Travel was slower along the stream. They ended up traveling upstream farther from the water than Sophia liked, but at least they could still see it in the distance. Even with the slower travel, it was less than an hour before the landscape began to change. At first, it was subtle; there were fewer spirits and there were fewer types of plant, more flowers and fewer bushes and trees. It wasn’t too long after Sophia noticed the change that they were able to move closer to the water.
Eventually, they reached the source of the stream. Sophia expected it to be a small hillside spring, but it was instead a shallow pool of water in a stone-lined hollow below a huge tree. That tree, along with two others, were carved into squared-off pillars with inset runes that glowed an eerie orange color. Stone steps created short paths that led between the three trees. Flowers covered the areas that weren’t paths, water, or well-kept grass.
It was very obviously not a wild area, unlike the forest they’d just traveled through.
image [https://i.imgur.com/oFz8lLy.jpeg]
“This is the first rest point,” Si’a said with a soft smile. “I am the only spirit permitted near the three pillars until your time in the Spring Forest is over. I will warn you when it is time to move on.”
“These trees, I’ve never seen anything like them,” Amy muttered as she walked up to the closest one. “Is this the first learning point you mentioned, where you can learn Mistform or Cloud Body?”
“It should be,” Larryt agreed. “It’s always three trees and the symbols look right.” He sighed, then muttered, “I think they look right. They’re the right color, but they’re not clear to me.”
“You watch,” Si’a stated firmly with a hint of chill to her words. “You’re allowed here but no more. Do not expect things you have not earned.”
It was probably not the best time to ask, but Sophia doubted she’d remember if she didn’t ask now. “Ah, Si’a? Can you tell us about the meaning of the riddle now? What the beginning and the end actually meant?”
Si’a tilted her head to the side. For a long moment, Sophia thought she was going to refuse to answer or claim she didn’t understand the question. Her expression softened and an eyebrow rose. “It will not help. The question is different each time, as is the ground. It is the meaning that you give it that matters.”
“I still want to know,” Sophia insisted.
Si’a raised her shoulders slightly, then dropped them as if she’d reconsidered shrugging. “With your choice of meaning, upstream led here and downstream led onwards into summer. For another, upstream might lead to winter or to a thicket of spirits that cannot be passed. There are some who must cross the water instead, but for you that would have led to enough spirits to make you turn back; it was not possible to cross without touching a spirit of the water or air.”
“There’s no point in asking them what the choices mean,” Larryt added. “The guide always says something like that, that it’s the meaning you give it. It doesn’t really matter which choice you make; you hope you’re right and if you aren’t you take the other path when you find out you aren’t.”
Sophia shook her head. She was pretty sure there was something in what Si’a said that didn’t match Larryt’s depressing confidence that the choices didn’t matter. It sounded almost like the Challenge adjusted to the reason behind the choice. It probably wouldn’t always be easy to dictate where things were, but it would almost certainly be better than random chance as long as she explained her reasoning out loud so the Challenge could hear it. “That may be how the Cloud Clan does it, but I’m going to keep trying.”
“Didn’t you hear what she said? She said that for you this was the right way, but someone else would find only a path to the winter forest. You pick a path, then try a different way if it doesn’t work.” Larryt sounded frustrated.
“No, she said that with Sophia’s choice of meaning, upstream led here.” Dav’s words were quiet but clear. “That sounds a lot like the destinations change based on what you think the question means. That is definitely not random chance; I bet that if you decide to flip a coin because you don’t know which way to go and it doesn’t matter, you will always pick the wrong direction. I know that’s what I’d do if I were the one making the choices. Now, can we stop wasting time arguing and find out which pillar is which?”
Larryt gaped at Dav for a long moment, then seemed to remember he was supposed to be a guide. “The one closest to us should be Mistform, with Cloud Body off to the left. Ignore the one to the right. I can’t make you move on, but you shouldn’t spend much time here; those Abilities are hard to learn and you’d be better served saving the time to use on later Abilities.”
Sophia glanced over at Si’a to see how she took the information Larryt was handing out. It seemed far less cryptic than Si’a liked, but all she did was roll her eyes and shake her head. Sophia guessed that was probably because Larryt’s information wasn’t prohibited but also wasn’t complete.
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She grinned. Maybe it would be good to ask Si’a to confirm his information, or to give more. She definitely wasn’t asking Si’a just because she was annoyed at Larryt and wanted to rub it in. That would be childish. “Si’a? What can you tell us about the pillars?”
A smile flickered across Si’a’s face for a moment, just long enough to make Sophia wonder if the ghost knew exactly what Sophia was thinking or not. “These three trees hold a spell. That is all I can tell you about them.”
Sophia nodded. That wasn’t new information; it matched Larryt’s description. She made her way up to the first tree; she might not be interested in either Mistform or Cloud Body since Storm Phase did everything she needed, but she still wanted to look.
“Three spells, one per tree, or one spell across three trees?” Dav asked Si’a behind her. “The way you said that, it sounds like there’s only one spell, but Larryt said there are two.”
“I can’t tell you more about the trees,” Si’a repeated. “Look at them yourself and see what you can figure out.”
It was too bad there wasn’t another clue, but Sophia hadn’t really expected one. Larryt was definitely not the best guide they could have gotten, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know anything. She could disagree with him without assuming that he was always wrong.
There was something familiar about the design on the pillar, but Sophia couldn’t immediately place it. She was certain it was something she knew well, which made it frustrating, but surely it would come to her in time. With her luck, it would probably occur to her right after they left and she couldn’t go back and confirm if she was right or not.
Sophia walked around the pillar, examining the drawings. There had to be a place to start.
She was about a quarter of the way around the tree when a word caught her eye. She glanced up and saw a short series of hieroglyphs carved into the wood above the glowing part of the pillar. They were familiar to Sophia; Bridge was the second language she learned and she was just as fluent in it as she was with English or Suras. The hieroglyphs were almost exactly the same as the ones her ever-so-great grandfather’s people used for Bridge. It took her a moment to puzzle out the translation.
“Mist in the Sun?” She was pretty sure about the translation. She might prefer to write Bridge in the alphabet she was used to, but the hieroglyphs were more commonly known once you were off Earth. She had to know them if she wanted to buy anything that was imported. Sophia turned towards Larryt and raised her voice. “Larryt? Didn’t you say the Ability was Mistform, not Mist in the Sun?”
“It is,” Larryt climbed the stairs to stand beside Sophia. He glanced at the tree, then shook his head. “Is the description in there somewhere? I don’t remember seeing any words.”
“It’s not in English, and the glyphs are a bit stylized,” Sophia admitted. “The part that doesn’t glow, above the words. Most of that’s just decoration, unless it’s a language I don’t know, but this bit says Mist in the Sun. What’s the description?”
She was pretty sure it wasn’t another language, because it was the same pattern over and over again, but she couldn’t guarantee anything. The fact that her Innate Communication Ability didn’t seem to do anything didn’t mean it wasn’t a language. She literally hadn’t seen it do anything at all yet. Of course, she also hadn’t really tested it, had she?
“Mistform, let’s see. Here it is.” Larryt muttered to himself with his attention on the image in front of himself instead of on Sophia. “Become mist in the sun, intangible and difficult to notice. It’s a pretty good description of what it feels like; people forget you’re there even if they should know better.”
Sophia nodded. It was strange to see a fragment of the description above one quarter of the pillar. She walked around the other four sides, but there didn’t seem to be any other actual words above or below the glowing symbols. There was only one other thing she could think of; she really needed to know if that Ability would translate a language she didn’t know. Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy to test on herself.
Dav had the same Ability. He was already looking at the same pillar she was, but he was on the wrong side to see the words, since he was still below the steps instead of next to the tree.
Sophia smiled and did something she probably should have months ago when they first landed in that cavern under Old Kestii. She spoke to Dav in Suras, a language he definitely shouldn’t know since it wasn’t even a human language. “Dav? Can you come here?”
Dav looked up and blinked. His head tilted sideways a bit and a frown crossed his face for a moment before he started to climb the steps. “Sure.”
His words were in Suras, not English. Sophia froze for a moment and stared at him. Did he really not know the language? “What language are we speaking?”
Dav seemed to pause for a moment, then frowned. Sophia was pretty sure that was when he realized he wasn’t hearing English words.
His next words were in English. “I’m not sure. I’m talking in English now, but what you said earlier wasn’t. I only know a few words in other languages, and I don’t even know what that language is.”
“Suras,” Sophia answered easily, back in English. “I spent a lot of time on Suratiz as a kid, usually some of every summer. I realized we never tested Innate Communication, and I want to know if you can read that.”
Dav huffed slightly, then shook his head. “I figured it was the excuse for why everyone spoke English.” A grin spread across his face. “Never went back to check that assumption when I found out this all was real. I guess I can tell the difference. Now, where … oh, up at the top? It says the sun shines through the mist. No, wait, it says the mist glows in sunlight. Why is it changing?”
“It’s Bridge,” Sophia said with a slight grimace. “I’d translate it as Mist in the Sun, or maybe sunlight, but both of those are equivalent. I think I’m seeing it as a label while you’re seeing it as a sentence; it could be either.”