Krymzyn (The Journals of Krymzyn Book 1)

by BC Powell

  I turn to look at her and, once again, sense her presence surround me. As I’ve so often felt, I know I’m safe with her—in every way.

  “Have a safe journey,” Tork says.

  He bows to us before sprinting away towards Sanctuary.

  “We should get going,” I say to Larn. “I never know how long I’ll be here.”

  After Larn offers his back to me, I climb on, he loops his arms under my legs, and we all sprint to the east. Just as I experienced when Tela took me across the Delta, we suddenly burst into exhilarating, mind-blowing speed.

  Chapter 24

  When we slow to a stop seconds later, the black marble wall of Krymzyn towers in front of us. Light from overhead reflects from two enormous steel doors hinged into an arch in the wall. One Watcher, green ever present in his hair, stands on top of the wall by the doors. I glance to the south to see another Watcher, also on top of the wall, walking towards the gate from about half a mile away.

  The Watcher standing over the gate descends a ladder and waits for us beside a rack of leathery black shoes, more like ankle-high boots. After Larn drops me to the ground, we all walk to the gate. The Watcher intently studies my face so I nod to him in the manner of Krymzyn.

  The Travelers and Sash each take a pair of shoes from the rack and slip them on their feet. Sash picks up a second pair and hands them to me.

  “These were made for you,” Sash says.

  First sitting on the red grass, I slide my feet into the shoes. They’re made of the same material as the clothes we wear, but the fabric is thicker and seems tougher. Once I tie the straps around my ankles and stand, the fit is snug, like low-cut, soft leather boots hugging my skin.

  The Watcher, his brawny arms straining, lifts a steel peg from the ground at the base of one door. He slides a long metal beam from across the seam in the doors out of the way and swings a door open. An almost deafening sound of raging water bursts through the gate.

  We step through the opening and onto the edge of a steel bridge. What appear to be the heads of enormous spikes secure the end of the bridge into the ground. The width of a two-lane road, the bridge spans the entire half-mile-wide river. We walk up a gentle slope to the arch in the center of the bridge before I stop near the edge.

  I kneel by a six-inch-high lip that runs along the side, no other railings of any kind on the bridge. Looking down, I see the turbulent rapids forty feet below. Waves as tall as ten feet surge out of the river and crash back down to the silvery blue water. Farther downstream, a few huge slabs of black granite jut upward and out of the swells. Like fireworks blooming against a stormy sky, giant splashes explode off the rocks and glint scarlet light in the air. Sash drops to one knee by my side.

  “I see why no one swims in this water,” I say.

  “The rapids run through the entire river,” she replies. “We don’t need to swim. Only Serquatine swim in the river.”

  I look underneath the bridge at an intricate array of horizontal and angled steel poles. They provide the only support to the bridge, no legs extending down into the water. I bounce up and down on the twelve-inch-thick steel, but there’s no movement at all in the structure.

  As Sash and I stand, I glance down at the brushed steel under our feet. A diffused blur of our shapes reflects in the scratchy metal, no detail showing in our faces. I turn back to the black marble wall with its dull satin sheen. I suddenly understand why Sash seemed so shocked by the picture I drew of her, so confused by her own appearance.

  I don’t think anyone in Krymzyn has any idea what they look like. There’s no standing water on the Delta to see a reflection in, no mirror, and no glass. The deep blue-gray quartz of the cavern walls reflects only ambiguous shapes of light. The crystal ceilings are too jagged for a recognizable image to appear. It somehow seems to fit their complete lack of ego, their sense of everything being one.

  “Is something wrong?” Sash asks me as I stare at the wall.

  “No, I’m just amazed by it all,” I reply.

  The Travelers turn their backs to us and walk down the slope towards the end of the bridge. I lean forward, giving Sash a quick kiss on the lips. She smiles at me, just a hint of a smile, before kissing my lips again. Despite the smile on her face, her eyes are still filled with unexplained sadness.

  Looking at the gate, I see the Watcher who opened the door for us slowly swing it shut. The clang of a bolt locking in place is muffled by the rapids. I raise my eyes to the top of the wall. Standing directly over the doors, staring at Sash, is the Watcher who walked to the gate from the south.

  I recognize Balt from my encounter with the Murkovin, the same man I stared down during Cavu’s Ritual of Purpose. The same man who ignored my thanks and fired blistering hatred in my direction after the fight with the Murkovin.

  Balt’s eyes shift from Sash to me. His expression changes after his eyes move. Neither of the looks, either at me or at Sash, is the kind you want to see aimed in your direction.

  What was it I saw in his stare at Sash, a facial expression that clearly looks so different from any I’ve seen in Krymzyn? There’s definite hatred directed at me, but there’s something else as well.

  “Chase!” Larn calls out loudly from the end of the bridge, startling me. “We need to go.”

  “Sorry!” I yell to him. “I was just admiring the view.”

  Sash and I walk down the bridge to where the Travelers stand. I glance over my shoulder at Balt again, but he saunters away from us to the south. When we reach the end of the bridge, I finally see more detail in the Barrens stretched out in front of us.

  A black dirt road begins at the edge of the bridge and winds through the dreary wasteland. The path gradually rises to the colossal Mount in the distance, its black slopes washed in forest-green light. I lean down to touch the compressed dirt surface of the road finding that it’s firm and solid under my fingertips. When I return to upright, I scan the Barrens to the north of the Delta and see light glistening off steel.

  “Is that another bridge?” I ask Sash.

  “Above the fork in the river is the bridge leading to the western Barrens,” Sash replies.

  “There’s no gate on the other side of Krymzyn?” I ask.

  “There’s only one entrance to the Delta,” she says.

  We all walk on the road into the Barrens. The light overhead fades from orange and scarlet to pale white and gray.

  Grass on either side of the road thins until the ground is just loose dirt, almost like coarse black sand. Occasional sustaining trees sprout from the hilly tundra, but their bark is black and crumbly. A few have gangly branches growing outward with sparse, gray leaves. Many of the trees are branchless, their rotting limbs strewn on the ground around them.

  Sash veers off the road and walks to a tree. All the limbs have been ripped off the trunk, so all that’s left is a giant, black stump rising out of the ground. Standing by the tree, she turns and motions for me to join her.

  When I reach her side, she slips an arm around my waist and pulls me to the trunk. She presses a cheek against the bark, so I do the same, her face in front of mine.

  “This tree was alive the last time I was in the Barrens,” Sash says solemnly. “Murkovin have killed that which sustains them.”

  The look of agony that crosses her face is as great as any I’ve ever seen, as though her own arms and legs had been torn off. She closes her eyes, but I continue to stare at her. Her caring, respect, and anguish resonate through the bark. I’m reminded of lying next to her when I was seventeen, Sash resting a hand on mine, a show of compassion and nurturing to a frightened stranger. If I’ve ever had a question as to why I love her the way I do, it’s answered for me in this moment.

  I gently take her hand in mine when we return to the road. The three Travelers stand with heads bowed. I don’t know if it’s a show of reverence for the recently destroyed sustaining tree or for Sash. After we step onto the road, Sash looks up to the sky.

  “Is Darkness near?” Larn
asks.

  “No,” Sash replies, shaking her head. “We should have light for our journey.”

  “How far is it to the Mount?” I ask.

  “Seventy-seven miles,” Larn replies, the atmosphere translating the distance for me.

  Tela and Miel scan the Barrens around us with keen, alert eyes. When Larn turns away from me and crouches, I jump on his back. I slip my arms under his shoulders and clamp them across his chest. With his spear in one hand, the other hand looped under my leg, he begins to jog towards the Mount.

  We gradually build to a sprint and then I feel the whiplash. Sash, Tela, and Miel all race in front of us, rays of light trailing the vague shapes of their bodies. I’m in absolute awe of the speed we reach and have to squeeze my eyes shut from the sting of air slamming into them. I soon feel the air rushing through me as the sap I drank separates my particles.

  I try to open my eyes into a narrow squint as we speed through the Barrens. The road steepens while the huge black Mount zooms towards us. After maybe a minute and a half at full speed, our motion slows, and a forest of evergreens comes into focus by the side of the road. The beams around the shapes of Sash, Tela, and Miel recede when all three slow to a sprint.

  What I assume are steel trees spike at least two hundred feet into the air, but I was mistaken to think of them as evergreens. Although shaped like pines, dark blue needles shine against rich purple bark. Gigantic black marble boulders lie scattered across the forest. There’s no grass in the ebony dirt, but a thin blanket of blue needles covers the ground below the trees.

  Larn comes to a stop, releasing his grasp on my legs, and my feet drop to the road. The others stand in front of us, all of them breathing heavily. In my mind, they should collapse from exhaustion, not casually stand like they just finished a slow jog. We covered seventy-seven miles in less than two minutes, which equates to almost twenty-five hundred miles per hour at top speed.

  “That was incredible!” I say to Larn, shaking my head. “Unreal!”

  “I’m pleased traveling speed didn’t bother you,” Larn replies, nodding with a stoic expression.

  “I can’t tell you how jealous I am that you can do that,” I say.

  I start to laugh, but the smile leaves my face. I wince when I close my eyes.

  Chapter 25

  Sash grips my arm with her hand. “Have you been injured?”

  I don’t answer at first, finally realizing what I saw in Balt’s eyes. It’s as obvious to me as looking at photographs of people’s faces with the names of emotions written underneath them. I open my eyes to look at Sash.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “Do Watchers ever go into the Barrens?”

  “Often,” Sash replies after a mild sigh of relief. “They look for signs of Murkovin near the edge of the river.”

  “Do people ever get jealous here?” I ask.

  Sash shakes her head, letting me know that the word didn’t translate for her.

  I turn to Larn. “Do you ever lust for something you don’t have?” I ask.

  “I’m sorry,” he replies. “Your word has no meaning.”

  The expressions I saw on Balt’s face, in his eyes, shouldn’t exist here. There’s only one way Balt could have those “extreme” emotions according to what I’ve learned about Krymzyn.

  “I think Balt’s been drinking sap from the trees in the Barrens,” I say.

  All four stare at me with stern expressions. Miel hasn’t said a word to me since we met, but now she steps forward and glares at me.

  “That’s a serious accusation,” Miel says firmly. “One that’s not taken lightly in Krymzyn.”

  “The Disciples told me contaminated sap creates extreme and irrational emotions,” I explain. “When we left the Delta, Balt was looking at Sash and then at me with expressions on his face that I’ve never seen in Krymzyn. I see them all the time in my world. Extreme emotions are common there, and you can see them on the faces of people.”

  “What did you see?” Larn asks.

  “He looked at Sash with something we call lust,” I reply to Larn, “a desire to possess or control something you can’t have. Then, when he looked at me, I saw something we call jealousy—when someone else has something you want, and you want it so badly it hurts your insides. Like what I said about your speed, but I was joking—I didn’t really mean it. These are common emotions in my world, and they’re as extreme as it gets. I promise you, I know what they look like on someone’s face.”

  Larn and I keep our eyes locked on one another.

  “Perhaps you misinterpret his expression,” Larn finally says.

  “Sash,” I say, turning to her, “remember the picture I drew of you? When you look at it, can you tell how you felt while I was drawing it?”

  She thinks for a moment before nodding her head. “When I look at the picture, I see what I felt at the time.”

  “That’s what I do in my world,” I say to Larn. “I’m what we call an artist, and the most important aspect of what I draw—create—is that people’s faces show exactly what they’re thinking and how they feel. I know what I see in people’s faces.”

  “He speaks the truth,” Sash says emphatically. “He understands what he sees, and I’ve seen strange expressions on Balt’s face many times. They’ve become more severe recently, similar to what I see on the faces of Murkovin.”

  Miel steps back and relaxes her stance.

  “We’ll address this with the Disciples when we return to the Delta,” Larn says to me.

  “Thank you,” I reply. “The only reason I’m telling you this is to warn you. I don’t have any other reason to make it up.”

  Miel bows to me. “I apologize if I offended you.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say, returning her bow. “I’m just trying to help.”

  I’m not surprised they can’t recognize what I see on Balt’s face. Those emotions—extreme or irrational, they call them—simply don’t exist here. Well, they do exist, but only in the Murkovin.

  We all walk towards a high marble wall that curves in a semicircle from the face of the Mount. Sash turns her face to me and nods her head as if to say, “You’re absolutely right about what you saw in Balt.”

  Spaced a mile apart, six Watchers stand guard on top of the black wall. The two closest to the gate in the center disappear behind the ledge as we approach. A few seconds later, a steel door swings open.

  I look back at the road descending from the Mount into the Barrens and try to guess our altitude. We’re at least at ten thousand feet based on my experiences hiking in Mammoth and Yosemite. Through the clear, sharp air, a scarlet ambience radiates around the faraway Delta.

  We pass through the gate and stop by the side of the entrance. After the Watchers close and secure the doors, a thick, muscular woman walks to a steel rack near the gate. When she turns to us, she hands each of us a pair of leathery black gloves and a brushed-metal helmet.

  “What are these for?” I ask Sash.

  “If Darkness descends, they’re needed on the Mount,” Sash replies. “If the light begins to dim, put these on before the trees become aware. The needles are extremely sharp.”

  I step off the road, walking to the forest of blue and purple that spreads across the mile-long flat area between the wall and the Mount. Sash trails slightly behind me, and we both stop at the nearest tree. When I reach my hand out to touch a low branch, I instantly jerk it away. Almost as if they were injected into me, the needles prick my skin. Speckles of blood appear on my fingertips.

  “You could have warned me,” I playfully complain, smiling at Sash and not actually mad.

  “Doing is a more effective method of learning than hearing,” she says with just a hint of a smile.

  I have to silently chuckle at the closest thing to a joke I’ve heard in Krymzyn, even if it was at the expense of my fingertips.

  “We need to prepare items for our return journey,” Larn says to Sash as we return to the trail. “We’ll meet you when your visit to
the Pool has been completed.”

  Larn, Tela, and Miel disappear into the forest on the far side of the road. Sash and I stroll along the path towards the steep Mount. I estimate that the glossy black slopes rise another fifteen or twenty thousand feet over us. With the peak hidden in the clouds, it’s hard to tell. But it’s taller than any mountain I’ve ever seen—maybe even taller than Everest.

  A clearing opens in the forest to one side, a few hundred yards long and half as wide. Slabs of marble, like picnic tables, stand on rectangular marble legs. Smaller marble shapes, some no larger than a shoebox, sit on top of several of the slabs.

  Three men and four women, all with cyan in their black hair, work around the tables. A few have chisels and hammers, slowly etching shapes in the marble. Others use black pumice rock the size of a sponge to sand items made of steel.

  “What are they doing over there?” I ask.

  “This is where the Constructs of the Mount work,” Sash replies, “creating all that’s made of steel.”

  “The steel is the sap of these trees?” I ask.

  “Yes, the steel trees. Hunters on the Mount take the sap during Darkness. The Constructs mix in powder they grind from the black crystals in the dirt, and the powder hardens the sap into steel. They use molds carved into marble to shape the steel then brush it smooth with stone.”

  “So they don’t use fire at all?” I ask but realize that “fire” never translates. “How do they weld—attach—the legs of the stools?”

  “Binding made from the juice of berries.” Sash points to the side of the Mount.

  Growing out of cracks in the rocky face just above the forest are holly-like bushes with bright yellow berries clustered inside purple leaves.

  “Binding from those berries,” Sash continues, “seals the parts as though they were one solid piece.”

  I think about the huge marble wall in the Delta and the one I just saw here on the Mount. Their sides are seamless and smooth, as though they’re one continuous slab.

  “I guess you don’t want to get binding on your fingers,” I say.