Isle of Wysteria: The Monolith Crumbles

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  He threw another bit of bread, bouncing it off an animal’s snout. “Believe me, where I come from, it’s a very big deal. My Uncle Jasin, he had two wives and a mistress by the time he was my age.”

  “Sounds like a lot of work.”

  “Is everything a joke to you?”

  “No, just funny things.”

  She tried to chop another bit of taffy off, but her knife got wedged in.

  “You need a sharper knife for that,” he observed.

  “I can do this,” she grunted, pulling the blade free.

  Ryin rolled his eyes and put his hand out. “Here, let me see it.”

  “Why? It’s just some cheap little knife from the cafeteria.”

  “Just let me see it.”

  Reluctantly she handed the pocketknife over. He examined the metal clinically, then ran his fingers along the spine. “The steel is too low quality to hold a proper edge.”

  “Oh, like you know.”

  Ryin cocked an eyebrow at her. “Actually, I do.”

  The tattoos on his arms glowed brightly, the light moving through his fingers and into the metal. Little lines traced all over the blade, and it slowly shifted color and texture.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m strengthening the steel and removing the impurities,” Ryin explained, his eyes closed.

  When the metal faded, he pulled out his whetstone and got to work. Ellie watched curiously as he worked the blade into a fine razors’ edge.

  “Here, it should work better for you now,” he said, handing it back.

  Ellie looked it over. Instead of the flat metal sheen it had before, it now had a beautiful marbled pattern, like an elaborate fingerprint. “Neat.”

  “Careful not to cut yourself,” Ryin said, tossing another piece of bread away. “It’s extremely sharp.”

  “I think I can manage,” she said drolly. She cut off another piece of taffy, and this time it effortlessly sliced through. “Wow, who knew you weren’t totally useless?”

  Ryin threw another piece of bread and turned away from her. “You’ve given me your tour-- just go away please.”

  She pursed her lips in irritation. “You know, I figured you navy guys would have thicker skin than this. One little thing goes wrong and you pout like a little kid.”

  Ryin chuckled regretfully. “Do you know why I joined the navy? It wasn’t because I wanted to see the world and it wasn’t because I love sailing. I wanted to get rich. I wanted money, and it seemed like a good shortcut.”

  She opened her mouth to tease him some more, but then changed her mind. “And how did that work out for you?”

  “Actually, I did get rich.”

  She blinked. “What, really?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  Ellie scooted in closer. “Nothing, it’s just…unexpected. You don’t really dress like a rich guy.”

  “Yeah, well, when I got my fortune, I thought everything would change. I thought I’d finally made it. That women would finally pay attention to me.”

  He broke off a piece of bread, but couldn’t find the heart to throw it. “But nothing changed.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Wysterians treat their men like crap, and all the navy women I went out with were only interested in what I could buy for them. They didn’t care two licks about me. Half of them didn’t even bother to learn my name.”

  Ellie scooted back away. “I see.”

  “So, when I got here, I felt like I could try again. See if they would like me without knowing I had money. And when it seemed like they did, it just felt incredible.”

  She leaned forward. “This might sound a bit harsh…”

  “Everything you say is harsh.”

  “Okay, but you’re being kind of one-sided, don’t you think?

  “How so?”

  “Well, you chafe at women just trying to get something out of you, but wasn’t that exactly what you were planning with Layla?”

  Ryin sniffed. “You know what’s funny? I know you won’t believe me, but it really wasn’t about that. Not really.”

  “You’re right, I don’t believe you.”

  “No, I think it was more about feeling like I had value for once. Like I meant something. Where I come from, what makes a man a man is his skill at the forge, and how many wives he has, and I don’t have either.”

  She swing her legs. “I guess I know what that feels like.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah, I mean, it would probably feel like being a woman but being treated like a kid.”

  Ryin snickered. “Okay, I’ll give you that one.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Even on the Dreadnaught I felt that way,” he admitted. “My shipmates were accomplished war heroes, princesses, guild heirs, accomplished sorcerers, and I was just the regular guy.”

  He set the bread down. “There was nothing special about me, and I guess I thought that if I got a girlfriend or two, or three…maybe four…”

  “You’re spoiling the moment.”

  “Right, well, like I said, I thought it would make me feel like I belonged for once. I guess I just wanted to feel special.”

  She leaned back and kicked her feet up. Below, the animals looked on, waiting for more food. “You know, you remind me a lot of my brother.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yeah, he’s always worried about that kind of stuff. I think it’s a guy thing.”

  “A guy thing, huh?”

  “Yeah, guys always feel like they have to earn their place at the table. A woman earns her place at the table just by becoming old enough to bear children, but guys have to do something big to earn it. Learn a trade, win a war, pass a trial, it’s different for each island, but it all amounts to basically the same thing.”

  “You aren’t a real person until you earn it,” he whispered.

  “Yup. And that’s rough, I admit it. But guys don’t realize that we girls have it tough, too.”

  “Oh yeah? What plagues you, oh honored table sitter?”

  Ellie adjusted her seating and tugged at the hem of the oversized robes she wore. “Girls worry that we aren’t worthy to be at the table in the first place.”

  Ryin took a second to look her over. “You know, I have a sister like you.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah, Jeni isn’t like me, she’s a prodigy at the forge. Grandfather’s favorite student. The best our family has produced in three generations.”

  Ryin scooped up the loaf and tossed it down to the trazelle below. “Everything always came easy for her. She’s the kind of person that can just pick up an instrument and be great the first time she tries it. Not just with music but with everything. Yet, you listen to her, and all she ever does is complain about her faults. Talking to her, you’d think she’s scum. She refuses to see her own worth.”

  Ellie rocked back on her haunches. “A prodigy huh? Well, I’m honored to be placed in such esteemed company as her.”

  “You beat me, didn’t you?”

  “I thought you said you let me win.”

  “Drop it.”

  Ellie sliced off a piece of taffy and tossed it into the air, catching it in her mouth. “So, you couldn’t compete with your sister, so you dropped out and ran away to the navy, huh?”

  This surprised him. “Did Hanner tell you?”

  She held up her pocketknife and admired it. “I can see it all over you. Like my brother, you’re a runner. When things get hard, you make for the exit, then you beat yourself up over it.”

  She folded up the knife and put it back in her pack. “But you know what I always thought?”

  “I don’t think I can take another cutting remark from you right now.”

  “I prefer to think of it as brutally honest assistance.”

&nb
sp; “Yeah, I’m never going to see it that way.”

  She stood up and stretched. “I always thought, if my brother ever stopped running, he’d become something really special.”

  She reached into her pack and tossed a wing harness into his lap.

  “What’s this? You want a rematch?”

  “I’m not a prodigy, Ryin. I’ve been practicing with these wings for months since I got here, and I could only barely keep up with you the very first time you used them. You’re good, real good. You just need to train yourself to lean in harder on the turns. You’ll lose less speed, and you won’t leave a wake to follow.”

  Ryin looked behind himself as if he expected to find something. “I was leaving a wake?”

  Ellie laughed as she spun around. “Yeah, like a big old tail for me to follow.”

  Ryin watched her oddly as she walked off, a grin growing across his face. “You should know, Squirt, I’ll kick your butt next time.”

  “Ha! A loser like you? Not a chance,” she called back, hopping down off the wall.

  Ryin picked up the harness and strapped it on angrily. “Loser? I’ll show you loser. Dumb little pipsqueak.”

  He moved over to the edge of the zoo, and looked down at the floating buildings below. Adjusting the straps, he tested the weight of it. “Turn harder on the turns, eh?”

  Ryin slapped the activation rune and the thin metallic wings unfolded. He dove off the edge and corkscrewed downwards, coming around the civic center, then reversing the corkscrew to loop around the floating observatory.

  Glancing behind him, he found that he was indeed leaving a trail. Little white contrails off the tips of the wings. Bringing them in tighter, he picked up speed, and dove even faster through the city.

  From the shadows, Ellie watched Ryin as he practiced. Carefully, she took out her knife and looked at it regretfully.

  Ryin pushed himself faster than he had ever dared. The wind pressure hitting his face was so intense he had trouble keeping his eyes open, but he forced past it. As the crystal waters of the lake came close, he pulled up, skimming across the water, his reflection rippling in the evening light. He jinked to one side, passing through a flock of swan, then jinked back, barely avoiding a group of startled children as they played around a boat.

  He pushed his speed even faster, and risked a glance backwards.

  “Ha! No trail,” he cheered happily. Keeping his speed constant, he rolled upwards into a loop, coming up atop the shopping center, then sped along the water again.

  He found at this speed, it was easier to push through the turns rather than back off on the throttle. He realized that his years of navy experience were working against him. Whereas in an airship, slowing down made you turn sharper, here, pushing faster kicked in Poe’s magic, making you lighter. In a weird way, you could actually turn sharper by speeding up rather than slowing down.

  Ryin found himself excited to see how far he could push this. He tried to turn sharper than he ever dared, so sharp his instincts told him he’d shear the wings off, but sure as silk, he felt his body become lighter, and he pulled tightly to the left, looping around back on himself so quickly he lost his sense of direction.

  “Woo Hoo!”

  Ryin looped around four more times, until his stomach forced him to stop. He level out straight again, and found himself headed straight towards Poe’s temple at the center of the lake.

  “Whoops, better not go that way.”

  Ryin tried to pull over into a barrel roll, but he continued moving straight.

  “Wait, what?”

  He pulled again, but the wings wouldn’t respond.

  He reached up and grabbed the straps, tugging as hard as he could, but the wings wouldn’t respond.

  “Oh crap.”

  The temple speeding towards him at an alarming rate, Ryin panicked. He hit the release and the wings came off. He hit the water hard, skipping over it like a stone, then crashing end over end.

  The world became a blur of sky and water flipping before him. Distantly, he heard the harness crash into the temple walls as Ryin ricocheted off the steps of the temple and crashed inside.

  There, in the darkness, he found himself upside down against a wall, truly amazed that he wasn’t dead. If it were not for the magic here he would have shattered every bone in his body.

  As his eyes adjusted to the lower light, he rolled over with a groan, and then realized how much trouble he was in.

  The center of the temple was a simple vaulted room, the walls decorated with chalk drawings of two children playing and holding hands. Around the floor was an arrangement of sweet smelling candles, and an array of dolls and toys, most of which he had broken and scattered when he crashed in here. And in the center of it all, a small manicured plot of soil, with a single solitary tombstone sitting in it.

  “I am so hammered.”

  Fearful for his life, Ryin scampered for the exit, but it was too late. Poe was there, floating angrily in the air, his skin dimming as he looked inside.

  “You entered my temple.”

  Ryin looked up in terror, frozen in place.

  Poe looked around, hurt on his face. “You broke my toys.”

  Ryin scooted back on all fours until he bumped into a wall. “Oh, my gosh, I am sorry, I am so sorry, please don’t kill me.”

  Poe floated in and looked at the grave. “You entered my sacred place. I should kill you for that! I should curse you for a thousand years!”

  Ryin squealed in terror, and held up his hands. He knew it was a meaningless gesture, but he was too panicked to care and his body was too frightened to oppose.

  But nothing came. No curse, no smite. It took Ryin several moments to become curious enough to lower his hands and see what was happening.

  He was surprised to see no anger on Poe’s face. Instead he saw sadness. A deep sadness. Poe floated over and tenderly ran his hand over the top of the tombstone, removing the layer of dust that had accumulated.

  His body dimmed further; there was no joy in his voice when he spoke. “I wish you had not come in here.”

  Ryin’s eyes flicked to the entrance. For a moment, he thought to flee, but something stopped him. There was something so mournful about Poe that it made him stay.

  Ryin forced himself to crawl forward to get a better view, and he saw something he never thought to see.

  A god was crying.

  Golden tears ran down Poe’s face, dripping down into the dirt of the grave.

  “I’m so sorry,” Ryin said, unable to think of anything else to say. “It was an accident, please believe me.”

  Poe made no response. He looked older, as if youth were some tangible thing that was draining out of him, dripping down into the earth below.

  Ryin didn’t know what to do. He had no training for this, no protocol. Nothing that told him what the proper response was when a god wept before him. Not knowing what to do, he just did what felt right.

  “Who was it?” he asked sympathetically.

  Poe sniffed, his chin and nose becoming pointed and bony. “All of us gods came to this world for different reasons.”

  His hands became thin and knobby. “I came here because I wanted a friend.”

  As Poe’s face became wrinkled and loose, he motioned around to the drawings. “I helped the other gods steal the light of creation, because I wanted to make a friend. And I did, and it was wonderful. We played together every day. I named her Claire, and I loved her. She was my best friend.”

  Poe sat down, his back becoming bent and knobby. “But then she got old, and she died, and I was alone again. So, I made another friend, and then another, but they died too. I tried everything I could to save them, to extend their lives, to keep them safe, to keep them healthy, but no matter what I did, they always died, and I was always alone again.”

  Ryin looked him o
ver tenderly. “That’s why you serve them, isn’t it?”

  Poe nodded, a long beard sprouting from his chin and growing down to the floor. “I decided that, if they must die, I would make their short little lives as happy as I could. I would do everything for them, so that they wouldn’t have to feel sad. So they would never feel alone.”

  Poe turned to Ryin, his old, wrinkled face wet with tears. He was now an old man, wrapped in his grief, crying over the grave of his playmate. “I cannot create an immortal, even though I tried as hard as I could. All I can make is friends who will die one day.”

  Ryin no longer felt afraid. Despite everything he had been taught, despite every indoctrination, in his heart he realized that this was not some mysterious, incomprehensible thing. This was not a force of nature. This was a person. Shoving aside all his preconceptions, he forced himself to reach out.

  “I think what you do here is wonderful.”

  Poe wiped his aged cheek with a wrinkled hand. “You didn’t seem to enjoy yourself very much in Paradise.”

  “That’s because I am worried about my friends.”

  This caught Poe’s attention. “Your friends?”

  “Yes, the ones who live outside of Paradise. They are in danger, they are fighting a great war for their freedom and for their lives. I was sent here because some of them have grouped together to try and save each other. But, they can’t do it alone. The enemy they face is too big. They need help, your help.”

  “You’re talking about that treaty again?”

  “Yes. Poe, I see now that I was wrong about you. You are a good person. You care about your friends. You try to help them.”

  “No, I am a thief. I stole the light of creation, and now all of you are suffering because of my selfishness.”

  Ryin didn’t fully understand, but he pushed on regardless.

  “There are friends out there who need you. Will you help them?”

  Poe looked up, and for a moment Ryin saw a glimmer of hope within, but then it crashed in on itself. “I can’t help you. I can’t do anything.”

  Ryin was so surprised he gasped out loud. “What are you talking about? You are a god. You can do anything.”