Tales of Vesperia: The Silence of the Dragon-Rider - Part 1, Chapter 1
This is a translation of the Tales of Vesperia novels: The Silence of the Dragon-rider, Judith"s story. I am only responsible for translating it, and for any content in ((double parentheses)).
((The book opens with a two-page color spread: six-year-old Judith riding Ba"ul on one page; Hermes on the other; and Duke, facing away in the background, behind them. There are four other figures who don"t have name labels: what looks like Phaeroh and Belius, another monsterlike shape that I don"t recognize, and what looks like the pale, featureless outline of a child.))
PART 1: A CHANCE MEETING ON BALBUSA
Only the Voiceless Speak The Truth
Chapter 1
When "he" regained consciousness, he was alone.
His surroundings were empty and unfamiliar, stretching on endlessly. When he looked down, blue-black plains that seemed to glitter with a strange reflected radiance stretched into the distance below him. Overhead there was nothing but unfathomable blue sky. The sun beat down with merciless light and heat, and as he tried to make sense of his surroundings, he could feel it baking into his back, stabbing into his eyes and blurring his vision with tears.
Alone. Whatever had happened, he was alone.
But he had lost track of how long he had been by himself. He must start with the question of where exactly he was. He thought about it, but he just couldn"t remember how he had gotten there. It felt as if thinking itself was strange and difficult for him. His past was a worn-down rock face that he could not quite get a foothold on; despite his efforts to make it come clear; it remained hazy. It didn"t feel like something that was hidden from him, but rather, something that had been erased. He had lost his memory, and it would not return.
Even so, he had a faint recollection of someplace darker, cooler, and heavier than this. He felt that he had been there once before. There he had always been wrapped in that thick sensation, his whole body trembling happily, swimming freely-- with his kin.
His kin!
That thought awoke painful feelings inside him, and that was when he realized. That place where he had once lived was gone as surely as his memory, deepening his great sense of loss. Somehow he had been shut out of the place he could barely remember, and his dream to return there again could never be fulfilled.
Now he mourned for everything that he had lost. He couldn"t understand or remember why it had come to this, but there was no anger, just a profound sadness that welled up inside him.
He had to escape from here. Even though there was nowhere for him to really escape to.
Before long, as if to flee from the sun itself, he slowly lifted off, crossing into the vast sky. He had no goal, and no destination.
He was just a lonely shadow pa.s.sing over the surface of the sea.
"--Call to mind the roots of a tree, reaching out--"
The words of Dektell the instructor fell upon the ear and slid gracefully into the mind, like a prayer. But Judith felt that, rather than a source of guidance, they only disturbed her concentration.
"The way that they burrow through the dark earth... The unhurried grasping to find the hidden underground stream... Yes, and then consider the way that the abundant foliage blooms--"
How long she had been going on like this Judith couldn"t say. All she knew was that it felt like the lesson was going nowhere. To try and salvage her focus, Judith forced her eyes to open slightly. All she could see of the instructor was her tall back. She let her half-lidded gaze drift around the room. The other children sat with their eyes closed, each of them concentrating raptly with all their hearts.
Judith was one of only ten children, sitting in a circle directly below two intersecting beams in the chamber"s ceiling high above. The instructor -- a quiet, middle-aged woman -- stood in the middle of her circle of students.
The children were all sitting on cushions embroidered with delicate geometric patterns. Each child sat with hands cupped against their legs, palms open.
In their cupped hands they held a globe. Black ones, brown ones; there were different colors, but they were each just the right size to fit in the palms of their hands. Even if you studied a sphere intently, you would find not one flaw in its perfectly smooth surface. The sun shone down on them from a window high above, making the spheres glitter hypnotically.
...They must all be sleeping, right? The moment the thought crossed Judith"s mind she had to struggle to contain a smile. The instructor was not strict, but it was still obviously not a very entertaining cla.s.s.
Judith let out a heartfelt sigh. In the end, all she could do was keep struggling. Her race was the only one that possessed the strange power of nageeg, and she had to learn how to control it.
The girl resigned herself and finally closed her eyes once again, focusing her consciousness on the sphere in her own hands, starting her work.
With her eyes closed, the weight of the sphere felt more distinct. Despite its appearance, the sphere was extremely heavy. But right now she was completely focused on what she was doing, and she wasn’t supposed to be feeling its weight. Her goal was to see through the sphere... and not in the way she would if the sphere were transparent.
The instructor had said that inside each sphere was a hidden image, each different. A student who could use nageeg well would be able to see that hidden image. That was what they were practicing to do.
The image might have been inside the sphere, but it was not separate from it. If Judith tried to see into it she wouldn"t succeed, and if she tried to split it apart, she would see only an unremarkable cross-section of stone. Although the information had been presented to her in those terms, the reality was more complicated and subtle. Or at least, so Judith had heard. And this exercise had been pa.s.sed down from generation to generation among her people.
The sphere"s brilliance was not merely the way it had been crafted, but the result of the countless hands had held it, polishing its surface. Judith traced its shape with her fingertips, thinking.
It was no good. Judith returned to herself, once again feeling the texture against her hands. She was once again limited to ordinary sensation, the touch against her skin.
Now that she wasn"t focused on the sphere, Judith was free to concentrate on other things. Like what was going on just behind her. Members of the Krityan tribe possessed a very noticeable feature: a set of antennae that might look like long hair at first glance, stretching out behind them, which channeled the power of nageeg. For that reason, the antennae were considered a nageeg organ, and sometimes were simply called "nageeg" as well.
Mastering nageeg was a rite of pa.s.sage among the Krityans, and no subst.i.tutions were accepted -- it was a requirement for joining the "great circle". Judith wasn"t sure exactly what the "great circle" meant yet, but she did knkow it was a necessity if she wanted to live here. She and the other children all accepted that as fact.
In Judith"s dim awareness, her nageeg organ felt like it was growing faintly hot. Or was she just imagining things? Was it just that her blood was pumping faster?
Oh, whatever. She was going off on tangents now.
She had to just call an irritation an irritation; but as she concentrated she started to picture a shape, forming as if from far off...
"A triangle!"
The sudden cry came from her right side, and Judith"s train of thought was shattered. She looked up and over at him sullenly. One among the children was triumphantly on his feet, holding up his sphere. It was a boy who lived in the western district -- a boy named Fent.
Fent was quite proud of himself, without even the slightest trace of unease that he might have said the wrong thing, and the instructor crossed over to him with a wide smile to brandish his sphere above her head.
"...Splendid. You did wonderfully, Fent."
At the words of the satisfied instructor, the boy seemed like he would almost burst with pride. He doubled over and then leapt into the air, crying out, "All right!!"
The surrounding children began talking avidly. Some were admiring, others were disappointed, and others were envious. Judith was in the last group.
The children had been gathered together to begin their training when they turned six years old. The instructors were delighted at every small step of progress forward, but that only served to make the remaining children more nervous.
The adults said that no one ever failed to master their powers. The budding of nageeg began in the same instant that a new child entered the world, as natural as breathing.
But that was adult reasoning. And children had their own point of view.
Where was the guarantee that they wouldn"t be the exception? Was there proof that they wouldn"t be the one to fail? What if they were born without two functional antennae?
Triumphant at having completed the a.s.signment, Fent no longer had to stay in the cla.s.s, and he darted out the door in high spirits, leaving Judith feeling completely deflated. She didn"t want to look, but she found her eye caught by the cushion where Fent had been sitting.
Since there was no one left to sit on it, it should be cleaned up in short order.
For a few moments an awkward silence fell in the little, now-smaller circle, but the instructor didn"t seem to notice at all. For her, this was an occasion that happened every year. She clapped her hands together and began to mend their broken concentration with a p.r.o.nouncement.
"Okay, everyone, quiet your minds. We can"t concentrate if our thoughts are in disarray. Don"t worry, soon all of you will be able to do it..."
Even with her eyes closed, she could still see a weak light through her eyelids. There seemed to be a vague image hovering there, but when she tried to solidify it, it faded into nothing. It was only an afterimage. It had nothing to do with nageeg.
Day in and day out, the same tiresome thing. Judith kept her eyes closed and struggled with an irritation that she could not allow to show in her expression.
Whether her focus was on her antennae or the sphere, she could sense absolutely nothing revealing itself to her.
Honestly, if it was "definitely going to happen", she wanted it to happen sooner rather than later-- she was just wasting time like this.
But her nageeg was the same as ever, if she truly had such a power, and it gave no sign of itself.
There had to be some trick to it. If she could get it even once, she"d realize, ohhh, so that"s how it goes!, and then it would be easy from there. Probably.
But she had to face the facts. In reality, she hadn"t a single clue to go on.
It felt like she was patiently putting forth a great effort with no promise of a reward in sight. It was a lot for a six-year-old girl to bear. Over time, Judith"s thoughts had gradually turned to wondering how she could escape from this torturous experience.
Fent said it was a triangle. So it seemed like the shapes inside the spheres were very simple. In that case, perhaps she should just try claiming that she"d seen a similar shape. Maybe she"d be lucky and get it right. Would mine be a square? or maybe a circle? she wondered.
...Stupid, another part of Judith insisted. Even if I got it right, and they let me outside, that wouldn"t be the last of the training, right? And if I can"t do this, what happens when they move on to more complicated tasks?
She shrugged, resigning herself to the unlikelihood of her plan. For now, she wasn"t going to bother worrying about it. She wasn"t making any progress. The one thing she had faith in was that even if today someone else was allowed to go out and join Fent, it wasn"t going to be her.
Judith wished darkly that the lesson would end soon and she could get out.
"I give up!"
Finally one of the other girls lost her temper and threw her sphere. It tumbled across the floor with a metallic noise, and the other children cringed away from it reflexively.
"Honestly, Nelni!" the instructor cried. "There"s no cause for poor behavior. These spheres were handed down from our n.o.ble ancestors, and they are very precious!"
"Does that mean if we broke the stones, we wouldn"t be able to practice nageeg anymore?" one of the other children started to ask, a faint look of consideration crossing his face. Judith sympathized.
"Well, we long ago lost the technique for making objects like these. But these spheres were not crafted to be so easily broken, so don"t worry about that. What I wanted to say was that you should be respectful of them."
Aww. Judith couldn’t help feeling disappointed.
"All right, now, let"s all focus together as a group, no slacking off. When you join the ‘great circle’, you"ll understand..."
But in the end, no one else joined Fent that day. With mixed degrees of defeat, the other children spent the entire morning practicing the exercises over and over.
When they were finally released from the gallery, the long beams of sunlight illuminated their faces.
Buildings were lined against each side of the s.p.a.cious road, casting gentle shadows. The children traveled down the path. The surface of the road was smooth and hard as rock, easy to walk on.
The name of their town was Temza.
The meeting hall where Judith and the others had been practicing was easily four times the size of the neighboring buildings, but it didn’t have an overwhelming presence. Buildings of that size simply weren’t necessary for life in Temza.
The buildings were all constructed of white stone, with blue roof tiles, and a spiral carved into the body of the pillars lining them. With an elegant plant-themed decor, the overall impression to an outside observer was of delicacy and calm. This architecture had been refined from the dawn of the Krityan tribe"s long, long history. But now every Krityan saw this -- and only this -- style of building from birth onward, and so to Judith and the other children, these sights were monotonous.
There were no adults along the path as they traveled, just the children walking together. The adults typically had to work in the field throughout the morning, or stay indoors doing other jobs. It was very convenient for the children. As they headed down the road to their homes, some of the children started to split off from the group, decreasing their numbers while they continued to chat amongst themselves loudly.
The Krityan children didn"t take care to be conservative and cautious the way the adults did. According to everyone, when they joined the "great circle" they would behave more formally, but right now Judith and the others didn"t worry about things like that.
They spoke only about petty things, but it was fun for them to interact with others their own age, since there were few children in Temza.
But they did not speak to each other about their training. As if to hide their mutual anxiety from each other, they avoided the subject of Fent"s outperforming them.
That was what Judith thought, at least. Everyone else feels the same way as I do, don"t they? I get it, she thought, and it made her feel a little better.
As her mood shifted, Judith turned her head up to look into the sky, and slowly stopped walking.
"What is it, Judith?" Nelni asked her, but Judith didn"t answer, her gaze fixed upon the sky.
The sun was approaching the left peak of Mt. Iryupa, and that meant...
"It’s lunchtime!"
"Huh?"
"Sorry!"
She didn"t stay to listen to hear Nelni"s response to that, taking off at top speed. The haze left over from her training had vanished, cutting through any potential conversation. Judith didn"t even look behind her as she hurried.
The ground beneath her feet rapidly changed from earth to pavement as she ran. The view around her on all sides was also changing, the buildings disappearing replaced by emptiness.
Judith ran straight towards the sun.
There was one amazing thing about Temza: it was high in the sky. It was a part of the craggy mountain range that pierced the sky like needles. Temza had been build atop one of those needles. The houses encircled plazas and roads, and the only thing connecting them to the earth below was a single stone bridge. The bridge was wide enough, but only about three to four people could walk side-by-side on it.
To the earthbound people below -- what the Krityans called the other race that lived on the earth below them -- this town and its bridge seemed like they rose out of a sea of clouds, whether that thought made them gaze upon it with wonder or shudder at the sight of it.
However, as someone who had been born here and lived all her life seeing these buildings and these sights, it failed to move Judith. She didn"t even hesitate as she ran across the bridge, supported by thin pillars that lifted it up to the clouds in the heavens.
Her legs remained steady as she crossed over the bridge, and then followed the curve of the road before Judith finally drew up in front of one particular house. She stood there for a moment, steadying her breath, before plunging inside at the same eager speed.
"I’m home!"
Her cry echoed from room to room. It would be hard to say that any of the rooms were really "neat". They were incredibly cluttered, to the point where Judith had to slow down a little to keep from tripping.
"Sorry, I’ll get lunch started right away!" Judith called out, but she was already running as if chasing something, sending the papers that littered the floor flying in all directions. From inside the piled-up books and mountains of scrolls, another voice answered hers.
"Oh, welcome home. You don"t need to rush! I still have work to get done..."
Judith"s movement stopped abruptly, like a puppet with strings cut. She turned around, putting both hands on her hips, and retraced her steps quickly.
"Why does that matter? If I make you lunch, you"re going to eat it, Dad!"
There was a desk, and poised above it -- surrounded by books, doc.u.ments, and various strangely-shaped tools; so surrounded that he almost couldn"t be seen -- was one man, finally looking up from his papers.
He was skinny, a middle-aged man with gla.s.ses who glanced around with a bitter smile. His unkempt hair grew trailed down into a goatee, but it was the same blue color as Judith"s.
Hermes. Judith’s researcher father. And her only living relative.
"I will. Your cooking is my favorite, you know, Judith."
"If you weren"t so busy with work I wouldn"t bother, so there!" Judith stuck her tongue out at him. In reality, when he was immersed in his work, he was the kind of person who wouldn"t notice anything unless you shouted right next to his ear.
The whole neighborhood knew how eccentric he was. He was a widower, rather hard to please, and so devoted to his strange research that he took no notice of anything around him.
But Judith still loved her father, even if no one else on Temza understood his mysterious habits. Judith and the others had no idea what he was researching, other than the fact that it was terribly complicated.
"Sem-rakay femroi," Judith said.
"Apram," her father answered with a grin.
They spoke in an ancient language. The words meant, "Just wait a little longer while I cook," and "I understand."
Nowadays, there wasn"t anyone left who used that language, but Hermes had learned it as part of his studies, and for fun he taught it to Judith as well.
Since it was more studying, she shouldn"t have been interested in memorizing all of that. But she had enjoyed learning it. A language that only she and her father would understand... They could shout as loud as they could wherever they wanted, and what they said would still be a secret between father and daughter.
They had mastered the vocabulary together, and they kept it a secret only between the two of them. Judith didn"t have any close friends to share it with, so it was very important to her.
This language -- called Fwineeg -- was a perfect secret between them.
Before long, his daughter disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, humming to herself contentedly. A delicious smell began to waft out of the kitchen, bringing a smile to Hermes" face.
"He" was starving.
It would be best if he ate something. By all rights, his instincts should have told him where to go, but he was so achingly hungry and thirsty that it tormented him.
He was crossing the ocean, pa.s.sing many mountains, many forests, many plains; but he was always alone, always running from his suffering. But he knew that he had to starve himself this way. In the ocean, below the surface of the water, he could pick out hundreds of slim shadows of fish, and in the gra.s.sy plains he noticed birds and beasts, over and over and over. But he had no appet.i.te.
Those were not things he should eat. He didn"t understand why, but his instincts told him that clearly. He was confident that he could easily catch one of those creatures, but he had no desire to try.
A strange energy supported him, although he had used up most of it a long time ago and thought it would be the end of him; he was surviving now, but one way or the other he was steadily approaching his limit.
He had to eat.
He had to find something that he would be able to eat.
"He" was starving. And -- he was alone.
"Is it good?" his daughter asked him.
"Yes, it’s very good," her father answered her.
She nodded her head in delighted acknowledgment, even though there was no way he could have said anything else.
She watched him fixedly as he finished off the last of his food. It wasn"t the most polished meal -- naturally, since the chef was only six years old -- but it was flavored with her feelings for her father. Of course there wouldn"t be anything left-over.
It was the bonds between them that put a smile on his face.
Because of that, it was completely satisfying.