Chapter 28
The queen froze in her tracks. Her royal highness shook with rage. Her bouncing daughter continued to chatter. "Mother! Tell her! You're supposed to be a mighty ruler! We're better than..."
"Enough, Riccid!" Mia spoke with volume only slightly over normal tone. Mantid gasps filtered through the crowd. Nobody talked to the great Queen Xyledes' daughter like that! Riccid fell quiet.
"Queen Xyledes, Princess Riccid." She had their attention, to say the least. The queen did not turn to face her, yet gave audience all the same. "Your duties lie here. Queen Xyledes, Mantadia requires your leadership. Princess Riccid, you must learn to be a leader yourself, as one day the jungle shall weep and it is then that you shall rule. It is not prudent for you to be a representative, as the dark snake shall attempt to prevail, and the rivers may run green but for the seed of the flower. It is for you to rule justly and prevail over the darkness that threatens your loyal subjects. Your duties lie here, for the life of royalty is a martyred one." Mia knew the words were not her own, but forever in history were known to all as the First Prophesy of Miagaff the Sorceress. The scribe had finished writing. She was stunned, even more so than others in the room, for she as a historian knew the deep historical proportion of what they had witnessed. As well did Finnegaff.
Xyledes stopped trembling. She slowly turned to face Mia. The hornets appeared on guard more so than ever, but Mia noticed them not. Her firm gaze was locked on the queen. "It is so," spoke the great Queen Xyledes, "that royalty is martyrdom." Xyledes looked down at her daughter. She placed a forearm gently about her shoulder. Her voice was soft, for a Mantid. "This is so, my loving child. Our duties lie here." She spoke in a way that placed an end to the spoiled Princess Riccid's thwarted demands. The tone of the queen's voice, formed by many such conflicts carried on within the royal family, was the learned indicator accepted by the two that brought finality to disagreement. And thus did closure come. They slowly turned away and walked down the hall. They left the chamber and went out into the courtyard and to privacy. Princess Riccid cried high, pitiful, chirping noises into her mother's arms.
Mia's knees were suddenly weak and shaky. Carameth had come to her aid from behind. He placed his strong hands on her shuddering shoulders. She began to cry.
"Not now. Cry later," he whispered in her ear. His words were few, yet powerful. They came to her as advisory to proper behavior for those of power, which certainly he was qualified to give. His voice carried wisdom, firm yet sympathetic, bonding.
Mia diverted her tears by focusing her thoughts on the tyrannical Queen Xyledes. The silence of the chamber broke into an excited murmuring buzz. Finnegaff was about to say something when a single messenger escorted Zimmictreckt and Karthich through the tall doors. He led them to the dais where the group stood.
Mia, Dielielle cradled on her arms, hands clasped, bounced up and down on her toes, then stopped the motion when she realized what she was doing. She smiled at the two Mantids. "Well?"
Zimm cocked her head. "Well what?" she asked.
It occurred to Mia that they might have not yet learned of their fate. It was Finnegaff who spoke. "Saa has chosen two representatives for Mantadia for the Carrying of the Book of Life." He smiled, arms folded across his chest. The Mantids stared at him.
"It is you!" Mia exclaimed. "You're going!"
Zimm's antennae were twisting in a most peculiar fashion. Karthich began the high chirping crying of Mantids.
"Karthich goes with us." Finnegaff explained.
"She is not of age!" Zimm said. "She cannot!" Karthich cried, horrified at the thought of being left alone.
"Saa ordered it and Queen Xyledes upheld the order!" Mia was excited for the two.
"I...I, too?" tiny Karthich squeaked. She hardly measured three feet in length.
"Well, yes," Finnegaff told them. "Saa says that both of you accompany us."
The two Mantids joined forearms, bounced in tandem and chittered wildly, which was different from chirping. Mia assumed correctly that it was a Mantid's way of expressing elation. Not that there was any difficulty in the interpretation, considering the circumstance.
"I don't mean to interfere with celebration, Saa forbid!" Finnegaff looked upward. "But would you please not bounce?" Zimm and Karthich ceased bouncing and resorted to hugging each other, as Mantids do.
Finnegaff walked toward Skallagaff, who stood to the side of the dais, away from the celebration. He said nothing, but looked at her with a serious, questioning tone. "Ah, beloved Finnegaff!" She spoke in whispers as she placed her foreleg about his shoulder. "I do know! I couldn't allow dear Karthich to remain here, Saa or otherwise. It would have killed her."
"So it is otherwise," he confirmed. She nodded. "Yet another child added to the Carrying!" He sighed. He looked at the two little Mantids. They were bouncing again. "Why is it," he stroked his beard, "that I seem to get the assignments that I do?"
"I believe it is because you ask for them!" Skallagaff answered.
"Ask?!" He released his beard and his eyes opened wide. "I think not!" He thought but for a moment. "Well, yes. I suppose I do at that! Dear Skallagaff, Saa has blessed you with wisdom!"
"Yes," the Mantid wizard curled both of her antennae, smiling as Mantids do. "I know!"
Early that afternoon, they prepared to depart Rass, and all were anxious to get under way. Karthich and Zimm were so ecstatic that they were of little aid in the preparations. Their mutual condition did benefit them such that they were not bothered by the antics of the duty-bound Belemeriath, who flirted with them right from the start. It seemed so very odd to Mia that the little fairy flirted with any female, regardless of species. But it didn't seem so very odd to him.
They set out for the Bay of Whales, a day to the north of Rass, which they expected to reach by mid afternoon of the next day. With the scent of two female Mantids with them, the wild male Mantids were virtually unseen. The role of guide was fulfilled as both Zimm and Karthich were familiar with the route to the bay.
They walked their horses, and Mia walked beside Finnegaff. "I've not seen two representatives chosen from a single race," he spoke quietly to her. "I know it was not entirely of Saa, yet..." He eyed her suspiciously.
"It was my idea," Mia interrupted with a shrug. "Well, at first. I freaked when Skallagaff scanned me the second time! I felt her Saa, except it didn't feel like it did with Zimm."
"No, it wouldn't. That's because Skallagaff was acting on her own."
"It wasn't Saa?!" She said.
“Well, yes and no. It was Saa, yet it was Skallagaff, you see. She knows Karthich quite well."
“Well!” Mia said. “That really clears things up.”
“Hmmm. Yes, it does.”
Mia shook her head and changed the subject because in fact, it cleared up nothing. "It felt different when Skallagaff scanned me the second time!"
"Skallagaff did what?"
"You know." She knew he knew.
He asked anyway. "Well, yes. Yamasaa. But what did you call it?"
"Scan. She scanned me."
"Scanned. I like that. Scan. Very clever." He laughed to himself. He shifted his gaze to dead ahead. "Yet I think it not so funny that you chose teenagers again."
"I didn't pick them." Mia said.
"I wasn't talking to you."
"Then who were you talking to?"
"Who do you suppose, dear?"
"Saa?"
"Yes. Well, what did you intend to do about Karthich? Before Skallagaff intervened, that is."
Mia didn’t answer.
“Uh, Miagaff, dear?” Finnegaff said.
“Oh!” she said. “Were you talking to me?”
“Well, yes! Who did you think I was talking to?”
Mia shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Finnegaff? Never mind,” she breathed. “What did you ask?”
“I asked you what you had intended to do about Kar...”
“Yeah. Okay! I remember!” Mia interrupted, waving
him off. She thought of her answer. "Actually, no matter who Saa chose, I was going to try to talk Xyledes into allowing Zimm and Karthich to go with us. I didn't know how, just that I wanted to. When Zimm was picked, it kinda helped."
"Do you know what you said to the queen? Just before she and Riccid left?" He held his forward gaze.
She winced at the question, feeling caught off guard, having not predicted it. "I'm sorry! Look, I know I was a little rude, and I hope I didn't tick her off too bad..."
"No, no. Not that," Finnegaff said. "The part about the jungle."
"Jungle?!" Mia puzzled. She shrugged again. "I pretty much just told her that she belongs here. I kinda thought about it last night, and I hoped I had the chance to tell them off. I'm sorry! I just didn't think I'd be so rude. I guess it really wasn't what I planned on saying. In fact, I don't think it was me doing all the talking."
"It wasn't. You've given a prophecy of Saa." It was the way he said it that caught her.
"Uh...so?"
"So, it creates a pretty curious situation, and creates many questions." He had that tone.
Mia knew that when Finnegaff started talking like he was just then, in mysteries without blurting out the point, it most often meant that things were about to get confusing. "I don't know if I wanna know about this," she mumbled.
"It doesn't matter. I'm gonna tell you anyway." Finnegaff grinned the smile that Mia called his 'grampa smile'. She was compelled to a sort of secure comfort each time he blessed her with it. "Oh, don't worry, dear! It is all good!"
"Okay." She smiled back at him. "Let's hear it. But you have to say ‘it’s all good', not 'it is all good'!"
Finnegaff knitted his eyebrows. "What?" he frowned in an over dramatized fashion.
"Never mind!"
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "Yes. Well, it would seem that you have given a prophecy of Saa!"
"Wizards do that all the time."
"Nope. It's never happened before."
"Yes it has!" Mia protested. Like she was going to tell the head of the wizard's council. "Uh, what about all the proverbs?"
"Those are proverbs, dear, codes by which to live life. Prophesy is the foretelling of things to come."
"What did you mean," Carameth joined the conversation, addressing Mia, "by 'the jungle shall weep?' "
Mia looked puzzled. "I didn't say that!"
"Yes! You did!" Finnegaff proclaimed. "Rather, those words came out of your mouth."
"Wait a second!" She halted the conversation. A light went on. "I know what prophesy means! It means, like, to tell the future!"
"Yes," Finnegaff nodded. "Something like that."
Mia stopped walking. A chill ran down her spine as the gravity of what she’d done set in. Almost without thought, she sat on a fallen log. Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh, Saa!” she whispered. "Man!” She was quiet for a moment as she absorbed, maybe even accepted, what Saa had given her, and the implications of such weight. “All I remember,” Mia spoke slowly, trying in vain to recall her exact words, "is saying that Xyledes and Riccid have jobs to do here." She paraphrased. "I told Riccid that someday she'll be the queen, and she needs to get it together."
"That's not precisely what you said," Finnegaff corrected.
"I know. But it's what I meant. I can't remember it exactly." She shook her head. "So what does all this mean? That I can predict the future?"
Finnegaff stroked his beard. "Well, yes and no." Mia really hated that answer. "It means that we need to write down things when Saa speaks through you. It must be done with perfect accuracy, neither adding to nor taking away from your words."
Karthich, who had been silent until then, spoke. "I have my writing book," she buzzed. "I have kept histories for the jail for a long time. Can I write them?"
Finnegaff thought about the offer. He had employed scribes before, and if what he believed to be happening was true, the accounts of Saa that Mia gave would have to be recorded accurately and untainted, the dedication of a scribe unerring. He himself had taken a few moments to note the meeting, at least the highlights, but he detested the job, greatly doubting later translation of his sloppy notes, even by himself. And perhaps there was more to the selection of Karthich to Mia’s Stand than first thought. He had, in fact, just then become very certain of this. "How fast can you write legibly?" he asked the little Mantid.
Karthich shrugged as Mantids do, her antennae bouncing once over one small distance. "I am training to be a scribe."
"She writes much faster than I can talk." Zimm answered for her modest friend. She verified when Finnegaff gave her a questioning look. "I help her practice."
Finnegaff called for the party to stop for a breather. They chose a large log to sit on. Strongwind and Carameth unsaddled the horses. Finnegaff asked Karthich to remove her book from her pack to write something. She opened the foot-square deep red leather-bound scribe's book, secured the book in one forearm, her quill in the other, her ink well in still another, stood on three legs and prepared to write.
"What do you want me to write?" she asked.
"Just write down whatever I say." As he finished his sentence, Karthich had clearly written what he spoke, word for word. Finnegaff observed over her shoulder. "That was very good, Karthich. Very good." She wrote that down, too. "You can stop now." That she wrote as well. "Karthich, that is enough. You may stop." She was still writing. "Karthich..." Still she wrote, ending with her own name while twittering the laugh of Mantids. Finnegaff reached down to the quivering Mantid. He snatched the quill pen from her fore claw. "I can tell that you'll fit right in with this stand!" He smiled as he handed the quill back to the little Mantid. "You got the job already! You'll make a fine scribe! Let's not waste ink, shall we?" He smiled and shook his head.
They spent the next hour or more helping Karthich write down everything Mia had said during her final encounter with Queen Xyledes. Karthich had not been there, but between the rest of them who had, they managed to agree on the transcription.
Mia read the passage for the tenth time. "Wow!" she breathed. "I don't remember most of this!"
"Next time it happens you may or may not recall Saa's words." Finnegaff raised one eyebrow. "Prophesy has never happened before, at least not like this. One has nothing from which to draw."
"Great!" Mia sighed with sarcasm. Her reaction caused her to recall Aaramerielle's comments when she had done the same to her elf friend during her early days at Marigaff's Farm. She tried to repair. "Uh, okay. We'll just have to start writing things down, then, won't we?" She smiled sweetly at the old wizard, Karthich, Romessee, and Strongwind. Her eyes stopped at and stayed on Carameth. Her heart warmed as she looked at the striking elf. Finnegaff rolled his eyes.
Ensured that Karthich was aware of the signs given when a wizard called upon Saa, he emphasized that each time Mia invoked the power she must be ready to write. Finnegaff left the importance of the job without wonder.
Dusk came quickly in the rain forest. Everything was wet. Although the rain forest was beautiful by its own right, Mia couldn't wait to journey to a dryer climate. She was constantly uncomfortable, drenched in sweat, and had chafed in places that she would not admit. Even after setting their tent and Strongwind his awning, for surely it would rain that night, she was uncomfortable.
It was noon the next day when the party had reached the Bay of Whales.
"Whales! Whales!" Belemeriath reported. Sure enough, a short distance from shore, three of the great beasts breached the surface, sending spouts yards into the air. They were so close that Mia could hear them exhale. Belemeriath flew like a rocket to the first of them. The whale raised his huge head from the water. Belemeriath circled him.
"What's he doing?" Mia tugged on Finnegaff's sleeve.
"Visiting. He knows them." He had a tight smile. "He knows everybody."
"Right." Mia laughed. "Like whales can talk!" She laughed. The rest of Mia's Stand was not laughing.
“What?” she said, sh
aking her head. It then dawned on her that the world of Morrah contained many differences from her own. “They can talk?!”
"Well, yes," Finnegaff stated. "Naturally!"
"Oh!” Mia slapped her thigh. "So, I suppose they can."
Belemeriath sped back to shore and hovered amongst the company. "That was my friend, Crasher. But that's not his real name! His real name is Crasher of the Waves that Break in the Minimus Ocean and Love to Breach their Shining Light, as Coming from a Depth that Many..."
Finnegaff cut him off with a raised hand and an interruption. "We don't have need to hear the whole name, friend fairy! Whales," he told Mia, "have names many times longer than their great size. They pride themselves on it. I never quite understood what drives them to do this."
"Will we be able to talk to them?" Mia was excited.
"Probably. If we can find a boat!" Finnegaff held a hand across his brow to shade the noonday sun as he peered down the rock-dotted sandy beach. Three-foot waves broke along the softly curving mile or so sandy shoreline that bent out of their line of vision where the beach made a point out into the sea.
"We're gonna take a boat across the bay?" Mia said. "What about the Land of Lost Memories? Don't we have to go back through?"
"No. We'll sail around it. The other side of the bay is Awlland, and the Plains of the Great Beasts."
Strongwind piped up. "Then we be not returning as we came." He stroked his beard, head tipped back. "Tell us, then, good wizard, why did we be nearly killed in the Land of Lost Memories, when we might have sailed about it?" Each member of the party caught on. They awaited the good wizard's answer.
Finnegaff pushed his hat back on his head when he spoke. "Because, companions, Saa has predestined our route. It's not my choice." Which was most factual. "Yes. Well," he squinted upward; "it's so directed that it hadn't even occurred to me to circumvent the Land of Lost Memories." All members of the party looked him in the eye, and Finnegaff acknowledged them one at a time.
"We're all safe and sound!" He held his hands palms up. He then crossed his arms. "Karthich, dear. Would you please scribe." It was not a question. In a flash the little Mantid had her book in one claw, pen in her other claw and ink in the third, which, as everyone knows, is a feat that few other intelligent races are capable of performing. "It's not the kind of thing one questions." Karthich wrote. All listened to the now authoritative wizard, who did on occasion find himself in story telling moods. "For the Carrying of the Book of Life to pass through the Land of Lost Memories is important to Saa, and why? We have theories, but nothing real solid. If we skipped parts of the Carrying, perhaps nothing would happened. But most likely something would, because whatever is ordained by Saa is done for our good, and once tarnished, the tarnish spreads. This tarnish happens a lot; that's why the Wizard's Council was formed. But to directives where the Book of Life is concerned is big compared to the events we contend with daily, even gargantuan. Some directive may seem trivial at the time, but will affect things down the road, and the results might be more than what we are capable of handling.
"The directives of Saa for the Carrying of the Book of Life are simple: It must be carried by the outworlder Carrier through each country of Morrah. The Reading can only take place at the Hall of the Giants and only after the elapse of four hundred years or more since the last Reading. The Giants are then charged the Book's keep until the next outworlder is summoned, four hundred years later. It's how the cycle works. These are the directives of Saa for the Carrying of the Book of Life. Oh! And one representative from each of the races has to be selected by the Carrier along the way, and the same present at the Reading of the Book of Life. "
Romessee became involved in the conversation. "But what do those directives have to do with the Land?" she asked, referring to the Land of Lost Memories.
"Ah!" Finnegaff raised a finger into the air. "I've studied this for centuries," he shot a glance in Karthich's direction to make sure she was writing, "but I have few facts. Only theories. I, myself, believe the Book of Life passing through said, uh, Land," he motioned to Romessee, adopting the shortened version of the name, "must in some way at some point be important to the Carrying. It's as if the fogs are indeed elemental to the Carrying. That's what I believe, because the fogs are ancient, although how so, it's not known. There are those who believe fogs to have existed even before the elves of old." He paused for dramatic effect, and for no other purpose. "Saa does not always give reason, for the reason is not to be given."
"What mean you by this?" Strongwind asked.
"I cannot say," Finnegaff told his manhorse friend.
"Mean you that you are without liberty to say, or mean you..."
"Don't even go there!" Mia interjected, holding a hand in the air, palm out. "Don't even!"
Finnegaff, aided by members of the stand, recounted the crossing of the Land of Lost Memories. Karthich scribed unerringly. By the finish of the old wizard's dissertations, Karthich had written four full pages, front and back. It could be seen, even if one was not a Mantid, that Karthich was very proud of her position. She was diligent, and she kept her charge well.
Mia's Stand took advantage of the warm Bay of Whales by removing boots and playing in the waves for a time. Mia, Carameth, Belemeriath, Strongwind and Romessee took right to the sea; Zimm and Karthich were a bit reluctant for, as everyone knows, Mantids have an aversion to swimming. But more so than this distaste for water, the two little Mantids harbored a deep uncertainty regarding their acceptance by the members of Mia's Stand. They had never been included in group escapades, most certainly never with opened-arm welcome from peers! But soon they were all playing in the salty bay, even Finnegaff for a short while. They learned that Strongwind could make a horrendous splash. Carameth allowed Mia to tackle him at one point. The moment soaked them with both seawater and feelings that they would keep for a long, long time.
Soon Finnegaff indicated their need for departure. All solemnly gathered their belongings as the moments slipped away into sweet, fond memory. Zimm told them there was a town, a fishing village a few leagues up the coast. From there the services of a ferry might be enlisted. The group followed the navigable shoreline. Strongwind in particular appreciated the ease of travel on this particular terrain, for with his bulk, rain forests proved to be difficult to traverse.
The sun was soon to set over the rain forest when they came within sight of the tiny village. Hardly a village it was, comprised only of old, weathered shacks with enough space between them that it might be called rural in some lands. Two streets paralleled the shoreline with shanties, some being houses, others, shops. The structures numbered less than fifty. Most of the buildings were Mantid, but several were human. As they walked the street nearest the shore, little heed was paid them except for friendly 'great days' or 'hello, neighbors'. Boats that were moored at the several small wooden docks were busy with fisherman mending nets that hung on long poles. Gulls laughed as they begged scraps. A warm, salty wind, gaining in intensity, blew in from the bay. Distant black, billowy cumulus clouds loomed on the eastern horizon, promising the night's rain.
They stopped at an old, tired inn bearing a hanging shingle, a worn, weathered wooden sign with a red over black picture of a boat with an exaggerated crow's nest. A silly cartoon-like sailor leaned from the crow's nest in impossible balance while swinging a mug. The words 'The Crow's Nest' were neatly lettered on the bottom of the sign. Finnegaff went inside while the others waited. Soon he returned with rights to rooms for the evening. Strongwind, much to his delight, was offered the stable on the side of the building, more suitable for his stature and, of course, in the good company of the stand's horses. They set their belongings in their quarters, then went about the task of locating the ferryman, which was not so difficult in such a small town.
The ferry was a well-kept boat sixty feet in length boasting three masts with a large, flat deck. She operated as a cargo vessel as well as a ferry, and shared the moor with no other craft. A small, t
wo room board-sided gray shanty that housed the Captain, owner and operator of the ferry, was stationed at the foot of the dock. A thin, elderly man was whittling, seated in a rocking chair with his bare feet up on the railing of the wooden-planked covered porch. His baggy, light blue breeches frayed at the ends, exposing his callused bare feet. His shirt, off white, was the closest thing to a tee shirt Mia had seen so far in Morrah. He didn't even raise his head as they approached.