Letters to Eksovaham, Chapter 12
Let's get out of this place!
Thira wasn’t dead. The pain kept reminding her so. When she opened her eyes and light filled her vision, the throbbing in her head overcame the burn in her back. She must have lied there in the boat for a candle. Breathing. Watching the others around her gather the things that had been scattered about in the storm.
“Do we throw it away?” She heard a voice say. Was it Pevro?
“I’m not gonna eat it,” Iva responded.
Thira gathered herself. She was on her back, her head was on a bedroll. She stretched her legs. They were sore, but it felt amazing. She took an anticipatory breath as she prepared to position her arms to push herself up.
“Calm down little one.” Avram said, “Rest for a while longer, you don’t need to get up.”
Little? She disliked the term. She let her arms rest for a moment, but then shook her head, rolled over to place her elbow on the floor, and pushed herself up slowly. She grew more and more conscious. “Water.”
“We’re on a beach Thira,” Pevro said.
Of course. How could she be so stupid? She looked around. They were on a stone beach, there was a cliff inland. And there was a sea of cold water ready for her. She stepped out of the boat and approached the water. The stones were smooth on her feet, and the water was cold, but the sun was warm. She sealed water between her hands and brought it to her lips. Her dry mouth absorbed it like cloth. Her head still throbbed. She touched the back of it and found pain there too.
“Careful,” Iva said as she approached.
“What happened?” Thira was trying to piece together what had happened the day before.
“You got hit by the boom Thira. I had to dive in to save you.”
Thira rubbed her eyes. “What? Why?”
“You got hit by the boom,” Iva said again. “It knocked you out cold.”
Thira worried. Had anyone seen her back? She had to play it cool. Her mental state wasn’t amazing at the moment. No. They probably didn’t see the runes on her back. They would be acting differently if they had. After all, they had killed a man for having a rune quite recently. She looked at her garments. They had been dirtied by the mess in the boat.
Thira inspected Iva. She was rather put together for someone who just made it through a storm at sea. The knots on her garments were all perfectly tied. Her hair was in a bun. Her freckled skin was clean.
Iva looked around again. It was late morning. There was a light wind blowing north, but they wouldn’t be able to sail so that didn’t really matter. On that note, there weren’t any ships in view. Vosa was sitting on a fallen log on the opposite side of the beach, she must not be in the mood to be around the paktkeepers. How would they deal with her? Well, she didn’t really pose them a problem, so she didn’t need to be dealt with. The boat was a complete wreck, they would have no way of repairing it.
Thira stopped herself from thinking for a moment and remembered what she had forgotten to say. “Thank you.”
Iva chuckled and looked down, “No problem.”
Thira went back to the shipwreck. Her parchment was unravelled and unskillfully gathered in a pile. She rolled it up and checked her notes on Vosthrak runes. She had written them in claw, although she had used Tokovi script because the others couldn’t read it as far as she knew. Although Iva’s mother did originate from the Tokov. Perhaps she could’ve chosen better. She looked at the face of each paktkeeper to see if they were watching her gather her notes. None were. She was probably in the clear.
She looked over her notes. She had gathered any and all information about the Vosthrak runes, the unholy carvings. Two had been carved on her back. One was said to allow Thaktas to control objects from a distance, but experimentation had brought her to the conclusion that this was false, as she was unable to do any such thing. The other is said to enhance her scent. And though she had often received compliments on her scent, this was more likely due to her choice of perfume and strict hygiene than the rune, but she wouldn’t discount the possibility. Perhaps there was a correlation. The burn of the rune caused her to think about her possession of a body, which might have led her to take better care of it. But it didn’t seem to have any supernatural effects.
The runes were supernatural of course. They had to be. Nothing else explained their appearance. They radiated a faint black glow, like the sky at night. They also stayed intact and in shape no matter what. Once she had cut the skin over one of her runes. But the skin didn’t separate over the runes themselves.
Well, she had thoroughly thought through her safety within the group. Now thought had to be put towards what they could do. Where could they go? Honestly, Thira wished to return to the libraries where she had made so much progress. But that possibility had evaporated. She was still mourning the fact that she would probably never be queen. So she might as well return home and live as a noble, rather than continue living as a false zealot in a foreign land. Well, in any case, the general direction she wanted to go was East, and since that was the chosen direction of the paktkeepers she could stay with them a while longer. She liked them. Iva was probably her closest friend. Even if her culture was barbaric and inferior.
She looked at the cliffs. They continued down for a long while. Still, she would probably opt to walk down the beach until they came to a low point they could climb up. Only one would need to make the climb, and then help the others up with rope. It was still the morning, so they had plenty of the day ahead of them. Still, it was probably best to get a move on.
She initiated the conversation to give a naturality to the information she wanted to convey. “How are we gonna get out of here?”
“I don’t know,” Pevro said. How helpful of him. “I don’t see any ships around, and the cliff is pretty tall.”
“I suppose we can walk down the beach until we get to a low point in the cliffs, and then we can use rope to climb up.”
“That sounds good,” Pevro said.
They took off not long after that. Vosa didn’t come along. Avram had approached her, but the interaction didn’t seem to go well from a distance. Strange. That was probably the last time they would ever see her, and it felt so, unmomentous.
The stones, although smooth, were rough on their feet. Thira wished she had two sloths she could tie to her shoes. Their claws would make her kicks more effective too, she thought to herself. Thira didn’t often have funny thoughts, and when she did, she preferred not to share them. She found too many people around her had wasted too much time on humour.
After taking two breaks over the course of a candle and a half or so, the cliffs seemed to grow taller and taller. Each of them wondered if they should turn back and walk in the other direction, but they had taken too many steps this way. They had to follow through. Soon enough, they came across a sheer drop in the height of the cliff, as though the terrain had been cut out and moved. There would still be a short climb, but it would be much more doable than the outrageously tall cliffs from earlier in the day.
“Alright, who is best at climbing?” Pevro said.
There was silence for a moment, as no one wanted to take on the responsibility. Thira knew she was definitely not the best choice. She wasn’t very athletic. Although she took good care of her body, she was much more dedicated to enhancing her mind. Her mind is who she was. Her body was just what she was.
After a unbearable amount of time, Iva and Avram both quietly offered to go at the same time. Both seemed to be relieved that the other was volunteering, which was quickly followed by fear when they saw that the other was relieved.
“I think you actually climb right? You have to climb to reach certain herbs and things.” Iva offered.
“Iva, I’m flattered you think I’m so dedicated. But you must realize that your training as a guardian, High Guardian of the East Gate I might add has put you in much better condition to–”
“Enough with the modesty. How about you guys race?” Pevro offered.
Both of their faces went red.
“Okay, sorry, bad suggestion,” Pevro said.
“No, it wasn’t bad,” Avram said.
“Yeah, you give great suggestions,” Iva said.
“No, clearly you guys don’t want to, I thought it might be fun,” Pevro said. “But, you know, I can climb the cliff. I don’t think this is something we need to worry so much about.”
“No, we can,” Iva said.
“We’re not worrying,” Avram said.
All four, including Thira who had previously only been an observer of the interaction, sighed at the same time. Iva and Avram got out of their rope.
The race was intensely unthrilling. Both were slow climbers, and each insisted the other was doing better than them. When Avram pulled ahead, he continuously insisted his path up the cliff had better holds, and that it came down more to luck than skill.
Even though they were slow climbers, it didn’t take long before Avram reached the ledge and began preparing his rope. Iva followed very soon after. What they had seen had led Iva to request they refill her waterskin before climbing up.
“Yeah, refill all of them,” Avram said.
When Thira finally got to the top of the cliff, she was met with barren mountainous terrain in every direction except down the cliff. The ground was eerily smooth and hard, and it was at a slight angle which made it hard to stand comfortably.
There was a nearby hill they decided to climb to try to orient themselves. Avram had brought a map of the coast they could try to find a landmark on. It was deceptively difficult to summit the hill. As the steepness increased, they found that they slipped more and more. With stone so smooth, there was nothing for them to grip onto. Hira opted to go barefoot and was soon followed by each of the others.
Upon reaching the summit, they saw stony terrain for kilocandles and kilocandles in every direction. They saw the inlands in the far distance, and they saw what could only be Tekopo Woods, the densest and unforgiving forest on this side of the sea, and the only place they would be able to find food and drink in view.