The Book of Travels

Chapter 2: The Book

“Let’s go Zecora! You said we could go after you were done with the first book!” Akilah huffed.

My joints showed their resentment of having stayed in one position for to long by creaking in protest as I got up from my sitting position. The sun had long since started its downward arc, leaving long shadows across the all encompassing grassland, giving testament to just how much longer we had spent in the glade then I had planned.

“Come on. If I don’t do something exciting within the next five minutes I will explode,” Akilah said over her shoulder as she started to run across the savannah toward Tamu. I chuckled softly at my friend’s antics and made after her.

After we had made it nearly half way across, Akilah stopped dead in her tracks and turned around, a mischievous glint tainting her eyes.

“Seeing as you drug me out miles away from anything fun to sit and read for hours on end, I do believe it is my turn to decide what we do,” she said.

I groaned. “Not this again.”

“I’m an addict, OK? Just stop talking and get ready.”

Sighing, I assumed a fighting stance. While I thought Akilah’s obsession with sparring was funny, it did get annoying at times, especially in the hot sun of mid summer.

We closed the distance in just a few quick steps, trying to win an early advantage. I blocked a strike to my neck, quickly following through with my own swipe to the chest. Akilah tried combating this with shear ferocity and strength, but it was a futile effort. Less then thirty seconds into the fight one of my blows got through her defense, sending Akilah reeling backward.

I glanced down at my fallen foe. “Are we done now, or do you want to get beat up again?”

Akilah laughed and sprang back to her feet. “You aren’t getting out of this that easily. Again and this time put some feeling into it!”

The next bout went just as quickly and with the same result, but on the third Akilah brock through my defense, knocking me to the ground.

“Ha. I stand victorious!” she yelled triumphantly.

“No chance. It was best out of three,” I said, scrambling back to my feet.

“I say three out of five,” she rebuked.

I laughed and got back into position. “Fine, but it’s your funeral.”

We fought late into the day, stopping only when the light was too dim to see by. My night vision never had been the best and Akilah was kind enough to only take advantage of the fact a few times before we called it for the day.

“Why don’t you try this with one of your peacekeeper buddies? Maybe then it could actually be a fight,” I said, once we made it back to our home.

“As if. I creamed you,” Akilah replied.

I chuckled. “If you call 23 to 26 a win.”

“How can you even know that? I lost track at 13 to 12,” she asked.

“When I was taught how to fight I was told to watch everything and keep every detail,” I said with a grin. I had learned the skill from Masfiri. He had been a hard taskmaster but I hadn’t complained. When I was younger I would have gone through much more to spend time with him.

Akilah sighed in exasperation. “Well, at least now I know I could beat anyone else in this town.”

“You mean to say ‘I could best anyone else in this town, save one’, I presume,” a new voice said from the stairs leading to the living spaces.

Akilah turned toward the voice and smiled. “Of course Masfiri, although I’m a little surprised you would consider yourself tied to this little town.”

Masfiri laughed. “I do enjoy my travels, this is true, but there is only one place I can call home.” Masfiri was a big man, even as he advanced in age, and made for an impressive figure standing in the cramped stairwell.

“So, how was your trip?” I asked, mildly annoyed that Masfiri was chatting it up with Akilah instead of me when we hadn’t seen each other in four months.

“Uneventful. The southern most parts of the empire are getting restless, but that is to be expected after a drought like the one they’re having.”

“Well, I hope it doesn’t escalate. I don’t want to be transferred away to the far corners of the empire before I even finish basic training!” Akilah said with a laugh.

“So you got into the corp. Good for you! At least one of us has started to make something of ourselves,” Masfiri said. Although his face was all smiles, for a moment I saw a different emotion surface behind his field of calm.

“Well, we best let you get off to bed. Your last day as a care-free mare starts in a few hours and you want to be well rested,” I said before the conversation could kick off again. I then turned to my guardian. “You as well Masfiri. If I know you it’s been three days since your last proper sleep.”

Masfiri turned and gave me a smile. “That’s a good idea. You two probably are going to be at it all day tomorrow, and it would be wise to be well rested.”

“If you all insist, but I’ll be getting up at first light, so you better take your own advice,” Akilah said.

“I will. See you in the morning.”

After we had retired to our shared room Masfiri turned to me. “So, what have you been doing while I was away? I mean besides beating up on your friends,” he asked.

“I finished that book you gave me,” I answered, ignoring his sarcasm. “Other then that, Akilah and I spent a lot of time out to the west a ways. The wetlands are always so pretty this time of year.”

Masfiri sighed. “You know I don’t like it when you roam like that. What if there had been a flood well you hiked through a gorge, or what if you had run into some rebels. The world is a dangerous place filled with people who would not think twice about doing away with you. Even if you have friends with you it can still be dangerous.”

I rolled my eyes. Masfiri always got a bit paranoid when I started mentioning my adventures. Like he was one to talk. He traveled all over the world in his youth. It was definitely time for a change of topic, even if messing with him was fun. “I had a strange dreams last night,” I said.

“Is that so. What was so strange about it?” Masfiri said, letting his line of interrogation go.

I had to think about that for a second. “I don’t know. It was it was really life-like. I was just standing in a room in this castle, then whole place blew up all of a sudden right before I woke up.”

Masfiri’s eyes snapped wide open. “Could you describe the castle to me?” he asked.

I frowned a bit at his reaction but complied. “It was a big castle overlooking a city on the side of a mountain.”

My answer seemed to only add to Masfiri’s intrigue. “That sounds like Saba Urefu. But how could that be? You were much to young to remember,” he said, seemingly to himself.

I gave him a puzzled look. “You mean the old capital? Wasn’t it destroyed in the revolution?”

Masfiri jumped a little at my voice, but quickly managed to gain back control of his features. “Yes. You were actually born there, so it’s possible that you remember it, but you were a few weeks old at best. Your father was the military adviser to King Mwenye so you would have seen at least some of the castle and might have seen the blast at its source.”

I was about to say that the explosion didn’t look near powerful enough to destroy a city when Masfiri’s other words hit me. I almost lost my balance on my chair. Up untill this point he had never once hinted off my origins, and I had kept a respectful distance from the topic since it obviously bothered him. Know he was telling me not only where I came from, but who my father was.

Masfiri’s smiled as he continued with his story, seeming to read my emotions. “He was named Zuberi and he was my brother. A good man if ever there was one. All throughout our childhood he would bail me out whenever I got into trouble. One time when we were not much younger then you I got myself lost out exploring. He searched for three months before he finally found me staying with an old man just a few days travel from our lands. He was a good stallion as well, but that’s a story for another time.”

My mind was in overdrive as I tried to process all of this new information. I had fight back my questions as I listened on.

“As you know I did a lot more adventuring in my youth then I do know, but even then we stayed pretty close. Even as the world moved on around us, we never lost our bond.” Masfiri fell silent with a far off expression on his features.

“What happened to him?” I asked when it was clear no more of the story was forthcoming. It was clear that this story hurting… my uncle?… but I needed to know.

Masfiri gave the floor a tired sigh and looked up at me. “He was killed in the revolution. I’m not certain of what happened and when, but he was long dead by the time I reached the scene.”

“Why are you telling me this now?” I finally asked.

Masfiri’s gentle smile returned to his face, as if the reminder of the present had chased away the demons of the past. “I kept silent throughout your childhood in order to keep you safe from those who would use that kind of knowledge against you. It is long past time I told you, but I guess I’ve been putting it off the past few years.” He met my gaze, his usual unreadable expression once again taking hold. “I know you must have a lot of questions, but they’ll have to wait until morning. There is much to do and not much time to do it in.”

With that Masfiri turned and retreated back down the stairs and out into the street below. I stared blankly at the empty space he left behind for a couple moments before I heard his huff steps fade to silence.

When I awoke, I heard sounds of movement coming from the far corner of the room. It was still dark out, with no trace of twilight in the night air. Slowly I opened my eyes and peaked across the room, only to see Masfiri rummaging around in a crate that I had never seen before.

“Good morning,” he said without turning around. “I hope you don’t mind if breakfast’s cold; I made it a couple hours ago.”

I looked outside. The moon was still high in the sky, giving clear indication that morning was still hours away. “Did you get any sleep last night?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

Masfiri shook his head confirming my suspicion. “This is too important to let slip even one more day. There are forces in your life you are unaware of, and I can’t allow you to live in ignorance anymore. I owe you and your father that much,” he said. “Our clan is an ancient one. Of all of the Oloitiko clans the Elong’a were the oldest and most respected. When we joined the empire our strength granted our people the leverage we needed to remain a separate entity within the whole,” Masfiri said as he dug through the box and pulling out a collection of ten gold bands: five neckpieces, and five bracelets. “These were your fathers symbol of station. There was a reason he was selected as the military adviser to King Mwenye. He wanted someone who could bind our people closer together. Our family has led the Elong’a for generations so Zuberi, a natural born warrior and tactician, was the logical choice. His heritage meant a lot to him, even if it caused him problems every now and then. It would have meant a lot to him if you had them.”

I was dumbfounded at this latest development. I knew I was Oloitiko, although I had kept it hidden as best I could. The zebras of Pundamilia were generally nice enough, but not the most accepting of outsiders. I was not so well versed in the interworking’s of my people as I would have liked, but I knew a bit about the Elong’a clan. It wasn’t a mystery what Masfiri meant when he said leverage.

“I understand if this confuses you, but I had to keep it a secret. If I had told you when you were younger you might have told one of your friends and I couldn’t take the chance. There are people that you haven’t even meet that would kill you without a second thought. And never will meet if we can continue to keep your existence a secret.”

“Why wouldn’t they know I exist? If I’m part of a ruling family, shouldn’t that be documented?” I asked. The thought of people I had never meet wanting me dead was fairly unnerving, but of all of the information I had been feed thus far, this struck me as the most odd.

“Your parents kept you a secret. They didn’t want you to suffer because of their relationship,” Masfiri said. I looked at him quizzically.

Masfiri gave me a reassuring glance. “Their marriage was very unorthodox, even back then. Now I doubt even their station would have made it possible without the whole country going into a blood rage,” he said. “You see your mother wasn’t Pundamilian or a Oloitiko; she was an ambassador from Equestria, a country far to the north and east. When you were born they decided to keep you out of the public eye to avoid any tension your existence may have caused. The only people who knew anything of your birth besides me were in the castle when it was destroyed. I moved us here because many who don’t agree with the Tani fond refuge here. I didn’t want you growing up around people who would openly despised you if they knew your secret. You were never meant to stagnate here, which brings us to the second object of discussion.”

At this Masfiri lifted a large tome out of the crate, treating it almost reverently. Bond in two thin slabs of a dark polished wood and held together with twine, it looked older then any work I had ever laid eyes on. “The Book of Travels” was written in large elegant script on the front cover.

Masfiri looked down at the old tome in his hands as if they were long lost lovers. “This book was given to me when I was a boy just starting down the road of a traveler. Read it with an open eye and very little about this world will surprise you,” he said. “I have grown old and tired and my journey is nearly at its end. You have an adventures sprit and are ready to go forth into the world.” He finished his proclamation by handing the book to me. I took it gently into my hands and laid it down on my bed. I looked back up at Masfiri who still had his eyes on the book. Slowly, he too lifted his gaze.

“The next time I leave for the outer reaches of the empire I want you to come with me. You need to see what the world has to offer and someday move past our boundaries, if you so choose. The time to sit idle has past. Now we move forward into tomorrow.”