David Farland - Lords of the Seventh Swarm

Felph reached into his pocket, pulled out a glow globe, and held it aloft. “If you look up here, you can see writing on the walls, most of it in a tempera made from colored clays mixed with pulp from bark.” There was indeed writing on the ceiling, intricate designs of stylized Qualeewoohs painted in vivid reds, blues, yellows, and greens. There was a queer feeling to the place. Strange scenes on the ceiling depicted birdlike creatures in armored helms, who carried knives on their wing tips, battling beasts in the heavens. The hall was ten meters across, but less than two meters high. By the odd proportions, one sensed it had not been burrowed by human hands. The symbols were obviously stylized, yet there were intricacies in the work that astonished Gallen. It was like nothing ever painted by a human. On one wall was a set of symbols that gave off ominous overtones. They depicted yellowish fanged beasts, like upright jackals with large ears, apparently dancing in a green mist.

“What do these symbols mean?” Maggie asked.

“No one knows,” Felph said. “Each mating pair of Qualeewoohs writes in their own private language, which they teach their children, but the children themselves create their own version of that language at adolescence. The result is that after a few generations, even the Qualeewoohs can’t decipher the family writings. But Qualeewoohs tell me that the private languages tell mostly of common things nearby nesting sites, feeding grounds, and the attendant dangers at each. But there is much more personal information that the Qualeewoohs don’t share with us-mystic teachings and magical rites.”

“You mean that the Qualeewoohs are still alive?” Orick asked. “I thought that they were all killed or something. That’s why the planet is called Ruin.”

“Not killed,” Felph said. “They are rare, but not extinct. We’re in a period called `the bone years,’ when their members become quite few. It’s a planetwide drought. And of course, over the past few centuries, their numbers have dwindled lower than ever. Poachers, you know.”

“I still cannot believe people would kill them,” Gallen said, not bothering to conceal his outrage.

“Perhaps if you’d met a Qualeewooh, you’d understand,” Felph answered. “They are feral. Their ancestors reached great heights of civilization, but the descendants are poor representatives of their species.”

He brought the light to a corner, where a glass case had been built into one wall. “Here you can see some spirit masks-Qualeewooh masks made of lacquered leather, with some inlaid silver fangs, and writing painted on the masks. The Qualeewoohs make these when they reach adolescence, then have them permanently glued to their faces. The masks cannot be removed. When a Qualeewooh dies, its body is left behind as being nothing, something merely cast off. But the dead Qualeewooh’s mate will bring the mask back to one of its favorite aeries.” He raised the globe toward the wall. The birdlike masks were about three feet from nose to head, and just the width of a human face. Gallen got the distinct impression that the empty eye sockets on the gray-blue masks were gazing out at him. “You said you wanted to speak to a dead Qualeewooh. Open the case. Put on a mask. As I remember, the center one there is quite well-made.”

Gallen looked at Felph suspiciously. The hair rose on the back of Gallen’s neck. On Tremonthin, the Inhuman had downloaded memories of past lives into Gallen. And somewhere, Gallen felt he had lost a bit of himself in a sea of otherness. He dared not put on the mask.

“What do the masks do?” Gallen said.

Felph frowned in thought. “The methods for making a spirit mask are kept secret from humans, so it is difficult to explain precisely how they work. The means for producing them is taught by the `ancestors,’ the Qualeewoohs’ word for gods. I cannot explain it any better than to say this: you and I would say that these masks are receivers. The masks let the Qualeewoohs’ dead ancestors speak to them.”

Gallen said, “But earlier tonight, Herm said that wearing the masks drives you insane.”

Felph smiled secretively. “Some would say that it drives you divine . It is true that long-term exposure to alien thoughts might … confuse some. But there is little harm in short-term exposure. Please. You said you wanted proof of the Waters. This is part of the evidence.”

Gallen immediately stiffened. Felph seemed more than a bit mad himself. He had worn the masks, of that Gallen felt certain. Perhaps the mask had made him insane. Certainly a normal man would not have howled for his guests to leave his party, would not have bayed like a wounded hound almost as soon as they entered his home. Felph was insane, and possibly dangerous. Gallen didn’t trust his judgment, didn’t want to don the mask. Yet a certain morbid fascination gripped him. Gallen wanted to know for certain that Felph spoke the truth.

Gallen went to the case, pulled out the mask that Felph had indicated-a mask of deep purples with threads of red among the silver writing. He took a deep breath, then held the strange birdlike mask up to his face with both hands. Almost immediately he stiffened, as if bracing himself for a blow. Wearing the mask somehow seemed suffocating-though Gallen could breathe easily enough. It was an odd sensation. He felt as if-his head had elongated, as if it were pulled into a far place.

Almost immediately he saw something-a vision one might call it, and the oddity of it repelled him. At first, his mind could not make sense of what he saw. A world as flat and featureless as a sea of molten lead, skies in banded shades of yellow and crimson, and green birds of light wheeling through the skies. One of the birds was flying toward him, growing larger and larger in his field of vision, and its thoughts seemed to pummel Gallen. Half-formed questions formed in Gallen’s mind-questions that he felt, curiously, must be answered once posed.

He choked back a sob, then drew the mask away, shoving it toward Felph. He found that he had dropped protectively to one knee.

He blinked rapidly and shook his head, as if trying to wake from a disturbing dream, then said weakly. “All right. I believe you.”

“What, what did you see?” Orick nearly shouted.

“It is not so much what you see,” Felph said. “It was what you think and feel. The ancestors speak to your whole soul-your hopes and desires and dreams.”

Orick asked, “What did they say?”

Gallen shook his head. “They asked me …” he struggled for words, “if I could seek for the Waters of Strength. To seek with my whole being. They told me to find … peace?” He frowned, as if uncertain of the message.

Maggie looked to Gallen, then to Felph, incredulous.

Felph said, “Would you like to try it, Maggie, Orick? Do you want to hear the voices of the ancestors?”

Maggie shook her head vigorously. Orick and Tallea declined the offer.

“Such a shame,” Felph said. “Perhaps you’ll change your mind. Here: this mask is for you, Gallen, since you had the courage to wear it. It’s quite valuable. It dates to the thirty-third ascendancy, a historical period that ended about three thousand years ago. The finest masks were made then.” He presented the mask to Gallen with a bow. Gallen took it, gingerly, put it under his arm.

“I–I don’t get it,” Orick said. “You said that the Qualeewoohs had conquered time and space. If that’s true, why don’t you bring us one?”

Felph smiled broadly. “Well, Orick, that is hard to explain, and I don’t know the answer for sure myself. The Qualeewoohs say that the ancestors are `flying between the stars.’ I think that phrase means, quite frankly, that they do not exist in the physical universe. They have been transformed into something else, something that travels to another dimension, where time and space as we know them no longer exist.”