Krymzyn (The Journals of Krymzyn Book 1) (4 page)

“Sash,” I call to her.

She stops walking and slowly turns to face me.

“I’m sorry,” I say, holding her eyes. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just a little
freaked
out right now . . . scared. I really appreciate you saving me, and I’m sorry if I said anything wrong.”

Her face softens with understanding at my apology. I’m sure she knows how frightened I must have felt arriving in the situation I did.

“You remember me from when you here before, when we were smaller,” she says as a statement of fact.

“Yes,” I reply. “It’s strange. I remember everything about being here. I’m Chase, by the way.”

“I know who you are.”

I start to walk towards her but wince from pain. Sash immediately steps to me.

“Are you able to walk?” she asks.

“Yeah, I’m
okay
,” I answer.

“We’ll go to my habitat,” she says. “I can heal your wounds, and you may rest there.”

Side by side, we slowly stroll deeper into the valley.

“Do you live with your
family
?” I ask.

“
Family
?”
she questions.

“Your
mother
and
father
,” I say before I remember how “parents” never translated when I was younger. Apparently “mother” and “father” have no meaning here either.

“I don’t understand,” she replies.

“Who gave birth to you?”

“A woman who was chosen to carry me.”

“How was she chosen?” My curiosity is soaring.

“After Darkness passes,” Sash replies, “if a new child is needed in Krymzyn, one man and one woman are given the sign of fertility. They know of their choice by amber sparkles in their veins and golden light in the fertility hair that grows on our bodies. It’s a great honor to be chosen.”

“Your
parents
—sorry,” I say, shaking my head. “The man and woman who make you are just chosen randomly?” I understand now that any word that hangs in the air for a long time never translates, so I can quickly correct myself.

“Nothing is random,” Sash answers. “They’re chosen because they have something inside them worthy of being passed on. As soon as they’ve been given the sign, the two meet at the Cavern of Grace and engage in the Ritual of Balance. The woman then carries the child until birth, her only purpose while she’s pregnant to protect the child growing inside her. After she gives birth, she nurtures the child through the seventy periods of Darkness that follow.”

“What happens to the baby after that?” I ask.

“The child is then presented to the Keepers at the Naming Ritual. The Keepers sustain and educate the child in the ways of Krymzyn until the height of purpose is reached. While the Keepers attend to the needs and education of the children, all of Krymzyn is responsible for their upbringing.”

“You don’t know the woman who gave birth to you?”

“It’s not necessary to know who she is,” Sash replies.

“Or the man who . . .” I have to pause to try and figure out a word that will translate since I know “father” won’t, but Sash answers before I come up with one.

“The man who provides the seed for growth,” she says. “Again, there’s no need to know who he is.”

This time, I bite my tongue to hold in my response, one I’m certain she wouldn’t appreciate.

“So what happens when the child reaches the height of purpose?” I ask.

“The child is taken to the Tree of Vision for the Ritual of Purpose. Once the sap of that Tree is consumed, color is given to our hair and our purpose revealed through that color. The child then becomes an Apprentice in the ways of their purpose. My hair streaked with scarlet, the color of a Hunter, and I served as an Apprentice with a Mentor named Yoni. While an Apprentice, I dwelled with the Keepers and other children. When Yoni met his death, I ended my Apprenticeship. I was given my own habitat, and now I serve my purpose to Krymzyn.”

“Who were the green-haired people?”

“Watchers,” she replies. “They protect the walls around the Delta. The youngest of the three, Balt, is an Apprentice.”

“So you live your whole life alone after you leave the Keepers?” I ask.

“All of Krymzyn exists as one, but each dwells in solitude.”

“So what if someone’s never chosen for the Ritual of Balance?”

“Then their purpose is fulfilled until the height of death is reached. Hunters are never chosen because we need rest after Darkness and must always be available when Darkness falls.”

“You never have, like, a
boyfriend
or
husband
or
partner
?”

“I don’t know the meaning of those words,” she says.

“You never have
sex
?” I blurt out, but wish I’d bitten my tongue again.

“I don’t understand.”

“Whatever goes on in the Ritual of Balance. Mating maybe?” I ask, happy that “mating” translates.

“Only if one is chosen for the Ritual,” she answers.

Sash walks around the base of a hill and I follow. I’m still confused and want to ask more about how hair color defines purpose but decide that I have enough information to absorb for now. What she told me explains why, in my mind, she always seems to have such a sad, lonely expression on her face.

We walk into a narrow gorge of grass-lined ridges. An oval door constructed of black granite stone is tucked into the crease at the foot of the hill. She leads me to it, grasps a brushed-metal knob, and opens the door.

“Follow me inside,” she says.

I crouch behind her as we enter a dark, narrow tunnel of black crystalline stone. Darkness surrounds us when she closes the door.

“Awaken,” Sash calls out.

At the end of the long tunnel, soft amber light slowly illuminates an opening. We slink towards the light, and I gasp when we enter the spacious cavern.

My eyes are instantly pulled to a high-domed ceiling, a sprawling crystal garden like the inside of a geode. Sharp spikes refract pinpoints of gold light from within. I stare at tiny bright spheres that seem to float like gravity-defying flakes of snow inside the fragmented crystal.

“Swirls,” Sash says, seeing my dazed expression. “Tiny creatures of light that dwell in the stone.”

“How do they live in there?” I ask.

“They feed on minerals in the crystal. The proper sound from my voice causes them to illuminate or darken.”

Sash walks across a smooth dark-blue quartz floor that dully reflects the light from overhead. The floor is polished but doesn’t feel slippery beneath my bare feet as I follow her into the cavern. The walls are the same quartz as the floor, rich blue-gray with dull red and amber veins. A gentle rush of flowing water echoes through an opening at the far end of the cavern.

She slips the pack from her back and hangs it on a metallic rack fastened to the wall. Another pack filled with the short stakes hangs beside it. She leans her spear against the wall, locking it into a clasp beside the rack.

I glance to the other side of the oval cavern. A large mattress-like pad lies on the ground by the wall across from us, longer than a king-sized bed but about the same width. It’s covered by white fabric that looks like brushed cotton with two large, well-stuffed white pillows on top. I don’t see any sheets or blankets for the bed.

“You live here alone?” I ask.

“Yes,” she replies. “This is my habitat.”

“It’s really incredible,” I say.

“I hope you feel comfortable while you’re here,” she answers sincerely.

The air in the room feels exactly like the outside in Krymzyn, void of temperature. In this world, no one ever shivers from a winter chill, bundles in soft wool blankets, or warms themselves by a fire. In Krymzyn, the temperature just is.

“How old are you?” I ask.

“I’ve reached the height of purpose, completed my Apprenticeship, and now fulfill my purpose.”

“No, I just mean in
years
,” I say, but “years” never translates.

“I don’t understand,” she says.

“How do you measure time here? Like a person’s age?”

“A person’s age is measured by their height, so one who is young is shorter, one who is old is taller. The greater passage of time is measured by the tenure of the same seven Disciples in service together, called an Era.”

“What happens when someone stops growing?”

“Our growth in height begins at birth and ends at death,” she says. “It slows as we grow older, but we always gain height.”

I guess that explains why everyone I’ve seen here who’s more than a few years older than I am looks so tall. I hold a hand up and snap my finger.

“The time that snap took is called a
second
in my world. We have exact measurements of time, so sixty
seconds
makes a
minute
, sixty
minutes
an
hour
, twenty-four
hours
are in a
day
, and three hundred sixty-five
days
make a
year
. We track it all with things called
clocks
and
calendars
, time-measurement devices. I’m seventeen
years
old.”

She holds her hand up and snaps her finger. “You’ve lived five hundred thirty-six million, one hundred twelve thousand snaps,” she says, “or
seconds
, as you call them.”

I stare at her, astonished, and start to do the math in my head, but I get lost and start over. I quickly realize that I can’t do it without a calculator and accept that the number she gave me is accurate.

“Do
you have
days
and
nights
?” I ask but quickly correct myself using words she’ll understand. “What do you call light and dark?”

“We call them light and Darkness,” she replies. “Most of the time, it’s light. We never know when Darkness will fall, nor do we know how long it will last.”

“How do you know when it’s time to do something?”

“We sleep when we tire, consume sap when we hunger, and perform our purpose as needed. We know what needs to be done and when to do it. Krymzyn lets us know when it’s time for Communal or a Ritual.”

It’s strange to me the way she refers to Krymzyn as though it’s a living entity, not just a place.

Sash walks to a simple four-legged table made of brushed metal. It stands against the wall opposite the bed. Shelves are carved into the glossy stone above the table, home to several pitchers and cups, a pair of scissors, and a sheathed knife, all made of the same brushed steel. She points to a three-legged metallic stool by her side.

“Please sit,” Sash says. “I know that now is the time to heal your wounds, although your measurement of time appears not to have alerted you.”

I have to smile at what on Earth would have been a joke, even though her face is deadly serious.

I walk to the stool and sit in front of the table. Sash takes an etched-steel pitcher and two cups from the shelves, setting the cups in front of me. She pours thick liquid from the pitcher into each cup. The fluid looks like it should be scalding hot, but no steam rises from the mixture of red, orange, and yellow. I look inside to see undulating colors, like slowly morphing molten globs inside a lava lamp.

“Take off your shirt,” she says.

I pull the sleeveless black V-neck over my head, pausing to involuntarily flex at dull stabs of pain. She takes the shirt from me, crosses the room to the head of the mattress, and hangs it on one of several shiny hooks in the wall.

Sash returns to me, carefully slips her hand under one of my scabbed, bloodstained arms, and lifts it to the table. She does the same with my other arm before she pours liquid from the cup into one hand.

She slides her smooth, soft palm from the back of my wrist to my elbow, over my biceps, and up to my shoulder. I don’t even feel the liquid on my skin. No slime or stick as I thought there would be—just pleasing tingles.

I blink firmly several times to make sure I see what I think I see. The scabs disappear, the scrapes in my arm heal before my eyes, and new skin spreads over the wounds. She pours more of the liquid into her hands, gently rubbing them up my arms, across my shoulders, and down my back. Every pain is instantly swept away, leaving my muscles alert and fresh.

“Drink,” she says, tipping her head to the cup in front of me. She lifts her own cup and sips from it.

“What is this?” I ask, looking inside my cup.

“Sap of the sustaining trees,” she replies.

I slowly raise the cup to my lips, staring at the swirling colors, and take a sip. No taste, no smell, not hot nor cold. It’s the texture of honey but not at all sticky, and the fluid flows down my throat when I swallow.

Instantly, an absolute, pure feeling of energy surges through my muscles. Hunger feels satisfied and thirst quenched. With the strength I feel, I know that if I were crouched at the starting line of a three-mile cross-country course, I’d shatter the world record.

The swell of vitality gradually subsides into a serene and peaceful comfort with each sip I take. As the sap pulses through my veins, I feel content in every way.

“It’s weird,” I say to Sash. “I feel, like, really strong but also relaxed.”

“The sap knows what you need and when you need it,” she replies. “It strengthens your body but also calms your mind if you need rest.”

When we finish drinking, we both set our cups on the table and I look up at Sash. She walks to the head of her bed, unbuckles the black rope from around her waist, and loops it over one of the hooks in the wall. Her steel flask dangles from the end of the belt, making a few dull clangs against the quartz.

Lifting her shirt, she reveals small but beautifully curved breasts with tiny red nipples encased in a thin circle of pink. The muscles in her taut, flat stomach gently ripple as she pulls the shirt over her head and hangs it beside the rope.

Oblivious to my stare, she unfastens the three metal buttons at the front of her pants, slips her thumbs into the waist, and bends over as she pushes them to the ground. I’ve seen amazing girls’ rears and legs at cross-country and track meets, but nothing I’ve ever seen can compare to the perfect tight curve of her behind flowing into long toned legs. Her calves flex into thin but sculpted muscle when she steps out of the pants and hangs them beside her shirt.

She turns to face me, and my eyes linger for a moment on the thin triangle of short, silky jet-black hair above the crease between her legs. The rest of the skin on her body is smooth and clean, not a single hair on her legs or under her arms. Even her forearms are perfectly bare.

It occurs to me that no one I’ve seen here seems to have any hair except for their eyebrows, eyelashes, and what grows from the tops of their heads. The men don’t have facial hair. Neither the men nor the women have arm or leg hair from what I’ve seen. The only hair I see on Sash, other than her eyebrows, eyelashes, and what hangs from her head, is the narrow V located above her groin.

My eyes wander over the sensuous curves of her hips, across her narrow waist, then shoot up to her face. I feel ashamed for staring so long. Her face is expressionless, maybe even melancholy, and she doesn’t seem to be aware of the way I was gawking at her. She shows no shame, no embarrassment, and definitely no sexual intent at standing naked in front of me.

“Remove your pants and hang them on the wall,” she says as though issuing an order to a stubborn child. “We must cleanse.”

I’m embarrassed to stand up. The most gorgeous, incredible girl I’ve ever seen just took her clothes off in front of me. To be honest, it’s the only time I’ve seen a completely naked girl in person. I know by her demeanor combined with what she’s told me about Krymzyn that it has absolutely no meaning to her. But I’m a seventeen-year-old heterosexual male, and even if I was almost killed by a tree less than hour ago, my body’s going to do what my body’s going to do in this situation. There’s nothing I can do about it.

The sap also seems to be having quite an effect on me. It’s calming me mentally, but my nerves seem to be overly alert. So I kind of fumble my hands in front of me as I stand, trying to hide my physical reaction. Thankfully, Sash turns away and walks through the opening at the far end of the cavern, never once paying attention to me.

After crossing to the head of her bed, I unbutton my leathery pants, slide them off my legs, and hang them on a hook. With my hands folded over my groin, I enter the opening to the second cavern. I’m spellbound by beauty when I enter.

At one end of the cave, a gentle fall of silvery blue water spills from a ledge ten feet over the ground. The floor of the cavern, a pumice-like stone, only black, like scoria, is covered by a shallow stream of water from the fall. Translucent as it flows down a slight angle to the other side of the cave, the water disappears with a rushing sound through a narrow crevasse. The golden light from the crystal overhead glistens on the wet ground.

I walk to the waterfall, hands still strategically crossed in front of me, and my feet feel the flow of water with each step. I’m surprised that, once again, it doesn’t feel warm or cold, no temperature at all, but still soothing to my skin. The pumice stone isn’t hard, doesn’t scratch my feet, and feels like firm sponge where it’s wet.

Sash stands with her back to me, head down, letting the water splash on the back of her neck. When I step into the fall, caressing beads wash over me and send invigorating electric sensations through my nerves.

I glance at Sash. Eyes closed, she raises her face to the falling water with her long black hair, scarlet aglow, cascading down her back almost to her waist. The water beads when it runs down her waves but doesn’t seem to soak into her hair. I reach up and run my hands over my own scalp. My hair feels clean and healthy, but not wet or damp against my head.

She steps out of the fall and walks towards the other room. Her hair bounces, flowing behind her, exactly as if she’d never been in the water. I’m struck by the realization that when we were outside, my clothes never felt wet, despite the pouring rain. They were dry when I took them off moments ago.

“When you finish cleansing,” she says to me from the opening between caverns, “you need rest for the sap to finish healing you, and I need sleep after Darkness.”

Her expression, sad and distant, never changes. She seems tired, her eyes lacking the acute alertness I saw earlier. I’m not surprised after the mind-boggling physical display she put on whisking me to safety and then fighting the tree.

I wait until she turns away before I step out of the waterfall. My skin is so refreshed and revitalized that I feel like I just spent the entire day at a Beverly Hills spa—not that I’d know what that feels like. But in my mind, I imagine that this is how I’d feel.

When I enter the other room, a blush of embarrassment on my face, I turn my body slightly away from Sash. She’s already put on a pair of simple white shorts, like gym shorts with a drawstring, and a plain white tank top.

The shorts and top are just sheer enough that I don’t really have to use my imagination to see her body underneath. But I’m starting to feel guilty about how I’ve been looking at her because she’s so much more than just a cute girl. I mean, she’s amazing in so many ways I’ve already witnessed. She literally saved my life. It just feels wrong to look at her that way, especially with her not knowing.

“I apologize, but I have no sleep clothes for you,” she says.

“It’s
okay
. I’ll put my clothes on,” I reply, keeping my focus directly on her eyes.

“Why do you keep saying ‘
okay
’?” she asks.

“It’s something we say in my world, the same as ‘all right’ or ‘fine,’ an affirmative.”

She nods her understanding. I reach for the hooks on the wall, take my clothes in hand, and quickly slip back into them. Glancing at the bed, I see Sash now lying on her back with her head resting on a pillow.

“You may sleep on my bed,” she says quietly. “After we rest, I’ll take you to the Disciples.”

I lie down beside her on my back, my eyes staring straight up at the slowly moving points of light overhead.

“Sash, thank you again for saving me and everything you’re doing for me. I’m sorry if I was rude earlier. I was just a little scared.”

Her hand rests beside mine on the bed, so I take it into my grasp and gently squeeze it. It’s an innocent gesture of caring and thanks, nothing more. She yanks her hand away and clenches it into a fist on her chest.

“Why do you touch me?” she asks. There’s no anger in her voice. It’s still soft and monotone, but there’s a hint of curiosity.

“In my world, when we like someone or care about them or they’ve done something to help us, we touch. We shake or squeeze hands or put our arms around each other and
hug
.”

“It seems strange,” Sash replies.

“You don’t touch other people here?”

“There’s no need other than in the Ritual of Balance or when providing assistance to someone who’s injured.”

“When you rested your face and hands against the tree earlier . . . why did you do that?”

She turns her head to face to me, her amber eyes directly in front of mine.

“To nurture the tree because it provides sustenance for us,” she says with warm devotion in her voice. “So the tree knows I honor it although I’ve taken from it.”

“Where I come from,” I say, “sometimes people need nurturing too.”

She looks up to the crystal ceiling, and I do the same.

“We must sleep now,” she says. “Peace.”

Her word triggers the golden Swirls to slowly fade into blackness. I stare up through the dark with my eyes open, my arms limp by my sides. Sash’s breathing slows into a steady, smooth pattern.

I try to analyze all I feel at finding myself in Krymzyn again. The catalyst for my being here, I know, has to be a new tumor. But that doesn’t seem to bother me at all while I’m here. I finally admit to myself—I like being here. In a strange way, deep from inside me, I feel like I belong here. Maybe the sense of euphoria I experience is somehow related to the sap.

I start to feel tired and my eyelids begin to droop, but every nerve in my body suddenly ignites when Sash gently rests her hand on mine.