I stared at the runes from a safe distance. Unlike Noel’s speech, these words were not being translated into a language I could understand. I didn’t know if this was because my strange translation ability didn’t apply to written words or if the runic language was special in some way. This language could be so complicated that it was impossible to decipher or the words could be pointless gibberish.

Just to be sure, I asked Noel what she thought the symbols meant. She thought they were some sort of emblem for The Terrible. Perhaps The Terrible used them to signal its power the way a hunter wore necklaces made from the bones of great beasts. But the runes were composed of various shapes, each seemingly unique and complicated. As a polyglot, I could tell these symbols were too ornate to be mere emblems. They meant something. But what exactly did they mean?

Moreover, if these symbols held meaning, but the elves could not read, what was the point of carving them into the rock around this cave? If it was a warning, it would go unheeded. A description that would not be understood. A question? A proclamation? A message from a fallen civilization? Whatever it was, we could not know, which meant this message may have been written for someone else.

I asked Noel if there were other intelligent beings in the plains. I had to explain what intelligence—or sentience—meant, but she eventually answered that there were none. There were only the twelve elven tribes and the great being they called The Terrible.

“It’s almost time for the ceremony,” said Noel.

I stared into the darkness of the cave. Then I turned to the letters. “Noel, let’s go back to that clearing from before.”

She looked confused. “But the ceremony—”

“In my tribe,” I began, slowly formulating an explanation, “we write symbols like the ones around this cave. Our symbols are different, but I suspect they serve the same purpose. We use our symbols to represent the words we speak, so we can communicate with each other without speaking. If you give me some time, maybe I can help you understand them.”

Noel hesitated. She clearly didn’t want to go into the cave. She still hadn’t told me the details for this ‘ceremony,’ but I could tell she wasn’t looking forward to it. If I gave her a reasonable excuse to delay what she was planning to do, I was sure she would take it.

She agreed. I took another glimpse at the cave and memorized the strange letters. I was very proud of my memory, and learning Far Eastern languages like Chinese had certainly helped train my memory for linguistic symbols. The moon was still bright. I crouched on the ground in the clearing and drew the strange letters in the dirt with a stick.

The shape of the letters was the first thing I noticed. Straight and curved lines, connected in various shapes. Each line had tapered ends, creating spiky symbols that resembled spears driven into each other. There were a few dots and crowns too, but even those were carved with sharp edges. These words would have looked intimidating even if they hadn’t been carved into the rock around a dark, foreboding cave.

“Well, at least I know what type of writing system this is,” I said.

“Writing system?” asked Noel.

“Yes. Where I come from, there are many tribes, each with different languages of their own. Most of these languages have some written form, and we can classify different languages based on how they are written,” I said.

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I was about to explain the differences between abjads and syllabaries, but realized that was unnecessary. I told her this unknown language looked like something called a logosyllabary. I went on to explain that there were seven unique symbols around the cave. None were repeated and the three on either side had even spaces between them. Since most of the lines were vertical and the words seemed to be in columns, I figured the language was written vertically.

“What does that mean?” asked Noel.

“It means each symbol is a word, like the words that we’re speaking right now. That would usually mean that trying to decipher it by comparing common sounds and syllables would be useless, but I’m betting this language is still monosyllabic!”

Noel stared at me like I hadn’t answered her question.

“Okay, in simpler terms, it means each of these symbols,” I circled the symbols on the ground, “represents a single sound. Like, ba, or kol, or shi. And each of these sounds represents a word of some sort.”

I was confident that this language was monosyllabic. I knew it didn’t use pictograms, since the symbols didn’t look like birds or oxen or some other easily recognizable shape. But each rune looked like it could have been a pictogram not so long ago. In fact, it looked almost like someone had taken a pictographic language and replaced all the lines with spears and blades a few centuries ago.

“But there are so many sounds! How do we know what these symbols stand for?” asked Noel.

This was a good question. I rapped my knuckles on my forehead. I really could’ve used a cigarette right about now. Or maybe a chocolate bar. That said, I think coming to this new world had given me a body that didn’t have a nicotine or sugar addiction, so I suppose that was a silver lining.

Languages are complicated. It was something I’d known all my life, growing up in a New York City suburb. People in my neighborhood had all kinds of backgrounds and you could hear a potpourri of languages while walking down the street. Interpreters from Afghanistan. New immigrants from China. A Vietnamese couple. Refugees from Somalia. A dude from Mexico who spoke better English than I did. Oh, and a really weird old lady from Saint Kitts and Nevis who wouldn’t stop talking about her son who was a professor at a very lame university in New Haven. She was always talking about the British Empire and some dude she’d dated back in the day who still needed to get back to her. When I asked for his name, she said, and I quote: “dumb bloke Eddy Said.”

Man, that brought back memories. I hadn’t been back home in a few years and the old bat died almost a decade ago, but I still remembered her random ravings. She said stuff like: cellphones cause cancer, aliens abducted Aristotle, and we need to nuke Canada so the space dolphins that rescued Laika can bring about a new age. After chatting with her for a few minutes, I always wondered if we were even living on the same planet, or speaking the same language.

Wait a minute, that’s it!

“Noel!” I cried.

“Yes?” she replied, quickly.

I grabbed her shoulders and stared at her lips. “Say my name.”