I stood over the table in my quarters, surrounded by the smell of old parchment and ink. I had unpacked and repacked my travel chest three times already, and once again it lay open, revealing the two stones in the bottom. My focus was on the documents I had prepared to pack on top of them.
"Why, my Prince," asked Olen, leaning on the crates, "would we take our survey gear to negotiate with the Spartovans?"
I placed the map of the northern territories into a leather tube. "The Spatovans abduct the useful and the weak. If we look like diplomats, they might just kill us. If we look like common laborers, they simply collar us. We will need to decide what we want to be once we come in contact with them. They will be smelling us out just as we are smelling them out. We need to portray ourselves as worth negotiating with, neither weak nor useful, unless we decide to be."
Bastien stood near the door. He hadn't said a word to me since he'd gotten his orders from my father. He was practicing his new role.
"It is my expectation," I continued, looking at Bastien, "that we will wear Heliqar's guard uniforms. We will wear our weapons openly. We will travel with discipline. We are trying to get them to see us as equals."
I picked up a sheaf of old copies of Elias' geological notes and maps focused on the north, where Erewhon, if it ever existed, is thought to lie. They were very technical and boring. I intended to mix my own speculative charts that I had drawn myself and aged prematurely using chemicals and heat. They highlighted theoretical ruins and locations of note.
"We need to signal that we represent a strong state," I continued. "We show perfect unity with no disagreement among ourselves. We can reasonably conclude from our copy of the Iron Code of the Hegemony of Spartova that they will see placing the state over our individuality as a strength to respect instead of a weakness to be subjugated."
I reached for the white dodecahedron. As I closed my hand firmly around the flawless surface, I looked at Bastien.
"We'll leave at dawn tomorrow," I said. "Have you prepared the Tuspaks?"
"I have," Bastien replied flatly. "And I've increased the water rations so that if we have to run, we'll be ready. They don't keep tuspaks, so they won't have endurance. But we'll need all the speed we can get."
As he was speaking, I thought about what he was hoping for, what he wasn't saying. And that was the trigger.
I felt a vibration from the dodecahedron in my hand that went up my arm, through my spine, and into my head. Like a magnetic field snapping into my brain. It hummed inside my skull, like a carefully modulated frequency that dissolved the room around me into grains of glittering white noise, like a sandstorm. The sandstorm slowed and condensed into emotions and impressions.
PROTECT.
It wasn't so much of a word as a silent scream. I wasn't in the room anymore. I wasn't even myself. I could see flashes. Not my own. See, but not with my eyes. Hear, but not with my ears.
It was the smell of sour milk and warm skin. The smallness of a hand gripping my rough finger. A sound of crying that made the heart stop. A feeling of love for a new human life.
Another thought: DAUGHTER.
I staggered, gripping the table lest I fall. I let go of the stone, and once it left my hand, the connection broke. The whirlwind stopped, and the room came back into focus. I gasped.
Bastien leaped forward to grab me. "My Prince," he said. "What's wrong?" Olen started forward, but Bastien waved him back.
The image was seared into my mind. The tiny finger, the overwhelming secret love that he'd been hiding.
I placed the stone back onto the cloths that I was using to pack it and keep it from making noise that revealed the compartment. The afterimage of his fear was burned into my mind.
"You didn't tell me," I said, grabbing Bastien's arm to steady myself. "You had a baby. A girl."
Bastien froze. His eyes dilated. It was a superstition amongst the men around here that if they had a child but were going on a trip, the child would not be mentioned until they returned.
"We haven't told anyone..." His words stumbled out of his mouth, and his face went pale. "Only the midwife knows. We haven't even named her yet. How could you know?"
"You don't need to worry, Bastien." I said, his love for the child was still burning inside me. I felt guilt for having violated him. "Have your wife show the baby to my mother. She will make sure the baby is cared for. I promise you."
He looked at me with the same wide-open eyes. "You always see everything, don't you? It's true, though," he admitted. "She was born two nights ago."
I turned back and stared at the wrapped white stone. My hands shook. Through the fog of a quickly vanishing headache, the lines I had struggled so much with from the poem came back to me.
_The private way, a silent link... That lets you know just what they mind-words._
I had thought that mind-words was some kind of voice. And I was right, but it was so much more. It was words, thoughts, and feelings. The stone didn't talk; it bypassed language to deliver goal-oriented intent and focus. But I suppose the best translation was:
"_The private way, a silent link,
That lets you know just what they think._"
The next part was:
_To use its power, hold it rapidly
And point your mind: the act of dying is a set of actors in a stage play.
"Hold it rapidly" must have been "Hold it fast."
"Point your mind" was pretty clear. The word "act of dying" had another translation in the lexicon: "die," like when gambling. And "actors in a stage play" could also be translated "cast," like throwing.
_And aim your mind; the die is cast._
The words rhymed in the original language. Now they were beginning to make sense. The poem was not so much a riddle but a poetic instruction manual. Were the stones magic or some kind of machine? If so, they were a machine on a whole other level.
"Your daughter gives us all the more reason to return," I said, as I wrapped the stone in the cloths and hid it in the chest. "We're not just saving the city; we're saving all our loved ones."
Bastien nodded. "We will return, my Prince."
He rubbed his chest, as if my violation had been a physical itch. His mouth turned down at one edge, and then he shook it off. "I'll do another check on the packing," he said as he turned and left, Olen along with him.
I closed the chest; the heat of Bastien's love was quickly cooling into memory. The stone had shown me true intention. Truth was a dangerous, powerful weapon. Even in my own hands, the violation had happened without thought. Restraint was the critical discipline. It was terrifying to think that the restraint of the user was the only safeguard the rest of the world possessed.