The Long Lost

by Rebecca Woods

  I thought back to my years on New Earth, my nights spent navigating the ancient city that was my home but not my home, the arena that fascinated me so much but was not given to me. I breathed deeply and thought hard before I gave her my answer.

  “The rain burns but it can be beautiful. The city is thousands of years old and is falling apart at the seams but it has stained glass, stone buildings and a port”.

  Khalashaya continued the conversation by talking about my city intimately and I found myself intrigued, he would have seen streets and people I had only seen in the dangerous sheen of moonlight and under the cover of thick darkness. He had known my world, in his short time there, far better than any woman.

  He talked of the burning rain, the markets where traders from all parts of New Earth came to trade their wares. He spoke of silks, glittering trinkets and a sunset that astounded him with its simple grace. It was lovely to listen to, so long had I been used to viewing “outside” as a sphere of danger I may never return from that I had not considered what it must have been like for him.

  I looked at him and felt warmth emanating from him when he caught my eye, he touched my arm and I caught the reassurance he sent across to me .

  “Can I?” said Prenaslavka, she was holding her hand above my bare forearm and I felt apprehensive but allowed her to touch me.

  I nodded my assent and she touched me with her cool hand.

  She closed her eyes and gasped.

  “It’s so...crowded. Very…very different to our city”.

  She opened her eyes and looked at me, she looked sad but smiled.

  “And you saw the city at night?”

  I nodded, wondering what she had taken from my mind.

  “I did. I explored under the cover of darkness”.

  “You...helped people. Lots of people to…” She trailed off as she looked at me.

  Suddenly her voice was in my head, talking to me while her lips remained closed.

  “I can see why he likes you so much”.

  I looked at him and then back at her.

  She smiled. She gripped me one more time and I felt my grief pour into her, saw it reflected in her eyes.

  “You loved her...the woman...Leeh”. This was not a question.

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

  “We did not mean to hurt her and she certainly did not deserve to die”, she said. She looked away from me and ended our physical contact; I felt myself breathe out, not realising that I had been holding my breath; worried about what she would see when she looked inside me.

  “There is another woman you loved. I saw her shimmer in your memories”.

  That hit me very hard.

  “She was my mother”.

  “What happened to her?” She said.

  I held my arm out again, not trusting myself to speak.

  She touched it, tentatively. After a few seconds, I saw her large green eyes fill with tears.

  “She was a special woman,” she said softly. “I would have been honoured to know her”.

  “She was killed because my father had offended the authorities. As his property, the lives of my mother and I were forfeit. They spared me, in a way”.

  I thought back to that awful day in the Gleema courtroom where I had exposed my scars. I still did not know why I had felt so brave in that moment.

  I got a full tour of the city that afternoon and over the next few days. I saw their immense library, which was built inside such a wide tree that magic had to have had some hand in its construction. I enjoyed holding the dusty books and looking at the letters. Their letters were very different to those of Zafiya, spikier and spaced wider apart.

  I learned that Woodarch was an advisor to the Queen and managed her household, including Larcen and the warriors. I learned that the other free Falaira I had met in the Gleema city were employed as law enforcement, gravediggers, warriors, teachers, craftsmen and women and servants to the Queen.

  The city was immense, far bigger than I could ever have imagined. The tree top city was on many different levels, the many bridges crossing and touching base far above and below me.

  “Trees grow much taller and wider here than on your world” Khalashaya said, when I first laid eyes on the scale of the city.

  Indeed they did. I got very tired trying to see the whole thing but found my old Zafiya instincts helped me a great deal.

  I spent days with different members of the tribe, the inhabitants of the city, to familiarize myself with what they did and see where I could possibly fit in. This worried me more than I relayed to Khalashaya and the others because I did not want to be tested and found wanting. I needed, more than anything, to be useful to these people.

  Free at Last

  By day, I sat and watched lessons, healers at their work, street cleaners, teachers and more.

  I learned to cook with Prenaslavka in the afternoons when she finished teaching, we cooked foods that were strange and alien to me; particularly because they involved meat and vegetables, two things at a high premium on Zafiya and far beyond the limited income my father and I had brought in. I found that our strained relationship grew warmer and happier and we often talked about what I had learned or observed that day.

  By night, Khalashaya and I would meet in the hallway outside my bedroom and spend the evening talking about what I had seen that day, training on newer elements on my magic and generally enjoying each other’s company.

  Like his renewed sense of self when first reconnecting with his people at the Gleema city, he came more and more out of himself, it was like he lifted a veil away from his face and talked, moved and even seemed to breathe easier in this environment.

  He was clearly eating and sleeping better than before, his energy and vitality coming through when he talked and laughed.

  One night, about three weeks after joining the tribe, he came to get me and suggested a walk on the forest floor. I was excited by this as I had not been down since going to the Orb. He laughed when he saw my excitement.

  “Why did I not suggest this before?”

  I pulled on my cloak and followed him out of the door. I was used to the effect from the Orb by now but this was still strong as I got closer to it. It took quite a few minutes to get to the forest floor and I found that I enjoyed the exercise. I had kept very active so as not to lose my street earned fitness, but enjoyed any extra exercise I could get.

  When we got to the forest floor, I delighted in the springiness underfoot and in the huge splashes of moonlight that bathed me in a shimmering glow.

  “What did you observe today?” He asked, as we walked towards the lake. The moons were out in full force tonight and occasionally, the light hit his face and made it look as if it were glowing.

  I had observed more teaching with Prenaslavka, she had finished her usual afternoon lessons and then taken me to see her lessons with older students who had seen similar cycles to myself.

  I told him about the lesson and how I had been asked to take part in some of the exercises. I had noticed Prenaslavka watching me carefully, making sure I could keep up. I had enjoyed learning with the other young men and woman and liked the fact that it made me a little less of an oddity.

  Khalashaya seemed to approve and I saw him smile widely.

  “It is so good to see you taking part in activities for the tribe and being part of us”.

  I felt his hand find mine and I liked it. We found a spot by the lake where the light wasn’t as obscured by the trees above and sat down. It was a warmer than usual evening and the fire spirits were out in force, writing their names across the darkness; their light adding to the kaleidoscope of illumination above me.

  I did what I did every night and searched for New Earth, I put my hands behind me and leaned back, enjoying the view of thousands of tiny white, purple and blue lights in the deep purple sky. I also searched for my parents, wondering if there were stars for them.

  As a very small child, I had imagined, despite my biblical teachi
ngs, that people who died became stars and that it was the people from the Old World who now lit New Earth by night. These thoughts came back to me now as I tried to locate where my mother and father might be.

  Birds sang to each other in the trees hundreds of feet above us and I found myself lulled into an almost meditative state.

  Then Khalashaya’s arm was around my shoulders and he was there with me, feeling everything I was feeling and catching the tears that glittered like remnants of the stars above.

  The next day, I was sitting in my room sewing a dress I thought Prenaslavka would like when the lady herself came to greet me.

  She entered my room for what was possibly the first time and looked around before smiling at me. My occupancy of the room had resulted in some accoutrements such as sewn up leaves as collages on the walls, rocks I had found and liked on the windowsill and other elements of personalization that had made the room more like home to me.

  She said nothing of her appraisal of the room but smiled at me again.

  “I am about to do some teaching, would you like to watch the class?” she said.

  I nodded my assent, I was starting to learn rather a lot from Prenaslavka’s lessons, secretly remembering her instructions from the classes I was not asked to participate in and practicing in my chamber once I had got back home. She was a wonderful teacher, her clear voice evidently inspiring the pupils a lot. No one talked when she talked and her lessons went smoothly and without drama.

  I put my sewing down and left with her.

  There were several learning centres for the children and the young Falaira seemed to have plenty to do, whether it be cleaning the streets, leaf raking, practicing to control and use their magic and learning other things like their letters and their numbers.

  I usually felt sad when I saw the small male and female children learning together. The females had as many choices as the males, sometimes more. I wished I had been able to experience this.

  Like the Gleema, this Falairan society also had a female bias, a yardstick that constituted the best way to talk, teach, fight and eat. This was nowhere near as extreme as the horrible way the Gleema had treated Khalashaya however. The Queen had Woodarch to run her household and fight for her, but he was in the minority. Women were the leaders, fighters and teachers of the Free Falaira. Girls were also taught more magic at an earlier age, it was believed that they were better at controlling their powers and learning complex spells.

  This astounded me as it had done when we had first arrived on Deloran. From my experience watching both genders, both were more equal than the common belief. That did not mean that boys and men were openly discriminated against or treated badly however. I got the sense that the Free Falaira had rejected most elements of this gender bias and were trying to move past it. Khalashaya, Woodarch and the other young fighters were treated every bit as respectfully as Raven and the other female warriors.

  After watching the children learn together, I had felt short of breath and slightly overwhelmed. I left the back of the room and went outside, leaning against a bridge.

  I sensed rather than saw Prenaslavka behind me. She touched my arm and I turned to face her. I forced a smile and tried to hide my feelings.

  She looked at me with the question on her face.

  “I am hot, I apologise for my rudeness”. I was only half lying. I was hot, and removed my cloak, which had started to stick to me. “I am still not used to the climate here”.

  She looked away, the sunlight dancing on her black hair and her green eyes bright against her blue cloak. It was hard to believe she was old enough to be Khalashaya’s mother. My mother had been very young when I was born, she had seen only fourteen or fifteen cycles, and I estimated Prenaslavka might have been a similar age or even younger when she had birthed Khalashaya.

  She caught me observing her and I looked away, embarrassed that she could probably sense my thought.

  “It must be...difficult to get accustomed to our ways after your years on the Blue Planet” she said slowly. She leaned against the edge of the bridge and looked over to the one below where two males were walking and talking.

  I put an arm on her shoulder to steady her, I did this without thinking. She stood back upright, a small smile playing on her lips.

  “You get used to the height after a while. You stop worrying you will fall”.

  I unpeeled my thin cloak from my skin and attempted to fan myself. I insisted on wearing it however, because it felt improper to walk around the city in front of unrelated males with just my thin dress on. It was not comfortable however.

  I looked forward, in the distance, the suns were reaching their apex. It was going to get even hotter.

  I wiped my forehead. Prenaslavka blew onto her hand and put her hand towards me, I froze for a second and then allowed her to touch me. Instead of using her touch to sense my thoughts though, she made me cool. There was no other way to describe it other than the fact that her skin made contact with mine and then I was cool and fresh, as if I had just walked into a beautiful breeze. My cloak and hair were dry and I felt utterly refreshed.

  From under her cloak she produced a flask and gave it to me; I unscrewed the top and drank, having smelt it first, and realised she was giving me water.

  Drinking water would always be strange to me, being used to the idea that the water on Earth, though you would most likely drink it and live, would kill you eventually. The burning rain rotted your insides.

  “Thank you”, I said. I savoured the clear, pure taste of the water.

  I did not know a lot about Prenaslavka, I did know that she and her son had been contained in one of the Gleema’s “rehabilitation facilities” before they had come to the city of the Free Falaira. Khalashaya had never told me as such but the Gleema had mentioned him being in the facility when we had first arrived on Deloran and the scars both Khalashaya and Prenaslavka bore on their arms and faces conveyed a far worse tale than the benign nature the Gleema gave their “facility”.

  I knew better than to ask her about it though.

  Smiling at Prenaslavka, we went back into the lesson.

  Goodbye for Now

  I was joined by Khalashaya, Woodarch and two young female students the next day, which was as warm as the day before. Khalashaya had removed his cloak and was also clearly feeling the effect of the intensely hot day.

  We spent the morning on the forest floor learning more magic, which delighted me as I thought the forest extremely mysterious and beautiful. By night, it bewitched and captured my senses, during the day it was like my dreams of heaven as a child with its clear sparkling lake and huge pink and purple flowers.

  Prenaslavka and Khalashaya taught the two students, Rhita and Faya. Rhita and Faya were identical sisters and I could not stop marvelling at how alike they were with their long dark hair, slender forms and large green eyes.

  I had never seen identical brothers or sisters before and I did not even know how it could happen. Perhaps the magic in the air here caused children to sometimes become two instead of one.

  I was invited to join in with the lesson. We were in a clearing on the forest floor that I had not yet explored. It was speckled with dappled sunlight that had been distorted by the thick trees hundreds of feet up. The bottoms of the tree trunks were incredibly thick, bigger in girth than even the library in Zafiya. Perhaps it was the Orb that fed this forest so.

  My close proximity to the Orb and the mysterious room beyond it made me feel weak as it usually did, but I steeled myself and felt that I got used to it more as the morning drew on.

  We practiced blocking physical objects and attempted invisibility. Becoming invisible was not permitted in the city, but all citizens were required to at least try and learn, even though it was notoriously difficult. I could only become slightly transparent, which I was pleased with as it was something that was not a common ability.

  Rhita and Faya were then busy with Prenaslavka learning the same fighting I had seen Prenaslavka teach
the day before.

  Woodarch, Khalashaya and I took a walk through the forest. I found I was very grateful to get back onto the ground and even happier to get a chance to explore the forest floor. The ground was lush and springy and was a rich reddish brown. I found that I liked the feel of my feet on it.

  Khalashaya led the way through a grove that was filled with large pink and red flowers that grew almost to my waist. the undergrowth was thick but easy to walk through. Looking around at my companions and the scene before me, I suddenly felt very happy.

  We walked through the grove and our feet found a wooden path that had been laid into the ground. Thick undergrowth, tree trunks and flowers lined it on either side. Khalashaya looked back at me, a solemn expression on his face. He hand found mine as he led me along the path.

  As the path ended, we were in another clearing. The undergrowth had been trimmed and looked very orderly. I shuddered as I realised that in front of us were graves. This was a woodland graveyard.

  “Why have you brought me here?” I asked, having the answer dawn on me before the words had even finished leaving my mouth. We were here to see where Gleema Leeh had been laid to rest.

  We walked through the graves, my feet straining not to touch the graves themselves but to walk around them. I had never been close to a graveyard, I was struck at once with the realisation that my father must have been buried somewhere like this back home. The familiar ache throbbed as I recalled his death and the death of Gleema Leeh. Even this forest, which was more beautiful than all of my dreams of heaven was corrupted by the cloud of death that had followed me since my first meeting with Khalashaya.

  “Be calm” came Khalashaya’s voice in my head soothingly. “This is a place of peace”. That was true, this place did not have the solemn, formal feel of the graveyard in Zafiya. I had always been too frightened to approach it but its tall mausoleums and stone pillars made it look imposing and threatening.

  This serene place had nothing of that feel.

  We stopped at the end of one row where I saw a grave that had been filled in recently: hers.