by Jeremy Marr
Jago felt the impact of his fist as it made a solid contact. The feeling was not quite what he expected, as pain raced up his wrist, shot through his elbow, and buried itself into his shoulder. There was comfort in the pain though; the assumption if it hurt him this much, it would be causing her twice as much discomfort. He opened his eyes and saw the crumpled heap of his mother on the floor. She looked up at him and smiled.
“The vow remains unbroken,” she said.
Jago blinked. Gone now was his mother. He was looking at Coleena, sitting still on the chair where she was. A genuine smile was painted on her face where a black and blue mark, by all rights, should have been. The voice he heard a second ago continued. As it did, Jago looked at his fist with confusion. It was frozen about an inch from her lightning bolt birthmark.
“That is the only thing it could mean. Sit down and I'll explain it to you so you will understand, Jago, my childhood love.”
“What kind of monster are you?” Jago stammered as he sat himself of the floor where he had been standing. “How...”
“Oh my, Brendon-Jago,” she cut in merrily, “you should not speak of me so,” she finished with a laugh. “You, yourself, will see it clear as our conversation progresses.
“No one knows why my family has lived here all these years. We were instructed to do so by the OneWhoBroughtUs, which I will tell you about a little later.
“I am called the OneTrueDaughter, the same as all the other woman women who have lived here before me. We have been the holders of the key to signaling the Coming, which you have been waiting for, since the prophecies were writ. They were written here in this house, did you know that?”
Somewhere in the middle of Coleena’s speech, Kyle and his mother, along with everybody and everything not associated with the prophecies of the Coming, were loaded into a wagon driven by forgetfulness. The wagonload was then chased away by his deep yearning to have some of the holes in the Book of the Faithless filled in.
“Don't move, Jago,” she said while standing up. She walked across the room to the writing desk and lifted the top up. Looking back over her shoulder, she said, “This is the very desk where not only the Book of the Faithless, but all the other wonderful works of writings that bare the OneWhoBroughtUs’ signature were created.” She looked back to the desk and stuck her hand inside. A moment later, Coleena pulled out a book that was a few fingers thick and carelessly dropped it on the floor at her side before reaching back into the desk. “That is the original book. A copy can be found in your Cave of Remembrance,” she said over her shoulder.
Jago’s jaw, had it not been attached to his face, would have imitated the book by allowing Christina DeBold to pull it down to the floor by that statement. His eyes engulfed the book from where he sat, but being at least ten paces away from him left him nothing to see but what looked to be the outer goatskin casing. “Could it be possible?” he asked himself in what would have been, had he spoken it out loud, a voice half shaken with fear of the possibilities and half full of unbridled excitement because of the same possibilities.
“You are to tell no one of the things you hear and see here today, Jago.
“Do you understand?” Coleena interrupted his thoughts by asking.
He said “yes” while shifting his gaze from the book on the floor to Coleena’s face. For the second time in as many minutes, his jaw felt lucky to be securely fastened to his head.
She was standing directly in front of the desk with her feet shoulders width apart. Her left hand held the hinged desk top straight up, her waist was bent over and her entire right arm was thrust into the desk almost clear up to her shoulder. He blinked, feeling sure that the image would change as he got a fresh look, but she was still there as she was. The writing table was a solid hand deep from the outside, and the wall behind it could be seen between the high glossed redwood legs. As if sensing Jago’s growing unease, Coleena stood back up and turned towards him, from her waist up, while her left hand still held up the black under-sided top of the desk. “I told you these things belonged to the OneWhoBroughtUs, and as you can see, they are special because of that.
“The very first OneTrueDaughter, Jodeen-Goldspawn, wrote about it in her personal diary as “being one with magic”; whatever that means I don’t know. I do know that all the wonderful possessions here can do incredible things that even I can not explain.
“I also do not know how many OneTrueDaughters, in their own time, even knew the objects were special. I did because in another book I read, it talked about how Jodeen-Goldspawn loved to write. She has the most journal writings out of all of us and they all had one thing in common. In each one there would be a colored book mentioned by her, but those colored books themselves were nowhere to be found.
“One day, about half a year before your father took you away from here as a child, I was day dreaming in the grass by the rock out at the path. I happened to look at it at just the right angle, with just the right amount of light, and saw her name shadowed across the lower section of it. I did not know for sure, but I had a strong feeling I knew what it was. That night I grabbed my shovel and dug right there in front of her name, and I was right! It WAS her grave.
“Nothing was left of her, but her diary was wrapped up in layer upon layer of large leaves and strips of leather. Surprisingly enough, it was in great condition. Inside it, it told what each item did, and how it worked with descriptions that were short and to the point. It was as if she were writing herself a note so she would not forget. I made a copy of what she wrote in the back of my book, the book for the OneTrueDaughter.
“It turns out that each colored book she mentioned in writings was hidden within the desk, waiting for someone with some past knowledge to free them from their slumber so they could be read again.
“I used to wait for Mama to go on her evening walk and I would sneak a book out of the desk and read it until I could see her walking on the path back this way, then I would put the book back. It gave me the patience I needed to wait this long to be the OneTrueMother. I did not really try out anything else Jodeen-Goldspawn talked about for a long time, until Mama passed away, and then I was free to do as I chose to do.
“Back to this desk, it can hold much, much more then it should be able to, but only if you know what it can do. If you do not, it acts like a regular desk, holding only as much as it looks like it could. It also seems to go against the laws of time, as well.
“Let me explain,” she finished in answer to Jago’s raised eyebrow. “As long as you know how it works and the object can fit through the top of the desk, you can put it in. It does not matter how much stuff you put in it, it will always hold more. No matter what order you place things in it, to retrieve what you want, you simply place your hand and arm into it, and picture the object you desire. Like this,” she said before turning back to the desk. She stuck her arm inside, and stood there silently with her eyes closed for a moment. When she pulled her hand out, a handful of bright yellow wild flowers immerged as well.
“Remember these?” she asked as she brought the flowers up to her nose. She inhaled the fragrance and sighed. “They have been in there almost thirty-five years, and they still think they were picked this morning.” She knelt down on one knee and set the flowers down on the previously discarded book, as though she were laying down a new born babe to nap. She stood up and once again assumed the position with her arm in the desk. A couple of heartbeats later she pulled out a black object. It was the size of the previous book, but was much, much thicker. She closed the desk, bent down and placed the book and flowers, which were on the floor, on top of the black object and walked back to where Jago was. She placed the objects on the table and set herself down on her chair. “Please, Jago, use a real seat,” she said while motioning towards the empty chair to her left.
As with sitting on the floor, Jago realized he was already standing and making efforts to sit down in the chair well before he pu
t the thought into doing so. “Plenty of time to figure out the reason of that after I am done here,” he thought. “After all, today maybe the day I hold the key to the Coming.”
Coleena placed her right hand, palm down, on the table directly in front of her. “Watch this,” she told Jago as she closed her eyes and exhaled the air from her lungs. She sat there for a second before breathing in slowly while raising her hand. As the palm of her hand floated off the hardwood, Jago watched as a large metal cup rose out of the table itself. When it grew a hand or so high, the black wood grain, still floating around just under the surface of the deep red wood, pulsated. It did not really flare in brilliance as a light would, but more flickered with different colors from the lightest to the darkest gray mixing with different shades of black. After the pulsation, she stopped moving her hand upwards, and brought it down around the polished metal cup. She picked it up and tilted it towards Jago to show him that it was more then three quarters full of clean water. She leaned it back down and carefully placed the yellow flowers into it. “This table can feed six people, three times a day, with an over abundance of food at each meal. Very good food, too, I must say.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. Without allowing Jago time to ponder, she answered for him, “No, you are not, that is fine.
So, here is your book,” she continued while pushing her copy of the Book of the Faithless over to him.
All he could do for the moment was stare at it. The outside binding was certainly goatskin; the coarse white hair still covered the book completely. He imagined his copy would have looked just like this one, well over nine-hundred years ago. His, now, was one-hundred percent hairless and the pages were graying. Some pages had aged terribly and were hard to read, as well as the couple of pages that had torn away from the binding tendon, making handling it a very delicate procedure. He reached out and caressed the hair while wondering how many others have had the opportunity in their life to have done just that. He then braced himself and opened the book.
“A day will come, when out forth from the greatest peak shall Darkness’s herald unfold,” he read aloud. His book was a copy of this one, there could be no doubt. The only real difference he noticed was the color of the ink used. His copy was written in black, and all the words contained on the first page of this new book were bright red. His mind started to spin out of control. He took a deep breath to steady himself before turning the page. He skimmed the next page, and the next, searching for what he knew to be missing information in his copy. Page after page he inspected, but it quickly became apparent that this book had everything his book did, but not another word more. He closed the book slowly and looked up at Coleena.
“It is the same as the one in my cave, which doesn’t hold any key to the Coming,” Jago said sadly, with disappointment in his eyes.
“I told you, Jago, I hold the key,” she replied while patting the thick, black book in front of her. “You have a book as a reminder of your family’s task. The Military Commanders, the Head of Farmers, as well as the Head of Ranchers have a book to remind them of their tasks. Lastly, the OneWhoPlaces has a parchment to remind her of her task. There are copies of all of them within the desk, in case one of them was ever damaged in some unforeseeable event, but they are just the specific book for each one’s position, just as you have now back at your cave.
“Since my family’s task, though it may seem the simplest, is the most important and the most challenging task needed to be done in order to set the prophecy into motion, I have all the other books combined into this one. It holds additional prophecies and writings, too. There is a copy of this one in the desk as well, so even if one books original and its copy got destroyed, along with my own book, I could still transcribe another one,” she said in mater-of-fact voice. She then ran her fingertips over the black binder. “The copy is a different color, of course. Both skins were made from the hides of those ‘Followers of Light’ that drove the OneWhoBroughtUs to bring us here for our own protection. The dark skin was from a leader of sorts, or so it is written. His skin was the color of night at its blackest. The one I use as my copy came from a fair skinned, ummmmm, I believe it was called a Princess, but I would have to re-read that to make sure. I know what you are thinking, Jago. Yes, the fact that the book shells are made from the skin of ‘Followers of Light’ is disturbing, but at least there are now two less who would stand in the way of Darkness. The lighter skin suits me very well, so mine it became and the other one became the copy.”
Jago’s vision was fixed on the book that lay on the table in front of Coleena. All the questions he has had over the last thirty years may very well have answers to them somewhere in that book. “Can…” Jago started.
“You can do nothing until we get something important out of the way, Jago. Then you ‘can’ do all you want,” Coleena interrupted him. As she looked at him, queasiness settled into her stomach. It was not that he was necessarily ugly, just extremely broken down. She took in the stark contrast of bald skin and slivers of hair on his head, the broken or missing teeth, and the stick-like frame that carried him around. After a moment, she realized she was trying hard to find some reason not to go through with this. Coleena pushed those thoughts away. As much as she hoped she was wrong, for what it would mean, she knew deep inside that she was right, and knew what that would also mean. She had made up her mind a long time ago as to how this meeting was going to go, and like it or not, it was going to go according to plan. If she was right, then everything in the end would be worth it, and if she was wrong, “well then, he could forget to breathe awful easy,” she finished in her head.
“Jago, you will listen to my question carefully, even though it is an easy one to answer, and you will tell me the truth.
“Do you understand?” she asked in that special voice of hers.
He seemed surprised at first, and then very happy to have heard her speak. As his eyes started to glaze over slightly, she asked him, “Have you ever, in any way, shape, or form, asked that woman next door, who claims to be your wife, to be your wife?”
Jago’s mind traveled back in time, back to the day he met Odeesma. It was the day after he not only saw his father die, but the day after he had to throw the dead body over the Cliffs of Offering, where all past OnesWhoMustRemember went. That was how it was written to be. The next day, after his first official watching for the sign, he walked down off the mountain to his family’s home. He told his mother what had happened, and expected the worst. What he got, instead, was a firm nod as she turned around and started to gather what few belongings were hers. She looked neither sad nor happy as they made the three hour walk to the farming community where she would spend the rest of her days helping raise the new children brought there. After he introduced her to the farm leader, he wished he could stop for some time out of the baking sun’s firm grasp on him, but knowing he was going to already be late getting back by dawn and his watch, he decided to push on to his next destination. Two more hours of walking found him at the small military outpost where the OneWhoPlaces would be found. He made his way to the house with haste, and quickly informed her of what had transpired over the last two days. She was not only kind enough to write the details on a separate piece of parchment, to allow her to write her reports later, saving Jago some precious time, she also had one of the Calvary men give him a horse ride back to the house that was now his alone. The horseman, however, was not as kind as the OneWhoPlaces. He reluctantly agreed to do her bidding only after she threatened him with the prospect of being written in as the new stable boy instead of the soldier that he was. As far as his ability to ride went, the soldier knew how to handle himself and the horse. He also controlled Jago, who had never before been on such a beast in his life. Within a few hours, Jago had been safely returned to his house where he wasted no time starting up the path to the cave. He made that morning watch, if only just so, and upon returning to the Cave of Remembrance, found
Odeesma waiting for him. She was young, small, and petite back then. They introduced themselves and walked the six hours back down to the house in virtual silence. He skimmed his memory from that point forward and said, “No, I have never asked her to be, nor spoke to her of becoming or being my wife; my son’s mother, yes, as well as my Son-Bringer, but nothing about my wife, ever.”
He must have said that right thing, because when he focused on Coleena’s face, she was smiling. Her good mood caused her words to almost bubble from her mouth as she spoke, “I thought not, or your pledge to do me no harm may not have prevented you from striking me. This is good news.
“Before we can go any further, however, we need to wed and consummate our own marriage, here and now. I know that only the High Military Commander is allowed to marry, but this is over even his own powers to control.”
“What marriage?” Jago asked. “Surely you can not hold me to what I said when I was only nine years in the Endless Light. What about…”
“Yes, I can and will, Jago,” she over rid his voice. “You said the words, you asked me the question, and then you left it open by saying ‘one day become my wife’. It is all very clear. We are going to be husband and wife, and then you will see why today is that day, Jago.”
“I will NOT do anything of the sort. I have free wi…” he began, before blinking.
After his blink ended, he lost all thought. His words ended, forgotten about. It seemed as though his mind blinked right along with his eyes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NOT A WASTE
