Rose sheathed the glowing dagger and picked up the book. She handed it to Talon. With a deep sigh, he opened the book and flipped to the beginning. Unsure where to begin, Talon assumed this book must be like others and began looking for a list of its contents. There, on the first page, in the book’s handwritten script read the words, “Contents.” Daks scooted his chair next to Talon in effort to read; Rose followed his lead and edged close to Talon on his other side. Willow, not wanting to seem uninterested, casually stood from her chair and walked purposefully behind the other three. She moved in close enough to peer over Talon’s shoulders. Willow was the last person to settle into her spot. Once her eyes scanned the book, the look of bewilderment that swept across her face matched the other three. All three looked upon rows upon rows of words consisting of jumbled letters. They recognized the letters as the ones from their own language, but their splatter-shot arrangement lacked any semblance to the spoken language.
Trying to make sense of the jumbled letters, Daks sounded the words according to typical phonetic rules. He spluttered words that defied pronunciation and encountered great difficulty in getting even two consecutive words audibly pronounced. As Daks hacked beast-like sounds next to him, Talon noted the words defied general spelling rules. Some words possessed no vowels while others were almost all vowels. Some letters repeated in strange patterns, such as “hhh” or “bzbzbz.” Except for the word “Contents”, the book’s opening page looked like utter nonsense. Talon, wanting to see if the rest of the book matched this page, lifted the book from the table. Daks grunted, obviously displeased by the book’s sudden removal. Talon flipped through the pages, which by comparison, made the first page look like a child’s first reader. As Talon flipped through the book, each page looked the same. Letters upon letters, put together in a pattern that defied the rules of written expression. A randomly haphazard organization of letters would produce more cohesion. The “words,” except for their use of the same alphabet, looked nothing like words because of the indiscriminate use of letters. Apparent nonsense filled the pages of this secretive book.
“This book doesn’t say anything. It is just a bunch of garbage,” sputtered an obviously frustrated Daks. “So this book was supposed to help us figure out what to do. How is it going to help us? It looks like the scribbling of a rambling idiot. Should we just transform ourselves into rambling idiots as well, and hope that in doing so, we can understand the language of idiots?”
“Less of a transformation for some than for others,” muttered Rose. Willow quietly snickered at the comment. Daks refused to acknowledge the slight obviously directed toward him. To some extent, however, Rose agreed with the premise of Daks’ statement, but there was something familiar about the writing. She had seen it before, but where? Then, looking to Willow, Rose saw her looking intently at the disordered script. Rose asked her in disbelief, “Can you understand that?”
Willow deftly deflected the question, “Read that? It is just jumbled letters, right?”
Talon put his hand on the book and turned back to the table of contents. Under normal circumstances, it would be rude to flip the pages of a book when someone else was reading from it, but at present, no one seemed to mind. All the gibberish looked the same. As Talon looked again at the contents, a thought entered his mind. Part of his education as a sun-sculptor involved decoding scrambled words. It was actually the first thing he learned as an apprentice, but his father placed little emphasis upon the task. He learned the decoding process from obligation – an apprentice-training step with no apparent benefit. Talon, the dutiful student, completed the lessons without complaint, just happy to be an apprentice. His sister, however, opted for a different approach. Talon remembered when Rose began her apprenticeship, and just as her brother, she started with the decoding process. She, however, asked the question that Talon would not. Rose carped to their father, “How exactly does learning to read jumbled nonsense make me a better sun-sculptor? I thought I was going to learned how to actually do something.” Their father ignored the questions and continued with the lessons. Rose repeatedly asked the same question, albeit in different forms, but their father opted for the same response – silence. Talon surmised he possessed the same questions and simply ignored her queries because he lacked a reasonable answer. As Talon glanced over the contents in the Book of Epiphany, he remembered these things, and as he remembered, the memorization techniques previously used in his first months of training came flooding back to his mind. He employed patterns, rhymes and silly phrases to remember the random sequences necessary to decipher the code. He stared intently at the jumbled words on the page hoping to extract nearly forgotten memories from the recesses of his mind.
Talon, like all sun-sculpting apprentices, only practiced the code for the first six months of training, and fortunately, he followed his father’s instructions and reviewed the information during the following two years. Talon often thought of skipping the excessively tedious review lessons. At the time, they seemed pointless, but he still plodded through the boring tasks. As he looked at first page of the Book of Epiphany, the once inane tasks proved a vital tool in his education – if, as he expected, the book was written in the code.
Talon looked to Rose and spoke, “I think it is written in the code.”
Rose responded, “I was wondering about of that.”
“Well, when were you planning on telling me?” snapped Talon.
“I just did,” quipped Rose.
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“I didn’t realize it was the code until you said it.”
Talon became more frustrated. In typical Rose fashion, his sister spoke in circles to avoid admitting that her brother discovered something before her. Her few remarks left him wondering whether she realized the passage was in the code before he mentioned it.
Daks interrupted the sibling squabble, “I’m glad both of you realize this book is written in ‘code,’ whatever that is. Does that mean you can understand it or does that just mean you know it’s in ‘code’? By the way, if all you know is that it is in ‘code,’ I could have told you that because you see that word.” Daks pointed at word spelled “fghds” and attempted to pronounce the word. “F-g-h-d-s … f-g-h-d-s … and since that obviously is not a word, then I assumed it must be written in some code where the ‘f’ stands for something else, maybe like a ‘p’. Just a thought from Mr. Ordinary.”
Talon laughed. For the first time in many days, he laughed. He was not sure why, but Talon laughed hard. Daks was unsure how to respond. He was not trying to be funny; he was just frustrated. Since Talon kept laughing, Daks decided to laugh as well. Laughter proved more pleasant than frustration. Once both of them were laughing, the tension in the dilapidated room melted away. Rose smiled and released a few snickers; Willow laughed quietly to herself. With the mood much improved, Talon regained his composure. He then answered Daks’ question, “My sister and I learned to read a code as part of our training. I am hoping this book is written in the same code.”
Talon pulled the book closer to him and began his effort to decipher to text. He came to the first line, and looked at the word “fkpyejkspx.” He tried to remember the correct order for deciphering the word. Where should I begin? There was something about word order in the sentence, and then, the letter location within the word was another variable, and there was total number of letters in the word. Talon reflected for a moment in an effort to become reoriented. Years passed since he used the code. As an apprentice, he should have practiced every month, but his father had not required these lessons for some time. Before Lupier arrived with his order, they possessed ample time for reviewing superfluous matters, but with the increasing demand, Talon had spent his time making the requested weapons – not reviewing an inane code. Right now, however, reviewing the code did not seem superfluous; Talon thought it perhaps the most important aspect of his training.
It took a few minutes; Talon’s tangential thoughts began to crystalize. He remembered to the
code. He reviewed the steps before beginning the process.
1.Begin with the decode number (ranging from 1 to 100), which derived last letter in the previous word. Since there was not a previous word, decode number began at 1.
2.Multiply decode number by number of letters in word. If the aggregate exceeds 100, then use only the last two numbers. Talon multiplied 1 by 10. Decode number was not set at 100.
3.Add number of letters in word to decode number. If sum exceeds 100, use the last two numbers (a rule repeated at each following step). Decode number was now 10.
4.Divide the number of letters in the word by 3. Round all fractions up to the nearest whole number. Multiply decode number by the whole number. Decode number had now moved to 40.
5.Add the word placement in the sentence and the total number of words together. Add this sum to decode number. Decode number was now set at 43.
6.Use deciphering code #43 for the first letter, “F.” The letter “F” represented the letter “L.” The first letter of the word was “L.”
7.Repeat process from step #1 for the next letter.
Talon forgot the level of convulsion it he decoding process. At least, he remembered all 100 deciphering codes. It took many, many long hours in the early months of his training, but wanting to be a quality sun-sculptor and wanting to please his father, Talon completed the arduous task of memorizing the deciphering codes.
Next letter, “K” uses code #32. “I” is the second letter. So the process continued. Talon cautiously proceeded through each step to ensure accuracy. Since each letter depended on the correct code from the previous letter, one was mistake cascaded into further mistakes. A single error doomed his ability to decipher the word.
Talon continued the process; the others anxiously looked over his shoulder. Due to his level of concentration, he failed to notice the others hovering over him. Reviewing each step in his mind, he reached the end of the first word. “fkpyejkspx” represented the letter “L-I-T-B-E-N-D-E-R-S.” (The book used the code he learned. Talon shouted silent hoorays; he could understand the Book of Epiphany.) Words in code were spelled phonetically; it was an additional means to guard its interpretation. Additionally, numerous shorthand words derailed code breakers. Remembering the lessons of secrecy impressed upon him by his father, Talon told the others only the meaning of the first word: “The first word is ‘sun-sculptors.’ I think we are on to something.”
Looking to his sister to confirm the meaning, Talon asked Rose, “Is that what you got?” Rose did everything faster than her brother did. Talon figure she was probably already done with the first page and impatiently waiting on him to continue.
Rose looked sheepishly toward her brother and answered his query, “I … I …I didn’t get anything. I never learned it.”
“But all those lessons we took? You did great on those?”
Rose confessed, “Sure, I did fine on the lessons, but I never really learned all those deciphering codes. I could remember a few of them, and then, I would just guess the rest. It wasn’t that hard, but I never really learned it.”
“Can you decipher this word?” asked Talon pointing the word he had just translated.
Rose looked at the word for a long time. She said nothing, hoping the necessary knowledge was recessed in her mind, but the longer she waited, the more she realized there was nothing to recall. Finally, she answered. “No,” said Rose, whose olive skin was beginning to lose color. “I can’t remember any of the codes. I never thought I would need them.”
Talon, for a brief moment, felt vindicated. His sister, a vastly more intuitive sun-sculptor, always outperformed him. He learned not to resent her, but he did experience frustration, at times, because she completed tasks in a fraction of the time it took him. Worst of all, when they were both done, her work looked much better. At this moment, however, all of her innate skills provided no benefit. This task required the long-term diligence that Rose never developed. The fleeting sense of vindication soon passed when Talon realized the task of translating the book befell to him alone. The other sun-sculptor could provide no help in this matter.
Daks began shuffling around the room in an obvious effort to find something. Willow, noticing his actions, asked in a slightly annoyed tone, “Is there something I can help you find?”
“Yes,” said Daks. “I need some paper and a pen. I want to write down everything Talon says so we can remember what’s in the book.”
“No,” boomed Talon. “No one will be writing anything I tell you from this book. If it was meant to be written in our everyday language, then it would be written in everyday language – not code. Since it is in code, it’s information is only for those who can understand the code.”
“How are we supposed to know what it says?” asked Daks.
“You aren’t,” snapped Talon. “If you were supposed to know what it says, then, as I said, it would have been written in everyday language and not written in code. Got it? Nobody writes anything I tell you from this book.”
“How are we supposed to remember what is written?” asked Willow. “I mean, that is lot to remember, and we are sure to forget most of it.”
Rose answered this question, partly to allay some pressure from Talon. “It can be done. We just need to set our minds to it. You would be surprised what can be accomplished when you set your full effort to the task.”
Talon laughed quietly to himself. Their father always says that, “You would be surprised what can be accomplished when you set your full effort to the task.” It was an expression most directly toward Rose, who unlike her brother, was more inclined to rely upon innate ability rather than persistence. Their father was convinced Rose was not fulfilling her potential; she would often avoid difficult tasks because of their time consuming nature. Perhaps some of those lessons from their father actually made a difference, not that she would ever admitted it. Talon also realized the importance of keeping the book’s revelation to himself. He did not fully trust the others, except for Rose, of course. Talon possessed no certainty that Daks or Willow would use the information for bettering others. Anyone, he reasoned, would be tempted to use the information for personal gain. I can only trust people who show they will not give into this temptation, and right now, I cannot fully trust Daks - and certainly not the girl I just met. I know not the challenges of our future, but I am certain the quest for personal fortune/fame/glory is not the purpose for our journey. Would Daks or Willow become lured by the contents of the Book of Epiphany toward some self-gratifying journey? They might.
As a result, Talon kept the entire group on a need-to-know basis, even his sister. There was no point in sneaking around to communicate with her since they risked being overheard. He worried this decision would eventually sever the bound between the three others and himself, but right now, he placed greater priority on accomplishing the mission than maintaining camaraderie. Is this decision the right one? The sole translator the secret book kept asking himself that question. It is better to proceed with caution.
Talon sighed. A great burden pressed upon him, and further, he was responsible for its presence. Why did I have to be a sun-sculptor? And why did my father fill those orders for Lupier? And did Rose not learn the deciphering code like she was supposed to? These questions swamped Talon’s mind despite his attempts to focus singularly upon the task of translation. Despite these lingering questions, Talon’s duty was clear: translate the book. Perhaps the translation might provide the necessary information to accomplish their goal: the destruction of the glowing weapons.
Talon’s first foray into understanding the book encountered an immediate obstacle. After successfully translating the word “sun-sculptor” in the contents, he was unable to translate any other words. Each effort brought the same results – nonsense letter combinations. He initially assumed the inability to translate these words resulted from human error, specifically, his error. After spending an unproductive day going over the sa
me six words, Talon tentatively deduced the inability to translate the words resulted from his deficient translation skills – not from methodological mistakes. Another possibility emerged; perhaps a phonetic sounding of the letters might reveal the intended word. Talon, however, tried sounding the words, but via endless variations, he never produced a viable word. Still another possibility came to mind. The pronounced nonsense word might actually be a word that Talon simply did not know. Maybe “pumhlso” meant something to a more erudite mind. Could the problem reside from Talon’s ignorance? Not wanting to reveal any translation secrets, Talon continued to muddle alone in his concerns. Then, another possible reason came to mind …
This pattern continued throughout the first day. Talon failed to understand the words, and then he exacerbated his concern by positing some farfetched reason for his inability. The longer this process went, the more ludicrous his conjectures. Perhaps the book is written in old dialectic that does not change ‘sun-sculptor’? Could the first word actually be translated wrong causing a chain reaction of error? Did someone, perhaps, maliciously alter the book’s text? Did the book only serve a symbolic rather than actual function? Thus went the day, Talon frustrations manifesting into his imagination grappling helplessly against implausible explanations.
The first day of the opened book mercifully ended. Talon translated exactly one word, and his companions, who obviously expected a more rapid pace, grew frustrated. His companions faced a duel challenge. They witnessed Talon’s inability to complete what seemed an accomplishable task, and they could do nothing to alter this situation. As Talon grew frustrated, the other three just waited. They tried to engage themselves in something, but to no avail – save, at times, Willow. She frequently looked over Talon’s shoulder but said nothing. When he inquired about her curiosity, she feigned disinterest. On any other day, the older sun-sculptor likely would query the long-haired girl further, but his thoughts seldom wandered from the decoding task long enough to think about anything else.
So the day went, and then another … and another. Talon was at his wit’s end, and the other three considered giving fealty to the Protectorate just to get away from Talon. After three days, Talon accomplished nothing. The others, likewise, accomplished nothing, except significantly reducing the already stark supplies in Willow’s house. Occasionally, someone offered bits of advice. These suggestions only distracted Talon from his fruitless efforts. Rose frequently looked at the page with Talon, hoping the needed knowledge might spontaneously pop into her mind. It did not. There was no way, at least in the current circumstance, for Rose to undo her previous failure to learn the information. Daks brooded incessantly; he did not understand Talon’s inability to translate the page. Further, he became increasingly frustrated by Talon’s refusal to reveal any information in regards to the translation process. To Daks, it seemed sharing this information would get more minds thinking about the same questions. Yet, as Daks continued to push the issue, Talon resolutely stood his ground. Finally, there was Willow. She said little but occasionally looked over Talon’s shoulder to see the book. At first, it bothered Talon to have someone peering over his back, but in comparison to the other two, he found Willow’s unobtrusive style refreshing.
Then, on the third day, Willow was once again looking over Talon’s shoulder. She made a suggestion, “Maybe you should try to going to the page number listed for “sun-sculptor” and try translating from there.”
“Won’t work,” said Talon. “I need to decipher everything in order; otherwise, the translation will be wrong.”
“You mean,” interjected Daks, “that you need to know the previous word to translate the next word.” Talon just looked at Daks. He was frustrated to have revealed the information. Daks continued, “So that’s why you keep looking at the same page.”
Rose interjected, “Talon, why don’t you at least give it try. It might not work, but I don’t think the results could get any worse. Do you?”
“I don’t know,” answered Talon. “I can give it try.”
Talon flipped the page of the Book of Epiphany for what seemed like the first time. The pages were thick, and the leathery paper was old but not brittle. In just a few flips, Talon found the page indicated by the contents. It was filled with encoded writing. The letters almost glowed upon the page. Talon began the process of decoding the writing.
“Can you understand it?” asked Daks impatiently. Talon did not answer but kept his focus upon the page. “Well?”
Talon looked up with a grin spreading across his face. He said not a word. The frustration from the previous days evaporated, and an almost unspeakable sense of satisfaction swept across his countenance.
“You can understand it!” shouted Rose, happy to see the jubilation on her brother’s face. “What does it say?” she bellowed.
“Calm down, will you, Rose. And yes, I can read it. I am not sure why I was having so many problems before, but I am no problem with this page. It is going to take a while, though, so I need everyone to give me some time. As I soon as I have information, I will let everyone know.”
“Well, what does it say so far?” asked Daks.
“Didn’t you just hear him?” interjected Willow. “Talon needs some time to work. So back off and stop bothering him.”
“Oh, yea, sorry about that Talon,” said Daks. “I am just anxious, I guess.”
8 decoding