What Came From the Stars Read online

  He fell back onto the snowy sand.

  “Now is the end of all things, Tommy Pepper,” said Mr. PilgrimWay. Tommy could see the limnae quivering above him.

  And then, he saw the open arms of the O’Mondim.

  Whose two hands seemed to come right out of the blinding snow. They grasped Ouslim the Liar as with ykrat bands.

  “Fah falettel,” cried Mr. PilgrimWay. “Mondim fah falettel!”

  Tommy stood, and there, suddenly, was Ealgar beside him, who held his orlu as one who could hardly bear its weight. He was breathing as if there were not enough air in this world. But he was also watching the O’Mondim, watching as if he could not believe what it was he saw.

  And as Ouslim struggled wildly, yowling into the blizzard air, the O’Mondim turned his crumbling face to Tommy, and Tommy and Ealgar heard him speak: “Eac naman Pepper.”

  Ouslim slashed at the O’Mondim with the limnae, but the O’Mondim held him, and he turned and headed into the green waves, dragging the helpless Ouslim, who slashed at him again with the limnae, slashed again and again and again, shedding sand each time. But the O’Mondim did not stop. He dragged Ouslim into the white waves, past their breaking and into the depths, until with a final, horrible howl, they both went under, and the tormented water cascaded upward, and then again, and again, thrashed by the shrieking wind.

  Ouslim the Liar was gone.

  Immediately the wind dropped. The blizzard softened to easy, white flakes. Over the ocean, the sun came out and shone through the snow, turning the flakes gold.

  Ealgar reached out his palm to catch them.

  Tommy Pepper looked back toward William Bradford Elementary School, which glowed in the new sunlight. Everyone had come out—James Sullivan, and Patrick Belknap, and Alice Winslow holding Patty’s hand, and even Mr. Burroughs, who couldn’t quite stop yawning, and who was holding on to Patrick Belknap’s shoulder in case he might topple over into another nap right there in the falling snow. And his father.

  Tommy dropped his gyldn and held out his arms.

  And Patty, Patty, Patty came running to him, crying, smiling.

  Tommy looked at her, crying, smiling, too.

  Tommy held her close, so close.

  And suddenly, out in the water, there was a terrible thrashing, and dark water spewed up into the air, so high, so high, and where it fell, the water churned and churned, and the waves that had begun to pound the shore came well up onto the sand, and Tommy and Patty had to run back out of their way.

  “Eteth threafta!” cried Ealgar.

  “Keep out of the water!” called Tommy. “Belknap, get Mr. Burroughs back. Belknap! Keep out of the water!”

  They ran away from the waves, the churning water following, obliterating the snow, foaming, stinking of rotten seaweed, boiling.

  Then the pounding waves stilled.

  The ocean fell calm.

  And even as the snow stopped entirely, the sunshine spread quickly and surely over everything.

  And illil it was. But Tommim Pepper and Ealgar the Bold and Alice Winslow and James Sullivan and Patrick Belknap—gumena weardas!—did stand on the shore and look out to the sea, where under the waves, the O’Mondim—eac naman Pepper—was already only the sand from which he had been made. And they bowed their heads, and Tommim Pepper wept for loss, all loss, and was not ashamed that he bawled like a first-grader.

  That night, just before sunrise, Tommy Pepper and Patty and his father and Ealgar the Bold stood on the dune below their house.

  Tommy held his chain.

  He felt its heat, and into his mind came the bright hanorah playing on the days of the new year, of Hnaef and Hengest rising over green hills, of First Sunset over Langleth, of the flight of the wegelas—so many they darkened the skies with their white feathers and filled the air with their sweet callings—all those things the O’Mondim had lost when their faces were turned to the Silence.

  But there were other pictures too. Pictures of picnics on the Plymouth shore, of climbs into the White Mountains on October days, of sitting atop the bronze ducklings of the Public Garden and his mother laughing laughing laughing at the faces that Tommy was making, of Patty only a few days old in her yellow crib, and of sitting beside his mother and playing the Bach piece with her—he could hear it—and it was at that picture that the chain glowed, even through Tommy Pepper’s shirt.

  Then did Ealgar the Bold, wrapped in a pea coat, stand before the three of them. Blithe he was, and glad for the downfall of Ouslim the Liar. Yet he did not know how the war at the Reced went, and in his heart, he grieved for what might befall the Ethelim. “Ne se weoruld,” he said, and held out his hand.

  Tommy Pepper nodded. But just for one more moment, he held the chain close to his heart and felt its heat. Just for one more moment, just for one more moment the lovely light of Hnaef, the warm heat of Hengest. Just for one more moment, the sound of his mother’s voice, the brush of her hand on his hair, the...

  No more. Tommy drew the chain over his head and held it out—he felt it all begin to leave him—and he placed the chain in the palm of Ealgar. And when he let it go, he could no longer even remember that there was something he had forgotten.

  Except to know that part of him was gone. Again.

  Ealgar took the chain and placed it around his neck, and he bowed to the Peppers.

  “Tommim Pepper,” he said. “Mod gethrief. Ethelim gethanc ond se gethanc. Mod strang, heort strang, mod strang.”

  Tommy Pepper did not understand a single word of what Ealgar said.

  Ealgar smiled, nodded, and bowed again. He touched Tommy Pepper’s chest—still warm where the chain had once been and was no more. Then Ealgar the Bold pressed the chain against his own chest, and a bright green burst threw itself against the golden light, on top of the fading blue. And Tommy Pepper and Patty and their father watched the bright burst rise, and rise and rise away, until the clouds bundled themselves together, and the light gave way, and the snow came down again, lightly, sweetly, beautifully.

  For a long, long time, Tommy Pepper stood on the dune lit by the snow around him, and the tears were still on his face, and Patty reached and wiped at them, and Tommy knelt and held her tightly.

  It snowed again that night, and then again the next day, and the next, so that Mr. Zwerger ended up calling the whole week off for snow days. But it was so bitterly cold that no one could go out, and by the beginning of the next week, everyone was almost happy to get back to William Bradford Elementary School because they’d been cooped up in their houses for so long.

  Mr. Burroughs was glad to be back too. He couldn’t quite understand how the days had gone by so quickly. Here it was almost Christmas break and they still hadn’t finished their study on the solar system. They had a lot of work to do. And did anyone know what had happened to his Boston Red Sox posters?

  There were others with lots of work to do too.

  Cheryl Lumpkin decided that she wanted to take up the accordion. She and Patrick Belknap started to practice together during lunch recess until finally everyone in the class—even Mr. Burroughs—begged them to take their accordions down to the auditorium, where didn’t they think the acoustics would be much better?

  James Sullivan did get another football, and he decided not to try to get it signed by Tom Brady. He hadn’t had much luck with Tom Brady-signed footballs. During recess—since Tommy would always go to practice piano—he threw with Alice Winslow, who turned out to have a really good arm herself, and who every so often made a catch that even Pepper would have applauded, if he’d been there.

  Mr. Zwerger gave up painting, since he couldn’t figure out how to make the figures move. He was sure that once a long time ago someone had shown him how to do that, but now ... Well, perhaps he would put it all away for a while and try again another time. He gave all the art supplies to Mrs. MacReady, who put them in a box and carried them down to the basement, even though she wasn’t paid to do that.

  Mrs. Lumpkin had had enough of
trampled and missing yellow flags by the Pepper house, never mind the madman that lived in the neighborhood. So she gave up her PilgrimWay Condominium project after all. She found a much better location in East Sandwich, and the owner agreed to swap the land for a top-floor condo and a yellow Mazda as long as those scratches were repaired. Everyone was pleased, and when the condominiums were built, Mrs. Lumpkin hung her portrait—which Mrs. MacReady found in the basement of the school—in the lobby.

  And she did, finally, pay for it.

  Tommy Pepper put his gyldn above the door to his room. Most nights he would take it down and try to figure out how to hold it correctly. He thought he should remember what it had once been for, but he didn’t. And he couldn’t understand why his Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box reminded him of something ... something he couldn’t figure out exactly. There was Ace Robotroid flying through the skies in his red cape. What else would anyone expect on an Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box?

  He couldn’t see the pictures of his mother in the pale yellow of the hall anymore either, but somehow he remembered her more sharply than he had for a long time. Every memory brought, now, a smile. And on cold nights, when the snow was blowing outside and the fireplace glowing inside, Tommy sat down at the piano—his father watched him from the kitchen, where he was tearing up the old linoleum—and he set his fingers over the keys and felt heat in them. Real heat. Where did it come from?

  And he played.

  The Bach piece.

  And Patty would come and sit beside him, until one night, Tommy realized she was humming. Really. Her head lay against his shoulder, and she was humming.

  Their notes came sweetly. They filled the room and their hearts. They filled the whole house, until they sounded outside and floated down to the shore and then lifted themselves upward, toward the lighted stars.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The New Days of the Ethelim

  When Young Waeglim woke, he felt hands against his shoulder that stilled the blood and gentled the hurt of his wounds. A dark coat lay over him, and beside him knelt Ealgar the Bold.

  And around the neck of Ealgar the Bold was the Art of the Valorim, glowing in the red light of Second Sunset. Then did Ealgar help Young Waeglim to stand, and they came through the shattered doors of the Tower Room and down the stairs of the Tower of the Reced, through the ruined room of the Seats of the Reced and down into the Great Hall and the Courts of the Ethelim, where the battle had stilled, as if there was no more to fight for, and none to fight with.

  Then did Ealgar the Bold hold his hand high above his head, and the gleaming brightness that came from it was the light of the Art of the Valorim, and it shone over them all, so that the O’Mondim host and the Ethelim of the Reced were amazed, and they did drop their tools of war. The hanoraho sounded—though none knew how—and a great cry went up from the Ethelim of the Reced, for Ealgar had returned.

  Then, as all in the Courts of the Ethelim watched, Ealgar the Bold bowed before the last of the Valorim, and Ealgar held the Art of the Valorim out to Young Waeglim, but he denied it, and would not take it. And when Ealgar the Bold pressed it upon him, and when the Ethelim called his name, then did Young Waeglim finally take the chain, but he held it aloft, and he laid it around the neck of Ealgar the Bold.

  Another cry went up, and another, and then did Ealgar come to the O’Mondim host, and with the Art of the Valorim he touched the forehead of each of the O’Mondim, and their eyes and mouths were opened, and their hearts beat again, and they knew who they were.

  It is a story told over and over again: How Ealgar told the O’Mondim the tale of an O’Mondim in a faraway world who had given all for his people, whom he had never seen, and how he had saved them, and how his name was Pepper, and how the O’Mondim then did dance under the tuning stars that night, lit by the last of the bursting naeli of ancient Ecglaef.

  It is a story told over and over again: How the Ethelim of the Reced did dance with the O’Mondim, and were filled with a joy beyond what they could ever have hoped, and how none were gladder than Bruleath, and Hileath, his daughter, and Ealgar, his son.

  It is a story told over and over again: How long before First Sunrise, the O’Mondim removed from the Courts of the Reced, and did leave that country for their own.

  It is a story told over and over again: How Young Waeglim the Noble did rest from his grievous wounds that night, but after Second Sunrise, he had gone to those places where none can follow, and the wuduo were hung for forty-eight days, and the mourning was great for the last of the Valorim, who had borne so much for the Ethelim of the Reced.

  It is a story told over and over again: How Ealgar the Bold, Guardian of the Art of the Valorim, Gumena Weardas, did reign with his father and his sister among the Twelve Sovereigns of the Reced, and brought new peace to his world. Ever he was among the people of the Reced, and ever did his heart move to theirs, and it was said that he, and he alone, knew where the country of the O’Mondim was, and that he was welcomed there.

  But most nights, Ealgar would climb to the Tower Room of the Reced, and step through a shattered door that was never repaired. And by the window, beside a ruined Forge, he would listen to strange music. Music that came from far away. Sweet music from among the lighted stars.

  The Testament of Young Waeglim

  WRITTEN IN THE HOUSE OF BRULEATH OF THE ETHELIM IN THE CITY OF THE ETHELIM

  YEAR 1058 SINCE THE COMING OF THE VALORIM INTO THIS WORLD

  Tomorrow’s battle will be my last. Afterward, there may be nothing but Silence. Yet afterward, there may be a new world, where the Ethelim shall come into their full destiny as a people, and the long work of the Valorim be triumphant. Either way, the days of the Valorim in this world are over. So I write this last Testament of the Valorim, that their ancient purposes may be remembered.

  Well more than ten centuries ago—centuries as measured here—the Valorim did come to this world to find a people in despair. These were the Ethelim, those who had survived the Great Burning, when the two suns that lit their world came close in an orbit that was one in ten thousand of their centuries, and so destroyed everything but a remnant of their people. This coming together had been predicted by Ecglaeth of the Valorim, and it was Ecglaeth who brought the first Valorim to this world to see if any had survived. They found but few. None of the cities was aught but waste and ashes. None of the towns was aught but stains against a burned landscape.

  Then did Ecglaeth together with Elder Waeglim and Hengel and Hengaelf and the gentle Elil gather the Ethelim together and bring them under the shadow of the mountains of the Valley of Denvelf, below the Plains of Arnulf, where the land was watered by the snow off the mountains, and the land, though burned, was rich beneath the surface. And there they founded the City of the Ethelim. And on the Plain of Benu, Hengaelf planted the Long Woods—which the Ethelim gave to him for his own from where the Valley of Denvelf flattens toward Sorg Cynnes to where the shadow of Langleth reaches at dawn. And together the Valorim and Ethelim planted and watered the lands below and around the new city, and so the Ethelim were saved.

  But none of this was done with ease, and to help the Ethelim, Hengel and the gentle Elil did journey above the Falls of Hagor, and there, beneath the sea, in a place that none but they knew, they used the Art of the Valorim to bring life to the O’Mondim, children of the watery sands of this world, who opened their eyes, saw the bright stars, and did sing for the beauty they knew. They traveled over the mountains past Tillil, and when they came above the Plains of Arnulf, they did plant great trees that grow there still. And so they came down across the Plains, and to the City of the Ethelim, where they built the Reced of that city, and its walls and streets, side by side with the Ethelim. And at night, the O’Mondim sang songs to the stars, songs that swelled like the waves they were born in.

  When the Reced was finished, the Twelve Seats of the Ethelim were set in their chamber so that the Ethelim might rule over their city. And in a Tower high above them, the Forge of the V
alorim was built, and fired, and it was the seat of the Valorim Art, where matter and song were hammered together into a power that protected and nurtured all that world. And when these were built and the City of the Ethelim was shining fair under the Twin Suns, Ecglaef of the Valorim did sprinkle the night sky with bright lights, and the hanoraho sounded.

  And so, for more than nine of this world’s centuries, the City of the Ethelim was at peace. And the Long Woods of Benu grew green and tall, as did the O’Mondim woods above the Plains of Arnulf. And below the city, the gentle Elil did build homes for the Valorim in his hills, and there did Ecglaeth dwell, and Elder Waeglim, and Hild and his ten daughters, and Brythelaf with his sons, and many of the Valorim who did not dwell in Bawn, by Sorg Cynnes, near the Long Woods. But in Bawn did dwell Hengel and Hengaelf. And there too did dwell Hrunlaeth, who would not make a home near the Ethelim.

  And it was in Bawn that Hrunlaeth deceived Hengaelf, who traded the Long Woods of Benu for an orlu of worthless metal. So the idea came to Hrunlaeth that if he could gain one part of the world of the Ethelim so easily, why not gain it all? Thus he became Mondus, and he first brought around him Saphim, and Ouslim, and Calorim, and Verlim, and Naelim, and Fralim, and Remlin, who were of like mind to Mondus. And in his deceptions, Mondus sent Naelim to the Hills of Elil with sweet words to treat with Ecglaeth, and to ask him to come to Bawn. But when Ecglaeth would not, for he suspected treachery, Naelim waited for Second Sunset, and killed him.

  It was the first murder among the Valorim. Treachery was opened.

  Now did the brothers Belim and Belalim join with Mondus. Wanting the whole world for themselves, the faithless Valorim planned for battle at Sorg Cynnes— though they feared the numbers of the faithful Valorim, and the Ethelim who might rally with them. Thus did Mondus send Ouslim to the City of the Ethelim, to the O’Mondim, to sway them with false promises—but they would not be swayed.