It all started with a single act. As all things, this in itself was not unusual; indeed, most things that began did so through a single act, be it an idea or motion that began the sequence of events. But this act, carried out by a trembling, furry little hand, was in itself very significant for the very fact that that delicate hand with its short claws opened a book holding the entirety of the history of the known world.
The Book of Ages was just that, a book that chronicled the history of the world. As the others looked over her shoulders, Keritanima opened it to that first page and indeed found herself staring at three simple words, three words that summed up the completeness of the book:
In the beginning.
Simple words, often seen at the beginning of a story, but those words formed the beginning of a vast chronicle of lore lost for thousands of years, knowledge unknown since before the peoples who created that knowledge disappeared from the annals of history, forgotten by their descendents. They all could not help but feel the great weight of the book then, to feel the tremendous burden it imposed on them, to know that they were responsible for protecting and safeguarding the recorded history of the world. Tarrin had carried the book with him for nearly a year, kept it safe within the elsewhere and there it stayed out of his mind. But now, to look down upon it and know that within its pages rested not only the information they needed, but the complete accords of the history of man and Selani, Wikuni and Were-kin, Vendari and all other races, it was sobering. It didn't look it, but the book held everything, every major event, every kingdom, every war, every atrocity, every revelation, every alliance, every intrigue that had shaped the world into what it was.
There was just one small problem, one little thing that caused all of them to stare at one another in surprise, and for Tarrin's heart to lurch.
The book was written in Sha'Kar.
Tarrin's ability to hear the whispers of the Weave didn't seem to be affected by the altered time, for the memory of those symbols was clear to him, something common enough to evoke a response from the echoes of the memory that sometimes came to him.
"Oh, great!" Keritanima snapped, pounding her fist on the table. "How can we use the book to learn the written form of Sha'Kar if the damn book is written in Sha'Kar!"
"Patience, Keritanima," Dolanna said, reaching down over her shoulder and starting to turn pages in large blocks. "It will actually make things easier for us."
"And how is that?" she asked acidly.
"Simple, sister," Allia replied. "All we must do is find where we start seeing languages we can identify. Odds are, that is where the information is that we need."
Keritanima looked at Allia, then she laughed ruefully. "Well, that is a good idea," she admitted. "Why didn't I think of it?"
"You were too busy having a heart attack to think," Dar told her with a sly smile.
"Oh, keep it up, Dar," she snarled at him. "Since we're all feeling so intelligent, help me. I'm going to file through the pages pretty quick. If anyone sees anything they think that they can identify, tell me to stop."
The idea worked, and it worked well. For nearly two hours, Keritanima turned page after page, having to pause from time to time to lick her fingers or just give them a break, displaying page after page of those neatly spaced, symmetrical columns of spidery glyphs that were the Sha'Kar language. Keritanima continued until a new form of symbols appeared, blunt, blocky runes that Tarrin immediately identified. "Stop!" Tarrin snapped, causing Keritanima to nearly tear the page in her haste to pause in the act of turning pages. "Go back a page," he ordered, reaching over her as she did so. "I've seen these before. They're Dwarven."
"Can you read it?" Keritanima asked.
"No."
"Then why did you stop me!" she snapped.
"Because the Dwarves are one of the four First Races," he replied. "The Goddess told me that story a while ago. If the book is written in Sha'Kar, then that means that they kept the language of their ancestors, who were also one of the First Races. Since humans developed later than the Dwarves and the ancestor race, and I don't think the Goblins ever created a written language of their own, that means we should start seeing human languages pretty soon."
"I wonder who wrote this book, anyway," Dar asked curiously. "Or how many. Writing it must have taken thousands of people their whole lives to do it."
"This book was not created by a mortal hand, young one. The god of knowledge, the Younger God Denthar, is responsible for it," Dolanna answered him. "It is said that it was created by him, and that the book writes itself, each new page appearing at the book's end with every event worthy to be recorded within."
"Then the book has no ending," Dar mused in a wonder-filled voice.
"It has an ending, but none of us will be alive to read it," Dolanna corrected him.
Keritanima cleared her throat, and then began again. She thumbed through the pages for another half an hour or more before Miranda suddenly told her to stop, right after she turned a page. "This is a different writing system," she announced, pointing to a line of rough, almost ugly marks on the page. The rough marks were interspersed in alternating lines with the Sha'Kar glyphs, a promising sign that a key to translating was indeed held within the book.
"That is Hyralar, the root language of Hylar, the First Civilization," Dolanna announced. "It is said that from them, the true Ancients emerged. The ones that built the seven great cities and left ruins behind that we still find to this day."
Tarrin knew something of the far history, thanks to the story that the Goddess told him. This Hyralar had to be close to the time when the Urzani conquered the world. That would put the book's dating still some seven or eight thousand years in the past. "Kerri, grab a good handful of book and turn it," he told her. "Go way ahead. We're looking about eight thousand years in the past."
"How do you know that?" she demanded.
"The Goddess told me a story of the great past," he replied. "She told me that the ancestor race split into two groups, and that one destroyed the other. Then that race, called the Urzani, conquered the humans. That was like two or three thousand years before the Blood War. If this is the first example of human writing, then we're not even to that part yet."
"Urzani. I have heard that term," Dolanna said absently, tapping her cheek.
"I'll tell you the story the Goddess told me some time," he told them. "I'm sure you two would find it very interesting," he noted, looking at Allia and Keritanima.
"And why is that?" Keritanima asked.
"Because your people and the Selani are descended from the Urzani," he announced flatly. "The Wikuni and the Selani descended from the Sha'Kar, who are descendents of the Urzani. You and Allia are cousins as much as sisters."
"Truly?" Allia asked suddenly.
"That's impossible!" Keritanima flared. "I mean, look at us! How could we be related to the Selani? We're absolutely nothing alike!"
"Not now, but a long time ago, the Wikuni looked like the Sha'Kar, because they were the Sha'Kar. I'll tell you about that later, sister. Right now, we have another job that's just a little bit more important."
"Oh, fine, go and drop a cannonball like that on my lap and expect me to just forget about it," Keritanima growled at him as she grabbed a good half-span of book and turned it, so hard that it made an audible thud when the pages turned. The page to which she turned was still written in Sha'Kar. "Alright then," she growled, starting to turn pages again.
After about two more hours, they found what they were looking for. "Stop!" Miranda said excitedly as Keritanima turned a page. The fox Wikuni turned back a page as Miranda almost snatched the book out of her hands, pointing to a line. "Am I tired and thirsty, or is that High Wikuni?" she said excitedly.
Keritanima feverishly looked over the page, and Tarrin saw her eyes widen. "Alright, we're in business!" Keritanima announced. "Everyone here thank my father, who's rotting in an insane asylum, for making them teach me High Wikuni," she said in a grand voice. "I can read this!"
"You hope you can read that," Dar corrected.
"Oh, no, Dar, I can read it," she challenged, putting a finger on the slightly angular scrawl. "'Herein lies the third generation of the script of the Shorian dialect of Low Sha'Kar," she read from the book. "A simplified system of writing adopted by the Sha'Kar for communicating with other races after encountering great difficulty teaching their writing system to the other races. Created by Shoria Do'Ara, High Scholar and thirty-fifth Keeper of the Tower of Sharadar." Keritanima gave out a squeal of delight. "Contained on the pages hereafter is the cross-indexed dictionary of translating Sha'Kar into Shorian Script!" she said with a laugh. "I guess this does mean that our ancestors with the Sha'Kar," she said with a look at the book. "If the root written language of my people was invented by a Sha'Kar, then it's only logical that my ancestors were also Sha'Kar." She looked at Allia. "I guess we are cousins, sister."
"We can discuss that a bit later, sister," Allia told her, a bit impatiently.
"But you're the only one who can read it," Tarrin objected. He knew the real answer to that, but he was too interested in getting started than he was in getting bogged down in a history lesson. They'd learn about that soon enough, if they read through the book. "If we keep looking, we may find where they have Sulasian."
"Which would you rather do, Tarrin? Use up another six or seven hours looking for it, or start right here and now?"
Given the choices in that context, Tarrin realized it wasn't much of a choice. "Well, alright then," he agreed.
"Miranda, break out the books," Keritanima said. "Everyone take a seat. We're all going to have a little study session."
"What are you talking about, sister?" Allia asked.
"I'm going to tell you a word in Sha'Kar and point to its corresponding symbol. Then you're going to copy that symbol down in your own books and write the Sha'Kar word using a phoneticized comparison to whatever language you're most comfortable with beside it. That way you have to write it down, and it's always easier to remember things when you have to write them down. Trust me, I know. I speak from experience."
"This is going to take months," Dar groaned.
"About that," Keritanima agreed. "Sha'Kar is an unbelievably complicated language, with a vocabulary that has as many words as two other languages put together. Given that it looks like there are two systems of written language, it's going to make it that much harder."
" Two forms?" Tarrin asked in dismay.
Keritanima nodded, her eyes poring over the book. "Some of these symbols repeat. From what I see here, it's because those repeating symbols don't represent a word, they represent a phonetic syllable. Like a symbol that represents a block of letters instead of a single one. I guess they ran out of ideas for new glyphs, and adopted a syllabic format for all the words they invented afterwards." She grunted. "High Wikuni is also a syllabic writing style, using fifty-two symbols to represent phonetic sounds. But it looks here like there are quite a few more syllabic symbols than fifty-two."
"Ugh," Miranda grunted. "This is sounding more and more difficult by the moment."
"The syllabic format will actually be the easier one to learn, because repetition breeds familiarity," Keritanima said professionally. "It's the glyphic format that's going to be a royal pain to learn. From what I see here already, the words represented by glyphs are not translated into the syllabic form. We'll have to learn every glyph and its corresponding word, one by one."
"It's going to take months," Dar groaned again.
"Clear your calendar, boys and girls," Keritanima said grimly. "We're going to be very busy for a while."
Months. In this strange altered time, that would be more like rides, but the sheer size of the task before them was intimidating. Mother, is there anything you can do to help? he asked pleadingly.
You have but to ask, kitten, she replied lightly. I seem to recall that Dolanna learned Sha'Kar in a matter of rides. Maybe you should ask her how she did it.
I know how she did it. She said she used a priest spell-can you do that for me? he asked immediately.
You have but to ask, my kitten, she said in a teasing voice. And before you ask, yes, I can grant priest spells in that altered reality. Have Dolanna teach you the spell. In fact, have her teach it to all of you. Well, except Miranda, of course. She'll have to negotiate with Kikalli over this.
"It will not take as long as you think, Keritanima," Dolanna told her patiently. "I once used minor priest magic to learn Sha'Kar. We can do so with this. It is a simple spell."
Dolanna must have read his mind. "Dolanna, I was thinking the exact same thing," Tarrin told her gratefully. "Can you teach us the spell?"
"It is a simple matter, dear one. Priest spells are prayers for a specific thing, using ritual words. I can teach you the prayer of aiding memory in moments, but be warned that it is not an absolute. The spell only aids memory. It does not cause you to automatically remember perfectly anything you see or hear. But it will cut down the time it will take to learn by a drastic amount."
"I'm feeling left out," Miranda sighed morosely.
"I can use Sorcery to keep you up, Miranda," Keritanima assured her. "Mind weaves can pass information from one mind to another. Since we're the same race, they'll work for us."
"Oh. That's fine then," she said brightly.
"Well then, Dolanna, I'm feeling particularly pious at the moment, and find I have an overpowering desire to pray," Keritanima said with a light smile. "Teach us the words, and we'll get this ball rolling."
Dolanna did so, and after repeating the prayer over and over again until they had it memorized, they used it in earnest. It was the first time Tarrin had ever used real Priest magic, and he found it to be quite odd. He couched his request in flowery prose, as was taught to him by Dolanna, seeming to grovel verbally to be blessed with the Goddess' magic. It seemed odd to be so humble to one who laughed at his jokes and talked to him like a best friend, but if that was what was necessary, then that was what was necessary. Tarrin never forgot that the Goddess was his Goddess, and he was devoted to her and knew his place in their relationship. He chanted the prayer a bit self-consciously, but when he reached its conclusion, he could not deny the magic that responded to his words. He felt the finger of the Goddess brush against his mind, and he entered what he could only call an episode of exceptionally acute attentiveness. He became aware of absolutely every little thing around him, even beyond his normally inhuman senses, and the open pages of the Book of Ages on the table before them looked not quite so intimidating now. He actually felt confident in the upcoming task to learn the written Sha'Kar language. He actually felt much smarter than he did just a moment before, felt up to the challenge of the academic hurdle facing him.
"Wow, I feel… enlightened," Dar said after finishing the prayer.
"A strange effect," Allia agreed. "I have never felt so… smart."
"That is the noticable effect of the prayer," Dolanna nodded. "It only lasts a few hours, and we cannot use it again until tomorrow, so let us move along, Keritanima. Even in this altered state, time is very much a factor."
"Alright then," Keritanima said as Miranda started handing out blank books from one of the chests, then handed each of them one of those fancy, expensive Tellurian fountain pens and put a couple of inkwells on the table for all of them to use. "The book starts with a key for the syllabic form of the language. This is the first, it represents the phonetic sound shi."
Time became blurred to them all in that alternating form of time.
They would spend hours and hours-days even-within the realm of slower time, laboriously going over the written Sha'Kar script, hours and days spent in a silent unchanging light that seemed to eat at Tarrin's sense of normalcy, an eternal, quiet moment of daylight that did not end. It ate at his instincts, his sense of the natural order of things, and it caused him quite a bit of discomfort for much longer than it bothered the others. Symbol by symbol, glyph by glyph, one by one, they learned the Sha'Kar language. But the days and days spent within the boundary of the gift from Shellar translated to hours and hours in the real time of the outside world, giving all of them a strange sense of dislocation from everything else. Keritanima started with High Wikuni-or what she thought was High Wikuni-before realizing that the Wikuni had corrupted the language written on the pages, changing the meaning of many of the words. She could read about half of it, but for her, that wasn't precise enough. After that, they went through the book again, until they found the key to translating into Sha'Kar from Arakite. When they found that, Dar and Tarrin took over the task of training, since they were the only two who understood the written form of the Arakite language. It was here where Dar asserted himself over Tarrin, proving that his Goddess-boosted ability to remember and learn outstripped his old friend by many degrees. Tarrin happily allowed Dar to take over the sessions, since he preferred being a student rather than a teacher anyway. As they expected, Dar's memory when it came to images and things he saw-such as the glyphs of Sha'Kar-made him invaluable to them.
With Dar's help, they managed to convert the Sha'Kar keys into the base languages of all the others, and then they completely memorized the syllabic branch of the language. As Keritanima said, it was much easier than memorizing some ten thousand individual characters, but it still wasn't easy. There were three distinct forms of those syllabic symbols, each relating to a differing level of formality. Three different symbols that stood for the same phonetic sound. In all, there were over four hundred individual syllabic symbols to memorize, and what was more, they had to learn when and where each one was used. But they managed to complete it, and that allowed them to read about ten percent of the Sha'Kar writing before them, consistingly mostly of words borrowed from other languages, words adopted after the syllabic format had been created, leaving the vast majority of the language unreadable. Once that was mastered, they started on the glyphs. It was a painfully slow process, but it did progress. Inside the time-altered dome, they labored for over a month to learn the Sha'Kar language, using the memory-boosting prayer taught to them by Dolanna-which, they found out, was still bound by the time limitations of real time, making it effective for subjective days so long as they stayed within the dome-they did move forward.
It took four days. Four days in real time. In the strange dual subjective time in which they had functioned, however, it took then nearly two months to complete the education in Sha'Kar, and even that was only possible because of the aid from the Goddess. But when it was over, any of them could pick up anything written in Sha'Kar and read it perfectly. Dar and Keritanima had demanded thoroughness, teaching them absolutely every word in the dictionary-after all, they were looking for obscure and unusual information, and it would probably be written using obscure or unusual words. So they had to be masters of the Sha'Kar language to find what they were looking for.
It had been hardest on Tarrin, for he had been the one responsible for keeping the others fed. He would step out into real time, Conjure up some food, and then return. He found out that repeatedly crossing the boundary between the two times had detrimental effects on him. It made him very tired and irritable, and it gave him strange headaches. It also made his sense of the Weave go haywire when he returned to normal time, since his ability to sense the Weave was affected by the shift of time. At the end of every day-the real end-he would drag himself back to his room and collapse on the nearest piece of furniture. Jesmind and Jasana weren't too pleased at his lack of attention to them, but he was honestly too tired to care.
Four days. Four days closer were the ki'zadun, but on the other hand, the Selani were also four days closer. He figured that they'd be attacking the Dals at Ultern any day now. Suld no longer looked like a city; it looked like a fortress. The gates had all been closed and reinforced, forcing anyone wishing to enter the city to do so by ship. All the villagers surrounding the city had come inside, and everyone was hard at work preparing the city for siege. There was no way, nor a reason, to hide the preparations any longer, as houses were torn down to pile against the backs of the city gates and every man with a sword or weapon was pressed into duty to man the walls or patrol the streets against thieves and looters. The Regent for the king had given over all duty and power for defense of the city to Darvon and the Knights, and the wise old military man had deployed the forces and organized Sorcerers as well as could possibly be done.
On the start of that fifth day, they all came back to the courtyard to find the dome gone. Obviously, it had served its purpose, and now they were going to be running in real time while they started looking through the books and scrolls they stole from the Cathedral of Karas. "Well, I guess it was inevitable," Keritanima sighed. "I'd have loved to read the Book of Ages, since we'd have all the time in the world. Looks like I won't get the chance."
"At least not now," Dolanna agreed. "I suggest each of us take up some book or scroll from the cache and start looking. Since we now have very little time, there is no more time for study."
"We didn't need any more time to study," Dar told his mentor. "There wasn't anything else to learn."
"There is always something else to learn, young one," Dolanna told him calmly. "Let us get moving, young ones. Now, there is little time to waste."
"I hate this," Allia growled as they entered the tent, opened chests, and Dolanna handed a book to each of them in turn. "I would much rather be on the walls, looking for the enemy."
"They're coming, sister," Tarrin told her. "No need to go look for them. They can't be very far away."
"True, but it would feel more satsifying than sitting here reading through ancient books," she told him.
"I can't argue with that," he chuckled.
Tarrin sat down with his back to the fountain, using the sound of its running water as pleasant background noise to allow his mind to concentrate on the old leather-bound book in his paws. It turned out to be something of an informal history of the Tower of Zabar, a place he'd never heard of, from two thousand years ago. The book was a personal diary of sorts of a Sha'Kar Sorcerer named Alion, who, Tarrin found out, had a very dry, sardonic wit and a keen understanding of human peculiarities that was very amusing. He found the bustlings of the human katzh-dashi to be endlessly amusing, writing about the idiosyncracies of the humans every day in his journal. His particular favorite human to observe wasn't a Sorcerer, it was one of the servants of the tower, a gardener that was about seventy years old, crotchety, bad-tempered, and set in his ways, with a wizened view of the world that was both disturbingly correct and lightly self-effacing. This gardener, Vilo, seemed to be both the epitomy of human discourtesy and an example of the wisdom the race could display. As Alion wrote, "he is the best and worst I have witnessed in humans, the perfect example of everything that is both best and worst in that very peculiar, unpredictable species. A perfect paradox in a people that seem to contradict themselves on a daily basis." Dolanna and Dar may have found Alion's writings slightly offensive, but Tarrin could appreciate a non-human's view of the human race. He had once been human, so he could see both why the non-humans found certain things humans did to be funny or strange, while at the same time understanding some of the reasons why humans did the things they did.
On another tack, he realized why the Ancients wrote in Sha'Kar. Since it was a glyphic language, it allowed the writer to pack an amazing amount of information into a single book. A single page written in Sha'Kar held the same amount of information as five pages in a book written in nearly any other language. Since books were expensive-at least they were now-it was only economical for them to make the maximum amount of use out of each and every one of them.
He sat there, getting somewhat engaged in the surprisingly entertaining book, until a rustling got his attention. He looked up curiously, seeing the branches covering the choked opening of the courtyard begin to part. What stepped out from the opening surprised him, snapping the book shut and moving to get back on his feet.
It was Jasana.
Jesmind slid out of the opening just behind her daughter, pausing to look around as Jasana called out to him and trotted over in his direction. Tarrin realized that Jesmind had been serious when she said she was going to come after him if she felt he wasn't spending enough time with her, for there she was, and she had a flinty look on her face.
"I knew I'd find you eventually, papa," Jasana giggled as she plopped down in his lap. "Mother couldn't find you cause your scent went away in the maze, so she told me to find you. I kept looking for you, but I couldn't feel you anywhere. Today, I could."
Today, he realized, he wasn't hidden within the dome of altered time. Jesmind had used Jasana's ability to sense him to find him. That was rather clever. "Well, I see you did," he agreed mildly as the others looked in his direction. "Now, what did you want to do about it?"
"Do about it? Nothing," Jesmind scoffed as she came over to him. "Do I need a reason to want to spend time with my mate?"
"I told you I'd be busy, love."
"That was five days ago. I'm tired of I'm busy. If I can't spend time with you when you're not busy, I'll do it when you are. Besides, it doesn't look like you're all that busy to me," she said accusingly. "You're just sitting around reading. All of you are."
"You missed what we did before this," he said dryly. "Well, if you're coming in, come on. Have a seat over here with me, and please try to keep it down. This takes some attention."
"What does?" Jesmind asked.
"Come here, and I'll show you."
Jesmind got a curious look on her face, and did as he asked. She sat down beside him, and he showed her the book, explaining that they'd spent the last four days learning how to read the language so they could do what they were doing now, going through the books to find some specific information. "That looks boring," Jasana complained. "This is all you've been doing?"
"Just about, cub. If you're bored, go play. Just keep quiet."
Jasana looked around. "I would," she said in a quiet, conspiratorial voice, "but the shining lady is here. I think this is her garden, and I don't want to break anything. She might get mad at me."
Tarrin looked at her, realizing that she meant the statue. Then he laughed. "I don't think she'd get mad at you, cub. I don't think you can break anything in here, outside of what's in the tent."
"Really? Good!" Jasana said brightly, then she got up and started running across the grass.
"Keep it down, cub!" Tarrin called after her.
"So, what are you looking for?" Jesmind asked curiously, leaning up against his side as he put the book back in his lap.
Tarrin quietly explained what they were doing as Jasana basicly careened around the courtyard, running to and fro, examining the flowers, the benches, getting wet in the fountain, and pestering all the others with about a million questions, no matter how many times he told her to keep quiet. Despite being in the presence of five strangers, she acted like they were all family, behaving before and to them as she did towards her other family members, acting like her usual exuberant, energetic self. Tarrin had a feeling that it was the courtyard that was doing it to her, affecting her with its sense of peace and security to overwhelm her usual shyness towards strangers. Jesmind took the book from him, puzzling over it, then turned it over upside-down and looked at it again. "How do you know which side is up?" she asked, handing the book back to him.
Tarrin chuckled. "It starts in this corner and goes from left to right, top to bottom," he explained, pointing to the first word on the page. "If it was in columns rather than rows, it would go from top to bottom, right to left. This language can be written either horizontally or vertically."
"Why?"
"I have no idea," he shrugged. "Now then, love, let me get back to this."
Of course, it wasn't easy to concentrate on the book with Jesmind right there, but he found some way to ignore the proximity of his mate, whose scent told him clearly that she was not happy with being ignored. He managed to deflect her by Conjuring a book on military history for her to read, so she could better understand why Darvon and the soldiers were doing what they were doing out in the city in preparation for the coming siege. Jesmind was intelligent, but she didn't actively go out of her way to study things she didn't deem to be important.
By sunset, Jasana had managed to wear on every nerve in the courtyard, even her own mother's. Each of them had finished at least one book-Keritanima and Dolanna had finished three-and none of them had read anything that related to the Firestaff or its location. So they left the courtyard after Tarrin picked up the Book of Ages, which had been kept safely within the dome, and returned it to the elsewhere . They had all felt safe to leave it in the dome, but now that the dome was gone, Tarrin had a feeling that it would be best to keep it safely with him. Despite not finding anything, they were all still in a relatively good mood about the whole thing. After all, it had been the first day, and they'd barely made a dent in the first of the four chests of books and scrolls. None of them had really expected to get so lucky as to find what they wanted so quickly.
What they did do was gather around a dining table and discuss what they'd read. Keritanima had read a ledger of names on the rolls of the tower at Abrodar, in Sharadar, and the other two books turned out to be scholastic books. The first was a book of the Weave written for an Initiate, just like the books they'd read in the Initiate, and the other was a book all about the common magical spells of the other three orders, and how to most effeciently counter them. Miranda had read a history book about the fall of the Dwarves, and Allia had read a book chronicling the study of one katzh-dashi named Embor on the fluctuations of the Weave over a five hundred year period. It was a long book of dusty, monotonous observations, she had related with a grunt. Dolanna had read a book on the societal customs of the early Arakite empire and how to best fit in at the tower located in Dala Yar Arak, a tower none of them knew had ever stood, and she had also read a book of theoretical thaumaturgy, concepts and ideas for weaves that were theorized to be possible, but had yet to be researched or attempted. Dar had read a book about one katzh-dashi's attempts to take spells of other orders and researching weaves that achieved the same result, and, he admitted with a blush, had read portions of a book that turned out to be erotic poetry. He did page through the book to make sure that that's all it had in it, but didn't read every line on every page. Tarrin had only managed that one book, but everyone understood why and didn't press him about it. They'd all been there to watch him reprimand his daughter and answer questions from his mate. They had been distracting him. As they'd expected, the books were more or less about magic, but it turned out that that wasn't all that they were. Finding books on the society of Arak and erotic poetry proved that. They also had learned a little bit about those who had come before them.
"From what I read, the Ancients were more or less just like us," Keritanima announced. "They may have known more, but the same basics are there. Humans and Sha'Kar working towards the goals of the Goddess, whatever those were."
"Studying magic and maintaining the Towers," Dolanna told her.
"I think instead of reading each and every book, tomorrow we go through them and see if we can't sort them by subject," she said. "Today was important because it allowed us all to read in Sha'Kar and get used to it, but I'd like to be done with this before that army gets here, so we don't have two things on our minds. We need to weed out the books that probably won't matter. It shouldn't take too long, since most of the books make their subjects pretty clear in the first ten pages or so. We need to sort out and read the books on history, magic, and mythology."
"Why mythology?" Dar asked.
"Many old myths have some basis in fact," she told him absently, tapping her muzzle with a finger. "And sometimes they pass on information that the people at that time either would not or did not put in their histories. You never know, we may find what we need couched in the flowerly language of a child's fable."
"I never thought of that."
"I'm not surprised. Most people discount fairy tales because they're just that. Stories. Repeat a story enough times, and it stops being history and becomes legend. Legend becomes myth, and myth becomes a bedtime story." She looked at the Arkisian. "Of course, the story is all blown out of proportion because it changed so much over the years, but the nugget of truth is still hidden within the story itself."
"I think that is a good idea," Dolanna agreed. "Keritanima, if you feel up to it, you and I can return and sort them out after eating. It should not take too long."
"Sure, it shouldn't be that hard," she agreed.
"It'll be even easier if I help out," Miranda said with a cheeky grin. "I want to go get the book I wrote when we translated the Sha'Kar language, anyway. I think I might tidy it up and edit it a bit, so we can teach others written Sha'Kar more easily."
"You wrote yours in Wikuni," Tarrin pointed out.
"And you wrote yours in Sulasian, and Dar wrote his in Arakite, and Dolanna wrote hers in Sharadi. I think that represents the four most commonly spoken languages in the world, my friend," she grinned. "Between the four of us, we've penned the most comprehensive translation guides in the world."
"But they don't have everything in them," Dar admitted. "I know I stopped writing them down after I started understanding how the shape and form of the glyph told you what kind of word it was. And they don't have definitions. Just the words."
"What one won't have, one of the others might," Miranda shrugged. "So I want to borrow the ones you all wrote too. As to definitions, I don't need them. The books are for teaching written Sha'Kar. That means you have to be able to speak it first."
"I didn't know you could read Arakite, Miranda," Dar said.
"I can't. But you can, can't you, Dar?" she asked with a cheeky grin. "From what I understand, you can read Sulasian too."
"Why do I get the feeling I'm about to get roped into something?" Dar asked to himself.
"I'd never rope you into something. I'll just convince you that it was what you wanted to do in the first place," she told him with a wink. "That's how a woman does things, you know."
"Only small, weak ones," Jesmind snorted.
"We all weren't born with your advantages, Jesmind," Miranda told her. "What I lack in size and muscles, I make up for with this," she said, pointing to herself. Tarrin wasn't sure if she was talking about her body, her mind, or both. Miranda certainly had enough of both of them to make her formidable. "So, you want to give me a hand, Dar? It won't take long."
"I guess, if you can talk to me about something for a while."
"About what?"
"We'll talk about it later," he said with a look around the room, standing up.
"Well, alright then. Coming, Kerri?"
"In a minute. I want to eat this first," she said, motioning at the piece of pie before her. "I can never say no to apple pie." She looked at Tarrin. "And I want to hear this story the Goddess told you, Tarrin. This story of the past."
Tarrin forgot about that, and at Keritanima's request of him, Miranda and Dar suddenly sat back down. "Well, I guess I can, but it won't be as good as the way she told it to me," he replied. "She even used Illusions to show me images from the past, but I can't remember them well enough to duplicate them."
"I'll settle for the words, brother," Keritanima said.
"Yes. I am curious to learn how the Selani and the Wikuni are related," Allia added. "There is no memory of it in the histories of our people."
Tarrin composed himself, smacking at Jasana's paw as her claws dug into the tip of his tail, then began. He didn't go as good of a job as the Goddess did, but he did manage to remember all the relevant information that the Goddess had given to him. They all seemed caught up in the story, even Jesmind, who had her elbows on the table and watching him as he told them all about the First Races, the insurgence of the Urzani, and the circumstances that brought them down. About how the Sha'Kar came to be born, the Blood War, and the circumstances that caused them to split into the three sub-races, one of which was extinct. "That's why you two look so different, Kerri," he explained after he was done. "When the Sha'Kar that sailed away arrived at what's now Wikuna, the gods that adopted you changed you so you wouldn't look anything like you did when you arrived. I guess to make it a clean break, or maybe a fresh start. I guess you'd have to ask your gods about that. Allia's people didn't really change very much. They still look like the Sha'Kar-even the Urzani. If you want to know what the Sha'Kar looked like, look at the Selani. They even kept parts of the original Sha'Kar language as their own. Which is really the Urzani language."
"How do you know that, brother?" Allia asked.
"I've seen an Urzani, sister," he told her. "Remember when I told you about Spyder? She's Urzani. She was alive before the Sha'Kar came to be. The Selani are the same size as Spyder, on the average, but I guess that's because of the desert. I saw images of the Sha'Kar when the Goddess told me the story, and they're shorter than the average Selani. The Urzani were warriors, so they were big. They shrank when they became the Sha'Kar, who were pacifists, then grew again when they became the Selani and went into the desert, with its harsh environment."
"It fits with alot of what we have in our own history," Keritanima agreed with a nod.
"It is a logical conclusion," Dolanna agreed, her expression curiously distant.
"Now that's a story," Dar said with a foolish grin. "I think I'm going to write that down."
"Odds are, we'll read it somewhere in those books we have," Keritanima said. "Or at least parts of it." She looked at Allia. "Well, should I call you cousin or sister?" she grinned.
"We are sisters much more than cousins," Allia replied with a light expression.
"So, everything we call Sha'Kar was probably originally Urzani," Dolanna realized. "That means that the Sha'Kar language is actually at least eight thousand years old, virtually unchanged in all that time. That is a very amazing thing. Time cannot help but change things."
"Maybe the world needed something that wouldn't change over time," Dar said impulsively. "A foundation, or something."
"That is a very enlightened viewpoint, young one," Dolanna said appreciatively. "Sometimes your ability to think abstractly impresses me."
"Either way, I need to go," Miranda said. "I need to get started, since all my time tomorrow is going to be taken up with reading. Come on, Dar."
"Alright," he agreed, standing up with the mink Wikuni.
"Good story, Tarrin. I'll see you tomorrow," she bid farewell as she took Dar's arm and dragged him from the room.
"We'd better get there with her, or she'll dismantle the whole place," Keritanima warned Dolanna.
"I would like to be finished soon, regardless," Dolanna said. "I am still weary from the ordeal of the dome. I am surprised it affected me so."
"It did all of us. About all I want now is a long sleep, but I'd like to get those books organized for tomorrow. We don't have much more time."
"Then let us be off," Dolanna said, standing. "See you in the morning, dear one," she bid farewll to Tarrin.
"And if you're going to bring Jasana, knock her out first," Keritanima grinned.
"She'll calm down. I think the courtyard got to her," he replied, glancing at his daughter, who was happily wolfing down a piece of pie.
"Alright, you little troublemaker, I'm going to be ready for you tomorrow," Keritanima told Jasana with a toothy grin. "Just you wait and see."
"I didn't cause trouble," Jasana objected through a mouth smeared with apple pie. "I was good, just like papa told me to be."
"Ya ya ya," Keritanima sounded. "We'll see how good you're going to be tomorrow after I bring in my surprise."
"Surprise? What is it?" Jasana asked with sudden, intense curiosity.
"If I told you what it was, it wouldn't be a surprise, now would it?" Keritanima asked with a grin.
"Meanie."
"That's me, alright. Queen Meanie," Keritanima said grandly. In a flash, Keritanima's entire expression and bearing transformed, becoming stiff and imposing. She drew herself up and assumed an almost frightening expression of disdain and aloofness. Then she motioned imperiously at Dolanna. "Attend me, servant! Queen Meanie wishes to withdraw!"
Keritanima's sudden regal bearing and overbearing manner, her amazing ability to fit herself into different personalities and act them out with convincing believability, were not lost on Tarrin. He chuckled as Jasana giggled, and Jesmind fixed the Wikuni with a slightly challenging look. Dolanna only smiled and decided to play the game, bowing repeatedly in Keritanima's direction as she swept before her and opened the door. Keritanima rose up in a haughty, stiff-backed posture and then swept out of the room like the queen of the world, as if her foot came to rest on a stone that existed only to bear her weight. She stepped past Dolanna and then snapped her fingers loudly three times at the smaller woman, who smiled after her, waved to those left, and then closed the door.
"She's funny, papa," Jasana said with a loud laugh after the door closed.
"My sister is a woman of many talents, little one," Allia told her with a smile. "One of the greatest is the ability to make others smile. It is an ability many overlook in her."
"What Allia means is that Kerri is a ham, cub," Tarrin grinned. "I guess that's a good thing, given that she's a queen and all." He looked around. "I wonder where Jula and the others are. I haven't seen much of them."
"Kimmie has adopted Jula, and they've been slinking around like a couple of little human girls, gossiping and carrying on," Jesmind told him. "Mother still hasn't gotten tired of playing with Thean yet."
"It's good for her," Tarrin shrugged. "Jula needed a friend. I'm sure nobody here has been very kind to her." He said that with a direct look at Allia, who did manage to avert her eyes guiltily.
"I admit it, my brother. I was wrong about her."
"I'm glad to hear that. And I still haven't seen Shiika. I wonder what's keeping her."
"Nobody's seen any of the Demons in two or three days," Jesmind told him. "They must be up to something."
"Goddess help us when we find out what it is," Tarrin growled.
"Truly," Allia agreed with a nod.
The next morning turned into something of an argument in Tarrin's rooms. Tarrin didn't count on Jesmind wanting to come along with him the next day, and no matter how much he argued, or even threatened, she would not change her mind about it. "For the forest's sake, Tarrin, you're just sitting around reading!" she railed at him as the argument began to get hot. "How is my being there going to mess that up?"
He told her, in no uncertain terms, just how distracting her presence was to him. She was his mate, and he loved her. He always had a little trouble concentrating on things other than her when she was so close to him. That did effectively end the argument, but not in the way Tarrin had hoped. She gave him one of those vulnerable looks, then kissed him exuberantly, and then ran off to the kitchens to pack up a nice picnic lunch for them, so they wouldn't have to go anywhere. Tarrin muttered some dark curses in the direction of the closed door, but he knew he'd been beaten. When it came down to it, he just couldn't deny anything from his mate. And besides, he did like her to be close to him. The problem was that he liked it a little too much for something as serious as what he was doing.
They arrived to find everyone else there and already reading, the books neatly organized on the table, and Keritanima and Dolanna looking tired but pleased. The pair wasted no time handing him a rather thick book bound with what looked to be sandwood, and Tarrin realized quickly what Keritanima's little surprise was. It brought back quite a few memories, for it was Bandit, the cat that Keritanima had taken to use to pass messages between them back when they were in the Tower. He hadn't really thought of the rather pudgy cat since leaving the Tower, and was surprised that it was still here. But then again, when they left, Bandit was forgotten, left behind in all the confusion and chaos surrounding their departure. Bandit seemed to remember him, greeting him fondly by wrapping around his leg, and then padding over to where Jasana was tugging at the side of the tent. She took one look at the cat and squealed in delight, promptly reaching down and picking it up, carrying it towards the fountain.
"You know, I've been thinking about something," Keritanima said as Tarrin sat down near the fountain with Jesmind. "The Keeper told me once that the Book of Ages wasn't written in Sha'Kar. She said that it was written by the priests of Denthar. She also said that it didn't have anything in it after the Breaking. But Dolanna did know the truth about it. I wonder how long she's been holding out on the katzh-dashi ."
"Maybe nobody asked her," Tarrin shrugged. "Maybe the Keeper had it wrong, and never bothered to ask. And remember, she's a katzh-dashi from the Tower in Abrodar. They probably know things the Sorcerers here don't, and the other way around."
"Maybe, but that seems like a pretty big hole."
"I learned what I know of the Book of Ages from Phandebrass," Dolanna told them as she glided up to them. "He may seem erratic, but Phandebrass is the most learned man of ancient artifacts I have ever met. I am surprised he has not camped himself at your door to look at it, Tarrin."
"So am I," he agreed. "Kimmie wanted to talk to him, to be his apprentice. Maybe she's distracting him."
"Possible. We have not had much time to see the others since we began this. I feel like it has been a year since I last spoke with Camara Tal or Phandebrass."
"Me too. It must be a side effect of that spell," Tarrin agreed. "My sense of time has been all screwed up. My mind tells me it should be the middle of winter, when it's just into summer. We were in that thing for months, but only days passed out here."
"Speaking of time, let's get cracking," Keritanima said, sitting on the bench before the fountain beside Allia and opening the book in her hands.
"Months? Explain this one to me," Jesmind said as Bandit tore across the courtyard, with Jasana chasing after him.
Tarrin explained the dome of altered time to Jesmind, describing how they had spent months inside to learn Sha'Kar when only days passed on the outside, and then he described the physical effects it had had on him. Then he quieted her with another conjured book and bent to his task.
They stayed there through the morning, ate the lunch Jesmind packed for them, and continued. At least until Dar suddenly flew out of the tent, waving a book in his hand. "I think I found it!" he screamed excitedly, rushing out in the courtyard and literally jumping up and down. "I think I found it! I think I found it!"
Tarrin's heart raced a little, but it was Dolanna that restored order as they all gathered around the Arkisian. "Calmly, Dar," she told him in a soothing voice. "Show us."
Dar dropped to the ground and opened the book to a place he'd held with his finger. "Here!" he said, so shrilly that it sounded like a whistle, as they all knelt down in a circle around the book. "Right here!"
"Calm down, boy, and either read it to us or hand me the book!" Keritanima snapped anxiously at him.
Miranda took the book from him with an apologetic smile, then picked it up and scanned the page with her eyes. "It's definitely about the Firestaff," she agreed, finding a place to start reading. "Here we go. 'After the Blood War, the Gods decided that the Firestaff was too dangerous to leave out, even though it no longer held any power, for it would always be a representation of the horrors of the Blood War and the temptation of power. They charged the katzh-dashi to locate and secure a place to leave it where it would disappear from the memory of the peoples of the world, so as not to cause more chaos and strife. The katzh-dashi created a suitable hiding place for the notorious item, taking the object out past the Stormhavens, even past the Dark Continent which was rumored to have become the refuge of those Sha'Kar who had fled from the horror of the Blood War, deep out into the trackless expanses of the empty, endless sea, and hiding it behind the wind. To this day, some three thousand years since the Blood War, the location of the Firestaff remains a secret, known only to those who hid it away.' " She looked up at them. "Well, it's not an exact location, but we do know now that it was hidden somewhere overseas."
"What's west of Wikuna, Kerri?" Tarrin asked immediately. "The Dark Continent has to be Wikuna."
"There's nothing but about four thousand leagues of empty ocean, brother," she replied uncertainly. "There's absolutely nothing out there. Not an island, not even a rock. The only thing separating Wikuna from Shen Lung is a few thousand leagues of open ocean."
"Well, that does describe empty, trackless sea," Allia pointed out. "If the ocean there is indeed that empty, it fits the description in the book."
"I don't understand it saying they hid it behind the wind," Dar said, his brows furrowing in thought, as the others nodded in agreement with Allia. "What does that mean, anyway? How do you take something and hide it behind the wind? It has to be some kind of metaphor."
"They did not want it to be found, so they were deliberately vague, Dar," Dolanna reminded him. "It probably is a metaphor of some sort. A poetic description."
"Well, it's something, at least," Miranda grunted. "So now we can all start looking for more references to this behind the wind nonsense. Maybe one of the other books will have a more sensical description."
"Maybe it is a literal description," Allia proposed, her eyes distant. "The Ancients of that time had a great many secrets we do not. Maybe they knew a spell that allowed them to literally hide the Firestaff behind the wind." She looked up at them. "Though I do not see how that could be done. The wind is invisible. If you hid something behind it, it would still be seen."
"Maybe that's the metaphor," Miranda said brightly. "Maybe it means that they hid it out in the ocean, but they hid it in plain sight. Sometimes that's the best place to hide something."
"Let's just hope that they didn't take it out in the middle of the ocean and throw it over the rail," Keritanima grunted. "I really don't feel like swimming for it."
Tarrin chuckled. "Well, unless anyone has anymore ideas, let's go back to our books. Keep reading that one, Dar."
"And read it carefully," Keritanima added. "There may be another remark in there about it."
"I'll read it slow and careful," Dar told her with a nod, taking the book from Miranda. "And after I'm done, one of you read it after me to make sure I didn't miss something by accident."
"Good idea," Miranda nodded.
That turned out to be the only excitement of the day. Nobody else found anything of interest, and Keritanima found nothing new in the book Dar had been reading after she read it after him. They left the courtyard at sunset a little more hopeful than the day before, having found at least one clue. Tarrin excused himself from his family after eating and visited with Dolanna and his sisters for a while, then tracked down Jula to make sure that she was still doing alright. It turned out that she and Kimmie had indeed become thick as thieves, the Were-cat Sorceress finding a kindred spirit in the turned female. On the way back to his rooms, where Jesmind and Jasana were waiting for him, a familiar face appeared around the gentle, curving bend in the Tower passage, a redheaded female with exquisite beauty, and a pair of leathery bat-like wings. Shiika had finally reappeared, leading two of her Cambisi children. One of them he recognized as the blond Anayi, the halfbreed that had appeared and saved him from an army of Trolls at the edge of the desert. Her expression brightened when she saw him, marching right up to him and taking hold of his wrist. "Well, they said you grew," she noted. "They said I did it to you, too. I think it's an improvement."
"Hello, Shiika," he said cordially. He wasn't entirely happy to see her, but she was helping, so he had to be nice to her. Tarrin didn't hate Shiika, but like every other non-Demon around, he felt just a little uncomfortable around her. She had that effect on people. "Anayi," he said with a nod.
I'm surprised you remember me, she replied in her telepathic manner.
"I told you to talk," Shiika reprimanded her.
"Sorry, Mother," she said with a bow of her head. "Well, I've got everything set up," she told him. "We'll be ready for whatever they throw at us. The Wikuni even managed to get my Legions here in plenty of time."
"What were you doing, anyway?" he asked.
"Oh, just organizing my support," she said with a strained look. "I had to go to the Abyss to do it, though. I hate going there."
"You did what?"
"I'm a Demon, Tarrin," she said conversationally, stating the obvious. "When I need to talk to other Demons, that means I have to go where they are. They're in the Abyss. Eh, it was a good learning experience for my daughters, anyway. They've never been there, and I'm pretty sure they never want to go there again."
"That's the truth," Anayi said fervently. "I never realized that we had it so good here."
"Wait a minute. You're securing the help of Demons to fight other Demons? Won't they just get on the same side and attack us?"
"Of course not," she smirked. "I found out which Demons are on the other side, and went and talked to the Demons in the Abyss that really hate those Demons. If you didn't know, cutey, Demons will fight each other much faster than they'll pick fights with other creatures, and do it gladly. The only thing a Demon hates more than other creatures are other Demons. When those Demons show up, the Demons that want to gut them will be invited up here to deal with them."
"Sometimes, the best weapon against a Demon is another Demon, Tarrin," Anayi explained.
"But all that's done now. I think I'm going to go take a bath. A nice, long one. Maybe three or four days. I always feel so dirty when I come back from the Abyss."
"Why do I get the feeling that asking you to help was a big mistake?" he asked philosophically.
"You won't be saying that after the battle," she said with a teasing grin, reaching up and patting him on the cheek. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go wash the filth of the Abyss off of me. I really have to stop going there, but it always makes me so glad I live here."
Tarrin stepped aside and let them go, watching them. He wasn't sure if all this Demon business was a good idea. After all, you couldn't trust a Demon. There was nothing to keep them from joining the enemy and turning on them but Shiika's word. But the Demoness had yet to fail to keep up her side of a bargain. She had delivered on everything she had promised. Perhaps, just perhaps, Shiika and her brood were the exception to that rule. Maybe it was possible to put a little trust in her. But just a little.
Shaking his head for even thinking that, Tarrin padded off, back towards his rooms.
Dar's discovery had bolstered them, but that enthusiasm began to wane as they studied feverishly for two more days and found nothing. Tarrin had gone through four books in those two days, all of them histories of this or that Tower, this or that kingdom, and the fourth a biography of Televan the Wise, fifth Keeper of the Tower of Bazra Suun, a city in the far-distant kingdom of Telluria. Televan had been such a great man and dynamic force that he had altered the history of the continent of Arathorn, and so a book was written about his life. The book did make a few references to ancient relics and artifacts the man had seen or encountered in his life, but none of them had been the Firestaff, nor was there any reference to it anywhere in the book.
Tarrin struggled through a scroll holding ancient, archaic poetry as Jasana chased Bandit around the courtyard. The little cat had lost some weight in the days since Keritanima had given him to his daughter, for Jasana worked him mercilessly. Bandit learned quickly that Jasana wouldn't hurt him on purpose, but she did play rough, and she didn't know her own strength. Those were strong motivators to keep out of her clutches. The pudgy cat dropped nearly a quarter of a stone of weight while Jasana exercised him by chasing him around the courtyard. Tarrin glanced at the giggling child and looked back at the scroll.
And nearly had a heart attack.
Right below where he'd been reading about some flower were the words behind the wind.
Tarrin sat up and looked carefully at the scroll, reading slowly:
Twenty seas and twenty stars
Twenty stars over twenty seas.
Twenty days and twenty more
To seek behind the wind.
Twenty hearts and twenty souls.
Twenty golden crowns
Twenty stone of coal and wood
To reach behind the wind.
Twenty legends and twenty myths
Twenty forlorn forgotten.
Twenty beyond the first in blood
To find behind the wind.
Twenty dreams and twenty whispers
Twenty faithful champions.
Twenty try, but one may succeed
To pass behind the wind.
Twenty shadows and twenty reflections
Twenty nightmares and horrors.
Twenty stars point the way
To reach behind the wind.
Tarrin received a powerful jolt behind his eyes. He scanned it with his eyes and realized that this was very, very, very important. He read the poem again, then again, and then once again, until he was absolutely convinced of it. One passage in particular, the mention of a champion, seemed to jump out at him, because the Goddess called him her champion. The mention of dreams and whispers were consistent with him, because he'd once been plagued by bad dreams, and he could hear the whispers of the Weave.
Reading it again, he realized that another stanza referred to Keritanima. She had a crown, but the line about twenty stone of coal and wood made no sense.
The other three stanzas, though, didn't make any sense to him. He did understand that the first was important, because it had some sort of directions in it. You started somewhere and went for forty days towards something with twenty stars in it, but what that thing was, he had no idea. The one talking about twenty beyond the first in blood made no sense at all, and the last stanza too seemed to have nothing in it that made any immediate sense.
"Kerri," he called in a quiet voice, not entirely ready to shout out and feel foolish if he was wrong. "Could you come here a minute?"
"Sure," she replied, getting up from where she was sitting on the grass, leaving her book behind. She sat down on the other side of Jesmind, who was reading another book he got for her, and leaned in to look at the scroll he had in his paws. "What is it?"
"Read this," he said quietly. "And tell me I'm crazy."
Tarrin watched her, and he watched her eyes widen just a little more every time she finished a line. "You're not crazy!" she gasped when she was done. "Tarrin, this is what we're looking for!" she announced loudly. "Everyone come here quick!" she shouted, snatching the scroll out of his paws and rushing towards the bench before the fountain.
"You found it?" Dar asked excitedly as he rushed out of the tent with Miranda hot on his heels. They joined Keritanima as she set the scroll down on the bench and knelt beside it, on the bricks of the walkway. Tarrin and Jesmind got over there just as Keritanima started reading the poem aloud, and then she looked up triumphantly at them all. And saw six only confused faces staring back at her. Only Miranda seemed to understand, nodding quickly as her eyes lit up.
"What does that mean?" Dar asked impatiently.
"Don't any of you study astronomy?" she asked waspishly. "The twenty stars it talks about is the Diamond Crown!"
"And that would be?" Dolanna asked.
"Hopeless!" Keritanima snapped to herself. "It's a constellation, Dolanna!" she answered hotly.
"I've never heard of that one," Dar said.
"You can only see it from the southern hemisphere," she told him bluntly. "You can't see it from this side of the world."
"I lived on the southern hemisphere, and I have never heard of that constellation," Dolanna told her.
"Then you must have a different name for it," she told her. She rushed into the tent and brought out a piece of parchment and one of those curious Tellurian pens, then jotted a series of dots on the paper. "This constellation," she said, holding it up. It did vaguely resemble a crown, and after counting the dots, he realized that there were twenty of them.
"That one we call Diamades," Dolanna replied.
"But it is this constellation!" Keritanima told her. "The Wikuni call it the Diamond Crown. Any Wikuni ship captain worth his salt would have recognized that description immediately! It's the only crown-shaped constellation, and it's made up of twenty stars!"
"Calm down, sister," Allia said evenly. "Your shouting is hurting my ears."
"Sorry, sister," she said contritely. "So, according to this, we travel towards the Diamond Crown, and we do it for forty days."
"Yes, those are directions, but from where do we begin, Keritanima?" Dolanna asked pointedly. "And remember that the stars turn with the seasons. What time of year should we depart? If we are wrong, we are going to miss what we seek."
Keritanima gave her a blank look, then blew out her breath. "Alright, so this isn't everything. But it's a big piece of it," she asserted. "These are the directions. We know that it's overseas, and this confirms that. We know which direction to go and how long to go that way. All we need to know is where to start from and what time of year to do it, and we have it."
"There's more here to it than just that," Miranda said, reading it. "One of these stanzas is about Tarrin, or I'm bald. And you have a crown, Kerri. Twenty beyond the first in blood. Well, that one doesn't make perfect sense, but since it mentions blood, I think it wouldn't be a stretch to assume it talks about Allia."
"Some of these don't make any sense," Dar complained. "Twenty of everything?"
"I think that is a tool for giving the poem a unifying feel," Dolanna said. "Sometimes, the twenty is necessary, but elsewhere it is but a way to start the line. Probably done that way to throw off readers. It is the words after that are important."
"Alright, so, we have hearts, souls, and golden crowns. That still doesn't make any sense."
"I don't think the lines are related like that, Dar," Miranda told him, reading it again. "Some of them are definitely related, but only the last two lines in each stanza. The first two lines stand alone."
"Alright, so, what does hearts and souls mean?"
"I have no idea," she shrugged. "I only understand about half of the lines."
"So. We now have directions," Dolanna reasoned, reading it. "Or at least I hope so. This may be but a ruse, or a false lead. But so far, it is just about all we have found. Now we only need discover where to start from and what time of year to begin in order to follow these directions."
"It can't be from Suld. You can't even see the Diamond Crown from here. We'd at least have to be on the equator."
"Hold on," Allia said, getting up and rushing back into the tent. She returned a moment later with the book Dar had read, the book with the other information they'd found. Keritanima had marked the page with the passage, and she opened the book to that page and quickly read what was there. "It says in this book that they took the Firestaff beyond the Stormhavens, and then beyond the Dark Continent. If they passed over the Stormhavens, they have to have left from Suld."
"Very good, dear one," Dolanna said with an approving nod. "And if they then passed beyond Wikuna-Keritanima, can you see the Diamond Crown from anywhere in Wikuna?" she asked quickly.
"From Vendaka," she replied. "It's on the equator. The constellation sits right on the horizon." Keritanima blinked. "Could that be the starting point?" she asked.
Miranda was studying the poem again. "Hold on. It mentions seas and stars twice. Twenty seas and twenty stars, then twenty stars over twenty seas. Those may sound the same, but they're different. That first stanza had the directions in it, so maybe the key of where to start or what time of year to start are tied up in that first line. Can anyone think of anything that may relate to a season or time of year in that?"
"I-no, wait a minute. Wait a minute," Keritanima said suddenly, her eyes brightening. "The time of year to start is in the second line! If you really do start from Vendaka, then the key is twenty stars over twenty seas!" She looked at all them excitedly. "The Diamond Crown sits right on the horizon from Vendaka, but not the entire constellation. A little piece of it is always under the horizon! But I remember reading or hearing from someone somewhere that the entire constellation comes over the horizon at the summer solstice!"
"Then, if we do start from Vendaka, we'd have to start in a month!" Miranda said in surprise.
"Only if that is the true starting point," Dolanna cautioned. "All we have at the moment is an obscurely worded poem and a single passage from a very old book of history. Before we commit to this idea, I would like to know that we are looking in the right place."
"What do you want, Dolanna? A book to say 'here is where the Firestaff is, and oh, by the way, here's a map'?" Keritanima asked acidly.
"That would help," she said with a slight smile. "I just worry about if we are wrong, Keritanima. If we are wrong, then we will waste a tremendous amount of time, and someone else may very well discover its location while we are off chasing wild ducks."
"If this is right, then we'd have to literally race back to Wikuna in time to start," Miranda said absently. "The summer solstice is at the end of next month, and it'd take a month to get back to Wikuna."
"I don't think just any ship can do it," Dar said, looking at the poem. "It says here that twenty stone of coal and wood will let you reach behind the wind. I think the reach there means it's the only way to get to that place. Not literally getting behind it, because it says in this stanza here that it'll take the one among twenty to pass behind the wind. We need coal and wood to get out there to where this wind is, we need this twenty beyond the first to find the wind, then we need the one in twenty to get past the wind."
"What bloody good would coal and wood do in getting out there?" Keritanima said in annoyance. "They have nothing to do with ships, outside the fact that ships are made of wood."
"They must have some kind of special significance, or else they wouldn't show up in the poem," Miranda said.
"If you're tyring to get behind the wind, a Wikuni ship couldn't do it," Jesmind suddenly said, then she bowed her head when she realized she'd done so. "You'd need an Ungardt ship."
"Why do you say that, Mistress Jesmind?" Dolanna asked politely.
"They have sails," she said. "It only seems obvious to me that if you're trying to sail a ship behind the wind, you'd need an Ungardt longship. They don't rely on sails. They row the boat."
"Ungardt ships weren't meant to travel so far out into open sea," Keritanima told her. "And we really couldn't do it here. A forty day trip in a Wikuni clipper would be a four month trip in an Ungardt longship. Longships don't have very much cargo room. It would take so many men to man the ship, you'd have to fill the boat so full of supplies to feed them, the ship would sink like a stone in a stiff breeze."
"So, we can't sail the ship, and we can't row the ship. So how are we going to get there?"
"We need twenty stone of coal and wood," Miranda said with a cheeky grin.
Dar glared at her, then actually stuck out his tongue, which made the cute mink Wikuni laugh.
They sat back as Dolanna retreated into the tent for something, each of them quietly mulling it over. Tarrin felt that they were on the right track, but they were stuck. He was positive that this was what they were looking for, that this was the information they needed. They knew from where to start, when to start, and in which direction to go. All they needed now is how to get there, and the twenty stone of coal and wood was the only clue. Jesmind was right. They couldn't sail behind the wind, since the wind would just push them right back out. Keritanima told him that you could quarter the wind, but no sailing ship could sail against the wind. And they couldn't use an Ungardt longship, since it was slow, wasn't built for open seas, and wouldn't have enough cargo space to hold the food they'd need for such a long journey.
But what in the world did coal and wood have to do with a ship? For that matter, what did coal and wood have in common with one another? Ships were made of wood, but what use was coal?
It burned. So did wood. Both of them would burn.
That seemed to click in his mind. So, it had something to do with fire. But what?
Dolanna returned, carrying a cup of the tea she favored, setting it down on the bench as she seated herself before it. The tea smelled a little bitter, probably from Dolanna using Sorcery to heat it up again after it got cold. The steam wafting up from the liquid danced as Dolanna's movements disturbed the air-
Steam. Steam!
A memory of a conversation he'd had with Keritanima in the Tower returned to him, as clear as a bell's chime, a little snatch of idle talk that suddenly carried a tremendous amount of meaning. He remembered it clearly, as if it were yesterday. They were in Keritanima's room. He had been playing chess with Sisska and losing, and he had noticed Miranda's Tellurian pen for the first time. That was when Miranda mentioned it. "Lately, they've been working on a machine that uses steam to drive gears. They call it a steam engine," she had told him after telling him about the pen, and the wood-burning stoves that the Wikuni sold.
"What good is that?" Tarrin had asked.
"They intend to use them in ships, so ships don't have to depend on the wind anymore," Keritanima had told him. "The Ministry of Science in Wikuna has picked up the idea, and they're also trying to fit the steam engines to power ships. It has some promise." When he asked how that would be any help to a ship, she had explained some of it to him. "The steam drives a paddlewheel. Like the waterwheel on a mill. The paddlewheel pushes the ship along, no matter what direction the wind is blowing. They're faster than anything but a clipper with the wind full astern."
Steam was boiled water, and you couldn't boil water without fire! So you'd need coal and wood to fuel a steam-driven ship!
That was the answer!
"That's it," he breathed, then he looked at them all. "That's the answer!" he announced.
"What?" they all asked at once.
"Kerri, you once told me about something you called a steam engine ," he said. "You said the Ministry of Science was trying to put one on a ship. Wouldn't you need coal and wood to fuel a ship that was propelled by steam?"
Keritanima looked about ready to say something, then she dropped her head down onto the stone bench. And she didn't do it gently. "I'll be tarred and feathered!" she laughed, raising her head up and brushing her hair out of her face. "I completely forgot about that! I remember a report from them just before I left, about them having a working prototype now!"
He turned and looked at the statue. "Mother, am I right?" he asked intensely. "You told me you'd confirm it if I was right and I believed I was right. Am I right? Did we get everything right?"
"My kitten, my dear children, you are indeed right," the voice of the Goddess emanated audibly from the statue. "You have indeed solved the puzzle. You have found where to begin, which direction to go, when to leave, and by what means to get there. I am proud of each and every one of you."
They were all quiet for a long moment, but Jasana raced up to the edge of the fountain and looked up at it in wonder. "That was the shining lady!" she said in surprise, looking at the statue. "I thought she was in there, but she wouldn't say anything!"
"We have done it," Dolanna said, breaking the silence. "We leave from Vendaka at the summer solstice. My friends, we have found the path to the Firestaff. We now know what no one else in the world knows. And we must not repeat this, any part of this, to anyone. Not even our other friends. This is our secret, and it must remain so."
Tarrin looked at her, then looked at the others, a strange feeling in his stomach. They had done it. They had unlocked the mystery, and now they knew, if not the exact location, then the direction in which to go to find the Firestaff. Tarrin had been seeking that ancient relic for two years now, and for the first time since he began he knew where to go in order to find it. For the first time since he had started, now his journey had a palpable, physical, foreseeable destination. They had found the path to the Firestaff, just as Dolanna has said. They had found what they were looking for.
He felt… relieved. But he also felt even more anxious in another way, for the mystery was no longer a mystery. Everyone in the courtyard now knew the directions to the Firestaff, and that meant that it was information that they had to ferociously defend. If anyone else discovered what they knew, there would be a race on the high seas for the Firestaff. If they weren't careful, they may be attacking the ship of the clever fellow that had discovered their secret and got there before they did, and reached the prize.
The Goddess told him that he had the best chance of success, but she had warned him on repeated occassions that it didn't prevent someone else from getting to it and getting it before he did. He had the advantage now, for the first time since they started, and he wasn't about to give that advantage up. Now he had more to lose, more to protect, and what was most important, something to live for.
For the first time, he could see the end of the journey. And it made him even more worried.
To: Title EoF