Episode 1: the journey — opening scene

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The god Salihandron’s gaping stone mouth filled my sight as I approached, a black void on a night with no bright moons.

From my knowledge of ancient lore, the deity’s throat was called the Demon’s Hold and the Spirit Passage. Its persistent exhale was the Great Breath, a physical manifestation of the god’s essence. The wind howled from that rocky hole, whipping my hair and forcing me to lean forwards on the grassy land to stay stable.

Within my clutched fingers was a golden machine, the Progenitor of Understanding, as I’d come to think of it, or the glitch, a device that should never have been. Its presence had undermined me as a leader in our tribe, and I’d be happy if that were all it would do. It could ruin everything for me. 

I raised my fist to throw the item into the god’s mouth and rid myself of the curse.

But I stalled. 

The few who knew of the machine would hate what I was about to do.

I dropped my hand and opened my palm. The singular item’s pinprick-sized blue light glowed, highlighting features reminiscent of intertwining golden leaves and open petals. Such beauty.

The thoughts and words it possessed could reveal the past and change the future. Humanity might celebrate its arrival forever if I allowed it, if I shared it. A longing stabbed my chest.

Suppose I fed it to the god. Yes, the divinity would swallow it, and my problems would have vanished. But I would deprive everyone of the knowledge that would have helped them see the World as it truly was.

How could a device originally designed to do one thing—record our voices—have such power?

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Many days before . . .

I stepped out of the back stairs onto the earthen berm, our underground home beneath my feet, aluminum spear in hand. Sunlight pressed on my face, animal calls filled the air, and the summer forest’s fragrant breeze drifted past, relaxing my body. 

I’d finally escaped my studies with my mother, who was working me hard to be the Deoan tribe’s honored Lead Storyteller. 

The Council of Seven Elders planned to declare a successor for when Mother retired from the role, even though that should be years away. A hundred experienced Storytellers clamored to be next in line, yet somehow, my parents expected me, their son, to be selected by the shamans.

Thankfully, my parents also depended on me for hunting, giving me a reprieve from the endless preparations in my bid to become the Lead Storyteller. And I’d grown faster at achieving a kill than they seemed to have realized, which allowed me a few extra moments to myself during the hunt.

I jogged along the trail through dense underbrush and small trees, past a large square hole in the ground, our home’s courtyard below, where Father was trimming a long-leaf arachea plant. I scuttled down an embankment, hopped over a seasonal stream, and scrambled up a hill with plenty of roots as handholds. 

The hilltop granted me the highest ground in the Old Neighborhood and my favorite view. The ocean of tree canopies shrouding the Deo Commons and the North and East Neighborhoods stopped my breath, as always. 

The point of my spear followed the landscape, tracing a line far north, past that unvaried sea of dark green. The Deo ended where a different forest began, with much taller trees growing over uneven, undulating terrain. Why was there so little speculation about who or what might live there? It was as if no one cared.

Perhaps Cleo and I should visit that land when my studying ended, which would be soon. The Equis Ceremony, where the shamans would decide my fate, was only weeks away.

Patience.

Right then, Cleo and my other friends might have been at our favorite gathering place in the commons under the thick canopy before me, bantering and sharing stories, enjoying the fenha, the place’s positivity.

My heart ached. It had been months since I spent any real time with them, with Cleo. 

Our meeting spot was only a half-hour stroll away from where I stood.

Using my spear as a walking stick, I shuffled down an embankment and along rough game trails, hopping over the Deo Stream. From there, I meandered among the smooth umber trunks of the Deo trees on the Deo Commons’s perfectly flat carpet of moss. 

Having been away from the meeting spot for so long made me uncertain of the way. But nothing in the commons interrupted sightlines except the innumerable tree trunks, giving me views of hundreds of feet in some directions. 

And in the distance was what I sought. Cleo’s copper-gold Deoan cabin vehicle, or cab, rested on its parking skis among the trees’ natural colonnades.

Every cab was simply a floating hull with wings. Hers looked like a metal egg with long strings of silvery wing-facets arranged like leaves on vines sprouting from the top of the hull. A ring of windowpanes separated by curved muntins wrapped the circumference—a pretty cab, for sure.

Cleo’s feet peeked out from beyond a familiar oversized tree. 

This was what I’d really hoped for: Cleo by herself. 

I rounded the tree, and she turned and smiled with a gleam in her wide, dreamy eyes. “Giels! Where have you been?”

“Where’ve you been?”

We laughed. It often felt like we thought the same things. A huge grin spread across my face, knowing we were still in sync after so long, as best friends ought to be.

A tan full-body wrap with lines of red and blue along the sides hugged Cleo. A slighter, younger version of her must have clung to my memories, because her elegant, mature figure struck me. 

She pushed herself up and pulled her straight, dark brown hair into a tail, revealing a face of bronze features a shade lighter than the tree she leaned against—a true Deoan, like me. Her hand patted the ground beside her. 

Leaning my hunting spear against the tree, I stretched out on the bright green moss. We embraced.

“How are things with Mother, Giels?” she said, mocking my mother’s overly formal tone and pronunciation of my name, Gee-ells, instead of Gee-uhls, as everyone else said.

I rolled my eyes, running a hand through my short, though probably messy, hair. “She’s been training me for fourteen hours a day for the damn Equis. Hunting is my only escape—that and sleep. The council is meeting at my home tonight, and we’re out of meat, so here I am.” I tapped my spear.

“Since when are people allowed to hunt in the commons?” she asked.

“We’re not. But . . .” 

During the past four months, while memorizing the ancient one-and-a-half-hour story The Sun and Moons with my mother, I’d occasionally visited Cleo’s neighborhood to hunt. I’d also dropped by her home. Every time, her mom or dad would tell me she’d left for the day. “You’re never home. Your parents were supposed to ask you to come see me.”

She crossed her arms and lifted her button chin. “Honestly, I didn’t want to disturb your studies,” she said, maintaining her haughty tone.

“That’s what I want you to do.”

She offered her water skin, which was decorated simply with an array of angled blue lines. “Your mother is certainly proud to be passing on the title,” she said, her voice returning to normal. “Knowing her, I assumed any distractions would make her very unhappy.”

I took a sip of water and handed the skin back. “I’m numb. It’s her perfectionism. We’ll repeat a single sentence for an hour until I have every intonation of every syllable just how it’s supposed to be. It’s why I could use a distraction. Making it worse, Elder Sparus is at it again, always coming by and lecturing. The last thing I need.”

“Is that shaman still preaching to you about evil in the Rambles swamps?” 

“No, I haven’t been there in months. Now he’s saying we’re surrounded by evil.”

She blinked, confused. “Who?”

“You know—you, me, Erikal, Meritus. I think he mentioned that shy girl Alana, even. Can you imagine? Something about a nefarious otherworldly being’s influence.”

Cleo turned away and spat out a sip of water. She gave me a soft push with her shoulder. “Oh, the Sun! What a loon.” Her features turned crooked and evil, though somehow still cute. “I am Elder Sparus’s tortured imagination!”

I chuckled. “He was especially worked-up this morning, rushing in to see Father about something ‘unspeakable,’ which made me wonder how he would speak about it. You should come over, seriously. You’re right, my mother never wants me distracted, but she specifically asked about you.”

“Oh? Okay, yes, I’ll come by. I’ve just been very busy.”

“‘Busy?’ So, where have you been?”

“Here, sometimes. But also, Erikal’s workshop.”

Erikal? What does she need from him? They’d never spent time alone that I knew of.

He was one of my closest friends, but his best friend, Meritus, often visited his workshop to seek help with the computer, a machine in each home inhabited by the computer-spirit. Designing certain items on computers took tremendous skill and required working with someone experienced. That must have been why she’d been going to him. “Was he helping you?” 

“Yes, with my cab. The wings are now forward of the fulcrum, compensating for the wingplate’s limited angles. I would have made it that way originally if I knew it was possible.” She stared at me, eyes twinkling. 

I shrugged. “And?”

“Sorry,” she said. “I’ve been around someone who’s really fixated on cabs. I’m actually starting to talk like him.” She rolled her eyes. “I meant it’s faster now.”

Jealousy over her working a bunch with Erikal hit me like a punch. “I didn’t know you were that interested in cabs.” 

“It’s exciting,” she said. “The diagrams on Erikal’s computer have more cab design options than my family’s one for some reason. And, actually, Meritus and I helped Erikal assemble a fantastic new one he’s designed, too.”

My jealousy worsened to a sinking feeling in my heart until her eyes met mine. She looked down and plucked a lone blade of grass that peeked through the moss. “Maybe we can take a ride in mine. You’ll see how nice it is.” 

Warmth gathered in my stomach. We’d need to sit very close in a small cab like hers. 

I nodded. “I was just thinking it’s about time we go outside the Deo. We should put all that travel training to use.”

“Absolutely. Actually, I’m glad you came by. I was hoping to talk to you about a trip.”

I found myself stealing a glance at her full lips, watching her slightly open mouth, reminding me that it had once touched mine, something youths seldom did except those who planned to marry. Her attempted kiss had shocked me and, having been younger then, I’d foolishly run away. 

Because we were close, lifelong friends, I had always stopped myself from making a similarly bold move. But my best friend had grown beautiful to me over the years, even more so since I’d last seen her, making contradictory feelings about friendship and passion swirl in my head and chest. With her lips red like a rare night flower, a sudden surge of desire overcame me, and I wanted to make the kiss happen. 

Placing one hand on the ground behind her, I allowed my arm to make the gentlest contact with her back. She was less subtle. Weaving her hand between my arm and torso, she leaned against me.

I pulled in a breath of contentment. We’d been apart too long.

She and I hadn’t outright decided to marry, but the time for that discussion grew ever more pressing. We were well within marrying age. Our close families hinted continuously at it. We’d been friends our entire lives. We never bored each other and could talk for hours. 

It all seemed so obvious. Perfect, even.

Lost in my thoughts, I leaned in close, our faces now only a hand-length apart. We smiled.

I moved closer. A first kiss was traditional before asking to marry.

From far off on my left, a deep voice called, “Giels!” 

Erikal? Now? Really? 

My entire body slumped.

“Speaking of the man,” Cleo said, and pushed herself up to see past me, a contented sigh escaping her. 

Man? I still thought of us as boys and girls. And why had she sighed like that?

“Look who’s emerged, finally,” Erikal said, looking at me. “Suppose I can give you this now.”

He hurried towards us with his broad shoulders and self-assured manner. In that moment, his focused, thoughtful eyes, set within the lighter, beige skin of a more northern tribe, had an almost-mischievous gleam. Though I wished he hadn’t come, his intense stare commanded my attention, as it usually did to those around him. 

Erikal shot Cleo a smile reeking of a special bond between them. It made me wince. He rarely smiled. 

Glancing back at me, his serious expression returned, and he tossed me a small device. 

“The recorder,” he said as I caught it. “Remember? It was your idea.”

Cleo leaned in to take a look. 

The articulated copper-gold, finger-length object—cylindrical and covered mainly in foil-thin golden petals like an imaginary swamp flower about to bloom—teetered in my hand. Decorative knots covered exposed portions of the cylinder. I ran my fingers along the delicate petal edges. The item possessed a haunting beauty.

“Did you say ‘recorder?’” I asked. 

He nodded. “A voice recorder.”

My mouth gaped, and my eyes ran all over its small parts. 

We had the word recorder in our language, but I doubted many knew it, and the word seemed wrapped in awe and magic. I hadn’t heard it more than a few times in my life, in fact, despite training as a storyteller. It never appeared in our canon stories, only offhand in informal legends, like taboo whispers, as though such devices had been familiar to humanity long ago, and only the word survived as a remnant, like an impression of blurred childhood memory.

I glanced at Erikal, whose stare returned confident pride, as it often did.

Cleo pinched the machine from my palm and rotated it in the dappled Sunlight. Its golden details shimmered.

How had he made something so unusual? 

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