Binarius (20 page)

“It helps you…
see
.” She smiled.

“
I think I can see fine,
thanks…”

“
It will not hurt you, I promise.
I too have done it.”

“
Have you? Good for
you!”

“
Now, really, Kaolin. Why would I
br—

“
I’ll do it.”

Kaolin turned and stared at
Firinne. If she could have read his thoughts, it probably would
have sounded something like,
the
audacity
!

“
You’re desperate Fir! You’re not
thinking clearly. Let’s just go.”

“
No, Kaolin. I’ve got nothing left
to lose. We have to do something and if that means I have to trust
another old woman, and lie down in a creepy, stone coffin…well, I’m
gonna do it. I’d love it if you stayed to watch.”

Kaolin hesitated.

“
It’ll be fine…it has to
be.”

He nodded with
reluctance.

Firinne walked over to the
Epiphanous, climbed in, and laid down. Lazata came over and
inserted Firinne’s book into a slot on the side of the Epiphanous.
When she was done, she touched her finger to one of the
indentations on the outer lid.

Everything was sunset.

“
I have to close this now. It will
open on its own when it knows you’re ready.”

“
It knows?”

Lazata smiled, and that smile was
the last thing Firinne saw before the lid shut away the outside
world —the one that plagued her, feared her, and the one which she
loved.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Epiphany

It was
like floating and drowning simultaneously…

Anguish…realization.

Haste.

…
Darkness and
illumination.

Corruption.

Duplicate.

Firinne, wake up! I can’t see
you!

An upsurge of colors.

An endless expanse of darkness,
emptiness, nothingness…

…
And everything is littered with
stars.

Firinne’s eyes shot open. Her
breaths were uneven.

“
Take it slow, love,” Lazata said
as she helped Firinne from the Epiphanous.

Firinne was shaking and her face
was white. She did not feel weak, though. She felt more alive than
she ever had.

“
What’s wrong with her?” Kaolin
asked.

“
She has seen,” Lazata
said.

“
Seen what? I don’t understand.”
Kaolin looked afraid.

Firinne spoke. “Kaolin, get in the
Epiphanous. You have to!” Her voice was hoarse, but it was full of
power — power she never knew that she had.

Kaolin was frozen.

“Kaolin! We don’t have time for
this! I know you’re scared but there is a lot depending on
us…
a lot.
It’s
not a matter of whether you want to see or not. I will force you in
there if I have to.” She was in his face now. “Look at me Kaolin,
I’m okay. Just get in there and get it over with.”

Kaolin made no response. Instead,
he walked over to the Epiphanous, and slowly climbed in.

The blue book was inserted into
the slot.
It’ll be okay
, was the last thing he heard before the lid closed on
him.

What Firinne had seen was enormous
and vastly complex. She had no idea how she was going to do
everything that was being demanded of her. Everything was dependent
on her, and Kaolin. If they did not succeed, their world would no
longer exist. She had no idea how volatile the situation here on
Fia was or how far it expanded. Cyneric, Triphosa, Bricius — it all
seemed so trivial, now.

“
Everything’s gonna work out,
Fir.”

Firinne smiled at the old woman. It
was a fake smile, one that is meant to appease during uncomfortable
situations. But Firinne felt no guilt, she knew that the old woman
recognized it for what it was.

The lid opened, and this time,
Firinne helped Kaolin out. He looked the same as she had only
minutes ago. There was no other way for the body to cope with the
magnitude of information that the Epiphanous provided. It was
amazing what the body could endure.

Kaolin stared at Firinne for a long
time. His boyish face was paled by a kind of instant maturity. He
had been awakened. Deep inside herself, Firinne cried for his loss.
He was no longer allowed to be a child. Whatever part of him that
had still been a child when she met him at Stahrling Castle was
gone now. She could see it in his face — his realization that he
had no choice. They didn’t, not really, because if they chose to
abdicate, they would be sitting idly by while watching themselves,
Fia, and everyone they loved be completely destroyed.

Kaolin was pulling himself up
straight now. Firinne could see the determination in his
face.

“
We better get
started.”

Firinne nodded.

They were back in the weapons room
now and Lazata was explaining what all of the different weapons
were called, and what their uses were. There were so many different
kinds, Firinne didn’t know where to begin. Lazata encouraged them
to try all of them. She said that once they had found the weapon
that was most comfortable to them, they could master their skills
on the wooden dummies that she had pulled out from a closet. As for
hand combat, she said that they had to fight each other, which
didn’t appeal to either of them at all. On one hand, Kaolin didn’t
feel right about hitting a female while Firinne didn’t feel right
about hitting a young boy. As the hours passed that they spent
together, Firinne had become more and more fond of Kaolin. He was
like a little brother to her, although she knew better than to tell
him that.

“
I still don’t see why we have to
train with new weapons. I have my electrolifi and Firinne has her
crystals. We both know how to use swords and daggers.”

“
These weapons are different and
in order for you to use them, you must train with them so that you
can develop a bond with your weapon.”

Firinne was looking at an
ax.
Too heavy
,
she thought.

Lazata continued. “All of these
weapons have had spectralin encoded into them. These are the most
powerful weapons in all of Fia, and if you use them proficiently,
they will never fail you.”

Kaolin picked up a sword. As soon
as he did, its blade began to glow blue.

“
Once you have chosen your weapon,
the weapon will bend to your needs, thus becoming yours.” Lazata
continued, “Your weapon uses your unique spectralin gifts, but
because it is a facilitator, it gives you back the energy that you
provide it. Think of it as a friend.”

Kaolin walked over to one of the
wooden dummies and struck. There was an eruption of blue
electrolifi that webbed out all over the dummy. Kaolin’s eyes shot
open, and he looked at Firinne, as the dummy behind him smoked. He
was like a child with a new toy, and Firinne loved the smell of
burned pine.

There was a bow hanging off of the
weapons rack. Firinne had never shot a bow before and this one
didn’t have any arrows with it.

“
Lazata, where are the arrows for
this bow?”

“
Do you know how to shoot?” asked
Lazata.

“
No, I don’t. Could you teach
me?”

“
This is a very special bow. The
stave is made of our ancestors’ wands, so if you choose to carry
this bow, you will also carry, and be carried by, the energy of
your ancestors. It doesn’t have any arrows because you make them as
you shoot.”

She grasped the bow and studied its
craftsmanship. There had to be at least ten wands melded together —
each with their own carvings — made from different trees. Firinne
walked over and placed herself about fifteen feet from one of the
dummies. “Will you tell me how?”

“
Of course. Your arrows will be
made of crystal of course. Place your right hand next to your left
hand at the grip. Then you will pull your right hand away from the
grip and when you do so, you will need to form your crystal
arrow.”

“
And that will work?” Firinne was
looking at Lazata, suspiciously.

Lazata smiled. “I promise that it
will.”

Firinne did as she was instructed.
She focused all of her intention and imagined a crystal arrow in
her mind — like the ones that many of the guards had carried around
at Citrine. She began pulling back and as she did, she could feel
something cold pinched between her fingers. When she reached the
string, she opened her eyes. Resting on her gripping hand, was a
perfectly formed arrow made of Quartz.

Firinne felt a new level of
confidence travel through her like a wave. For so long she had felt
so weak, so incapable, so desperate. She pulled back on the bow,
aimed for the dummy’s head and let go. The arrow sliced through the
air and left prisms on the walls of the training room. THUNK. The
arrow hit the dummy’s shoulder.
Guess
that’s what training is for
, she
thought.

For the rest of the day, Firinne
and Kaolin practiced with their new weapons until Kaolin could no
longer lift the sword with his arm, and Firinne had developed
blisters on her fingers from the bow. Lazata remarked that they had
a lot of work to do and suggested that they retire for the evening.
She fed them another bowl of soup which they wished there was more
of.

After they ate, Lazata showed them
where the sleeping quarters were. All of them had separate rooms in
the same corridor as one another. Each room was furnished simply
with all of the basic necessities. There was a special door in each
room which led into a cave-like area, which supplied fresh water
for bathing — trickling down the rock walls. The beds were more
comfortable than the hard floors, and scratchy woods that they had
been sleeping on for the past couple of weeks. They were both
grateful.

Lazata told them that she would
wake them at dawn to begin training. They only had a week, she
said. Regardless of whether they had more work to do or not, one
week would have to do. Firinne watched as Kaolin and Lazata
disappeared into their own separate rooms, and then retired into
her own.

There was a shelf carved into the
rock that had a stack of linen robes. Firinne was grateful as she
did not have a change of clothes. She undressed and went into the
Water Room to clean the salt from her body, and wash her dress.
That same dress that she had worn when she escaped Citrine was now
fraying at the bottom. There were stains, and some of the
embroidered threads were coming undone now. She missed Citrine and
for the first time since all of this had started, she realized that
her life would never be the same again. This was good and bad,
depending on how she looked at it, and the only thing that she knew
for certain was that she would not be able to return home, really
return home, for a very long time. It wasn’t just her mother that
she had to worry about now, it was so much more.

The clean linens felt like silk on
her skin as she lay down on the small bed. Her hands were crossed
behind her head, and within minutes, her foot was now swaying side
to side like the hand of a clock. She hadn’t slept alone in a room
since Archen, and at Archen, she had hardly slept. She was sleeping
inside a mountain — inside a castle, inside a mountain. She was
really here and this was all really happening. Her
worst-case-scenario meter could never have predicted this, not in a
billion years.

There was a light knock at the door
about thirty minutes later and she saw the bright-white of Kaolin’s
hair as he poked his head through the opening of the
door.

“
Can’t sleep?” She asked
him.

“
No, you?”

“
Does it look like it?”

“
Can I…er…”

“
Sure you can. I’ll scoot over and
give you some room.”

“
No, it’s okay. I’ll just sleep on
the floor next to you. I brought my blankets.” He said as he held
them up high over his head, as if expecting Firinne to feel better
about the situation.

“
Really Kaolin? You’ve not had a
bed in…well…forever. I really don’t mind if you sleep here. Nothing
weird, I promise.”

“
No, it’s okay, really. I just
can’t sleep in that room by myself…too quiet.”

“
Yeah, I understand. It’s all kind
of a whirlwind huh?”

“
You could say that.”

“
I just did.” Firinne said as she
smirked at him.

Kaolin made his make-shift bed on
the floor next to her. Together they listened to the water
trickling off the walls. They laid there in silence for a long
time. Eventually, Kaolin’s breathing slowed, and Firinne could
finally sleep.