Prophecy's Promise (Prophecy of the Edges Book 1) (15 page)

I plummeted to the ground, tumbling onto my back, knocking the wind out of me. I shielded my face, expecting angry horse hooves to stomp down upon me, but none did. I felt the palpable red anger from The Edge flare and then fade, tempered with… fear?

Still on my back, I looked up into the sky. Where were the trees? Had I fallen down a hill and into a valley? My legs still had feeling. That’s good. I sat up. Nothing seemed broken. Standing up, I brushed the dirt from my clothes. My bag lay undamaged beside me. I inspected the contents. The book was fine; crackers smashed. My twin daggers remained strapped to my boots. I ripped Altis’s stupid locket from around my neck and shoved it in the bag.

I turned around to see a teenage boy staring at me.

“Hello? Who are you?” I asked the boy.

In response, he screamed in high-pitched terror, a sound somewhat similar to the sound that Meena made the day we found a mouse in our common room. He brandished an odd object that resembled a stick, but was obviously man-made. He wielded it defensively like a sword, but it was no bigger than a dagger and had no point. Two other boys ran up laughing at the first boy. Upon seeing me, one fainted. The other shouted in a language that I had never heard, but whose patterns sounded similar to ancient Cuneiform.

I heard a man’s voice from the other side of a gentle hill to my left. I picked up the words “Edge” and “learning” in ancient Cuneiform, but the linguistics of the rest of the words were too different to make any sense out of. The boy called out in response, but I picked up only the word “Edge” which made sense, because here it was. But where was I? I took my compass from my pocket, spinning to find north. The Edge was to my left. I shook the compass and tried again. Either the compass was broken or I had fallen through The Edge, which made no sense. I’d heard the story of the child who bounced from The Edge, leaving only a charred corpse.

Several other boys followed by a man in his early thirties with short-cropped dark hair strode over. The man and the boys wore similar outfits. Dark grey pants with a single red stripe down the outer side of each leg and matching jackets, stripes down the outer sides of their arms, and zippers up the back. The man had a large red sash across his jacket decorated with emeralds and rubies, but the boys did not. They each had a few metallic broaches, but none as beautiful as the man’s. The uniforms and the associated decoration must hold certain meanings, but none of the patterns meant anything to me. The man's face was ashen pale.

“Where am I?” I asked in ancient Cuneiform, hoping it was close enough to the language they spoke.

“My Lady!” The man’s accent clipped the consonants in his words in a way I’d never heard before. “You have come! Praise the Guardians! It’s a miracle! We are saved!” He fell to his knees and the boys copied his gesture.

“Where am I? Who are you?”

The man and most of the boys were still prostrated before me. A boy with blond curly hair shook the boy who had fainted. I turned around and felt The Edge, weaving against it, feeling the broken patterns of Mist. The red eyes observed me, quizzically. Not unlike a biology scholar before dissecting a rodent. I shivered at the comparison.

I shoved The Edge with all my strength, throwing my shoulder behind the effort, willing myself to go back through. Nausea overwhelmed me and I threw up. My vomit singed when it struck The Edge. The putrid smell nearly caused me to retch again.

“She touches The Edge without dying!” one of the boys exclaimed.

The boy was right. My hands were bloody and scratched from my fall, but not burned from The Edge. “Why are you kneeling?” I asked. It was making me very nervous, but not nervous enough to divert my eyes from The Edge. “Can you please stop?”

Is it possible that I am west of The Edge? Questions swarmed through my head as I continued to stare at The Edge. Was I on the other side? How did I get here? I turned around and surveyed the new landscape. While not forested like the other side, the slight roll of the landscape was similar. The purple flowers jutting out of the clover looked similar, but not identical to a species typical of this latitude. I bent down to pick one up and rubbed the slender stem between my fingers. Some of the boys still remained prostrate, but most had stood up and were staring at me with the same level of confusion that I was feeling.

“Did the world not disappear but pass through to this other side of The Edge?” I asked aloud. But that didn’t seem right, either, because I’d expect to see at least a few trees or at the very least stumps from freshly culled trees.

The man looked quizzically at me. “Are you not the Young Mother come to put the land together so that we will no longer be at the mercy of The Edge?”

“I
am
trying to learn about The Edge, but I'm not a mother. I think you have me confused with someone else.”

The boys mumbled amongst themselves. “Why does she say that?” one called out in Cuneiform.

“Stand down, Cadet Tejor,” the man ordered. “The lesson of The Edge is over. Either leave or stay quiet and watch the unfolding of history.”

“You are asking me to remain silent while allowing this woman to address you?” the boy replied.

“Just give me an excuse and I will boot you from this program.  I don’t who your father is.”  The man said.  The boy looked for a moment like he would retort but instead glared at me

The man looked at my belly and then back to my face. “But you are a mother-to-be,” he said.

“No, I’m not.”

“I can feel the fetus's Mist Marker. It is at least a week old, barely begun to grow,” he said. “Can't you feel it?”

Arwan sauntered over. “How did you come through?” I asked her. “Can anyone pass through The Edge?”

“Only you. I did not pass through. I came,”
Arwan replied.

“It takes the shape of a cougar!” The man made a sign that I did not recognize.

“It is time. Give the book to this man. You can trust this one. His belief is true and strong.”

“Really?” I asked her. She nosed my pack. I burrowed into it and retrieved Shezdon’s book. “I think that I was supposed to bring this to you.”

“The Edging of the World…” The man breathed in awe. “The book does exist.”

“Yeah, but no one can read it,” I said, turning around to look at Arwan for encouragement, but the damn feline had disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared.

“You can't read it?” he asked, completely unperturbed that Arwan had gone, only that she had materialized for a few brief moments. And even still, my existence fascinated him and the boys more than the daemon of the Guardians.

I shook my head.

“But you were supposed to take this knowledge and learn!” He sounded angry.

“I've only had it for a couple of months.”

“What do you mean? Your Slice has had it for a thousand years.”

“Slice?”

“That side of this edge.” The man clarified, frustration starting to rise in his voice. “Since your Slice was to have the Promise, your Slice has the book.”

“No...” Everything was happening too fast. “Well, maybe, it's in a dead language.”

“As dead as the language we speak in.”

“At least people study this one,” I retorted. “And you're lucky I know it! Not many besides Scholars do.”

“Yes, yes!” He sounded excited. “The Scholars of the Light. The ones to learn this book. To learn to stop It.”

“What It?  What’s the antecedent? And it's just Scholars...” Was there a translation I was missing?

The man frowned, “the book tells you how to fix The Edges.  It is meant to instruct the Promise on how to bring the Slices back together.”

“Edges?  There is just one Edge.”

“Is it Memory Block?” one of the boys asked. My confusion seemed to convince several of the boys that they no longer needed to prostrate themselves before me. At least that was something.

“I don't have a memory block. I never learned about these things you are talking about.” I was offended.  “I don’t know what a Slice is.  And there is only one edge.”

“You do have a Memory Block,” the boy protested. “I see it.” He turned around and spoke words I did not understand to the other boys. A few nodded in response and the others looked suspiciously at me.

“I had an accident as a child. I've had....” I didn't know the word for amnesia in Cuneiform.

“No accident. Bad Mist,” another boy said. “Can we fix her?” He turned to the man.

“You are both right. It’s definitely not from an accident. The memory block is over a decade old. Starting to crumble by itself. And Tejor is right, too. Bad Mist, said the man.

“No, I had an accident as a child.”

“We can get it fixed for you either way,” the man said.

The world around me began to seem very fuzzy. I sat down on the ground and tried to breathe slowly. This was too much to process. How could I have gone through The Edge? The man shooed the boys away. Obediently, the boys moved back a few yards, but waited anxiously and whispered amongst themselves. The man held back for a few moments, giving me some space. I knew that I couldn’t sit here forever.

“Our world is disappearing on the other side of this. Is the same thing happening to you?” I asked, still sitting on the ground.

“Of course!” Aakab, the boy who had insisted my memory was bound by Mist, said. “It would be the same in both Slices.”

Tejor, the boy who had mentioned bad Mist, yelled something. I didn’t understand the words, but I understood the sentiment. I understood the nose crinkled in disgust, and I understood that it was directed at me. A few of his classmates giggled. Aakab spun around on his heel and punched Tejor squarely in the jaw, knocking him to the ground. The boys who had giggled instantly moved toward Aakab. The man stormed over to the swarm of boys.

“That is unacceptable behavior in front of a lady!” he said in Cuneiform, I assume for my benefit. “Now all of you, head back to the trailhead. The Protocol needs to be started.”

He was definitely not a teacher. He couldn’t let Aakab go with the other boys and not expect them to gang up on him. Any teacher would know that. “Wait, Aakab, stay. I want to hear more.”

All the boys looked in horror from the man and then to me, and I could definitely sense I’d crossed some cultural taboo. “What? Are they un-allowed to be separated?”

The boy whom Aakab had punched spoke in the same tone he’d used a moment before. I turned to him and said, in my best teacher’s voice. “I might not understand the words you are using, but I definitely understand what is meant.” Being in my element, interacting with students, I felt more of my sense come back to me. “My name is Hailey Troubade, niece and heir of Lead Scholar Nazarie Troubade, and Journeyman to Lead Mist Weaver Initiate Altis Acrovena. I am an ambassador from Gryshelm sent by Queen Leona Mauzaca to discover the meaning of the disappearance of the world along The Edge. As a diplomatic ambassador to this land, I am hopeful that the rest of your populous has better manners than either of you.” The looks on all the boy’s faces varied from shock to horror at my sternness.

“Well, maybe you
are
the Promise.” The man smirked.

“I don’t know about that, but I do have a job to do. Since you seem to be experiencing similar peculiarities along The Edge, let’s work together to prevent its spread.” I wished my senses had come to me as soon as I tumbled through The Edge, but now was better than never.

The man considered me for a moment, opened his mouth a few times as if to speak, and then finally said, “Well, you heard the Ambassador. Aakab can stay, but the rest of you are to head back to the campus.” A few of the boys started to protest. “As Senior Cleric, I will push any of you who do not follow my words back a level, including you, Tejor.” The man took a wide object about the width of his hand out of his coat and spoke into it in the language that I did not understand. As he spoke, he stared deadpan at Tejor, but Tejor made no response. He put the object back in his pocket and the boys turned down the path. He came back over to me with Aakab following.

“Wow, my parents will be so proud that I was here to see you come through and that I defended your honor and that you let me have a private audience with you,” Aakab babbled, obviously star-struck. “Can you sign my bag?”

“Why?” I asked, but he looked so excited and held a thin black stick to me. Taking the object, I realized that it was similar to a quill. “Where’s the ink pot?”

“Seriously?” Aakab laughed. “I guess you could say that it’s built in.”

I touched the pointy end. Purple ink stained my fingers. Weird. But Aakab was holding his bag out to me and pointing excitedly to the center. “Are you sure?” But his exuberant nod told me he was, so I wrote my name on his bag. Odd custom. Aakab grinned at the bag while the man, who still had yet to tell me his name, observed both of us.

After a moment, the man said, “Is it possible that you have no idea?”

“Yes. We truly have no idea why The Edge is eating our world,” I said slowly. “And I have no idea what your name is.”

He laughed a deep laugh. “I am sorry for my rudeness. I never imagined…” he started. “I am Commander Bahlym Ahgren Zayad. As both a Councilman and Cleric, I welcome you. I have prayed daily for your arrival.”