Chapter X: Broken Heart of Minhera
After a lengthy bath that nearly put them to sleep, Stefi and Cédes at last got out. All their previous cares seemed to remain behind in the cooling water. All of them, that is, except the glowing pebble Cédes clutched.
“I wonder, how might we reunite this fragment with Raphanos?” she mused, more concerned with it than her own dripping, naked self.
“Perhaps,” Stefi said, toweling herself dry, “it would be best to think about it once you’re dressed. You don’t want to catch a cold, do you?”
Cédes giggled nervously and followed Stefi’s advice. She seemed different, Stefi noticed, much lighter and more childlike, as if the removal of that shard of Raphanos had torn down a hard shell forged from the intervening years to reveal innocence.
Once dried, Cédes shook out the clean clothes Kei-Pyama and Radus had supplied. An object clattered to the ground and slipped across the wet floor. It came to rest at Stefi’s feet.
“What’s this?” Stefi wrapped herself in her towel and picked it up. A jolt ran through her, sparking every nerve as it fled throughout her body. She dropped it with a shriek.
“What is it?” Cédes asked, now clothed in light, flowing robes woven from flax fiber, the same sort her sister wore.
“Another elemental stone.” Stefi dressed hastily into a flowing skirt (with not a patch or tear to be seen) and loose shirt, still twitching from the shock. She was sure her hair also stood on end, and not due to the humidity either. Any relaxation from the bath had been fried by the shock.
“Guratzu,” Cédes said. She swept her hands across the floor, eventually finding the stone. “But why was it in my clothing?”
“My guess,” Stefi said, smoothing her hair, “is someone wanted you to have it. Someone being your brother and sister. Definitely not that Elder hag, though. Just don’t ask me why.”
The stone crackled angrily in Cédes’s hand, spitting sparks into the air. “I do not think it wants me to have it.”
Ifaut seemed to know where she was going, for she guided Saun along a path only she could see. She was almost glad he didn’t ask; she had no idea where to go. But it seemed to be the right path to follow, and it led them ever further inland. And as every story she knew mentioned, adventure was always to be found in the deepest part of the land. Right now, with the horrors of Sol-Acrima a world away, fun exploration in these new trees was just what she needed to brighten her spirit. She smiled, suddenly forgetful of why they were even there and why Shizai had borne them to this island.
“Hey, Saun,” she said, breaking the silence between them. Only the distant sighing of the waves and cicadas chirping in the sticky air provided any other noise.
He said nothing.
“Hello? Saun?” She tapped him lightly on the head with her fist.
“Oh,” he said and grinned with embarrassment. “Sorry. I’m still not quite used to the new name.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I never said that.”
“Good.” She hesitated for a moment, quiet. Yet her mind whirred and argued with itself, at last speaking aloud. “You do like it, don’t you?” Her ears drooped, expecting a negative response.
“Sure I do.” He patted her head. She closed her eyes and let out a few throaty warbles. “Sansonis is such a mouthful. Saun rolls right off the tongue. And you know what?”
“What?”
“It feels kinda familiar.”
Ifaut stiffened, casting her memory back many years before. What Cédes had said about souls sprang to mind. But hadn’t she been wrong before?
It was just before noon when Ifaut and Saun reached the center of the island. As Ifaut had expected from her small exploration when they’d first arrived, it wasn’t very big at all. All the while it had risen slightly as they headed inland, like a wooded hill easing above the waves. Of course, she thought, when Minhera had sunk long ago the peaks of its hills remained above the surface. So the open clearing in which they now stood had once been atop a lofty hill. The very thought caused more unease to well up within her. Had forces beyond Makora caused an entire island to sink until only hills remained?
Saun released Ifaut’s hand, letting one sweaty finger slip through at a time until his hand hung limply at his side. “The Kalkics who built that shack… people were here before them. It’s Minheran, isn’t it?”
Ifaut nodded. She still hadn’t revealed what Shizai had told her on the journey here, why they had been brought to this drowned land. No, she had carried that information with no help. But at last she’d found what Shizai said she would.
Before them stretched a circular area, an unnatural clearing at the hill’s peak, and it was at the southernmost end that they now stood. Its paved stones had once been fitted into spirals and patterns. The years had lifted some, cracked others, and hardy grass sprouted in uneven, green stains. Remains of surrounding buildings peered suspiciously from the forest that had crept over them, most now little more than foundations or persistent post and lintel constructions. Right in the middle was what must have once the focal point of the area. It was a small temple the likes of which neither the Kalkic or Furosan had seen before. Circular like the courtyard, it leaned at an uneasy angle, its stone foundations shifted and sunken over many years. Whatever wooden structure that had once surrounded it had long fallen away, leaving only the stone inner sanctum. The many cracked columns that held the domed roof aloft did so through the aid of the vines that coiled about them. It was so overgrown that neither of them could see inside. The vegetation created a natural screen.
“Makora’s temple,” Ifaut said, her voice little more than an awed whisper.
“Makora?” Saun asked. “What do you mean?” He took a step back, considering her with caution.
“The earth elemental.” She sat upon the uneven ground. Without quite knowing why she drew her knees to her chest and wrapped them safely in her arms. “Shizai told me I might find this here,” she continued as if to herself. She stared at the temple, her eyes wide and shining. “She told me not to tell you it was here. So I didn’t. You won’t get angry again, will you?”
Saun said nothing, remembering the last time he’d become frustrated with his kamae. Keeping this from him, he thought, hardly seemed to be worth the worry she afforded it. Then he realized: she must be fearing a reaction like on the beach.
“I won’t get angry,” he said, kneeling down to stroke her hair. It was a feeling he seemed to like even more than she did. He let the individual hairs slip through his fingers, each more precious to him than gold thread. She didn’t move or even show any sign of comfort.
“Did she say why not to tell me?” he continued, still savoring the sensation of her hair slipping through his grasp. His voice was cool, level. No hint of the anger Ifaut feared.
“No,” Ifaut answered and batted his hand aside. “That’s why I’m worried.”
“You’re not thinking I’ll get angry and that… Kardin… will show up again, are you?”
“Just a little,” she said. “I’m scared there might be something in there she didn’t want you to see, something that might hurt you.”
Saun flashed her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “You wait here. I’ll check it out.”
“No!” In a second she’d sprung to her feet and pressed her face against his chest. “No!” She made no other sound, but more tears moistened her eyes.
“Just this morning you wanted to explore,” he said, puzzled by her sudden mood change. Whether it was a Furosan thing or an Ifaut thing he didn’t know. He hoped it was the latter. And that it wasn’t a girl thing. If all girls were like this…
“I know. If Cédes were here she’d explain it. It’s called the Pishti Paradox. We’re all driven to explore the unknown, yet we fear it too. Only through exploring can we discover new things, even if the new things are our deepest fears. That’s what I worry will happen here, especially since Shizai warned against telling you.”
“Who’s Pisht
i?”
“A famous ferret who wandered beyond the world in search of eternal life, though no one knows what became of him.”
“Like this Keet you’ve mentioned, the one whose laws mean you have to look after me until we’re even?”
She turned away, looking at the ground. “Most scholars don’t think he even existed. Some say he’s just a name that represents living well, or a kits’ story to explain the Rainbow Bridge. But those laws…” She blushed. “I kinda made up that one about protecting you.”
“Now why would you do that?” he asked, despite knowing very well why the clingy Furosan might have.
She shrugged. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
Despite a few half-finished protestations from Ifaut, they approached where the entrance of the inner temple had once opened into the surrounding building. Between them it took only a few minutes to tear the vegetation from the wooden doors, and then it took just one strong kick from Ifaut to break through the rotten boards.
“Excited or worried?” Saun asked as his eyes adjusted to the dark interior. The dust of many years gone lay like a fine snow on the floor.
“Can it be both?” The Furosan’s own eyes took longer to adjust, yet she pushed past Saun and tiptoed inside. Like ferrets, her kind weren’t well equipped for seeing in the dark. Unlike with ferrets, the dark brought Furosans unease.
Weak sunlight revealed to their eyes what had been hidden for four hundred years, a shard of the legacy of peace sunken along with Minhera, preserved for eternity atop an island hill.
“If this is what Shizai didn’t want me to see,” Saun said, voice weighed low by the sanctity in the air, “she really doesn’t understand me.”
About a circular stone pedestal stood four statues, reflections of life set in stone: two Furosans, two humans, a male and female of each. Each of their right hands, frozen in friendship, met suspended above the pedestal, upon which sat half of a dull, cracked stone.
“Of course,” Ifaut whispered. “Here the Kalkics and Furosans lived in peace. No wars, no fighting, just co-operation. Then it sank. It all sank…”
She began to cry. Her tears fell upon the pedestal, leaving tiny pockmarks in the dust. “They got along then… why can’t everyone else now? How did we forget to live together? Why did we have to forget how to get along?” She knelt in the dust between the Kalkic male and Furosan female statues. “Why can’t these… these statues tell us the secret?”
Saun laughed, a sound not heard in the small temple for a very long time. It managed to soar despite the dead air, at last reaching Ifaut’s ears.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, squinting through her tears.
“You really are strange,” he said. He took her gently by the hand and helped her up, careful not to bump into the stone figures. “Can’t you see? I’m Kalkic, you’re Furosan. The secret to peace between Feregana’s races-”
“Is us! Not just us two, but all the Fieretka!” Ifaut finished. She began to cry again, now not mourning a lost secret to harmony, but spilling joy for a secret long dead that had been in plain sight all along.
After what seemed like another four hundred years had passed, Saun pried a clinging Ifaut from his chest.
“You know something? This stone… it looks familiar, doesn’t it?” He took the half-stone and wiped it clean on his shirt. Even after holding it up to the light it refused to gleam. Instead it seemed to absorb the sunlight, looking like a hollow, lifeless piece of what Ifaut soon recognized it as once being.
“It’s a stone like Cédes’s!” she squeaked. “Or half of one, anyway. Where do you think the rest is?”
Saun shrugged, never taking his eyes of the stone. Its dark depths beckoned, offering promises of power and what might have been had it remained whole. It seemed to recognize a lust for power within him, mindful of the darkness inside.
“Saun? Hello?” Ifaut rapped his head with her knuckles.
A sudden flash in his mind: the temple in better days; a young Kalkic woman and Furosan male; a struggle with men dressed in robes; the stone breaking; the earth roaring and shaking. Then chaos.
“Saun?”
He shook his head, loosening the grip of whatever visions had just seized him. “Yeah?”
“What’s wrong? You’ve just been standing there, ignoring me and looking at the stone.” She placed a caring hand on his shoulder.
The stone fell from Saun’s grasp and clattered into the sunlight that slanted through the door. “I think… I saw the past,” he said, his voice still weighted by what he’d seen.
“Huh?”
“This is Makora’s temple, isn’t it?”
Ifaut nodded.
“Whatever happened to Minhera… it’s because of what happened here. Something showed me.”
“Kardin,” Ifaut hissed. Her hand tightened on his shoulder, and she felt her claws beginning to press into soft flesh.
“The Kalkics here lived in peace with the Furosans, but other humans came. They wanted the power of Makora for themselves,” he said as if to himself, eyes flitting from statue to statue, not alighting on one for more than a few seconds. “The darkness in human hearts, we’ve seen how it’s drawn to the elementals. Look at poor Fairun. But long before her, they tried to take Makora’s power for themselves…” He shrugged of Ifaut’s firm grip, walked over to the stone, and picked it up again.
She could say nothing. Her words stuck in her throat, suppressed by what Saun had said.
“Their greed broke the stone.” He laughed nervously. “They got his power, all right. And a whole lot more.”
Ifaut found her attention to the words themselves wavering. Her keen ears picked up traces of something beneath the words, something much more sinister: a cold, hungry tone that chilled her. She gripped the hilt of her sword, hissing in breath through clenched teeth. “How do you know all this?”
Saun turned back to her. The face was his. The voice was someone else’s entirely. “I was there.”
“You again!’ she shrieked accusingly, and in one swift motion she’d swept her sword upwards from its scabbard and knocked the stone from his hand with the flat of the blade. She snatched it from the air with her free hand and shoved Saun aside, running back out into the courtyard. He didn’t follow, but watched from the temple’s doorway, framed by vines and leaves.
“Keep it,” he said from behind a dark grin. “Only one of Minheran blood can ever hope to call Makora back, even if that one happens to be… fearful and emotionally unstable.”
“I’m not shaking from fear,” she hissed, pointing her sword defiantly. “It’s because I hate you!”
As if in reply a throaty murmur sounded from some distance away, an earthy sound like many trumpets muffled by the earth.
“He recognizes your blood, even if the Minheran is but a drop in the ocean.” He turned west to face the noise as it rumbled again, closer. “He comes. He is weak. Better go save him!”
Ifaut could think of nothing to say, so tumultuous were her emotions. Kardin was back in Saun. But how to save him? And she’d likely just been tricked into calling Makora back for him.
“Your emotions are writ large on your disgusting face,” the darkness in Saun said. “You cannot and will not harm me since I bear his looks. Be rest assured that he can hear and see you, and that he will not shut up.” Suddenly his face looked troubled, the smug expression fading like the sun’s dying light. “Neither will the other one…”
“Other one? It couldn’t be…” Ifaut murmured. “Saun? Dead Saun, I mean?”
In an instant the walls of the years appeared to crumble from around the Kalkic, revealing a stunned voice from Ifaut’s childhood.
“Ifi?”
As the tears clouded her eyes she could think of only one thing. “I’m sorry, Saun.”
“I know,” he said in a soft, innocent voice, quite unlike Sansonis’s. “You did it, though. I was watching! You touched the sky on the flying ship, just like we always wanted to
do! So smile for me, will you? And go get the big ferret. The other guy’s holding off the darkness best he can, but he needs my help. He’s hopeless!”
She sniffed, weeping burning tears as a hundred different emotions spilled over. Sansonis… Saun… Kardin… It was all so confusing. None of it made sense. Anger, confusion, elation… it all churned within her. But beneath them all, relief. The guilt over a death she’d carried for many years, and he’d been there all along, silently watching and forgiving.
She swallowed hard, but her feelings wedged sideways in her throat. A hundred thoughts, a thousand emotions. Impossible to swallow. “I love you! I hate you! Who. In. Firik. Are. You?”
She broke into a sprint, leaving her kamae behind as a blank look fell over him.
Branches flailed and lashed about Ifaut’s face, doing their best to slow her passage. They tried in vain. The stinging pain they whipped upon her did little to slow her course. She was so driven by anger and fear that she barely noticed it. No, the pain in her heart, a hot, sticky sensation with the taste of vomit, hurt even more.
“I just want Sansonis back,” she panted, slashing branches blindly with her sword. “Not dead Saun, just Sansonis. No Kardin. Wanna go home. I hate all this.”
What troubled her most was the voice of her dead friend, the one she had long ago coerced up a tree with her youthful exuberance. The one she had seen broken and dead when they both fell. He was supposed to be dead, wasn’t he? Many times in the past she would have given anything to hear from him again, even a tiny sign to know he was all right, that he didn’t blame her for his death. But now… his appearance only made things worse.
To her sudden disgust she felt viscous hatred growing inside. It spread to her left hand, made her grip on the broken stone even stronger. “It’s bad enough you died on me,” she muttered. “I’m glad you’re okay, but just leave me and Sansonis. I’ll even make him have his old name.”
Breathless and exhausted of her tears, she stumbled from the cover of the trees into a brilliant sunlight that sparkled on the sighing waves. She’d come into a small sheltered bay, where two arms of the island spread out and curled protectively around the waters. In the middle loomed a long, grassy island sprouting tussocks and a stunted, salt-weathered elder tree. A lonely sort of thing it looked.
It growled.
“Wha?” Ifaut jumped and her tail puffed itself in shock. She looked again and noticed two points of light glimmering beneath the water. Eyes? Her gaze moved backwards, rising and falling with the island’s gentle curves. “Makora?”
In reply it unleashed a sonorous moan that rattled the air and Ifaut’s already fragile nerves. It drifted towards the stony beach, bobbing on the waves.
With what felt like a small earthquake the mass of earth lumbered onto the shore, each thumping footstep forcing Ifaut to seek her balance. Slowly, deliberately, its front end ran aground with a crunch of gravel, and its large head came at last to rest barely a meter from her. Despite how massive and ancient it was, what struck her most was the sadness that emanated from it in waves.
“Hello, there,” she whispered as it at last lay still. Its eyes may have been little more than cold, cracked rocks, but in them Ifaut imagined she could see pain. Sorrow. Fear. It saw the same in her eyes of flesh.
“I believe I have something of yours,” she whispered, extending her left hand to show it the broken stone.
It groaned weakly again in reply.
Footsteps crunched behind her. “You mean,” a dark voice said, “something of mine.”