At the sight of the book, Laghorn wilted. He gently lowered his body from its erect position and slowly sank to all four limbs. Despite his bison-like head, he now looked more like an oversized cat than anything else. The fierce intent from his eyes gave way to a look of shock, disbelief, fear, excitement, jubilation, and awe. Tears dripped from the creature’s piercing green eyes. The once fierce, once intimidating creature suddenly lacked either of these qualities. He then spoke to the youth, but this time, he talked more as equals. “You travel with the Book of Epiphany. I knew you would come. I knew it. I never gave up hope. Never. I knew you were coming.”
Talon, feeling less threatened, stepped toward Rose and now stood next to her. He asked, “How could you have known we were coming?”
“How can a sun-sculptor form light into solid objects?” asked Laghorn. “You can bend light because that is the way of the world, just as the sun warms the days and the moons ornate the night, just as water flows down the river, and just as nothing lives in this valley. Such things are the rules of Centage. They are as they are. With that said, I knew of your arrival because a fire-seer told me long ago. She declared these words to me before I left to assume my duties in this valley:
A youthful band travels to right their wrongs.
They wage a weaponless war against warmongering throngs.
They keep and betray the ancient arts.
Yet, only three walk with pure hearts.
They enter this valley bearing a sign.
They read from a book with a double-bound design.
Its words originate before this age.
It tells secrets from a time of rage.
The writings unlock the Centage door.
It ushers a time when the village are no more
When the Book of Epiphany enters this valley.
Friend and Guardian begin its final sally.
“For an age have I awaited your arrival, and now, you are here, and with your arrival, I know my duties – after all these millennia – are nearly fulfilled. You are here, sun-sculptor. I knew you would come. I tried never to doubt your arrival. Yet, the relief I feel at your presence shows perhaps some doubt still existed despite my best efforts to eradicate all uncertainties concerning this matter.”
Questions flooded the minds of the four travelers. The declaration of Laghorn, while forthcoming, provided more confusion than clarity. The sudden change in the creature’s disposition also merited intrigue. How could the mere sight of a book change a ferocious, human-devouring beast into a seemingly gentle ally? Talon offered the first question for Laghorn, “What is a fire-seer and how can this person declare our arrival long before it ever happened?”
Surprising the others, Willow answered his question, “A fire-seer knows things that will happen. They ‘sees’ the future and see certain things. Once seen, their visions are purified, as with fire. What they see will happen. Their visions are true, always and eternal. They see only what will be; they never see what might be. Once a fire-seer declares their vision, then, it will be – not because the fire-seer makes it so, but the events in their vision have already occurred, even though they have yet to take place.”
All of the others, including Laghorn, gaped at the blond-haired, ashen-skinned girl. Laghorn spoke, “The young one speaks truth. Yet, she speaks from rote rather than from understanding – not to diminish her explanation. So explain to me, young one, how do you know these things?”
Willow responded, “I am three-sevenths.”
Laghorn’s prominent jaw dropped at her answer, “How did you hear of those designations?” The creature paused long enough to collect his thoughts and then continued. “Such labels were supposed to be eliminated before the current age, and from my understanding, the knowledge of these things was restricted to only three people, of which I am one. So I ask, how did you learn of these things?”
Willow, not intimidated, looked back at Laghorn, but she refused to answer his question. He continued to prod the eleven-year old girl with questions. She, however, said nothing.
Talon interrupted the questioning, “Would someone explain to me what it means to be ‘three sevenths’?”
Laghorn looked to Talon and responded, “I will not explain such evil things. Yet, know this, you come speaking of peace and ‘making right your wrongs,’ but absence the words of the fire-seer, I would rip you apart from limb to limb and then burn your corpses to rid this world of your stench: sun-sculptors who talk of peace and a flesh-weaver who speak unabashedly of evil things. The only one I might not have dismembered is the gangly one, but after he tried to kill me, then I assume he derives from the same malevolent cloth as your ancestors.”
“Willow, what did you say to him,” asked Rose.
“I just told him that I am a flesh-weaver,” answered Willow. “Just as you introduce yourself as a ‘sun-sculptor: by birth, by name, and by trade,’ I introduce myself as ‘three sevenths’. It means that as a flesh-healer, I am the third of the seven.”
“Of the seven what” asked Talon.
Willow thought about how to respond to this question and then she answered, “Of the seven ancient arts, of course.”
“So there are seven ancient arts?” questioned Talon.
“That what I always told,” said Willow, “Didn’t you hear about other ancient arts than sun-sculpting?”
“No,” spoke Talon solemnly. He wondered, like his sister, at the limits of their ignorance.
“So, let me understand,” snapped Daks. “Of the four people and one thing standing here, two are sun-sculptors, one is a flesh-weaver, and the other is a ferocious beast who chats with a fire-seer. Does that make me on the only ordinary person here? I mean, while all of you are dabbling in the ancient arts – whatever kind of idiocy that is – I am making straps and backpacks out of animal skin. I am ecstatic to be traveling with you all. Good to be here, really, it is truly fantastic. Is there anyone else ready to abandon this little venture of ours and go home?”
Laghorn laughed aloud, an evil and malicious laugh. “I am ready for all of you to go home, but before you leave, let me say this you, you are not the ones of whom the fire-seer speaks. She declared ‘three of pure heart,’ and I see no one who fits that description. I see nothing but …”
Rose interrupted, “Then step aside, Laghorn, Friend and Guardian of the Disinherited. You are standing on the path we need to travel”
“Human girl, listen!” boomed Laghorn. “Do not interrupt me again. If not for the book possessed by your companion, I would allow the Disinherited to feast upon your souls, but, for the sake of the book and in deference to the fire-seer, I will step aside and allow you to continue on your way. Perhaps the Disinherited will allow you to pass, but from your countenance when I first arrived, I doubt you will last much longer in this valley. My presence, you must now realize, shelters you in the Valley of the Disinherited, and once I leave, my protection departs. I always imagined escorting the ‘travelers of pure heart’ through this life-forsaken valley, but I cannot imagine traveling one-step with a three-sevenths or sun-sculptors or an assassin. If you are the travelers for which I hoped, then you will find your way from here to the mouth of Dry River.”
Laghorn stepped aside in an evident gesture meant to allow the JRB passage. “Proceed!” he barked.
The group slowly trudged past the ferocious creature. As they passed, Talon politely asked Laghorn, “How do you know we look for the mouth of Dry River?”
Laghorn answered, “Some things I just know, sun-sculptor.”
Talon quickly asked another question, “For the sake of the Book of Epiphany residing in my bag, please answer me this question: who are the Disinherited? The only thing I see in this valley is you, but I certainly felt the presence of something before you arrive. We all sensed their presence, but I do not know who “they” are. So please answer me, Friend and Guardian, who are the Disinherited?”
Laghorn swiped his enormous claw across Talon’s cheek. He moved in a flash, much fast
er than human comprehension. His claws sliced through Talon’s flesh with same ease it sliced through the air. Three red lines appeared under Talon’s eye, one for each of the Laghorn’s claws. Blood dripped from each cut. Talon, feeling only a tingle upon skin, touched his hand to face, and then checked his hand to learn the extent of the injury. Blood trickled unimpeded from the superficial wounds. Laghorn obviously struck Talon to make a point rather than inflict harm.
Laghorn said at the bloodied youth, “Maybe the three-sevenths can heal that for you. Vex me no more, lest I decide to dig my claw a bit deeper into your flesh, perhaps I will opt to shave the meat from your bones”
Laghorn turned to walk away and then turned back toward Talon. “You are strange one, sun-sculptor. I strike your cheek, and yet, you do not retaliate. For the sake of the Book of Epiphany, I will answer your question, but what I tell you now is all I will tell you. When I am through, you still won’t understand, but that is not my problem.”
“The Disinherited are the rejects from the Sevens. In the last age, some of those who practiced the ancient arts dabbled in the combining of powers. When their powers combined, their abilities increased exponentially – they did amazing things, evil things. By combining power, the Sevens created new forms of the ancient arts, thinking the Creator’s seven blessings were not enough. One of these new forms was specie-mixture. Never before the Sevens could a horse mate with a rat, but after the Seven manipulated their powers, any specie could unite with another. I am, in fact, a child of the Sevens – a child of the Inheritance. I can live for an age, move faster than you can think, and am stronger than ten lions, but before they designed me, the Seven made many, many new specie combinations. The unwelcome truth, however, is that most of these new species failed to meet their expectations. For every unicorn or centaur or elefantos or Minotaur or silver ram, there are thousands of failed efforts – animals who did not meet the desired standard. According to the Sevens, these creatures were too stupid, too hideous, too feeble, too useless, or too despised to be alive. To deal with these imperfect beings, the Seven developed a plan; they withheld the final element of making new species. Not wanting to burden themselves with these inferior beings, the Seven refused to infuse life into these creations.”
Laghorn paused after making the audacious claim. He continued after allowing the last statement to fully comprehended. “Yes, the Sevens learned how to infuse life into newly forged beings.”
Laghorn paused again for a moment to allow the last comment to be heard with clarity. “The Sevens infused life into manipulated species, but for the Disinherited, they refused such infusion because the beings were too stupid, ugly, feeble, useless, or despised.”
The Child of the Inheritance continued, “Without the infusion of life, the Disinherited lived under a curse. They are cursed forever to seek the one thing all being innately yearn – life. They seek life. They drain life from anything around them, and still, their desire for life is insatiable. They long for the life they can never possess. Thus, the Disinherited innately suck the life from everything around them, and yet, they find no satisfaction in the life they take.
“Further, their curse is without end. Because they lack life, then they lack death. For all the tragedies of death, at least it brings living to end. Death reflects the process of growth, change, transformation, and conclusion. Death, often thought of as a great evil, at least provides a gate to move beyond this moment. The Disinherited, however, live in the eternal-now; they never stop longing for a thing they can never possess. Their desire is like an unquenchable thirst. Nothing satisfies the need. Look around this valley. Do you see any signs of life? Of course not. The Disinherited have instinctually drained the life from every living thing. Yet, no matter how much they suck from their surroundings, it never appeases them. They are cursed to seek the one thing for which they were created, and the one thing that is forever denied – life.”
“But I don’t see anyone,” whispered Daks to Talon. “What is he talking about? Do you see anything? It’s just desolation everywhere I look.”
Talon nodded to indicate his agreement with Daks.
Laghorn heard the question. He answered them even though Daks had not directed his query to Laghorn. “Often, people do not see the Disinherited because they choose not to look upon them. They cover this valley; everywhere I look, I see their sullen faces. I see them now, and they stand ready to suck the life from you. Once I leave, you belong to them.”
“I see something,” screeched Willow. “Everywhere, I see them …”
Rose agreed, “I see them, too. Hideous looking …” She gagged and nearly vomited. The older girl looked upon the most grotesque assortment of beasts imaginable. No description would suffice in explaining the detestable appearance of the creatures. Gouges and pocks covered their flesh. Open sores dotted their skin. Most possessed disfigured limbs. They looked like a carcass ravaged by scavengers and then left to decompose for three days. A pungent stench filled the air; the smell of death would be sweet perfume compared to the aroma originating from the Disinherited. Their wounds, apparently, never healed. Without the power of life running through their body, they lacked any ability to rejuvenate themselves. Wounds remained endlessly untreatable; infections ravaged their body. Pus oozed from every open sore, but, even if infections consumed their entire body, death never prevailed. The creatures lived an entire age on the cusp of death. All the while, their bodies slowly deteriorated. Yet, they continued to exist in the ever-worsening condition – never living and never dying.
Daks fells to his knees and covered his eyes. He gagged and coughed as he tried to breathe. His stomach panged like he someone just punched him in the gut. Daks, like the two girls, now looked upon the utter desolation of the Disinherited.
Beside their stench, infestation, rotting, and necrosis, the Disinherited were otherwise holistically repugnant. They looked like rejects – the discarded products from an aimless body construction. Some body parts were missing, and others were misplaced. Arms sprouted from foreheads, feet attached to heads, toes in place of fingers, and horns protruding from the stomach. They lacked symmetry; disproportionate arms and legs dangled mostly useless. Because of their misshaped, deteriorating bodies, they possessed greatly diminished motor skills. Most used their dominant limb, be it an arm or a leg, to pull the rest of their mangled body. Those with a stronger leg walked with a limp as the leg pulled the rest of the body, whereas those with a strong arm used that arm to drag the rest of their body along the ground.
Talon’s body froze. He said nothing. He felt nothing. He thought nothing. Talon wished, however, that he saw nothing, but he did see something – the Disinherited. Talon remained paralyzed amidst the lifeless beings as they clamored next to him. They looked, at least to Talon’s eyes, eager to drain the life from his being. Some unseen force, however, held them back.
The Disinherited were the absolute antithesis of beauty. Nothing, not even a single speck, about their physical appearance was appealing. The Disinherited were the essence of lifeless. They lived without life, and without regenerating powers of life, their degrading bodies revealed the effects of entropy. Their already grotesquely mangled bodies revealed all the scratches, cuts, breaks, infections, wounds, and burns ever inflicted upon them.
Talon, finally loosening himself from the shock of seeing the Disinherited, noticed the creatures lacked something – scars. The creature possessed no scars, only untreated wounds. Scars, Talon realized, reveal a healing process. They possessed no healing process, and thus they displayed no scars. At that moment, Talon felt compassion for the creatures.
A disjointed joy swept across Laghorn’s face upon realizing the humans saw the Disinherited. It serves them right, thought Laghorn. The Sevens are the ones responsible for making and then abandoning these creatures, and since these humans travel with a Seven, they are just as culpable. They, among all people, should experience the decadence of their handiwork. Even if these youths were not the ac
tual one to abandon these creatures, these four individuals pranced through life without a conscience toward the evil perpetuated by the arrogant manipulators of the ancient arts – the Sevens.
Laghorn turned and walked away from the JRB. He looked over his bulky shoulder and grumbled in a deep voice, “Farewell possessors - and most likely thieves – of the Book of Epiphany. Meet your forgotten friends. When I am gone, they will introduce themselves.” As he walked away, he loudly mumbled, “My hope fades. Long have I waited for travelers of compassion, instead, I am greeted by perpetrators of evil. I thought they were the prophesied ones, but they are Sevens.”
As Laghorn walked away, the four travelers huddled close together. The hungry and mangled eyes of the Disinherited eagerly gazed upon them. Laghorn’s still visible, yet distant, presence provided a small, but ebbing, shield for the group. As the shield dissipated, the creatures inched closer, pushing and shoving one another in effort to be closest to the four companions. When the protection of Laghorn’s presence finally faded, each hideous thing desperately wanted to be the first one to feast upon the life emanating from the four bodies. A frenzy of primal chaos encircled the JRB. At the rate of encroachment, only a minute of two remained before the Disinherited enveloped them with the same instinct that a predator hunts its prey.
“This is it?” moaned Daks. “We are going to die!”
“Think!” bellowed Talon over the wailing of the other boy. “What can we do? There must be something.”
“Die! That’s what we can do,” whined Daks.
“Shut up!” snapped Willow. “Better to die silently than die whining.” With that, Daks stopped talking. She continued, “We need a plan … but what?”
The Disinherited moved closer to the JRB.
“Why don’t they harm Laghorn? He must have some way to keep these things from hurting him,” spewed Rose.
The creature crept closer to the JRB. They were now only steps away from the four huddled human bodies.
“Yea, but what?” snapped Talon. “They are getting closer.”
“There must be something,” said Willow. “They are primal creature, so Laghorn must give them something they intuitively need.”
Rose calmly offered her observation, “Laghorn gives them his presence. Nothing in its right mind would enter this forsaken valley, yet Laghorn chooses to live here among them. They do not harm him because he is their friend.”
“So we should just make friends with them?” yelped Talon. “That does not really seem possible at the moment, does it?”
The mangled creatures inched closer. The mindless mass moved with chaotic deliberateness.
“Act friendly,” offered Daks.
Talon froze at the advice. Good idea, he thought, but how do four terrified youths act friendly toward a primal mass bent upon their demise?
Rose, however, jumped into action at Daks’ advice. She grabbed Willow and quickly uttered to her, “Gather the light. I have an idea.”
Willow, not privy to the scope of Rose’s intentions, instantly obeyed the older girl’s request. She reached her hands into air and collected the light into her palms, just as she done when pulling Isigor Roots with Rose before leaving Village #97 and just as he done at the foot of Five-Point Peak when making the ice axe. The concentrated light beam zipped through Willow’s hands where Rose then gathered the malleable light into her palms. The sun-sculptor quickly formed the light into a hollow glowing globe about the size of a human head. Rose then poked holes into the not-yet-solidified globe. With the instinctiveness of a gifted artist, thirty perfectly dispersed holed adorned the Light Globe. Holding the punctured, ball-like object in her left hand, Rose reached to the ground and collected a handful of sand. She tossed the sand in the air and slung the glowing globe under the falling sand. Bits of sand sank into the object’s coagulating shell. Rose gently tossed the glistening sphere into air, and as the sun struck the object, the spherical glow ball solidified.
Rose held the finished object in her hand. The glowing ball dazzled; its light composition glowed while the sand specks refracted the sunshine. Depending upon the angle of perception, each grain of sand flashed a different rainbow color. Consequently, the globe constantly glistened with a full array of color. The object displayed a previously unknown standard of beauty – its elegance … its shimmering … its glow … its hue … its depth of color … its magnificence. The glowing globe was a gift fit for a king, but it only took Rose thirty seconds to fashion it.
The repugnant creatures continued to press around the four adolescents. The Disinherited appeared ready to pass the human’s threshold. They leaned forward close enough for Willow to feel the moisture of their breath. As the living corpses reached toward Rose with their decaying appendages, Rose pushed the glowing orbs into the closest appendage. The rotting hand, which looked bearish, grasped the object with between its one functional finger and its nearly severed thumb. The creature yelped, an agonizing cry springing from the creature’s soul. The remainder of the Disinherited halted their approach.
Rose realized immediately she stayed the creatures’ advance and quickly continued – with Willow’s help – making more glowing orbs. The Disinherited continued to push toward the group, but instead of seeking to absorb the life from the four individuals, the Disinherited crowded around Rose and waited patiently for their dazzlingly reflective sphere. One by one, they took a glowing ball, and then stepped aside to allow another creature the opportunity to receive the gift. Rose and Willow continued working until the daylight faded into evening. They produced hundreds of hollow globes, and as the stars dotted the sky, the Disinherited waited patiently. They said nothing, but when the members of the JRB slept, the Disinherited gathered provisions for the next day, enough food to last the day and pouches refilled with water. When the sun peeked over the distant mountains on the following morning, Rose and Willow went back to work. Talon and Daks helped by distributing the glowing balls and attempting – with limited success – to organize the recipients. For six full days, the JRB worked efficiently, compassionately, and happily to ensure the members of the Disinherited received their gift. At least five thousand decomposing creatures gladly received their glowing orbs. At the end of the sixth day, Talon looked up from distribution and noted to the others, “There are no more DAFs.” (DAF was an acronym developed by Daks meaning Disinherited Are Friends. The adolescents knew they could no longer refer to the DAFs as “creatures,” “things,” “beasts,” etc. so Daks posited his idea, which the others readily accepted.)
Many years later, long after the Disinherited’s demise, the anti-entropy globes continued to exist with the same shimmering beauty that they possessed on the day Rose, Willow, Daks, and Talon made and distributed them the DAFs. Most disappeared into the depths of the Glass Sea, some vanished into the undergrowth of the Disinherited Forest, or others faded into the depths of human ruins, but about one hundred remained through the great ages. The objects were named Rose’s Rainbow and long existed as the pinnacle symbol of friendship.
With passage allowed by the Disinherited, the JRB proceeded without hindrance toward the mouth of Dry River. As they traversed through the riverbed, Willow asked, “How did the DAFs get us food and water during the night? I do not see anything resembling food or water in this place.”
Everyone shrugged, including Willow. After spending the last week with the DAFs, the impossible seemed possible.
16 THE GLASS SEA