N'aarat and the Tree of Life

Chapter 5: The Fruits of Dó

Dawn came, a sign that we should all wake up and return to the quarry. I noticed everyone's faces as we got out of our beds: they all seemed disheartened and not eager to start a new day.

Walking towards Edel Khan, my mind was busy trying to remember something, an important trigger that would shed light on something which had been troubling me throughout the night. There was a taste that lingered, which bothered me because, despite my focused attempts, it completely escaped me; I could neither remember what it was, nor entirely forget about it. It was an unnamed feeling, which had emerged from the depths of my brain and kept knocking on a door which I didn't recall having a key of.

Edel Khan was waiting for me, his superior attitude red-flagging the fact that I had arrived late. I felt humble, yet not in a constructive way, but rather in a desolating sense of being unfit for this promised land and with no chance of ever rising at the level of what was expected of me by certain people around me.

'I apologise for being late,' I said, though I had spotted the clock on the wall which announced that I had not actually done so.

'Let it not happen again, or I shall cut the hour off your pay!' his voice thundered, making everybody turn and look at us.

I said nothing.

Taking the notes from his hands, after he mentioned something about having to explain too many things, given that I couldn't read Dwerléth, I hurried through a wooden door which led to the Administrative Scribe's office. My feet were cold again and walking barefoot did not help in the least. A woman had offered to lend me a pair of old shoes until I received my month's pay, yet they were too large for my feet, which were bound to remain cold until I could afford to buy shoes from the shop in which I did not even dare enter. I walked to forget the cold and I forgot why I was walking. Then the notes in my hands reminded me of their addressee. I had become numb.

'Is this how I shall live the rest of my days? Oh, Veel'le! Oh, Sá'aná! Must I remain a caterpillar for all eternity?' I spoke to myself, fighting back some tears.

A strange valley, east of Enó'ol it lies,

Where bottoms are summits in disguise,

As symmetric as the water reflects,

As entwined as the moonlight projects.

Should you one day forget where you stand,

Up or down it shall take you as planned:

And freely you shall walk up the wall,

As easily as you would walk on a floor.

Veel'le and Sá'aná were similar as regards the impulses they sent to the tunnels. Veel'le, being masculine, sent quivers that were easy to distinguish from the activity of Mount Enó'ol, back in the fifth. In the quarry, I felt that Sá'aná sent three consecutive waves, at given intervals, which felt like a blessing of the realm. The inhabitants of the seventh tunnel were ruthless by nature and hence the blessings were of great use to the sixth as it lay closest to our cluster's greatest threat.

Along the coastline of my home there were shelters for the needy among Onars, yet they hardly ever accepted a Rayanar's help, neither in advice, nor in the healing of their ailments. The workers of the quarry were equally stubborn and unwilling to accept that an outsider such as myself could help them. Nýriols and Layans believed that only their warrior shamans, the Eöri, could help them. At times, I felt their presence, like a vibe blending with the waves sent by Sá'aná.

I had been in the sixth realm for six days and it was time to rest and look upon the stars, yet they were hidden from me and I dared not ask for permission to exit the city; perhaps it was I who was hiding from them, in that place which was neither my own, nor to my linking.