Ch. 1–Part 1: The Juniper Box

Ash & Stone

Not bothering to hide his excitement, Kelt Haldor set the small box on his workbench, directly under the laboratory’s skyglass. The entire room seemed to anxiously hold its breath as his elderly fingers struggled with the hook that held the polished juniper-wood box closed. Finally working the latch free, Kelt slowly lifted the lid. In an instant, the room seemed to explode with color as light reflected off hundreds of colorful gems within the box, turning the walls into a tapestry of shimmering greens, blues and reds. The silence and wonder of the moment was broken by the old man’s hearty laugh.

Two teenage boys peered over Kelt’s shoulders, hoping to catch a glimpse of the contents of the package. The shorter boy looked back and forth between the box and the man, a look of confusion in his eyes. “This is it?”

When the old man didn’t respond, he prodded further. “It looks just like every other shipment we get. You’ve had us riding down to the Keep every day for the last month, insisting that we collect it as soon as it showed up, and it’s just another box of gems? I don’t get it, Jay. What gives?”

Kelt sighed as the elation of the moment dissipated, carefully setting the few gems he had picked up back into the box and closing its lid. Closing his eyes, he lifted his hands to rub his temples, as if to massage away a headache that had just started to form. Slowly, he turned to face the two boys.

“Filip, I will never understand why you insist on calling me by a moniker that has no relation in any way to my name. A modicum of respect would be nice for once.”

Filip grunted as the taller boy elbowed him for upsetting the elderly man. But despite the old man’s rebuke and exaggerated display of annoyance, Kelt’s wrinkled cheeks dimpled ever so slightly as he was unable to completely hide his good mood. In truth, Kelt was never truly bothered by Filip’s lack of manners, and even found it secretly endearing that the boy felt comfortable enough with him to speak in such an informal tone.

“And in response to your question,” Kelt continued, his eyes sliding back towards the box on the table, “this is no ordinary shipment of jewels. These come from the finest gemcutters in the Third Land, and I wanted to make sure that I received them as soon as they arrived in town. You never can be too careful with items as valuable as this particular batch of gems.”

The boys looked at each other, and then back at the box, not sure whether they would get further explanation. Seeing their uncertainty, Kelt sighed, and then turned the exchange into a lecture. Addressing the taller boy, he asked, “Dakk, when was the last time we received a shipment from the Third Land?”

“If I recall correctly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a shipment from anywhere but the Second and Fourth Lands, sir.”

“That is because you haven’t. The last shipment that I received from the Third Land was nearly five cycles back. Long before you boys arrived. And what would make a package of gems from the Third Land so special, Filip?”

“Is it because of their gem cutters? I believe you once said the Miltas cutters in the Third Land are known to make the most precise cuts of any gem cutters in the world. They also have an entire university dedicated to geology and the largest repository of gem-related information in the world.”

“Very good!” Kelt seemed genuinely pleased, and Filip smiled at the praise, taking the opportunity to give Dakk a retaliatory elbow. The taller boy just rolled his eyes, letting Kelt continue his lecture.

“As Filip pointed out, and as you both should remember from our discussions from earlier last cycle, neither of the Second nor the Fourth Lands have gem cutters that can rival those of the Third Land.” Taking the box in his hands, he carefully opened the lid to allow the boys to peer at the gems within before continuing, “Based on past experiences I’ve had with Miltas gems, each facet and angle of these stones is cut with nearly perfect precision, each angle aligned so as to take maximum advantage of each gem’s specific refractivity. In fact…”

Kelt trailed off, a smile spreading across his face as he looked down again at the box and contemplated what it represented. He had resisted mentioning anything to the boys about his plans for these jewels, and he still wasn’t sure if they were ready for the next lesson he hoped to give them.

Not that they couldn’t learn what he needed to teach them. No, these boys had absorbed everything he had ever taught them like a dry sponge. Rather, Kelt wasn’t sure if they were ready to confront the dangers that would surely arise once they gained access to the knowledge he had carried alone for so long.

Prologue: The Fifth Morning

The Telling

“Our Story is our salvation.”

Until tonight, those were the only words any of us had heard him speak, and he had only spoken them on two occasions.

The first was when I found him clinging to life the morning after the last double moon tide. Such tides often made for good salvage when they retreated, and I had been walking the beach when I saw his wreckage. He was lying motionless in a tide pool amidst the large pile of debris, and at first I assumed he was dead. But as I drew nearer, I heard his delirious chant. He was repeating the words in a whispered scream that chilled me like the frontwinds that precede a greatstorm. It seemed as though the words themselves sustained him, that he dare not pass until he had shared their full meaning.

The second time I heard the words was four days later, on the fifth morning after he washed ashore. For 4 days, he had done little but sleep, arising only at each of First’s and Second’s risings to sate his hunger and thirst, before sinking back into sleep in the village healer’s hut. But on that fifth morning, when I brought him a bowl of rice, just as I had done each morning previous, he grabbed me, and his empty gaze locked me in place. Too startled to do anything else, I stood still as he spoke the phrase a single time in a loud and clear voice. Our Story is our salvation. Again, the words chilled me and I could not help but feel they were a portent of some greatstorm just over the horizon. He then released me from both his grip and his gaze, motioned towards the ground, and leaned back, falling asleep almost immediately.

Looking at where he had pointed, I found three words scrawled in the dirt: “Telling. Second’s rising.”

*  *  *

He was already awake when I arrived with another bowl of rice that evening, just an hour before the second moon would rise. His grey eyes stared emptily at the floor, seemingly weighted down by whatever thoughts were coursing through his mind. I noticed that he now wore the only belongings that had been found in his wreckage: a plain knife held to his waist by a beautifully-crafted sheath and braided leather, as well as a thin silver bracelet.

I set down the bowl, and startled when I realized he had shifted his focus towards me, his eyes seeming to penetrate me to my very soul. As I once again found myself unable to move from under his gaze, the emptiness in his eyes seemed to dissipate. After what seemed a short eternity, he released me from his focus and motioned at my clothes. He then took off his bracelet, and held it out as if in trade.

Hesitant, I looked at him questioningly, but he continued to hold out the adornment, clearly intending for me to have it. Taking it from his outstretched hand, I noticed that there were 5 gems embedded along the inside face which had not been visible when worn. I looked again at the man, incredulous at his offer. This bracelet was more valuable than all of my possessions together, perhaps more than those of the entire village, there surely was nothing I could give this man that would be worth such a valuable trade. But the man simply motioned once more at my clothes.

I regarded him again, expecting to see a hint of madness, but his mind seemed to be more present than in any other moment since he had arrived. Deciding that there was no sinister motive, but that perhaps maybe he simply valued things differently where he was from, I removed my clothes–except for my swimming cloth, of course–and gave them to him before turning and leaving the hut. As I left, still in disbelief at my good fortune, I noticed the man peering peacefully up at the ceiling, eyes a quiet green, smiling as though he had just been relieved of a great burden.

* * *

None in the village knew the full meaning of the short note he had left that morning, but all except the smallest children gathered in or around the healer’s hut shortly before the second moon had risen, expectation thick in the evening air. I had returned home to hide the bracelet and to put on another set of clothes, and while there I grabbed my quill and a bundle of papers. I could not shake the feeling that tonight, something important would happen, for good or for bad. Whatever it was, I would do well to have a record of it.

He was sitting still on his grass mat bed, legs crossed, his eyes once more empty and grey, staring at the ground. His body leaned against the side of the hut as though it had just walked a hundred miles and still had one more to go before it would find rest. His grey hair, which just an hour previous had still been snarled into a mat that hung below his shoulders, was now cut short. The cuts were uneven and jagged, likely made by his knife, but the absence of the snarled plait of hair improved his appearance considerable. His thin beard, previously wisping below his neckline, had also been cut to a respectable length. His shredded clothes had been replaced with the clean cotton pants and a shirt that I had recently traded him. Despite his empty eyes, his appearance tonight hinted of a once noble man.

In the instant that Second’s first light peered over the horizon, the man’s eyes shot up, no longer empty, filled with such furious blue color that everybody in the hut stepped back, surprised at the sudden change that had overtaken him. The man’s body stiffened and leaned slightly forward, as if he were preparing rise up and run from the hut, to flee from whatever this task was that he had set for himself.

But the man breathed out a slow, long sigh, and with it the tension and fury that had been manifest just moments before also bled away. His body relaxed and his eyes softened, the blue now replaced with a dark purple, evidence of a deep sadness that had just resurfaced. He drew a long, slow drink from a water bowl that sat next to him, and he spoke, loud enough for those outside the hut to hear but with such a hushed reverence that even the youngest children present quieted down. And thus began the First Telling.

“Our Story is our salvation, and I give you mine, should you receive it. I give you my Story that you may learn. I give you my Story that your lives may be better. May the gods accept this Telling as my penance and accept me into their peace upon my Story’s end.”