by E A Bagby
Salihandron’s first message came to Takka. The warrior saw a shadow where no person stood. The shadow spoke: “You have risen from below and found the mortal World, but no realm in all of what was Heothan can separate fully. Tehna the Creator is always One. For the World to have peace over time, all mortal souls must eventually return home and forget. I, Salihandron, alone shall summon every spirit back. Mortal-kind cannot avoid my call. The receivers must abide, and their spirits return.”
“That’s exactly why I’m glad you heard the message, Giels,” Erikal said.
Meritus put his palm to his mouth. “Yawn. Sounds like a bunch of words thrown together.”
A thunderclap vibrated the cab.
“You’re supposed to think about the meaning,” I said. “It helps to know a number of stories.”
Cleo turned with a gleam in her eye. “So, enlighten us.”
I paused to think up a benign response, but decided I could not avoid the quote’s weight. “It means that death and rebirth maintain the World’s balance. But also, if the message is Salihandron’s, it would be wise for us to follow what it says. In fact, we have no choice.” Erikal may have been glad I heard the message, but I wished, suddenly, I had not.
The cab dropped and with a scream, Cleo slid onto the floor. But she laughed it off. Erikal held his balance and helped her back up.
More water splashed through the vents, so much that nearly a foot of it covered the floor. Pillows floated about like leaves on a calm stream. All of us stood now, except for Alana, who shimmied around to close the vents. But water still seeped in, if more slowly. She finally stood, soaked. I averted my eyes, as her clothes clung to her skin. Soon, the interior became suffocatingly stuffy. Lightning flashed over and over beyond the rain’s veil. Their booms echoed.
“Cleo, Erikal, stop!” I shouted, but just as I did, the swaying ceased. I was about to thank them, but I noticed we were still moving.
“No need to worry,” Cleo said, sounding a little shaken, “the water’s flattened out.” Through the blurred front view, a dark, flat surface winded through the brown and green of the gorge. The rain still poured, but at least we hovered through it calmly.
“Alana came up with the idea,” Meritus shouted at me over the rain. He popped another piece of meat in his mouth.
“What idea?”
“That there’s a spirit in the recorder,” he said through his chewing. “Erikal’s going along with it. That’s why we’re going to the cave. Alana’s really fond of spirits, I think. I’m just excited to see the world.”
A chill ran up my spine. Alana thought the recorder had captured a human spirit, a mortal soul—a ghost. It explained going to the Wind Cave, since lost souls exit the mortal World there. Did they believe Salihandron sought our help? “Do you plan to toss the recorder into it or something?”
“It’s an option,” Erikal said.
“That’s what I suggested,” Alana said. “I came because I wanted to witness it.”
The rain continued pounding down in ever-thickening sheets.
“Alana,” I said, “what gives you the idea the voice is a soul trapped?”
“A recorder is a vessel for thought without form,” she said. “Is that not what a soul is?”
I believe I screwed my face up. I had to admit, she had an imagination. Though as insightful as her idea sounded, it could just as easily have been fanciful. “Can’t we just take the recorder apart? Maybe that will free the ghost, and it can find its own way to—wherever.”
“We can’t. As part of its creation, I had to make it indestructible.” Erikal said it so casually, as though making devices indestructible was normal.
Cleo and I looked at each other knowingly. Now we understood why the delicate petals had not been damaged when we dropped it. What is Erikal up to? “How can you make it indestructible?”
“That’s just how the computer-spirit wanted it. Anyhow,” Erikal added, “it’s not clear what to do. I can interpret the message in ten ways.”
The outside world had become nothing but water and grey—rain, falls, and river. A blurred bolt of lightning flashed nearby. The cracking of thick wood echoed, followed by the scraping white noise of a broken tree falling from up high to its doom in a crash. Water splashed up a short distance ahead and inundated the window so completely that I could momentarily see through it, as though the water were an extra layer of sheer glass. An entire ancient tree bounced some forty feet in front of us, its branches ripping against the gorge’s side as the water pushed it.
“Maybe this journey’s too difficult,” I said, hoping they would stop. At least Cleo would know I intended to go on a long journey. And we could likely return in time for the rehearsal.
Meritus now hung from two ceiling handholds, with his knees bent to keep his feet above the sloshing water below. He swayed from the cab’s movement like a tree creature. “Well, the gods must be having an argument. Salihandron beckons us forward, and Tohillocen wants us to return. What did you say, Giels? With Salihandron, we have no choice? It seems we go onward.”
“Onward!” Cleo echoed.
The heavy rain increased further, shrouding the view to near nothing.
“Oh, the Sun,” Alana shouted. “You can’t see!”
“Onward? Does that makes sense?” I asked.
“Hard to tell,” Erikal said. “Can’t see much.” Terror struck. He is often confident and matter of fact, but his casualness when confronted with real danger seemed mad.
“We’re fine,” Cleo said. “We’re going slow. This ship can handle what the storm throws at it.”
Including a falling tree? It took only moments to reach the tree that had landed in the waterway. It had wedged into the gorge’s rocky sides, and its blurry visage towered over us as we ambled by. My heart pounded.
Meritus looked at me, smiling, as if taking pleasure in my unease.
“This doesn’t worry you?” I asked him. I didn’t say scare you, because I did not want to seem scared myself.
“I trust Erikal.”
I asked about the recorder to distract myself. “If a mortal’s spirit is in my recorder, how did it get there?”
“My best guess,” Erikal said, “is that when creating the object, the computer-spirit pulled an entity from the ether. That’s the normal process of giving machines life and bringing the machine-spirit into them. But Alana’s right. It’s plausible that a mortal soul might be captured by something as magical as a recorder. Maybe Salihandron saw an opportunity to place a wayward ghost in there.” That was the first time he’d called the recorder a magic item, which confirmed my suspicion that it was unique and powerful.
“You made it. How can you not know how it works?”
“The computer-spirit’s fickle, Giels. We don’t get to see all its secrets. Maybe the Talis will know what to do.”
Long ago, I had met representatives of the Talis tribe when they had come to the Deo to meet our Council of Seven Elders. They wore shining clothes, and their reputation for spiritual depth and knowledge of magic preceded them. “The Talis are there?” I asked.
“They’re coastal people, and the cave is on the coast,” Erikal said.
The cab lifted and the water poured away through the vents, leaving a soaked mess of carpet and pillows. Tired from keeping my balance, I kneeled with my back against the sidewall. “How do you know the way?”
“I talked to several knowledgeable people,” Erikal said, “including the Treespeaker and Elder Treehaven. I asked them to describe distant lands as they saw fit—you know, so they’d not be suspicious. From their various stories, I pieced together a map in my mind, including this route.”
Erikal never claimed he knew something that he did not.
“But we’re not going the usual way,” he added, “which is near the Lost Forest—didn’t like the sound of that place.” Everyone in the Deo has heard legends of the strange people of the Lost Forest. But the legends never said much more than there are strange people
called the Lost Tribe in the Lost Forest. No one seemed to know anything about the people. “Apparently,” Erikal added, “the Lost Forest is like a maze of hills and overly dense forest. I think this route will be much easier to follow.”
“Easier to follow? Are you serious?” I asked.
“Cleo’s right,” he said. “We shouldn’t worry too much about the storm in this vehicle. It has a stiff frame. This way will bring us to the Camchaw River, which leads directly to the coast.”
Alana stood, her half-concealed eyes filled with fire.
“Why doesn’t everybody go this way, then?” I asked Erikal, ignoring Alana.
Alana’s arm rose in an undead fashion, like a stiff log, pointing ahead.
“Because a normal cab would never make it,” Erikal said. “Ever hear of Ceridia?”
“Stop!” Alana yelled. Cleo and Erikal halted the cab immediately.
5
Stars in the Sky
I jolted forward over my pillows, landing on my elbows, and slid across the wet carpet, burning my skin. “Ow.”
Alana caught a handhold while still pointing through the front window.
“What is it?” Cleo asked.
“The earth ends!” Alana said. “Don’t go forward. We’ll die.”
I almost laughed; I thought the idea so ridiculous. But then I registered who said it. I did not recall Alana talking frivolously.
Cleo and Erikal immediately folded up the wings to stabilize the craft.
The storm roared magnitudes louder than moments before.
Condensation covered the windows. To clear the air, Alana opened the main door, which rotated on its top hinges. Rainwater poured off as it rose to become a canopy. The roar grew deafening, much louder than any rain.
Erikal and Cleo defogged the front windshields with their shirtsleeves, clearing the view.
“Ceridia, the angry waterfall. We’ve gone further than I expected,” Erikal said. He turned to Alana, looking unusually humbled. “Alana, thank you for seeing it before I did. We need to get to the bank, Cleo. Quick.”
The world did not end, but the river appeared to. The waterfall’s ledge came closer; we still moved forwards. Meritus leaped from his pillow to Cleo’s side. He flicked switches while she and Erikal handled other controls.
The cab turned, but we continued moving towards the dropoff. Alana and I stood motionless. We could offer no help.
Erikal glanced at the vents, where water sporadically poured in. “The waves are pushing us.” He turned to the open door and pointed at the forested rock bank to the left of the falls. “Over there, the rock cliff.”
Cleo glanced over. “What about the trees?”
“Don’t worry about the trees. Meritus, take over my controls. I’ve an idea.” Erikal jumped to the door.
“The do-it-all?” Cleo asked.
“No, can’t get to it. Rotate both wings port side. Quickly. Grab the cliff.”
The cab jolted. Alana screamed. Before I knew it, her arms were around my waist, her wet clothes soaking mine. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder. “It’ll be fine,” I said, as much to comfort myself as her.
Cleo furiously rotated a crank, and Meritus worked at other controls, his hands flying all over the panel.
Rain blew in the opened door, soaking Erikal. Holding the jamb with one hand, he swung his other hand out as far as it would reach, as if to grab the scrubby trees clinging to the rock bank, but several feet lay between them and his fingers. Slowly, a long, horizontal branch came into view as we floated forward. The waves pounded us towards the drop.
Erikal grunted and extended his reach to the limb. “Sathunedri must have it in for us!” he said, invoking the goddess of falling water. I wanted to help, but my legs would not move. I stood paralyzed.
Erikal grabbed the branch and held firm, but his other hand slipped on the door’s smooth metal jamb. He pulled hard.
My paralysis passed, and I jumped to Erikal and grabbed his slipping arm. Alana braced against the interior wall and held his wrist. Partly visible from my vantage, both wing assemblies, now on the left side over the door, smashed against wet branches above. The cab shook. My hands slipped on Erikal’s soaked arm. I grabbed his sleeve, and I heard it rip.
The rock cliff rose on our left. With a deep yell, Erikal pulled us towards it. The waves, angry and virulent, pushed us to the waterfall’s edge. Each of the wings’ many facets rotated on their pivots until the two wing assemblies resembled talons. Those claws found a rock ledge—narrow, but the earth’s levitating power coming through was just enough to keep the entire cab in the air.
“Oh—the Sun! Hold on, Erikal!” Alana screamed.
“Cleo, Meritus,” Erikal said. “You’ve got it. Hang us off the side without bumping the trees.” I looked down. I should not have. Roaring water dropped like falling stones to a dark, swirling pool a hundred feet below.
Suddenly, I stumbled back. Erikal’s arm had moved. Before I fell to the floor, a hand caught my sleeve—Erikal’s.
“We’re fine now,” he said, and let me go.
“What?” I stepped to the open door and glanced down again. I could not help myself. Now, nothing lay between us and the dark water and rocks below. My head grew light.
Erikal pulled the door shut. Through the windows, the outer facets of both wing assemblies extended to the left and floated just above the small, crooked rock ledge while we, in the cab’s hull, stuck well out into the air. The entire vehicle cantilevered off the ends of the wings. The meandering ledge, in places only a foot wide, slowly descended to the lower river, just beyond Ceridia’s whirling pool. Erikal joined the other drivers, and, with only the wingtips harnessing the floating power of the earth, we descended alongside the ledge to safety.
Cheers erupted from all of us. I could not have been more stunned. “We did it,” I said in absolute amazement. I turned to look back at the falls in hopes of seeing the most impressive sight of my life, but Erikal had not included windows in the back of the vehicle. We could only see where we were going, not where we had been.
“We would certainly have plummeted to our deaths,” Erikal said, “in a whirlpool of cold. Thank you again, Alana.”
“Erikal, thank you.” Alana sounded breathless. Erikal had been wearing my nerves, but he just reminded me why I admired him so much. In the moment, I let it slide that we would not have been in danger if not for him.
Cleo turned to me, and we hugged. “You’re fantastic,” I told her. “How’d you learn to drive like that?”
She smiled, and her eyes filled with glowing pride. But dark rings surrounded them.
“I think you’ve earned a rest,” I said.
“Oh, I’m much too excited and energized now.”
Meritus leaned with his back against the control panel. “Sathunedri wanted us to fall down Ceridia, but we got the better of her.”
“Tohillocen and Etargoren have wanted us to stop, too,” Cleo said. “Yet we’ve gotten through it without getting hurt at all. Maybe Salihandron helped.”
Alana looked at me. “Is it possible? Salihandron is guiding us, as we thought?”
I understood the rush of emotions, but my friends were jumping to conclusions. “Well, it’s tough understanding the gods’ intent and whether their actions are directly meant for us.” For all we knew, Tohillocen created the storm to somehow punish or help a nearby tribe.
“All things are connected,” Cleo said.
“I know, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s true because we think a certain way about it. Shamans are the ones who can best interpret such things.” I might have been killing the mood, but I did not care. We had put ourselves in too much danger.
Meritus casually chewed at a fingernail and eyed me. “So, you don’t think gods are battling us and Salihandron for the recorder-ghost’s fate?”
“Personally, I wouldn’t assume—” I started, but decided to let the topic go. If my friends wanted to imagine we’d landed in some great battle
between the gods that centered around us, I figured I would let them. After all, by the looks of the river ahead, we were no longer in jeopardy. More worldly concerns nagged at me. “Will we be able to return back up the falls?”
Erikal, now driving, turned his head a fraction towards me. “Not in this weather.”
The rehearsal would start in the evening. Even in the heavy rain, I could tell the day was edging towards mid-morning. We would have needed to return now to make it back in time. I sighed. For the first time, I noticed my regret for skipping the event. I wished that I believed in the adventure in the same way as my friends so I could be distracted from the guilt. I sat on the wet floor, resigned to being thankful that Ceridia had not killed me.
Moments later, Cleo sat down at my side. After an exhausted exhale, she fell asleep.
My heart thumped. The ride had not been the romantic one I expected, but at least Cleo lay against me. I wrapped an arm around her to keep her warm. Her eyes softened to delicate horizontal lines crowned by long, brown lashes. My future wife—I still thought it a safe assumption; after all, she had promised a kiss.
Alana looked at me curiously and smiled. Perhaps she saw my contentment.
Our pace quickened over the river’s gravelly shore. Instead of moving at the speed of a slow jog like other cabs, we darted faster than the quickest Deoan sprinter. The power of Erikal’s vehicle astounded me.
For a while, I gazed absently at the trees, rain, and mist to allow my head to clear.
* * *
The Deo Stream grew into a small river and merged with a much larger waterway.
“This must be the Camchaw River,” Erikal said to Meritus. The river, at least forty feet wide, was of a size none of us had ever seen. With the sight, the reality of our adventure returned.
Though I did not believe the gods fought over us, I did wonder what was going on.
Erikal made a recorder, a mythical item only mentioned in the most rarefied informal legends. Despite the fascinating promise such a device would hold, no one had ever created one—at least to my knowledge—suggesting that it took extraordinary skill.
