“Ah. Shit. I guess, maybe. I shouldn’t have done that without discussing it first.”
“We will follow you anywhere, tsulygoi,” Eladra said.
“What should we do with all this?” Narilora asked.
I looked around the cavity as I got my bearings. There were numerous beautifully formed and colored crystals, many of which had multiple layers of color as if they had grown in a shifting mix of minerals. One stood out to me, a near-perfect prism about the size of my stacked fists. It was mostly pinkish-red but with layers of blue, violet, and green. Part of me wanted to take it, but I knew now was not the time.
“It’s wonderful, but not what we’re here for. Maybe on the way back down.”
The girls nodded. Narilora led the way out of the cavity. The passage continued upward, and in a minute or so, I noticed light above us.
“Look–”
“I see it!” Narilora shouted.
Another twenty feet had us emerging under an overhang. I could hear the waterfall. And when we climbed out into the open, we were standing on a rocky ledge overlooking the river about a hundred yards away.
Eladra gave a cheer of delight and hugged both of us.
“Good work,” I said. “Why don’t we break for lunch?”
◆◆◆
We’d reached a fairly level area. The ridge was actually a plateau of sorts, and this high up, the landscape changed again. We were in a forest of trees like the ones I’d seen when I first arrived in Taitala, with glittering green bark and oval, blueish-green leaves. The river flowed calmly behind the waterfall, and I could see nothing that looked too difficult until mountains began rising up about twenty miles away. They were capped with snow and were no doubt the source of the river. I sincerely hoped we weren’t going to need to go that far.
From the top of the waterfall, we could see all the way back down, and I was slightly shocked to see how far we had climbed. The river twisted off to the left, so we couldn’t see the village anymore, but you could see the lowlands off in the distance, what looked like two or three thousand feet down.
“We came that far?” Eladra said.
“Ever think you’d come all the way up here?”
“I had no idea what was up here in the first place.”
“How much farther do you think, Will?” Narilora asked.
“I sure hope we’re almost there. If you were a group of people who wanted somewhere nice to live, where no one would ever bother you, you could do a lot worse than this.”
We continued along the river without incident. In contrast to all the rugged terrain below, this was little more than a pleasant walk through fields and forests. Narilora shot another couple of fish in the river for dinner. We finally stopped as it began to get dark, having come about six or eight miles from the waterfall.
Narilora put the fish on a spit over the campfire as I set up the tent.
“This is pretty,” Eladra said as we watched the sun set over the ridge. The sky was streaked with intense layers of violet and magenta.
“Almost enough of a reason to come up here on its own.”
The fish Narilora had shot were different from the one in the lake. They were milder than the jalank but still tasty. As it got dark, we sat together around the fire. I called Ayarala, but nothing had really changed from the previous night. She was amazed at how far we had come, and though she didn’t say so, I could tell she was a little worried. Merindra, Kisarat, and Lorelat all came on briefly to tell us they missed us. Then I stuck the tablet back into my backpack, wondering how much longer this was going to go on.
I heard a voice like bells in the breeze.
“Makalang.”
Chapter 11
I spun around, as did Eladra and Narilora. Behind me, barely more than yellow eyes in the darkness, reflecting the firelight, Mereceeree was there. She was naked just as she’d been on those nights in Phan-garad.
“I admire your persistence,” she said. “No land-bound have come to our lands in more than two kumala-talons.”
“Silas.”
She laughed.
“That is the end of our story, not the beginning.”
“How did you get up here, ahead of us, when we rode on the train?”
She laughed again.
“Do you think I will tell you all our secrets, before you have even claimed me? Before we have mated?”
“I thought your people didn’t hold with those customs? That you just came and went with the tsulygoi who would have you?”
“You are the makalang, Will of Hawthorne. Yet there is so much you do not know. About this world, and yourself.”
I stood.
“And you’re going to tell me?”
“Not I. I am simply here to collect you. Gather your things. Or not. I will wait.”
Finally Narilora spoke.
“You have the answers we seek?”
But Mereceeree held up her hand.
“No more questions, land-bound. Come.”
◆◆◆
I packed up the camp quickly, and we followed Mereceeree through the darkness. She led us away from the river and into the forest. We hiked for about an hour.
There were sounds, voices, so high-pitched they hurt my ears. A flutter above us, then another. I looked up but saw nothing except black forms moving across the stars, their presence only apparent by the stars behind them.
Ahead in the darkness, a cold light glowed in the trees. We were approaching a clearing. The trees began to part before the light, which I saw was a single crystal on a tall pole in the center of a large circle of buildings.
And the panikang were there.
They clustered in the darkness around the clearing, in the shadows around the buildings, in the trees. Hundreds of them. But a few stood in the light, in the center, waiting for us. Like Mereceeree, every panikang I saw was naked. She led us straight toward the light, where three panikang stood in front of the pole. They were all elder females, one obviously older than the other two, her black-brown hair shot through with gray. They waited until we were about ten feet away. The older one spoke.
“Welcome, Will of Hawthorne, the makalang. I am Phareewee, clan leader of the panikang. I have mated, and I have one child. She stands with you.”
I glanced at Mereceeree, who only smiled. My wives spoke up.
“I am Eladra, of the cunelo and Will Hawthorne, who is my tsulygoi. I have mated, and I am with child.”
“I am Narilora, of the linyang and Will Hawthorne, who is my tsulygoi. I have mated.”
“I believe you know why we are here,” I said.
“I do,” Phareewee said. “It is you who do not. You think you are here to address your wife’s inability to conceive. You do not see that is merely a piece in a larger puzzle. A much larger puzzle.”
I took a deep breath and exhaled.
“We are here for your help. However you wish to deliver it.”
Phareewee nodded
“Quite. Come.”
She turned and walked toward a large circular building at the far side of the circle. Mereceeree motioned for us to follow her, and we did. As we approached the building, the crystal on the pole began to dim, going dark as we reached the door. Inside the building was a single round room with a sunken sitting area in the center that circled a fire pit with a chimney above. Soft cushions were set all the way around, and a low fire burned in the pit. On the far side of the room was a set of double doors in the floor, set in a raised enclosure like the entrance to a cellar.
Mereceeree and the other two panikang who had been standing with Phareewee circled around the sitting area.
“Please,” Phareewee said, “make yourselves comfortable. We have much to discuss.”
Some of the other panikang followed us inside. As we sat, two of them appeared with small glasses with a clear liquid. I recognized the aroma immediately.
“I understand this is your preferred drink, Will of Hawthorne.”
It was malvina. I took
a sip. It was the good stuff, but I set it down.
“You seem to know a great deal about me, and I am beginning to tire of not knowing why.”
Phareewee held up her hand.
“We are here to tell you. I am merely trying to be hospitable. I mean no offense by it.”
I nodded.
“Fair enough. Let’s talk.”
Phareewee put her hands in her lap. Then she laughed softly.
“My entire life has led to this moment, yet still I am not sure where to begin. So instead, I will begin with a question for you. Do you know how you came to be here, on Taitala?”
“I fell into a cave on my world. There were crystals. I think I . . . activated them somehow. Then I came out of a cave in this world.”
“A cave with crystals?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“Did that strike you as notable?”
“The crystals? Not at first, but since then, yes.”
“You have noted the preponderance of crystals in this world?”
“I have, definitely.”
“And there are crystals in your world?”
“Yes. But not like this world. They don’t . . . we use them for different things.”
“Do you know where you are? In relation to your world?”
“This is a different star system. I’m not sure, but –” I stopped. “Mereceeree knew who Silas Johnson was.”
“Silas was the most recent makalang to enter this world before you.”
“Right. The ninth, or whatever.”
All the panikang burst out laughing, though Phareewee struggled to contain her reaction.
“He wasn’t the ninth?” I asked somewhat sheepishly.
“He was . . .” She laughed again. “I do not pretend to assert that our records are infallible. But Will of Hawthorne, you are very far from being the tenth makalang to visit Taitala.”
“How many have there been?”
She paused for a moment.
“That is a question that is impossible to answer. I can only answer with what we know. But based on the records our people have kept here, over thirty kumala-talons, you are the twenty-sixth. I am quite certain there were more than that, however.”
I quickly did the math in my head. If she was telling me the truth, they had been keeping records of the makalangs for almost 2,500 years.
“All right. That makes some sense to me, actually. But back to Silas. He came here, didn’t he?”
“He did. He stayed with our people for perhaps ten talons. Then he left. Where he went, I do not know. I take it you have not completed your reading of his journals.”
“I have not.”
“I recommend that you do so, as soon as possible.”
“What’s in them?”
“Again, I do not know. I do not know everything, Will of Hawthorne. I only know that much of those journals was written after he left us, and I suspect there is information in there that you will find valuable.”
“All right. I will. But we’re going in circles here. You started out asking me how I got here. Do you know?”
“I do. Not all of it, but enough.”
“Then tell me.”
“I am trying. But I must do this in a way that you will accept and understand.” She motioned to one of the panikang behind her, who brought a small wooden box over to us. Phareewee opened the box and extracted a long crystal prism. Then she looked at Narilora.
“Come here, girl.”
Narilora looked at me. I nodded. She stood and walked around the circle to Phareewee. The old panikang seemed to concentrate for a few moments, then slowly moved the crystal over Narilora’s body. Then she exhaled slowly.
“You should be dead.”
“I nearly was,” Narilora responded.
“To be honest, I do not know how you have survived this long. But I am certain you will not survive much longer. We can help you, but we must do this soon.”
“That’s why we’re here,” I said.
“Still you do not understand!” Phareewee shouted. “Have you given any thought to how you did this to her, how you brought her back from the brink of death?”
“I have. That is why I came to you.”
“Do such things happen in your world? Your wife is dying, you wish for her to live, and she does so?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I don’t . . . we have different things there. Science and medicine. We don’t use crystals.”
“We have science and medicine in this world as well.”
Something began to tickle the back of my head.
“Using crystals. Right. I know that. But my other wife, a healer, she said this crystal healing is all nonsense. To be perfectly honest, we have people who believe in ‘crystal healing’ on my world, and it’s pretty much all nonsense too.”
Phareewee scoffed.
“These ‘experts’ with their ‘science’! Celebrating the wonders they achieve, scorning the old ways, never thinking how they do these things. Never understanding that what they do, and what we do, are one and the same! Was it nonsense that brought you to Taitala, Will of Hawthorne? How do you explain your presence here, with your science and medicine?”
I fought to compose myself.
“I can’t.”
Phareewee sat back against her seat and replaced the crystal in its box.
“What you did for your pretty linyang wife, Will of Hawthorne, is something I can barely do, and I have practiced this art my entire life. The number of panikang with such skills can be counted on my hand. So how did you do it, if it is nonsense?”
“I told you, I don’t know! And what does that have to do with my coming here?”
“I am trying to tell you! But you must not just understand, you must believe. You must believe it with every fiber of your being, or you cannot save her. She will not only never bear a child, she will not live another sampar!”
I looked at Narilora, whose face had gone pale.
“Do you believe what you did for her?” Phareewee asked.
“Yes. Of course.”
“And you believe the crystals in those caves are connected to how you came here?”
“I think so. I don’t have any other explanation. If this is truly another star system, my coming here violates everything I know about science.”
Phareewee nodded.
“Now we are getting somewhere. You can also feel what your wives feel, feel the pleasure you give them, and draw energy from it. Can you not?”
“Yes.”
“Your words make no sense to my ears, yet still I understand you. It is the same for you, yes? You can understand all of us, though our language is alien to your ears.”
“Yes.”
“Now why would that be? You must be hearing us with some other sense. Perhaps a new sense.”
“That seems logical.”
“And this sense appeared immediately upon your arrival here in our world, our world so dependent and infused with crystals. And crystal energy.”
“Yes.”
She stood.
“Come. There is something I must show you now.”
Phareewee walked over toward the doors in the floor. Two panikang went in front of her to open them. The doors were closed with a complicated latch, which they unlocked. Then they lifted the doors to either side. Phareewee waved her hand, and a dim light grew in the space underneath. There were stairs downward. We followed her into the room below.
It was smaller than I expected, maybe ten feet square. Against the far wall were a pair of stone slabs. They were roughly the same size, about four feet across and six high, but they were not identical. Both were engraved with Taitalan writing, but the one on the left was completely covered with it, while the one on the right was engraved only about a third of the way down from the top. The left one looked ancient, like something from an Egyptian tomb. All its edges were worn smooth and there was discoloration in the engravings as if han
ds had passed over it countless times. The one on the right was noticeably newer, and the engravings had a different character to them, sharper, more symmetrical. And the last line appeared to have been done very recently, with the stone exposed by the carvings still fresh and bright.
“I know you cannot read our writing, but I wonder if you can tell what this is.”
The last line was the giveaway.
“Is this a record of the makalangs? Is that me?” I asked, pointing to the fresh engraving.
“It is that, and more. Look here.”
She pointed to the first three entries. Now that I knew it was a list, more things were clear. The three entries at the top of the first tablet had a consistent appearance, as if they had been done at the same time by the same person. Below that, they were all different in style and age, though they seemed similar in content.
“These entries were made by the first panikang who began keeping records of the makalang. Her name is lost, but what she started has persisted to this day. What caused her to do this is not known. I can only imagine that other records were kept before this, and she decided to create something more permanent.”
“Makes sense.”
She ran her fingers along the entry.
“There is more here than the names of the makalangs, which would mean nothing to you, and the dates they lived. These entries also include astronomical and other data as a means of recording the things that happened when a makalang appeared. Much of this is trivial, but one thing is very significant. Look.”
In every entry, there was a vertically oriented ellipse with two holes bored across from each other at the waist of it. It was difficult to tell with the older entries, but one hole was round and the other diamond-shaped.
“These are astronomical notations for the positions of Taitala’s sun, the circle, and Kumala, the diamond. You see that every one is identical.”
“Yes.”
“What this signifies is that every time the makalang has appeared, it has been when our sun and Kumala have been in the same position – at their closest approach, at the start of every kumala-talon. Which is where they are right now.”
I ran my eyes up and down the tablets, stunned. For 2,400 years, the pattern had been the same. It was undeniable. There was no way you could forge something like this.
The Black Sky Page 10
