least of a Venerable’s nature. Unfortunately her grandfather had died long before she was born, and she now had only her feelings and the ravings of an old outsider to confirm her sentiments.
“Ever since Jidaranuma—” she started.
Her father shot her a burning glare. It was forbidden to mention that name, a proscription he, himself, had been forced to make in public after the guardian trials.
Nevertheless, she continued. “He taught me how to do the math and I have been watching the bolide since before I was Named and before he left us. We must prepare for the worst!”
“Until we hear from all of the Elders, we will keep our tongues still about the Wildstar,” her father finally said. “Is that understood?”
“Understood, Master Skywatcher Bakarma.” She knew he would not miss the mockery implied by her use of his formal title in the manner an acolyte might. The suffix “ma” reminded him of his rank as only a Master Skywatcher. That suffix would soon officially augment her name as well, but the “anu” suffix of a Venerable, which had always been attached to her name but never his, would put her beyond any other skywatcher’s authority. She walked to the reclining chair in the cente
r of the room and fell into its welcoming embrace, carrying the weight of her father’s stubborn resistance with her. She was facing away from him now, so he could not see the patronizing smirk on her face as he rolled himself another wrap to nibble.
Navivanu pondered the way the mention of the Seer consistently set off his temper. How such a humble personage could evoke such a passionate reaction in one of the most powerful men on the planet—while the possible end of the world elicited nothing—was beyond her. Perhaps she should look into the matter further, but right now she was consumed by thoughts of the Wildstar and the implications of her observations. Not to mention that it would be useless to try and get her father to reveal anything about his perceptions of the Seer. She had only added the comment about her brother to spite him. She regretted that now.
Navivanu watched Bakarma take a seat in his favorite plush chair, stuffed with flock feathers and covered with alleyskitter pelts. She knew he would soon doze off again, no doubt aided by a pinch of narcotic rednut between his lower lip and gum, the source of his crimson-stained lips and teeth.
She rubbed her eyes, sighed loudly and arched her back. The ceiling caught her attention as she looked upward, and soon she was lost in the beauty of its dome. Images of stars spilt across it, an accurate representation of the sky’s low meridian attitude during the equinox. The high moon was carved in alabaster stone and placed at the apex of the dome. Navivanu spent many a turn gazing upon the satellite’s face. Using the powerful gazing tools available in the observatory, she sometimes thought she saw strange and unnatural structures on the disk, but always ended up attributing the sight to her overworked imagination.
Only one of the oldest of the skywatcher scrolls—which she found by accident in the annals to which she had recently gained access upon becoming a candidate for Master Skywatcher—could be interpreted as alluding to the mythic structures, but there was no explanation as to why or how they might have been constructed, and only the slightest implication that something might have been built on the moon by the ancestors of the Ancients.
She had yet to ask her father about it, and he had never mentioned it. Knowing his tendency to discount speculation without hard evidence, she had decided not to bring up the subject until she found more time to study the “outpost” herself. And for all she knew, he had never even read the scroll.
Her father was now snoring lightly in his chair, and there was enough of him in the sound that she imagined him speaking to her as he had spoken to her countless times before:
“We practice the noblest of arts, Vivy. By studying the cycles of the sun, moon and planets we fix the durations of times and seasons and guide people in our rituals, providing knowledge vital to the Rexian way of life. By measuring the stars we discover the nature of the proportions that connect this vast machine we call Manifestation, and arduously hold our people to the Path of Innocence, preserving the intent of the Ancients.”
Noble words, but she could not help but feel her father was doing more harm than good keeping the people in the dark about the Wildstar. She sometimes thought he must feel guilty at being insulated from society, yet dependent upon it for his welfare. She knew she did. In her heart she wanted to believe that her father was a man of the people, a predisposition she felt sure she had inherited from him. It made her life as a skywatcher increasingly uncomfortable. And as the sars passed, the quiet, detached security of the lifestyle seemed less and less suited to her, like an ill-fitting cloak she had grown out of.
Truthfully, she was getting tired of being viewed as an aloof eccentric, an enigma at whom common folk gaped. And now that her Master’s duties obliged her to make increasingly numerous public appearances, she was becoming aware of something else: many Rexians considered skywatchers privileged, envying the knowledge the order harbored—even as they willingly depended upon it—and envying their affluent lifestyle. Maybe that was what made reporting the path of the Wildstar so important to her. It was a chance to show the citizens of Rex—especially those rexriders, who were so much less refined, yet so dynamic and tangible—the worth of her order and, as she reluctantly admitted, of herself as an individual. Preventing death and suffering: what could be more worthy of respect?
Her father did not see it that way. He cited the reliance of the growers and flockers on the skywatchers’ guidance, in matters of the weather and the seasons as proof of civilization’s confidence in their Order. Navivanu found it a less than tenable argument, but her father was so set in his ways that she had made no progress in convincing him otherwise.
Bakarma’s snores grew in length and volume. She found herself smiling in spite of her thoughts about him. The burden of a life of secrets may have been taking its toll on her, but for Master Sky-Bakarma that weight might as well have been that of a murr feather. At least he had always made it seem so. It charmed her, but infuriated her as well. If she broached the subject or even discussed the smallest bit of information outside their order, he would reproach her, and caution that she was treading into the turbulent waters of heresy.
The fire crackled, background to the raspy noises emanating from Bakarma’s upturned mouth. The dancing firelight complemented that of the steady burning gas lamps with their polished silver back-plates. She reached for the regulator to dim the lamps. She had had enough troubling reflection for now.
Navivanu covered her hair loosely with a light scarf, and again stared out the window, this time looking north toward where the shimmer of light from the dawn sun glistened off Whitepeak. The spur of solid stone jutted nearly a hundred strides into the sky above the Skywatcher’s Plateau. The craggy pinnacle and natural tower of rock overlooked Stonehaven. Composed of white and orange marble, harder than the surrounding sandstone and limestone, it had survived the scourges of time like the skywatchers who employed it.
From that spectacular observatory built into its peak, when the sky was clear and the meridian low, one could view the bespeckled black bowl of night in all its glory. Only then did the splendorous expanse of Manifestation truly unfold before the open mind, revealing its glory to any who cared to see.
Navivanu relished the beauty of this glorious dawn, but as the cool light increased its glow behind Whitepeak, her eyes began to fill with tears. She reflected upon the potentially perilous future of this world that was innocently awakening around her.
END OF BOOK I
Acknowledgments
This book could not have been completed without help from several people, too many to mention individually. There are a few, however, who must be noted. First, I would like to thank my friend and editor, Chris Kemp, for his stalwart support, several read-throughs and layout assistance. I would also like to thank Byron Merritt for his championing my work from the time he first saw it. Shaheen Schmidt contributed countless hours of support and encouragement as well as art work for the book. My parents, Bernard and Ann Angel read and commented on several drafts of the book. My nephew Ian Sugar gave me the perspective of a young teenager and rave reviews. Many other people read some or all of my book and contributed feedback that helped me shape and trim the story. To all of you, I am grateful for your support.
Sincerely,
Mark C. Angel
APPENDIX A: Dramatis Personae
Rexriders:
Almar (43) Primary Rexrider for Rayak-rex
Dero (40) Primary Rexrider for Piro-rex
Gidar Almar’s father
Gogana (41) Primary Rexrider for Tiga-rex
Iko (26) Primary Rexrider for Bog-rex
Ka=tag (42) Primary Rexrider for Nef-rex
Melok (57) Primary Rexrider for Gar-rex
Pako (62) Primary Rexrider for Kaved-rex
Ronik (47) Primary Rexrider for Noga-rex
Simad (17) Secondary Rexrider of Tiga-rex; daughter of Rex-Gogana
Kalav Rex-Melok’s spouse
Tamik (21) Secondary Rexrider for Gar-rex; son of Rex-Melok and sister of Meera
Tika (18) Daughter of Rex-Almar
U=gan (12) Son of Rex-Dero
Zendal (40) Almar’s spouse
Tellers:
Meera (34) Rider of Tara (domehead); Teller's spouse and Tamik’s sister
Rudanomi (43) Grandmaster Teller of the Western Pride; Meera’s spouse
Ruko (12) Son of Meera and Jidaranuma
Skywatchers:
Bakarma (68) Grandmaster Skywatcher of the Western Kith
Kalikanuma (65) Venerable Master Skywatcher in exile; Bakarma’s younger brother
Jidaranuma (45) Bakarma’s eldest son
Navivanuma (25) Venerable Master Skywatcher; youngest daughter of Bakarma
Raitanu (21) Kalikanuma’s Venerable daughter
Tolkratanuma Venerable Grandmaster Skywatcher; Bakarma and Kalikanuma’s father
Guardians:
Shaneh (21) Senior Guardian responsible for Ruko’s learning group
Sortan (27) Senior Guardian; sword trainer to Tamik
Tsi’galivo (67) Grandmaster Guardian
Dergon (24) Senior Guardian, Tamik’s partner
Smugglers:
A’jab (42) Master Smuggler, Jenay’s father
D'joy (66) Grandmaster Merchant, A’jab’s grandfather
Jenay (18) Junior Smuggler from Riverford Station; daughter of A’Jab
Vintar (41) Senior Smuggler, Jenay’s mother
Zolchek (78) Vintar’s Father
Others:
Vanaka (12) Apprentice Healer; daughter of Dasha and Sonjay
Darlie (19) Healer; daughter of Sonjay and Dasha
Dasha (42) Healer; handles Deebee (sloggerbeast)
Pirlan (12) Son of a deceased Flockmaster and his widow; Ruko's best friend
Sonjay (47) Master Player; spouse of Dasha; rider of Sourpuss (thunderrex)
APPENDIX B: Glossary