Turning Darkness into Light

by Marie Brennan

  After all, it was just a catalogue. Nothing we sent to the Carters looked like it had anything to do with the epic, so why should I interrupt my work to examine it? Half the reason I recruited the Carters was to make sure that got taken care of without me having to worry about it.

  I don’t know how much time passed. When I’m engrossed in work, you could fly a desert drake through the room and I probably wouldn’t notice. But eventually I heard Kudshayn say my name in a tone of voice that penetrated the fog of declensions and determinatives, and I looked up.

  The catalogue was on the table in front of him, and Kudshayn was tapping one claw-tip in the steady rhythm that says he’s puzzled by something. “What is it?” I said.

  “Come look at this.”

  I admit I was a little annoyed. I’d been making good progress, and then Kudshayn had to go and interrupt me for the silly catalogue. “Why?”

  Without looking up, he said, “Because it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Cora probably made a mistake,” I said ungraciously. Even though Kudshayn’s attention was entirely on the catalogue, my imagination filled in him giving me a reproachful look anyway, because that was cattish of me and I knew it. Feeling guilty, I got up and came to peer over his shoulder.

  Kudshayn ran his claw-tip down the list, one page after another. I hadn’t realized the Carters had gotten through the whole cache already; they’ve worked remarkably fast. Of course the tablets we sent them are much easier to assess for the most part—but nevertheless, it’s excellent work and proof that they deserve more chances to work on new material.

  At first I didn’t see what Kudshayn meant, because my mind was still on the epic and looking for something pertaining to our work. “None of these are related,” I said.

  He said, “Precisely.”

  And that’s when I figured it out.

  Kudshayn is right: the cache makes no sense. Most of the tablets are southern Anthiopean, but not all of them; some come from as far away as Dajin and the Broken Sea. And they’re all over the place in terms of period, everything from early texts to things circa the Downfall. Not only aren’t they related to our epic, but they aren’t related to each other, either.

  I said the first thing that came into my head. “This looks like the inventory from some antiquities dealer’s warehouse.”

  Kudshayn’s wings flicked in surprise, knocking me back. He didn’t even apologize, just twisted on his stool to meet my gaze.

  It was like the world blinked. One moment I was staring at Kudshayn; the next I was in the doorway to the library, shouting Cora’s name loud enough to be heard in Yelang.

  She came running, wild-eyed and out of breath. “What is it?”

  By then I had the catalogue in my hands, and stabbed one finger at the footnote she’d added about tablet 37. “This one. You’re sure it’s from your uncle’s collection?”

  “Yes,” she said defensively. “I made my own catalogue of his antiquities, years ago; I can show you. Though I didn’t know how to make a catalogue properly at the time. That isn’t the only tablet I recognized, either. It isn’t my fault that they got included with the others by accident; he told me to package up everything that had been shipped here from Akhia, and they were in there, even though they shouldn’t have been.”

  My hands clenched so tight on the folder that I crimped it, and Cora reached out as if to rescue it from my abuse. “No,” I said. “They shouldn’t have been. I am an idiot!”

  Cora was kind enough not to agree with me. She just said, “Why?”

  I started pacing, resisting the urge to throw the catalogue across the room. “Because there was one thing that never made sense, and I didn’t think of the obvious answer. Even though it was right there in front of me the whole time.”

  Kudshayn’s voice was a quiet growl. “How could they know.”

  “Exactly,” I spat.

  Cora stamped her foot, and her voice went high and shrill. “Tell me what’s going on!”

  I made myself stop pacing and face her. “Cora. Your uncle doesn’t like Draconeans. Why would he invite one to come work on these tablets? Why would he hire me, the granddaughter of the woman who brought Kudshayn’s people back into contact with humanity?”

  She thought it through for a long time, while I bit down on the urge to answer my own questions. They were rhetorical, but I knew from prior experience that she would want to answer them anyway. At last she said, “To hurt you. And Kudshayn. And the Draconeans.”

  “But how could he be so certain this would do that? There’s been no time for anyone to read the epic. These tablets aren’t the kind of thing you can skim and get the gist; the language is much too archaic for that. Nobody could possibly translate them in the time between Gleinleigh finding the cache in Akhia and me arriving here.”

  “Unless,” Kudshayn said, “he’s had them a good deal longer than that.”

  “And that’s why Alan didn’t find anything in the Qajr,” I said, slapping the table. “Because there’s nothing to find, and never was. Gleinleigh staged the whole discovery, to make it look like it was new. He probably chose the Qajr because he could get the permit cheaply. But these tablets could be from anywhere. In fact—”

  I leapt to the shelf where I’ve been keeping all my periodicals, the newspapers and journals that ordinarily pile up for me at home. “No, it isn’t here. I read something about a temple in Seghaye that was found looted, with an empty tablet chest—damn Gleinleigh and all his kind! They smash their way in and rip things out of their context, so we’ll never know their true provenience.” Was the epic in that temple, or did it come from somewhere else? We’ll never know. We can read what the words say, but all the associated context that might tell us more about their meaning is lost.

  Cora was twining a lock of hair around her finger and scowling in thought. “But I don’t understand why having the tablets for longer means he would hire you.”

  “Because of who we are,” Kudshayn said softly. “Because if he wants to use these for some purpose, then it benefits him to attach famous names to it. I am the most well-known scholar of my people, and Audrey is the granddaughter of Lady Trent. Whatever we publish will gain more attention than if it came from some less prominent person.”

  “Or from Aaron Mornett,” I said with venom.

  And then the world blinked again. Cora was suddenly helping me into a chair, and I had the sour taste of bile in my mouth. Because I’d finally arrived at the logical conclusion of my own reasoning, and I knew:

  Kudshayn and I are not the first people to read these tablets.

  Aaron Mornett read them first.

  All the work we’ve done here, everything we have sweated over so hard . . . Mornett did it before us. There’s no need for Gleinleigh and Mrs. Kefford to interfere at the printer’s, to engage in ridiculous skulduggery with sabotage and murder. They already know what we’ll find. But for that to be true, they would need someone capable of translating the epic, someone versed enough in the language to work with these archaic forms, and that list is quite short. The list of people who would do it for unscrupulous purposes is even shorter.

  Translating the epic was supposed to be my revenge against Aaron Mornett. Instead it’s his final triumph over me.

  My one bitter consolation is that he can never claim the credit for his work. Not if we’re right about what they intend. The whole world will know Kudshayn and me as the original translators.

  I hope that knowledge pains him a thousandth as much as I hurt right now.

  Kudshayn understood, of course. He explained it to Cora while I stared blindly at the floor. At least, I think he did; I know that he talked, and after a while Cora gave me an awkward hug, which coming from her is so wildly unusual that Kudshayn must have said something to make her decide it was necessary.

  “So don’t go along with it,” she said, while I scrubbed my face dry. “If this will be so damaging, then just stop.”

  It sounds horrible to say, bu
t it was easier for me to think about how the epic could be turned against the Draconeans than about how it had hurt me. I got up and hugged Kudshayn, wishing I had wings to wrap around him, but he was busy thinking. “The creation tale could be read as offensive,” he said, “if we assume the āmu are indeed human beings—and I think we must. But I do not think the revelation that the Anevrai believed humans to be failed precursors to their own species will shock people to any great degree.”

  “No,” I agreed. “If there is something truly awful in this story . . .”

  “Then we have yet to come to it,” he said.

  The worms. Imalkit blaming the loss of the sun on the creatures to the south, and Samšin declaring war against them. That alone is an unpleasant reminder that the Anevrai conquered the world and subjugated humanity, but if the tale goes into any detail . . . wars are rarely pretty.

  We only have two tablets to go. I knew what Kudshayn would say before he even opened his mouth.

  “We have to read to the end.”

  It’s that, or go shake Aaron Mornett until the truth falls out of him. Which a part of me wants to do anyway, except I don’t think the truth is anywhere inside that man. It dies when it comes near him.

  There’s an ancient proverb, found in a fragmentary wisdom text that was one of the first Draconean tablets translated, whose meaning people have been arguing about ever since. Its literal translation is “From knowledge, a sapling; from fruit, life; from the heart, an idea; from wisdom, strength.” I think it’s meant to say that knowledge in time gives rise to wisdom and strength—and now that I reflect, it may even be an oblique reference to our four siblings, Samšin and Imalkit and Nahri and Ektabr.

  Like those four, we’ve been blind to the viper at our bosom. But now that we see it for what it is—now that we have the knowledge we lacked—maybe we can find our way through to wisdom and strength.

  I nodded at Kudshayn, then brushed myself off and marched back to my seat at the table. Cora stood for a moment, wringing her hands, before turning toward the door.

  But there aren’t any doubts in my mind anymore. She didn’t have to bring us that catalogue. She didn’t have to point out that she recognized some of the tablets—a mistake on Gleinleigh’s part, when he assembled his “cache”? Or was he so determined to inflate it to an impressive size that he added in things he shouldn’t have, never realizing his own niece would spot them in the set? Either way, he never should have let me send the tablets to the Carters . . . but that is the kind of error a man like him would make. He isn’t a philologist or an archaeologist; he’s just a treasure-hunter, with no sense of the true value such things hold. No wonder Mrs. Kefford was so angry with him at Chiston.

  Cora, on the other hand, is a different matter.

  “Where are you going?” I said before she could leave. “We started this together. You deserve to see the end.”

  Tablet XIII: “The War Tablet”

  translated by Audrey Camherst and Kudshayn

  Now all the people were brought together to prepare. Imalkit taught others the art of working metal, of crafting stronger heads for arrows and spears, of forging heavy axes, of hammering sharp swords. They cut down the trees with her axes to feed the fires of crafting, and the forges burned night and day, until their smoke nearly blotted out the Light of the World.

  Imalkit did not rest there. She bent her clever mind to imagining; in dreams she sought new ideas. She made scales of metal, stronger than the scales of nature, and sewed these to garments of hide so the people would be safe from the weapons of the enemy. She made bows that needed four warriors to draw them, which hurled their shafts farther than the eye could see. She made cunning traps to catch and crush those who would come against the people. By these means were the people prepared.

  Nahri taught others the art of tilling the ground, of planting seeds, of irrigation, of making the earth bear fruit on command. They burned out the trees to make fields for planting, and the people laboured night and day.

  She did not rest there. She turned her generous mind to planning; in dreams she sought new ideas. She ground the seeds of the earth into powder and from these made flat cakes the warriors could carry with them. She put the fruits of the earth into jars of gilkha so they would not rot. She smoked the flesh of animals so that it became dry and would keep during a journey. By these means were the people prepared.

  Samšin sought among the people for others to follow her lead. She searched among the people of the north, the people of the west, the people of the east. She [. . .] who would follow her into death.

  She did not rest there. She turned her strong mind to thinking; in dreams she sought new ideas. She found three to follow her: Takhbat, Parzel, and Saybakh.1 With them she went into the wilderness. They hunted gazelles and slaughtered many, laying their meat out to the sky, as bait to the issur. Then Samšin and the three hid among the rocks.

  Soon the sky grew dark as night with the wings of the issur. They descended to the ground and ate of the meat. Samšin had an herb; Imalkit had found an herb; Nahri had grown an herb for Samšin. She had placed this herb within the meat. The issur ate of the meat and grew slow and tired.

  From the rocks came Samšin and her three. In their hands they had coils of strong rope. They threw these about the heads of the issur and pulled them tight. The issur fought against the ropes; their fury was like the fury of storms. But the herb they had eaten made them slow and tired, and they bent their heads to the strength of Samšin and her three.

  Samšin did not rest there. Takbhat fashioned bridles for the heads of the issur, so they could be guided. Parzel fashioned saddles for the backs of the issur, so they could be mounted. Saybakh fashioned whips for the hides of the issur, so they could be controlled. Samšin climbed into the saddle of the largest. She took the bridle in one hand; she took the whip in the other. Into the sky they went, like a tongue of flame rising from the ground. The issur fought against the rider. Four times it twisted, five times it turned, six times it tried to throw the rider, but Samšin struck it with the whip and it ceased to fight. The three followed her lead. They were the first to know true flight, the first to subjugate the issur to their will.2

  The forces of the people were ten thousand strong.3 When they marched, the sound of their steps shook the ground. When they camped, the light of their fires made the night as day. When they brandished their weapons, it was as if death itself had turned its face to the south. And above them in the sky flew Samšin and her three.

  To the south they went, into the land of the worms. They [. . .] the grass, across the rivers, across the sands, to the foot of the mountain which had consumed the Light of the World.

  They came as the wind, as the lightning, as the storm, as the wrath of the sky itself. Like thunder they rolled across the land, and the āmu cowered in their holes. Their weapons were as feathers against the defenses of the people; their shields were as dried leaves against the weapons of the people; their courage was as mist against the fury of the people; their armies were as nothing against the beloved of the sky.

  The āmu sent out their strongest to fight, but the people tore them to pieces and flung those pieces to the jackals. The āmu sent out their bravest to defend, but the people cut them down like grass before the blade. The āmu sent out their swiftest to flee, but the people chased them to the ends of the earth and slew them there. The āmu sent their leaders to the mountain, to the cave where they had wrought their sin. Samšin and her three followed them there, and the wings of the issur covered the mouth of the cave, blotting out the light.

  On that day there was no mercy for those who had struck against the Maker of Above and Below. The Foundation of All turned away from those it had created. The Source of Wind did not hear their pleas. The Crown of the Abyss received them in their thousands, the worms who had eaten the light, from the eldest to the youngest, but the leaders were spared, for Samšin had promised that she would bring justice to the world.4

  From:
The Office of the Curator of Draconean Antiquities

  To: Audrey Camherst

  14 Caloris

  Tomphries Museum

  #12 Chisholm Street, Falchester

  Dear Audrey,

  Your knowledge of the corpus of Draconean literature is much more extensive than mine. Have you ever come across the epithet “Foundation of All”?

  I’m sure you’d rather not be reminded of the auction at Emmerson’s, but if you recall the items I marked in the catalogue, one of them—the clay sun disk—seems to have been not as aboveboard as I thought. (Lady Plimmer bought it. I’ve had five letters from her in the last week, each one more frantic than the last at the thought of being sent to prison forever for unwittingly purchasing an illegal antiquity.) Its provenance seems to have been falsified, and knowing that, I’m wondering if it came from that looted temple in Seghaye, the one near Djedad. They found broken pieces of a similar sun disc there, and it’s rare enough to find them in clay rather than gold or copper or bronze that I can’t help but think there might be a connection, especially as Rouhani’s report said there was some kind of inscription on the back of the shattered one.

  This one says “Foundation of All, guard these precious hearts of gold,” which is why I ask about the epithet. If we can link that to its presumed original context (the discs were set into the sides of a tablet chest), we’ll have more evidence for proving this one is “hot,” as the police say—and since there seem to have been four originally, and one is broken, the other two surviving discs might be here in Scirland, too. If we can trace those back to their seller, we might be able to connect Dorak to the ransacking of that temple outside Djedad. I doubt he was directly involved, of course, but anything we can do to trace the networks that smuggle these things out of their home countries will help us stop them in the future.

  I find myself wondering if there’s any chance “Foundation of All” is somehow related to what we call foundation-style chests. It would be quite a marvel if we unwittingly replicated the ancient word for those things, but it would help prove a connection. I’ve also written to Rouhani to see if he can make out any of the inscription on his broken disc, and see if it says the same thing.