Tower of the Four, Episode 4: The Nightmare by Todd Fahnestock

Author:Todd Fahnestock [Fahnestock, Todd]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: F4 Publishing
Published: 2020-10-22T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Vale

Tam explained that the Lyantrees did not use human words to communicate. They used colors.

For all the things Vale had readily learned while on the streets of Torlioch, at the Champions Academy, and finally in her travels throughout Keltovar, she couldn’t seem to learn this.

Colors! How did one speak in colors? She couldn’t seem to wrap her mind around it. That first day as Tam put her hand on the nearest Lyantree’s bark, then put his hand over hers, there was nothing. After traveling through the heart of the Lyantree “world” to get here, she thought she’d be able to see those rainbow colors instantly. But apparently using the Lyantree circles to teleport from one place to another had been the will of the Lyantrees, guided by Tam, and it had little to do with actually talking to them.

It took until the third day before she could actually see the colors Tam, ever patient, kept mentioning. She finally gasped with relief when she saw a stream of yellow trickle through her mind, just as Tam had described it.

But that huge accomplishment soon seemed tiny. Seeing the colors was only one part of it. Understanding the colors was something else entirely, and it was simply impossible.

Day after day she struggled, trying in vain to translate colors into words that she could understand. She pushed down her fears that, despite ridding herself of the insidious amulet and teleporting a hundred miles to the northeast, The Four were going to suddenly appear and gut her. She reminded herself that if she didn’t figure out how to make the Lyantrees her “Quad” and utilize their Soulblocks, nothing else mattered. Whether The Four found her today or a year from now, she couldn’t stop them from killing her unless she had her own “Quad” to fight back. If Vale couldn’t figure out how to access that idle magic within the trees, there was no Quad for her.

But that was easier said that done. She couldn’t form a Quad with the Lyantrees if she couldn’t talk to them!

After nearly a week of failure, even the mild mannered Tam began to show his frustration. He’d given up getting her to talk to the Lyantrees directly and instead told her to try to talk to him using Lyantree language. He said that once she could communicate with him, then she could try again with one of the Lyantrees.

And even at that, she was failing.

“Alari, no,” Tam insisted. “You are trying to use human words. They are not the same. It is a…” He tried to find the human words to explain to her what she was doing wrong, but Tam’s mastery of human language was limited. “It is this,” he said again, and he made a frustrated gesture with his hands. The barest hint of blue and yellow colors flickered behind Vale’s eyelids, but that was all.

“I see the colors, Tam,” she shouted. “But it doesn’t make any sense! It’s just stupid floating ribbons of blue and yellow.

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