Revelation: The Todor Trilogy, Book One

by Jenna Newell Hiott

  His mother finally unwrapped the object completely and Gemynd could see that it was a shortknife, a dagger. The blade was not quite a hand long, and it was joined to a beautiful golden handle that was completely covered in jewels. The jewels were laid out in exquisite patterns and designs, their colors playing perfectly against one another. It was the loveliest thing Gemynd had ever seen.

  In tiny letters, words were stamped down the center of the blade. Gemynd did not recognize the first word, so he spelled it out. “G-O-L-A-T-H, hero of Aerie,” he said, finishing the inscription.

  “Golath,” his mother said. “That’s your father’s name.”

  Slowly Gemynd reached out and touched the knife with his finger. “Did father ever touch this knife too?”

  His mother nodded. “He held it in his hands just once. The same way he held you just once. You and this dagger are all that I have left of him.”

  Gemynd ran his finger down the center of the blade and across the jewel-encrusted handle. He had expected the jewels to feel rough or sharp, but they were smooth and cold like river stones. He wrapped his fingers around the handle and squeezed it, hoping to feel some trace of his father there. It was an object he knew his father had touched. Surely there was still a trace of him left on it. Maybe if he held it long enough, he would know at least a tiny bit of his father. “I wish father was here, right now,” he said, still holding tight to the knife.

  “So do I,” his mother said and a tear spilled from her eyelid.

  “Why did he leave?” Gemynd asked, though he was afraid to hope for an answer. He had asked this same question thousands of times before.

  But this time, Gemynd’s mother wiped her cheek with the back of her hand then looked right into Gemynd’s eyes. “After he created the cliffs, Golath came back for me. I was still in the grip of birthing pains so he fetched the healers and together we all brought you into the world. From the moment I first saw you, I knew you were exactly like your father,” she said.

  “I am?” Gemynd asked, swelling with pride.

  “You look just like him,” his mother answered. “And you are smart and brave like him too. You may even be smarter, though only time will tell that for sure.”

  Gemynd smiled and looked down at the knife that he now held in his own lap. Golath, hero of Aerie. That was his father. And he was just like him. “I bet he’d be happy to know that I’m just like him,” Gemynd said.

  “I have no doubts about that,” his mother replied. “After you were born and wrapped in a cloth, the healers handed you to your father. I’ll never forget that image. He was so handsome and so full of Joy as he held you and studied everything about you. But it lasted only a moment.”

  “Is that when he left?” Gemynd asked, confused that his father would leave right after holding him.

  “No, not right then,” she answered. “The Keepers came to the sleeping house to perform a welcoming blessing for you and to present your father with this dagger. It was done in the privacy of the sleeping house because, as you know, here in Aerie everything belongs to everyone. It would not do for the people of Aerie to know that the Keepers had given your father something that belonged only to him. After all, it even has his name on it.”

  “It could disrupt the Joy if the people knew he had something that they didn’t,” Gemynd said, wanting to show his mother how much he understood.

  “That’s right,” she said. “And so your father held the dagger and admired it for several moments. Then he set it on the floor next to the bedsack. He leaned over and kissed you and then kissed me. I will never forget his words then. He said, ‘If I didn’t love you as much as I do, I would force you to go with me. But Aerie is no longer my home. I must go.’ And just like that, he turned and walked from the sleeping house and I never saw him again.”

  Gemynd wrinkled his brow. He thought he would have been filled with Joy to finally hear the story he’d longed for. But it had only made his mind ask more questions. Where was his father going? Why didn’t his mother go with him? Why was Aerie no longer his home? Was his father still alive? But the sad look on his mother’s face made him keep all his questions inside. All but one. “Did he love us, Mama?”

  His mother pulled Gemynd tightly against her. “He did,” she said. “I’m certain of that.”

  “But maybe he just didn’t love us enough to stay,” Gemynd said, still trying to make sense of his father’s leaving.

  His mother sighed and kissed him on the top of the head. “It really is time for us to get to the Eating House,” she said. “So let us put the dagger away.”

  Gemynd looked at the knife in his lap and reflexively tightened his grip on it. It was the only thing in the world that he knew for sure his father had touched. It had his father’s name on it. How could he put it away now? “Can’t I take it to breakfast and discipleship?” he pleaded. “Just to show Numa and Soman? And then we can put it away.”

  “Gemynd,” his mother replied in a tone full of warning. “We cannot tell anyone about the knife. Not ever. The right thing would have been for me to return it to the Keepers when your father left. It does not belong to me and it does not belong to you. We should only have things that belong to everyone in Aerie. But I cannot bear to part with it for it is the one thing that connects me to Golath. So we must keep it hidden and never tell anyone. Do you understand?”

  “Must we keep everything about father a secret?” Gemynd asked, desperately wanting to tell his friends that his father was a true hero.

  “No,” his mother answered. “You can tell Numa and Soman about your father saving Aerie. Just promise me that you won’t say a word about the dagger. Can you promise me that?”

  Gemynd nodded and reluctantly handed his mother the knife. She wrapped it up in its leather bundle then walked to the piece of polished tin on the wall. She moved the tin aside and Gemynd was surprised to see a hole cut in the wall behind it. He never knew that was there before. With quick movements, his mother stuffed the bundle in the hole and put the tin back in place. “Ready for breakfast?” she asked, leading the way outside.

  The sunlight pierced Gemynd’s eyes as it always did when he first stepped outside and he squinted against the brightness. In the distance he could hear the stones of the oil press rolling against each other and he could smell the smoke from the cooking fire at the Eating House.

  “Joyous day, Molly and Gemynd,” a woman said as she crunched along the footpath towards them. “And happy Feast of Sevens to you!”

  Gemynd opened his eyes and smiled. “Joyous day,” he replied and recognized the woman as Saran. She was one of the best weavers in Aerie and her sleeping house was next to theirs.

  “Are you looking forward to this afternoon’s festivities?” she asked.

  Gemynd nodded. “I wish we could skip discipleship and go straight to the parade.”

  The woman laughed, although Gemynd had not meant it to be funny. Then she turned to his mother. “Molly, would you have time to help me at the loom for a bit this morning? Gracewyn and Felyse are needed to fill oil lamps for the feast today.”

  “Certainly,” Gemynd’s mother answered. “I’ll come after breakfast service.”

  “I heard that the food for today’s feast is going to be so wondrous we will all talk about it for a long time to come,” Saran said.

  Gemynd heard his mother say something in reply, but his mind was back on the dagger. He wanted to hold it once again. He felt that he was close to his father when he held it and now that it was back in the hole in the wall, he felt lonely. Gemynd looked over his shoulder at the doorskin of their sleeping house, trying to gauge how many steps it would take to reach it. He glanced back at his mother and saw that she was still in conversation with Saran. So he took a chance and dashed back into the sleeping house.

  As fast as his fingers could manage, Gemynd moved the piece of tin, pulled the leather bundle from the hole in the wall and unwrapped the dagger. The dagger had no sheath, so Gemynd was very careful as he tuc
ked it into the waistband of his breeches. He placed the leather wrapping back in the hole, put the tin just as it had been before and ran back outside.

  As he stepped from the doorway, he saw that both Saran and his mother were staring right at him. “Gemynd, what are you doing?” his mother asked through tight lips.

  Gemynd thought quickly. “I was so excited about today that I left with only one boot on,” he said and feigned a laugh. “So I had to run back for the other one.”

  Saran laughed and tousled Gemynd’s hair. “See you at the feast,” she said and walked on.

  Gemynd closed his eyes and waited for his mother to ask him if he’d taken the dagger. Surely she had figured out that was his reason for running back to the sleeping house. But she never did. Instead, she gently took Gemynd’s hand in hers and began their walk to the Eating House.

  Gemynd was so excited about the dagger and the story of his father and the Feast of Sevens that he was unable to stop himself from asking questions as they continued their walk. “What is the parade like, Mama? Will it take a long time? Do we wear costumes? Will they give me time to relieve myself before I put on the costume? How will I know where to go on the parade? Will someone lead us? Do we eat before or after the parade?”

  Gemynd’s mother patted his back gently as they walked. “Just try to be calm. It will be fun, you’ll see. All of your questions will be answered.”

  Gemynd tried to focus on counting the number of sleeping houses they passed to stop his mind from wondering. The entire western side of Aerie was filled with row after row of them. Each one was exactly the same as the next: a mud dome with a hide-covered doorway on one side and small cut-outs for air and light on the other three sides. He counted to six before he was pulling on his mother’s sleeve again.

  “What kind of secrets will they tell us? Will they be secrets like the one about Father and the dagger? And who will tell us the secrets? Will you tell us the secrets, Mama?”

  Gemynd’s mother smiled gently at him. “No, not me. One of the Keepers will tell you.”

  “But you know the secrets, Mama,” Gemynd said. “Couldn’t you tell me just one?”

  “Hush now,” his mother replied sternly, letting Gemynd know she’d had enough questions.

  Gemynd looked around for something to occupy his mind as they continued on their way to the Eating House. It was late Spring and the gravel foot path was lined on both sides by the numerous flowers that the Healers grew to keep the inhabitants of Aerie in good health. In discipleship, Gemynd had learned the names and uses of some of them and decided to see how much he could remember.

  The first flowers he recognized were lacy, pink heidel-snaps and he knew these were used to kill the worms that sometimes grew in people’s stomachs. Next he saw the bright orange, fluffy-looking flamelocks that the Healers made into a salve for curing burns. Lying flat on the ground like tiny, blue boats were nightslippers, which were used to help people sleep and have good dreams. Then there were the big, red, bowl-shaped morningbells whose juice took pain away in an instant. Standing tall behind all of these were the delicate, white flowers called fairytooth that grew all over Aerie. Fairytooth was used to heal all sorts of things, like stomachaches and fevers, and it perfumed the air with a misty sweetness. Fairytooth was the scent of Aerie.

  Gemynd spotted a horsetail plant, which looked like a cluster of purple spears, and ran right over to it. He grabbed a small fist full and shoved it in his mouth. After he swallowed, he looked at his mother and smiled proudly. “For nervousness,” he said, recalling the healing purpose of the horsetail.

  “Perhaps you should eat the entire plant then,” his mother said and chuckled.

  Gemynd felt his mind begin to slow down almost immediately and he sighed as he fell in step with his mother. He could feel the dagger pressing against his skin and he imagined that his father was alive somewhere and was happy that Gemynd had it.

  “Joyous day, Molly and Gemynd,” a familiar voice called from across the path. It was Keeper Stout, Gemynd’s teacher and favorite of all the Keepers.

  “Joyous day!” Gemynd called back and ran across the path to fling his arms around him.

  Keeper Stout was not much taller than Gemynd, but what he lacked in height, he made up for in girth. And he was quite possibly the most Joyful person in all of Aerie. He was never without a smile on his round face and he was often seen with his belly bouncing up and down under his grey robe in laughter. Gemynd, Soman and Numa had the good fortune of having him assigned as their teacher since they began discipleship as ones and he would remain their teacher until they finished their schooling as fourteens.

  “Will you be seeing Numa and Soman at breakfast?” Keeper Stout asked him.

  “Yes,” Gemynd answered, thinking it was a peculiar question. He saw Numa and Soman at breakfast every day.

  “Can I count on you to deliver something to them from me?”

  Gemynd nodded emphatically, eager to prove his worthiness to Keeper Stout. “Yes, Keeper, you can count on me,” he said.

  “Good, then come with me to the Wishing Hut,” Keeper Stout said. “It will only take a moment.”

  Gemynd and his mother followed him down the path to the large, circular building that everyone called the Wishing Hut. Gemynd had heard it called that every day of his life, but no one would ever explain why. He had never seen anyone make a wish inside of it.

  The Wishing Hut was the only building in Aerie made of wood. It had a hide-covered doorway, but not a single window cut-out in the walls. The Keepers kept oil lamps lit on the tables inside, but it always took Gemynd a few moments to adjust to the darkness when he stepped inside.

  Gemynd inhaled deeply as he entered the room. He loved the way the Wishing Hut smelled. It was a different smell than the rest of Aerie and Gemynd knew it was because of the dozens of books resting on the shelves that lined the Wishing Hut’s round walls. To Gemynd, it was the smell of wisdom.

  Tables and benches were scattered throughout the rest of the room and most times the Keepers could be found there, poring over their books by the light of the oil lamps. In the center of the room was a small, spiral staircase that led down to the underground room where the Keepers slept. Today, Gemynd figured the rest of the Keepers must still be sleeping for Keeper Stout was the only one he saw.

  “Do you know why I am called a Keeper?” Keeper Stout asked as he walked toward one of the shelves.

  Gemynd remembered learning the answer to this in discipleship and was excited to show off his knowledge. “You are called a Keeper because you spend your life in study to keep the wisdom safe for future generations.”

  “And, specifically, what wisdom do I keep safe?” Keeper Stout asked as he turned back toward Gemynd with a stack of three books in his hands.

  “The wisdom that is contained in The Book of Life,” Gemynd answered and rubbed his hands together. He loved showing Keeper Stout how much he had learned in discipleship.

  “Can you tell me the full name of The Book?” Keeper Stout asked and Gemynd had to think for a moment. He had heard it only a few times before; it was mostly just called The Book of Life. But finally he found the answer somewhere deep inside his mind.

  “The Book of Life for the Land of Todor and all its Inhabitants, Given to them by their Creators, the Deis,” he said and beamed.

  Keeper Stout smiled at him and exchanged a quick look with Gemynd’s mother. “You always impress me, Gemynd,” he said.

  “Yes, I’m not sure that I would have remembered all of that,” Gemynd’s mother added.

  “We have studied the Ten Truths that are listed in the Book of Life for seven years in discipleship,” Keeper Stout said. “And now I think it is time for you and Soman and Numa to each take one of The Books to your sleeping houses so you can study it whenever you’d like without having to come to the Wishing Hut first.”

  “Really?” Gemynd asked, looking at the books in Keeper Stout’s hands.

  “Really,” Keeper Stout re
plied. “And when you are finished with them, bring them back here so another group of children can use them.”

  Keeper Stout handed Gemynd the stack of books then smiled broadly at him. “Go, enjoy your breakfast and I’ll see you at discipleship afterward.”

  Gemynd followed his mother out of the Wishing Hut with the stack of books in his arms. The leather bindings were old and had clearly been opened and closed thousands of times. Gemynd wondered how many fingers had touched the pages within and if he would ever be able to read the entire thing.

  “I’m going to help with service,” Gemynd’s mother said and squeezed his hand. Only then did Gemynd realize they had entered the Eating House. “You go on and find Numa and Soman.”

  The Eating House was made of mud but wasn’t really a house at all. It was just a large, square room. There were small window cut-outs along the walls, which allowed for more natural light than the Wishing Hut, but the people also kept clusters of lit oil lamps hanging from the ceiling so it was always fairly bright inside. The inside was divided into two parts by a long wooden bar. On one side of the bar were thirty tree-plank tables with benches. On the other side of the bar was an enormous kitchen and Gemynd often thought it was the busiest place in all of Aerie. Every time he came to the Eating House, the kitchen was full of people chopping food, putting wood on the giant cooking fire, stirring pots and carting out the dirty dishes to be washed in the river. Sometimes the people in the kitchen would sing songs and Gemynd thought the sound of it made his food taste even better. But today, the people in the kitchen were talking excitedly and all those voices together reminded Gemynd of the hum of a sweetfly hive.

  “Gemynd!” he heard someone call and turned to see Numa waving at him from a table on the other side of the room. Even though he’d eaten the horsetail, his heart sped up a little at the sight of her. Numa reminded Gemynd of a flower, but not one he’d ever seen growing in Aerie. One that was red and green and white. Maybe more like a turnip than a flower. Her skin was the color of the white part of the turnip, but glowed like there was a candle on the inside of it. Her hair looked like the wine that the Elders poured from vats at bottling season and it hung all the way down to her waist. Her eyes were exactly the color of grass. Once he’d even held up a blade of it to compare and it was a perfect match. Sometimes he called her Grass Eyes, but it only seemed to make her angry. Gemynd wondered what she’d think if he called her Turnip.