Iliona and the resumption of ties

by Ariane Souza

  “If you could do this faster, it would be great,” Winda suggested, observing the shaking shelves.

  “What do you think it happened?” Zian whispered toward Muriel, but Ed heard him still and answered through clenched teeth:

  “Treason, that’s what happened. Someone wanted to catch us off guard.” Then he opened his eyes and said, “Irc Mariesa.” And they saw a tiny blue spark followed by the sound of a nil being opened, the sound similar to a paper being torn. “It’s done.” He said.

  “What about Bob and my parents?” Timothy said toward Muriel, in frustration.

  However, the timers had already started the lyric.

  “We don’t have time for that!” Ed said entering the nil.

  “We have to go now,” Zian said toward him, following Ed.

  Then Tevis and Winda disappeared next, and Muriel grabbed Timothy’s hand and pulled him into the nil with her.

  Oblivion Song

  When all the red speakers had risen all over Nagranto, and many people had left their homes to look at them, curious, including Timothy’s parents, the humming reached its apex and stopped.

  And the silence that came after it was a deep, almost deafening one.

  The straws on the roof of the gazebo behind Timothy’s house weren’t swaying anymore, nor the flaps of the window in his attic. The willow in front of Bob’s ceased throwing its leaves away for a while. People in Nagranto’s downtown were looking up at the speakers, from the middle of the streets or their windowpanes. Some of them noticing the slow gathering of clouds. All of them were waiting.

  Then a single acute voice, coming from all the speakers, ended the silence. Singing with no background music:

  Sweet and lightly our words dive,

  Flooding your mind’s pond.

  With no need to resist, with no need to deny,

  Binding your attention to this song.

  Listen carefully. Do not miss a thing.

  And follow the instructions we once will sing.

  Find a shelter, a cozy nest

  Find somewhere for a deep rest.

  Park your car and freeze your day,

  Your past is now our clay.

  A masterpiece made to last,

  Lulled by the chorus that comes next.

  Several voices started singing along with the first one, then, accompanied by violins and xylophones. And a bass drum that only appeared by the end of each “Hey Ow”:

  Hey Ow, Hey Ow!

  Together we sing,

  Performing the given task.

  Hey Ow, Hey Ow!

  To change the memories within.

  Hey Ow, Hey Ow!

  About Iliona you shall never ask.

  A song inside your mind you can’t undo,

  A melody, soft and kind.

  Hey Ow, Hey Ow!

  Making you forget about ilions, nils and twonds too.

  Hey Ow, Hey Ow!

  Iliona you shall never find.

  Hey Ow, Hey Ow!

  About fake stars and matmit gas, you shall unlearn,

  And about Iliona you shall never concern.

  Hey Ow, Hey Ow!

  Also to Iliona you shan’t go.

  Hey Ow, Hey Ow!

  Nothing you’ll know about timers and Iliona winged pets,

  Be the one whom about Iliona one always forgets.

  And if it all you understood just sing along,

  The last verses of this oblivion song :

  This melody inside my mind I did not deny.

  Hey Ow, Hey Ow!

  And when I wake up again, I’ll remember only the memories it did not rhyme.

  The timers stopped singing and playing. And the last verses of the song were repeated by the inhabitants of Nagranto only, whose voices echoed everywhere in the town, making the trees in the forest shudder.

  All of them were backing to inside their homes or shelters while singing it, lying somewhere comfortable. Then finally sleeping.

  For the ones who could not hear it, an acute buzzing of a whistle came after the singing, also through the speakers. Making their skin to shiver because that special whistle improved the vibrations of the words the timers had just sung. In a way that even if the music hadn’t reached the ears, the rest of the body would feel it anyway, and the singing would achieve its goal still. After that, all the inhabitants of Nagranto were inside their shelters to slumber.

  Just silence followed that, and the clouds gathered faster as if rushing to start another storm.

  Part 2

  “I’ll teach you something, Kid.” Ed started:

  “It’s very rude to stare at others like this.”

  13

  Concentration and Broken Bones

  It was late at night in Iliona City, and Tris was sitting by the lake in the main square. She had long curly hair, which length finished some inches beyond her shoulders, gray and pale, almost white, although the features on her face showed youth. She was wearing black pants, and a white blouse and her dark boots were touching the surface of the lake water. Suddenly a different movement above the center of the pond called her attention.

  That’s the inconvenient part about opening nils when you’re not an advanced level timer or when something made you too rushed to concentrate: they can open anywhere. Therefore, even if you opened it at Winda’s, the other end of it could be above a lake in Midnight Iliona City. That’s how they arrived on the other side, wet and heaped upon one another.

  “I guess I broke my finger,” Tevis announced painfully, under Winda, who was under Muriel. They were trying to get disentangled. Ed was under Timothy, whose right leg was over Zian. Who fell on his back, and after a moment facing Iliona’s fake stars, he was the first one to notice the person by the lake.

  Luckily, the lake’s area they fell into wasn’t a deep one, so the water was at their knees level.

  “Do we know her?” Zian asked toward Muriel. The others looked around to see to whom Zian was referring. Nevertheless, Tris just stared back at them. Tevis’ finger was indeed broken, it was his left pointing finger, and it was swelling.

  Tris stood up when all the others were already standing. She was just a bit shorter than Timothy, but he thought she looked like a kid.

  “Who are you?” Ed asked her, moving slowly to the lake’s border. And when he was close enough of it, he stopped stumped because by the white light coming from a nearby lamp he could see her pupils had the same shape of his.

  Instead of answering him, though, she took a cell phone out of her pocket, dialed some numbers, and waited for someone to answer. When she started talking they could hear the words “backup” and “runners” coming from her mouth.

  “Great,” Ed sarcastically mumbled with himself. Then he closed his eyes and began to concentrate again, trying to overcome the shock he had when noticing a child was already a timer. With closed eyes already, he turned to the others and said:

  “I forgot to mention before, but the timers of Iliona City received orders to detain whoever crossed nils during the singing.”

  “Timer? That child?” Zian asked with undisguised surprise.

  At that point, Tris was wearing a tiny smile on her face, because such bewilderment was a compliment to her.

  “Yes, I’m a timer.” She started with a velvety voice. “And ‘till second orders you’re all arrested for posterior verification.”

  “What?” Winda reacted. “Ed, can’t you talk to her?” However, he was with his eyes closed trying to focus in somewhere else to open another nil. “Ed!” She shouted as he didn’t answer.

  He opened his eyes again;

  “I’m also a timer, and I’m aware of the procedures, but…”He turned to Tris, speaking impatiently, as he already did not believe he could convince her.

  “Stop.” She interrupted him. “If you try to convince me of ignoring the orders, this will just worsen your situation.”

  “What situation?” Winda screamed at her. “We just got in here!”

  �
�I knew it. The best we can do right now is to get another nil. If they arrest us now, it can take some time to get rid of them later.” Ed said to Winda, still impatient, closing his eyes again.

  It was Timothy’s first time in Iliona City. And despite what was going on, he was fascinated with its dark sky full of fake stars, which shone brighter than the small and real ones he had in his world.

  “We’re nil keepers, my mate and I.” Zian pointed to Tevis who was using his healthy hand to protect his broken finger. “We’re not runners.”

  “So, where do you come from?” Tris asked poignantly.

  “We’re coming from a city near Nagranto.” Muriel lied, as Zian took too long to answer.

  “Really?” The smile deepened on her face. “So, how come you’re with Edgar Indigo, a timer assigned to be in Nagranto?”

  By the sound of his full name, Ed opened his eyes again, peeved. However, despite his irritation, he did not turn to her; he kept his eyes focused on some point in front of him:

  “Irc Mariesa.” He pronounced it, and then the sound of a paper being torn followed the small blue spark that appeared. The nil was open.

  “Ed, we don’t have to go. We didn’t do anything wrong.” Zian said toward him. But others started to appear around the lake, very likely the backup Tris had mentioned before, making him change his mind.

  “I’m going in,” Ed announced. Tris rushed to inside the lake to stop him. But she was late. Ed went first, then Winda, then Zian and Tevis, and at last, Timothy and Muriel. She tried to follow them, but when she arrived at where they had been, the nil was already closed.

  “So, Mr. Indigo has some remarkable skills, just as I was told.” She said to herself. Then turning to the ones she had called, she added:

  “They got to get away again, but they will have to back sometime. ‘Till there we can wait.” She said, getting out of the lake.

  *

  “Oh! My finger!” Tevis wailed because he had fallen over his broken finger again. Then he added toward Ed, sitting and looking around:

  “Really? The Grooves Valley?”

  “It was the best I could manage with that insolent timer and the short time.” He replied, standing up.

  “Are we still in Iliona City?” Timothy asked, standing up too. Big pinkish clouds hovered in the dark sky, among the fake stars, and there was no light poles. They were in total darkness but for the glow of the fake stars, barely seeing one another.

  “Yes, we are. It’s the coldest and windiest part of Iliona City.” Tevis said, beginning to shrug due to the cold increased by his wet clothes.

  The Grooves’ Valley was indeed Iliona’s coldest and windiest area. Surrounded by rugged hills, the valley was full of deep crevices on its grounds, which by the dim light of the fake stars, looked like dark and crooked lines scratching the floor.

  “Can they come after us here?” Timothy asked.

  “No, I already closed the nil,” Ed answered him, without giving much importance to the matter.

  “We have to get out of here, or we’ll freeze,” Winda said also shrugging. Zian tried to turn on his cell phone, but it was to no use because the lake water had ruined it.

  “Do you think you can open another nil?” He asked toward Ed who was lost in his thoughts about the childish timer.

  “Ed?” Muriel called him, as there was no reply.

  “Hmm, Oh sure, well, of course, I just need to…”

  But a loud whiff interrupted him. Then they saw two blue flashlights down the hills ahead of them, and heard a voice coming from the same direction that said:

  “Who is there?”

  And Tevis mumbled still protecting his finger that was very swollen by that moment: “Oh C’mon, not again.”

  “Nense?” Zian called back, squinting to see better the surroundings.

  “Oh, great Zian. Now they know where we are. Since when Nense has such a deep voice?” Tevis said disappointingly toward him.

  “It could be one of her helpers, we never know.” Zian excused himself.

  “Ed now’s a very good time to start concentrating again,” Muriel suggested.

  “The caves around here still abandoned, right?” Winda asked them, referring to the caves made into the hills’ stones, long time ago, to house timers during their training. Nonetheless, training in that area under such conditions was considered abusive to the apprentices not long ago, and all the caves were emptied and closed.

  The whiff came again when she finished talking, followed that time by the sound of a large amount of air displacement that even increased the wind hitting their faces.

  “I don’t think what is making these whiffs would fit in one of those caves,” Tevis said looking up and getting closer to the others.

  “Ed, could you go faster?” Zian said, also looking up.

  “It’s not like I’m delaying on purpose.” He answered impatiently, closing his eyes.

  A spot of blue light started to appear in the cliff in front of them. “Irc Mariesa,” he said, and the sound of a paper being torn followed it. There was a large groove separating them from the nil. They would have to jump.

  “That’s the best I can do right now, after spending so much energy,” Ed announced, pointing to the nil in front of them.

  “Well, it’s better than stay here and freeze with whatever is flying around us,” Winda said.

  “Let’s jump, then,” Zian said as much as to encourage himself.

  A silhouette of something long and winged passed above them, increasing the wind gust. But it wasn’t just that, the creature had long ramifications on its back, similar to the branches of a tree.

  “Sower Dragons,” Zian said to the others, sill looking up.

  “But it’s too cold in here for them, and there are too narrow passages in which they could be stuck in, they don’t come here,” Muriel commented.

  “Sower Dragons or not, I rather get out of here,” Winda said, preparing to jump.

  Ed went behind her, then Timothy, Muriel, and Zian, but when it was Tevis’ turn the creature flew very close to him making him slip down the hill. He slid ‘till he held on to the hill’s border with his healthy hand, while the rest of his body swayed upon the dark emptiness below.

  “Hang on!!” Zian yelled at him from the cliff on which they had just jumped.

  “I’m sliding!” Tevis shouted in return.

  The others could just scarcely see his swaying silhouette.

  Ed fell on the floor.

  “What?” Muriel asked, noticing one of them had fallen.

  “I won’t get to maintain the nil open for too long. I’m getting a bit dizzy here.” Ed said, slowly standing up again, shivering due to the cold.

  “I can’t hold on much longer!” Tevis screamed, his fingers were starting do slide indeed, and his broken finger was aching very much. When the winged creature passed near him again, he dropped his grip.

  “Tevis!” Zian screamed in desperate when he saw the descending figure of his cousin.

  But Tevis fell on the creature’s back. Then it flew further and further from where Zian and the others were.

  “Is he still in there?” Winda asked, squinting because she could not see well.

  “No, he fell on the dragon’s back. Can’t believe he’s not with us.” Zian commented, sadly.

  “We can contact Nense as soon as we get phones that are not soaked,” Muriel said trying to cheer him up, but she was worried too.

  “I suggest we go now, then,” Ed said, with a tired voice.

  “We can’t leave him here!” Zian protested.

  “We can’t fly that thing and take him back. And I don’t know how to attract dragons nor to fight them. My energy is being drained here, so if you don’t want to go, I’m not pulling you into the nil. But I’m not staying here either.” Ed said, losing his patience but not screaming still.

  “Let’s go Zian,” Winda said, touching his shoulder. “We can’t do much, right now. And if we stay and freeze in here, th
en we’ll not be able to do anything at all.”

  They could hear the sound of Timothy’s chin trembling.

  Zian nodded, forlornly convinced, Winda was right. He looked up once more, but he saw no sign of the sower dragon.

  They crossed the nil, leaving the Grooves Valley behind. It would not take long for them to be back, though. Nevertheless, they did not know it at the time.

  14

  Nense and the Cosmians

  Deep down among the grooves of the valley, which was bathed in a night blue, there was not only empty caverns and unknown voices but also the valley’s guard keepers. Nense was one of them, the oldest in her work. That’s, by the way, another curiosity about ilions: they can live longer than humans can. They can easily reach one hundred and forty years, for example. In Nense’s case, she was one hundred.

  Then, her hair was dark gray, and some wrinkles were already starting to mark her eyes corners and forehead.

  The guard keepers were scattered across the Grooves Valley inside of watch centers: there was one center in the North, other in the South, West, and East of the valley. They took turns during the week, and on the day Tevis was carried away by a sower dragon, it was Nense’s workday. Her watchpoint was in the south, just near where Tevis climbed down from the sower dragon’s back when it landed to take a nap.

  The backs of the sower dragons, though, are not like the ones of regular dragons. They have structures on them very similar to trees, which ramify in branches. When these dragons fly in a certain height, the fake stars get entangled in their branches. That’s how the sower dragons get to feed themselves: using their long and slim tongue, they eat the fake stars that get trapped in their back.

  For many years, the ilions used them in the fake stars harvests. Nevertheless, as there were too many ilions to feed, the dragons grew exhausted and, eventually, many of them perished from exhaustion. Then, it was prohibited to use them for this finality any longer. There was already Iliona’s equipment they built for this purpose, instead.