Shadows of Empyriad (The Empyriad Series Book 1)

by Josi Russell

  Meir was genuinely interested now. The shadow in his eyes was replaced by a spark of curiosity. “Special qualities?”

  Walt hesitated, then thought of the little elk calf. “She seems to have, what we’d call a ‘way with animals.' They appear to trust her more than they do others.”

  Meir was nodding. “Hm.” He said.

  Walt went on. “At least, I think we could call it that. But maybe that’s a Stracahn thing.”

  Meir shook his head. “No, that is special even for us.” He said. “It is a gift. Few have it.”

  Walt smiled. “See, I thought it was special.”

  Meir leaned forward. “Are there other gifts? Things you’d like to know?”

  Walt thought of the designs again, but before he could speak, he suddenly began to wonder how much he should share. Could he trust Meir? Was this breaking Zyn’dri’s confidence? Why did Meir suddenly look so eager? His usually detached expression had changed. It made Walt nervous.

  “I think everything about her is pretty special,” Walt said guardedly. “What would someone with that kind of gift offer your people?”

  Meir looked out over the flat floor of the basin. “We never know, precisely, how one’s gifts can help others until the moment comes for them to be used.” He said. “But our tradition is very focused on living in balance with our surroundings, and it sounds as if Zyn’dri has special insight into the animal inhabitants of this planet. The Allbeings may use that, at some point, to protect her or to lead her.”

  Walt had heard of the Allbeings. Zyn’dri had told him about them, and so had Grandyn. A race of all-knowing beings who intervened across multiple universes to keep things running smoothly. They seemed, to Walt, like some kind of giant computer, calculating the best possible outcome for the most possible beings out of an infinite number of causes, actions, and reactions. It was dizzying. Grandyn said the Allbeings tried to communicate their calculations to beings throughout the universes, and sometimes they succeeded.

  His ancestors had believed in similar things, but Terrenes had drifted away from it so far that it sounded a bit like magic to him.

  Meir must have seen his doubt. “Humans have such difficulty accepting that there are beings greater than themselves. Why is that?”

  Walt was embarrassed. That was exactly what he had been thinking, but when Meir stated it that way it was obviously false. In many ways, Walt knew, even Zyn’dri was superior to him.

  Meir let the question hang between them for a moment. Just when he looked as if he might speak again, a pair of Avowed Allies approached.

  “Vanquis,” they said, using the term that Walt had heard the Stracahn use when they spoke to Meir, “O’neva is not at the Vault. She has not been seen since she and Wan-seh left for their devotions this morning.”

  Meir’s eyes were clouded with worry. “We must search for her. Perhaps the Allbeings can guide us to her.” He turned back to Walt. “You will please excuse me. I must return to the Vault.”

  “Of course,” Walt said, gesturing him down the boardwalk.

  When he had gone a few steps, Meir turned. “I would like to speak to you some more, Walt, another time.”

  Before he could answer, Walt’s radio crackled to life. Karson needed to see him. The Grant wolf pack was moving erratically, and Karson wanted to know why.

  Walt and his family hiked into the backcountry later that afternoon. Watching Sylvia shoulder her pack and head off down the trail after Zyn’dri made Walt’s breath catch in his throat. She was robust and able, so unlike the woman who had, only months ago, lain in bed for days at a time. What was happening? Was it simply Zyn’dri’s presence or was there more to Sylvia’s miraculous recovery?

  Walt had found in his life that sometimes the ‘whys’ didn’t matter. Sometimes he just had to enjoy the result. This afternoon, as the smell of dying leaves filled the air and the chill of autumn touched their cheeks, Walt decided not to ask why. Just for today, he would revel in Sylvia’s health and Zyn’dri’s enthusiasm, and he wouldn’t worry about how they connected or how to sustain them.

  Ahead, Zyn’dri startled a flock of small birds. They rose into the sky and reeled across the swath of blue that capped the pines along the trail. The hikers stopped to watch them.

  “What are they?” Zyn’dri asked.

  Walt squinted.

  “I think they’re Kinglets,” Sylvia answered.

  “You know it’s autumn when they flock up like that. They all get together to head South.”

  “South?” Zyn’dri glanced at him, and Walt pointed.

  “To where?”

  “Different places,” he said. “Warmer places,” he remembered the bitter winter they’d spent last year, the Stracahn’s Vitamin D scare. “Places they can get more sun.”

  “They leave the park?”

  “That’s right. They get together with their families and go on a little vacation until it’s warmer. Then they come back to lay their eggs and raise their babies here.” Sylvia’s voice was light and hopeful. Walt liked hearing it that way.

  “Look!” Zyn’dri said, pointing. Walt looked up and stared. Just for a second, as the birds swirled around each other in the air, they made one of the patterns from Laska’s journals.

  “What is it?” Sylvia asked, oblivious to the design.

  Walt spoke up. “A tay’ren.”

  Zyn’dri looked at him. “What?”

  “I talked to Meir this morning. He calls the designs tay’ren.”

  Zyn’dri grabbed his hand. “Meir has seen them, too?”

  “Yes. He was tracing one today.”

  “Where? What did it do?”

  There Walt paused. He hadn’t told her of his grisly discovery, and Sylvia had said he should not. Zyn’dri already had a deep fear of this planet and its dangers, Sylvia had explained, and she didn’t need more to worry about.

  Her question struck him as odd. “What do you mean, ‘what did it do’?” He asked.

  Zyn’dri looked trapped for a moment. “I just mean,” she paused, “what did it look like?”

  Walt wanted to chalk the slip up to the fact that Earth’s language was still new to Zyn’dri, but she was too proficient for him to excuse it entirely.

  “Zyn’dri, do the designs do things?” he asked. “Have you noticed that?”

  Zyn’dri looked him in the eye. “I think so.” She said.

  This fascinated him. Walt crouched down on the trail beside her. “What do they do?”

  He saw the hesitation in her eyes, and even when she spoke, he knew she wasn’t telling him everything.

  “Well, I think one makes Sylvia feel better.”

  Her words made Walt’s chest tighten. “What?”

  “So that’s why you like to draw on my hands with your finger!” Sylvia’s eyes were wide.

  Zyn’dri looked down. Walt grasped her arm. “Show me, Zyn’dri. Show me the design.” He didn’t realize how intense his voice had become until he saw how large Zyn’dri’s eyes were.

  He tried to calm himself. “I’m sorry. I just—I want to know so I can help her, too.”

  Zyn’dri nodded, but she stepped back from his grip as she reached for Sylvia’s hand.

  Sylvia held out her palm, and Walt got the feeling that this was familiar to her. Zyn’dri began to trace a design there, but Walt couldn’t tell, exactly, which one it was.

  There was no visual evidence that anything was happening to Sylvia. When Zyn’dri finished and drew her fingers away from Sylvia’s palm, his wife looked no different than she had a moment before.

  Still, something had happened over the last year. Sylvia was better.

  “Can you teach me the design?” he asked.

  Zyn’dri nodded. She knelt on the path and swept the fallen leaves aside, then drew in the dirt an overlapping design that reminded Walt of an intricate spider’s web.

  When she finished, she looked up. Walt saw in her eyes a desperate need for his approval. He smiled.

 
“Beautiful.” He said, “I’ll practice that.”

  Sylvia was quiet as they started back down the path. When Zyn’dri was far enough ahead, Walt felt his wife catch his hand.

  “We can’t get her hopes up like that.” She said.

  Walt tensed. He didn’t want to go where he knew this conversation was going. “What do you mean?”

  “She can’t start thinking that she can cure me. This is a reprieve, Walt, and it’s a temporary one. I’m enjoying every minute of it, but she can’t start thinking that I’m not going to die.” She stopped on the trail and made him look at her, “And neither can you.”

  Walt searched her eyes. They were still the same as the ones he gazed into all those years ago, back when he was just a farm boy. And he still got completely lost in them.

  “Syl,” he said carefully, “you’re not going to believe these patterns. They’re everywhere.”

  She shook her head impatiently and let go of his hand. They continued down the path, keeping Zyn’dri in sight but speaking quietly enough that she couldn’t hear them.

  “Syl, they really are. I saw one just now in that flock of birds.”

  “Are there natural patterns?” Sylvia said sharply, “Of course. Is one curing me? No.”

  “But how do you know that?” he asked. “Something is making you better.”

  “It’s Zyn’dri, all right,” Sylvia said, “but not her patterns. Just her. It’s having her to look after, having her to lay her head on my arm, having her to help me see the world in a new way, too.” Her voice was wistful. “Walt, it’s just having her in our lives. You’re different, too.”

  Walt couldn’t deny that. And he had no proof of his other theory beyond Sylvia herself. He couldn’t stand fighting with her, though, so he let it drop for the time being. They carried on down the trail, following the shining girl.

  They camped next to the river. Two small geysers gurgled just across the water, and bright steam hissed from a little further down. The steam made a constant, even sound that Walt found immensely calming.

  Steam vents were the hottest features in the park, though, and he spent several minutes warning Zyn’dri to stay away from it.

  Walt taught Zyn’dri about building a fire. He watched as she chipped the flint to the steel. Once, twice. It made a sharp ting each time. He watched her eyebrows draw together as she tried again.

  She readjusted the flint and leaned close. “Like this?” she asked, peering up at him from beneath her turquoise hair. Sylvia, sitting on a log at Zyn’dri’s side, reached down and pulled the curtain of her hair back, away from the sparks that the child was throwing from the steel.

  He nodded. “If it starts, don’t suck in the smoke. It will make you cough, and you’ll blow out the flame.”

  When the spark sprang to life, Walt moved in to coax it into flame. Zyn’dri stood back, watching proudly. The little pile of tinder smoked profusely, and Walt blew on it and dropped light twigs on it. When they took, he added larger ones. It wasn’t long before they had a bright fire, dancing cheerfully at the center of their camp.

  Sylvia took Zyn’dri to gather sego lily bulbs, and Walt heard her warning the child away from the death camas that looked similar. When they returned, hands full of the papery treats, they cooked their dinner in the coals at the edge of the fire. In addition to the bulbs, which were the closest thing Walt had found to potatoes in the park, they also had sweet acorn rolls stuffed with ground bison and dried blueberries. It was one of Walt’s favorite meals.

  Zyn’dri particularly liked the bulbs, but she looked up at Walt with confusion in her eyes. “That other plant that looks like this one, why do they call it the death camas?”

  “Well, it makes people very ill if they eat it. Sometimes they die.”

  Her eyes were earnest as she asked, “Is everything on your planet trying to kill you?”

  He thought about that for a moment. “Certainly a lot of things.”

  “Like the death camas.” She said. He nodded. “And the steaming holes.”

  “And those.” He said.

  “Some Rangers are afraid of the bison.” Zyn’dri said.

  “And you should be, too.” He said. “If not afraid of them, at least very careful around them.”

  “It’s just humans they dislike.” She said. “But they are safe for me. One is my friend.” Both Walt and Sylvia looked at her in surprise.

  “What does that mean?”

  “There’s a blind bison, and he’s my friend. Before the fence around the village, I used to go lay by him and tell him about Empyriad.”

  Walt was speechless. He didn’t know whether what he was feeling was fear or anger.

  Sylvia spoke up first, a little tremor in her voice. “Bison aren’t pets, Zyn’dri. You can’t approach them. I’ve seen them throw Rangers—who were trying to help them, even—ten feet in the air. I’ve seen them trample people. They are very dangerous.”

  Zyn’dri spoke slowly, as Damen had when he had visited the school. “To humans they’re dangerous. It’s just your kind.” She said clearly.

  Walt spoke up. “Maybe not. I think, Zyn, that you have a special gift with animals. I saw how the elk behaved toward you. It’s possible that you connected with that bison in the same way.”

  Zyn’dri looked away, and as she did, Walt saw something in her eyes that he didn’t like. It was fear.

  “You don’t want me to know that?” He asked, making his voice gentle.

  Zyn’dri glanced at him, her dark eyes seeking reassurance. “My mother told me not to tell anyone.” She finally said.

  Sylvia had regained her control. “You can tell us anything.” She said. “I think that’s amazing.”

  A little smile played around Zyn’dri’s lips.

  “Is it just the big animals?” Walt asked.

  Zyn’dri shook her head. “The little ones, too.”

  The night had come on, light and chill. The birds had grown silent. A strange noise filled the camp. Zyn’dri stood and walked toward the edge of the firelight.

  “It’s like a massive door creaking open.” She said, tipping her head to hear it better.

  Walt and Sylvia exchanged a look. “It’s a bull elk,” he explained. “This time of year is called the rut. He’s bugling to attract females and to scare other bulls away.”

  The eerie calls echoed through the mountains. Like a trill of notes played on a wooden flute, the first few notes were beautiful. Then the elk’s desperation became evident as the bugle came to a screeching and abrupt end.

  Sylvia, too, was on her feet. “Let’s go.” She said. “I think we can see him if we are quiet.”

  Fallen leaves crunched under their feet. The woods held that thick, rich smell of decay that Walt loved about the autumn. The bull bugled again and this time, he was answered by a contender. Walt and Sylvia each took one of Zyn’dri’s hands. Walt was on high alert. He wanted her to see them, but rutting elk were wildly unpredictable.

  When the bugling became louder, and they heard a crashing in the bushes nearby, the three froze and stood at the edge of a meadow. In its center, the moonlight glancing off its sleek back and antlers, was a magnificent bull. In the deep shadows of the woods around him, Walt could just make out the forms of the cow elk the bull had gathered: his harem.

  Before Walt could speak to point them out to Zyn’dri, another bull pushed its way into the clearing. This one was smaller, and his coat was a lighter shade. In the moonlight, he looked pure silver.

  A clatter of antlers echoed through the night as they leaped together and engaged. Sylvia gasped, and Zyn’dri’s eyes were wide with excitement. Walt watched as the two powerful animals angled and hopped, wrestled and pushed, around the clearing.

  Their powerful shoulders and hindquarters strained as they locked together and twisted, each trying to drive the other to his knees. Their blows of their antlers sounded hollow and dissonant in the quiet night.

  The larger bull was relentless. He pushed forward,
walking with measured, careful steps as he drove the younger bull backward, toward the trees.

  The heavy breathing of the bulls and the racket of their antlers were the only sounds until a deep and urgent howl split the air.

  Walt flinched. It was close. Too close. Even the elk paused in their battle. The wolf’s cry echoed throughout the meadow again. With a parting flick of his head, the older bull raked the younger one down the side with his massive antlers. The younger bull bellowed in surprise but didn’t stop to re-engage. He was already trotting off, away from the source of the eerie cry.

  Walt looked at Sylvia. They needed to get back to their campsite. He turned around, back the way they had come, still holding to Zyn’dri’s hand. Her four fingers made the clasp of their hands feel loose, and he tightened his grip.

  He knew wolves, and this one was calling in its pack. Sure enough, they had only taken three steps when the wolf’s lonesome melody was joined by at least three others, adding in a haunting harmony. Walt stopped. From the sound of it, the new wolves were directly between them and their camp.

  “We’re going to have to go around.” He said. “Maybe even cross the river.”

  Sylvia nodded. Her eyes were tight with worry. “Let’s go.”

  They switched direction again, this time heading West, toward the river. But it only took a few minutes for Walt to realize that they had chosen the wrong direction.

  More wolves had joined in the song, and they seemed to be coming from all around them now. He could only guess that either they were stumbling directly toward a kill or something worse: the wolves were coming after them. He loosed the strap on his twister gun, though he knew it would be folly to try to shoot during a wolf attack. If a pack came after them, shots would kill few and whip the rest into a frenzy. Better to avoid the wolves altogether if possible.

  He reached down and scooped Zyn’dri into his arms. At ten Earth years old, she wasn’t a small child, but his fear made him stronger. He had often been around wolves, and had often successfully avoided them, but there was a strange, excited quality to their song tonight, and he couldn’t be sure what that meant. They crossed a dark patch of woods and slipped into another small, moon-washed meadow.