TERRA HEXA
(Wela, 2004 (Swedish only)) - a novel by A.R.Yngve - Sample Chapters of the unpublished English version
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Chapter 2
A couple of hours later, in the old student tavern outside the university grounds, a large party of students celebrated Henna's seventeenth birthday. They sang and laughed and made jokes in the dimly lit cellars of the tavern...
Mick was going from table to table, playing on his guitar, while the students were singing along. The noise of laughter and music filled the tavern. Whenever a new guest came in through the door and down the stone staircase, he was greeted by happy shouts and raised glasses from the others. One teacher happened to enter and he was greeted by a shower of peanut shells thrown at him by jeering students - he tipped his hat to them and made a hasty exit.
The sooty walls of the tavern were painted with mythical images. On one wall had been painted a huge wooden ship, with a ship's captain standing on watch from the stern, while tall black waves were splashing against its hull. Clouds were painted around the masts of the ships, and the sky was red as the sun. But none of the guests paid any attention to the old, fading images on the walls.
In the middle of the cellar, at the largest table, Henna and Rydel were sitting surrounded by other students, all of them singing student songs. A large birthday cake had been on Henna's table when she arrived; the hungry students had devoured it in a few moments. She was acting a little stiff in the beginning, but the warm and friendly atmosphere soon came to relax her, so that now she clapped her hands to the music and smiled happily. Rydel was happy enough to be sitting next to her.
Suddenly Mick finished playing, and bowed to the applauding, whistling students.
"One more!" they shouted. "Play one more!"
He made a clever-looking face, as if he knew something they did not, and said out loud, "I have this new song, one I wrote down just before I got here. It goes like this, and you can sing along - you know the tune..."
Henna and Rydel listened, and Mick waved at them; then he started to play an old, rhythmic melody on his guitar. He played a few rough opening notes, and sang in a loud, mocking voice.
"Now look here people, listen to my story,
A little story from long ago,
Back when the world wasn't called Terra Hexa,
But rather called something like Carrotworld!
I swear, this world was shaped just like a carrot,
And as red as my old teacher's nose!
There lived a lot of people on this big beak,
Until they made such fuss they almost fell off!
I'm not talkin' 'bout captains made of gold!
I'm not talkin' 'bout eternal mists!
You get the world for nothing, that's the way it is folks,
World for nothing and the sun for free..."
The students sang the refrain in chorus: "You get the world for nothing, that's the way it is folks, world for nothing and the sun for free..."
Rydel sang along too, and tapped his feet with the catchy rhythm, as did the others. But when he looked to his side he saw that Henna sat quiet and still. She was staring before her - as if someone had offended her.
"What's wrong?" Rydel asked over the noise.
She flew up from her chair and rushed out a side door, up a staircase - and Rydel ran after. He thought, as he hurried past the singing young students, that he always seemed to end up running after someone, never starting the running on his own, except when riding his horse. Someone else was always leading his way. As if he himself was wearing a horse's bridle and reins...
***
Rydel caught up with Henna outside the Old Tavern, on a balcony that hung between two buildings. The sun was lying low in the sky and colored the rooftops, chimneys and towers of Northtown with a reddish glow.
"Why did you run away?" asked Rydel and tried to look into her eyes, but she avoided his face. It took a minute before Henna could think out what she wanted to say. Her head was swirling with thoughts and memories returning from a distant past.
"It was that song," she said. "Mick sang about 'captains made of gold.' How could he know that story about the Golden Captain? It was a secret story, and he changed it... he had no right to do change the story."
Then Rydel remembered. He understood what she was talking about, but not why she was so upset.
"I think Mick and I were told that same old legend," said Rydel. "When we were kids. By our grandfather. I've been thinking about it now and then, ever since, but... it all comes back to me now! It was a story about a big ship with a huge sail..."
"Yes, that's right," said Henna, and Rydel could hear she was getting excited. "Do you understand what that story was really about? Why is it passed on to children but at the same it's kept secret?"
"Do you understand the legend about the boat?" Mick asked her.
Henna frowned as she was thinking hard, and she said, "Maybe. Just maybe... I've been searching the old university library for the last two years, looking for clues to the story. All books, no matter how old, have dates on them, and the dates are set after the New Calendar of Terra Hexa. But do you know what's really strange about them?" Henna asked, looking at Rydel.
"No."
"The oldest book left in the library was printed in the Year Zero after the new calendar. But there are no books, no texts, nothing dated before Year Zero! So... what happened to the books that were written before that year?"
Rydel, puzzled as he was, said something just so that he wouldn't appear to be tongue-tied in front of Henna.
"Perhaps... perhaps nobody wrote books before Year Zero?"
Henna shook her head, so that a lock of her long black hair fell down in her brown-skinned face. Rydel felt ashamed of what he had just said.
"No, that can't have happened," said Henna, "because the oldest books in the library were very well written. If people hadn't written down anything at all before Year Zero, then the first books would have been full of spelling errors, bad grammar, and that... but I've read them, and they're just as good as any of my new schoolbooks! Writing was not invented in Year Zero, but long before that."
"Perhaps then, people did write before Year Zero, but not in the form of books?" suggested Rydel.
"Yes... but I have no idea what form that was - I mean, books on hand-printed paper made from trees, bound in leather... what else is there?"
"The people who lived before the beginning of our calendar must have been like the people in the old legend," said Rydel, and a cold shiver went through him. It was amazing. All the old stories were true, he thought. All of humanity really did come from another world, a world filled with wonders like artificial men made of metal, or writing without paper...
He paused and said, "Now wait, Henna. This is not what they told me when we went to school. We were taught that any old legend is just a fairytale, that mankind really comes from Terra Hexa, and that there are no other worlds..."
"And they never talked about stars," said Henna.
"What are 'stars'?"
"Something that used to be... up there."
They both gazed up into the colored sky, where the only light came from the pink-red sun. They looked hard for something else which they did not know what it was supposed to look like. But the light from the sun that never set lay across the entire sky and nothing else could be seen - except the occasional bird.
"I almost forgot," Rydel said then, "I had a present for you. I couldn't afford much, but..." He reached inside his checkered red jacket, took out a brown parcel not much larger than his hand, and gave it to Henna without looking at her. "Happy birthday, Henna."
She smiled and opened the little parcel; inside was an old book with the title ANCIENT POEMS.
Henna held the book against her chest and managed to smile at him. "Thank you so much. I love old books." And she meant what she said.
"I know," Rydel replied. For once, they were both looking into each other's eyes with no one else around, and he began to feel very nervous. This, he thought, was his only chance to tell Henna how much he liked her...
Suddenly, Mick came out and grabbed them both by the arms.
"What are you standing here looking so gloomy about? Come back in and have some fun! You won't see this many people on that crazy expedition, I can tell you that."
"Uh... okay," mumbled Henna, though she was a little disappointed about the interruption. She wondered what was on Rydel's mind - Mick had a way of making Rydel go quiet. Rydel seethed with quiet anger at his brother, but he said nothing. They followed Mick back indoors, while their thoughts wandered elsewhere...
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