"Alkhartren!"

Yaltring could not see the stooping figure well in the fading light. He only dimly remembered the man. But who else could be standing at the woodpile by this lonely cottage?

"Who goes there?" came a voice, harsh and startled.

"I am sorry," said Yaltring, remembering Natarak’s advice as he peered through the trees. "I did not mean to shout. I am Yaltring, and I need your help and wisdom. Natarak sent me to you."

"Natarak?" There was a pause, a sigh. "I have not heard from him for some years. Yaltring. I think I remember you. How old are you? Are you still a boy?"

"I was made a man last year. I just had my fourteenth birthday."

There came a low whistle. "Just turned fourteen, and you’ve been a man a year! I did not know they did such things. Must have changed since I was young. Come forward, Yaltring, to where I can see you better."

Yaltring strode forward and stepped into the garden. He stood inside a clear space of dirt. At the other end, a few yards away, was the woodpile. All around, in a horseshoe broken only by a narrow path from the woods to the door, vegetables were growing.

Alkhartren grinned. "It’s been a warm day!" he said. "Only, it doesn’t get so warm around here." His arms full of logs, he gestured above, to the trees that hung on all sides, covering his cottage in perpetual shadows.

"At night," he continued, "it can get cold, even after a hot one. So, I’m bringin’ in the wood, as you see." He gestured with his head, started walking toward the house, and looked back. Yaltring understood that he was to follow.

Suddenly, there was a squawking noise, and a brown rooster came scurrying into view, clucking loudly. It ran right in front of Yaltring, who almost stumbled on it.

"Eh? Foam-Topper, are you breakin’ loose again?" Alkhartren hesitated, looking annoyed. "Akh," he grunted, "better put this wood down first." He opened the door and stomped in, Yaltring closely following, skirting carefully around the agitated chicken.

Inside, it was bright and warm. Alkhartren dumped his wood in a pile amidst some well-laid bricks, then turned around again.

"We’d better go out and mind the chickens," he said with a grin. "That dumb fence keeps getting broken."

Outside, the sky was alive with a purple glow, the last faded remnant of evening. The chicken was racing around at a considerable speed--for a chicken. "Good thing he doesn’t keep going in one direction," said Yaltring. "He’d be halfway across the island by now."

"What?" said the man. "Hah! That chicken? He’s too dumb to keep steady for more than five paces. Talented fence-jumper, though. Foam-Topper!"

This time, Yaltring was sure he had heard him right. "Why do you call him that?" he asked.

"Oh!" said Alkhartren, and looked bashful. He raced after the flapping rooster and, with a lunge, caught it from behind. He carried it back to the waiting young man, paying no mind to its wild struggles.

"Well," he said, over the deafening squawks and clucks, "I named all my animals after boats I used to know. Haven’t been out on the sea for a long while, but there are memories. So it is."

He started walking around the cottage. It was old-looking, built of sturdy, faded brown timbers, plain and cozy. Yaltring followed him. "Gotta see what happened to my fence!" he exclaimed, looking at Yaltring shyly, with a hint of fondness.

When they arrived at the back of the house, Yaltring saw a large chicken coop. The whole pen was in an uproar, which only grew when Foam-Topper came into view, still loudly protesting his abduction. "Now, there!" said Alkhartren, unlatching the door and throwing him in. "Go back in your coop, and stay there! Ah, I see what happened." There was a place in the fence where the wooden beams were bent apart. Foam-Topper had evidently twisted his way through. Most of the other chickens were already gathered around the place when the two men came near, as if the rooster’s departure had excited and attracted them. None of them, however, seemed to have the wits to know what to do about it.

Alkhartren turned to Yaltring with a grin. "Good thing the rest of ‘em are even dumber than he is, huh? Otherwise, I'd be chasin’ chickens until the moon went down!" He set to straightening the fence.

"Do you want me to fetch the axe by that wood-pile?"

"What? Oh, naw, I can do this myself. Thank you, though, young fella." He gripped the beams. He was wearing a long woodsman’s shirt, thick and rough; but as he worked, Yaltring saw his arms flex through it. There was a snap, and suddenly the fence was as it should be. Yaltring realized that the man was very strong.

"Whew!" said Alkhartren. "Okay, let’s go inside."

When they walked back into the cottage, Alkhartren turned around to take a look at his young companion. Yaltring looked back, seeing the man’s face for the first time in the light. He seemed middle-aged, though hard to pinpoint. His chestnut hair and beard were shaggy and grayed, and his face and arms had a weather-beaten look. There was a reticence about him, yet he was vigorous in word and motion. Yaltring guessed he was more used to talking to beasts and the wind than to other human beings.

Yet he seemed somehow glad to have company.

"Now, young fella, what is it that you need my help with?"

"Well," said Yaltring, not knowing quite where to begin, and reached for the parchment. His fingers quivered faintly as he drew it out.

"Natarak said you might be able to read this," he said.

Alkhartren frowned in puzzlement. "Read it?" he asked. "What, and Natarak couldn’t?"

Yaltring shook his head solemnly. "No, he said he didn’t know the tongue."

"Natarak didn’t know it? Don’t hear that said often. And he thought that I would? Hardly very likely, when you think about it. What language is it, anyway?"

"He thought it was an older form of Ezrain," said Yaltring quietly, his hope starting to fade.

"An older form of Ezrain?" said Alkhartren, starting. "Let me see it." He strode forward swiftly, his face dark, puzzled, hungry. Yaltring handed him the document almost fearfully.

Alkhartren took it in hand and stared at it, unmoving. It was a long while before he spoke.

"Yes. I can understand it." He looked up at Yaltring like someone lost in a strange world. "Where did you find this?" he said, agitated. "This parchment can’t be old enough."

"I copied it myself today," said Yaltring. "But it was carved on a stone that was buried in the ground."

"Where?"

"In the middle of the island, deep in the woods."

"How did you find it?"

Yaltring hesitated. "There was--a device," he said carefully, "that pointed the light--"

"It pointed the sunlight to the spot on the ground?" said Alkhartren, his agitation and excitement growing.

"Yes!" said Yaltring, "--how did you know?"

"Ah!" said Alkhartren, "I know a bit about these old things." He looked down at the floor, as if thinking deeply.

Suddenly, he caught Yaltring’s sleeve. "Come on--let’s sit down, and I’ll build a fire. It’s already starting to cool."

Indeed it was. Yaltring felt much better after they left the entryway and he’d taken a seat on the man’s bed, the only furniture besides a small table and a chair. Alkhartren busied himself with the fire. He was very quick and skilled, and soon there was a goodly blaze heating the cabin’s one room. He plumped himself down beside Yaltring, who was leaning against the wall behind him, feeling suddenly very at ease. The parchment lay on the bed.

"Now," said Alkhartren, reaching for it, "let’s take another look at this."

He studied it again, then turned to Yaltring, looking him straight in the eye, steadily and without threat. Shy though he was, there was no evasion in him. "You found this here, on Imme?"

"Yes. I’ve never been to any other land," said Yaltring.

"Why, if that don’t top all," mumbled the man under his breath. He shook his head from side to side.

"What do you think it is?"

"A message," said Alkhartren simply, turning to face Yaltring with the same blunt, honest look.

"Who was it meant for?"

"Whoever found it first."

A shockwave pierced Yaltring’s body, a tingling of energy that uncoiled through his veins, shooting down the muscles of his arms and out his fingertips. "You mean--for me--"

Alkhartren barely nodded. "A message is for anyone it manages to get to," he said slowly.

A breath swelled Yaltring’s chest, drowning his head in lightness. "What does it say?" he panted, barely squeezing out the words. They came out too loud.

Alkhartren took no notice, but read: "Arnash de-zoko de-lume an-zor, fine a-falu yakhana yer-gun, nakhu a-himen e-ada yer-mor." His accent was fine--sharp, practiced, and automatic--like Sila’s when she spoke Ezrain. Some of the sounds were not the way Yaltring remembered reading them.

"But what does it mean?" he spluttered.

"Oh!" said Alkhartren. "Sorry, I was forgettin’ that you can’t understand it. Well..." he paused. "It’s not easy, because it’s in verse, and tricky verse at that, but I would say it something like this, to catch the rhyme:

Yaltring leaned back in a daze, thinking of his birthday, and the sun he had seen overhead. "But what’s it really about? What is the sinking light? Or the deeps?"

Alkhartren glanced back at the page, then into Yaltring’s eyes. "There’s no way I could know," he said quietly. "But I’ve got a feeling you’ll figure it out for yourself."

"How?"

"I think it’ll come to you, somehow," said Alkhartren. "Your own message ain’t going to just sit there and leave you alone. It’s not only in the Lower World where you can hear the Whispering Voices, you know, young fella. You just have to be quieter here."

And there was indeed a quiet in the little house, rippled by the crackling of the fire. Suddenly Yaltring, pondering the mysterious words, thought of the sun descending over the sea, and himself plunging the deeps before the bow; and a thrill of adventure rose warm in his throat. He gazed at Alkhartren in bold admiration. "How is it that you know how to read it?" he asked wonderingly.

"Uh? Well, when I was a boy, I used to speak Ezrain and Eastern both, as the custom was. The man who was teaching me, he passed on the old knowledge. ‘Letter-lore,’ they called it. How to read the old writings. He had quite a stash of them, he did."

Yaltring was more confused than ever. "Where was this?" he asked.

"Oh--I’m mumbling on again, aren’t I? I’ve forgotten how to explain things to people. Sorry, young fella.

"I was born on Halastan. People there, ‘specially the southern shore, they remember Ezrain and the old ways. Don’t practice ‘em, though. I remember what they said to a woman who wanted to have two husbands." He gave a rough snort.

"‘Only two!’ she said. ‘My great-grandmother had four!’ ‘Then join her in the grave,’ they said, ‘and take as many as will come with you.’

"Pitiful, it was. Nobody even cared if she stayed alive, as long as she wasn’t with two men. Old texts show women did it all the time--queens, too. There was no shame in it. It was that way even a hundred years ago.

"Anyhow, they still pass on the learning. Seem to think it’s important. So," he sighed, "when I was a boy, they picked me out to learn it. Set Zino up as my master."

"Your master?"

"Yeah--over on Halastan, they give each boy one master to teach ‘em into manhood. I was forgetting, they don’t do that here--guess you wouldn’t know about it. Anyhow, Zino was a loremaster, sort of like Natarak. Only, he wasn’t as smart as Natarak. Knew more about some things, though. Knew all the old Southern ways, the writings and such. Learned it from his own master, passed it on to me.

"But, I used to go sailing a lot when I was young. When I came of age, that was all I did for a while. So, I wasn’t spending my time on them letters. I never forgot the letters. They came to me, sometimes, in the night. When I looked up, I’d see ‘em. The stars marked out the corners. I wondered who put them there, and what was written in the sky. But to me, it was all a blank. I could see the letters, but I couldn’t read anything out of ‘em.

"I always liked to sail. I liked it, but I had to do it too much. So one day, I just stopped and wound up here." Alkhartren stopped talking and looked at Yaltring, as if he had just brought a well-spun yarn to a satisfying conclusion.

"Did you have kin here?" Yaltring asked in some puzzlement.

"Naw--naw--my kin--well..." Alkhartren’s face grew dark. "That’s a bad story, I don’t want to tell you that. No, I didn’t have any kin here."

"Then why did you stay on Imme? Did you know the island?"

"Oh yeah, I knew Imme. Been here a few times. I knew all the islands--used to make the rounds. Never stopped for long, though. No, I just decided to--pull in. Suddenly, I couldn’t’ve sailed the distance to the nearest island. Just couldn’t. Been here ever since."

Yaltring gazed at him in wonderment for some while.

"Was Foam-Topper the name of the boat you sailed here?" he asked.

"Foam-Topper? No. I never named any animals after my own boats. Naw, the boats I got those names from were ones I used to see in the harbor in Halastan. Lived right near a harbor when I was a boy, on the southeast shore--the part of the island nearest to Tizrach, where everyone can speak Ezrain. Not much of a town they had there, but quite a harbor. Halea--small, snug, easy to land. All the boats used to pull in. Yep, I used to go down to the water and watch them sometimes." His eyes were deep and far away as he gazed into the fire.

Yaltring waited. "So your master Zino taught you about Sun-Pointers?" he asked at last, getting back to the subject.

"Oh, yeah. They teach you about all that stuff when you’re with a loremaster. There was a lot of stuff the ancients did. People don’t know how to make it any more, but they still know some of the tricks to using it. It just depends on the time of the year. You saw this yesterday at noon?"

Yaltring’s whole body felt suddenly hot, and he tried desperately to muffle his amazement. "Well, yes. You know--you knew--"

Alkhartren flashed a smile that revealed two missing teeth. "Well, it wasn’t hard to guess, seeing as you come to me now. That was one of the big times, in the old days--summer solstice, fullness of the year. When the sun’s overhead, and the first of each season--those are the best days for pointing sunlight. Yesterday was both, here. That’s how they used to do it, when they needed to mark something."

"When was this?"

"Long, long ago. Thousands of years. Some reckon the seas were still rising when they laid some of this stuff down."

"Why do you think they laid this one?"

Alkhartren shook his head. "Couldn’t tell you, young fella. Couldn’t tell you. Even if I looked at it, there’d be no way to know. The only clue to these secrets is what they lead you to find. If you want to know why someone built a Pointer, find what it points to. You did, and there’s still no way to know. So, that’s just as it is. It’s just left, like an old stone. Like an old stone. Bounced everywhere, and then the dirt buried it." Alkhartren’s eyes roved and shifted, with a sadness in them, as if seeking some lost treasure that he could not name and knew would not be found.

Yaltring looked down and fingered his lips nervously, then straightened in decision. "Alkhartren, I found something else."

"Something else? Where, buried with the stone?"

"Yes. It was like a casket. These letters were at the bottom. Inside was dust, mostly, old, gray dust."

Alkhartren nodded. "Yup. That’s what happens. I told ya this stuff was old. By the time you find it, it’s all gone."

"Except for this," said Yaltring, and took out the hard little pyramid. "I found it in the dust."

Alkhartren took it in his hands, turned it around. For some minutes, he said nothing. Then he handed it back to Yaltring.

He shook his head. "I don’t know what’s goin’ on with all this," he said. "You’ve found something big, no doubt about it. I don’t know what the shell is, but the dark thing on the inside’s a black pearl. Don’t get to see those too often! For such a valuable thing to have been left buried like that, it had to be mighty important."

"A black pearl!" Yaltring said, staring down at it.

"Yep," said Alkhartren, and smiled. "Worth quite a price, they are. I wouldn’t sell it, though. Never know where it might have come from. Might be the last leavings of something worth more than all the jewels in Umba. You never know, with these old things.

"Not many would leave one of ‘em buried. Had to be someone really rich and important. The workmanship of the shell is remarkable too. Sounds like something you’d find in a prince’s tomb. There wasn’t any signs of a body in there, was there?"

Yaltring shook his head. "Just dust, and this--this pearl. And there wasn’t enough dust to have ever been a body. Could have been the body of one of your chickens, I guess, if their bones were all gone."

Alkhartren laughed. "Don’t think I’ll be buryin’ any black pearls with them when they go. Might have been the tomb of a small child, maybe. Son of a prince who died."

"But I thought--" Yaltring looked hurt and startled.

Alkhartren waited patiently. "Yes?" he said at last.

"I thought you said it was for me."

Alkhartren nodded firmly. "Oh yeah, it is now. Just like I told you. Whoever finds it, it becomes theirs. Why it was put down, that’s another thing, passed and gone. What’s left of them is staked to the ground. They can’t move any more. But for you, it’s just a marker by the side of the road. Didn’t folks ever tell you about the invisible key?"

"You mean, the key we all have, that opens up the power inside of you?"

"Yep, that’s the one. Yours was made by the people that brought you to being, long ago--but you don’t need to know why they built it the way they did. You just have to keep quiet sometimes, and listen to them whispering, telling you your history. They don’t even know they’re talking about you, but you can feel their words enter right into your spine. Then just reach out, and feel the key in your hand."

Yaltring put his hand to his chin in an awed silence, finally asking, "You think the folks that built this thing helped to make my key?"

"Oh, there can be no doubt about that now, young fella. This casket had a piece of you inside it long before you were born. What did it look like, anyhow, and how big were the letters?"

With some reluctance, Yaltring described them.

"And the whole thing carved from bedrock. Wow. Don’t know what to tell you." Alkhartren looked down for some moments as if in a daze.

"This is a big one and no mistake, young fella. Don’t usually find such things on little islands like this. Never heard of anything like it. Black pearl in the dust and an inscription that size, carved deep into stone, that doesn’t even say what it’s for, no names. A huge chest that had to be hewn where it stood, in the bedrock of the earth. And nothing else. I don’t know what it is. I can’t even think what it could be. They never told me of any such thing."

Both of them were silent for a long while, gazing into the fire.

"I can tell you one thing about where you came from," said Alkhartren, turning to his young friend, who was sprawled drowsily on the bed beside him.

"Huh?" grunted Yaltring.

"Your name. It’s got something in common with mine, at least at the end. Did you know that?"

"Really? No, I didn’t know. What is it?" asked Yaltring, opening his eyes and sitting straight up.

Alkhartren laughed softly, and spoke with a delicate trill like Sila’s. "Tren. Tring. Tren. Tring. They’re variations on each other."

"Really? You mean, in Ezrain?"

"Yeah, in Ezrain. But the older Ezrain. Now, it’s just names."

"I was named," Yaltring said thoughtfully, "after my uncle. My mother had a brother named Yaltren. He died when she was a young woman, but she’s always remembered him dearly."

"Ah, yeah, you see! They turned it around. His was like me. Tren. Used to mean something."

"What did it mean?"

"Tring means you and I together. Tren just means me. Alkhartren, that’s my name. Means I devote myself. Doesn’t say to what, though.

"Yal meant a bunch of things--seek, find, encounter. Yaltren used to be a quester’s title. It meant a Seeker, someone who lived out the Open Road. A lot of heroes were called that.

"Yaltring is a quieter word. It doesn’t mean one who seeks. It’s more like one who meets someone else in the middle. You and I, we search together, or we find each other."

"I wonder if my mother knows that," muttered Yaltring.

"Could be. Could be some hero called Yaltring she wanted you to take after. Or maybe, she just changed it because she wanted to honor the memory of the dead by giving his name a rest for a while. Some people do that. Name in honor of the dead, but not the same name."

"I’ll ask her," said Yaltring quietly, feeling suddenly small and lost.

"Yal-tring," said Alkhartren, rolling the "r" Ezrain style, and patted him shyly on the back.