Under a Starless Sky novel Chapter 49

TL took up a quill and with the sharp end pointed to the separation in spectral lines. She replaced the other rune. She pointed to the discrepancy. She swapped it out. She repeated. Erico complained, ‘you seen one rainbow you’ve seen them all’ to which Torny snapped ‘make another sound and the by goddess tree herself, I will sleep you.’ Yaffa asked ‘have you not heard him sleep?’ Tane said: ‘the whole village hears him sleep.’

“Would you all please be quiet?!” Torny demanded. “Loxy, can something that subtle really send you a world away?” Torny asked.

“A universe away.”

“A universe?” Torny said.

“May I add a mark to this stone to denote its change?” TL asked.

“Yes,” Torny said.

“How did it change?” Arne asked.

TL shrugged. “I don’t know. It got dropped? It was damaged in a magical fight?”

The Vikings exchanged glances. They did not share their understanding of it. TL and Shen could only imagine.

“Should we throw it away?” Torny asked.

“Not if you want to come back here,” TL said. “Here let me write our gate recipe…”

“No!” Arne and Torny said.

“I mean, no,” Torny said, softer. “Unless you want all the seers to know your home address, potentially discern ours.”

“Show her, she’ll remember,” Arne said.

“She doesn’t have to,” Torny said. “It should be our address, minus this damaged one.”

“Oh!” TL said, grimacing. “I am so smart I am stupid sometimes.”

“What?” Shen asked.

“I hadn’t considered half tone steps. I have only been considering three dimensional properties- the geometric structures as related to a full tone, not the myriad of potential harmonics,” TL said. “Even one degree of deflection… Again, where do you get your runes?”

Erico pulled at his face. Torny gave him a look. He backed away. Tane was sampling the honey.

Torny looked at Loxy. “You’re not making fun of me?”

“No,” TL said.

“All raised masters can make a single rune,” Torny said.

Torny demonstrated. She took a colorless, unmarked rune from the box, closed it in her hand, and closed her eyes. Light illuminated her hand, escaped from her fingers, bones were silhouetted in glowing flesh, and then the light faded. She opened her hand and dropped the stone into TL’s hand. It was warm.

“I can make this,” Torny said. “This stone now carries a reflection of my light. I am told that with an increase in knowledge and wisdom, my light will change, and my stone will change. I hear that significant events can a change a person’s light. We have an elder who reports having had four changes in light. No one will trade with me because my stone is common. My light is common. Yaffa can make one, a third off mine. Also common. Our Sister can make one, a fifth. Less common. People will trade with her before me.”

“It takes twelve stones to open a gate,” TL said.

“Twelve sisters,” Torny said. “What stone do you make?”

The arrangement of gems on the floor seemed familiar. “It reminds me of a periodic table,” Shen said.

“Shh!” TL said.

Shen had a slight emotional reaction to having been ‘shushed.’ TL had never done that. She was capable of holding two conversations, and could have come at him internally, but she was that focused. Arne was amused, probably happy to see a normal human interaction pattern between them. He touched Shen’s shoulder and nodded. Shen recovered.

TL sorted the pile on the floor, pushing them into patterns. She was studying another crystal that she didn’t recognize and didn’t own. She changed her mind, rearranged the groupings. She examined individual’s stones illuminating their spectral patterns on the plate. She laughed and made notes in her book. She took the book Torny had and made the same notations and gave it back.

“You have more keys than I do,” Torny lamented.

“No,” TL said, studying the floor and her new arrangement. “We have the same.”

“No,” Torny said. “I don’t have any of these…”

TL looked at her. “We have the same. This box is yours.”

Torny cried. She bowed, her head touching the floor. TL touched her head. “Sister, no,” TL said.

“This is too much,” Torny said.

“Sister,” TL insisted. “Come up. Eyes.”

Torny sat up, made eye contact. “I cannot give you everything I know in one sitting. Even this book will require explanation before you can read it well. This gift will increase our ability to communicate. This is reciprocity, not benevolence. We rise together, we fall together.”

“We are one,” Torny said.

“On the ship,” Arne added.

TL removed another glass plate from the drawer. It had a place for a candle. It had an indenture for three stones. It was etched in gold. She placed it on the floor, took one of the stones from Torny’s collection that she didn’t have and placed it in the left indention. She took an unmarked, transparent rune and placed it in the right indention. She then took one of the shaped die and placed it in the third indention. Nothing. She removed it and tried a twenty sided die. There was a shimmer. She turned up the intensity by rotating the twenty sided die to a higher number. The stone became too bright. She dialed it back. The plate emitted a sound. The crystal on the right vibrated, took on the color of the first. TL opened up the bottom drawer and removed what looked like a nail polish jar. She chose a sparking gold, took out a thin brush, and duplicated the symbol on the newly entrained stone. She return Torny’s stone back to her pile. She did this procedure until she had a copy of each of Torny’s stones that were not in her collection. She handed these to Abby who took them away and returned when she was finished. While Abby was gone, TL made notations in her book. She frowned at the book. She took Torny’s book and duplicated her work, and handed it back.

“I may have to start over. If I do, I will provide you with an updated version,” TL said.

“And throw away this work? We must show our work, so the path is clear for all who follow,” Torny said.

“Fair enough,” TL said. “Do I understand correctly, the only way to get new stones, or missing stones, are from masters?”