Reading it again, he realized that another stanza referred to Keritanima. She had a crown, but the line about twenty stone of coal and wood made no sense.
The other three stanzas, though, didn't make any sense to him. He did understand that the first was important, because it had some sort of directions in it. You started somewhere and went for forty days towards something with twenty stars in it, but what that thing was, he had no idea. The one talking about twenty beyond the first in blood made no sense at all, and the last stanza too seemed to have nothing in it that made any immediate sense.
"Kerri," he called in a quiet voice, not entirely ready to shout out and feel foolish if he was wrong. "Could you come here a minute?"
"Sure," she replied, getting up from where she was sitting on the grass, leaving her book behind. She sat down on the other side of Jesmind, who was reading another book he got for her, and leaned in to look at the scroll he had in his paws. "What is it?"
"Read this," he said quietly. "And tell me I'm crazy."
Tarrin watched her, and he watched her eyes widen just a little more every time she finished a line. "You're not crazy!" she gasped when she was done. "Tarrin, this is what we're looking for!" she announced loudly. "Everyone come here quick!" she shouted, snatching the scroll out of his paws and rushing towards the bench before the fountain.
"You found it?" Dar asked excitedly as he rushed out of the tent with Miranda hot on his heels. They joined Keritanima as she set the scroll down on the bench and knelt beside it, on the bricks of the walkway. Tarrin and Jesmind got over there just as Keritanima started reading the poem aloud, and then she looked up triumphantly at them all. And saw six only confused faces staring back at her. Only Miranda seemed to understand, nodding quickly as her eyes lit up.
"What does that mean?" Dar asked impatiently.
"Don't any of you study astronomy?" she asked waspishly. "The twenty stars it talks about is the Diamond Crown!"
"And that would be?" Dolanna asked.
"Hopeless!" Keritanima snapped to herself. "It's a constellation, Dolanna!" she answered hotly.
"I've never heard of that one," Dar said.
"You can only see it from the southern hemisphere," she told him bluntly. "You can't see it from this side of the world."
"I lived on the southern hemisphere, and I have never heard of that constellation," Dolanna told her.
"Then you must have a different name for it," she told her. She rushed into the tent and brought out a piece of parchment and one of those curious Tellurian pens, then jotted a series of dots on the paper. "This constellation," she said, holding it up. It did vaguely resemble a crown, and after counting the dots, he realized that there were twenty of them.
"That one we call Diamades," Dolanna replied.
"But it is this constellation!" Keritanima told her. "The Wikuni call it the Diamond Crown. Any Wikuni ship captain worth his salt would have recognized that description immediately! It's the only crown-shaped constellation, and it's made up of twenty stars!"
"Calm down, sister," Allia said evenly. "Your shouting is hurting my ears."
"Sorry, sister," she said contritely. "So, according to this, we travel towards the Diamond Crown, and we do it for forty days."
"Yes, those are directions, but from where do we begin, Keritanima?" Dolanna asked pointedly. "And remember that the stars turn with the seasons. What time of year should we depart? If we are wrong, we are going to miss what we seek."
Keritanima gave her a blank look, then blew out her breath. "Alright, so this isn't everything. But it's a big piece of it," she asserted. "These are the directions. We know that it's overseas, and this confirms that. We know which direction to go and how long to go that way. All we need to know is where to start from and what time of year to do it, and we have it."
"There's more here to it than just that," Miranda said, reading it. "One of these stanzas is about Tarrin, or I'm bald. And you have a crown, Kerri. Twenty beyond the first in blood. Well, that one doesn't make perfect sense, but since it mentions blood, I think it wouldn't be a stretch to assume it talks about Allia."
"Some of these don't make any sense," Dar complained. "Twenty of everything?"
"I think that is a tool for giving the poem a unifying feel," Dolanna said. "Sometimes, the twenty is necessary, but elsewhere it is but a way to start the line. Probably done that way to throw off readers. It is the words after that are important."
"Alright, so, we have hearts, souls, and golden crowns. That still doesn't make any sense."
"I don't think the lines are related like that, Dar," Miranda told him, reading it again. "Some of them are definitely related, but only the last two lines in each stanza. The first two lines stand alone."
"Alright, so, what does hearts and souls mean?"
"I have no idea," she shrugged. "I only understand about half of the lines."
"So. We now have directions," Dolanna reasoned, reading it. "Or at least I hope so. This may be but a ruse, or a false lead. But so far, it is just about all we have found. Now we only need discover where to start from and what time of year to begin in order to follow these directions."
"It can't be from Suld. You can't even see the Diamond Crown from here. We'd at least have to be on the equator."
"Hold on," Allia said, getting up and rushing back into the tent. She returned a moment later with the book Dar had read, the book with the other information they'd found. Keritanima had marked the page with the passage, and she opened the book to that page and quickly read what was there. "It says in this book that they took the Firestaff beyond the Stormhavens, and then beyond the Dark Continent. If they passed over the Stormhavens, they have to have left from Suld."
"Very good, dear one," Dolanna said with an approving nod. "And if they then passed beyond Wikuna-Keritanima, can you see the Diamond Crown from anywhere in Wikuna?" she asked quickly.
"From Vendaka," she replied. "It's on the equator. The constellation sits right on the horizon." Keritanima blinked. "Could that be the starting point?" she asked.
Miranda was studying the poem again. "Hold on. It mentions seas and stars twice. Twenty seas and twenty stars, then twenty stars over twenty seas. Those may sound the same, but they're different. That first stanza had the directions in it, so maybe the key of where to start or what time of year to start are tied up in that first line. Can anyone think of anything that may relate to a season or time of year in that?"
"I-no, wait a minute. Wait a minute," Keritanima said suddenly, her eyes brightening. "The time of year to start is in the second line! If you really do start from Vendaka, then the key is twenty stars over twenty seas!" She looked at all them excitedly. "The Diamond Crown sits right on the horizon from Vendaka, but not the entire constellation. A little piece of it is always under the horizon! But I remember reading or hearing from someone somewhere that the entire constellation comes over the horizon at the summer solstice!"
"Then, if we do start from Vendaka, we'd have to start in a month!" Miranda said in surprise.
"Only if that is the true starting point," Dolanna cautioned. "All we have at the moment is an obscurely worded poem and a single passage from a very old book of history. Before we commit to this idea, I would like to know that we are looking in the right place."
"What do you want, Dolanna? A book to say 'here is where the Firestaff is, and oh, by the way, here's a map'?" Keritanima asked acidly.
"That would help," she said with a slight smile. "I just worry about if we are wrong, Keritanima. If we are wrong, then we will waste a tremendous amount of time, and someone else may very well discover its location while we are off chasing wild ducks."