Bk3, Ch16 : Pa'ka in the Prophet's Room

Book III

Chapter Sixteen

PA’KA in the PROPHET’S ROOM

Pa’ka waited.

When he was sure that everyone had left, he opened his eyes.

Kaye was still there, though he wasn’t looking at Pa’ka. With his cane in his lap, and his ruined leg extended, Kaye was gazing out of the shop’s strangely tinted window, staring up at the stormclouds as they fell.

Pa’ka rose as quietly as he could, but Kaye noticed.

Neither had anything to say to each other.

Pa’ka wandered the rooms, looking for Keeper. Though he did not find the wraith, he did find food. The backmost room of the shop had a kitchen and a table.

Because it was so incredibly rainy, Ne’jum had few exports. The kitchen equipment was mostly rice pots, and skewers, and a single unlit stove. Above the stove hung a brand new cauldron, yet to be used.

Pa’ka had been hungry so long, he’d forgotten how happy food made him.

Too impatient for rice, the blue orc rushed to devour a stack of bacon.

When the stack was no more, Pa’ka stood there, breathing heavily, and remembered that Rowan had been captured.

Suddenly, he felt like throwing up. He went to the stove, clutched cauldron, and did.

* * * * / * * * *

There was a back door out of the kitchen, where a trough collected rainwater. Pa’ka wasn’t sure if it was for drinking or what (though he doubted that this rain was clean enough to drink), but he lapped the water into the cauldron, and scrubbed it clean.

Guilty that of what he’d done, he scrubbed a long time, until the rain seeped deep into his skin. He felt sickness coming on, and welcomed it.

When he finally went in, Keeper was standing in the kitchen.

“You,” said Pa’ka. His clothes dripped onto the floor. He sniffled.

“Better?” asked Keeper.

Pa’ka shook his head. “No.”

He put the cauldron back in its hearth, and then stepped out of the room, past the phantom.

“No,” Pa’ka said again. He did not feel better.

As he drolled his way through the labyrinthine wand shop, Keeper followed him, appearing around corners, almost as if to guide him. Pa’ka did not follow the ghost.

“This way,” Keeper said, finally.

Pa’ka didn’t look up. “Don’t want to.”

“Oh, I think that you do.”

When Pa’ka brought his gaze to the phantom, he leaned against the door to the story room.

Everywhere… clay scrolls. Crates and crates of them. Some of the sloppier scrolls had a flat side or two, so that they could lay down. Some of the scrolls were even made to stack, into tiny nine or ten piece pyramids.

Keeper smiled, but it was not his sly smile. The phantom half-orc was welcoming Pa’ka into his world, into the world of the scholars, the mappers, the readers.

“Your mother wrote some of these,” said Keeper.

Pa’ka gulped. He could not help his feet taking him in.

He did not touch. Not at first. Only touched with his eyes.

His eyes clung to each glyph, every letter, each rune. There were languages he had never seen here, but most of the pieces were in either Orcish, Elvish, or Old Giant. He could read at least one of those.

“Go ahead,” said Keeper, gesturing.

Pa’ka’s mind went back to the turtle sage, to Master Brej’ddj, back in Ddej’gra. To copying that book of stories.

He raised one dark blue hand, and grazed his fingers along the clay. His fingers looked like waves, lapping over reddish-tan rocks.

“Welcome to the Prophet’s Room,” said the ghost.

“Did you write these?” Pa’ka asked.

“Noooo, no no,” chuckled Keeper. “No, the maps are mine though. But you knew that already.”

“Then who?”

“You think one person could write all this?” said Keeper.

Pa’ka shrugged. “Stranger things’ve happened.”

Keeper made a face, and nodded. “True, true, fair enough… But no. Many hands wrought these words into being. One compiler though. A seer. A true prophet, one of the first of this order.”

“What order?” asked Pa’ka.

Keeper grinned. “Soon enough, son of Or’lj’thaj’uh. Soon enough.”

Pa’ka stopped to look a beautifully carved crate.

It contained ten perfect cylinders, arranged in two rows of five.

On top of each scroll was a number in Orcish : 0, 1, 2, 3…

The one with a 5 on it was specially decorated. In the clay, someone had baked particles of sparkling blue and green dust, so that (when it caught the candlelight) the colours pulsed in and out and back into sight.

Pa’ka picked that one up, and began to read.

“Ah, yes,” smiled Keeper, genuinely pleased. “That’s me, too.”

Pa’ka looked at him, quizzical.

“I also like to begin at the middle,” said the phantom. He nodded. “That’s a good one, too. If I’m not mistaken, the… prophet himself did write that.”

“Who was the prophet?” asked Pa’ka.

“A… student of mine. Well… Not just a student, I should stay, but my…”

He thought a long breath about the next word.

“…most curious student. And that is, truly, saying something.”

“What was his name?” asked Pa’ka.

The phantom thought about it.

“No,” he decided. His smile returned. “Not yet, not yet. I must not try to hasten the future. All in time. Now is not the time for history, young Pa’ka.”

“I’m not that young,” said the twenty year old orc.

Keeper laughed. “Of course not. Not yet.” He laughed again.

Then, he disappeared.

From the other room, an irritated Kaye said (in Ne’jum’esh), “I’m going out.”

Then, the human left, shutting the door hard, and Pa’ka was alone.

Truly alone.

He let out a breath of relief.

It had been so long since he was both comfortable, and alone.

He went back to the scroll, and began to read.

The writing in the clay was tiny, and exact. This was written by a Master Scribe. The dialect of Orcish was old, but the vocabulary wasn’t that archaic. The grammar was, but Pa’ka picked up the rhythms after the fourth or fifth readthrough.

As the writing began to make sense, Pa’ka realised…

These wasn’t merely a story.

This was a story from the future.

A story that hadn’t happened yet.

Still holding the scroll that said 5, he plucked up the scroll that said 0 on the top. It read…

FESTERMOON.

The hairs on Pa’ka’s neck went up.

He took the whole crate, put it on the ground, and sat.

Then, putting 5 back, he picked up 0, and began to read.

* * * * / * * * *

Pa’ka kept reading.

He reading the night through.

The story in his hands was incomplete, a tale called “The Meadow.” It was about the first seed that became an elf. There seemed to be lots of “first elf” stories in this room, and all of them were different.

Pa’ka loved it.

As dawn approached, the door to the wand shop swung open.

The sound of storms crashed in.

Pa’ka froze.

He expected to see swords, to see guards or assassins or… Though it made no logical sense, some part of him feared that it was the Mag’luh, who had finally come to finish him off, once and for all.

But it was only his friends.

Or rather, Na’la’s friends.

Brun led the way in, with Nal’kuth’ra close behind. Ul’druk took up the rear.

They were drenched in sweat and rain. Each one of them looked exhausted.

“Hey,” Brun smiled. “You’re awake!”

“Convenient,” grumbled Ul’druk, as he sat roughly down. He began to wrench the boots off his feet, wincing as he did so.

“Where were you?” Pa’ka asked, though he wasn’t particularly interested in the answer.

Brun chuckled. “Well… Long night! Hah, we…”

“Met a lot of people,” said Nal’kuth’ra, “killed some humans, Brun is leading a rebellion now…”

Pa’ka’s eyebrows went up. “Wow.”

“Moved some boxes,” said Brun.

The three of them nodded.

“Oh yes,” said Nal’kuth’ra.

“Lots of boxes.” Ul’druk finally yanked off his second boot, and tossed it by the door. “What about you? What’ve you been doing? Sleeping?”

Pa’ka waved the clay scroll at him. “Reading.”

Ul’druk looked irritated, and nodded. “Reading, huh? Oh good.”

Pa’ka didn’t know what to do with that, so he turned his back to them, and went back into his story.

“Do you really think that was gunpowder in there?” Nal’kuth’ra whispered to Ul’druk.

Ul’druk nodded. “What we’ll do with it though…”

“Ner’u has a plan,” said Brun. “He told me a bit of it, but… Not much, but a… a bit. Anyone else hungry?”

“There’s bacon and rice in the back,” said Pa’ka, without looking up at them.

It was Brun’s voice that said, “Thanks.”

Then (and Pa’ka was grateful for this) they made their way toward the kitchen, and left Pa’ka to read in blissful half-silence.

* * * * / * * * *

Link to Orcish-English Dictionary

Wanna hear the music of NALA SAGA?

FANTASY GIFT SHOP

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