The Cenfu Clan numbered less than forty at that time.
He skipped the descriptions of the failed attempts at securing a protected breeding ground as humans followed them wherever they went. While their numbers dwindled, human inventions became better and better.
With tears in his eyes he reached the last line.
There was no future for the Cenfu, their line was spent, their story over, the last clan member perished on a Sarau settlement without ever finishing their story. The Sarau had been tasked with inscribing her fate on this column.
“You understand now why they hate us?” Mrs. Pianova asked.
“The Cenfu Clan...” he said.
“The Great Auk,” Mrs. Pianova told him. “Humans called it the ‘Penguins of the North’ because they couldn't fly. The last one was killed in 1844 in Iceland. We call the Sarau Clan, ‘puffins,’ and thankfully they are still around.”
“But this column,” Thomas cleaned his eyes, “there’s so many more.” He looked at the others in the room. “Can’t we do anything to stop it?”
“We are,” she said, “but it’s all undecided yet, and we are not the only cause for extinctions. You have to see this, Thomas, follow me.”
She went through the Hall, and Thomas kept his gaze on her back the whole time. He didn’t want to accidentally read any more stories in that room. “It is the way of life for species to appear and disappear naturally. Not all species go out violently. But when they do...”
The next Hall was three times the size of the one they’d just come from, and hundreds of thousands of columns filled it. Very few of the columns rose in perfect order—most of them were cracked, strewn on the floor, or destroyed as if by a huge hammer. Some of the pinpoints of light were over the top of the columns, but most wandered around the hall, searching for columns where only rubble remained.
“This Hall marks a war raged on Earth about sixty-five million years ago,” Mrs. Pianova told him. “More than seventy percent of all species were wiped out during that war. Do you know what I'm talking about?”
Thomas had heard that number before, in school and in movies. “That's when the dinosaurs were killed, isn't it?”
“Yes, Thomas. Scientists call it the ‘K-T Event.’ Fauns call it the ‘Shadow War.’”
“They fought the Wraith?”
“Oh yes they did,” Mrs. Pianova told him. “Can you imagine? Waking up in the morning to a day like any other, then a thunderous explosion, a wave of fire and ash. Whole continents reduced to cinder and the world shrouded in smog and darkness that won't let the sun shine for a decade. And on top of it, the Wraith pouring in from the shadows, killing whoever survived the cataclysm they had brought down from the heavens.” Mrs. Pianova encompassed the Hall with her hand, “Life won in the end, but at the terrible cost you see in this Hall. The Wraith were expelled. Life bounced back.”
She tapped him on the shoulder. “This wasn't the first time the Wraith tried to take back the planet, and it won't be the last. The Wraith are moving, Thomas, and now they have a great General to lead their armies.”
“Tasha…” Thomas said as it dawned on him. Tasha hadn't just been perverted by the Wraith's power; she had wanted to become one, to lead them in the next war against life.
She had become the Wraiths’ greatest asset in Ormagra, and he had made it possible.
The thought of him giving Tasha to the Wraith was overwhelming, because he had placed all life in danger.
His hands began to shake. His brain filled with all the information he had gathered about the Wraith and Tasha and the anger the Fauns felt against humans, the impotence of those Clans that had already died off.
It was overwhelming and he panicked. “I shouldn't be here,” he repeated over and over again. “I shouldn't know all this!” He was shutting down.
“Thomas! Look at me!” Mrs. Pianova grabbed his shoulders, and when he resisted she held him forcefully by the cheeks. “I brought you here. I wanted you to see all this, to understand.”
“I just came to know more about my parents!” He tore away from her grasp. “I just wanted to talk with Mneme!”
“And you have, Thomas,” she said, allowing him space. “But this...” she pointed at the Hall “this, can happen again. This time to us. To humanity.”
“Why are you showing me this?” he yelled at her.
“Because the Wraith can’t beat human technology, but technology is beginning to fail because the Oracle is on Earth and the Pillars are stirring. It is a knot, Thomas!” she said. “And you can unravel it to our favor by finding the Book of Concord. But you need to focus on finding it.”
“I need to find my parents!” Thomas yelled again.
“Thomas,” Mrs. Pianova said in a calm voice. “If you abandon the Book of Concord to search for your parents then Morgan will get it. Magic will be dominant and the Wraith will gain strength. You might find them only to lose them to the Wraith.”
“That’s so unfair.” Thomas looked at her with tears of rage.
“I know. I promised you that I would do anything in my power to see you succeed, Thomas. Even against your wishes, I’m sorry.”
Thomas turned his back toward her and walked away.
“Thomas! You know why Mar-Safi was so angry at you?” Mrs. Pianova yelled, and Thomas stopped, but he didn’t look back at her. “Mar-Safi is the last of the Oryx,” she said. “She came to end the story of her Clan, the Belethi. She’s given up and was ready to die today, but you stopped her. If you hadn’t, her column would’ve joined that of the Cenfu Clan.”
He crossed the Halls by himself, and none of the fauns even tried to talk to him. He reached the exit of the Halls and stepped into the dessert where Tony, Bolswaithe, and Elise were waiting for him.
“How was it?” Tony asked, but Thomas just raised a hand and walked past him.
They quietly fell in line behind him.
Hoormel Kian
“I’m beat.” Tony yawned as they entered the Mansion. “I’m taking a hot shower, then to bed.”
“Second the motion.” Elise seemed even more tired than Tony. Her hair was disheveled, and there was a purple rim around her eyes.
Thomas kept quiet. The things Mrs. Pianova had showed him still played out in his mind. It was too much to learn in so little time, and she had placed so much on his shoulders that he felt like he was about to break.
“Hold on, I think there’s trouble.” Bolswaithe stopped them from going to their separate rooms. Cuthbert was walking as fast as he could toward them without breaking into a run.
“It’s good that you arrived,” Cuthbert said as he passed in front of them without breaking his stride. “Follow me.”
He led them through a corridor where Mansion guards were stationed along the walls.
“What’s happening?” Thomas asked.
Cuthbert slowed his pace. “There’s a Faun delegation with Doctor Franco in one of the conference rooms. They are demanding your presence.”
“Can’t you, like…schedule an appointment? Tell them we’re out?” Tony said.
“They’ve been here for the last four hours, Mr. Della Francesca,” Cuthbert said. “And they won’t leave until you meet them.”
“I thought I was a secret!” Thomas looked over at Bolswaithe. “Why the change in plans?” Stage fright struck him.
“We tried to keep your existence a secret as long as we could,” Bolswaithe explained. “It seems that the genie is out from the bottle.”
“We are going to have to re-schedule... ” Thomas said, right on the edge of a panic attack. Since becoming a Guardian, he had had to learn everything at an accelerated pace, from the founding of the company, and its goals and relations to the Magical and non-magical world. Seven thousand years’ worth of history was just too much to assimilate in so little time. Mrs. Pianova and Elise had just begun to show him the intricate world of the Fauns, making sure that he understood completely that the only thing holding an all-out war between them and h
umanity was the Guardians.
Mrs. Pianova had told him many times that above all, Fauns valued respect, tradition, and protocol. They even used a special language for their interactions —“Old Form” speech. Each word conveyed a specific meaning, each inflection was important. Guardian linguists adapted and updated Old Form English and every other spoken language every year because the common Old Form language Fauns used between the tribes was just too complicated to learn.
In a show of diplomacy to their hosts The League of Nations tribes used English in their meetings, but even so, Thomas was supposed to learn how to use Old Form and be fluent.
Of course, he was neither, and the language was just one of the things he had to learn about the Fauns. He played in his mind his screw up with Minister Idar. He had just been one faun...how many more were waiting for him behind that door?
“But I'm not ready to meet them!” Thomas told Cuthbert. He looked at Bolswaithe for support but Bolswaithe shrugged his shoulders.
“I guess you need to get ready now, sir.” Cuthbert stopped in front of a door where two guards stood on each side, weapons at the ready. “They are quite riled up. Wait until I announce you.”
Cuthbert opened the door and heated voices and growls reached them from the inside. Elise leaned over and pecked Thomas on the cheek. “For luck,” she said.
Like magic, his attention was drawn from the room to his cheek. He looked at Elise, dumbfounded, but she was already prepping herself to enter the room.
Yes, she was a little grumpy, she was also rigorous and at least ten more adjectives Tony and he had tossed around between themselves one day she had been especially... severe with them.
But she was also very, very pretty.
He was looking at her nose and realizing for the first time just how perfect it was when three loud bangs slammed on the floor and the room fell silent.
“Thomas Byrne and teammates,” Cuthbert announced. Thomas heard murmuring coming from inside the room, and he swallowed a lump in his throat.
The little peck had at least diverted his attention for a couple of seconds.
“Go on.” Tony gave him a little push.
When Thomas entered the room, he was surprised at the large and spacious meeting hall. It reminded him of Carlsbad junior high school’s theater. A hundred or so Fauns were seated in semicircular rows in front of an auditorium where Doctor Franco, Killjoy, and three of Guardians Inc.’s high-ranked officials were seated behind a table.
Thomas stood frozen under the scrutiny of the Fauns. He saw a massive elephant dressed in a white gown, her ears adorned with long, golden earrings. He saw small rodent-like fauns, who had to stand up on the backs of their seats to look at him. A couple of crane fauns lifted their long necks to take a good look at him, their white feathers adorned with diamond rings.
He particularly felt the glare of Minister Hoormel Kian, the tiger faun he had seen in the League of Nations. He had imagined how powerful the tiger faun would be, but his imagination had fallen short of reality. Hoormel Kian was as imposing, if not more than Minister Idar. His yellow eyes centered on Thomas, and his ears slowly folded back a subdued snarl, flashing his sharp fangs. Thomas could see Kian’s muscles tensing up underneath his black robe. Elise had pointed out that Kian was the voice of the Warmaster in the League of Nations, his right hand man, and Thomas now imagined just how powerful the Warmaster had to be to have this creature as his spokesperson.
The tiger faun flexed his broad hands and twitched his muzzle in anticipation. Thomas heard a low, deep growl coming from Kian’s throat as he sized him up, the Azure Guard pendant glinting on his shoulder.
The assembly seemed ominously hostile toward him. Even Minister Idar, who was seated a couple of seats to the left of Hoormel Kian, seemed a little hostile, his ears folded back over his head.
“I’m here, Thomas,” Henri whispered as he stood by his side, “and so are my brothers. Go ahead.”
Thomas saw Jean Luc and about two dozen other grotesques take a step forward and stand at attention. They made that simple move to let the fauns know that they were ready for any strange action and were ready to protect Thomas at all costs.
Thomas walked through the central corridor, Henri right behind him, then Tony, Elise, and Bolswaithe following behind.
The murmurs and growls intensified as Thomas walked through the room. He tried not to look at Hoormel Kian as he walked by him, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw him sneering in distaste.
Doctor Franco and the other Guardians stood up as he walked up the little stairs to the stage.
He had met one of the officers already, Commander Rodriguez, who was in charge of the Watchmen teams. She was a petite but stern woman, and had chosen to wear her full dress uniform instead of her usual skirt and beret. Beside her was a cheetah faun, whom Thomas had never met but had heard about; he was in charge of the Fire Teams, the Guardians’ human-faun army units. On the other side, there was an empty chair that Thomas guessed was reserved for Mrs. Pianova, and right beside it stood a short, stout man dressed in dirty overalls. He had a long, braided beard, and a long ponytail wiggled under his baseball cap.
Six grotesques were standing right behind them; one of them was Jean Luc, who winked at Thomas.
Doctor Franco embraced him and whispered, “Don’t worry, Thomas. Let me handle them.” He then asked them to stand in line beside them.
“Friends and allies of the Guardians!” the Doctor addressed them. “It is with great pride that I introduce Cypher Thomas Byrne.”
“Cypher?” the boar faun two seats to the right of Hoormel Kian snorted sarcastically. He too wore the pendant of the Azure Guard. “Are we to believe that this boy is a Cypher?”
The murmurs rose in intensity, but before another faun could say anything, Chief Husseha stood up on the other side of the room. “The Doctor speaks the truth,” he said, silencing the murmurs. “I have seen the sign reader at work with my own eyes.” The Chief gave Thomas a reassuring nod and waited to lift his gaze again until Thomas returned it. The white tail deer faun had invited Thomas to their spring festival in Hussahassalin, and introduced him to the sons he had saved by cracking the Oracle's signs. The Fauns had no recollection of anything they had done while in the Oracle's trance, but were happy to meet the one who had saved them.
Many of the fauns whispered among themselves; Chief Husseha had paid Thomas a great sign of respect and trust with that simple nod.
“A trick perhaps,” a rhino faun said. “Humans and their allies are known for their deceit.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” Chief Husseha asked the rhino who immediately lifted an appeasing hand.
“No, my brother,” he said. “I am merely stating a known fact,” he said to the assembly. “How many times have the humans lied to us?” Murmurs erupted throughout the room. “They even lie to themselves! They are not one clan, but many. They've gone as far as to enslave each other for the color of their skin! No faun would ever do that.”
“This is a sign reader!” Chief Husseha yelled above the growing noise, “and I owe my sons’ lives to him.”
The Fauns fell silent again, then they watched as Chief Husseha bowed to Thomas, his antlers almost touching the ground.
“My friends,” Doctor Franco took the pause to regain control of the assembly. “Thomas Byrne is a Cypher, the Cypher we've been looking for almost a hundred years—”
“You should have looked for him in Panama!” a stork faun interrupted.
“Or Pretoria!”
“Or Mexico!”
The hall erupted in accusations directed at the Doctor, so loud and threatening that Thomas saw Henri and the grotesques getting ready to intervene should the yells become blows.
A roar silenced all other fauns as Hoormel Kian stood up from his seat, jabbing an accusatory finger at the Doctor. “Did you believe we wouldn't notice your stunts, Doctor?” he growled. “Your trips around the world or the half-breeds you sent as watchdogs over o
ur territories?” The fauns acknowledged the Hoormel Kian’s accusations approvingly. “Did you believe we wouldn't know about this boy's trip to the Halls of Remembrance? Or how he interfered with our sister Mar-Safi?”
“He is the next Guardian of Twilight!” Doctor Franco shouted. “He has a right to the knowledge of both Fauns and humanity. The time of Concord is again upon us.”
That seemed to touch a fiber in the fauns; some asked about the Oracle, some murmured among themselves, but most of them were speechless.
“Yes!” Hoormel-Kian said aloud. “The time of Concord is upon us again—the Oracle roams the Earth, the Pillars are stirring, and while no one in this room has lived long enough to have seen a sign, we all feel the Oracle's power growing stronger. The Book of Concord waits to be found...but,” he sized up Thomas dismissively, “is this... boy truly the next Guardian of Twilight?” Hoormel Kian challenged.
“He already has the sign the Oracle created in Hussahassalin,” Chief Husseha said. “My seers confirmed it. It was a sign from the Oracle.”
“The Hassa are almost human pets!” the boar yelled, breaking the silence Chief Husseha had created and the assembly polarized— half defending Chief Husseha, while the other half yelled or growled against the Guardians.
Hoormel Kian smiled at Thomas as he walked toward the stairs. “Enough my brothers!” he yelled. “This bickering is pointless!”
The fauns fell silent again.
“My brothers,” Hoormel Kian said. “While it is true that the Hassa Clan has always been cozy with humans…maybe a little too much…and while I believe in the word of honored Chief Husseha…” he bowed in respect to the Chief, “We have lost too much already to the humans. We must have proof that this boy is both a Cypher and the next Guardian of Twilight if we are to continue our alliance with the Guardians.”
Thomas looked over and saw the Doctor clenching his fists; he had probably read something in Hoormel Kian’s mind that he didn't like. How he wished now that the Doctor could still read his mind, because alarms were blaring and red flags popping up.
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