Here is the second half of Amateria. :) For those of you who have read this much of my story : from the bottom of my heart, thank you. It means a lot to me that you have stuck with this story this far.
Of course the last thing you think about is usually what you dream about.
She had a nightmare. The world around her was red. It was so unbearably hot and steamy. A giant tree was dying, Trace entangled in the overgrown roots that struggled up from the ground. People were running and screaming. Atrus lay dead on the ground with Catherine beside him, Yeesha crying uncontrollably. Sirrus and Achenar's portraits were hanging from the tree, their faces growing larger as they laughed. Saveedro was tearing the pages from Releeshan. Melody couldn't move. Couldn't speak. She could only stand there and watch helplessly as the world around faded into darkness.
Melody jerked awake and sat bolt upright. For one horrible moment her world was dark and she thought the dream might have been a reality. But then she noticed that she was still in Amateria. The sun had set and the yellow fire marbles didn't give off that much light.
Putting a hand to her head and another to her racing heart, Melody forced herself to take calm even breaths. No more sleeping until this whole mess was over and done with. Atrus, Catherine, Yeesha and Trace were all safe in Tomahna. There was nothing to worry about. Unless Saveedro decided they were taking too long and decided to return to Tomhana.
She scrambled to her feet. There was no telling how long she had been asleep so there was no time to waste. She had to find that symbol and fast. It was time to start fixing things.
She decided to start with the turntables. The crystal ball started on the left and launched to the right, so the way it had to go was left, right, left, out. Since it launched from the left twice, two of the pegs had to go into the left wheel. And since one of the open rings had to be over the exit on the right in order to work, the right turntable had to rotate an even number of times. Using this reasoning and with a good few hours sleep, Melody was able to narrow the possible combinations from 80 down to 24, then when she studied the other wheel she narrowed it down to 12. And since the left turntable had to rotate at least twice, she ended up with four possible combinations, which was a whole lot better than 80. With four she could handle trial and error.
It worked on the third combination. The crystal sphere made it from left to right, left and to the exit with no problems. Once it finished its successful run of that section, the console closed and she heard a loud noise in the distance.
Following the walkway around and up a rope ladder got her back where she started. She saw that by completing a section of the track, a piece of the walkway to the funhouse had slid into place. She needed to complete the other two sections and she could enter the fun house.
The next puzzle she headed to was the Resonance Rings. It wasn't much fun inspecting them because the sound emitted by the rings was so strong that she could see the air vibrant inside the ring. A dial on the side was labeled 1-5 in D'ni numbers. The puzzle was actually quite simple. She started where the crystal ball had been dropped by the fun house roof and followed its path through the rings, setting the dials as she went. Once she set the frequency, the sound wasn't quite as strong and harsh as it had been.
Once she set the last dial, she went to the console that controlled the puzzle and flipped the switch. The ball went through without any problem and that console closed. In the distance she heard another section of track sliding into place.
Finally the third and final section of track and the one she started with, the Balance Bridge. If the one weight was made entirely of wood she would have needed to make the other weight entirely of wood. But thanks to Saveedro she only had two of each type of material so an exact counterweight was out of the question. Something she had seen earlier popped up in her mind:
Two objects of different weight could balance themselves if placed a certain length apart.
She had seen that demonstrated by Saveedro himself in his morbid hang-man toy. Just like one stick figure balanced two, she could make a counterweight that was double the weight of the wooden ball. If she remembered correctly, in Saveedro's study she had seen that crystal weighed 4x as much as wood and metal weighed 4x as much as crystal.
She stood staring at the weight for a long time, trying to do the math in her head. All she managed to do was give herself a big headache. Grabbing a piece of rock, she began to draw on the wall. It still took her around twenty minutes to figure it out. Math had never been her favorite subject. She managed to figure out that she needed one metal piece and two wooden pieces to make the counterbalance. At the console, she moved the fulcrum to the far left and pulled the switch.
She wanted to cheer when the bridge balanced and the crystal ball went through. The console closed and she heard the final piece of track slid into place. Now she could enter the fun house.
The door, surprisingly, opened easily. A suspended stairway led up to a hanging platform. A cushioned chair in the middle of the platform made her frown. She should have solved the puzzles earlier, then she could have napped in style. Once she sat in the chair, it rotated to face a monitor. Another message from Saveedro no doubt.
When Saveedro's face appeared this time, it surprised her. It wasn't angry or vindictive. It looked contemplative and kind of sad.
"This morning I woke up and I couldn't picture Tamra's face. The little line at the corner of her lip that pulls her whole mouth down when she smiles. The flutter in her eyelashes. I tried so hard to picture her in my mind, put her down on paper as if that might bring her back. I couldn't do it. Atrus, I'm not you."
The message faded. Melody was stunned. That was it? No threats, no hostility, no Sirrus and Achenar rants? For some reason, that made the message more powerful than any of the others had been. If Atrus had seen this, there was no doubt in her mind that he would have given his own blood, his own life to bring Tamra back for Saveedro.
She pressed the button and watched the message again, studying Saveedro's eyes. There was no malice in them, no anger. Just the pain of great loss. Perhaps his revenge hadn't consumed him completely.
'I'm not like you'… what did he mean by that? Did he think that Atrus did have the power to bring back the dead by writing, or did he mean he wasn't as good with words as Atrus, or was he referring to the fact that he didn't have the power to write Ages?
Whatever the meaning behind them, those words struck a cord deep within her and made pity rise in her heart for Saveedro, for Tamra and for those two frightened little girls that had watched their father leave as their world died.
Melody spotted a handle above her head and pulled it. The platform rose and she found herself in the part of the roof that the crystal balls came from. The platform locked into place and the roof rose into the air, hovering above the fun house. A console opened to reveal different sections of the track all mapped out. The pieces of the track were fixed, but they were not connected. It was obvious what she had to do.
By rotating the dials, she went along the track from beginning to end making sure it was all connected in to one big continuous course. Satisfied with her work, she looked for a button to release a crystal ball. Once it ran the track, she would go to wherever it stopped and look for the symbol. She found a blue button and pressed it.
She gasped as the platform she was sitting on fell away, leaving only the chair hovering in place. A mechanical arm descended from the top of the roof, swinging around her to form a crystal ball with her in the center.
Panic crept up her spine. This was a giant rollercoaster and she was about to ride it!
All Melody could do was hold on and scream as the crystal ball dropped onto the track and took off. She hoped and prayed her repairs to the track held. She really didn't want to sink to the bottom of the ocean. Who knew how deep it was or what kind of animals lived down there?
Every time the ball reached a puzzle she held her breath and braced herself. But she made it through each one without a problem. Once she got over her mortal terror, the ride was actually pretty fun. Atrus could have made a living on Earth as a ride designer and engineer. Disney would have killed to hire him.
The ride finally ended on a platform a little ways from where she had started. But from this angle, she could see the massive symbol that was painted on the rock walls. A high frequency sound shattered the crystal ball so she could get up. She committed the symbol to memory and searched for the linking book to J'nanin. She found it on a podium a few feet away from here the ball had been.
Melody looked up at the fun house and grinned. She wanted to do it again.
A strange mixture of fear and excitement made her movements slow as Melody approached the machine. She placed the piece of paper with the Amateria symbol on the panel, then stepped back as a platform stretched out to the cage. She could now reach the linking book.
Melody looked up as the final message from Saveedro began.
To her shock, she saw Atrus's face appear. The young face from the first message.
"You've done well my sons. But there is still one task ahead of you. The linking book you see here connects to an Age called Narayan. It's a very delicate Age, a civilization has emerged in response to those balances. It's also the first inhabited Age I'm sending you to alone. But don't be afraid. The knowledge you have acquired here will show you the way in. Use it, and see all that Narayan has to offer."
The message faded with no sign of Saveedro. He had left this message intact. One last hammering of guilt for Atrus no doubt, as his sons did not take this message in the way their father intended. They had seen all that Narayan had to offer all right. Then they had taken it.
Melody's eyes went to the book. It was purple in color, with ornate gold leafing and lettering.
This was it.
She was going to see it.
Narayan.
Slowly, almost fearfully, she placed her hand on the page.
I know, I know, this chapter is super short. Think of it as me making up for that monster Voltaic chapter.
Next time we will be entering Narayan and finally confronting Saveedro. What do you think will happen?