Fah Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- Arthur C. Clark
Cavern City Air Terminal, Carlsbad
Eddy County, New Mexico
73.4 miles from the Cleft
A small jet plane stationed at the airport. The terminal was a quiet little outcrop on the edge of Carlsbad, really a metaphor of the city itself. Apart from its tourist traps it really was just another country town buried in the blistering heat of the Chihuahuan Desert, a sandy patch of land sprawled over the souther states and Mexico. Despite the summer heat the city and the desert itself had a strange charm to it; quaint buildings from decades past nestled within the valley, shrubbery dotted the beige land, the plateaus and mountains rippled the horizon into a spectacular artwork of nature’s creation.
Unfortunately, the day was particularly hot and the passengers could not care any less about Gaia’s masterpiece. Everyone simply wanted to get away from the heat, get inside an air-conditioned space and drink plenty of water. Stepping out of the gate was Galder, he slammed down a full bottle of water in no time, the heat was so draining he drunk half a litre in seconds. He was so exhausted that as soon as the last drop of water fell out of the bottle he let out a loud sigh of relief. He wiped his right arm across his sweat drenched forehead. He felt the chill of the liquid inside his body and sighed, the water calmed him down and his breathing slowed. ‘What a cheap airline,’ he complained, ‘who doesn’t have water on a plane?’
Another passenger exited the gate and overheard the complaint. ‘Maybe the same type who won’t put air-conditioning in its planes.’
Galder looked over his shoulder and laughed at the quip. ‘Yeah, you’re right Leila.’ He sighed, ‘Do you know how hot it is here? I swear I’m dying in this heat.’
Leila laughed as she reached into her pocket. ‘Too used to the Finnish weather, are you?’
She playfully punched Galder’s shoulder while she fiddled with her phone. ‘Oh, gimme winter right now,’ he exclaimed, looking up at the ceiling hoping to God the weather would become more hospitable. ‘I’d trade this heat with Helsinki cloud any day.’
More passengers left the gate and milled around the pair, another woman approached Leila and handed her one of her water bottles. ‘You need this Leila?’
Still on her smartphone Leila pointed. ‘I’m fine thanks. Galder could use it probably.’
Too tired to stare any longer he dropped his head and reached out his hand to the woman. She chuckled and passed a bottle to him. ‘Thanks Claret.’
She patted his shoulder – the very one Leila abused earlier, and poked fun. ‘Boy you’re really not used to the heat, are you?’
He shook his head. ‘It never gets this hot.’
Leila gasped at her phone and added ‘No, it really doesn’t.’ She turned over the phone and showed everyone the temperature. The phone displayed ‘105°F’ in big numbers at the top and a smaller weekly forecast of Carlsbad. ‘It’s like forty degrees Galder.’
‘Forty?!’ he yelped and turned to see the disturbing number.
‘Forty? What’s that in Fahrenheit?’ another passenger asked the group.
Leila swivelled her phone into his view. ‘A hundred and five Hollow.’
‘Yaouch,’ he exclaimed. He took off his backpack and opened to, he produced another water bottle and cracked it open. ‘Good thing I got myself another one of these.’
‘Where are the others?’ Leila asked.
Hollowpages grunted while he drank his water. He uttered a refreshing sigh and answered ‘I saw them. They’re coming now.’ She nodded and waited outside the gate with everyone. Leila and Claret fanned themselves with papers and booklets, Galder decided to sit down and rest his wary bones.
‘Who else is coming to Carlsbad?’ Claret asked.
‘I’m not sure how many of us,’ Leila began, ‘I know that Kart and Anna arrived yesterday and Tin is chaperoning them. Lmih and Crisis joined them too and I think Aly arrived even earlier. That’s all I know.’
‘Oh,’ Claret remarked, ‘I heard ZP and Cara are here too. I think Morrack and Angelo might be coming as well.’
‘Wow! That’s a lot of people. I’m surprised he organized so many people this time.’
‘Yeah, I know. This must be really big this time.’ Leila nodded a reply to Claret.
As he finished his water Hollowpages noticed someone at the gate. He began to wave his hand and called out to the group. ‘They’re here!’ Everyone reacted to this and moved towards him. Even Galder mustered the energy to get up and walk up to Hollowpages.
‘Hi guys.’ The approaching woman greeted the group with her boyfriend.
Everyone waved back and said hello in their own way but they all sounded the same. A clear phrase came from them. ‘Hi Syl.’ Sylessae and KarnaughAtlas waved back at them and everyone was reunited.
KarnaughAtlas was just as sweaty as Galder, his face dripped in warm perspiration. His partner looked up to him and asked ‘Do you need any water?’
She started to rummage around her handbag for their bottle but he raised his hand at the query. ‘Nah, I’m okay. I drank a ton before we left Albuquerque.’ He too wiped his brow with his arm.
Sylessae narrowed her gaze at him. ‘That’s gross!’
Everyone laughed at her jab. Leila chose this moment to add to it. ‘Yeah Galder, I saw you did that too.’
‘EW,’ Claret shrieked. ‘I gave you a bottle of water to your sweaty hand?!’
‘No, my other hand!’ he protested.
Leila shook her head. ‘No, it wasn’t!’ The group laughed harder at Galder now.
‘Is everyone here?’ Sylessae asked.
Everyone calmed down and Hollowpages answered the question. ‘Yeah, everyone’s here. Does anyone know if the bus is outside?’
‘No one’s gone out yet,’ Galder replied. ‘We should go out now that we’ve reunited.’
‘Alright. Let’s go.’ Leila commanded, she walked off first and led the group out of the airport. They all continued talking amongst themselves and cooled each other off with water and fanning their papers. The summer heat was not going anywhere but where they were going to was for the most part still a complete mystery, only that they needed to go somewhere near the Carlsbad Caverns. But first things first, they needed to reach the shuttle bus, the roomy, comfortable, air-conditioned shuttle bus with everyone else on board.
A large blue bus travelled up the lonely road, it kicked up dust and sand along the edges of the bitumen. Everyone was seated; they chatted, sketched, ate lunch, took photos of the isolated landscape or simply became lost in their own thoughts. The coach was air conditioned and comfortable, no one wanted for anything beyond the creativity and the sociability of the group. Some brought books to read and pass the time, others took their artist books for any opportune moment to design a new character they happen to create. Tindomiel Silverthrone sat by the window on her seat, she gazed out at the wonderous desert. A churning sea of orange dust made rough by the surrounding mountains, tufts of small green growths raced in and out of view all along the ground. Aly Sedai sat beside her, she typed another short story on her laptop, inspiration struck her on this venture. A brief ruckus broke Tindomiel’s thought, she turned around to check on the children she was charged with. Kartjoffel kicked and pouted at AnnaLama, she hogged time on his iPad. It was his turn! ‘Come on Anna, I want to play some MineCraft!’ he protested.
‘Hey,’ Tindomiel enquired. ‘What’s going on back there?’
‘Anna won’t give me the iPad,’ he replied, he tried to stir some emotion in his plea. ‘I really want to play now.’
‘Anna, why aren’t you giving Kart the iPad?’
Anna concentrated hard on her work, for a second she didn’t hear the question but she suddenly woke up and looked at her. ‘Huh? What?’
‘Are you okay Anna?’
‘Oh I’m okay, I’m nearly done with this. One more minute I promise.’
‘Can I have a look please?’ Tindomiel asked. Anna lifted up the iPad from her lap and showed her drawing, a sketch of a fanart of Happy Potter with some obvious detail missing in the robes. ‘That’s really good Anna, I like it so far. One more minute.’
‘Yay!’ She returned the iPad and continued with her drawing. Kart liked the picture too but her didn’t let it show in his face, he still wanted MineCraft.
Tindomiel turned back and continued to watch the world pass by. After a moment, as the bus continued on its route she noticed something, a familiar shape in the distance.
That’s weird, she thought,
that peak looks so familiar. But I’ve never been here before. The single mountain in the distance was unusual in shape, it was short and oddly arranged. It looked as if the top of the mountain was missing, jagged peaks could only just be seen, they formed a strange imaginary loop around the plateau.
Is that a mountain? she asked internally. All of a sudden a memory returned to her but it wasn’t what she expected. She remembered herself playing a game on a computer years ago. It was not a mountain. ‘It’s the volcano!’ she uttered to herself.
‘Volcano?’ Aly asked, she overheard her utterance.
‘Oh,’ she snapped back, she still tried to process her absurd leap. ‘Nothing. I just saw something that looked like something.’
Aly simply looked back for a moment. Tindomiel tried to hide her thoughts but did very poorly, after all it’s only a game, it’s not real. Her internal conflict was written all over her face. ‘Something like a volcano?’ she eventually asked.
Tindomiel tried to laugh it off. ‘It sounds silly I know. There aren’t any volcanos here.’
‘Yeah that’s true,’ she asserted, ‘but you look kinda worried. What’s wrong?’
‘It’s nothing really. Just-’ Tindomiel reflected on her next sentence, there was no way she would not sound totally crazy. ‘Aly. Have you ever heard of the game Uru?’
‘Uru?’ she repeated ‘Never heard of it.’
‘How about End of Ages? The Myst series?’
‘Oh I know Myst. I love that game,’ Aly replied ‘I didn’t know it was a series though.’
‘Well Uru is a spinoff game,’ Tindomiel explained ‘It’s a really cool extension of the universe. If you like Myst you’ll love Uru.’
‘That’s cool. I’ll have a look when I get back home.’ She then returned to her writing and Tindomiel turned back to the window, she looked at the ‘volcano’ with intensity.
She covered her mouth to make sure any more didn’t spill out of her. ‘That can’t be the Cleft,’ she exclaimed under her breath. ‘It’s not real. It’s not possible.’
Then the bus began to slow down. No one noticed at all, not even Sylessae nor KarnaughAtlas who sat at the front behind the driver. She sketched her own work and he slept on the window. What everyone did notice was the bus turning, the machine swung out to the right and all the artists and writers felt the inertia pull them the opposite direction. At that moment Tindomiel saw the mountain dart out of view, she followed the sight all the way as it raced to the front of the bus. They were heading towards the feature. The bus left the smooth comfort of the road and turned into a bumpy dirt path, everyone jutted about in their seats. The sudden ride woke up the sleeping, distracted the conversations, slightly ruined the artworks and generally upset everyone; none more so than Tindomiel. She stood up and carefully walked to the front of the bus, at every jolt she paused to balanced herself again. As she moved she saw more and more of the view ahead, the bus was indeed travelling towards the site, a landmark that is fake, not real. As far as she knew. Eventually she reached Sylessae and the awoken KarnaughAtlas, dazed and confused by the unusual movement of the bus. Syl was upset, the constant moving about forced her to stop her sketching. ‘Ugh! I just started a new design! Why did the bus get off the road?!’
‘We’re not heading to a city,’ Tindomiel interjected. Sylessae turned to her response. ‘I think we’re heading for that volcano there.’ She pointed ahead and Syl saw the peak herself.
‘Volcano?’ she asked. ‘How do you know it’s a volcano?’
‘Intuition,’ she could never admit to Syl the real reason she knows what it is. The whole scenario is too unreal, way too unbelievable. Tindomiel could barely believe it herself. ‘It’s dormant so we’ll be safe.’
Syl turned back to Tindomiel and asked ‘What do you know about this place?’ There’s no right way to answer that question; Tin has only been to Carlsbad a few times, she never really went to the Caverns and Aly was only half interested, Syl is very attentive right now. If she started to mention Uru or Myst she’d just look like an obsessive nerd, joining way too many dots together. But at least on some level she did work out what’s happening.
‘Jess,’ Tindomiel replied to Sylessae with a serious tone. ‘I have no idea what’s going to happen, but whatever it is it’s going to be huge.’
‘Excuse me,’ the driver interrupted her. ‘Please go back to your seats for your own safety thank you. We’re nearly there.’ Tindomiel raised her free hand, she acknowledged the driver and turned around but before she walked back she looked at Syl one last time. She was still looking up to her, she tried to read her mind and work out what she wasn’t saying. Tindomiel patted her shoulder and looked back with a reassuring face, it was honest and a bit frazzled but also forced. She could tell Tin knew something and was holding it back for some reason. She then slowly walked back to her seat, Sylessae turned around to see Tin walk down the narrow aisle.
‘What was that about?’ KarnaughAtlas asked her.
Sylessae turned back to her partner and shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’ Satisfied he stretched and relaxed his muscles and tried to sleep some more. She on the other hand looked back out at the mountain that slowly loomed over them.
This destination seemed to have affected someone on this journey already, she thought,
what does Chris have planned for us this time? What’s so special about this place? She continued to ponder to herself.
Once again, after nearly ten years of dormancy and silence the caverns will live again.
“Within the great volcano’s shadow, the desert floor was fractured. There, in a crack some eighty feet by fifteen, the darkness was intense. The casual eye might, indeed, have passed on, thinking it no more than a natural feature, but for the strange lip–a wall of stone some five or six feet high–that surrounded it.” - The Book of Atrus, Prologue.
The term 'Fah' is the D'ni word for the number one. Each chapter has an opening quote and a picture with a line of information to help the reader understand the finer points of Myst and Uru lore. As another Starcall story once again the story introduces the artists from Project Starcall into it. This chapter places all the mentioned characters to the proposed location of the Cleft according to current Uru lore - somewhere near the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. In the next chapter my typical style of using music to inspire my writing and then inserting it back into the story will return, but with an extra twist to it.