Beneath the Vault of Stars

by Blake Goulette

  “I’m sorry I lost your birthday present,” Kalas said after a while.

  “Given the circumstances, I won’t hold it against you!” Zhalera smiled. And so did Kalas.

  “I can’t say that’s how I ever imagined you’d use it! Maybe this is a little gruesome to admit, but I wish I could have seen it in action. How did it all happen?”

  Kalas told her what he knew.

  “I’m sorry, I wish I could remember more, but I don’t think it’s any exaggeration to say that your knife saved both our lives that night!”

  Zhalera took his hand and squeezed it. “No weapon can save a life unless wielded with a brave hand: you saved our lives, Kalas. The knife was just an instrument.”

  “It…it was a perfect ‘instrument,’” he said. She kissed him on the cheek, and the warmth that spread across his face and into his bones chased away the chill creeping into the evening air.

  “Someday, I’ll make you an even better knife,” she smiled as she squeezed his hand again. “Or maybe, when I’ve learned how, a sword!” Kalas returned her squeeze, then stood to tend the hearth’s dwindling fire.

  After they ate, Gandhan said, “It’s a good idea, Tàran.” He pushed his empty plate away, leaned back in his chair, and dabbed at the corners of his mouth. “Sàrush should have set his personal feelings aside and sent an envoy right away. I’d be happy to speak to him—and to a few others I have in mind—about requesting a garrison from Ïsriba.”

  “I never made it past the magistrate’s secretary: do you think he’ll listen to you? I mean, well, given…things…”

  Gandhan looked down at the table, closed his eyes and paused for a moment.

  “Ferïn’s death—o shelu fîe ith nir—gave us an unfortunate foothold on a patch of common ground. I know, I know: you’d think he’d hate me for ‘stealing’ his daughter away from him, or maybe I’d hate him for thinking me beneath her station, but somehow, we ended up understanding each other a little better. Not a lot, I’ll admit, but a little. I’ll speak to Sàrush. He’ll listen to me.”

  Tàran inclined his head. “I hope you’re right.”

  “Of course, even if he listens to me, there’s still the queen-regent to persuade.”

  “Let tomorrow take care of itself, old friend.”

  Chapter IV.

  At the Bottom of the Southwest Cracks

  N

  ow just calm down, sir, and wait your turn!” said Sàrush from atop the council hall’s dais to the man in the crowd.

  “‘Wait my turn?’ Why don’t you say that to the townsfolk who died—died!—trying to protect Lohwàlar! If you respected your people half as much as you drool all over the queen—regent, I’ll remind you!—there’s a good chance those men and women would still be alive!”

  “That’s hardly fair!” whined Sàrush. The paunchy figure in front of the assemblage, glistening with visible rivulets of sweat, dabbed at the back of his neck with a cloth. Fear, mingled with condescension and, it seemed, derision, haunted his flitting stare.

  “It’s true!” shouted a woman. “My husband was just a weaver! A kind and gentle man who knew nothing of fighting! That didn’t stop him from stepping up! And now he’s dead! If you’d only done as Tàran had suggested a week ago, none of this—”

  “And what did Mister Tàran suggest? If he’d come to see me—”

  “He did go to see you!” charged Màla, stepping forward from Taran’s side. “And you hid behind your secretary!”

  Kalas couldn’t remember a time he’d seen his mother so angry. Except it wasn’t anger. Not really. It was sorrow over her neighbors’—her friends’—deaths. Tàran placed a hand upon her shoulder, gently drew her toward himself and whispered something in her ear. Though still upset, she held her peace and glared at Sàrush.

  Màla had tapped into the general ethos of the crowd, however: nearly everyone voiced his or her frustration with Sàrush’s leadership, some more forcefully than others. Only a handful mumbled words in his defense, and without much conviction. Even his embarrassed wife, Tzhama, seemed most interested in whatever was happening anywhere but the stage.

  Gandhan, sitting not too far from Kalas, had remained silent; now, however, he stood and raised his considerable arms above the nascent mob, and with a voice to match he boomed, “People! Friends! A moment, please!”

  The smith was well-respected enough that people granted his request. The grumbling subsided—though it never disappeared completely—and Gandhan cleared his throat.

  “I know many of you gathered here tonight have lost loved ones. Family. Friends. And although it was Sevens ago and the circumstances were different, I’ve lost someone, too. Many of you knew Ferïn. My bride. Sàrush’s daughter. Knew her and loved her. I’d be lying if I claimed that time has made her loss any less painful.

  “And speaking of time, unless we make better use of it than casting blame at one another, it’s probable that more of us will suffer between the teeth of that rudzhegu—what else could it be?—that prowls the outskirts of Lohwàlar.”

  Whispers rose at the mention of a rudzhegu. Before they got out of hand, Gandhan continued: “Tonight, Sàrush will finalize his list of those he’s appointed to make our case in person before the queen-regent of Ïsriba. A list I’m sure he’s been most keenly refining all the while. Would that be fair to say, Chief Magistrate?”

  Tzhama shed her feigned interest in things outside the council hall and regarded Gandhan with a look of gratitude. He caught her eye and nodded, just a little.

  “Ah, yes! Of course! Why, thank you for reminding me, Gandhan, my son! I should have said something earlier, and perhaps all of this ugliness might have been unnecessary!” He, too, extended his silent thanks to his son-in-law.

  “And, perhaps, had I been allowed to see you at the first, all of this could have been avoided,” added Tàran, now standing and sweeping his arm across the pained and angry faces of the townsfolk. “But here we are, nonetheless. Should you and the town elders require volunteers for the journey to Ïsriba, consider this my application.”

  A few others stood as well; more, however, remained seated, as though the problem facing the town was suddenly less important. Ïsriba was leagues and leagues from Lohwàlar, a rough, weeks-long journey fraught with perils of its own.

  “I think I’d rather face a devil wolf,” someone whispered. Murmurs of assent followed.

  Màla grabbed at Tàran’s cloak and dragged him down to his seat. Before she gave voice to the thoughts writ across her face, Tàran said, “Sàrush has no interest in sending me to Ïsriba, follirín! He has too much pride to be outdone by an old nimmokvara like me, and there’s no way he’ll go himself, no matter how much he wants the queen-regent’s attention.”

  “You’d better be right,” she warned, “because you are not going! Not with what’s been happening in town! You remember what…what he said! I know you do!”

  “What who said?” Kalas asked. He couldn’t help overhearing his parents’ discussion.

  “Now is not the time, nor the place!” breathed Màla, and Tàran nodded.

  “Nothing to worry about, boy: your mother’s just reminding me of something.”

  He glanced at Gandhan, who responded with a subtle wink before returning to his discourse with Sàrush and some of the presumptive volunteers.

  “Looks like things are winding down here,” he finished. “Sàrush has enough volunteers, I reckon. Let’s head home.”

  2.

  Long weeks passed as Lohwàlar’s citizenry waited for the delegation to return from Ïsriba. Hopefully with an army. A platoon at the very least. Tàran’s prediction proved true: though he made a subtle show of insisting he be permitted to journey to the capital, Sàrush made an equal show of expressing his regret that more than enough able-bodied men, all much younger than Tàran, had already begun their preparations. Kalas had begged his father to let him volunteer, but, as expected, his parents objected. Strongly.

  “No,” said Tàr
an and Màla together, as though sharing the singular thought between their two minds. The mingled ice and steel in their tone proved clear enough for Kalas to grasp immediately. Wisely, he chose not to press the matter.

  To pass the time, Tàran brought Kalas into his study. The ancient aroma of tanned hides, dried pages, and various inks lent a weighty air to the room’s modest confines. Stacks of leather-bound books filled one corner; shelves containing scrolls occupied another; throughout, random leaves had been tucked here or there, all surrounding a small, cluttered stone table—a chunk of rock, really—which served as a desk. So unlike Tàran, the room’s disarray more accurately reflected Wodram’s personality, Kalas’ grandfather. Very rarely had Tàran permitted him to enter—every last item was irreplaceable, if perhaps nothing more than an unremarkable curiosity to the casual observer. So Wodram had claimed. Kalas had never met his grandfather, but his parents had told him stories.

  “Always wondered how he found anything in here,” mused Tàran as he took a deep breath. “You know, your grandfather thought I’d take over his work someday…”

  “Why didn’t you?” asked Kalas.

  Tàran thought for a moment, smiled and shrugged. “Don’t know, boy. That was a long while ago. Probably the Pump, though. Everyone works their shift, some are better at it than others, but for some reason I just seemed to understand it, I guess. As much as Wodram loved his books, would have loved to see me follow in his footsteps, he knew I was better with my hands.

  “Anyway, the Pump takes up most of my time: not a lot of opportunity to go through all this stuff your grandfather left behind.”

  “Yeah, it…it doesn’t really look like you,” agreed Kalas. Tàran laughed.

  “No, boy, it does not. In fact, other than me poking around looking for that ‘manual,’ I reckon this place looks almost exactly like it did before Wodram passed away.”

  “So what are we looking for? This is the first time I’ve been in this room. It smells amazing!”

  “Your grandfather would’ve loved to hear you say that! But with the Pump up and running again, with the delegation on its way to Ïsriba, it just makes sense to keep…close to home. I thought we could use the time looking through Wodram’s—well, I guess my papers, see if we could learn anything about that strange metal shape we saw in the wall of the Empty Sea. And it wouldn’t hurt you to become more familiar with what’s in here…”

  “Really?” gasped Kalas. “You mean, I can come in here now? I can go through all these books? these scrolls? these drawings?”

  “So long as I’m with you. For now. But yes: you’re two Sevens now. Time to rise to the occasion.”

  Tàran flushed as he took in Kalas’ awed expression.

  “Well,” he finished, “you know about as much as I do about where your grandfather kept things; that is to say: nothing. Where do you want to start? Pick a corner.”

  3.

  For hours, neither spoke more than a few words as they pored over the collected works of hundreds—maybe thousands—of forgotten authors. In between pages here and there, or rolled up in a scroll, one of Wodram’s notes would spill out: a cross-reference, an inference, a recipe for some kind of dessert.

  As Kalas’ eyes raced from line to line, he found he was most interested in the occasional images and drawings scattered throughout the works. Some were Wodram’s, according to Tàran, but many were not. In what appeared to be the oldest manuscripts, Kalas noted repeated woodcuts and other renderings that depicted immense, lion-like creatures; others that hinted at wolf-like beings. If he closed his eyes, in his mind he could see them leap from the pages and assume the shapes in his nightmares.

  “Father,” he asked, after discovering an ancient work that featured armies of such creatures arrayed for battle. “What do these drawings mean? Why is that…I guess it looks like a lion? Why is it holding a sword? And these wolves: are they rudzhegume?”

  “Hmm? Let me see that,” said Tàran, his curiosity piqued. Kalas handed him the codex.

  “I tried to read some of it, but the words don’t make sense. Can you read it?”

  Tàran said nothing at first, instead he examined the musty pages as dust from uncounted centuries spiraled upward. Kalas noted his jaw tense when he reached one of the battle scenes; still, he remained silent. After a long, drawn out moment, he closed the book and answered, “Afraid not, boy. I don’t recognize it, either. Probably in some other language. Excellent drawings, though!”

  “What do you think it’s about?” insisted Kalas.

  “Probably some kind of battle, based on these images. These here: these look like skydogs—zhàrudzhme, another word for rudzhegume. Do they…does this look anything like what attacked you?”

  “A little,” confessed Kalas, “Maybe bigger. I only remember bits and pieces.”

  “Well, let’s set this volume aside. There’s bound to be someone who can translate it. Somewhere.”

  For some reason, Kalas thought about Tzharak, his piercing gaze, and the Song shared between them.

  “But we still haven’t found any mention of that shape in the canyon. Might not be anything, but there’s still a lot to look through. What do you say, boy? Tired of all this yet?”

  “No!” said Kalas. “I mean, if it’s all right, I’d like to keep looking.”

  Tàran nodded. “I knew you would. Good! All right, let’s see what we can find.”

  “Hey, what’s this?” said Kalas after another couple of otherwise silent hours. He held up a translucent, light blue object, almost as thin as a leaf of paper but smoother, sturdier. One edge had been jammed against something, and the ensuing crease had turned milky white. The markings it bore on one side appeared to be of people in odd costume performing obscure tasks; on the other, though faded, Kalas thought a portion of the artwork resembled, if vaguely, the thing in the rock face. He handed it to Tàran.

  “What’s it made from? I’ve never seen a material like that!”

  “Neither have I, boy. It’s not paper, neither metal nor skin. Seems pretty flexible. I wonder where Wodram found this? Guess we’ll never know.”

  He curved the leaf of strange media and rotated it, curious about how the object seemed to consume the room’s faint light and send it racing along threadlike courses within itself rather than simply reflect it.

  “Anyway,” Tàran continued, “on this side, I see what you’re thinking, and I agree. Shame we can’t make out the rest of this faded part. Were there any more pieces like it?”

  “None that I saw. It was stuck behind an old book. But I guess you could say that about everything in here!”

  Tàran chuckled. “Too true, boy! Too true. I’ll tell you what, though: let’s rest from this for now. I might be nearing eleven Sevens, but all this sitting cooped up indoors takes a greater toll than getting outside! You seem to be doing well yourself: how do your wounds feel?”

  “I’m fine, Father! Look! The scars have almost disappeared!” Kalas stood, arched his back and stretched his arms. Tàran observed him for a quiet, uncomfortable moment.

  “And…your head?”

  “My what?”

  “No nosebleeds since your birthday—none your mother or I have noticed, at least. How about…what did you say it sounded like? Chimes? Have you heard any ‘music’ since then?”

  Be wary.

  “Chimes? No, Father, I—not exactly…”

  The world is gilded.

  “All right,” confessed Kalas, “what I mean is that I haven’t heard anything exactly like that since my birthday, but I have heard—no, not heard, but sensed, I guess—the song. But now it’s more like I’m aware of it without it giving me headaches. Or nosebleeds.

  “And I wasn’t lying: I’m fine!”

  “I believe you, boy,” nodded Tàran. “I appreciate your honesty. So I’ll ask you one more question: what’s at the Southwest Cracks?”

  Kalas hesitated before he answered. “Dzharëth and I used to explore the caves there, thought of it as
our ‘hideout.’ Other people had been there, but not for years, it seemed.

  “What if that’s where he ran after we found his father? If that’s where they found Hwena’s…if that’s where they found Dzharëth’s mother…what if the wolf got him, too—?”

  An image leapt across his vision: a single frame culled from a recent dream in which liquid darkness, pierced with two sickly yellow eyes, rose up against a bloodstained moon.

  “Or what if it’s something worse?”

  Tàran stroked his chin, reached up and scratched behind an ear all while staring intently at the corner of the desk. Suddenly weary, he sighed.

  “The Empty Sea’s too far away today, but how about if we take a walk to the Southwest Cracks?”

  Kalas felt the blood drain from his face and pool somewhere within his pounding chest. Tàran noticed, and Kalas bristled at the change in his father’s expression, embarrassed at his trepidation.

  “Yeah, let’s do that,” insisted Kalas as did his best to ignore his baser thoughts.

  “You sure, boy?”

  “Of course. When do we leave?”

  “Now. Wait for me in the anteroom: let me put together a few things and we’ll be off.”

  4.

  The Southwest Cracks lay just outside Lohwàlar’s southernmost boundary, about half an hour’s brisk walk from Kalas’ house. Dunes rose and fell, obscuring and revealing ancient sands-blown rock formations, most supporting needle-rich cacti or scrub. A carrion bird glided overhead, banked, and circled toward some distant point. Soon, the pair reached a shallow gulch; on its far side, wind-sculpted sand- and limestones stood sentry over the soulless desert, reflecting suns-light from their varnished sides, and Kalas pointed his father toward an almost hidden footpath at the base of a large boulder.

  “Right through there,” he said as he hopped down into the channel.

  “I haven’t been here in years! Sevens, even,” mused Tàran. “Oh, my friends and I used to explore these rocks, too, boy. That was a long, long time ago though.”