Under a Starless Sky

Chapter 4

“May I speak my world?” Lanore asked.

Tell bowed. Lanore took a sheet of silk paper and placed it on the table, and set Tell’s book on this, a sign of respect for her world. She took her book and skipped the words on the first page, opening it to the map behind it, which stretched from the 2nd and 3rd pages.

“Tamor,” Lanore said.

Tell laughed. “You have the entire world in your book?”

Lanore didn’t know how to respond. The study of Tell’s face revealed emotions. There was more than humor. There was embarrassment for having laughed, a hardness that came after: serious control. She wondered if the other side of the Sleeping Forest was a harsh world. She pointed to a place on the map. “Easterly. Here.” Symbol for forests on either side of Easterly, extending from shore back to mountains, and extended along the entire mountain as far north and south as the map could contain. She turned the map to page four. Easterly was better defined. There was evident path extending through the forest up to the mountain where another village was marked, which loosely followed a meandering river. When Easterly’s first dome was solid, the river had been nearer. Since it had shifted a bit north, and no longer broke over the cliffs into the bay. “Midelay.” On the other side of the mountain was more forest, and another path. The Sleeping Forest owned both sides of the mountains, and only one peak was known to be free of growth.

“You have made it over the mountains here?” Tell asked.

“I have not,” Lanore said. “The higher one goes, the thicker the forest. No one passes through the Sleeping Forest.”

“But this is a path…”

“You must go through the mountain at Midelay in order to travel to Sinter,” Lanore said.

“You walk through mountains?” Tell asked.

“I have been on both sides,” Lanore said. “I have even been to Sinter.”

“You have not,” Sheen said.

Tell pointed a finger at the apprentice, snapping: “Speak out of turn again, there will be penalty.”

Lanore didn’t interfere with this.

“You come from Sinter?” Tell asked.

“I was schooled in Sinter. I was born in East Midelay. I was a child when the East was opened up to us. I was not the first venture from Midelay, but I am the first to take roots and report back,” Lanore said. “My village is small, but it thrives. I have made contact with water people.”

“So have I,” Tell said. “They are stranger looking than even you. We call them walking fishes. They can stay submerged for nearly an entire hour glass of time.”

“Had I not experienced this myself, I would have thought this exaggeration,” Lanore agreed. “If I were not seeing you with my own eyes and heart, I would say you were a myth.”

“You have never met someone my color?” Tell asked.

“I have met your dead opposite,” Lanore said.

Tell laughed. “A ghost?”

Lanore nodded.

“You’re serious?” Tell

is whiter than rice,”

“Rice?” Tell asked.

bring rice. Cooked

image of the water people. Tell agreed; these resembled the Walking Fish she had met.

Tell said. “How could any people

doesn’t fit the reality of her.

“Not another child on a river story,” Tell

on a

first walker was found floating on

like the first Queen of Sinter?” Lanore

story,” Tell said.

“No more than any of us,” Lanore said. “The story I heard from her own lips was that she was taken by the Walking Bears when she was a child. She was recovered by people at about

Bears are myths,” Tell

tail that framed a dream catcher, hanging above

is the tail of a Walking Bear,” Lanore said. “They

Tell asked. “Like

have not

a myth,” Tell said. “Between Fire Snakes, dragons, darkness, and

agree,”

“Did the water people give you

they have sea brain. They live and die on their boats, going where the wind and sea take them. If they float

trust them,” Tell admitted. “They must originate on land. How else could one make a boat

Lanore said. She turned her book to a page where she had drawn the boat. It was huge, at least the circumference of her village. She revealed scale by placing people on desk. She had views of it from impossible angles, revealing she had used her Heart to see it fully. It was basic torus shape, the center opened to the sea. She had cut away views that revealed chambers and sections, and the inner space was curtained by a net where bred their own

Tell scoffed. “They wanted us to gift them

from us, too,” Lanore agreed. “I suspect they would have

“They lack

smiled. She understood. They can’t see in

hope our men will give them

Gift for the gift of

this isn’t something that is given, but acquired

are very strange and secretive,” Lanore agreed. “They have a story that we all came here on such a ship,

I asked why they

snuck on board,” Lanore offered the explanation that was given

and

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