by BC Powell
She walks to the table, stands behind me, and looks at the canvas. “May I try?”
I hand her the sharpened marker while sliding my stool out of the way. She leans over the table and draws what looks like a combination of archaic cuneiform symbols and ancient Mesopotamian script. I’m surprised at how neat her writing is since she’s never used a marker before, that I know of. I remember seeing the image she’s drawing in my mind when I was twelve and the atmosphere translated the word Krymzyn for me.
“After the three points of light collided forming the plane of Krymzyn, one stayed in the land while the other two rose above,” she says when she finishes the first symbol.
“A hill of rocks rose from the north. The springs bubbled from the top and flowed down the slope until forming the river.”
“The river cut through the land but forked at the Delta.”
“At the widest points of the Delta, the Tall Hill and Traveling Hill sprung from the dirt.”
“From the flat area at the northern apex all the way to the southern tip, rolling hills rose from the ground.”
“The two parts of the river rejoined south of the Delta, and the river flowed again through the terrain.”
“The water spilled over an enormous cliff, creating the Great Falls, and rainbows spread into the air.”
“The Delta is the heart of Krymzyn,” Sash says, “and the name describes how it was formed as well as all that it embodies.”
When I was twelve, I realize, the atmosphere translated the shapes for me into the closest letters I could comprehend. And, of course, the name that was formed has seven letters.
“Where’d you learn to draw like that?” I ask.
“Watching you,” she replies with a smile.
I return her smile. “I think your perfect spectrum might have something to do with it.”
She seems to be caught off guard by my statement, with a combination of surprise and concern in place of the happiness that was on her face. “Why did you say that?”
I think for a moment before answering, not sure why she’s having this reaction. “When we found the rope in the river, Hycinthea told me your spectrum was perfect. She said it was the same as The Origin’s. Then at the Springs, she compared you to The Origin again.”
“I don’t like the comparison,” Sash quietly replies.
“Why not?”
“The Origin was part of The Beginning. The Origin has only two equals, the Tree of Vision and The Source. I’m just a Hunter of Krymzyn.”
I gently take her hand in mine. “Sash, you can’t deny that you’re more than that. Especially around me. I know you don’t like anyone mentioning how powerful you are or implying that you’re special in some way, but you are, and that’s just how it is. With me, it’s okay to talk about these things. I don’t love you because you’re the strongest or fastest or you see the future. I love you because of how I feel being with you.”
“All I want is to fulfill my purpose,” she says. “I don’t want to be someone special. I don’t want people to fear me or think I believe I’m better than they are. That’s why I don’t like to talk about it.”
“You have more humility than anyone I’ve ever known. No one would ever think you have an ego about how you are, and no one would ever think you’d use your power for anything other than helping people.”
“Like I said,” Sash replies, “I’m just a Hunter.”
“You’re a lot more to me,” I say. “You always will be.”
After the smile slowly returns to her face, she reaches her arms around my neck and kisses my lips.
Chapter 27
With the six other Travelers standing in front of me, I kneel to the ground. Before I can even ask for the sign, a rainbow of colors oscillates from my palms. Each of the Travelers glances at their hands, but no one else has the sign for the Infinite Expanse.
“One of us should have the sign to be your guide,” Larn says.
Sash’s voice whispers inside my head. “Chase, are you on the Traveling Hill?”
“Yes, Sash,” I reply, still on one knee.
“I’ll be there soon, Chase.”
Standing upright, I look at Larn. “I think Sash has the sign to be my guide.”
“That can’t be,” Larn replies. “Only Travelers are chosen as guides to the Infinite Expanse.”
“I’ve had a lot of firsts surrounding my being here, so maybe this is another.”
Larn simply nods in agreement.
A glare of light crosses a hill from the west, flashes across the meadow, and recedes into Sash. After running up the slope, she stops in front of us, holding one hand out. The same spectrum of color I have in my palm fluctuates over her skin.
“Indeed another first has occurred,” Larn says to me. “It appears Sash will be your guide.”
“What now?” I ask, not at all surprised that Sash was chosen.
“It’s up to you to choose a Gateway,” Sash answers.
“What are my options?”
“The Springs, where you may swim the waters of Krymzyn with the Serquatine,” Sash replies. “To the south are the Great Falls, where you can fly through the rainbows with the Aerodyne. To the east lie the Dunes, where you may feel the warmth of the Sand Passage protected by the Reptalients. Or to the west, the Schorachnia will escort you over the Bridge of Harmony that spans the Eternal Canyon. You can hear the music of Krymzyn.”
I’ve been to the Springs, and I’m in no hurry to return. I’ve felt plenty of warm sand in my life, so that experience isn’t anything extraordinary to me. I’m intrigued at the thought of flying on an Aerodyne, but I’ve flown in airplanes and I’ve seen beautiful waterfalls and rainbows while hiking with my family in Yosemite.
“There’s music in Krymzyn?” I ask Sash.
“The winds blowing through the Canyon create music around the Bridge of Harmony.”
In the pit of my stomach, I feel how much I miss music. While I ran miles and miles through the hills of Los Angeles, I often had earbuds in place. Working on art projects in my world, I always had music playing in the background.
“Let’s go to the Eternal Canyon,” I say.
Sash turns to Larn. “We don’t need escorts. No Murkovin can catch me, and I’ll take care of Chase.”
Larn starts to reply but stops and holds her gaze for a moment before answering, “Have a safe journey.”
Despite it violating the procedures he’s established for traveling, he’s obviously letting Sash have her way. The longer I’m with Sash, the more I realize how often the people of Krymzyn accept her will, even when it’s outside the norm. Although she genuinely doesn’t want to be perceived as different, at times, there’s no doubt she takes advantage of it.
When Sash sprints away, I follow her down the slope. She leads the way as we glide across the Delta to the gate. At the rack beside the wall, we sling sap-filled canisters over our shoulders and slip soft leathery boots on our feet.
We cross the bridge into the Barrens before briefly traveling to the north. For the first time, I walk over the bridge that spans the river above the Delta. The enormous steel arch, almost twice the size of the bridge from the Delta to the eastern Barrens, takes us into the western wasteland.
Streaming over the hills, weaving around gangly charcoal sustaining trees, and cutting around ravines, we travel almost due west. I continue to feel my speed increase each time I blend my light, and I have to guess I’m close to matching the speed of Tela and Larn. With Sash staying at my pace, I estimate that it will take us eleven hours to reach the Gateway.
Sash leads our way for the early part of the journey, but after maybe an hour passes, she slows to my side. “Stay focused. I want to try something!” she shouts.
I intensify my concentration on the beams while Sash disappears behind me. Like a gale-force wind from a hurricane, thousands of sparks suddenly sweep through me, propelling me forward with a startling rush of acceleration. Her particles tingle against mine as our spect
rums intertwine. She’s blending our light together and pulling me along for the ride of my life.
After several hours of exhilarating travel, the black dirt beneath our feet sprinkles with dark rusty red. As we continue farther west, the shapes of the hills remind me of Arizona mesas, the same coppery colors in their dirt. The light from the clouds overhead gradually tints with hues of purple and burnt orange.
Detaching her light from mine, Sash’s particles slip behind me. A few moments later, she streaks to my side.
“Stop now!” she screams.
Sash slows to a stop on top of a spice-colored hill and I coast in beside her. Panting heavily, we drop our hands to our knees, both of us with smiles on our faces.
“How did you do that?” I exclaim.
“I blended my light with yours, the same way I did when you carried me,” she replies. “I wasn’t sure it would work the way it did, but I was able to bring us both to my top speed.”
“That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt.”
“For me too,” she replies, smiling.
We drink deeply from our canisters, draining almost half—the equivalent of about three flasks of sap. Sash takes my hand, and we walk down through a narrow valley to the west and up to the top of another hill.
When we reach the crest, a soft flowing melody floats into my ears. Like a symphony of wind instruments and strings, the music is so rich and ethereal that I have to believe it would bring Mozart, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky to tears.
“The music of the Eternal Canyon,” Sash says, seeing the peaceful bliss on my face.
Half a mile of rich red dirt with a few chiseled boulders separates us from the edge of the Canyon. The strip of rust stretches along the Canyon’s edge to the north and south. Clear and loud, the music rises from the crevasse and resounds across the land. The boundary of colored lights, identical to the barrier I saw at the Springs, ripples across the sky from the center of the Canyon all the way up to the dark purple clouds above.
“Do you remember the Stone of Passage at the Springs?” Sash asks.
“Vaguely,” I reply. “I was a little out of it.”
“At each of the Gateways, on either side of the barrier, is a round rock called the Stone of Passage. It’s where you show the Guardians you have the sign for the Infinite Expanse.” She points straight ahead to a round slab of vermillion rock, maybe ten feet across, near the edge of the Canyon. “If you accompany others for their journey but you don’t have the sign, you must stay on that slab while you wait. You’re always protected from the Guardians while on the Stone, and they won’t harm you.”
“Why not wait back here?” I ask.
“As soon as we’re on red dirt, we’re in the Guardians’ domain. Just like being in the water of the river, the Guardians have the right to kill you for your blood. They can’t harm you if you have the sign for the Infinite Expanse or if you’re on a direct path to the Stone of Passage.”
“What if Murkovin come?” I ask.
“Murkovin never step foot in the Guardians’ domains. They’re not allowed access to the Infinite Expanse, and the Guardians will kill them instantly if they see them.”
With crisp purple and orange light shining from above, Sash leads me down the hill. As we cross the red dirt and walk closer the edge of the Canyon, I see enormous clumps of flowered vines growing from the ledge, similar to the bougainvillea that grew on the fence around my family’s backyard on Earth. Magenta flowers the size of large roses blossom from the purple vines that fall over the ledge and into the Canyon.
When we step onto the Stone of Passage, fifty feet in front of us is a natural rock walkway no more than two feet wide that arches over the mile-wide Canyon. Long, thin stalactites hang underneath the reddish-brown bridge, dangling fifty feet below into the open air. Each spear of stone has a series of different-sized hollow openings in the rusty-colored rock. As the winds of the Canyon blow through the holes, the sound of woodwinds resonates from the Bridge.
“The Bridge of Harmony,” Sash says to me. “The Schorachnia, the Guardians of this Gateway, control the wind just as the Serquatine manipulate water. The stones hanging from the Bridge make part of the music, while the vines brushing against one another create the rest. The Schorachnia control the melody through the force of the winds.”
“It’s the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard,” I say.
“When I’m here, I sometimes sit for half the morrow just listening. It can lure you to the edge of the Canyon if you let it. If you don’t have the sign but are here as an escort, you’re considered in the Guardians’ domain if you leave the Stone of Passage, so always be careful.”
“The same way the Serquatine tried to get me in the pool,” I say.
“And they did,” Sash replies, raising her eyebrows. “But it would be worse with the Schorachnia.”
“Why’s that?”
“They each have two tails with stingers. One of the stingers will paralyze you while the other will spin a cocoon around you. They’ll keep you alive by giving you any sap you have with you as well as nectar from the flowering vines. They’ll slowly drink your blood as long as sap remains inside your body. It may take many morrows until there’s not a trace of sap left in your veins, and you’ll suffer great mental anguish during that time.”
“That sounds pretty awful,” I reply, shivering slightly as I think about it. I look away from Sash to the edge of the Canyon again. “Where are they?”
“The Schorachnia come when they want to,” she answers. “They’re not very polite.”
“Where do they live?”
“Caves in the Canyon walls,” she answers. “Here comes one now.”
An enormous scorpion-like creature creeps over the ledge of the Canyon. Carmine colored with eight legs, the Schorachnia is at least twenty feet long from its head to the end of its body. Two long, flexible tails swing wildly from its rear, both with pear-shaped orange stingers growing from the ends.
In the front of the creature’s body, two giant pinchers at the end of crab-like arms nimbly pluck at the flowers. Fiery round eyes in a pointy triangular face intently focus on the task. Without seeming to notice us, the creature holds its pinchers over its mouth and drips liquid onto its tongue.
“Nectar seeps from the flowers,” Sash says. “They take it without ever damaging the vines. That one is called Glutano.”
“How do you know which one is which?”
“By the color of their stingers,” she replies. “The same seven colors as in the hair of the Serquatine.”
“Is it a man or a woman?” I ask.
“A male. All the Schorachnia are male, just as the Serquatine are all female.”
“Why is he ignoring us?”
“He’s not,” she answers. “He’s testing your patience.”
As though he heard me, the creature’s face suddenly juts out from his body, connected by a long scraggly neck. When he swings his head towards us, red and orange flickers inside his eyes like flames dancing over a fire. Sash holds a hand out, showing the creature the rainbow over her palm, so I do the same.
The Schorachnia turns away from us and uses his claws to pinch more beads of nectar from the flowers. After pouring the fluid into his mouth, he retracts his head into his body. I jump backwards when he suddenly spins and charges at us.
Sash grabs me by the arm. “Never show fear in front of the Guardians,” she says calmly. “Only respect.”
The creature scurries across the crumbly red dirt and slides to a stop a few feet in front of me. While his eyes study Sash, both of his tails flail in the air behind him.
“Greetings, Glutano,” Sash says, bowing. “The Traveler Chase is here to venture into the Infinite Expanse.”
The Schorachnia doesn’t answer, but I flinch again when his head springs out and stops right in front of my face. His hypnotic eyes capture mine, absorbing my mind in their flames.
“This being is not of this world,” Glutano says in a dry and c
rusty voice, as though his throat is full of dirt.
Sash squeezes my arm and turns her face to me. When I glance into her eyes, I know the look she’s giving me. She’s telling me to speak for myself.
I refocus on the Guardian. “I wasn’t born in this world,” I say, “but it’s the world I belong to now.”
Glutano holds my stare for a moment before turning to Sash. “Why are you here with him?”
“I’ve been chosen as his guide,” Sash humbly replies.
“A Traveler should be his guide!” he snaps.
“Krymzyn has chosen me,” she says.
Another Schorachnia suddenly springs over the edge of the cliff and lands in a crouch as though he might attack. Instead, he slowly saunters towards us while clicking his claws in the air. Identical to the other, except with purple stingers on the ends of his two tails, he stops directly in front of Sash.
“Greeting, Superbos,” Sash says to the creature. “I feel great honor that you grace us with your presence.” She bows deeply, so I do the same.
“Another journey for you into the Infinite Expanse?” the creature asks Sash.
“I’m always honored to venture into the land you protect,” Sash replies.
“As you should be,” Superbos replies. “Fifty-seven entries now, is it not?”
“At this Gateway,” Sash answers.
“And the other Gateways?”
“About the same number at each.”
“You have an odd obsession with the Expanse, much like the One who dwells there forever.”
“It’s not an obsession,” Sash says. “I simply want to ensure my fear is at a distance.”
“So it seems,” Superbos replies.
“I’m honored when you provide passage to me,” she says. Then she turns her head to Glutano. “If you need more nectar before escorting us, we’ll wait for you.”