I considered suggesting to Edmund that he break the unhappy silence. He could talk cheerfully to the people of their future in a new land. But I decided it was best to keep quiet. The silence was almost sacred. Our people were saying good-bye.
Near cycle’s end, we came to a colossus. No one said a word but, one by one, the people of Kairn Telest left the path, came to stand beneath the gigantic column of stone. Once, it would have been impossible to have approached the bright and shining source of our life. Now, it stood dead and cold as the land it had forsaken.
The king, accompanied by myself and Edmund and torch-bearing soldiers, moved forward out of the crowd and walked up to the colossus’s base. Edmund stared at the huge stone pillar curiously. He had never been close to one before. His expression was awed. He marveled at the girth and mass of the pillar of rock.
I looked at the king. He appeared pained and bewildered and angry, as if the colossus had betrayed him personally.
I, myself, was familiar with the colossus and what it looked like. I had investigated it long ago, seeking to unravel its secrets to save my people. But the mystery of the colossus is forever locked in the past.
Impulsively, Edmund pulled off his fur gloves, reached out his hand to touch the rock, to run his fingers along the sigla-inscribed stone. He paused, however, suddenly fearful of the magic, afraid of being burned or shocked. He looked questioningly at me.
“It won’t hurt you,” I said, with a shrug. “It lost, long ago, the power to hurt.”
“Just as it lost the power to help,” Edmund added, but he said the words to himself.
Gingerly, he ran his fingertips over the chill stone. Hesitantly, almost reverently, he traced the pattern of the runes whose meaning and magic are now long forgotten. He lifted his head, looked up and up as far as the torchlight shone on the glistening rock. The sigla extend upward into the darkness and beyond.
The column rises to the ceiling of the cavern,” I commented, thinking it best to speak in the crisp, concise voice of the teacher, as I used to speak to him in the happy days when we were together in the classroom. “Presumably, it extends up through the ceiling to the region of the Celestial Sea. And every bit of it is covered in these runes, that you see here.
“It is frustrating”—I could not help frowning—”but most of these sigla, individually, I know, I understand. The rune’s power lies not in the individual sigil, however, but in the combination of sigla. It is that combination that is beyond my ability to comprehend. I copied down the patterns, took them back with me to the library, and spent many hours studying them with the help of the ancient texts.
“But,” I continued, speaking so softly that only Edmund could hear my words, “it was like trying to unravel a huge ball made up of myriad tiny threads. A single thread ran smoothly through my fingers. I followed it and it led me to a knot. Patiently I worked, separating one thread from another and then another and then another until my mind ached from the strain. I untangled one knot, only to find, beneath it, another. And by the time I unraveled that one, I had lost hold of the first single thread. And there are millions of knots,” I said, looking upward, sighing, “Millions.” The king turned away from the pillar abruptly, his face drawn arid darkly lined in the torchlight. He had not spoken a word during the time we’d stood beneath the colossus. It occurred to me, then, that he had not spoken since we left the city gates. He walked off, back to the path. The people lifted their children to their shoulders and started on their way. Most of the soldiers followed after the people, taking the light with them. One only remained near myself the prince.
Edmund stood before the pillar, pulling on his gloves. I waited for him, sensing that he wanted to talk to me in private.