Chapter Sixteen

Shattered Knowledge

Jalander’s second, less ominous letter arrived a week after their first moonlit meeting, requesting Elias visit him once more in order that they may continue their “important conversation.” At least this time, there were no puzzles to solve, though Elias would have unraveled a hundred riddles if such was the price of new knowledge.

“Tell me more about ascending.” He leaned forward in Jalander’s creaky wooden chair, once again enjoying the warmth of his fireplace and a cup of hot tea that seemed to flow through his whole body with each sip, roiling inside him like medicine against winter’s unrelenting cold. “You mentioned increments of power. Let’s say I scrape together a few thousand relics, enlighten myself accordingly, and ascend. Is that it?”

“You are getting ahead of yourself, but no,” Jalander said. “Ascension is closer to the beginning than the end. There are four stages in total. First, you must awaken.”

“I’m pretty awake right now,” Elias inserted. “Maybe I’ve already awoken.”

“There will be no mistaking it when, and if, it happens.” Jalander struck Elias as the sort of man who enjoyed spoiling parties. The elder collector went on: “Once you have awoken, you will be able to call upon the power you experienced at will, no relics required. As I mentioned before, your adolescent abilities will help with little more than trivial tasks. Ascension is the true mark of a serious collector, though most progress no further. The few who defy the odds become transcendent, possessing power unlike anything you’ve experienced thus far. Finally, those who achieve their full potential—and become truly whole—are called divine. They say a divine can thread the very fabric of time and space. Though only one such man exists, and his identity is known to very few, so who the hell knows?”

“And which are you?” Elias asked.

“I am ascendent,” Jalander said. “Just another ascendant, and ascendant I shall remain. Your father, he was transcendent. This made him very valuable to the Valshynar, and his level of power wasn’t the only reason—but also his type of power.”

Elias didn’t even need to ask the question. As Bertrand would say, people wear certain qualities like the clothes on their back.

“Many years ago, there existed different schools within our community,” Jalander explained. “Among these were the Five Great Schools. While all collectors grow stronger, faster, and smarter, everyone has their particular aptitudes. The Dragon Fire School recruited collectors of exceptional strength, collectors who could upturn entire carriages. The Silver Sanctum School emphasized collectors of unparalleled speed—you do not wish to cross rapiers with these folks, believe me. The Valshynar School believed a sharp mind to be the most dangerous weapon, and in retrospect they were not wrong. And I would be remiss to forget the Four Winds School, welcoming haven of the well-rounded collector and, it was often remarked, the rejects. They were good folk. Less pretentious than the others.”

Jalander paused, twirled his hands with ironic enthusiasm, then pointed both at his own chest. “Last but not least, the smallest but most interesting of the Five Great Schools. Can you guess what we were called?” A wisp of smoke rose from the pipe he cradled.

“The Serpent Moon School,” Elias said, squinting. “It was on the plaque outside.”

“Right.” Jalander cleared his throat. “The Serpent Moon School recruited collectors with the rarest aptitude of all, collectors who could glimpse time and space itself. Indeed, while all who collect grow stronger, faster, and smarter, only some possess the sight. Those green lines you saw. You have the gift, no doubt inherited from your father. In that moment you aimed for the seventh bottle, you wished to see the path to a particular future, a future in which your bullet would strike that bottle and win you the competition. And that, young lad, is precisely what you saw.”

For some reason, it was this explanation that Elias found hardest to stomach, perhaps because it had been his experience, and he had never thought about it this way before. “That line was the future?”

“It is the past now,” Jalander said, “but it was a future—the one you made come to pass. Those with the sight are deadly from a distance. Not only good with a gun but also expert navigators. Which is why your father was so valuable to the Valshynar. You can count the number of ascendant Serpent Moon collectors on one hand. Tell me more about your experience in the sky rift.”

Elias wasn’t sure what to add. “Everything was just… dark,” he said. “Darker than I knew dark could be. Then, out of nowhere, this extraordinary airship appeared. My friend Bertrand said they were the Valshynar. They boarded our ship, and a tall woman spoke to me for a spell, asked where I was headed, what my plans were. I couldn’t understand why she had singled me out, but now it makes sense. She was unnaturally strong. I remember that. Afterward, they led us out of the sky rift. They saved us. We couldn’t see a way out of there, but they could.”

“She could,” Jalander corrected him. “Her name is Constance Eve, the woman who questioned you. She has the sight, though she was only a child when the Five Great Schools were disbanded, not that I was much older. Like your father was, she is transcendent and very valuable to the Valshynar. Sky rifts are tears in reality, by-products of the shattered world. They are also incredibly useful, if you know how to navigate them. Sky rifts appear empty because they are. Utterly so. There are no waypoints in sky rifts, no stars, no signposts, no sounds of running water. If you rely only on your eyes and ears, your crew will drift aimlessly until you all die of thirst or otherwise kill each other. But those with the sight…”

“Can see the future they wish for,” Elias finished his sentence.

“Exactly right.” For the first time that evening, Jalander beamed a little. “The sight gifts collectors like Constance, like your father, like me, and I believe like you the ability to see pathways through an otherwise impenetrable abyss. Not only pathways, but shortcuts through space itself. The Valshynar use sky rifts to travel all over the Great Continent, sometimes in a matter of hours.”

Not weeks. Not months. But hours. It suddenly all made sense to Elias.

“Every Valshynarian ship has someone like Constance on board, but it wasn’t always so.” Sitting in a chair across from him, Jalander scootched forward and grabbed Elias’s hand. The teenager recoiled instinctively, and then he saw the bittersweet longing in Jalander’s eyes as the older man peered down at Elias’s damaged ring. “That ring once saved your father’s life,” he said. “Or at least, it saved his finger.”

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Elias had always thought of his mother when he slipped on his silver ring each morning. Would he now wonder about the man who originally owned it? Would he wonder about the father he barely remembered?

“Of course, the schools were all disbanded by the Valshynar, save their own.” Jalander released Elias’s hand and leaned back in his chair. “They absorbed the Serpent Moon School first, claiming those with the sight as their own. It was only a matter of years before all collectors were united under the scholarly school’s gold and green banner. Our practice is now heavily centralized—and controlled—by them. They won a war the rest of us didn’t realize we should have been fighting, until it was too late. I guess they truly were the smart ones. That was three decades ago now. Our once secret schools are no more, and the Valshynar have since introduced themselves and their technological marvels to the world. This used to be the Serpent Moon School headquarters.” Jalander gestured toward the walls and ceiling. “Small, like the school itself. I somehow convinced the smug bastards to let me keep the sign out front, called it harmless nostalgia.”

“Do you know what happened to him?” Elias asked. “My father. They say he drowned in a shipwreck.”

“They do say that, and I don’t know any better,” Jalander replied.

Elias stared into his serpent ring one more time, its unpolished surface reflecting the dull light of a fading fire.

Jalander rose and fed the hearth another log before sitting back down. “Is there anything else you wish to know, lad?” He sounded tired. “You may not have this opportunity again for a while.”

Elias was quite certain he had a hundred questions and that he wouldn’t think to ask most of them until it was too late. He settled on the most obvious. “How did you find me, and how do you know so many things about me that no one else does?”

“It is my role within the Valshynar to be eyes and ears in Sailor’s Rise,” Jalander explained. “There is no leaving the Valshynar once they have you in their rigid claws. I’m sure they would rather have me on one of their ships, but an old, rather influential friend arranged these accommodations for me. She told them I wasn’t a particularly capable navigator, which is not untrue. It was she who found you: Constance Eve. We go back, she and I, though we have our differences. She suspects you are one of us, but she is not certain.”

“And you are?” Elias turned from the fire to see the truth in his reaction.

“I know something they do not,” Jalander said. “I know that you are your father’s son. The skill is not always passed down, but I knew if I sent that letter and you found me, I would have my answer. And here you are.”

“Will you tell them about me?”

“Not unless you wish it.”

Elias found that hard to believe. “Why would you keep my secret from them?”

“Because I made a promise to your father, and my promise to a friend is more important to me than my promise to the Valshynar,” Jalander said. “You could, if you wish, tell them yourself. They will happily accept you in their ranks, especially if you do indeed have the sight, but understand what that arrangement entails. Your life will no longer be decided by you. You will not get to choose where you live or whom you marry. You can collect, but only as much as they permit. Most Valshynar ascend, but few are allowed to transcend, even if they could. Power is managed in the Valshynar and determined as much by politics.”

“I spent my entire life trying to escape what felt like a prison,” Elias said, staring back at the flames, watching them dance freely in their brick cell. “I’m not volunteering myself for another life I didn’t choose.”

“Then keep your head low,” Jalander insisted. “Do not draw attention to yourself, and especially don’t draw attention to your newfound abilities, or they will find you, Elias, and I won’t be able to keep your secret any longer.”

Could one build the greatest company Sailor’s Rise had ever known while not drawing attention to oneself? Elias had his doubts, but he gave Jalander the nod of understanding the concerned collector was no doubt looking for. Words would have felt like a lie.

Elias stood up and stretched his cramped limbs. He could feel his fingers and toes again, and he no longer worried his ears might fall off from the cold. He asked if he could look around.

“Be my guest,” Jalander said. “I’m going to pour more tea.”

There was not much to look at, granted, besides a mess of books and incomprehensible notes. Some people were quite comfortable living amid chaos, though Elias did not count himself among them. On the contrary, he considered himself an orderly person, though with so few possessions, it wasn’t exactly difficult to maintain his tidy existence.

Elias did eventually stumble upon one thing that snared his attention. The large scroll looked vaguely like a map of the Great Continent, though unlike any he had ever seen. He flattened its curled edges, and Jalander told him to be careful: “That map is as old as I am—and far more valuable.”

Elias removed his hands from the artifact and apologized. “Is this a map of the stars?” He tried to place a few without avail. Hundreds of circled dots speckled the continent, connected by lines that might have been constellations, only there was no recognizable shape to them. Where was the Wandering Stag, the Diving Eagle, the myriad constellations he’d learned about as a child staring up at the starry skies of Sapphire’s Reach?

“A clever guess, but no.” Jalander handed him more tea, then pushed the steaming cup in Elias’s hand a foot back from the map. “When your merchant ship escaped that sky rift a few months ago, did you exit where you had entered?”

Elias shook his head. “I thought so for a second, but the mountains were different.”

Jalander pointed at one particular dot on the map, halfway between Acreton and Sailor’s Rise. “I suspect you entered this sky rift”—he dragged his finger two inches—“and exited this one.”

“So, the Valshynar use maps like this to travel all across the Great Continent,” Elias inferred, correctly this time.

“As I said, it is a very valuable map,” Jalander confirmed.

“Earlier, when you mentioned sky rifts, you said something about a shattered world,” Elias said. “What were you talking about?”

“The dawn of air travel a century ago revealed yet another by-product of our broken past,” Jalander replied. “Sky rifts had gone undetected for millennia, but Valshynarian scholars believed that they too were caused by the shattering. The even greater discovery, however, was their utility. Collectors with the rarest gift of all—the sight—could navigate these sky rifts, creating shortcuts all across the Great Continent. As for the shattered world that was, well, that is one question we will not have time for tonight. And it is a question whose answer you must experience yourself. The dream will answer these ancient inquiries better than I ever could, if indeed you are destined to become a collector.”

“You make it sound like I have no say in the matter,” Elias said.

“On the contrary.” Jalander savored his tea. “Destinies are chosen. Destinies are achieved. If you want something badly enough, I imagine you’re a resourceful young man. I’ve shown you how to collect relics, but I cannot help you with the rest. Not until you’ve awoken. The dream will answer some of your questions—and raise new ones.”

“Let’s say I dream this dream. What then?” Elias asked.

“Then, as a fellow collector, I shall lend you some reading material.”

“Exciting.”

“But not until then,” Jalander added, lest his fledging apprentice get ahead of himself. “I was your age too when I first noticed the inexplicable disappearance of a hard-earned relic, and then another, and another. Some collectors discover their gift a little later in life, and a few may even sense it sooner. In each case, the moment only arrives after they have left adolescence behind. A child is by definition incomplete, and so he cannot sense the deeper incompleteness required of our craft.”

Elias digested Jalander’s words like a difficult poem, finally concluding, “I think I understand.”

“Keep thinking.” Jalander unsubtly eyed the front door. “Nighttime strolls are ideal for such contemplation. Also”—he sighed—“I know I’m wasting my breath even saying this, but if you never dream the damn dream, a wiser man might consider himself lucky.”

“A wiser man, maybe.” Elias grinned.

And in spite of himself, Jalander grinned with him.