Chapter 20 : Older Than Light
To my astonishment, the water wall in front of him backed off as he proceeded, and the wall behind marched forward as the moving water-cord remained around his ankles.
If this is your first time here, welcome aboard⚓️! Let’s start from Chapter 1:
Becoming an annual paid subscriber (ONLY 3.32/mo.) to Alice by the Palm will get you a 6-month paid subscription to this novel (vice versa):
*
*
*
Places mentioned:
Castle Katella
A self-sufficient, city-like castle where the King and the Queen and the unmarried Valrinos live.
Tyrannoson:
One of the three kingdoms on the Central Continent, ruled by the Valrino family.
Spring
The capital city of Tyrannoson.
Linsaidea:
One of the three kingdoms on the Central Continent, northwest of Tyrannoson, across a narrow sea, the Rustless Sea, to Mandia. A nomadic, rather savage people that tame mammoths.
*
*
Creatures (that can speak and have names) mentioned:
Yisreal Valrino
A son of the King. Leopoldo met the young Yisreal in the woods while hunting. Then the King brought him back to Castle Katella and announced him to be his son.
Chester Valrino
The first-born son of King Leopoldo and Queen Evelyn.
Carwen Valrino
The youngest child and the only daughter of King Leopoldo and Queen Evelyn.
Meredith
A mysterious murderess—presumably a mermaid—entrusted to Ivan’s custody by Yisreal, who was supposed to execute her.
Kimo
Already died at this point. He was Ivan’s servant boy in the palace, brutally murdered by Meredith.
Princess Lorien
The daughter of the King of Linsaidea. She arrives in Tyrannoson to fulfill a marriage promise between the two nations, a condition for the Tyrannoson army to pass through the Mammoth Plain to invade Mandia. At this point, it turned out that she is not the real Princess of Linsaidea but a mysterious character who almost killed Yisreal (from Chapter 1).
Oberon Mellon
Ivan’s father. Died from the beginning of the story.
*
*
*
20
Yisreal noticed my hesitation before throwing the chain into the water.
“Do it. I didn’t expect to have it back anyway,” he said.
Surprised, I looked up at him. He exhaled, glancing upward in a way that almost seemed like rolling his eyes, releasing me from the burden.
Well, so be it.
I threw it in, and the chain quickly sank. Then I recalled an incantation meant to separate elements—light from light, water from water, air from air, earth from earth. I had never practiced it because I couldn’t grasp its purpose.
Light from light—such as firelight and sunlight; air from air—such as the air in water and the air in the sky; earth from earth—such as the earth on land and the earth beneath the water.
Water is older than light, air, and earth—even older than time. I knew little about water, being a Man, but for those who dwelled in it—
Meredith.
Speaking of her, I hadn’t seen her since she took Carwen’s arrow for Lorien—nor Carwen. But last night was the seventh day. I’d lost track of her body count since our counterfeit guests from Linsaidea arrived.
“What are you doing?” Yisreal frowned.
“Where’s Meredith?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
That pissed me off. “You don’t know? You’re the one who brought her to Castle Katella and condoned her killing!”
“She’s only killed unworthy men so far.”
His brazen composure told me he’d known all along—even every man she’d slain.
“Not Kimo,” I hissed.
Apparently, he didn’t remember Kimo—a servant of his servant—at all.
“Anyway,” he said, steering me back to the business. But in a second, he realized why I’d asked about Meredith.
“You’re not telling me you need her help.” Yisreal glanced at me briefly. I swore he was smirking on the other side of his face.
“Of course not,” I argued.
No, it was too late to send for Meredith. The flood was rising by the minute.
Water. Separating water from water—water in the glass and water in the river. Water in the sea and water in the marshland. Yes, these are different bodies of water, but I’m not sending them into separate containers. I’m only thinking how to split them apart so the dry land can appear.
“Look!”
Yisreal cried out suddenly, snapping me out of my thoughts. The water—where I had just thrown his necklace chain—began to stir. At first, it moved without pattern, but then it started twisting and spiraling like a three-stranded cord. The motion grew more and more vigorous, expelling the flood to its four sides. The spiraling water-cord pressed downward, and as it did, the water on either side began to rise—right where we and our horses were standing.
“Yisreal!” I shouted involuntarily.
The water was being pushed outward, and the shallowest, sunken point was where the spiral churned. Both of our horses were now buried up to the bottom of heir necks—and they, especially mine, had begun to fidget.
“Get off the horse,” he said on the other side, his eyes staring at the water-cord. Before I could respond, he’d thrown himself to the water-cord.
Quickly he stood up as his feet landed on the ground, the water cord only kept moving at his boots’ height, while the water wall around him kept rising. I jumped off the horse and stood next to him.
My horse—her name, Luna, I’d forgotten—swam away immediately though not as quickly as she desired to. Amanda stood still for a while, making a few neighs but didn't leave until Yisreal told her to flee.
At this point, the water walled us up was about our neck height.
“Is this the chain?” I asked him.
He was astounded himself, but quickly he made a decision: “Let's move forward.”
“Into the water?”
“Yes,” as he responded half-heartedly, he had already stepped forward slowly.
To my astonishment, the water wall in front of him backed off as he proceeded, and the wall behind marched forward as the moving water-cord remained around his ankles. I stretched out my hand to touch the surface but the water quickly swallowed my forearm. I leapt over to Yisreal.
“This is fun!” I laughed looking around and down, observing the water rising all around us—now about to block our sight—but were blocked outside as if there was an inside we were in.
Yisreal too was amazed by this miracle.
“Where did you get that necklace? I meant the chain. Well, the pendant was—splendid, of course, but this chain—”
“It was not of this world,” he said.
Though he spoke riddles, I never suspected the truthfulness of his words. So it’s not of this world, but of where?
“Did Oberon tell you about all the worlds that were created?”
It was rare for him to initiate a conversation, and much rarer to hear anyone bringing up my father by name.
“No—where we are going by the way? I can't see anything.”
“The dam is to the north of the arena,” he said.
“You know which way north is when you can see no way?”
Yisreal stopped talking, and I regretted diverting the topic.
“Aren’t you concerned for the people in the city?” I asked. “I know you’re going to fix the source of the problem, but this water is rising way too fast.”
Yisreal sighed. “You tell me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Can’t you see this flood has crossed the border of the natural?”
How does he know? He, a son of the King?
“You are the one who said it was because of the dam.”
“I said the dam failed. I didn’t say it was because of that.”
“But it was taken advantage of.”
“Finally.”
Since all the water the dam released plus the relentless rain were not enough to cause this rapidly rising flood, then another—even multiple—bodies of water must be drawn in from other places.
I reached out to the water wall next to me, scooped a full palm of water, and immediately I spewed it out—it was salty.
I turned to Yisreal. “The dam blocked fresh water, didn’t it?”
Yisreal grasped what I was trying to say and tasted it himself. His face fell for a few seconds, his eyes shifting quickly. Then he started murmuring—like speaking an incantation—but in a suppressed voice, and though I stood next to him, I heard not a word, only the movement of his lips. It felt like that time when I first saw him riding Amanda at Chestnut Hill from afar—how he manipulated the horse not with reins, but with words.
As soon as he stopped, I asked him, “Are you—” even at this point, I habitually swallowed the too “—a wizard?”
A pigeon appeared in the small square of sky above our heads, fluttering. It perched on Yisreal’s shoulder as he searched in his drenched coat for something. Having no luck, he took out his sword, cut his sleeve and his forefinger, and wrote in blood on the sleeve—DAM.