Chapter Seven

Greenbrook

As it turned out, Vand was as stubborn as he was rude. Chief Firmstone worked through the night with the lizard, hoping to wear him down, but he didn’t crack. The chief, Greenbrook, Trail, and even the chief’s wife questioned, threatened, and bribed Vand. The lizard remained resolutely loyal to his people, not even giving their name. Greenbrook had to admit that he’d developed a grudging respect for the prisoner.

When morning came, Chief Firmstone placed Vand in a cage and had Trail lock it with magic. He told the lizard that they’d go to Mother Moon tonight, and that he’d break then. Vand gave a hmph sound but settled down in the cage. It was amazing that he could remain so confident that he was ready to sleep surrounded by enemies.

Unfortunately for Greenbrook and Trail, though, they were only allowed to sleep after they did their lesson for the day. Trail wasted no time jumping into the material.

“Magic may just be air,” he yawned, leading Greenbrook through the forest to a clearing, “But air doesn’t have to be something you move through easily. If you bring enough of it close enough together, it can block or hit things as a solid object.”

“So magic can be fought with like a knife or shield,” Greenbrook said.

“Yep! You catch on quick!” Trail said.

The forest-born made a quick swinging motion with his arm at a nearby bush. A branch fell with a flash of purple, cut cleanly off. With a small smirk, Trail held out his fist, showing off a crude, bright purple knife.

“See how the magic looks?” he asked.

Greenbrook nodded.

“Bright and crude. Very effective,” he said.

Trail gave a little offended noise.

“With objects of magic, you make them in a moment. They never look nice,” he said, “On the positive side, though, only Magic-Chosen can see them, so it doesn’t matter how bad they look. I’ve heard farmers talking about how amazing magic objects must look.”

Greenbrook smirked.

“That’s the best trade secret I’ve heard, and I’ve heard several,” he said.

Trail laughed.

“Oh, this is nothing! Just you wait, apprentice,” he said, “Now for you to try it. Imagine that the magic is being attracted to your hand- don’t grab at it, let it come to you…”

* * * * *

Jaumes

In the dream, the moon was a giant gray depojico climbing on top of the Mountain peaks. Her glow was bright and harsh to Jaumes, whose eyes were adjusted to the darkness of the night. Jaumes heard the mighty Mountains groan under the stress of the moon’s weight, and felt them shudder through the ground. The tremor made the trees all around him shake. While Jaumes stood at the edge of the forest, a movement from the mountain face caught his eye. He saw his and Mahela’s family huddle at the mouth of a cave in the middle of the cliff.

“Jaumes, Mahela, come into the cave! It’s too dangerous out there!” their father, Hujuc, said.

“The Mountains can’t protect you from the moon if you’re not in them!” their older sister, Launi, said.

Mahela stepped forward, and Jaumes realized that she, Reni, and Honasa were standing around him.

“The Mountains need us to do our part, too!” Mahela said to Jaumes’ family, “If we have to do our part to prevent cave-ins, we need to do our part to prevent the depojico from going extinct!”

“All of them, not just the falery!” Honasa added.

Before the argument could continue, a mighty ‘crack’ filled the air. Jaumes watched as the Mountains cracked in two, revealing that they were hollow. The cities and villages of the depojico were exposed, but the individuals themselves were too small to be seen at this distance. The only thing keeping the Mountains standing after years of being hollowed out had been the unity of the outer walls. Now that the unity was lost, the remains of the mountain crumbled. Hajuc and Launi were buried under the stone they thought would protect them.

Angry shouts came from behind the group of four at the edge of the forest. Mahela turned and gasped, then ran towards the noise. Honasa looked behind him, then at Jaumes and Reni. Reni and Jaumes stayed firm, never turning from the destruction before them.

The moon was unfazed by the Mountains’ fall. She simply walked in the air. She hadn’t needed the Mountains’ help at all, yet she had broken them under her feet. As she made her way higher into the sky, her form shifted into her normal grey circle.

How could the patrons of the depojico stand against the patrons of the humans, if even one human patron had broken the Mountains apart without thought or reason?

Jaumes awoke to the ground moving around him. After a moment of panic, he remembered what was going on. The humans. The questioning. The cage. His impending death. All things that deserved panic without a shaking earth to add to it. That’s probably why he’d slept through the day. Panic was exhausting.

“Hey, Vand, you ready to be questioned by Mother Moon?” Trail asked.

He was walking on the left of the cage. Greenbrook was on the right, and a young woman Jaumes didn’t know was holding him. Judging from the wooden stars making up her necklace, she was the second most important woman in the tribe.

“Funny how you guys have to run to your mother to try to get me to talk,” Jaumes said.

He had decided to ignore that they were calling him by his title as an apprentice. At his insult, all three of the teens stiffened.

“Do you want to earn Mother Moon’s wrath?” Greenbrook asked.

“I thought I already had it,” Jaumes said, “Since I’m not human.”

Trail snorted, then hid it with a cough. He was both the most and least fun of the humans, since he actually laughed at several of Jaumes’ insults. Jaumes wasn’t sure what to make of him. He hadn’t expected any humans would share his sense of humor.

The small procession walked out of the chief’s cabin and into the moonlit night. The bright silvery light reminded Jaumes of his dream, and he shuddered unconsciously. The humans noticed and smirked.

“Scared now, Vand?” the young woman asked.

“It’s cold out here,” Jaumes said, “Although I shouldn’t be surprised, with so many esosa around.”

His use of the depojico term made them all stiffen again, and he smirked. It was fun when no one knew what name you were calling them. For all they knew, he could have called them by their worst insult. If they knew the true translation they would probably be pleased, but since they didn’t, Jaumes had fun.

By that time, the procession had made it to the bonfire in the center of the village. Chief Firmstone was dancing in front of it, and the tribe were gathered around it. Jaumes was transferred from the young woman to Greenbrook, who worked his way through the crowd. With a flare of his arms, the chief finished the dance and faced the bonfire.

“Fire, messenger of Mother Moon, last night we found an enemy of our people,” he said, “The lizard Vand refuses to answer our questions about the lizards that hide in wait to destroy us. We ask that you reveal his secrets to us, or make him reveal them himself!”

Greenbrook walked through the last line of people by the bonfire. Now right next to the bonfire, he held Jaumes up, towards the rising moon. Despite the heat of the roaring fire, a sudden rush of cold enveloped Jaumes’ bones. He crouched in pain.

Just like what they did last night to make me understand their language, Jaumes realized, Everything about humans involves pain.

“My people are the depojico,” Jaumes’ heard himself say, and his mind froze with fear, “We are children of the Mountains. We have been watching the humans for 72 years, since magic struck the first into existence. We saw the destruction they left in their wake, and decided to protect ourselves by hiding and learning everything about them. That way we could know what to do if they found us.”

“I am an apprentice spy. The depojico are splintered into nations, and I’m someone that isn’t supposed to become a spy. There is a lot of arguing and bickering, and the spies’ knowledge doesn’t go anywhere. You could easily crush us, and there’s nothing that we could do about it. That is why we call you the ‘young terror’.”

Mother Moon was forcing Jaumes to tell the unaltered truth- even truth that Jaumes didn’t want to acknowledge himself. The knowledge of the aljeaberavy and jawasay wasn’t going anywhere. It was all going to be useless, and now the humans knew it.

Even as Jaumes reflected on that truth, the cold and pain left him. Mother Moon had given her children the information they needed, and she was finished working.