Shine Light (10 page)

Char hurried up over the rocks to join Clash. When she reached him, Naif saw her sway with tiredness.

‘You say the books will tell us about Ixion? The origins of the Ripers?’ demanded Eve.

‘I-I believe so. But I haven’t read them all. I only found these ones some weeks ago – just before Danskoi.’

Eve clenched the hilt of her axe. ‘Tell me they are worth Brenny’s life.’

Charlonge looked up at her, speechless, then to Clash for help. But Naif’s brother had nothing to offer her. Silence spread across the assembled listeners.

Naif stepped forward, compelled to help her friend. ‘We believe the knowledge in these books is worth your and my life as well, Eve, if it means we can set the young ones free. Not just those here now, but those who would come.’

Eve brought her fierce, bruising stare down on Naif. She lifted the axe from the ground as if she might take both Clash and Char’s head off with one swing.

Char began to cry, but Clash didn’t flinch.

Naif stepped up further, so she was alongside him. Back straight, eye unblinking, she withstood Eve’s wrath the same way she had withstood her father’s cold indifference and the wardens’ twisted tortures; the way she’d borne the pain from her obedience strip.

Nothing would make her cower. These books held the key to their freedom and their survival. She knew it.

A hand touched her elbow and a sturdy frame planted itself next to her.

‘I’m Jarrold. I helped Charlonge with the books. I’m new here but . . . but shouldn’t we get on with it, so we don’t all end up like Brenny?’

Something in Jarrold’s simple and sensible statement broke the tension.

Eve lowered her axe to the floor again. ‘Wise enough words, young man.’ She lifted her gaze to the gathered Leaguers. ‘Brenny will get our highest honoured burial. In the meantime, all of you have tasks to fulfil. We have an island to take.’

A murmur of approval spread among the Leaguers, and all but two went back to their work. Those who stayed, Naif guessed, were Brenny’s closest.

‘Take the books to the candle cave and find us what we need,’ Eve said to Naif and Charlonge. ‘Suki, Clash, with me.’

With that she stepped down and went to speak more privately with Brenny’s grieving friends.

Two Leaguers brought them food and basins to rinse their hands before they began. Charlonge insisted on the washing, fearful that the dirt would further stain the pages and obscure the writing.

They sat cross-legged in a circle with the pile of books in the centre. Markes and Emilia joined Naif and Charlonge, but Liam and Jarrold begged off.

‘Carry them, I will,’ said Jarrold, ‘but
read
the frossing things? No! It’s worse than school.’

None of them expected an explanation from Liam, and the way he stared at the books with suspicion made Naif wonder if he could read at all. From what she knew of Stra’Ha, the men existed to help provide for the women.

Candle smoke stung Naif’s eyes as she began to skim pages. The rolling script had no punctuation breaks, and Naif strained to decipher the words. Much of it was a listing of daily tasks. The wording seemed clumsy too, phrases in reverse or such strange wording that the sense of it became lost.

Morn of yester odor trapped burn

Shieves molde in spite wind

What in Grave did those things mean?

After a time, the words began to blur and she had to fight the desire to lie down and sleep.

‘This is another language,’ said Emilia suddenly.

Charlonge leaned across to look over Emilia’s shoulder. ‘Some of the early monks came from the Far South of our world. When they died, no others came. They spoke a difficult language and not much is known about them except that they built the prayer hutches. The monks who came after them were from places much closer. They knew nothing of the Far South, only that the seas between here and there are rough.’

That idea caught Naif’s interest, and her sleepiness abated a little. An unknown land, so far away they knew nothing of it, apart from the books left by courageous travellers.
A place far away from Grave and Ixion
.

‘Put those written in another language in a separate pile,’ said Markes. ‘I’ll look at them. Their word symbols look like music. I might be able to work out how to read some of them, if I can find a pattern.’

Naif gave up on her current book and chose a slim, battered volume from halfway down the pile. This one, though mottled and torn, had a soft blue leather cover. The binding appeared to be a kind of resin, not the binding cord used on many of the others.

‘This looks more recent,’ she said.

Inside, the writing showed spaces and some punctuation symbols, which made the reading easier.

Brother Mahout be I, charged with the recount of the history of the Islands for His Most Holy Highness Lomakin . . .

Naif felt a charge of energy. Brother Mahout talked about the
islands.
How many lay within the Golden Spiral? She began thumbing through pages for any drawings. A third of the way through, she found several maps. They showed a segment of sea sprinkled with islands of different sizes. A section of it had been shaded over lightly in an undulating shape.

‘The Spiral,’ she said out loud.

Emilia shot her a questioning glance but Markes and Charlonge remained absorbed in their own reading.

Naif thumbed back and began reading several pages before. Then she came to a page which had the corners turned down, as if to mark it. It read:

Be told in tomes and stories from sailors that the sea be littered with remnants of God’s fury. Spits of land, cast from his mouth in anger as he tore the land of Lapith to pieces. His Holy-ness decreed new names for this land constellation . . .

Naif scanned through the list and found Ixion at the centre.

‘It seems the island was larger and has not always been called Ixion,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Markes, looking up from his book. ‘In this book it’s called Lapith.’

‘Does it speak of the other islands?’ asked Charlonge.

‘Yes. Look. I have a drawing here.’ Naif placed the book in the centre of the circle so they could all see the sketch.

‘If this shaded section is the Spiral, it’s like a cloud surrounding them,’ said Charlonge. ‘That’s the first I’ve seen of such a map.’

‘You mean none of the other books have it?’

She nodded. ‘Not the ones I’ve seen. Nor do they speak of it. I had begun to think that the Spiral was a name made up by the Ripers, and spread to other places by pirates.’

‘What’s that tiny mark at the bottom of Ixion?’ asked Emilia.

Naif squinted at where she pointed. Beyond the southernmost tip, a reef was drawn in wavy lines and beyond that the dot of a tiny atoll. She examined the book’s cover for date marks but the torn hide showed no stamp or engraving. ‘Perhaps the Spiral didn’t exist until the Ripers came?’

‘What do you mean?’ said Markes. ‘How could it not have existed?’

‘The Ripers aren’t of this world. Lenoir spoke of being caught in the pull of the Tri-Suns.’

Charlonge frowned. ‘If they’re from other worlds perhaps their arrival somehow caused the Spiral to be made?’

‘How?’ scoffed Markes. ‘Are you saying the Ripers can move land and water? And bring darkness?’

Naif flushed, angered by his scorn.

‘They could be right, Ewan,’ said Emilia.

The use of Markes’s Grave name jarred on Naif but it made him listen.

‘We were taught at school that islands formed when the sea flooded up the sides of mountains. Some of those mountains still run with hot flow from the belly of our world. What if the Ripers fell from the sky into the sea, upsetting the earth and water? It could be that the ground shifted beneath their crash and more islands formed,’ said Emilia.

‘That’s
fou
,’ said Markes, using a word Suki had taught them.

‘No!’ disagreed Charlonge. ‘On Lidol-Push my parents told me stories of a God that fell from the sky. He disobeyed his father God and was cast from the heavens. They said the night sky blazed for so long from his fall that night became day. When the light finally dimmed, it left a well of dark water where the young God fell.’

Naif’s stomach tightened in excitement. If the Golden Spiral had not always been there then whatever had occurred to cast Ixion into darkness could perhaps be undone. She would not share her hope with the others yet. Not until she learned more.

‘Find the books that are written at that time and see what stories you can find about Gods falling to the sea.’

‘What time was that then?’ asked Emilia.

Naif jogged her friend’s elbow. ‘Char?’

‘My parents said it was Pama’s story and she lived six decades. She died a year before I came to Ixion.’

‘Then look for anything written less than a hundred years ago.’

‘What are you thinking, Naif ?’ asked Markes.

‘Knowing how the Ripers arrived means also knowing how they can leave.’

Charlonge crawled back over to her pile of books. ‘You believe you can make them leave?’

‘I don’t know. Let’s find out more.’

‘But Eve and Clash have their own plans to defeat them. They have weapons,’ said Markes.

‘They won’t succeed,’ said Naif quietly. ‘They cannot. Even if every single young one on Ixion joined them. They
cannot
win. The Ripers and the Night Creatures are too strong.’

‘Your bravery deserts you now, Naif ?’ said Markes, surprised.

Naif clenched her fists. Markes dismissed her ideas the way Clash did. ‘Bravery is not what we need. We have to be clever and far-sighted. It’s not just the Ripers that need to be stopped. What about our Elders? They are just as evil. They are the ones trading our lives.’

Charlonge nodded but Markes remained unconvinced. ‘Once we’ve defeated the Ripers we can take our fight back to Grave.’

‘And do what? Slaughter our parents and cousins and friends?’

‘Seals have no friends,’ he said.

Naif ignored the barb. His argument was hollow and he knew it. ‘You aren’t a Seal. You left behind friends.’

‘Ewan, listen to her,’ said Emilia. ‘Please.’

It was the third time she’d supported Naif, and Markes fell silent. The four of them stared at the books.

Markes got to his feet. ‘I need air.’

Emilia looked at him uncertainly. ‘Ewan?’

But his attention fell to Naif. ‘If you are right and the Ripers come from another world, don’t you think they would’ve left already if they could? Have you thought, perhaps, that they
choose
to be here?’

Naif shrugged. She did not want to tell him of her nascent plan to destroy the Golden Spiral. Nor did she want Suki or Eve or Clash to know. They wanted to fight. ‘As I said, we should keep reading. It cannot hurt to learn more.’

He made a frustrated noise. ‘You learn more. I’m going outside.’

Emilia looked forlorn but Naif refused to be daunted. ‘Char, Emilia, keep reading. Please.’

Charlonge nodded and began separating her books by date. Emilia sat unmoving, clearly torn.

‘You are clever, Emilia,’ said Naif. ‘Make your own decisions. Use your mind to help protect your future.’

The girl’s eyes grew wide with the compliment and with the suggestion that she should act on her desire. At first, Naif thought she might get up and follow Markes, but after a moment or two she bent to the task.

From then, Naif lost track of time, reading until her eyes stung and watered and pain stabbed her shoulders where she bent over the books. Some of the stories read easily, some were told in such an obscure manner she could only guess at their meaning. She desperately wanted to stretch out and sleep but she refused to succumb while the others still toiled.

An hour or more later, Charlonge still looked fresh and able to concentrate. Naif marvelled at her stamina.
This is her world. Her passion. This is what she came to Ixion for.