The Runes of Norien

by Auguste Corteau

That night Gallan couldn’t sleep. He was exhausted, and drunk on that honeyish concoction, and despite the bareness of the hut all five of them shared the straw matress was soft and gentle to the body – but nonetheless he couldn’t rest, and sleep eluded him.

  He knew that this was mainly because of the rage he’d been harbouring for quite some time now, and which, perversely, kept his mind awake to further prod and irritate it. And the rage, in turn, was the product of the many insults he had suffered ever since leaving Lurien with Raddia. It was as if, by crossing over into Feerien and then to Erat Rin, they had also left behind their freedom of choice, and had been acting on the wishes and commands of others like a pair of idiots. First it had been the bloody Kobolds and the misfortunes of their primitive realm, then the annoingly all-knowing Wixelor, then a nameless girl, and finally a tribe of savages, who had placed all their hopes on a stone that fell from the sky. And all this time, what had he and Raddia been to them? No more than conduits of thought and Substance, instruments to do as they were told.

  As to Raddia’s infatuation with the boy, Gallan had come to resent it so greatly, he’d even taken a grim satisfaction in his incapacity to dazzle them yet again with his miraculous powers. At times – as in this very instant, when, raising his head slightly, he saw Raddia holding Yonfi’s hand while they both slept – he really, fervently hated the little brat, and was sure his eyes gleamed with the same detestation they would often see in Navva’s face many a year ago, whenever she’d catch them gloveless or barefoot. But letting his mind drift to Lurien made him even angrier, because it brought back the memory of his first and bigger failure: their pathetic Surfacing Rite, and his inability to become a Maker. Not that he had ever even remotely desired to have Raddia’s Mates – in fact, it was almost certainly this lack of willingness that had impeded the merging of their Substances – but to see his own Mate (for he still baulked at the concept of ‘sister’) slip with such easy passion into the role of Yonfi’s surrogate mother made him livid.

  And there was something else nagging at him, some crucial detail that had been overlooked, which he felt sure he could recall if only he could silence the inner turmoil for a moment and think. After all, as it usually did, his anger had blinded him to his and Raddia’s far from inconsequential contribution to the whole quest. To begin with, if it hadn’t been for their intervention, that dimwit Veig Treth would never have agreed to offer the boy and his father a ride to the Castle, the father would have perished, and the glorious Royen would still be wandering the woods like a lost gosling. And even after the boy’s powers had been revealed, and up until this very moment, it had been Raddia who had been keeping his impossible temper in check, since his brother, aside from his interpretive skills, was useless in this aspect – and who knows what might have become of them if Yonfi had been let loose? They’d all be rotting at the bottom of the sea, most likely – which reminded him of his own inspired idea about the raft. Now if he could apply the same cool-headed logic to the problem of the Stone, and pinpoint the missing connection, perhaps they wouldn’t have to spend the rest of their miserable days in this dreadful place, perpetually cold and hungry and under threat of extinction.

  So he conjured up what had followed Yonfi’s tantrum and flight. First Yodren, convinced by Raddia to leave the boy alone for a bit to calm down, had asked Wixelor if he could think of a way to invoke the spirit of the God of Life, on the off chance that It might somehow reignite the Rune, but all Wixelor could think of was a rhyme he knew which, despite the earnestness of his chanting, had no effect whatever on the Stone. Then Raddia suggested that they both try to control the thing’s extraordinary Substance, but Gallan had been adamant in his refusal, and to prove his point he had – rather foolishly – touched the Stone with the tip of his gloved index, and despite the milcloth it had felt as if a great hammer had struck his finger, so hard it was still sore. But all of these were mistakes that had been made exactly because of negelecting that one invaluable detail.

  His eyes blinking in the dark, he repeated to himself the story of the Stone as it had been recounted to them, from the moment it had brought salvation from high above to its present, dormant state: first it had been placed in the hut, guarded by the blind madmen, but it had done nothing to protect the people or the land from the ashes until... until a dog had buried it! It was then that the regeneration had begun, spreading fast from the roots of that olive tree... and then the fools had dug it up again, and left it to dwindle aboveground till the sun had all but disappeared. The more Gallan thought about it, the more he was convinced his theory was right. He clearly recalled Wixelor, when he first told them of the Runes’ existence, saying that they had been fashioned out of matter to control the material side of the ever-shifting Norien. But then Erat Rin had broken off and wandered to the other end of the physical world, and for some reason that wasn’t of the essence right now it had been followed by two of the three Runes. And if the Rune of Death had been as immense as Iabi had described it, then it had most certainly burrowed itself deep into the ground – Norien’s ground, which the Rune of Life sought as well, so much so that it had grown weak without its enveloping presence; that was why the Stone was so incredibly heavy that even the boy could barely carry it, and why, according to Yodren, it had made such a deep dent in the ground when Yonfi had dropped it: because all this time it was longing to be once more inside its life-giving element.

  Taking his glove off, Gallan touched Raddia’s bare neck and she started, turned her sleepy face towards him and muttered, What? What is it? Something’s wrong.

  Wake the boy, Gallan said. Nothing’s wrong; we just have to bury the Stone.

 

  At first Yonfi was groggily reluctant to try his luck again on the thing that had brought him only frustration and ridicule, but when Raddia calmly explained Gallan’s plan, the idea of digging a huge hole in the ground proved very tempting to his playful, boyish side, and soon they were on their way to where the Stone had been left.

  The sky, though dark and clouded, had certain patches of violet that reminded Raddia of Feerien’s moonlit dusk, and once more gave her hope that this Sun she had come to regard as the most magnificent thing imaginable might in fact be up there, just hiding and waiting to be properly summoned, like a proud (if not pompous) guest.

  Gallan’s idea made perfect sense, and Yonfi was of course capable of digging his way to the other side of the Forgotten Sphere, and so she tried, again, to strengthen her own confidence in this undertaking, but she couldn’t help thinking that this was the last resort, and that if it failed, there was no conceivable way – at least not to her – to fulfill the Dwanars’ expectations. Fortunately, Gallan was too preoccupied with elaborating on his plan to hear the timid voice of her uncertainty, yet this was not as comforting as she’d expected; because by now Raddia was exhausted of stifling thoughts and feelings from her brother, Yonfi and everyone else, of keeping a courageous front and a hopeful heart, and of subsequently having no one to soothe her fears as she so badly needed. And so, for the first time since Wixelor had told them of the Three Gods, she decided to do what she would do, had she been raised to believe in Them: turn to Them as if They were the all-powerful beings They were supposed to be, and hoping They were listening, and willing to grant her wish, pray to Them with all the fervour she could muster.

  But the more she thought about it, the idea of such entities, able to do absolutely anything, was terrifying, as was the prospect of addressing Them – she couldn’t think of the appropriate words (though actual talking might not be necessary: if Lurienites were able to read people’s minds, then surely the Gods could, too, from any distance), and the concepts They encompassed daunted her. Life, for instance, could be so wonderful – as she had discovered from loving and being loved by Yonfi – that it seemed ungrateful to ask for more; Death, on the other hand, was such an unthinkable notion (no matter that sooner or later it happened to everyone; even on the brink of certain death, one hop
ed to be spared), that its God must surely be merciless and cruel, and no use pleading with.

  Which left the God of Fate and Chance, who was even harder to imagine than Its Siblings (or, as Wixelor said some believed, Its Children). First and foremost: which of the two was stronger, and if they were equally strong, how could they possibly coexist? For if there was a fixed fate controlling all that had happened (and would happen) from the beginning of the world to its end, and there was also a God who had created this fate, and knew every single twist and turn it would take, then existence couldn’t even serve as entertainment to It. And if, on the contrary, all was chance, things occurring without the least control, reason or purpose, then what use were the Gods Themselves?

  Yet Raddia was abruptly dragged from these confusing ruminations by Yonfi’s determinted grunts – for in the meantime they had reached the outskirts of the village, and Yonfi was kicking the pale Stone along, so very slowly it was excruciating to watch. In explaining his plan, Gallan had said that they should move the Stone as far from the outermost, abandoned huts of the village as possible, so that if its power was restored it wouldn’t cause any harm to the children and the overly enthusiastic villagers who were bound to rush to any sudden source of light; he had also added that the distance would be useful in case his idea proved unsuccessful, for it would give them much-needed time to come up with an alternate plan without the vexing hindrance of an expectant audience (though he had said this in thought alone to Raddia, so as not to dishearten Yonfi).

  However, what worried her now wasn’t the possible result of burying the Stone. For as they left behind them the clayish flattened mud of the village, the ground became cold and hard. And how would Yonfi dig it up without hurting his bare little hands?