Vell stood on the beach, letting the light of mother sun warm his brown skin. His feet gripped wet sand, letting the edge of the ocean lap over his ankles in easy waves. He wore nothing except the hemp loin cloth to cover his dignity. The ancestor’s words were painted on his entire upper body for everyone to see.
Violent thunder cracked the sky to the west. His heightened senses informed him the storm would reign over the western island of Poli for at least a few more hours before dissipating south, clear of any habitable islands.
He could wait another few hours for the storm to pass, to follow in his brother’s footsteps, but Vell had already made his decision.
Hundreds more from the island crowded around him at the edge of the beach. Vell’s parents mixed in with the crowd, but he could spot them clearly as a single whisper leaf among a bed of weeds. His father looked stern and proud, his large hand firmly pressed on Nyala’s broad shoulder. Vell’s mother also looked proud, but it was clear it took all her respect for the ceremony to hold her tongue. Her fingers flexed in that odd way whenever she was nervous, as if her hands itched for a weapon to embrace.
Vell turned away from the ocean to face the head leaf-scholar, Deneb. He was about the same age as Vell’s father, Uru, although wiry and thin while Uru was tall and wide as an ox. His long beard twisted down to his chest. Deneb wore not just the typical brown hemp tunic and pants of the island, but also a cloak made of leaves, each leaf unique and of varying shades of green, yellow, or red.
The leaves belonged to plants brought over from other islands by the ancestor’s skiffs. It was one of the many duties of leaf-scholars to harvest as many of these foreign plants as they could within their isolated, sacred gardens in case a storm drowned out most of an island’s plants essential for people to live.
Deneb held in the palm of his hands a star-shaped leaf as gently as one would a newborn babe. He walked over to the lit torch closest to Vell, holding the leaf close to the fire. Whispers in the crowd grew excited. Deneb’s eyes fixed on the flame for a moment before looking at Vell. He spoke loud enough for everyone on the beach to hear.
“Today, we witness a student of high shaman Fron attempt his trial of forty steps!”
Cheers echoed throughout the crowd. Vell swelled with pride. Deneb waited patiently until they quieted once again.
Despite his training, Vell’s heartbeat thumped heavy as a beaten drum inside his chest. A gentle, frail hand pressed against his back. Vell’s steadied. As always, Master Fron seemed to know exactly when a wordless gesture was needed to turn away a tide of doubt. Vell did not dare to turn around to face his master until it was time.
Deneb held the whisper leaf only a hands’ length away from the flames of the torch. He asked, “Vell Moonwave, for how long have your lungs been weighed down by the hushing powers of the whisper leaf?”
“Seven years and two moons!” Vell proclaimed as much to the crowd as Deneb.
Deneb nodded. “And how long has your blood been purged of its effects?”
“One day and one night!”
Deneb turned to the crowd, the leaf still close to the fire. “Two thousand and forty years ago, the Gloam sundered the world. Though the rest of humanity may have forgotten, we of the Last Isles remember!”
The crowd grew quiet. Even the storm in the west seemed to hush for a moment in respect for the ancestors’ grave mistake.
Deneb continued. “And on this day of Gloam and sunder, we allow those who follow the old ways, to prove themselves in their dedication to water, wind, and earth while the world turns under the sin of steel and iron.”
He turned to Vell. “You wish to prove yourself in the forty steps?”
Vell straightened his back, and he could see his parents lift their chins in pride as well. He swallowed the emotions that threatened to break his concentration. “As the student of high shaman Fron, I do!”
Deneb nodded. “Which chain do you choose?”
Vell closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He opened them once more, and proclaimed strong and proud and clear. “The central chain!”
The crowd collectively gaspde. Nyala’s eyes widened, too shocked by her son’s answer to even say anything. She placed her hand on her husband’s for comfort, closing her eyes and whispering a silent prayer to ancestors. For some reason, Vell’s father, Uru, did not look the least bit surprised. He gave a gentle, approving nod to his son.
Deneb blinked, taking a moment to recover from Vell’s answer. His neck tensed, as if biting down any words that would cast doubt on such a sacred moment. Regret and fear passed over his face like the shadow of a cloud. Then, it was gone just as quickly. He said, “So be it.”
The high leaf-scholar pulled the whisper leaf away from the flame and released it to the whims of the wind. It twirled and curved and bent in a seemingly aimless direction.
Vell read its movements as easily as a leaf-scholar might words of the central isles or letters of the ancestors. He recalled watching his brother, Jadic, five years earlier read the whisper leaf as approval for the trial of forty steps.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Jadic was considered a once in a generation genius. He had displayed his proficiency with a sacred breath by summoning a glyph and cracking a boulder in the center of the village before even heading toward the ocean.
When it was time to read the leaf before the trial, Jadic had taken ten steps and clasped for the leaf over six times. This was less than half the steps and clasps than the previous student of Master Fron’s who had succeeded the trial. The whole island had roared in excitement, proud to have such a talented glyph master from their home.
Vell had been twelve, and even to this day, could not recall a time he had roared louder in excitement. Now, it was his turn to read the leaf and show his prowess. Years of reading the leaf in Master Fron’s pool was all for this.
The leaf pulled away lightly from the flame, then twisted toward the ocean before curving back toward the flame.
Many crowed murmured aloud in confusion. Vell could practically hear their thoughts. Why was he not moving? Had the nerves finally caught up to his arrogance at having attempted the trial before he was ready?
Vell held back his grin. He didn’t even bother moving, lifting his hand out to his side, opening his fingers, and waiting patiently.
The star shaped leaf lifted above a nearby torch flame, the fire licking dangerously near the leaf. A few in the crowd cried out nervously. Vell waited, and closed his eyes, patient as a mother waiting for their child to be born.
He counted two more normal breaths, and opened his eyes as the leaf placed itself in his curled palm, as if it had meant to be there this whole time. Many in the crowd gasped.
To his surprise, no cheered as he expected. They simply stared at him in complete disbelief, their jaws slack. A few turned to their loved ones, asking what they just witnessed. No one had an answer.
Vell cracked his parents a grin. Their eyes were wide as a full moon.
Thunder cracked in the distance once again, but not just in the west. A storm began to brew over the east as well. Vell held back a chuckle. Maybe the forgotten gods did exist and have a sense of humor.
Eager to move on from the awkward moment, Vell dipped the whisper leaf into the flame of the torch. It burned a light silver before crisping into black, then grayed into ash.
Deneb recovered from his shock faster than everyone else in the crowd, clearing his throat. He rose his hand in the air. “You may now seek your final blessing from your master!”
Vell turned to finally face his master for the first time since his last drink of whisper leaf tea.
Master Fron was half Vell’s height, a shriveled and frail old man who hunched at the shoulders like an ancient turtle. His skin had as many wrinkles as the best had sand, and his dark brown eyes were as deep as the endless ocean. He had a few strands of gray hair left on his bald head, and he wore a simple brown tunic and pants.
The high shaman looked up to Vell, and placed his thin fingers gently on Vell’s face. His hands did not shake, steady as a boulder in a storm. He looked as he always did, calm and kind, wearing a dignity only those who have experienced both fascinating wonders and terrifying horrors. Vell wanted more than anything to have that same depth for his own soul, his life enriched by experiencing the world beyond Mahana.
Despite his frail shell of a body, no one doubted for a second Master’s Fron’s power. He was the reason no sea beasts even dared to venture halfway between Mahana and the neighboring islands. This alone allowed the islanders to fish safely in the nearby waters and only live in fear of the only thing humanity had feared since the beginning, nature.
Vell bent down to one knee to meet his master’s gaze. Master Fron’s expression cleared away any nervousness or lingering doubt in Vell’s heart. It filled him not with the loud strength of a warrior, but the quiet strength of a single flame in a moonless night.
Master Fron rarely spoke. In fact, he had only spoken five times to Vell in their seven years of training together. Everyone in the island agreed this was because the high shaman held his breath in high esteem since it was powerful enough to shake a storm.
As his student, Vell knew better. Master Fron just a wicked sense of humor, finding ways to play silent pranks on his students and villagers while looking like a dignified and innocent old man all the while. How many times had Vell been punished for throwing water on tunics on the drying line after Master Fron had gently placed a bucket in his hands? When Vell had told them the truth, it only confirmed to them that Vell was to blame.
Master Fron’s first word’s to Vell had been, “look down.” When Vell did as he was told, he only found Master Fron’s finger flicking up at Vell’s nose. Fron had giggled quietly for the rest of the day, leaving Vell in a stupor for a week.
The old man may have been goofy and playful, but when he spoke, Vell paid attention.
High shaman Fron of the ten thousand glyphs spoke, his voice quiet as a whisper but strong and clear as a summer’s breeze whistling through the palm trees.
“Go.”
The word shivered through Vell, electrifying him with a strength he did not know he had.
Fron patted Vell’s cheek once more before turning to face the ocean and placing his hands behind his back. He looked somehow both somber and excited. There were no more final words of wisdom or encouragement, just his single command.
Go.
For Vell, that single word filled him with an undefinable confidence. His heartbeat was steady as ever, but each beat pounded in his chest like a war drum.
He faced the endless ocean toward the nameless island cloaked in fog, and ran toward the water.
The balls of his feet pounded on the wet sand, his stride long and light as a feather, his breath even as a man sitting calmly in meditation.
Vell breathed in through his nose just as he had done countless times under the weight of the whisper leaf. But now, no whisper leaf crippled his breathing, and it was no ordinary breath, but a sacred breath.
The world around him buzzed as he inhaled the invisible spiritual energy seeped in the air. He held his breath. Everything went still for a single but crucial moment - the crowd, the waves, and even the ever-moving wind- and he jumped over the incoming wave as it curled back toward the ocean.
He scanned the way the waters turned and folded into each other, seeing various paths he could glyph-skip toward the fog island.
Vell felt the warmth between his sternum and navel spark into a wild heat. Before his feet touched the surface of the water and could dip below the wave, a single, translucent white disc the size of his chest glowed into existence.
He landed on it, surfing the wave away from everything he had ever known toward the fog island, inevitable danger, endless wonder, and maybe his own death.