First one to notice the weak light was Alma. Schnew was of course the first one to mock her:
“You are hallucinating. And I am sure you had no suind lately. C’mon present your hidden stash rest of us need drink too.”
“Some time ago you were shaking on my touch like a willow in the wind, have you forgot we are still in the dark? But not for long I tell you.”
All of them, including Schnew wanted her to be right. Human soul is in love with the light, if you leave her without it even for a short period of time, she will suffer. Darkness brings gloom for humans. Soon there was a little fluorescent dot in a sea of darkness. Galatu was descending, making it bigger and bigger. Finally touching the ground, they could see they were in front of the small cave, light was coming out of narrow entrance. Around it was a densely grown purple vine. Some kind of slimy secretion was dripping from its leaves on the ground. Couple of snakelike creatures with no eyes was feeding on it, taking no heed of humans. They probably never encountered any humans till now, or else they would be afraid and run away, like all animals do. Human was most feared creature in all of nature.
“I will have to go now, my body waits for me. I have done everything I could to help you, and we need special permission to see Him. If you need transportation He can do it.”
“See you my friend.”
He flew straightly up quickly leaving a circle of light. They were on their own now. Subito walked into the cave with no hesitation.
“Shouldn’t we make some kind of strategy? Think about it first?” Schnew was behind him.
“Sometimes you just need to act. To think is not always the best thing to do. Thinking need time, and time makes opportunities go away. We can’t make strategies if we don’t know anything. Are you really going to speak about thinking before acting? I know you for a long time and rarely did I saw you think before acting.”
“You have a point I suppose.”
In the beginning passage was narrow, but deeper they were getting broader it was becoming. Soon they found a source of light. It was coming from glowing birds they saw earlier, millions of them were making nests on the ceiling and the walls of the cave. Passage was ending in the big opening. Subito carefully stepped in. Terrible scream froze them all in place. They were forced to plug their ears with fingers. Something hit Subito in the face. He threw it away on the ground, realizing it is oversized diaper with shit leaking from it. Cleaning it off his face, he fainted not being able to withhold terrible stench. Schnew prepaired to throw his shiv, when Lillium stopped him.
“We don’t want to hurt you. Sorry for disrupting your peace.”
She was coming toward the center of the room, slightly bent.
“It’s okay no one will hurt you. You can come out now.”
“All will be fine.”
Finally it came out behind one of the larger stalagmites. It was a baby. To be certain, baby almost the size of Lillium but still a baby.
“You are a sweet thing, aren’t you? Come, come…” Lillium was talking in a baby voice. Creature runs into her opened hands. She sat him in her lap and started to scratch his stomach. It was giggling and cooing. Lillium’s face stretched in blessed smile, even when it took her boob out and started to suck. Schnew who was washing Subito’s face using pond made by water dripping from stalactites, suddenly yelled:
“Stop it now or I will crush you like a bug!” He addresses Lillium: “What got into you?”
“I don’t know. He is so sweet I couldn’t say no. Look at those eyes.”
Baby answered: “It is just maternal instinct. Why are you so mad? You have her every day, and I am so bored in this cave.”
“It can speak. Where is your father? We have some business with him.”
“There is no one here just me.”
“We were told that here lives wisest man in the world.”
“I am not a man, but I am wise.”
“You…? When I think about it you certainly got the boob in really short period, it took me a lot longer.”
“What are you?” Lillium was embarrassed.
“I have many names, maybe it is better if I tell you about my life and you will conclude what I am. Judging by your looks you are from… Let me check.” He waved his hand and several shining birds landed on his arm. They were turning their lights on and off. “Strange your body shape, eye and hair color suggests you are from Ulan, same as your Utrikat friend there, but your clothes are from the mines of Lumos.”
“How did you know that?”
“I looked at the birds. They are turning their lights off when in danger. But mine birds do it to show the code. It is an old code of black and white, dark and light. I read their signals.”
“So you get your knowledge from the birds?”
“Birds know a lot, but not this kind of things. I just train them to remember signal, they do not understand it. Tell me about your journey here, this is a lonely place and I would like to hear god story.”
Lillium told him their story since the department from Ulan to this moment. He listened to her with eyes wide opened, without a single interruption.
“Quite interesting story, you are a bird charmer same as I am. Now, who I am? You Ulans are familiar with the story of Singularity. When Singularity divided two were born. Darkness and Light, people call darkness, evil and light good, but this is not the truth, light can also be evil and darkness can be good. Actually they are not good or evil at all, our look just makes them that way. You can be good or evil only in interaction with others. Darkness provokes fear, because of incapability of knowledge (of what is in the darkness). But the light can blind you also, she shows beauty, but she also shows ugliness. Light gives you joy and happiness, but darkness gives peace and quiet. Light can burn same as darkness can freeze. They fell in love with each other and mixed. If you look at the night sky you will see the stars which are spots of light. You will see them in love ecstasy trying to become Singularity again. But the border was always between them, and the border was third. Whenever they touch each other new world is born. In every world there are four first ones, which create the gods and gods create the world. Four first ones are fire, earth, water and me. They called me wind or air or god. That is who I am.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“So you are one of the gods? Then why don’t you repair the world?”
“Well I don’t have the power, not anymore. When the creator of the fog came into power he defeated gods and our servants. He was a Mindshifter, Singularity despite of multitude, and we were still just parts of Singularity. In fear for the future of our creation and that we will be devoured by the fog master, we have sent the strongest amongst us, wielder of magic, god of the dreams. We all created one world. He alone is able to create thousands of worlds every night. He managed to put our enemy asleep, but the spell was so strong that all of the gods, including him fell asleep too.”
“You are not sleeping.”
“Yes I do, but only partially. I am the wind wisest of all creatures. There is no place I can’t enter. No secret that I don’t know. Don’t be surprised that I look like a baby. Childhood is the stadium of life when the human brain is strongest, when he is able to learn most. Babies can store an amazing amount of information. They can learn several languages at the time. Later on oblivion take command over human. Skull of the baby is not the solid bone. Several bones are connected with membrane known as the fontanel or “little fountain”. It pulsates mimicking the heartbeats. It is a window allowing mental powers to interact with things outside of the human body. This membrane is connection between brain and the outer world. It also allows the brain to grow undisturbed.”
“Yes, I know about fontanel, even dogs have it in the first months of their life. You say that you are the wind. What are your connections with Wind Wizards?”
“They were priests of my favorite daughter Morau. I blessed them with the power of wind because I knew they will not misuse it. They don’t know who I truly am, it is better that way. It was one last gift to the world before I had to retreat in this fortress of knowledge I made for myself. If I ever leave it, sleep will prevail and I will join my brothers and sisters gods in dreams. My fortress is also my cage. Those in need of knowledge are coming here and I give them what they seek for a price.”
Subito was finally able to speak again: “What price? And why have you attacked us, if you have seekers for knowledge coming all the time?”
“Not really all the time, you need knowledge of who to ask before you can hope to get right answer. I mistook you for him, the master of the fog. But it seems I was mistaken, or maybe not we will see when the time comes. Anyway the price: I can’t leave this place, so I send my visitors to be my eyes and ears in the outer world. Mostly to solve problems other visitors asked me to solve for them. I know how, but I can’t that’s why I need you.”
“What is the problem?”
“I have reports great number of animals are gathering on a mountain not far from here. I need you to find out the reasons behind this strange behavior. Take this, it is fife made out of the simple bone, but I have stored my breath into it, so when you are moving through the fog wind will clear way in front of you. Clearing would not be too big, but it would be enough.”
“I guess we don’t have a choice. We need to find some way to defeat Lorantides.”
“There is always a choice, some of them are good and some of them are bad. Some of them get us toward our goals and some of them away from it. I am familiar with Lorantides. The best way to defeat them is to use Fire Moss. It is a plant with very vicious defense, if only touched she induce a burning sensation all over the body, pains are so great that Lorantid is tricked to believe his host is on fire, so it quickly detaches from his skull. You can rest in my cave as long as you want, and think about what you should decide.”
“Very well, we will sleep now, and let you know what we have decided in the morning.”
“Okay, before you fall asleep creature touched by the fog should let me cure her.”
“Alma…? But she’s not ill, or is she?”
“Come here child, do not be afraid.” He opened some bag behind the stalagmite and poured some ingredients in a small pond of water. After vigorously stirring it up a couple of times, he washed Alma’s face. “Now go to sleep.”
Puzzled, they quickly fell asleep, tired from all which has happened today.
.***
Melessar was admiring to the first fully finished copy of the book. It was one of the cookbooks, which was clear by two cooks holding a cauldron between them, carved on the covers. Bunch of painters from town volunteered to copy all of the planks in surturi books. At first Melessar was skeptical, later on, his skepticism only increased when one of them got an idea to depict letters as black and white leaves attached to green vines. Letters would be read in zigzag fashion, first leaf on the upper side of the vine, then a leaf on the lower side of the vine, followed by the next leaf on the upper side, and so on… Rest of painters immediately accepted the idea. Melessar was able only to convince them not to entwine vines, at least not in the parts which carry leaves. But now when he had finished product in his hands, he was delighted. It was a genuine work of art. In the beginning chapters of the book vines were Bright green with occasional bud here and there, representing the spring. In the next chapters vines were dark green, representing the summer. After that they become yellow and carrying black and white berries instead of leaves, representing autumn. As the end of the book was getting near vines were black and withered with some white snow on top of them, representing winter. On the last page golden seed fell out of withered berry. Same gold seed was in the center of the back cover, young sapling growing out of it was entwined around itself, creating a frame for the back and front cover and continuing to first page to grow into vine presented in there. The symbolism of the cyclic nature of the year was obvious. He had to apologize to the artists, and express his admiration for their work.
But he was much more interested in work of translators. They already made synopsis for every book, and he was able to set priorities for translating. He was especially interested in history books and biographies. Two of them were especially interesting, so he took to personally translate them. First one was titled “Fog migrations” and the second one “Great war”. Most of his day was filled with translating and writing down what he translated. He almost forgot about his missing friend Galatu. Information he was able to extract was of utter importance, and was shedding completely different light on the history of the world. It was time for his daily preaching. Many of Hull Termians decided to accept Ulan religion, as an act of admiration toward his sword brother and his company and their love toward Ulan culture. Since the day he came, they were gathering in front of the library at the same time every day to listen to him. Every time crowd was larger than the previous day. They greeted him with applause.
“Thank you for coming in such a great number, my dear friends. Let me, bless you with the words of the Voice from the Crowd:
…Questions
Gods gave us two curses, one is death and second one is life. Both are filled with fear. We are afraid to die. We are also afraid to live. I have a question for gods: why ask someone a question, and never give him the answer? Who are we? What is the point? What is beyond death? We can only suppose what’s going to happen next in this journey called life. What waits for us behind the next corner? We can only hope. We were given eyes, but not the sight. Like we are blind, we wonder in the world of darkness. It is because we don’t know anything for sure. We can just guess answers with more or less accuracy.”
Like after each of his lessons he encouraged debate, and Hull Termians loved to debate. Even firm believers in native religion came to share and check their opinion. He also enjoyed the debate, so he was always ready to spend an hour or two with his audience even if this meant less time for his translations. After all he needed some rest, and some time away from his work. In those days he barely managed to sleep a couple of hours a day, but he was never tired. Like he was feeding on some strange energy he found in his work.