Anger welled inside him. “But Aldwyn, the Elders, they must have known.” His eyes snapped up to meet the Scholar’s. “Why? Why would they send us? Bhau and Deke, dead. And Roh! All for nothing. Nothing!” He stared at the last page of the book, his heart beating fast. Shadows started to grow at the edge of his vision, crowding inward. “There must be more. An explanation. There must be!” He flipped back through the pages, the sound of the curled paper like the crinkle of dead leaves. “There must be some mistake.”
“Kiran, I’m sorry.”
The bizz-buzz of the fly screamed in his ears. The tap of the man’s fingers pounded in his head and it was as though a crack was opening in the floor beneath him, then the ground was heaving and dropping away below, and he was falling, spiraling away from all that he had known, all that he had ever believed. He couldn’t breathe. The musty odor of the book was so overwhelming, he suddenly felt like he was going to throw up.
He grabbed his pack and the codex and plunged through the door. Outside, he fell to his knees, gasping for air.
He scrambled to his feet and ran, as fast as his legs would take him, with no direction, no path to follow. He ran until he could run no more.
Kiran found himself back at the alehouse. All he wanted was for the drink to take him away from this world and make him forget, to fill the hollow ache in his heart, and escape the feeling, to end the agony of it all. He brought the mug to his mouth, tipped it back, and gulped down the brown liquid, spit forming in his mouth to wash away the bitterness.
He stumbled across the room to the hearth and stared into the flames. His whole life—the only thing he’d ever dreamed of—had evaporated before his eyes, everything lost. All for nothing, he thought, and threw the codex into the fire.
Chapter 32
For a long moment, Kiran didn’t know where he was. All he knew was the pungent odor of animals and a pounding in his head. He raised his heavy eyelids and saw Artus sitting on a crate, looking at him.
“Kinda liberating, ain’t it?”
“What?” he grumbled. His mouth felt like he’d eaten sand.
“That moment, when you realize you don’t have to see the world the way you’ve been told to.”
Kiran shook himself awake and pushed up to a seated position, thoughts and feelings coming back in waves of clarity. It was as though he had been living in a dark cave, trying to make sense of the shadows, and now he was blinded, having been turned to face the light of day. Something had left him. A feeling. A question he had carried with him for as long as he could remember. It had been a part of him. Now there remained an emptiness, an overwhelming void, looming in the absence.
He was truly an orphan, with no home, and nowhere to turn. He clenched the doll in his hands.
Artus handed him a mug of water. “So, what will you do now?”
Kiran chugged down the drink. He’d been heading in one direction for so long; he’d never considered another. He thought back to the beginning, back to that moment on the hill, before he had left home. It had been only ten moons ago but felt like a lifetime. He had been a child—naïve and full of hope. Everything seemed possible. There had been one path before him, if only he would have the strength to take it, to see it through to the end.
If only he could persevere.
He winced. Roh had given everything. And for what? Nothing was as they thought. If only they had known.
He sat up straight. “I have a duty,” he said. “To my village. I have to go back. I have to tell them what I’ve learned.” He rose to his feet and slung his pack over his shoulder, his mind racing through a plan. He turned to look for Medira, wondering if he could take her back across the dunes.
“And what do you plan to tell them exactly?”
“They need to know the truth.”
“The truth. Ha! Whose truth?”
Kiran stared at Artus, confused now. “The prophecy was a misunderstanding, a misinterpretation. There is no Seventh Elder. And the Script—”
“So you’ll just stroll back into the village and tell them, eh? Like Javin did?”
“But I’ll tell them what I’ve found, what I’ve learned. I’ll tell them what I’ve seen. Then they’ll see, as I have.”
Artus was shaking his head. “Eh, people see what they want to see.” He yanked the toothpick from his mouth and pointed it at Kiran. “That’s what believin’ is.”
Believing, Kiran thought. He’d seen it in Kail’s face. Nothing would have changed her mind. And Deke. He had been so sure about the river, about the Script. It was the Toran Way. Faith without question.
Kiran slumped back down. Deep inside, he had always known this moment would come. He was exhausted. He needed Roh. He needed Bria. He needed help. “What do I do?”
Artus paused a long moment before responding. He reached behind the crate, pulled out the charred codex, brushed it off, and handed it to Kiran. “I think you should do whatever your heart tells you to do.”
Kiran sighed as he took the codex from Artus and stared at its cover. He was the scribe. Wasn’t that why he had been sent? Aldwyn had told him this was to be a quest for knowledge and understanding. He was to seek answers. Even if they weren’t the ones he had been expecting.
His hand went to the Pyletar that hung from his neck. This same symbol, he thought, on a distant island. Was it some other trade post? Maybe there were other Torans there, and they had the answers. “Do you think those men really saw the Pyletar on a map?”
“Maybe.” Artus bit down on his toothpick. “I know someone, an old sailor friend I trust. He travels the sea for trade. He might know for sure.”
“This friend. You’ve seen him sail away, out of sight, yet come back again?”
Artus nodded.
“So it could be true, how the sea goes on and on.” He ran his fingers across the cover of the codex. “What if I go out on the sea, still to find nothing? What if none of this matters and it’s too late to save the village anyway? What if everything I’ve ever been told is wrong? Not just the Seventh Elder, but—” he swallowed hard, “everything?”
“There’s only one thing I know for sure.”
Kiran raised his head.
“Never let anyone else tell you what to believe.”
Kiran looked down at the codex he held in his hand, then at the doll, still clenched in his other. Her voice came softly in his head, Some things we have to find out for ourselves.
Kiran walked into the street where he could hear the muffled roar of the surf in the distance. It sounded like a voice, beckoning him to come.
The waterfront docks bustled with fishermen hauling in nets and crates. The smell of fish hung over everything. Flies buzzed everywhere. Artus seemed to know right where he was going. Kiran followed without a word as he left the wooden planks and made his way south to a sailing vessel that was hauled out on the beach.
An old man greeted them. His leathery brown skin looked as though it had been dried in the sun over years and years, but his eyes were vibrant and welcoming. Artus introduced him as his old friend, Lu-paia.
Kiran showed him the Pyletar. “Have you seen this before?”
The man stepped back.
“So you have seen it,” Artus said.
Lu-paia closed his eyes in acknowledgement. “I know of this place.”
“The boy seeks passage there.”
The man shook his head. “Dark spirits haunt those cliffs.”
Kiran exchanged a knowing glance with Artus. “I’ll take my chances.”
Lu-paia’s eyes narrowed. “You are either very brave or very crazy.”
Kiran offered him one of the gold coins. “Either way, will you take me?”
The man looked at Artus, then back to Kiran. “We set sail as soon as there is a favoring breeze.”
Kiran said his goodbyes to Artus, promising to go straight to the alehouse upon his return and waited.
As he stared out over the sea, trying to imagine how an island could be hidden over the hori
zon of blue, the waves rushed up the beach, curled into foam around his bare feet, then broke into patches of froth. As the sea inhaled, drawing the water back to gather strength once more, he decided he could do nothing now but wait and see.
In late morning, when a warm, gentle wind came blowing across the bay, the old man declared, “To the sea we go once more.”
The boat was double-hulled, made of a light, buoyant wood, with an open deck, all lashed together by rope. It had two tall masts and a long steering oar astern and a canoe strapped to the side. As Kiran boarded the vessel, he was told to stay clear of the ropes and sails and found a nook to sit in, tucked out of the way.
There were three others on board, two men and a teenage girl. They all looked like Lu-paia with bronze skin and pearly white teeth. Kiran sensed an edge of curiosity in their eyes, but they did not question Lu-paia.
As the boat eased out of the bay, the triangular sails filling with wind, Kiran fought the urge to jump overboard and swim back to land. Riding on a raft was one thing, but was he truly going to take to the sea? His heart thumped in his chest. You wanted an adventure, he told himself, and laughed out loud.
Once they hit the open sea, fear clenched his throat as the boat rolled and rocked, side to side and up and down. He had to grab hold to keep from falling to the floor. A wall of water would rise up before them, then roll under the bow, lifting the boat aloft, and they’d ride the top of the wave, skimming along the foamy ridge, then plunge down again on the other side, only to tilt and climb the next crest, the salt water spraying his face. He looked to the others on board. They were calm and peaceful, as if this were perfectly normal.
The swells grew heavier and heavier. Suddenly, Kiran felt his stomach squeeze in his throat and he vomited over the side. The world started to spin and he retched once more. The girl was by his side. “It’ll pass,” she was saying. “You’ll be all right. Just keep your eyes on the horizon.”
“You mean the edge?” He grabbed hold of her arm.
She gave him something to chew. It was spicy and tart, but he chewed. When they were a distance from shore, the sea at last calmed to an easy roll.
By late afternoon, the city began to sink below the horizon. Kiran gripped the edge of the boat as the last of it disappeared, leaving nothing but blue upon blue in every direction. It’s all right. The island is there, it will be there, he told himself.
When the sun set, the sea turned oily black and the stars shone above in a moonless sky. Kiran lay in his bedroll, listening to each creak and groan of the ropes as the boat heaved in the sea. If he relaxed and let his mind go with the rhythmic flow, pulsing up and down, he imagined they rode on the breath of a giant.
A half moon rose on the horizon, lighting the sky, its reflection rippling across the water. The same moon that hung over his village, the same moon that Bria now slept under, he thought. He reached into his pocket and held the little doll. I’m going to make it, he told her. And then I’m coming back for you.
“That’s an interesting token for a grown man.” The girl nodded toward the doll.
Kiran tucked it back into his pocket and shrugged. “Thanks for helping me earlier.”
“I am Leikela,” she said with a smile. “I prepare the meals.”
He nodded.
She stared at him. He turned away. “Sleep well,” she said and crawled into her own bedroll at the stern.
The days passed in what felt like an eternal drift as they trekked across the open sea. Lu-paia did not seem to sleep, but remained trance-like, all his concentration needed to navigate. Sitting in his special seat at the stern, he used the sun by day and the stars by night. He knew the secrets of the winds and how to read the waves as they moved across the hull; to him, the swells were the pulse of the sea. Leikela whispered to Kiran, saying Lu-paia could conjure islands out of the mist, simply by imagining them.
During the day, they sailed through schools of fish in the thousands—large and small, dark and silvery. Most amazing were the fish that could fly. Kiran couldn’t believe his eyes. Amid the blue-green waves, masses of glittering fish would shoot from the water and fly in a straight line, gliding through the air, their large fins spread like wings, until they hit a wave and vanished beneath the surface. Often, one would come hurling through the air and land on deck, flopping about helplessly. A sailor would use it as bait for the bigger fish, which were the main source of food on board.
Kiran was reluctant to eat from the sea. It was taboo in his village.
“Don’t be silly. You must eat,” Leikela insisted, dishing him a portion.
“But the lesions. I can’t.”
“Lesions? Ha! An old wive’s tale.”
He hesitated, then shook his head.
“Then you will starve.” On the third day he relented, having no other choice.
One day, they encountered a school of fish the size of men that jumped and frolicked in the playful manner of children, twisting in the air and flopping on their sides. “They aren’t fish,” he was told. “They breathe like us.” They’d surf at the bow of the boat, as though trying to race, then twirl and spin away, emitting pops and squeaks, a chattering that sounded like voices.
“Do they talk like us, too?” he asked, thinking again of Takhura’s story of the Irichoi.
The men just laughed.
One night, under the new moon, with only the stars lighting the night sky, glowing specks flashed in the water, tiny shining lights that spread across the surface like a million fireflies. Several times, Kiran caught sight of two round shining green eyes, emerged from the water right next to the boat, glaring with an unblinking stare—phantoms of the deep. Some nights, balls of light the width of his spread arms would be visible below the surface, flashing at irregular intervals like lanterns. It was a fantastical world, beyond his imagination. He had never dreamed such things existed. Lu-paia and the crew seemed not to notice, so common were the sights to them.
Kiran liked to lie on the foredeck, looking up at the stars sprinkled across the firmament, though it made him feel lonely, like he too was just another tiny light, lost in the vast darkness of the night sky. Every night he’d doubt his decision to come. Then every morning, he’d wake with the same determination to continue. In between, he dreamed of being home, with Aldwyn. With Roh and Bria. With all this over and done.
If the sea was calm, he wrote in his codex, his legs dangling over the prow, his bare feet in the green seawater. Gradually, he began to understand what the Scholar meant when he said the ocean was a good place to put things into perspective. The boat did not fight the waves, rather flowed with the natural harmony of the sea, a freedom he’d never felt before. Instead of being a feared abyss, the endlessly retreating horizon, where the blue sky met the blue sea, drew the boat steadily forward, carrying him on his quest.
One late afternoon, after they had been at sea for nearly sixty days, the crew became excited when a large black bird with a forked tail glided overhead, then circled round and down, skimming over the wave crests where it snapped up a flying fish. It was a sign, Kiran was told. They were nearing land.
The next day, larger flocks of sea birds circled the boat until dusk, when, after a long day of fishing, they all flew toward the setting sun, screaming as they went. At dawn, a solitary cloud hung in the sky directly in the path of the vessel, and by late morning, a patch of green cropped up out of the blue sea. Kiran was overwhelmed with relief and wonder. It was true! Land! As the boat steadily approached, the sun rising astern, he could see individual treetops and rows of tree trunks shining in the sun.
People milled about on the beach. Some were launching canoes and paddling out to sea, waving and shouting in welcome. Lu-paia anchored the vessel on a reef surrounded by crystal clear water where the sea bottom was covered with what looked like underwater mosses and oddly shaped plants, red and orange and green, with tiny fish darting about, in every color of the rainbow, bright and shiny. The sailors unlatched a canoe and paddled Lu-paia to s
hore then one came back for Kiran and Leikela. When Kiran reached the snow-white sandy beach, he dropped to his knees and thrust his bare hands down into the sand. Land! He had lived to see it. He moved to the shade and flung himself flat on his back and looked up at the blue sky. He had made it. White birds circled above on the warm drafts. He breathed in the aroma of the forest as the winds ruffled the leaves of the trees and the waves lapped on the beach.
He sat up straight. There was no mountain here. This island was a patch of sand in the middle of the ocean. He got to his feet and ran straight into Leikela. “There’s no mountain. This isn’t the place.”
She giggled. “Here we trade. Soon,” she patted his arm, “Lu-paia will pull your place out of the sea.”
In two days time they arrived at another small island, then a day later, another. By week’s end, in the late afternoon, signs of land appeared in the distance—a barely imperceptible texture spanning the length of the horizon. As night fell, Leikela whispered to him to get some sleep. But he shifted in his seat as they sailed onward. Under the bright moonlight the dark cliffs rose out of the sea.
At dawn, for as far as they could see in either direction, sheared cliffs towered into the sky. Lu-paia pointed to the treelined ridge. “It is there. The place you seek.”
A raven swooped down from the cliff and passed overhead, squawking in welcome. Kiran’s heart started to race. He couldn’t believe it. Finally. When you reach the peak and stand on the edge of darkness… He had found the peak.
Lu-paia’s eyes moved over the water. “But it is as I had feared.”
“What do you mean?” Kiran asked, anxious now by Lu-paia’s tone.
“It is not the will of the gods,” he said. “We cannot sail in. Too many rocks.”
Kiran looked to the cliff once more. “What about the canoe?”
“I cannot ask this of them. The men fear the dark spirits.”
But there are no dark spirits! Kiran plopped down on the deck, his head in his hands. He laughed out loud at the irony.
The Path to the Sun (The Fallen Shadows Trilogy) Page 35