He pushed away the feeling of remorse, standing taller now, his mouth firmly closed, but defiant.
He bowed low to the king, who looked at him with surprise. Then J'role strolled casually by the guards, and when he had passed them, he raced down the path, momentarily feeling as if he were flying through the air; on either side nothing but a tremendous drop, in his heart the rising hope of continuing his quest.
He ran through the corridors leaping left and right to avoid the numerous dwarfs, who scattered clumsily as he approached. Twice he became lost, but he charged forward anyway, successfully finding landmarks as he pressed on, eventually reaching the Hall of Records. He slammed the heavy wooden doors open; and the crash of the wood against stone reverberated through the hall.
30
The creature whispered, "Here's what I think you should do. I think you should die. "
"Die?" J'role asked, suddenly afraid. Already he missed his mother and his father.
"Kill yourself. You really shouldn't be alive, you know. That's what we'll work on for the rest your life. There's nothing I love so much as a suicide that's been stewing for a decade or so."
"Suicide?" J'role thought. He didn't know the meaning of the word.
"It's a big word," the creature said. "Don't worry about it now. You'll come to understand it very well later. But it's the only way you can make up for being such a horrible son. "
J'role began to cry.
The person crying in the corner of the room-who was it? — left.
His mother leaned dawn and picked him up and began to croon.
J’role tried to speak. The noises poured out of his mouth.
His mother threw him back down onto the bed, making his head bang against the stone wall. She leaned down and covered his mouth, forcing him into silence.; "Shhh," she said again and again. "Shhh, be silent. "A He became quiet. "You…," she began, not to him, but to someone else. The creature in his thoughts, J'role realized, the white shadow from the corner of the room. "You didn't tell me about this!"
The creature in J'role's head laughed.
She looked into J'role's eyes. "Speak to no one. No one but me, do you understand?" He nodded
* * *
Everyone in the Hall of Records, magicians and researchers, those on ladders and those sitting at tables, turned and looked sharply at J'role. But he paid them no heed. With a swagger and a broad grin he approached the table where Releana and the dwarven magicians worked.
He stepped up onto the table, pointed to the books, then tapped himself on the chest.
"J'role?" Releana asked.
He took one of the books and stood it upright on the table. Several of the magicians moved to stop him, but Releana and Merrox stayed their hands.
He opened the book to the middle, spreading the pages and the covers wide so one page stood very much alone. Then he pointed with one finger at the picture of the small, mysterious block in the upper right-hand corner of the page. He moved his finger perpendicularly to the page, and soon the tip reached the picture of the block. He took the next page in the book and placed it against the open page. Then he raised his finger over the pages, and moved it past the pages.
He repeated the motion of his finger, first moving it toward the page, then bringing up several more pages, then moving it beyond the pages, as if through the illustration of the blocks.
Finally he turned the book so the pages he held faced the magicians. Once more he slowly brought his fingertip toward the first page he held out, touching the illustration of the small block.
"What is he doing?" one of the magician's asked, his tone full of annoyance.
For a flickering moment J'role wondered if he was wrong. The image in the garden had seemed so clear: A tunnel of sword blades framing the elf queen. Each one, a flat object, combined to create depth, and in the end, a whole picture.
But once again Releana came to his rescue. She took the book from J’role and said,
"Look. Each symbol by itself is meaningless. That's because each illustration is combined with the illustration in the stone behind it. And that bit with the stone behind it. The symbols are not formed by looking at the pictures as if the stones formed a wall, read horizontally, as we're trying to see them. They're made whole by depth. We have to imagine standing at one corner of the city, and looking down along the city wall, as if we could see the symbols on one stone after another."
Merrox said, "Each vertical row of stones probably forms one complete symbol."
"When all the stones are in place, we'll have the full picture," Releana finished. "That must be it."
Some of the dwarven magicians nodded sagely, some looked excited, and others looked irritably at J'role. J'role just sighed. He was one step closer to finding the city and getting his voice back.
He spotted Releana looking up at him with a bit of surprise, a bit of pleasure, a bit of awe.
That was good, too.
He waited as the dwarfs and Releana transcribed the symbols on the stones. On fresh parchment they drew one empty square for each vertical row of stones, then went through each page, adding each bit of detail from each of the small squares. Slowly the squares filled, and the magicians nodded and licked their lips, looking at one another with growing excitement.
J'role sat in a chair, watching. He could serve no more purpose now, but he was too excited to leave.
The magicians worked through the night, taking shifts in compiling the symbols, some working while others napped on tables and chairs in the far corners of the hall. Candles were brought in to augment the light of the wall's glowing moss. The dwarfs drew and drew. Food was brought in. Exclamations of "Ah!" pierced the deep silence every now and then, but never with the whole mystery solved just symbols completed.
Until…:
"We have it!" Releana shouted suddenly.
J'role nearly tumbled off the chair where he was sleeping, then rushed over to the table.
Releana looked down at the two dozen sheets of paper spread out over the table. J'role saw the images of trees and cats and arms and swords and flying chariots, each picture framed and adorned with dots and lines and squiggles, all of which translated the meaning of the word from its basic picture to sounds. The sounds were re-combined to make more words.
"It must be the words spoken to bring the city back," said one dwarf.
When Releana looked up and saw J'role beside hers she put her hand on his shoulder and drew him close. "This is what we say, outside the city walls: 'You are found. There is a place for you in the World. Come home.' "
The expedition-J'role, Releana, and Borthum in the lead, followed by forty dwarfs armed with glittering swords and armor that caught and reflected the sun's light like a pond of clear water-marched north to the Serpent.
The group obtained passage across the river on the Chakara, then continued on their way, planning to cut a wide path around Blood Wood and work their way back to where J'role had first seen the city. Though they no longer had the ring, J'role was confident he could find the place again.
They had traveled a full day from the Serpent, and had just made camp, when Borthum raised his head, cocking it to one side, listening carefully. "Animals are approaching"
Everyone stopped in their tracks to scan the surrounding area. In all directions small hills rolled up and down like frozen waves, and for a moment nothing was visible in the deepening twilight. Then a long line of blackness swelled up from over a hill.
"Orks," Borthum said, annoyed. "What are they doing this far north?"