Valley of the Stars

Valley of the Stars

by K.W. Peeta

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. But there was always this.

The thought had carried Traust forward since leaving the castle and embarking on, what could be, the most important quest of his life. Yet his destination lay mere miles from home, well within the Valley’s southern edge. The narrow, dirt path Traust followed was as familiar to him as his own hand, yet he proceeded with care. Dense forest flanked him, the pathway curated by massive, mossy trunks as large around as a man, separated sparsely by thin lines of inky black. The moon was bright, but of little help this night. It was all but a sliver, a harsh yet magnificent crescent holding its own amongst the stars.

As Traust followed the light of his lifted torch down the path, echoes played in the darkness. The sound of his boyhood whoops and shouts seemed to rise above the sound of his own measured footfalls. Louder still were the memories of fairy-filled laughter, the laughter of a long-ago Sephdanna running to keep up. Further on, the laughter would always dissipate, silence taking its place for a distance, the silence eventually punctuated by hushed pleas for him to slow, to wait, to join hands and share their fright. Invariably, he would. She was, after all, even then, his “darling Sephdanna” – now his beloved wife.

A sudden exhale that hinted at laughter escaped Traust’s lips. He thought of the Sephdanna of now: a vital and unparalleled force of nature who would sooner expire than plead for the assistance of any man.

The brief moment of mirth died away and Traust paused on the pathway. He found himself looking down at his boots, the sheathed knife on his belt, then at the dark leather vest he had worn for a reason. He touched the pocket that lay near his heart and gave a slow nod to no one in particular. He ran his free hand through his tousled copper hair, then tugged on his thick, matching beard.

Traust was often referred to as a “giant of a man,” but at this moment he felt small. The significance – if any – of the coming task both thrilled and terrified him. He could not fail. Yet he could not control the outcome. The reality of this twisted in Traust’s belly, his face creasing into a scowl, his mind into a tumult of rage. The life of his King lay in the balance.

And yet, for that very reason, he would not let uncertainty stop him. As his King had always told him, It was not the outcome of an action that defined a man. It was the courage to take that action in the first place.

Traust’s rage subsided and steady determination returned. He once again moved forward at a steady pace, as he rounded the familiar last bend of the path. The straightaway that followed – the one leading directly into the gaping black mouth of the cave – had always been his favorite part of the journey. He and Sephdanna would slow and quiet their footfalls, slightly bending knees. They would exchange furtive glances, back and forth to each other, then the cave, then back to the reassuring lock of their eyes.

The torchlight flickered violently. Traust pushed away the question that rose – whether the flicker was born of a small gust breaking through the still night air, or whether his lifted arm was trembling. He was overwhelmed by the sudden need to look back, to search over his shoulder for Sephdanna, the vision of her ivory skin and strawberry curls crying out to him. But he resisted. Behind him lay nothing but darkness.

Traust. His name meant “confidence” and he called on it now. Each question, each possibility, each impossible unknown. How they had haunted and taunted him through the years. How they now ran a frantic loop in his mind. A far cry from childhood musings, the questions now begged for answers that had never yet come.

Until tonight. Tonight he would act. He would finally seek the truth, whatever a word such as “truth” may mean. Truths of nature, truths of men, truths of life. All were possible in what lay ahead.

Would it…change?

Could it…react in some way?

Would danger beyond his imagination spring forth?

Worse still, would nothing happen at all?

To Traust, only the last possibility was within the very realm of possibility. It was an object after all. Solid matter. Strange in appearance, to be sure, but made of such things recognizable in this world. Marble, Traust had often thought. Perhaps polished rock suited better? Either way and in short, an object.

And yet.

From his first sighting to his last, and each and every one between, the object, quite simply, had power. More to the point, power over him. The very sight of it unfailingly filled him with a thrilling sense of what could only be called anticipation. He had felt it in his core during those long hours of staring – a small copper-haired boy, sitting, and staring, and buzzing with a fearsome tingle he could never explain at an object that never moved. Sephdanna had found the object beautiful and intriguing, but she had never felt what Traust did. Her muted and short-lived interest in the object had made him feel foolish. She had never taunted or teased him over it, but she would often eye him with suspicion and hints of anger when he returned from one of his long, unexplained absences after dusk.

In the end, Traust had chosen to fight feelings. He fought to ignore, then forget, the object’s very existence. He no longer lay in his bed and sensed it calling him. He had not walked this path in many, many years.

He now stood a stone’s throw from the cave’s entrance, flames and a heartbeat the only sounds. An object, he thought. It was only an object. Nothing short of magic could result in anything happening at all. And Traust did not believe in magic. Touching it, pushing it, kicking it. Pleading to it on bended knee, shedding tears upon its flats. Nothing in this known world would yield what Sephdanna had promised him.

Sephdanna, he thought. Of all people. It was she who had sent him down this path on this night. With a calm face that belied the urgency in her voice, she had given him instructions and told him to go. “At once,” she had shouted, leaving Traust stock still in the courtyard, shocked to stone with the realization that the woman he loved held secrets, had knowledge, about this of all things.

It had always been “their object,” the source of the first bond they had ever formed. How could she possibly know things about the object that Traust did not?

Intense desire surged through his body – a deep and desperate need that had existed, bottled within, for most of the length of his life. The need to act. The need to know. The need to discover, at long last, what the object wanted from him. To find out, as Sephdanna had vowed, whether this mysterious object, deep in a cave, deep in the forest, deep in the Valley, truly held the key to his King’s survival.

Traust gave one last look to the night sky above. The stars, he thought. The one true thing he had always known, always feared, always took comfort in, always kept secret. The truth of the object lay in the stars.

With that, Traust stepped forward, then forward again, edging toward his destiny as the light of his torch ducked its flame and took up its dance on the craggy sheen of the cave walls.