Our souls are shattered and we move on, because to do otherwise is to die even as we breathe. ---Wesley of Dunáya
"What are you going to do now?" said Kareth. They sat at the edge of the trees near the burned cottage, eating the remaining apple, trading bites. Birds chirped all around, oblivious to the new awareness growing in Sirah’s soul. Kareth felt it in the focus of her friend’s eyes, sensed it as clear as the rising sun turning the grass a vibrant green. The same she had felt as she climbed out of the pool and saw the world for the first time.
"Mama was a scwibe, Elnoe to'd me." Sirah's words started slow, as she searched her newly whole mind for sounds stored there. "I can wun to wead now. You teach me?" She wiped juice from her chin, a silly grin twisting her cheeks.
"Of course. Supposedly I know how to write, too."
"Wudnunt be funny fo me to keep Elnoe's books?"
“I don’t think someone like Elnore would give you any of her books, but I guess you could ask. Wouldn’t someone else in the village have books for you to borrow?”
Sirah laughed. “No! I mean figger her money.”
"Sure, but I don't know what that means," said Kareth. She had to smile at her own ignorance, and Sirah’s laugh was simply contagious.
"I'd never do it, though.” Sirah sat back with her hands supporting her. Her words came more easily, as though hearing Kareth’s language taught her quickly how to speak. “I'll never go there again. I'll get the priestess to shut her down." Her voice turned with a bitter flavor. A part of her soul was missing, would always be missing. "The constable can send them to prison for murder for what they did to my daughter!"
She shifted her shoulders as though getting out of an uncomfortable dress, then smiled again. "The priestess was one of the few nice people. Won't she be excited to see me? She'll help me know how to get justice. I've never talked so much in my life. You have no idea what this is like, to be free."
"I think I might," said Kareth, studying the apple core. "I emerged from confusion, too, out of the pool. I'm in confusion again without my Ancients' books."
"I'll never leave you." Sirah placed a hand on Kareth's wrist. She still used the one that had always been whole, keeping her newly healed arm still close to her chest. Out of habit.
Kareth thanked her with a small smile. "If only I'd read them, then I could replace them. I'd make them burn-proof."
"You looked at the covers."
Kareth shrugged.
"Did you open any of them?" said Sirah.
"I flipped through one, and read a paragraph."
"Well, replace what you saw, then."
Kareth chortled at the simplicity of the idea. She jumped to her feet. "I rescued one of the books! It was burned, but not all the pages. It must be where I fell at the edge of the forest." She ran around the house to where the door had been, then turned to the forest. Sirah came with her. Both rummaged through damp tree litter, the smell of earth and life mixing pleasantly. The book had to still be there.
The sun hung high when Sirah lifted something that was neither leaf nor pebble. It was charred and pale and sodden: the book.
"Ha!" screamed Kareth. "You are the most wonderful human I will ever meet!"
Sirah's smile was full and rosy, her honey colored hair a halo around her face. Kareth took the book and flipped through it. Its life sparks were whole and brilliant. Promising. The spine said in a faded line, Wesley of... Char hid the rest of the title, but she knew it: Wesley of Dunáya. The thirty-generationer.
She concentrated on the life sparks as they had been before the burning; nothing. Her sense remained too weak to manipulate.
Sirah watched her. "Well?" Kareth shook her head. "What did you expect to happen?" said Sirah.
Shrugging, Kareth said, "I don't even know. Mona, the Ancient before me, just made things appear. She knew how to form things from life sparks from the pool."
"Magic?"
"I guess that's one word for it," said Kareth. "I was emerged for only a day when that lump of rotting flesh burned down my house, and all my books. I was supposed to have read them. I don't know anything because I wasn't able to learn anything from them, but maybe the books are where an Ancient's powers lie. Maybe I'm not an Ancient anymore because my books are gone."
"No," said Sirah. She shook her head. "You are still what you were, otherwise you would have stayed dead. You were as black as charcoal when old Gunther brought your body to town. It surprised me when I saw your arm move. That's why I brought you inside. No one would listen to me when I tried to tell them. Not that they would have understood me anyway. But you regenerated. And you understood me better than anyone ever has. That's got to mean something. Doesn't it?"
A cool sense of relief washed over Kareth's face. "Of course you're right."
"Is there anything you can read in this book here?" Sirah touched the wet pages, then Kareth pushed the sticky pages apart. What didn't rip stayed stuck together. The words, having been written in black ink, had faded to smeared brown. Yet, with her language sense, Kareth understood what she saw.
The page described Wesley's attempt to escape Dunáya to seek another pool and thus another Ancient, to gain guidance and a relief from loneliness. He brought a couple of horses to carry sufficient packs, food, silver, all that he would need for a lengthy trip. As she spoke, Sirah sat and listened with her hands folded tightly in her lap.
Kareth carefully turned the delicate page.
Unfortunately, as Wesley journeyed, his energy lessened to such a point that he couldn't move beyond a certain point. Somehow his soul depended on the Dunáya pool. He even tied himself to his horse to carry him beyond the invisible border; the stallion ran on as Wesley fell to the road, time and again. Three times Wesley made the attempt, and three times he waited, unmoving, in the middle of the road for any human to come along and carry him back the way he had come. If they lifted him with the intent of taking him forward, her turned as heavy as a mountain.
The story went on, but Kareth looked to Sirah with a smile. "I can read this, at least, even if I can't just recreate it."
"You know how to write, don't you?" said Sirah. "Why not get some paper and ink and write it the normal way?"
"Where would I get paper and ink? I imagine it's something humans use their gold for."
"The priestess would give us some," said Sirah. "She knows all about books, so maybe she could fix yours. She'd also feed us. I'd like to go see her anyway."
The thought of somewhere safe they could go to get food and something to drink quickened their pace back through the forest to the village. Sirah clutched the sodden book to her chest with her formally frail arm. It was full dark by the time they strode Dunaya's streets, passing stone homes with glowing windows. Sirah led the way to the sanctuary at the western edge, where the priestess lived.
Trees grew right up to the walls of her house, the stone clean and well kept. Flowers slept in subdued hues wherever patches of moonlight slanted through branches. Sirah knocked.
A solid wooden door opened from between silvery hanging plants. Warm orange light surrounded a figure in the doorway. "Ah!" Long yellow sleeves swung around the priestess as she raised her spindly arms, and a white braid slipped behind her. "So you have finally freed yourself from the inn and found the forest!"
"I'm not in the forest now, Priestess," said Sirah. "I am visiting you here."
"No, dear," said the priestess, embracing Sirah. "You had the courage to escape the inn. You found the sacred pool. You became complete. It's obvious. And who is your friend?"
"This is the Ancient of the pool." Sirah pushed Kareth forward to the priestess.
"Is she indeed?" said the priestess. "I was well acquainted with your predecessor. I am Jade. And your name?"
"Kareth," she said. "Please, may I have some paper and something to write with?"
"And something good to eat, too," said Sirah.
"Yes," said the priestess. "You both look as bedraggled as orphan kittens. Food first, and you can tell me your story."
She ushered them into her kitchen, a small room with a smooth, square table, subdued lighting from a lamp and stove, and a smell of spices and bread. Sirah set the book onto the table. Jade brought bowls of soup, slices of bread, and cool water; simple fare that filled Kareth's belly and cleared her head. As they ate, she and Sirah related what happened from Kareth's emergence to Sirah's Becoming. The priestess nodded her head and refilled their bowls until the story was complete.
"Yes," she said, "I imagine being without the rest of your books could cause problems."
"Oh?" said Kareth. "What problems?"
"I have no idea. Likely this particular event has never happened, where the books are destroyed before having been read. But you say you've lost most of your senses. I see that as a problem. Though humans don't have those senses, and we get along fine."
"But," said Sirah, "we have parents to teach us, most people do anyway, and Kareth has no family at all."
"She has us," said the priestess. Standing stately, she swept into the next room, then returned with an ink well, a pen, and a piece of parchment. "Write what you remember, Kareth. Let's see what happens. I'll take a look at your soggy mess here in a few minutes."
Kareth took the pen in awkward fingers; she had never seen a pen, nor anyone using one. "How do I do it?"
"Surely you know how to write," said the priestess. "All Ancients do."
"It's not that," said Kareth. "I don't know how to use a pen."
The priestess chuckled, then demonstrated the proper handling of the pen, how to dip it into the ink, how to form a line. "You can do the rest."
Kareth held the pen, placed its nib onto the parchment, and wrote, Wesley of Dunáya. Her fingers tingled as she detailed, word for word, Wesley's attempt to flee Dunáya and find another Ancient. The pen warmed, as did the paper; she looked at the sheet, and realized it originated from the same source as the meat in their soup.
"I feel life sparks," she said. "Faint, but enough to sense that this paper came from meat."
"Paper comes from cows?" said Sirah.
"Some of it does, dear," said Jade. "Higher quality. Some comes from trees." Her smile demonstrated a row of perfectly white teeth. "Very good, Kareth. There must be some power in Ancients' books. I will get to drying this promptly for you."
Kareth nodded, looking down at her writing. "This book is my link to the Ancients before me, at least." She wrote another paragraph, then sentences that she had glanced at as she flipped through the book. On a separate sheet, she made a list of all the book titles, the names of her forbears, in order. Sirah's face brightened, Jade's smile deepened, the table sparkled, the ink on the paper seemed to breathe. Kareth's rising awareness clarified colors.
"You're not gray any more," said Jade.
"I guess I can be anything I want now," said Kareth, a bit breathless.
That’s the end of Ancient of Dunaya. The author told me that it is intended as a full epic novel, not yet written. It will detail Kareth’s long efforts at becoming, as well as the lives of several humans that she meets along the way. It also will detail Sirah becoming the greatest time mage in thousands of years.
Remember, if you or one of your friends has a great story, but you don’t have the notoriety to get a lot of votes, send the story to me. I have a bit of a following, and I will get your story noticed. You keep the steem and and gain the popularity. Just reply here with your desire, and I’ll let you know how to send it to me.
Images courtesy of:
PC Wall Art
Manuel Lisa’s Party
flickriver
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