By her.
By me.
The Amkradus held promise. Vast promise. Surely the Kel of old saw that. Fought to their ultimate destruction to suppress it. The Codex Amkradus could give anyone power, or so it was said. The priestess meant to bring that power to all. If Cee were to possess that knowledge exclusively …
The Codex is out there. If the girl the Bok mentioned truly was the herald, if the Prophecy were real—an increasing likelihood—then the girl would know things. Whether consciously or not, if she were the one predicted …
Cee’s thoughts were now so firmly fixed on the potential of this that she found herself unable to turn her mind to anything else. I could be as a god, the idea of it rushed through her, recollections of forbidden legends, an involuntary shudder sweeping over her.
It snapped her to the moment. The pause had stretched too long and she felt the stares of those around her; knew they’d seen the shiver.
But how could she possibly? How could she explore any of these things, these tantalizing possibilities, without triggering the very outrage she’d fostered across the entirety of the Kel? The very rules, the condemnation against this very thing she herself worked so hard to enforce? The mere suggestion of any of which blasphemed the One True God, the penalty of which was death—as decreed by her, in her own mandates.
The very laws she herself has set down as inviolable.
In secret, of course. That was the answer. Absolute, carefully coordinated secret. Showing her people one thing, doing quite another.
“As I say,” Lorenzo filled the awkward silence, “we know who the girl is.” Damningly Cee couldn’t seem to refocus the tactics of the current dialogue. At the moment she was speechless. “In turn we believe she knows, or will know, as the Prophecy says, where the Codex has been hidden.”
Cee inhaled steadily.
She had to speak against it, at least with this audience. In front of them there must not be even a hint of her true ambition.
“We must ensure the Codex is not allowed to be known,” she said, making her voice firm. “We dare not allow it.” Then: “You’ve identified the herald,” she spoke directly to Lorenzo. “You have encountered her. Where is she?”
Lorenzo nodded, as if to confirm the truth of what he was about to say.
“We know where to find her.”
**
In all the distance they’d covered they met no other travelers, passed no settlements, no towns or even farms. Just beautiful, unspoiled lands and wilderness. That was changing as they neared the outer boroughs of the port district, first seeing some patches of farmed land, then people, then horses and carts as those other travelers came in on different paths; paths that soon became roads, converging on the city itself.
Jess felt safe astride Erius, switching to a normal but more stable sitting position as they neared civilization. She nodded now and again to passing groups on foot or other riders, none even close to as high as she was off the ground. Even a wagon that rolled by, the driver seated on a ledge at the front like a stagecoach, was beneath her. That man looked up as they passed, probably used to looking down from the carriage, eyes going suddenly wide as Eriuses’ full height penetrated his apathetic guidance of the team of horses.
She smiled down at him as they continued on.
Galfar made the occasional comment to this or that person in the local language, friendly hellos to strangers, most of the people just as hospitable in return. Haz was silent, of course, being the moody boy he was, barely aware of anyone outside his own personal space. He continued riding further behind and Jess continued to mostly ignore him.
Then a large set of sails in the distance caught her eye, rising high above the structures of the city.
Having expected the local sailing ships to be some form of wooden things with masts and/or oars—just like what she was used to from Earth history books—what she saw was a mild shock. It wasn’t that they weren’t wooden or with masts or sails, they were, it was just …
They were so different.
Everything else on that world so far matched the old-stuff paradigm; Earth-like huts, wooden and straw shacks, brass weapons and tools, horses and carts, roads and pathways and even basic clothing. None of it unusual, none of it particularly alien.
Now these ships. They were suddenly the most impressive thing she’d seen.
She craned her neck to see over the intervening obstructions. Slowly her little group rounded the bend, horses clip-clopping steadily along the road, moving past a cluster of archaic mud-brick two- and three-floor buildings blocking her full view until … she was able to see the port and the ships in their entirety. Waterline to tip of tallest sail, sitting flush against the wooden docks. Activity bustled around the behemoths, people and crates and carts and horses everywhere, the ships absolutely dominating the scene.
The hulls were so tall! Soaring above the water, forming an almost rectangular aspect from the rear, long as they stretched toward the bow. Like the shape of a shoebox turned on its edge and laid lengthwise. With that much above the waterline the draft on them had to be tremendous. Each had about eight or nine deck levels, the uppermost a good eighty or more feet above the water. They looked to be made mostly of wood so that much was as expected—must take a forest to make each one—but the sails stuck off to the side in mighty pairs. Like the hull itself the sail arrangement was like nothing from ancient Earth. Whereas old Earth ships had hulls closer to the water with masts towering above their decks, these were the opposite. Towering hulls and short masts, sails that jutted wide from the sides.
The ships were giants.
There were three of them berthed, one more out on the water in the distance, looking as if it were underway leaving port. The city so far, while big, hardly seemed big enough to handle enough commerce to warrant such waterborne monsters.
Immensely fascinated Jess stared at them all the way until they were past and she found herself looking backwards. When she caught Haz in her peripheral view she turned ahead smoothly and, with a sudden craving, reached in a pouch and pulled out one of the cinnamon sticks. Haz had been handing them out now and again along the way. She examined it, stuck it in her mouth and bit down. Sliding it to one side she began the idle gnawing that, throughout the journey, had become so distracting—and tasty.
The sticks were a perfect traveling companion.
The dirt road turned to cobblestone as they continued into the city core. Her head was on a swivel as they ambled along, Eriuses’ heavy hooves grinding the stones with each step. Galfar continued his meandering path up ahead; always on the road but forever weaving this way and that as he led them toward their destination. His horse was young and healthy so Jess could only imagine it was responding somehow to the old man’s own mental gait, walking with the staff, which was probably ingrained within him. At any rate she doubted the horse would appear that drunk without Galfar riding it.
Behind them—furtively she glanced over her shoulder—behind them Haz followed far enough away that occasionally other travelers occupied the space between. He’d stopped playing the guitar sometime back, since before the city came into view, and now looked to be working on something in his lap. When she glanced his eyes were down, hands working at whatever it was, paying no attention to the world around him.
Buildings and alleys rose up as they pressed deeper into the sprawl. The structures might've been considered hovels or slums in a different setting or another timeframe, but here they were new enough, most clean and tidy, in use and well kept. A sense of industriousness was everywhere. The better structures were made of block, the most basic of wood, all of them of an ancient design and construction yet not old. Many in fact were very new. Reminding her just how far behind this world was in terms of technology.
They’d been on the road a while, covering what was probably a distance that could’ve been done in a few days in a car. Physical barriers of miles that meant nothing in a modern age, so formidable in a setting like this. All
around them were more and more people, more and more variety. It was a new stimulus after the relative barrenness of the open road. She noticed domesticated animals, not unlike weird looking cows, being herded along a street.
The animals of this world were not so different from the ones of Earth. They were hairy and mammals, some big, most small, a few with horns; the world had birds and bugs and what looked to be lizards. Almost like the difference between what might’ve been an ancient Australia and the rest of the world. Kangaroos were odd, but in the end related. It felt kind of like that. The most interesting thing so far had been a herd of what she could’ve sworn were mastodons, complete with long swooping tusks, up on a set of hills far away in the distance.
She shifted the stick around her mouth and chomped harder, sipping back the juices that squeezed out. There had to be caffeine or something in it. A stimulant of some kind.
They were so damn addictive.
Earlier that day at their last roadside break she’d had a little force battle with Haz, at the insistence of Galfar. Until then he’d been training her in the refinement of the skill, not really indicating any purpose for it other than the obvious: How awesome was it to be able to move things with your mind? You didn’t need a reason to learn it. There were a million things you could do with something like that.
However, cool as it was it took great concentration, focus, and the results were a bit haphazard and, now that she’d been doing it, kind of less than impressive. If one of her friends from school saw her do it they’d probably fall over, sure, but when you got right down to it she, so far, hadn’t moved anything more than a few pounds, and certainly not with any finesse.
But today Galfar began showing her how to use it to fight. A situation that required much quicker focus, no time to concentrate; you had to aim and direct fast. Haz wasn’t much better than her, remarkably—certainly not as dynamic as the Bok had been in their use of it when they fought Zac. She actually moved Haz once, knocked him down on another occasion (when he was already off balance) and the results gave her a surge of confidence. Haz’s own performance hadn’t been as good, though he did manage to bat her around. The effects were strange. Exactly like being shoved or even hit, like a punch or a kick, but the feel was something very different. Whereas a punch or a kick connected with the skin, transferring energy inward to muscle and bone, the energy imparted by this sort of mental focus sprang from within. Reversed, in a way. If the blow was directed to the shoulder, for example, you felt as if a magnet had taken hold of everything in the shoulder—like a little sphere of energy blooming inside—then shoved you in whatever direction was intended. She got the idea with practice other uses could be employed; crushing organs, snapping bones. She tried to recall back to what it felt like when Lorenzo sent her flying. That whole moment had been such a blur it was almost blocked from her memory.
She noticed Galfar had fallen back and was slowing to parallel her. In the crowds and consumed by her own introspection she hadn’t noticed him changing position. He slowed until he was directly alongside, then looked up.
“I’ve been talking to you in your mind for some time now,” he said. “Have you absorbed our language?”
She scoffed. “I don’t think so.” She was about to finish with something like “You need years to learn a language”—when she realized she’d just spoken aloud, and so had he.
And not in English.
Erius snorted in reaction to her shock. Her ears began to ring. The crowds had gotten thicker, entering the heart of the city, conversations and shouts and all manner of hubbub part of the background and she hadn’t been paying attention to any of it. When Galfar spoke his voice was one of the many and it didn’t even strike her at first that he was speaking aloud. “I …” she fumbled. Back on the road, just the three of them speaking silently in each other’s heads for so long …
The echo of his real voice pounded in her ears.
She snapped her eyes to his, wide in disbelief.
“Do you hear those around you?” he asked, speaking aloud again.
She did.
I do!
Conversations. Everywhere.
And she could understand them.
“This is the language of the priestess,” Galfar told her. “That language has endured. We all speak it.”
The language of the priestess …
And suddenly she recognized it.
Everyone is speaking Kel.
And so was she.
She nearly fell. Erius slowed and shimmied under her in the direction she leaned, as if trying to prevent it. She reached and grabbed an unsteady handful of mane. Bunched it tightly in her fist.
From all she’d learned she already knew Aesha had been Kel, that she formed the Bok, brought them to Earth using the Icons and everything else that went wrong with those plans. The Great Wars collapsed what was probably a wide-reaching Kel empire and this world right here could’ve been part of it. They still spoke Kel.
I speak Kel.
It was nearly too much.
In a minor daze she hazarded a few simple sentences, practicing with Galfar as they continued to the docks, not really saying much but finding she was fluent in every way. This, too, had that same feeling of cascading recollection, and as the thought of that hit her, the idea that, as with everything else, she might be remembering not learning—that she didn’t just learn Kel, she already knew Kel, and it had just been jarred free—she had to grip even tighter to poor Erius, squeezing at his mane with both hands, holding so hard she was sure it must hurt, even as the ringing in her ears intensified and she began to feel truly dizzy.
How?!
It was a question for which she despaired there would never be an answer.
At length they reached one of the mighty ships. Galfar arranged passage. They took their horses to stalls below, went to their quarters with their goods, Jess excused herself and went topside and, leaning over the high railing, so many decks above the waterline, she watched as they cast off and were underway.
Wrestling with this frightening, expanded view.
Time until that moment seemed as if frozen. During the boarding Haz was, to his own dismay, nearly as impressed as she was with her mastery of the language—though he admirably maintained the aloofness he’d been working on so hard. He continued propping up the “couldn’t be more bored” attitude and it most likely wasn’t an act. Jess was sure he really was every bit as bored as he looked.
And so when he came to her where she stood, alone at the railing, digesting all this, harnessing her wildly rushing thoughts, the port clear in the near distance as it moved slowly away, people and materials rushing to and fro in service of the other ships still docked, she was startled by his arrival.
He leaned on the railing beside her, sunset casting his profile in orange light. That close and in that moment of tranquility she was able to make a better gauge of him. Haz was handsome, and from the looks of his features would continue to grow into that handsomeness. Green eyes and a nice face. He was as tall as her, maybe a little taller, probably about as heavy; lean, ropey muscles. As yet she didn’t know his Earth-age equivalent, nor might she ever, but for sure he was a few years younger.
He turned a little, not really looking at her, reached in a pouch on his tunic and produced … a ring of flowers. White and yellow, woven with green stems. She recognized the flowers from the day before, wild flowers that had been growing along the trail.
He handed it to her.
She hesitated, not expecting something like this, not at all and especially not from him, then realized she needed to do something and reached for it. She took the delicate ring and Haz went back to looking over the railing, out to sea. As he gazed into the breeze she studied the necklace-sized circle. He’d fashioned it, she was sure, and as she held it with both hands and looked it over she remembered him working something in his lap as he rode. This must’ve been it.
>
She looked at him. He was back to being indifferent. Only now she saw he was putting on an act. Protecting himself, in case she didn’t like it. But she did like it. Carefully she found the joining part, opened it and put it around her neck. It fit perfectly, almost like a choker, snugly around the exact circumference of her neck. She hooked it in the back, made sure it would stay and lowered her hands.
“How does it look?” she asked, practicing the language.
He spared a fleeting glance.
“Fits,” he said. “I wasn’t sure it would fit.” Then his eyes were back out over the water.
Jess took that for what it was worth and decided not to say any more. There was no point anyway. Haz would probably just become more rude, not less.
So she turned beside him and tried to focus on the gift. Face in the wind, hair blowing at a gentle whip, feeling the petals of the soft flowers fluttering lightly against her skin, gazing out toward the horizon.
Sailing into the sunset just like any other romantic scene.
CHAPTER 30: OUT TO SEA
Galfar steered them toward the bonfire. Jess found it odd to have such a large fire raging on a wooden ship, but apparently here it was quite normal. Many of the passengers were on the upper deck, high above the water, out in the fresh night air beneath the stars enjoying the camaraderie of strangers that shared a common journey, laughing and talking and having a good time. She inhaled deeply of the strong sea breeze. It had the same fishy, salty smell of any ocean of Earth, and had so far been bringing back all sorts of memories of trips to the beach.
Star Angel: Rising (Star Angel Book 4) Page 33