by Matthew Ward
He said, “I can’t do it. It’s too far. I’m too tired.”
“No. Don’t say that.” Tumr peeked his head over the ledge. “Come on. Just a few more steps. If you get to my hand, I’ll help you.”
Maedc reached up and pulled with all his might. A desperate groan came out of his lips, but his paralyzed body refused to move. There was no way he could pull himself up anymore. He tried not to cry as he told him, “You don’t get it. I can’t move. I can’t lift my body.” It was all over. “I’m going to let go.”
“No.” Distress had entered Tumr’s voice. “You can do it. You have to. There’s nowhere to rest.”
Maedc tried again but nothing happened. “I can’t.” He felt tears come to his eyes. At first he thought it was his imminent death from falling off the cliff, but then he realized the tears were mourning the lost mission. Talamir would be destroyed because he couldn’t force himself a few steps up a cliff. “I’m sorry. I’ve failed already.” The tears streamed down his cheeks, letting go would end it quickly. There was no need to draw this out.
Tumr’s voice had an urgent anger in it. “Shut up and look at me! Seriously. You need to focus. Try digging your feet in higher up and pushing with your legs. You shouldn’t be lifting entirely with your arms like that. Come on.”
Maedc forced himself to clear his head. His years of study helped give him a mental strength he didn’t realize he had until then. He carefully pulled his right leg up and dug the foot in. Then he did it with the left so that he squatted on the new footholds. He pushed with his legs, and it was indeed much easier. He proceeded to do this new motion a few more times. Squat, push, squat, push. He reached up for the next one and felt Tumr’s hand.
Tumr grabbed on tightly and pulled hard. Maedc struggled over the ledge and collapsed. The terror of how close he had come to death overwhelmed him, and he started to shake on the ground. He closed his eyes and curled into a ball. He had never been so thankful for solid ground under him. He wanted to lie there for the rest of the day, his body spent to the point of exhaustion.
“Look at that.” Tumr’s voice had a deep wonder to it. If it weren’t for that tone, he would have continued to lie there indefinitely. The child-like curiosity in his voice pulled him out of his daze.
“What?”
Maedc slowly uncurled and rolled to his stomach to look out over the ledge. The glory of Talamir presented itself in magnificent fashion from this height. He saw the glimmer of the city at the center and the clear rings radiating outward. The three rivers flowed toward Talamir Center and cut through the rings providing the lifeblood of Talamir. The words came out unconsciously with the same wonder Tumr had.
He said, “Wow.”
He felt a gentle kick to the side.
Tumr said, “Not that, you idiot. The other direction.”
Maedc sat up and spun around. He never could have predicted the sight. Bushes grew in Talamir, but they tended to be small and never grew next to each other. The ledge on which they sat continued outward in a semi-tunnel for about an hour’s journey until the stone opened up to a grass field which ran into a solid wall of giant bushes. These were the fabled trees that only existed in folklore.
They were gigantic and huge around as well. The branches had so many leaves that it looked like a wall of green. The branches rubbed against nearby tree branches in dense entanglement. The two sat in awe of the sight. They were the first people in recorded history to see such a sight.
Everyone knew that the distant mountains were green, but Maedc always assumed that was the grass growing on them. He never realized the mountains could be covered in trees. The notion would have been absurd a few moments ago. Now if only they could learn why the tops were white. Were there white trees out here?
“Ahh!” Tumr let out a scream and jumped toward Maedc.
“What?”
Tumr pointed at a small creature. It could be pickend up easily in one hand. It appeared to be completely covered in white hair, but why would hair grow on every part of a body? Its ears pointed up in huge triangles, and its nose was pink. It had two arms and what looked like oversized feet with no legs. It made little hops toward them.
Tumr asked, “What do you think it is? Is it safe?”
It stopped and wiggled its nose at them.
Maedc said, “I think it’s trying to tell us something. Do you think it communicates by moving its nose?” Maedc crawled toward it with a hesitant slowness. “Hey there. We don’t understand your language.”
The creature made a quick, high-pitched squeal before turning and hopping away at a surprisingly fast speed.
Tumr asked, “Should we follow it?”
“No. I’m sure we’ll encounter tons of new creatures in there.” Maedc pointed to the trees. “We should try to get to the edge before nightfall.”
They began their journey. Maedc couldn’t get the creature out of his mind.
After a few moments, he said, “It was so cute. I wonder if all the animals will be cute and try to help us like that one.”
“I hope so, but I doubt it was trying to help us. It was probably curious. Just as we’ve never seen anything like it, it has probably never seen anything like us.”
The semi-tunnel created shade from the sun, and Maedc felt relief at the coolness this brought. His sweat dried, leaving a disgusting sticky residue behind.
The cliff faces eventually lowered on the sides of them until it was all open. The bigness of the sky shocked him. He could see forever without the cliffs surrounding them. Maedc realized they would have many more hours of light than usual. His entire world had been shaped by the fact that they were enclosed by walls. The language of Talamir even used this to tell time.
When they reached the edge of the trees, Tumr asked, “Do you want to continue? It seems we’ll have longer days up here.”
“That may be true, but the trees are going to block out the sun. You can see that it’s dark in there.”
Maedc didn’t have any reason to be afraid of what they would find, but the stark difference gave him chills. He didn’t understand how there was such a sudden cutoff of light. The trees made a clean line in front of them, as if they had all been planted there. But that had to be impossible. There were so many. It would have taken years to plant them, even if a large group of people worked every day.
Tumr said, “You’re right. Let’s just set up camp here. We’ll get a fresh start in the morning.”
They pitched the tent. It went more smoothly this time now that they had some familiarity with the structure. Maedc’s body ached. He realized the lack of sleep, together with the physical activity, exhausted him. He also felt a little more secure in this unknown alcove. Knowing that they would be walking on mostly flat ground the next day was far less terrifying than the previous night, knowing they would scale a dangerous cliff.
The next morning the real journey began. According to the map, the plan was simple. They wouldn’t take the most direct path that the First Age migrants had plotted on the map. Instead, they would veer off course toward the river. Then they could follow the river until they hit what appeared to be a large rounded cliff face. If they climbed to the top, they would encounter the old settlement, or whatever was left of it.
Since the river flowed to Talamir Center, the entire journey would be a slight and steady uphill, but Maedc didn’t mind. The worst part was over. Tumr and Maedc followed the tree line for a half-day until they came to the river. The turned to follow the river, and they broke through the line of trees.
In an instant, their world was darkness. Maedc turned around and could see the brightness on the other side of the tree line. The experience was surreal. How could such a stark contrast happen in such a short distance? The ground also changed. Unlike the hard stone, mianl, or clay ground he was used to, this had a springy softness to it. Maedc’s first thought was how much nicer this would be to sleep on.
He crouched down to understand it better. He ran his hand over the ground a
nd realized it was made up of loose leaves and needles from the trees. All of the leaves had browned or decomposed, giving it the look of dirt. He dug out several handfuls and found the usual hard ground beneath it. This would make for an interesting travel experience.
His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and in silent agreement, they continued to follow the river. Tumr took the lead. Maedc lost track of time without the sun, but he guessed about an hour had passed. He looked back and could no longer see the tree line behind him. Tumr stopped, and Maedc walked right into him, not having noticed. He realized he had been looking down, watching his step the entire time. He hadn’t taken in the surroundings or how they had changed at all.
Tumr pointed ahead. The river was no longer the wide, chaotic flowing phenomenon of Talamir. Here the river was much narrower and barely seemed to be moving at all. It was easy to walk up to the edge which seamlessly transitioned to dirt.
Maedc’s eyes followed Tumr’s finger. At the edge of the river, a large animal bent over and drank from the river’s edge. It was brown with white spots and had large horns coming out of its head. Maedc began to think that all creatures in here would have ears pointing upward. It had a long face, which seemed to be mostly nose and a strange tuft of hair dangling off of its butt.
The two stared. This creature was to be feared. Unlike the tiny one they had encountered before, this one would be able to do serious damage with its hefty weight and sharp horns. Maedc thought it might be a demon. Why else would it have horns?
It perked up and looked at them. Maedc’s pulse quickened. Would it attack? Could it manipulate spior? He tried not to make any sudden movements. Tumr had other ideas. He took a step forward. Maedc couldn’t resist.
His fear overcame him, and he yelled, “No!”
The animal bolted away. The sound must have scared it. It ran in long, elegant strides. Unlike the previous animal that used a jerky hopping motion, this animal seemed to glide through whatever obstacle it came across in a smooth, continuous motion. It arced around instead of moving straight away, as if to show off a bit before leaving sight.
Tumr sounded angry. “Hey. Why’d you yell? You scared it off.”
“Because you were moving toward it. We have no idea what it’s capable of. It might have darted at us for all we knew and impaled us with those horns. That would have been the end of the journey.”
“Oh. I didn’t think of that. I just wanted to communicate.”
The fear subsided now that the animal was gone. A giddy excitement entered Maedc’s voice. “Did you see it run? That was amazing. It flowed over the ground so smoothly.”
Tumr said, “Yeah. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Day after day passed. They ran into few other animals. Most were very small and scuttled away at the sight of them. Putting up the tent and taking it down had become one smooth motion of teamwork. A full week passed. Distance was impossible to judge, but Maedc had begun to lose hope that they would ever find anything. There didn’t seem to be any signs of travel or human life.
They meandered with the river’s edge, which had become much shallower and narrower. Other smaller streams occasionally fed into it, and they had to step over or trudge through them to make progress. Maedc worried that the map was too far out of date to still be accurate. They should have reached the rounded cliff by now. Just as he was about to complain that the trip had been a waste, they came to a strange sight.
The ground sloped upward at a very steep angle, but it wasn’t a rounded cliff like they had thought from the map. It was one of the mountains they could see in the distance from Talamir.
Maedc thought with awe: we have to climb a mountain. The First Age had come from a mountain top.
This information felt wrong. In order to populate all of Talamir, as the mianl buildings indicated they had, there was no way the entirety of the First Age had originated at the top of a mountain. It would be too small a space.
Maedc breathed some relief at the realization that this meant he wouldn’t have to scale another cliff. This would be tough going, but much easier than the first day.
Maedc said, “This is it. Whatever we’re looking for is either up there or it isn’t. At least we’ll know soon.”
“Should we camp down here and try to do the trip in one day?”
“No. Let’s just go. I don’t think it’s possible to do it all in one day anyway. We’ll have to camp on the slope one way or another.”
They started the long, hard climb up the mountain. The trees started to thin, and it got colder. As the sun descended, they found a reasonably flat area and pitched the tent. The trees had thinned enough that they could now look out at the sky. The sunset took Maedc’s breath away. In Talamir, there was a sort of sunset, called First Sunset, when the sun disappeared over the cliff edge but not yet over the horizon. The cliff faces hid all the colors for Second Sunset over the horizon. Here the colors set the whole sky ablaze with a bright fire.
Maedc had a harder time sleeping than he had the previous few nights. He had grown accustomed to the gentle sound cycles of animals. He had no idea what made most of the noises, but they brought a strange comfort to know he was connected to it; that his ancestors had come from this place.
Now he feared what they would find the next day. It could be First Age ancestors who would welcome the lost tribe back. It could be violent savages who would kill the outsiders on the spot. It could be nothing, and that might be worst of all.
Whatever fears Maedc had, he didn’t have to wait until morning. A loud war cry came from outside the tent. He heard the brisk rustling of feet toward the tent. Voices spoke in a fast, foreign language.
Maedc and Tumr struggled in the darkness to peek out. Maedc got his head through the opening flap first. He found a sharp spear pointed at his face. Eight men surrounded their resting area. Now he knew the people of the First Age were savage murderers who wouldn’t stand for strange foreigners to trespass on their land.
XIII
Drystn woke in a strange place. The warmth of another body lay pressed up against him, and he realized he had spent the night in Finr’s bed. Drystn rolled into him and gave a hard squeeze. The fear and tension of the previous day all but vanished in their safe bed.
Finr looked over with groggy, half-closed eyes. He smiled and said, “Hey.”
“Good morning.” A snarl erupted from Drystn’s gut. “Sorry. I guess I’m hungry. I should get going anyway.”
They sat up, and Drystn got dressed. Finr’s smile had flattened into a sternness. “Drstyn. Our emotions were high last night. I’m not sure what this was.”
Drystn felt like the floor had vanished under him. He thought they had worked through his mistake. He felt used.
“What are you saying?”
“I don’t know.”
Drystn didn’t want to let Finr have the satisfaction of seeing him upset, so he stormed to the door as fast as he could. Finr called out, “Hey. Don’t be like that. You have to admit it’s confusing.”
Drystn didn’t think anything about the previous night was confusing. Finr had made it quite clear what he wanted.
“Sure.”
Drystn wandered to breakfast concerned about his future. He still hadn't parsed what he had heard, and now it was possible the Ruler would find out he had been involved in treason. He’d be sent to jail for the rest of his life in a best-case scenario. The mess hall looked busier than usual for breakfast. Drystn assumed the lax work schedule meant people slept in and ate breakfast at all sorts of hours. Some might even work only at night. Some, like his roommate, might never work.
Drystn scanned the room for a familiar face. Ninml and Loegr sat together at the far end of the hall. Drystn pushed through the crowd as he jogged over to their table. He didn’t feel like eating anymore. Fear about the future left him nauseas. The stench of fish tarts sickened his stomach more, and the sound of clinking utensils hit his head like a sack of rocks.
He wished they could meet so
mewhere less chaotic so he could think properly. The deafening sound stifled his thoughts. A fog had settled on Drystn’s brain when he finally got to the table. He watched the two eat in silence for a moment before he sat at the table.
He said, “So, we spied on you-know-who last night, and it sounds like there really is something to this conspiracy. You might want to reconsider joining the group.”
Ninml glanced up from her food with a surprised expression.
“What? Drystn, that’s so dangerous. How could you go through with something like that?”
Drystn looked to Loegr for help.
Loegr asked, “What exactly did you find out?”
“It wasn’t clear, because the quake interrupted everything.” Drystn paused. “And we basically got caught. But he said they had a plan and that it was 'excellent' that no one would notice the bairsgn growing.”
Loegr argued, “So you don't know what this plan was or how it related to the bairsgn?”
Drystn said, “No. But he also said something about people from the First Age.”
Ninml took interest again. She said, “What about the people from the First Age?”
“Something about making contact with them.”
Ninml said, “No way. I don’t believe you. You must have misunderstood. The First Age people haven’t been around for two thousand years. Not even the Ruler could keep such contact a secret.”
Drystn said, “Shh. Don’t say his name.”
Drystn couldn't believe it himself. It was one of the most radical things a person could say. The existence of people from the First Age was more shocking than the existence of the bairsgn.
He wanted to talk to others who had heard the conversation, but none seemed to be around. He needed confirmation on what they had heard. The encroaching crowd in the mess hall was so infuriating. Why did the crowd seem to keep getting thicker and closer to them on today of all days?