Rhydian: The Other Side

by Devan Skyles

  Copyright © 2017 by Devan James Skyles

  All rights reserved. Except as authorized by US copyright laws, no part of this book may be copied or reproduced in any form without written consent from the author.

  Story illustrations by Jessica R. Woodhouse http://bluefoxcreations.yolasite.com/

  (Pages: 6, 29, 58, 220, 287, 383, 460, 479)

  Cover design and diagrams by Devan J. Skyles

  (Pages: 2, 66, 72, 233, 422)

  ISBN-13: 978-1979439022

  ISBN-10: 1979439028

  For my mother

  Discovery

  The sky was darkening, ominous clouds obscuring the dwindling sunlight. In the distance a faint roll of thunder broke and the wind began to whip violently. Birds and other creatures scrambled for their respective nests and burrows, sensing the imminent storm.

  Rhydian could smell the fragrance of moisture in the air as he was tossed slightly by the turbulent wind beneath his broad wings. His dark hair blew wildly in front of his eyes. He knew he’d have to get out of the air soon. He removed the arrow he had nocked to his bowstring. The hunt was over for today and he knew he would not make it home before the storm hit. He had already flown further than he normally did. A flash of lightning split the distant sky, followed promptly by the booming of thunder, this time louder than the last. It seemed to concuss the whole sky and reverberate in his chest.

  Rhydian tilted his tail feathers to compensate for the shifting wind and tucked his wings close to his body, dropping below the violent gale. He soared down along the northern canyon wall, searching hastily for any kind of shelter.

  He’d rarely flown this far down the canyon before. The game animals he was accustomed to hunting had become scarce near the Monolith City lately, and he and his mother were too poor to shop for meat in the market, especially since the latest ilïmbalm tax had been imposed. Meat was an expensive commodity since it was dangerous to acquire. Most game animals lived on the ground, a place no Ilimíri fancied visiting. Mostly, Rhydian just hunted along the canyon wall, searching for the tusk-rams that scaled its sheer cliff face, often hunting them from the air. The meat was often tough and gamy, but the high protein was an important nutrient for sustained flight. He had never been to the ground before, except for the edges of the high cliff walls where he’d sometimes stop to rest his wings.

  Before long he sighted an opening in the rocks ahead, about a hundred feet below the top of the cliff; perhaps a cave. He spilled air from his wings and dropped toward the crevice. As he approached the opening he flared his wings, expertly slowing and directing his descent toward his target landing spot. The rocks conveniently formed a small sort of balcony at the mouth of the opening, almost as if someone had designed it that way. As his bare feet touched down on cold stone he fluttered his wings and tucked them tight against his back so the wind would not tear him from the cliff face.

  He placed his hands on the earthy stone wall to steady himself and peered into the opening. Squinting in the dim light he discerned that it did indeed give way to a narrow tunnel.

  He glanced back over his shoulder into the darkening sky. Turning around, drops of icy rain began to hit his bare chest. He then looked down, through the branches of the towering trees whose canopy obscured the foreign dangers of the ground far below. Shuddering in the cold wind, he turned back and tentatively ducked into the tunnel as the sky behind him lit with another strike of lightning and a violent clap of thunder shook the stone beneath his feet.

  With the welcome relief of the shelter, he swept his dark, windblown curls from his face, revealing eyes the color of a clear, blue sky. He mostly resembled a human, apart from his wings and sharp, angular features. His feathers were a mottled black and brown with rust-red primaries. His tail feathers were similarly colored and extended from his lower back to the back of his knees. At twenty-six years old, his feathers had reached their permanent colors. He wore only trousers, as he preferred to be barefoot, and most Ilimíri men didn’t wear upper body garments during the warm season.

  The sounds of the storm diminished as he made his way further into the darkness of the cave. Soon, he could not see and he began to feel cold panic arise. Should he turn back? Could he find another shelter before the storm became too treacherous? He considered lying down and sleeping there in the tunnel, but the ground was too rocky and jagged, the tunnel too narrow. He could never rest here.

  Just when Rhydian was about to give way to the panic and turn around, a faint blue light illuminated the way ahead. His fear instantly dissolved, giving way to curiosity. At first he couldn’t identify the source of the light, but then he looked down and instantly understood. From his neck hung a small, brass timepiece, like a pocket watch but with only one hand. And instead of twelve numbers it had three red jewels set into a glass face, between which were twenty-four marks. Beneath the glass face were dozens of jeweled cogs and wheels. And from somewhere in the intricate inner workings of the device emanated the soft blue glow. A timekeeper: the technological marvel of the Ilimíri people.

  Rhydian was intrigued. There were no registered thresholds anywhere in the area, and yet his timekeeper indicated otherwise; that there was one right there before him. He stood perplexed for a moment, not knowing how to proceed. He’d been through to the other side many times before, but that was different. The town threshold was always guarded and tightly regulated. This one seemed to have sprung up from nowhere, unbeknownst to everyone.

  Rhydian took another step forward and felt the familiar pulse of energy waft over him. Now he had no doubt. There was clearly a gateway here. He paused, considering the situation. Entering an unregistered threshold could have serious consequences if anyone found out, but then again, there were no unregistered thresholds. Were there? On the other hand, he could never survive out in that brutal storm.

  Another step forward. The energy flooded over Rhydian and a peaceful sort of weight came over his whole body. He took the timekeeper in his hand and, after a moment’s hesitation, grasped the dial and wound it three times. As he did the hand spun all the way around the face of the device and the cogs and gears spurred to life. Suddenly the cold, blue light began to shift in color and became the brilliant glow of a sunset. Rhydian, resolved now, resumed making his way through the tunnel. As he did, the energy completely overtook him and he felt his body begin to change. His bones became solid and heavy, his muscles slackening slightly. His features became less angular. His pointed ears rounded out and his chin became more square. Then came the most unsettling part for any Ilimíri: His wings unfurled and melted away. The sudden lack of weight on his back made him feel imbalanced and he might have fallen over if he hadn’t been ready for the sensation.

  As Rhydian pressed on through the cave, he felt the pulsing energy of the threshold gradually decrease until he made his way toward the other end of the tunnel. At last he came to the opening he knew there had to be. Pushing his way through the brush and tall grass he stepped out into the warm, still night air. He was in a dense pine forest filled with the sound of crickets and nocturnal songbirds. He was on the other side. The human side.

  Rhydian always felt awkward and clumsy in a human body. Every once in a while, he would start to panic about being on the ground and instinctively attempt to fly away, as of course he couldn’t. But he had mostly become used to the feeling and was usually calm on the other side. Right now, though, he was purely excited. This threshold was completely new to him and was seemingly unused. The foliage obscuring the mouth of the cave seemed to have been undisturbed before his arrival, not tamped down and cleared from frequent use. And there were no footprints on the ground going to or from the opening.

  Peering off into the distance he saw a small house wi
th warm light glowing in the windows. Beside the house was a human machine; a device with wheels that humans used to travel from place to place. Behind a fence nearby was a large animal he knew to be called a horse.

  Rhydian was perplexed. Thresholds were never placed so close to human dwellings. Unnecessary human contact was forbidden by law. Furthermore, there was no water source nearby that he could see. The more he saw, the less sense this seemed to make.

  Notwithstanding his trepidation, Rhydian stowed his bow and quiver in the brush near the mouth of the cave and set off to explore. If he was going to get in trouble for abusing his threshold privileges, he was at least going to enjoy doing so. However, truly he did not believe he would get into trouble. Technically speaking, he wasn’t supposed to use his father’s timekeeper at all, though people tended to look the other way in his case. Most everyone took a sad sort of respectful pity on him, and everyone had always expected him to walk in his father’s footsteps. Perhaps that was why he spent more time than anyone else on the other side — not to take advantage of people’s pity and expectations, but to escape them.

  Rhydian had always been fascinated by the human world. Thresholds were always placed somewhere off the beaten path so as not to draw attention to their whereabouts, though Rhydian would sometimes cross paths with occasional hikers or campers. Ilimíri law regarding such encounters was to make no contact with humans unless they make contact first. Even then, you were to discreetly dismiss yourself. Revealing the existence of Ilimíra was to invoke capital punishment, which involved having your flight feathers surgically removed; the worst kind of fate.

  Rhydian, however, had perfected the art of getting people to initiate contact. His favorite ruse was to pretend he was lost, to which most people would offer their assistance. He would then use this as an opportunity to learn everything he could about the world on the other side. For instance, he had learned from one man that humans operated almost everything with a power source called electricity.

  On another occasion he learned from a couple on horseback that the objects he sometimes saw drifting across the sky were called airplanes, and that they could carry people around the world in a matter of hours. He could scarcely believe that humans could fly, and until that day he had not even considered the notion.

  This time, however, Rhydian doubted he’d have any such chance encounters. He worked his way through the woods, squinting in the darkness. He steered clear of the distant house. It seemed to be the only one anywhere in sight, but he moved quietly anyway. He had never been on the other side after dark before. In fact, it was seriously discouraged by the Judges Quorum.

  Before long he heard the faint sound of flowing water. He smiled to himself. This was a good thing. He and his mother had been running short on ilïmbalm for over a week. He followed the gentle babbling of the nearby water source until he knew he had to be close. Before long he took a step into open air and fell straight down into a shallow ravine. He tumbled just a few feet into a broad, deep stream. His head went underwater for just a moment, until he felt the smooth river rocks beneath his feet and stood up. It was just deep enough that his head and shoulders came up out of the water and was about twelve feet wide. The current was slow and gentle, spilling over some rocks a short distance away. It was a warm night on this side of the threshold, so the water felt very pleasant. He laid back and stared up through the trees into the night sky, savoring the sweet smell of pine needles.

  After indulging himself for a few minutes, he made his way to the bank of the stream and climbed out, feeling the unsettling weight of his human body as soon as he exited the water. Looking around to make sure he still had privacy, he removed his trousers and wrung them out. When they were sufficiently dry, he put them back on and reclined on a nearby patch of grass. There he inspected his timekeeper to make sure the water hadn’t damaged it. It was still ticking away.

  The timekeeper had once been a gift to his father from a very dear friend. It was of the highest quality workmanship, completely waterproof. Rhydian thought it must have cost a great deal; at least fifteen units of grade-eight ilïmbalm, maybe grade-nine. But regardless of its value, it was priceless to him.

  Rhydian soon began to feel extremely unsettled. He had never spent the night on the ground before in his life. He knew, logically, that the ground on the human side was far safer than in Ilimíra, but he still couldn’t kick the intense feeling of vulnerability. No Ilimíri felt at home on the ground. It was completely unnatural. He tried to close his eyes and pretend he was in his bed in the Monolith City, but every time he did, his imagination created dangers that weren’t there. At one point, he swore he heard the growl of a ground-dweller.

  How could that be, he thought to himself. You’ve never heard the growl of a ground-dweller, so how could you possibly know what it sounds like? He found himself having multiple such silent dialogues with himself before finally falling into a fitful sleep sometime late that night.

  When he woke the following morning, he jumped up in a panic, finding himself where he was and without the ability to fly. It took him several moments to collect himself and slow his heart rate.

  He looked at his timekeeper to see that eight hours had ticked away. He wasn’t worried. His timepiece would allow him three days before he became trapped there. Some allowed more. He remembered once seeing a one-month timekeeper, but such pieces were seldom distributed, and they were only ever issued to people in a very high political position. Even then, Rhydian could not imagine any reason for staying on the other side for a month! Most Ilimíri required extensive training to overcome ground anxiety for so much as a day.

  Once Rhydian had collected himself, he reached for a pouch on his belt and pulled out a glass bottle with a screw top. He removed the cap and submerged the bottle until it was full and capped it once more. He wasn’t sure how rich the ilïmbalm concentration here was (In fact, he didn’t have a clue where “here” was.) but he figured it was better than going back with nothing.

  He deposited the bottle back in his pouch and headed back the way he came the night before, this time finding a log bridge to cross the stream. On his way he heard a curious sound, a sort of continuous rumble, coming from the direction of the human house. He peered through the trees and saw the wheeled machine, a large, blue box with an opening on the back, slowly pull away from the dwelling. Strange, he thought, that humans’ natural means of transportation were so inadequate that they had to manufacture machines for that purpose.

  He laughed at the thought before continuing through the forest toward the cave that housed the gateway back to his world. He retrieved his bow and quiver from its hiding spot and pushed his way through the foliage into the mouth of the cave. Upon entering, the same amber glow illuminated in the face of the timepiece again and he made his way through the flow of energy. When he came through on the other side, he breathed a sigh of relief at having the familiar weight of his wings once more upon his back. He took the timekeeper in his hand and pressed firmly on the winder until it depressed with a click. The single hand wound back to the first jewel and the cogs and wheels inside slowed to a standstill. The amber glow dimmed back to blue.

  He walked just past the mouth of the cave, where he opened his wings wide, a full twenty foot spread. He took a short running start and thrust himself from the cliff face. Letting himself drop a few hundred feet, he snapped open his wings, which concussed the air around him, and used the momentum from the dive to propel himself back down the canyon toward home.

  The previous night’s storm had cleared and there were now only puffy, white clouds on the horizon. The warm sunlight felt wonderful on his back, the wind fingering his hair cool and refreshing. He was in no hurry to get back. He wasn’t expected at work until mid-morning. He caught a warm thermal air pocket that lifted him high into the sky almost effortlessly. His broad wings allowed him to soar easily, rarely having to expend precious energy flapping.

  When he was high enough up that he could see the Monol
ith City ahead, he folded in his wings slightly and plummeted at an angle toward his home. The thrill of sheer speed and the rushing wind exhilarated him. The sky was his domain. This was what an Ilimíri lived for.

  When he was almost directly above the Monolith City, he flared open his wings and abruptly stopped, like opening a parachute. He then casually drifted down in wide, lazy circles. Looking down on the town, people fluttered and soared to and from their various morning destinations. The town itself was an grand, white granite monolith that jutted from the side of the canyon wall and towered above its precipice. The stone was masterfully cut, carved, and built out into various dwellings and structures. The massive structure housed thousands of Ilimíri and was the capital city of their world. There were no stairs or bridges, as the city’s occupants simply flew from one destination to the other. Each structure or building had a rounded balcony in front of its entrance upon which to land before going inside.

  Rhydian dropped altitude, navigating diagonally across town toward his house. When he was six feet above his balcony he folded in his wings and dropped to a crouching position in front of the door. He reached for the handle, then decided instead to check the quality of his new ilïmbalm in the morning sunlight.

  It probably wouldn’t amount to much; maybe grade one or two. Three if he was lucky. These days, the highest concentrations yielded only seven out of ten, and those usually had to be refined and concentrated from lower grades. They didn’t occur naturally. And the best water sources were always reserved for official ilïmbalm refiners and military.

  Rhydian swiveled his belt around so his pouch was in the front and reached inside for the bottle. Pulling it out, he glanced down at its contents. Rhydian’s jaw dropped in astonishment. Rather than the meager, transparent pink of a grade one, the bottle was filled with the richest, deepest red he had ever seen. His hands shook so hard he almost dropped it. Holding the bottle to the sun, he peered through it and saw only the slightest light filtering through the crimson fluid. He unscrewed the cap so eagerly that it fell and skittered off the edge of the balcony. Raising the bottle to his lips, he took a sip. He coughed and choked on the ilïmbalm. It was sweeter and stronger than any he’d ever tasted, almost unbearably so, but he dared not spit it out.