The Book of Travels

Chapter 1: Dreams

My name is Zecora of the Pundamilialian Empire, or at least it use to be. The story you are about to read is an account of my travels. It is a story of struggles and hardships, but also of triumph. Learn from my mistakes and my victories, as well as those of my predecessors and very little in this world will surprise you.

The Book of Travels: Journey of Zecora

I stood on a castle tower balcony, overlooking a great city perched on the side of mountain. Below the city I spotted many figures going about their lives, not bothered in the slightest by the looming structure to their backs.

Farther down there was a plain that spanned the horizon, pockmarked with small towns. I thought it quite beautiful, if only because it seemed to think it was, if that makes any sense. I drank in the fresh, cool, air and watched the landscape below for another few hours, calmly staring out across the shimmering landscape as the sun drifted steadily thru the sky.

Around mid-day I turned from the balcony and made my way to the door into the castle. I did not have a particular reason for doing this. In fact, I could have stood atop the high tower for many more hours before I grew bored of watching the unfamiliar terrain, but I felt compelled to move by some unseen force. I walked the empty halls of the grand structure, calmly treading the silent corridors. The city itself was much more lively, but I found it difficult to look directly at anyone. They all wore such bright colors that hurt my eyes, reminding me of the traditional robs of the southernmost parts of the empire.

Despite the discomfort I slowly made my way through the group surrounding me and onto the open street. No one attempted to follow me and when I turned back to the castle hold the crowd had dispersed, leaving without a trace. It was strange, despite coming into extremely close proximity to a great many of the unusual people, not one of them had said a word. Now that I thought about it I hadn’t heard a thing since arriving, not even a gentle breeze. Still pondering the oddness of my current situation I made my way down the road, toward the outskirts of the courtyard.

The explosion had come from one of the towers that marked the perimeter of the castle. I did not hear it, but I felt in the very core of my being. A blinding sphere of light expanded outwards, descending towered me, crackling with lightning and pure energy. Staring with wide-eyed fascination I did not even have time to move before the leading edge hit me.

I awoke with a start and sprang to my feet. I was not generally a morning person, but today my eyes were wide open before I even hit the floor.

I had never seen anyplace quite like the castle in my dreams. For one it was on a mountain. I had seen hills before, but for the most part my world was flat, consisting of open savanna with the occasional spot of dessert and shrub land. Although I had never seen a proper mountain, I could clearly visualize the vast range that stretched across my field of vision.

The castle city was even more impressive than what it sat upon. I had seen cities before, but none anywhere close to the scale of that one. A shame my avatar did not seem to appreciate it, or perhaps I might have explored it more.

“Well enough of this, I have many things to do and the day will not get any shorter,” I said to myself. The floor creaked nosily as I made my way across my small room and down the stairs to the centralized cooking space that I shared with ten other families. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon, but already there was quite a bit going on.

“Hello, Zecora. It’s good to see you while the sun is still in the sky. With how it was going I thought you would not wake before night fall.” I turned to see a young mare standing across the room from me. She had been mixing up some bread dough for their dinner, but had turned around when I came down.

“It is good to see you as well, Akilah,” I replied with a smirk.

“Masfiri is coming back today isn’t he,” Akilah said. I frowned at her. ‘She just had to bring that up didn’t she’ I thought.

“He will, if he stuck to the road; which he didn’t, like always,” I said.

“You know as well as I do that he will be back precisely when he said he would. Have a little faith in the man.”

Masfiri was a circuit runner for the new Pundamilialian leadership, or The Tani as they called themselves. He was also my guardian.

The new leadership took power right about the time I was born. Its rise to supremacy caught everyone off guard. One day they were a group of ill contents, the next they had successfully pulled off the largest coup in Pundamilialian history. They had struck all of the empires vital military outposts simultaneously, using pitched battle, surprise attacks, and sabotage from the inside to their upmost advantage. They had leveled both the old government and the old capital before the day was out.

Circuit Riders were initiated after the worst of the revolts passed. Instead of spreading their armies too thin, the Tani would simply send a few scouts to check up on the many towns and villages under their dominion to check up on them and let their forces stay in the hot spots.

Many of my neighbors in Tamu, the small community we called home, viewed Masfiri as a sell out for working with the government. Ours was an isolated community where many who did not agree with all of the Tani’s policies found refuge. Masfiri himself said he just did it for the money, but I thought that it was more likely he just wanted to get out. When I was younger he had regaled me with stories of his travels into far off lands filled with strange and interesting people. When I was old enough to look after myself for any extended periods of time he was off like a flash. I didn’t mind too much; it was just the way things were.

“I do trust him, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it,” I said. “So what are you doing here? I had thought you had started your apprenticeship with the peacekeepers yesterday. We had a big farewell dinner and everything.”

The peacekeepers were created along with the circuit runners and served the same general purpose, except it was for the inside territories rather than outermost settlements. They were at least tolerated because members of the community they were in generally made up their ranks.

“That was just a introductory seminar,” Akilah replied. “They gave me the next two days to ‘get your affairs in order and finalize any arrangements regarding your estate, just in case you get yourself killed on duty’,” she said, imitating the commander of the watch’s sarcastic tone. He was a nice enough guy, if a bit unprofessional at times.

I laughed at my friend’s antics. “Well, I’ll make you a deal. If you leave me all of your nothing, I’ll leave you all of my nothing. Sound like a deal?” I said.

“OK, but be carful. That almost sounds promising enough to do off with you,” Akilah replied. “If you really want to do that you can sign the paper. It would mean a lot to me if you did,” she added after a second. Her face had taken on a slightly more serious look, although it still didn’t lose its smile.

“Well if you really want me to I will, but on one condition; we have to spend the day doing what I want this time,” I said, letting a mischievous glint creep into my eyes.

Akilah rested her chin on her palm. ““So, what am I in for?” she asked after a second.

I smiled maliciously over at my friend, savoring my victory. “Follow me, my dear, for we shall now go to the library!!!”

“How did I know you were going to say that,” Akilah said with a look of pure misery as we made our way out of town and toward a small grove of trees a few miles away.

I only laughed. “Because it’s what I always say,” I said. Akilah might make a big deal out of having to put up with my reading habit. Despite the numerous protests against the learned arts, I had been forced to rip her away from a good read on more than one occasion.

The library really didn’t live up to its name. It was just an old hollowed out tree that I retrofitted to store my ever-growing collection starting with when I got my first book. That was one of my most cherished memories from childhood. It was back when Masfiri wasn’t working and spent much of his time with me. I had been crying, for what reason I could not remember, and he had distracted me by reading out of an old storybook. The idea of holding a collection of parchment and weaving a story was magical to my young mind. I had to have more.

Over the next few months Masfiri taught me how to read and later write. According to him I was a quick study, although I had no one to compare myself with. The Tani had outlawed any written words back when I was just a baby, deeming that they all be burned. I don’t know why Masfiri kept that one.

It was just after the last big rain of the season when he gave me the storybook. “Look after this book, Zecora. Knowledge is the most valuable possession you can have, be that knowledge from a book or from life,” he had said. “Between you and me, books are easier teachers.” From anyone else I would have thought the last bit a joke, but he never joked. This was not the same as not being funny; many things he said were funny. It was that everything he said had a purpose, apparent or not, and I was expected to take it to heart.

He had left on his first mission the week after I got the book, but I was too enchanted by it to notice too much of his absence.

I moved my slowly growing supply of tomes to the tree after Akilah had found them under my bed. It hadn’t turned out to be too big a deal. Despite her parents being firm supporters of the Tani, they had taught their children the basics of reading when they were young. Because of this Akilah was more interested to see if there were anything she would like rather than the possible penalties of not turning me in. Despite this stroke of luck I thought that it would be best if I moved my books to a more secure location. After all, if one person could find my little secret, then more could.

Now I had more than thirty books. I had collected them from traveling vendors, older community members, and Masfiri.

The tree itself was a real forest giant, unlike most of its companions in the glade. Time had eaten away at its core, creating the cavity I used as my library, but it still stood strong.

I looked over at Akilah who had snagged a book on unarmed combat and laughed silently to myself. Typical. Akilah had always been slightly obsessed with fighting, but it had gone to a whole new level once she had been accepted into the peacekeeping force.

Akilah glanced over before setting into the tome. “Do we have to do this? Why don’t we go down to the river and swim? It’s to hot here.” I could tell she was only putting up some resistance in order to save some face. She looked far too comfortable for that voice to be genuine.

“The shade of the trees offers better protection than the river. It practically boils this time of year.”

“Fine, but after the sun goes down a ways we get to do something I want to do.” I smiled and nodded my consent.

Grabbing a book on the history of navigation titled Longitude for myself, I settled down on a bed of grass. It was the latest gift from Masfiri, a treasure acquired on his travels. I opened up the book to where I had left off and began to read.

“Here lies the real, hard-core difference between latitude and longitude- beyond the superficial difference in line direction that any child can see: The zero-degree parallel of latitude is fixed by the laws of nature, while the zero-degree meridian of longitude shifts like the sands of time."