Planet Adyn by M. L. Wang

Author:M. L. Wang [Wang, M. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-04-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight:

Where Mind Meets Energy

The rain outside slowed to a patter as Robin finished writing.

“So,” he said, setting his pen down and tearing the page out of the notebook to hand it to me, “These here are the thirty original letters of the Yammaninke alphabet, and these below are the extra characters that were added later on so that it could be used to write other languages.”

I took the paper from him and looked over the alphabet eagerly. It was unlike any script I’d ever seen, full of dots, and triangles, and little circles of varying sizes. Next to each letter, Robin had written out the sound it made in English—‘a’ as in ‘cat’ and ‘Daniel,’ ‘e’ as in ‘ember’ and ‘egg,’ and so on down the list so there was no mistaking how to pronounce each letter.

“So, what language was it used to write, originally?”

“Yammaninke,” Robin said.

“Does Yammaninke have a parallel language on Earth?” I asked.

“Almost. Unlike Lindish, it does not have a perfect equivalent here in your dimension. It shares elements with a few Earth languages, but none of them are as widely spoken as Yammaninke. Here in this English-speaking country, you may not even have heard of them.”

“What are they?” I asked.

“Maninka, Bambara, Soninke… any of those sound familiar to you?”

I shook my head. “Where are those languages even from?”

“A few different countries, all of them in the western region of the continent you call”—It took him a moment to come up with the name—“Africa.”

“Oh.” That would explain why I hadn’t heard of any of them. My knowledge of Africa pretty much began and ended with Ancient Egypt. “How come Lindish has a perfect parallel on Earth but Yammaninke doesn’t?”

“I don’t know,” Robin said. “I have some theories, but I’m sure one could spend several lifetimes trying to parse the relationship between this world and Duna and never really understand it.”

“So, Duna,” I said, still looking at the strange foreign shapes of the alphabet before me, “It’s got a different writing system and some different languages, but other than that, how similar is it to Earth?”

“Quite similar,” Robin answered, just as Daniel said, “Completely different.”

The two looked at each other and Robin laughed. “I suppose it all depends on how you look at it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Duna consists of two major oceans and seven continents, inhabited by approximately seven billion people who sing, dance, fight, reproduce, all the things people do.”

“So just like here,” I said, “only the people on Duna have powers.”

“Many people, yes. Seventy-eight percent of them, to be exact.”

“So how did—have people on Duna always had powers?” I asked.

“Well, that’s the interesting thing. According to all the archeological evidence, no.”

“Really?” So, the people in this other dimension had acquired their powers from somewhere? Maybe whatever had happened to them had somehow also happened to me! Maybe my answer was somewhere on Duna!

“Yes,” Robin said. “By studying the remains of prehistoric humans, Dunian scientists have determined that theonite power—or theonite nyama, as it’s more

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