Dreamwalker 12
-There was-was a time when only the Ingway lived in this forest. It was-was before your people, the Manor, appeared,- Burr told him, padding softly down the forest path.
SoYa trotted to keep up with the creature’s huge strides, but he hardly noticed. His mind was fixed on the words, information provided from something that had seen the introduction of his people into this land. It was both surprising and not that their origins were not of this world.
“Somehow, I’ve always had the feeling we didn’t quite belong here,” he spoke his thoughts aloud. “I always knew there was something more to all this.”
-You do not remember-remember?-
“No. We don’t,” SoYa shook his head. “No one does. And no one knows why. It’s as if… we just woke up here. And that’s all that we know.”
-Yes,- Burr nodded sagely, green eyes blinking. –You did-did wake here. We did not see-see your coming… but we know-know it is tied to this place.-
“Place?” the mind mage echoed, realizing he was asking a question that was just about to be answered. His excitement overrode his usual manners, however.
The Ingway didn’t seem to mind very much. Instead, he motioned with one paw towards a sheltered glade that was tucked between the tall, slender tree trunks. The path led into the glade, obviously well-trodden, lined on either side by trees strewn with dangling twine. SoYa realized by studying the creatures that they had an affinity for colored rope, strings and twine of any kind, and often strung it along their homes and structures.
In the middle of the glade sat something even more peculiar. It was a crystalline stone, similar to the ones that the crystal masters of their people worked with. This one, however, reached far above his head, the tip pointing up towards the late afternoon sky. The glade was alive with the feeling of energies, the grass nearest to the stone having a translucent glow.
“I’ve seen crystals like this before… except, ours are much smaller,” SoYa said, though he didn’t dare walk closer. “We’re studying them at the Manor. I don’t know a lot about that area of magic, but there are people who can tap into the energies of the trees and the earth and bind them into these stones.”
-Interesting. Your people make-make things like this?-
“Well… not exactly like this. This one seems a lot more powerful,” the mind mage frowned. “Who made this?”
-Unknown. It was-was here when Ingway found it.-
“Really? A crystal like this… already here? I wonder how,” SoYa mused. “Do these things create themselves naturally?”
-Unknown and also unlikely,- Burr responded, folding his paws into either of his robe sleeves with a meditative blink.
“What do you mean?”
The creature’s ears twitched for a moment before it answered, –Many structures exist-exist in the land. Many in ruins. From times before our peoples. It is-is unknown.-
SoYa nodded, understanding what Burr meant. When his people first came to the forests, they discovered the ruins of what were once many different kinds of structures. Strange machines and pieces of metal remained intact, though rusted and worn with age. They also found documents with languages they did not understand, but many diagrams that described how to build the devices and the structures that once existed.
Much of that information was lost to them, mostly because of the language barrier and the lack of proper mechanical skills. Slowly, some of the younger and more technically-inclined students were piecing together the technology from that time. It took special people with patience and intelligence beyond the standard magic users to recreate anything from the old documents.
-There is-is a connection,- Burr continued. –The day your people appeared- appeared, the stone was-was alive. Great blue light. Magic within the forest. Then came-came the Strangethings. The dragon. The white wolf.-
“I’m not sure I understand about the dragon and the white wolf,” SoYa admitted.
-They came-came with your people. But they vanished-vanished soon after. The dragon, however, spoke-spoke with our people. It gave-gave power to the Zemitree,- Burr tried to explain. It seemed as if he was having trouble putting the events into words, jumbling much of it together in his thoughts.
SoYa attempted to help sort it out, “The Zemitree. That’s the tree I saw. The one the dragon led me to.”
-Yes.-
“You said the dragon gave power to it?”
-Yes. And then the dragon passed-passed from this world,- Burr frowned slightly. –We named-named the tree after the dragon in honor.-
“What kind of power?” SoYa asked.
-The tree is as you saw-saw. But it was-was not always so. Once a normal tree. The power changed-changed it. Tall. Like a building,- the Ingway motioned upwards with his paws.
“I remember… there were blue lights and runes on the trunk,” the mind mage mused. “I thought it was just a different kind of tree energy, like the trees in the Manor.”
-Dragon’s spirit dwells-dwells within the tree,- Burr told him.
SoYa frowned, “Why would the dragon lead me here?”
-Unknown. We were told-told there would be a Seeker. One day, you would look-look for the secrets.-
“But… why me?” he almost whispered. He thought his words were quiet, but apparently the Ingway’s hearing was very acute.
-It is-is as it is,- Burr turned, heading out of the glade. –Come. More to show-show.-
“More?” SoYa blinked, then scurried to catch up.
While it was exciting to hear all these new things about his people’s origins, it was also becoming more puzzling. The stone, the dragon and the mentioned white wolf. His dreams and visions of the strange floating islands. How did these things fit together? He couldn’t figure it out at all.
Burr led him to a stone hollow that bore into the side of a tall sloping hill. At first, it seemed as if it was a cave. But as they walked deeper, SoYa could see signs of Ingway throughout the cavern. The floors were swept clean and tiny glow-stones hung from colored twine along the ceilings. The walls had many natural-created crevices and hiding places, many that now served as shelves and storage for documents and other book-like objects.
“This is a library,” SoYa mused.
-A what-berry?-
“Uh… nothing. Just a word that describes a place to keep books,” he tried to explain, pointing to one of the books.
-Ah. Yes. They are called-called “books?”- Burr gave a quizzical look.
“Books,” SoYa nodded.
-Many books. We found-found scattered near the place where your people appeared. Unknown of the symbols and the pictures inside, however,- the Ingway pulled one of the tomes from a shelf and offered it to SoYa.
“Books that came with us?” the mind mage took it eagerly. He flipped through it, frowning as he stared at the garbled text. Some of the words were familiar, while some had mis-matched letters and strange structure. It was similar to their language, but many things were out of place. “That means we brought them from wherever we came from.”
-Correct.- Burr peered over one of his shoulders, –Can read-read?-
“Some of it,” SoYa frowned and slowly closed the book, inspecting the covers. “But most of it I can’t quite tell. I may have to study it some.”
-Unusual. Persons who made-made the books cannot read-read them,- the Ingway observed.
“I know. It is unusual. I wonder why,” he mused to himself, standing on his tip toes as he scanned the spines of many other books that lay carefully upon the rock shelf.
He paged through one after another, trying to find anything that he could understand. Here and there, a passage would make sense, but usually it was difficult for him to piece together. And there was no real knowing if anything he was looking at held significant information.
Just as SoYa was putting the books away, planning on how to tackle the newest discovery, he picked up one slender book of soft brown leather. He paused, not knowing why. It felt like one of those moments in his dreams – when he should know something, but could not remember. With pursed lips, he opened the book from the center.
A soft sprawling script lined the pages, sometimes with sketches or other notes jotted along the borders. He furrowed his brow, and overcome with the sense of familiarity, began to flip through the pages more and more quickly. It appeared to be a journal of some sort as dates crowned the tops of each entry. Flashes of words, capitalized names, jumped out at him.
Nefol. Zemi. Tsu. Zazo. Ceiswyr.
Then he froze.
AsaHi…
Her name seemed to leap off the page at him. Then all at once, he realized why the writing seemed so familiar. Flipping to the front, he struggled to find any indication, a writer’s name. It was there, printed in the top left corner on the inside cover in neatly scripted letters – SoYa.