Llit?a ?an yar?aaq?u urkuquna ?an?ana yun?ay?niyuq kay.
I stared at the intricate text, utterly flummoxed, my mind working desperately to make sense of what I’d read.
I took my eyes away, then looked back. Instantly, the letters faded back into meaningless scribbling. I had to focus to get them to make sense again.
“Ahh,” I said aloud. “What…what language are these plates in, please?”
“They are in Sazi,” answered Fayazi’s voice. “The language of my people in the first ring of the Empire. Do you know it, Signum? I rather doubt it…It’s most tricky to learn, I understand…”
I stared off into the tower, trying not to breathe hard.
I did not know this language, of course. I could barely read it, and some of the letters were wholly alien to me—which meant I certainly could not read it aloud.
Which meant I could not engrave it in my memory and could not bring it back to Ana.
I shut my eyes and tried to focus, summoning up the memory of the words I’d just read. Yet in my memory, all I could see were delicate scritches and scratches in the plate, a trembling pile of nonsense where there should have been words.
I opened my eyes and whispered, “Shit.”
“Is something wrong, Signum?” drawled Fayazi’s voice. “Did you find something?”
I felt cold sweat breaking out over me and continued climbing the stairs.
I wondered what to do. I had come here hoping to learn something about the Hazas’ communications; and though I hadn’t found what I’d wanted, I could still learn where they’d been sending their communications, and perhaps when; and that might tell us something.
But now I saw I could not. I could not, because I could not read any of these plates, because of my damned eyes, and my damned brain, which had never been able to learn how to engrave the words I read.
My heart fluttering within me, I mounted the steps. I passed one pair of cubbies with one bird; then another; and then, finally, one pair with no scribe-hawks at all.
A sent message, surely. And there, written on the plate below, was the name of the place the message had been sent to.
I gazed at the plate, trying to focus. I finally got the words to make sense, and saw they read:
Alti?ti yar?aaq?u urkuquna t’iqra?kan?kiaq?u chaika.
I gazed into the words, my face trembling, my head pounding. I felt a bright pain behind my eyes. Fayazi Haza said something below, but I ignored her, and tried my hardest to engrave the words in my mind, to keep them, to draw their symbols on my very soul.
I shut my eyes. Instantly, the words were lost, the memory dissolving like sea foam upon the sand.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered.
I opened my eyes and tried to whisper the words aloud, fumbling through the mad jumble of consonants.
“What’s that?” demanded Fayazi. “What are you saying? What are you doing up there, Signum? Your time is nearly up.”
“One moment,” I said in a strangled voice.
This would not work. I was going to be thrown out of her house if I kept up with this.
I stared at the plate, thinking.
I could not say the sounds, I realized. But perhaps I could draw the words—later.
I took my vial of mint and snuffed at it heavily to ensure this moment was anchored in my mind. Then I placed my finger to the first letter, my fingernail slotting into the engraving in the bronze, and then let the groove guide my finger…
“Signum?” called Fayazi angrily.
I traced one letter, then another, then another.
“Signum Kol,” snapped Fayazi. “I must insist we go, now.”
I finished tracing the letters, hoping that the movements rested heavy in my memories, and moved on to the next pair of cubbies.
“Almost done,” I said hoarsely. “Just have to check the rest.”
There were four others: three pairs of cubbies with no birds, and one pair of cubbies with two birds—that meant four sent messages in total, and one received. At each pair I sniffed my vial and traced the words on the plate with my finger, praying that my body remembered the movements if nothing else.
As I finished the last one, I felt a hand on my shoulder, the fingers hard as iron. I turned, surprised, to see the axiom standing behind me, her skeletal face staring into my own.
“You are done here,” she said softly. “As the lady said.”
Shaking, I stood, brushed myself off, and descended the stairs, the axiom following behind me.
What a thing, what a thing, I thought as I trotted back down. What a thing it was, that I had to encrypt this memory and smuggle it within myself, translated into movement so my mind could keep it—though I had no idea if I’d been successful. Perhaps I would return to Ana, try to trace those letters upon some parchment for her, and discover I was drawing utter nonsense.