by Melanie Ray
He needed to figure out how to keep his family alive, nothing else. That rhyme too, there was so much gibberish. Traditional right, golden wood. Wood came in many colors, but gold was rare. It was reserved more for royalty. Hm. Royalty. Golden Wood? Not golden wood, Golden Wood? His mind began to turn. Golden Wood was the royal Chronicle Keepers domain. Deep inside the Chronicle Sanctuary. Traditional right.
Okay, so that wasn’t gibberish. There was something in the Golden Wood, and that made sense. The Chronicle Sanctuary had been around ever since warnos began to write and think coherently. It was tradition to take a befallen warno’s Chronicle and add it to the family clans in the Sanctuary. It was the resting place of millions of Chronicles, their owners long since dead.
Yed tapped on his Chronicle. He could get to the Sanctuary in about six hours with the vehicle, but finding the royal clans? During the war, could it have been hurt, and could the Chronicle Keeper be there defending it?
Waryes would be showing their true intentions soon. Time was running out. Protectors would be showing up soon. Tug would be leaving in a couple of days.
His head sunk. He didn’t want to have to leave again, but if there was something to that rhyme that would help him understand why his twins were born, he had to know. King Sheward placed so much faith into it. One day.
After having a discussion with Tug, Yed knew what he had to do. He walked up softly behind Ezra. “I’m leaving for a day.”
Ezra turned around, her eyes meeting his. “What did you say?”
“I’m leaving. I have to go somewhere, but Tug will be here. He was almost an A class, and he’s experienced,” Yed said. His left index finger fidgeted. “He will help protect while I am gone.”
“You’re just up and leaving, everyone.” Ezra’s sigh showed contempt with slight curiosity. “Yed, you said after Xiam and Iri that it would be too dangerous to leave. We don’t know when the rain will start again.”
“I know. I will take precautions. The car, the hood, everything,” Yed said, “but I have to go. I need to go to Chronicle Sanctuary.”
“For what?”
“To go to Golden Wood.” Yed grabbed his cloak and in one smooth motion, placed it on.
“Not by yourself.”
Yed looked behind him. Xiam had entered the room. “It’s too dangerous for you to come.”
“You’re the father of two now,” Xiam reminded him. “Well, actually three.” He scratched his ear on that addition to his sentence. “The king himself is now yours, you can’t go running off like this alone. You are king of...king.”
Yed glanced toward Xiam’s eyes. The contempt and hatred he had held over his fathership of Ezra’s children had grown dim. Perhaps living out in the real world without him made the fool realize how much a Protector was needed? Or maybe, hopefully, he was getting past it and they could be friends again.
“I’ll go too,” Xiam said. “I can’t be of any help here.”
Xiam didn’t know how to fight, but maybe when they found Golden Wood he could be helpful. He knew things that even Yed didn’t. “Chronicle Sanctuary is not far, we are close to Vellag. All the electrical sub sky pathways are blocked in times of war. We’ll have to tread the path with our own feet. Can you handle that?”
“Exercise is good for the body.” Xiam nodded at Ezra. “Take good care of everyone. I’ll talk to Iri and we’ll go.”
Ezra nodded with slight hesitation. She turned to Yed. “Take care.”
“I’ll be back. By tomorrow morning, I’ll be here.” Yed placed his hand on her shoulder. “You have my word. Tug is experienced. He’ll handle the Protectors coming, he knows what to do. But you? Stay in the house, away from the walls.” He placed his hood on and watched Xiam come over in his own cloak and hood. “One day.”
Chapter 68
SCENT
“How strong is my sister going to get?” Xiam asked as he pulled his hood down. The rain had not started and they were in the middle of a sub tunnel that would travel upward.
“I don’t know.” Yed held Xiam’s hand up through a higher level. These paths were made for actual buses that traveled fast and with ease upward. The slant of the tunnel was almost like climbing the mountain itself.
“Shouldn’t it fade? After pregnancy, shouldn’t it do something? Ezra told me what happened with the waryes,” Xiam informed him as he pushed his hands down, getting a better grip. “How dangerous could it get?”
“I don’t know, Xiam, every female is different. It might be strong for awhile, but nothing like when she was younger.” Yed followed Xiam’s lead as he placed his hands on the ground to help with the climbing. “As for the waryes attraction, that is what you're curious about, isn’t it?”
“It’s not supposed to be possible,” Xiam almost shouted. “No female, close to waryes or not, causes that kind of attraction. Never in our entire history, waryes become more immune the darker they become. The one we have trapped, he must be dark to come after you like that. So, how?”
“That’s an answer I want too.” Yed lifted his hands as the slant became easier to climb. “I’ve never heard of it, but I saw it with my own eyes. Ezra has an effect on waryes.”
“I guess, considering her purity...maybe waryes and warno weren’t documented separately?” Xiam reached for an answer.
“You mean the purest has some kind of sway? You think so?” Yed turned to look toward him, curious to the thought. Before waryes was a word, back when purity was all around. Could there have been a strange attraction between the two? “That would be interesting to find out. For now, don’t talk about it with Ezra.”
“It’s bad enough talking about it with you. Do you think I’d actually talk about it with my own sister?” Xiam looked disgusted. “Just forget I even mentioned it. How much further?”
“We are almost to the top. We’ll be in Chronicle Sanctuary shortly, then we’ll have to find Golden Wood.” Yed continued to climb, but Xiam’s question was harassing his brain. Xiam was the most knowledgeable to purity, but even he was stumped.
Chronicles. Everywhere. No matter how unfortunate the circumstances were that a warno had to visit, it was always intriguing. Stacks of books streamed across the mountains. Ever since a warno learned to write, each and every Chronicle would end up there. Millions upon millions, most scattered and long since fallen over by the sheer weight. The pillars of Chronicles that remained were still higher than the eye could almost see.
“Sad yet so magical,” Xiam noted as he gently touched a pillar. “Thousands of years of our writing, piled up on top of each other.”
“Have you been here before?” Yed asked, noticing his exceptional interest.
“Once. Only when I was a small kid.” Xiam took his hand from the pillar. “It’s as big now as it was back then.”
Yed shrugged, trying not to show his own fascination. He had only been there twice. He moved towards the left where Chronicles had fallen and filled up streams. Wet and cold, he bent down to pick one up. It was still intact, and the dampness seemed to melt away. Chronicles were truly indestructible. Years out in the middle of a spring, and still they survived with no scratch.
There was no more time to gawk at the splendor though, he had a mission. “Golden Wood is the royalty’s Chronicle area. There should be a guard called the Chronicle Keeper. Don’t take him lightly.”
“How can we even navigate?” Xiam said. “All the electric maps are down.”
“Then we need to find relics of older navigation,” Yed said as he pointed to a worn old sign. “Considering the map and the distance...I’d say another four hour walk.” He heard Xiam’s groan. “We’ll get there at dark.”
“Dark?” Xiam’s confident facade faded. “You said one day. It’ll be a day there and back.”
Strange. Yed moved forward, staying on alert, but feeling less need to as he grew closer. A female figure in a long robe with her head tucked down stood in front of the entrance. The only sign she was there as the Chronicle Keeper was t
he staff lying next to her. He put the back of his hand against Xiam’s stomach, signaling him to stop. “We’re here.”
Finding the Golden Wood was tougher than either had thought. They had walked through the evening and part of the night. Sunrise would be in only a few hours. Rest was out of the question though, they needed to keep moving to find the answer. It could rain anytime. Anything could happen. “Sir, I am Protector Yeducavich Zuffel Zinfan Smilliat. I have come to see the Golden Wood.”
“This isn’t a tourist attraction,” the Chronicle Keeper muttered. She didn’t move forward, but her hand moved from the garb, bringing her staff upward. “What do you seek inside?”
“Answers,” Yed said without pause. “I need answers.”
“About what?” The Chronicle Keeper stood up next to the entrance. “There are no answers to the end of the war, or to the end of the strange rain. What answers do you think you’ll find?”
Yed looked toward Xiam, then back at the Chronicle Keeper. It would sound strange to say it out loud, but he couldn’t lie. “I don’t know. We heard it in a mysterious rhyme.”
“A mysterious rhyme?” The Chronicle Keeper lifted off her hood and looked toward Yed. She stared straight into his eyes, and Yed tried to match back the stare. Something familiar about that look. “Lost.” She gestured to the inside. “The Golden Wood is nothing but books. Do not move anything. Only walk on the books making the ground. Go deep into the center. You’ll find your answer.”
Yed nodded and headed in with Xiam. It was odd to walk on books, and seeing walls of books. After traveling through Chronicle Sanctuary they thought they had seen everything, until they were walking through a literal building made of nothing but books. They continued, through room after room admiring the colors. Red, blue, orange, and green. Some purple and pink, even some black. Toward the center though, the multi color Chronicles disappeared and everything had been a gold colored Chronicle.
“Can you imagine how far back we are?” Xiam spoke as he gently touched the wall. “How old could these be?”
“Once we reach the very center, it will be the first Chronicles.” Yeducavich could feel the wonder inside of himself too. Hundreds of thousands of years, stored in the sides and the ground they walked. Some were still made into pillars around them. “This is only royal descent, Xiam. The commanders who ran Pagnia throughout our species’time.”
When they hit the center, they saw a round room. On it, was a table. The entire building had been made of books, but now there was a table? Yed and Xiam moved closer.
“The book of lineage.” Yed touched the book. He remembered the first time he was in it’s presence. It had been only a short time, to show him the lineage of Ezraponia. “King Sheward had brought it all the way from here? For one meeting with me?”
Xiam grabbed one end and helped to open it up. They turned page after page, but it was only what Yed saw before. “I don’t know what we’re looking for.”
There had to be something. They didn’t leave everyone, and travel all this way for nothing. Yed and Xiam flipped over the back, to the first page, and to the very back. What were they supposed to find? They opened it back up to the first page, when Yed saw it. “There.”
In the corner of the book, on the back of the cover, there was another rhyme.
NORTH TO SOUTH,
East to West,
Four innocents,
must pass the test.
We'll spin around having fun
until it stops and the mineral is gone.
Golden Wood,
Mass of Green,
Tower of Kings,
Never Ending between,
If you find the purest disinnocent
We will eternally play.
Green to Red,
Pink to Green,
Everything will fade away.
We must keep spinning and having fun
Until it says our days are done.
-AnoNymous
“Disinnocent doesn’t rhyme. What is disinnocent? Is that even a word?” Xiam rubbed his nose. “I don’t understand any of it. Golden Wood is where we’re at, but nothing else makes sense. I guess all we can do is memorize it?”
It was all garble, Xiam was right. “Disinnocent doesn’t fit, you’re right. A half decent rhymer would catch that.” Yed looked around the rhyme and noticed something else weird. “Check out who it’s by.”
“Anonymous, again,” Xiam said. “So?”
“No, look.” Yed pointed to the word anonymous. “It’s not Anonymous. Don’t you remember how we historically wrote our names? Spacing wasn’t needed in the beginning. We would simply capitalize the last name.”
“We are far back, I guess you’re right.” Xiam touched the wording. “Could anonymous actually be someone then?”
“AnoNymous. Ano Nymous?” Yed haphazardly guessed.
“It’s pronounced anno-nigh-muss, but throughout time, no one has said it right. Even other planets, they still pronounce it wrong.”
Yed and Xiam turned around, seeing the Chronicle Keeper herself. She had brought her hood down, and strange curly black hair fell around her shoulders.
Chapter 69
ANONYMOUS
“Are you AnoNymous?” Yed asked. No, that would be impossible. No one lived that long, that kind of pronunciation would make him...
“Yes. I am AnoNymous.” She reached out her hand toward Yed. “And, you are Wye Warno.”
“Wye what? I am not Wye anybody.” Yed took a step back. How could he possibly know anything? “Wye is my son, not me.”
“No, Wye is you.” AnoNymous cleared her throat and pointed at Yed’s eyes. “I can read the past that never existed.”
“No. I can’t-there’s no such thing as time travel!” Yed exploded. “I am not any Wye Warno, and I am not part of some other future. I am Yeducavich Smilliat, no more and no less.”
“Do not fear. Wye Warno realized that his actions and thoughts could never help the situation. He was a different being because of his experiences. In order to get through this, Wye tried to let himself go, but you will always be him. I am sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Yed asked.
“Memories, forgotten yet felt. A life, erased. Those bonds that were created, now destroyed. Others you knew, now don’t exist or will never have known you. A forgotten path that one must weep for. I also share that fate.” AnoNymous brought her staff toward Yed. “All I know is one name of several I used to be called.” She moved the staff away from Yed. “I was once a poet. Somehow, I became involved in time travel. I know not how anymore. My words spread across planets, but my infamy isn’t known. My name became synonymous to the word no one. No claim. Now I cannot see what I wrote, and what I did through time. What is me, and what is simply ‘anonymous’? This is my punishment.” She moved toward the book of lineage. “Time has been a foul mistress, never allowing me to leave. I have taken refuge here as the Chronicle Keeper. It is the only thing I know to do for my sin.”
“Traveling across time is a sin?” Xiam asked him. “You were punished?”
“I don’t know the details. Everything is gone.” AnoNymous pointed to her head. “I know that I was after someone. Someone who wanted to change fate. By going after him, I was messing up time. New beings that were not supposed to be there, and others that were? All gone. A simple change, can change so much.”
“If you wrote the rhyme, can you tell us what it means?” Yed asked.
“Although I do not know many of my works now, I do know this. I wrote it within this time. A way to make sure the secrets were passed down, generation unto generation, without letting the enemy know.” She went to the book of lineage and rubbed her hands along the rhyme. “There is so much power within words, and innocence holds the most. A child’s rhyme. It holds more secrets than the universe knows. Sweet and whimsical, yet deadly if understood by the wrong being.” She glanced toward Yed and Xiam. “Are you the ones whom I should tell?”
“We came a long way,
based on a rhyme. The situation is dire out there,” Xiam said. “If there’s anything that could help, we need to know. Right, Yed?”
Yed nodded, studying the Chronicle Keeper. Out of time. “What did you mean when you said ‘lost’?”
“You are out of your time, a being that is in a past that was not his. A being that cannot return to his proper future.” The Chronicle Keeper touched the wording on the book. “It is you. Past and present future traveler. You could be the one. On my honor, I have no choice. We’ll know by the end.” She held her finger beneath the first word, and slowly moved as she read each line. “North to South, East to West, Four innocents must pass the test. Two were born unto you, without approval. Two more were born, with approval.”
“We are looking for a translation,” Xiam half complained with a groan. “Yed?”
Yed thought about the words. “Two born unto me. The twins? Wye and Carressella?”
“Then who are the other two? Born with approval?” Xiam scratched his head.
“Oh. Oh!” Yed slapped his forehead. Now it made sense. Yes, the king knew about Muinela and Zaria’s children, but two were not enough for whatever this rhyme was wanting. “It’s Zaria, Jr. and Cooey. Muinela wanted children, remember?”
“Yes. There is little doubt now.” The Chronicle Keeper continued to read. “We'll spin around having fun, until it stops and the mineral is gone. Our precious resource, the inhibitor is in trouble. It’s most peaceful home in the mountains will become dangerous. Without it, there is no Pagnia anymore. Yet, it can get only worse. “
“How can it get worse?” Xiam complained. He looked at the next lines. “What does this next part mean?”
“Yed knows what it means,” AnoNymous said.