Authors: J. A. Ginegaw
“Three separate stacks … of the
same
height. Of
different
languages – just like the Rosetta Stele. NO WAY!”
“I think it is! I think it is!” I clamp onto his right arm with both hands and hop in place.
“It can’t be
that
easy, but it just might be!”
I glance at my Patek Philippe – the time is now 0410. The key we have been searching for
finally
found, to go to my barracks for sleep now would be no different than tying a noose around my neck – it would kill me to do so! As he stays with me, Chance obviously feels the same. The computer algorithms need some tweaking so I gather a pad of paper and some pens to sketch out these changes and sit down. After a while of this, I rest my weary head in my cramped hands and look down at the increasingly blurry sketches.
As my mind begins to wander off, I suddenly cannot help but think of …
pancakes
? Crêpes are fine and all, but I do love the Yankee version. Giant stacks of pancakes pictured on American breakfast house menus vividly floating about my head, I make a small promise to myself: The first morning upon my next visit to the States, I will order the tallest stack of pancakes they will sell me!
*****
“Dr. Rothschild,” I hear in my ear the next moment. “It is 0830.” I slowly open my eyes; the friendly face of Alfred Leitz is close to mine. The pinnacle of my life’s work at hand, I had fallen asleep.
“We’ve found it, Alfred,” I tell him in a dreamy tone with a yawn, “we’ve found it.”
He kindly strokes my colored hair as a father would his daughter. Comforted by this, his fatherly touch brings back endearing memories of my own.
“Yes, just as we knew you would.” Dr. Leitz’s beaming smile suggests he already knows.
I look up to see Dr. Saddlebirch standing, but his back is turned to me. The cowboy appearing hard at work, I do not know for sure, but guess he has not slept. To see him still in the same clothes, now a bit dryer, puts a smile on my face. The three or four hours I had slept as if a dozen – I am now
very
ready to find the world I have until this day only dreamt about.
Chance and I attack our newfound hunches with the subtlety of a starving man at a banquet. It takes until deep into the afternoon to reprogram the computers to handle our new theories; by late evening, a great deal of new data pays back most handsomely our painstaking labor. Dozens of new words become scattered phrases, which then become hundreds of new words and dozens more phrases. Every newly discovered word the driest of kindling forced into a fire desperately thirsting for them … we are getting closer.
Washroom breaks and scattered hours here and there for sleep are our only time away from the translation room. Aside from our fleshy moving parts, we are as much a machine as those that dutifully surround us.
Drs. Leitz, Ravensdale, and Korzhak – although assigned to other research tasks until we come close to a translation – check on our progress each evening. The other three of us welcome these visits as it keeps our cohesive group up to date on our progress.
Admiral Vanderbilt spends most of his time in the CIC. Now more a butler than a senior military officer, he keeps us up to date on the happenings from the outside world and ensures that our meals, snacks, and drinks stay steady. Of what else he does throughout the day, I have neither a clue nor the time to find one.
Although I have taken so little sleep and Dr. Saddlebirch not much more, on the evening of March 8
th
, we burst into the CIC with the energy of two five-year-olds who had just downed a bucket of sugar.
“Eureka,
messieurs
!” I crow. “We have found the key!”
“The Sapien Codex made a request, we fulfilled it, and our reward is on its way!” A round of claps and endearing hugs make their way around the room as my soldiers silently plead for details. “Just as we had guessed,” Chance continues on, “this codex does indeed say the exact same thing in each of the three languages!”
“The vault is cracked open, Grandfather! The doors unlocked, we are just pushing these heavy doors open. We have already deciphered nearly five percent! It is just a matter of time, a week – two weeks at most – before most of it is decoded! And then, from there ––”
“
Victor
?” the Admiral asks kindly.
The hardened Russian who mere days ago had made the greatest of efforts to push me away stands still, perfectly silent, yet his trickling tears scream at us his budding joy. A wide, gap toothed grin helps as well to drive the point home. Of why he suddenly feels such a swell of emotion, he does not say, but I can surely take a guess. So here it is: A man with just as many accomplishments as any of us, I believe him to be a loner of such brilliance that he never found a team worthy enough to join. At least, not until he became a part of this team. Accepted by his true peers, his invaluable contribution to the team made, the fruits of that contribution now taking shape; I believe that
this
is what has led to such an outpouring of feelings.
I no longer simply wish to open the heavy doors to the vault holding this ancient world in – I want to blast them away! With this in mind and after a few quick bites, Saddlebirch and I return to our work in the translation room.
For all we care, each passing day and those to come might as well be a separate flavor of chocolate melted into a fondue pot of chocolate-covered days we have no desire to taste. The more the two of us decipher the less rest we seek.
Focused like a laser, more than once I enter the CIC without either my darkened glasses or colored contacts. Luckily, Admiral Vanderbilt sees me each time before anyone else; this forgetfulness has become so bad that he now escorts me from my barracks each morning. My contacts have begun to bother my fatigued eyes to the point that I now only wear my darkened glasses.
With the steadfastness of a faithful dog that stares at its master until offered a treat as a reward, Dr. Korzhak does just that. He even slobbers a little bit too. As I appreciate the company, I often give him snippets of deciphered text to keep him busy. These entries are not enough to grasp firmly what Dr. Saddlebirch and I have already taken in, but he offers his sincere appreciation each time, nevertheless.
Admiral Vanderbilt stays his usual cheery self, but in a curious manner, seeks more structure over the whole operation. As both our excitement
and
fatigue grows with each new day, he lowers the temperature inside the translation room just a tad more to keep us awake. At least twice a day he asks how far along we are and when we will be ready to tell him and the others of our deciphered discoveries. This carries on for nearly two weeks.
Now the morning of March 21
st
, the time
finally
arrives.
It is just past 0800. The five of us in the translation room hovering over the computers with baited breath, we receive complete translations for the first time. As I watch Drs. Saddlebirch, Ravensdale, Leitz, and Korzhak give each other a varying assortment of handshakes, clumsy hugs, and awkward high-fives, the spy in me suddenly awakens. Before the main course, before even the appetizer, I want dessert. I want a glimpse of the end.
The Sapien Codex’s last copper plate is directly in front of me. This plate’s front side is full of inscriptions; its backside owns only a few. Both of these entries written by a Sapien called Komnena, I choose the second to last entry in the codex.
As the complete deciphering comes across my digital tablet, I huddle in the oversized leather chair, my back facing the others. Behind the words onscreen that I am about to read, much like a watermark in the form of a childhood movie, I watch in wonder as tiny hands grasp the bronze key and parchment wrapped around it.
The moment so sweet, I can see granules of sugar sparkle all around me. They are visible to no one else, of course. I stick out my tongue as if ready to catch a snowflake and catch a most sugary one. The tingling in my fingers feels no different than if a lightning bolt has struck each one – I almost cannot hold the tablet. With gritted teeth and sudden resolve, I grasp it so tight my hands hurt. I inhale an impossibly deep breath. Every fiber inside my body as if a string, I am ready for these ancient words to play a priceless melody about my mind a Stradivarius would envy….
A world birthed by fire and ash will see at its end only ice and frost. Although I sit not far from where I was born and have never ventured from my homeland, I am as if banished
...
never again to see even one more of my kind. With each passing day, I feel as if my world floats toward the ancient glaciers across the rising sea. Showing either their displeasure at doing so or trumpeting this fateful journey – I do not know which – the Pillars of Fire shoot lava into the sky and rumble endlessly.
Ice thicker than its rigid granite walls has buried the palace. Huddled inside the keep atop the tallest tower, I can no longer reach most of the rooms of a palace that for so long brought untold joy and wonder to so many. Once lush gardens are nothing more than frost and whatever flora lies dead beneath. Avenues leading up to the palace have melded with the gleaming ice atop them. An ageless wonder of brass and stone all believed would outlast time itself, after twenty-four centuries, the Golden Clepsydra chimes no more. The Great Repository of Knowledge is but a memory as well. That cursed room that nearly killed me forever lost – I suppose I can at least take some comfort in this. Still, such relief is less than fleeting. Mounds of snow that grow taller by the day … they are coming.
The fiendish Yeturi surround my royal prison. Fluffed, horned brutes that walk like men and control fire; aside from one other, they are the most devilish monsters this world has ever known. These mindless trolls – they know I am here, they know I am alone. They even know how I taste. Thirteen days ago, these ruthless savages stole from me my last surviving friend. Having not heard their scratching and howls about, Menoetius determined it safe to collect firewood. One more bundle of wood left to retrieve and haul up to the keep, it was not there to greet him. Gnashing teeth and bloodthirsty claws had instead taken its place.
Menoetius ripped to shreds, these snow ogres even withheld the humble honor of serving him as a cooked meal. His blood as if fine wine to their foul mouths, his screams as if a dinner tune to their heinous ears; if the gods owned but a shred of mercy, they would have struck me down right then too. Born a Sapien, crowned a king, seduced by treachery, cursed by his wrathful queen wife to transform into the most bloodthirsty of monsters himself – only by way of the bravest sacrifice one could gift another was he returned to his Sapien form. At his end, he was but a quiet, repentant man searching for forgiveness. More than fire, he gave me warmth. A life spanning nearly two millennia in one form or another
...
my Menoetius deserved better.
Curiously, my will to live another day comes not from the dimmest of prospects for the future, but of grand memories awash in color from the past. I dearly miss and remember my daughters with each frosted breath. Sleep well Penthesilea and Melanippe, your mother’s suffering nears its end. Queen Marseea as well – I could never forget her no matter how hard I try. Aside from my cherished twins and former queen, thoughts fall upon four other souls daily. I often think of the Centaur Chiron, Alexander, and his son, Adamarcus: both Centaurs so noble, Adamarcus beyond brilliant. I think of two Mermaids even more: Queen Diedrika by far the most fascinating creature I ever knew; her daughter, Evagoria, was much like her Queen Mother in so many ways, yet quite the opposite in so many others. I desperately try not to consider the fates of Adamarcus and Evagoria, but cannot help myself. Destinies intertwined for so long – as if preordained – I fretfully search for ways to scribe the emotions now rippling through my heart. Pooling tears soon to be slivers of ice, sore throat in a knot, hands shivering not just from cold for once; I suddenly realize I have not the words to describe such feelings. And I never will.
No longer able to gaze upon these precious faces, even more, this plunges me into aching despair. That it is the dead of winter and I have not seen the sun in a month simply adds to this dreadful misery. It is not the fear of death that inflicts such deep despair, but of recalling greatness lost. Spilt blood of those noble fallen once again choking the wispy grains of Lapith Fields marked the downfall of us all. This golden prairie awash in arms and armor for the third time since the Knowing Time began, the gods had seen enough. Destruction and chaos – far greater than any war could ever be – suddenly unleashed, this begat the ruin of a world now wishing to freeze solid every living thing foolish enough to still walk it.
So many great names caused this fall of nations. That I am the ‘lucky’ last to bear witness only deepens the scars each recollection inflicts on my soul. Acting out well their unknowingly assigned parts, each was little more than a single string in a scheming harp molded by mystic trickery. The Mermaids and Gryphons of the West, the Centaurs and Arachna Majora of the East, Sapiens scattered in between; a world at its peak barely two decades ago; all of it, every last bit, is now gone. Heroes and heroines, villains and villainesses – some obvious, most not – dominated this once thriving world, this paradise lost
...
this Terra Australis.
Perhaps the worst part of the suffering existence I now wallow in? Our lush, vibrant world about to become embroiled in total war, as clear as the sea is blue, that cursed gem revealed my final days. Self-inflicted punishment my grand reward I suppose – I still possess its crimson filth! Even worse, pendant in hand, I often keep its wispy chain wrapped around my crippled fingers. Why I do not throw it at the Yeturi waiting below to tear me into fleshy pieces – just how mad have I become?
But two paths lay before me for my own fated end to tread upon: freeze to death in my sleep or the starving Yeturi eat me alive just as they did Menoetius. OH, WHAT GRAND CHOICES! In all the histories of all the worlds to be or ever were, has another so condemned ever been so lucky? Star-crossed hunger consuming me, intertwined fate shivering every bone, the last learned being alive in my world cowering before gods who despise me – no being deserved such glory more!
Is my ill-fated end upon me? Will it be this night that those sickening monsters breach my barricades at last? Perhaps the fires I light to offer a semblance of warmth will mercifully go out as I sleep. Or maybe, for just one more night, I will cheat the Grim I am on the cusp of desperately hoping to meet.
– Komnena, Sapien Historian
– Winter, Year 4,273 KT