The man looked quizzically at me. “Are you not the Young Mother come to put the land together so that we will no longer be at the mercy of The Edge?”
“I am trying to learn about The Edge, but I'm not a mother. I think you have me confused with someone else.”
The boys mumbled amongst themselves. “Why does she say that?” one called out in Cuneiform.
“Stand down, Cadet Tejor,” the man ordered. “The lesson of The Edge is over. Either leave or stay quiet and watch the unfolding of history.”
“You are asking me to remain silent while allowing this woman to address you?” the boy replied.
“Just give me an excuse and I will boot you from this program. I don’t who your father is.” The man said. The boy looked for a moment like he would retort but instead glared at me
The man looked at my belly and then back to my face. “But you are a mother-to-be,” he said.
“No, I’m not.”
“I can feel the fetus's Mist Marker. It is at least a week old, barely begun to grow,” he said. “Can't you feel it?”
Arwan sauntered over. “How did you come through?” I asked her. “Can anyone pass through The Edge?”
“Only you. I did not pass through. I came,” Arwan replied.
“It takes the shape of a cougar!” The man made a sign that I did not recognize.
“It is time. Give the book to this man. You can trust this one. His belief is true and strong.”
“Really?” I asked her. She nosed my pack. I burrowed into it and retrieved Shezdon’s book. “I think that I was supposed to bring this to you.”
“The Edging of the World…” The man breathed in awe. “The book does exist.”
“Yeah, but no one can read it,” I said, turning around to look at Arwan for encouragement, but the damn feline had disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared.
“You can't read it?” he asked, completely unperturbed that Arwan had gone, only that she had materialized for a few brief moments. And even still, my existence fascinated him and the boys more than the daemon of the Guardians.
I shook my head.
“But you were supposed to take this knowledge and learn!” He sounded angry.
“I've only had it for a couple of months.”
“What do you mean? Your Slice has had it for a thousand years.”
“Slice?”
“That side of this edge.” The man clarified, frustration starting to rise in his voice. “Since your Slice was to have the Promise, your Slice has the book.”
“No...” Everything was happening too fast. “Well, maybe, it's in a dead language.”
“As dead as the language we speak in.”
“At least people study this one,” I retorted. “And you're lucky I know it! Not many besides Scholars do.”
“Yes, yes!” He sounded excited. “The Scholars of the Light. The ones to learn this book. To learn to stop It.”
“What It? What’s the antecedent? And it's just Scholars...” Was there a translation I was missing?
The man frowned, “the book tells you how to fix The Edges. It is meant to instruct the Promise on how to bring the Slices back together.”
“Edges? There is just one Edge.”
“Is it Memory Block?” one of the boys asked. My confusion seemed to convince several of the boys that they no longer needed to prostrate themselves before me. At least that was something.
“I don't have a memory block. I never learned about these things you are talking about.” I was offended. “I don’t know what a Slice is. And there is only one edge.”
“You do have a Memory Block,” the boy protested. “I see it.” He turned around and spoke words I did not understand to the other boys. A few nodded in response and the others looked suspiciously at me.
“I had an accident as a child. I've had....” I didn't know the word for amnesia in Cuneiform.
“No accident. Bad Mist,” another boy said. “Can we fix her?” He turned to the man.
“You are both right. It’s definitely not from an accident. The memory block is over a decade old. Starting to crumble by itself. And Tejor is right, too. Bad Mist, said the man.
“No, I had an accident as a child.”
“We can get it fixed for you either way,” the man said.
The world around me began to seem very fuzzy. I sat down on the ground and tried to breathe slowly. This was too much to process. How could I have gone through The Edge? The man shooed the boys away. Obediently, the boys moved back a few yards, but waited anxiously and whispered amongst themselves. The man held back for a few moments, giving me some space. I knew that I couldn’t sit here forever.
“Our world is disappearing on the other side of this. Is the same thing happening to you?” I asked, still sitting on the ground.
“Of course!” Aakab, the boy who had insisted my memory was bound by Mist, said. “It would be the same in both Slices.”
Tejor, the boy who had mentioned bad Mist, yelled something. I didn’t understand the words, but I understood the sentiment. I understood the nose crinkled in disgust, and I understood that it was directed at me. A few of his classmates giggled. Aakab spun around on his heel and punched Tejor squarely in the jaw, knocking him to the ground. The boys who had giggled instantly moved toward Aakab. The man stormed over to the swarm of boys.
“That is unacceptable behavior in front of a lady!” he said in Cuneiform, I assume for my benefit. “Now all of you, head back to the trailhead. The Protocol needs to be started.”
He was definitely not a teacher. He couldn’t let Aakab go with the other boys and not expect them to gang up on him. Any teacher would know that. “Wait, Aakab, stay. I want to hear more.”
All the boys looked in horror from the man and then to me, and I could definitely sense I’d crossed some cultural taboo. “What? Are they un-allowed to be separated?”
The boy whom Aakab had punched spoke in the same tone he’d used a moment before. I turned to him and said, in my best teacher’s voice. “I might not understand the words you are using, but I definitely understand what is meant.” Being in my element, interacting with students, I felt more of my sense come back to me. “My name is Hailey Troubade, niece and heir of Lead Scholar Nazarie Troubade, and Journeyman to Lead Mist Weaver Initiate Altis Acrovena. I am an ambassador from Gryshelm sent by Queen Leona Mauzaca to discover the meaning of the disappearance of the world along The Edge. As a diplomatic ambassador to this land, I am hopeful that the rest of your populous has better manners than either of you.” The looks on all the boy’s faces varied from shock to horror at my sternness.
“Well, maybe you are the Promise.” The man smirked.
“I don’t know about that, but I do have a job to do. Since you seem to be experiencing similar peculiarities along The Edge, let’s work together to prevent its spread.” I wished my senses had come to me as soon as I tumbled through The Edge, but now was better than never.
The man considered me for a moment, opened his mouth a few times as if to speak, and then finally said, “Well, you heard the Ambassador. Aakab can stay, but the rest of you are to head back to the campus.” A few of the boys started to protest. “As Senior Cleric, I will push any of you who do not follow my words back a level, including you, Tejor.” The man took a wide object about the width of his hand out of his coat and spoke into it in the language that I did not understand. As he spoke, he stared deadpan at Tejor, but Tejor made no response. He put the object back in his pocket and the boys turned down the path. He came back over to me with Aakab following.
“Wow, my parents will be so proud that I was here to see you come through and that I defended your honor and that you let me have a private audience with you,” Aakab babbled, obviously star-struck. “Can you sign my bag?”
“Why?” I asked, but he looked so excited and held a thin black stick to me. Taking the object, I realized that it was similar to a quill. “Where’s the ink pot?”
“Seriously?” Aa
kab laughed. “I guess you could say that it’s built in.”
I touched the pointy end. Purple ink stained my fingers. Weird. But Aakab was holding his bag out to me and pointing excitedly to the center. “Are you sure?” But his exuberant nod told me he was, so I wrote my name on his bag. Odd custom. Aakab grinned at the bag while the man, who still had yet to tell me his name, observed both of us.
After a moment, the man said, “Is it possible that you have no idea?”
“Yes. We truly have no idea why The Edge is eating our world,” I said slowly. “And I have no idea what your name is.”
He laughed a deep laugh. “I am sorry for my rudeness. I never imagined…” he started. “I am Commander Bahlym Ahgren Zayad. As both a Councilman and Cleric, I welcome you. I have prayed daily for your arrival.”
“You’ve prayed for my arrival?”
“You are more than an ambassador sent by a foreign queen. You are the Promise of a Prophecy a millennium in the making. You’ve been looking for a way to heal The Edge, but it’s been with you all along. That book will tell you how and you are the only one, in all of history, who can save us.”
“No, that can’t be,” I said. But as soon as the words came out, I realized that as crazy as what he was saying sounded, it made more sense than anything else I could think of. Shezdon had always told me that if one has nothing to disprove a seemingly impossible hypothesis and no other answers were apparent, the impossible became the most probable. Was this anymore impossible than a Scholar having Mist Apparitions or tumbling beyond The Edge? Something existed in the nothingness. Did my very existence on this side of The Edge prove that I, Hailey Troubade, was more than a simple Scholar? How many scientific facts did I defy by falling through The Edge?
“Perhaps we could move to a more comfortable place to discuss this. It’s a little walk beyond this Edge view back to the museum. But not too far. I’ve started the Protocol, but it has no need to be rushed.” He motioned toward the path he’d sent the boys down a few minutes prior. “I never thought that when I volunteered to give the cadets a tour that you would actually come.” He whistled and smiled enthusiastically, shaking his head, appearing nearly as star-struck as Aakab. “My sister is going to be ecstatic when I tell her.”
As we walked back to the museum, it was obvious that we had walked into the outskirts of town, and a very vulnerable area. It had no moat and no wall. Funny-looking horseless carriages raced past us in both directions. “Who is weaving the Mist, and why not use a horse?” I asked, my dizziness returning.
“Don’t you have locos?” Aakab asked. “Locomobiles?” he clarified, but of course, the full and short names were equally foreign to me.
I shook my head. “How do they work?”
“I don’t know.” The boy shrugged. “But they are fun to drive fast.”
“You can drive them?” I asked in awe.
“Sure, every male older than fourteen does, well, mostly.”
“In my Slice, we ride horses.”
“You’ve seen a horse? They are extinct, although some say they are still alive in the mountains.” Aakab seemed as interested and amazed by horses as I was by the locomobiles. Everything looked busy. The locomobiles zoomed by faster than they had any right or need to.
“Is this trapped Mist how Mistless people are able to operate these horseless carriages?”
“A Mistless person!” Bahlym recoiled in horror. “That’s disgusting.”
“Mist Weavers are maybe one of every few thousand people in our world.”
“Everyone in our Slice can control the Mist,” Aakab said proudly.
“If everyone here has Mist, then why do you need to give them more?” I asked.
Aakab wrinkled his nose. “How do you operate your audibles, broadcastvisions, and locomobiles?”
“We have none of those things.” I laughed. “I don’t even know what you are talking about.”
“An audible allows you to communicate at great distances,” Bahlym explained.
“Why don’t you just write a letter?”
“Because the audible is real-time voice transmissions,” said Aakab. “You can have a conversation miles away. And broadcastvisions allow you to see what is happening somewhere else or watch a play.”
“I see,” I said, but I really didn’t see. How could the Mist do all these things? “Do you have any small device on your person?” I asked.
“Sure. This is an audible,” Aakab said as he handed me a small oblong black device.
I Wove against the device, trying to pick out the patterns. The patterns mimicked Fortifeds, but not exactly. And it wasn’t a single Mist-Powered object. There were dozens of smaller objects working as one. I started to Weave against one of the larger pieces, but Aakab snatched it from me.
“You’ll break it,” he complained as he stuffed the audible into his pocket.
Part of me wanted to keep Weaving against it or against the locomobile that transported me, but Aakab was right. I didn’t know how they worked and I might break something so instead I stared out the window.
The buildings got closer together suggesting to me that we’d reached the business district of town. Men walked in clumps, some talking to each other, but most scurried by, not acknowledging anyone else’s presence. Some people glanced quizzically at me, raising their eyebrows at my appearance, but carried on with their own concerns. My travel-weary clothes didn’t exactly mesh with their tidy appearances. I looked around to judge the style of the women’s clothes, but realized that only men were outdoors.
Chapter 21
I perched on a bright blue bench directly inside the entrance to the museum, sipping water and trying to center myself. Bahlym and Aakab whispered back and forth to each other only a few feet away. I got the sense that they were watching over me. Men outside the glass doors bustled back and forth as if the world had not just expanded to six times its size. Everything I thought I knew about my planet and the basis of much of Gryshelm’s natural science had been blown to bits. I’d have to revise those introductory textbooks I’d written; the very ones that lead Adine to request that I start a university in Dybreakea. There were new continents to explore, new species to categorize, new histories to study. And, most important, someone in this Slice knew the language of Shezdon’s book.
I had five minutes of peace and pondering before a dozen men wearing the same military uniforms as Aakab and Bahlym barged into the museum. They flung open the doors so hard that I don’t know how they didn’t shatter. In unison, the men pulled long stick objects from their sides and brandished them threateningly at me. None of the men had anywhere near as many emeralds or rubies pinned to their red sashes as did Bahlym.
“What is the meaning of this?” Bahlym shouted in Cuneiform.
One of the men replied to him, angry, barking orders. Bahlym responded in the same language, level, but very stern. Commanding. Bahlym moved closer to me, placing himself between me and the men. Following Bahlym’s lead, Aakab also stepped in between me and the men, obviously placing himself in danger.
I drew the Mist to me. Bending the invisible threads of the universe, molding them. Ready to defend myself. The Mist flowed more easily here. I’d never been drunk but the way the racing power made my head almost spin seemed almost the same.
Aakab gaped at me. “How can you control that much Mist? With that kind of control, they can’t even touch you with their blasters. You really are the Promise.”
“Stop calling me that,” I hissed to him.
All the men, including Bahlym, regarded me strangely, cocking their heads, giving me the same expression Altis had given Arwan when he first saw her. Awe and fear.
“Am I being taken prisoner?” I asked.
“Of course not!” Bahlym half stated, half commanded.
“Not with that control of the Mist,” Aakab quipped, but at Bahlym’s look, the boy wiped the smirk off his face and did his best to look contrite, which, after only a quarter hour of knowing him, even I co
uld tell this took considerable effort.
“I called them as the first part of the Protocol dictates. This is Midar Zouaid Mekrim, captain of this town,” Bahlym said, indicating one of the men. “Captain, this is Hailey Troubade, Ambassador and Promise.”
“We are bringing you with us for your own protection,” the captain informed me.
I raised an eyebrow. “My protection?” I asked, but then Bahlym gave me a warning look similar to what he’d given Aakab. “Fine. But I would like these two to come with me, if that’s okay with you.” I asked Aakab and Bahlym.
“This day keeps getting better and better!” Aakab almost hopped he was so excited.
“Not the boy,” Bahlym commanded. “But I will accompany the lady.” At his words, the leader of the group began to protest, but Bahlym held his hand up. “Captain, I do outrank you. Don’t make me tell you twice. I only defer to you as a nicety,” he said the last part more quietly so that none of Captain Mekrim’s men could hear, but loudly enough and in Cuneiform so that I could.
The captain stomped his feet together and bowed. He began to speak, but Bahlym cut him off. “Cuneiform.” He demanded nodding at me. “And address her properly. Either Ambassador Troubade or Promise. Either will suffice.”
“Ambassador Troubade, please,” I said.
Captain Mekrim bowed stiffly at me. “Ambassador. We have been asked to take you to your apartments in the Treshquen Tower, on behalf of the general, as the Protocol dictates.”
“Who is this general? And what do you mean, my ‘apartments’?”
“The apartment is for the Promise. The Treshquen Tower is a very nice building. Many in my caste who do not reside in this city full time keep apartments there, myself included. And the general, Kadir Hamrham Zirban, is bit like our king,” Bahlym explained.
“Does everyone have three names like you and this Kadir?” I asked. “All you need is two… your own and your family’s.”
“The middle is to honor our families and is for formal occasions. We use it depending on the formality of the situation.” He paused for a moment. “I imagine this is all very new to you. At the very least, our Protocols probably seem very different. I will explain everything and answer any questions you have, but for the moment, please, keep quiet. You can ask me all the questions you want at the Tower. I don’t mind, but the others will,” he told me, not unkindly. “It is our way. Please. It will make this all much easier.”
Prophecy's Promise (Prophecy of the Edges Book 1) Page 14
