When War Calls(21)

Again her audience stared but remained silent. Some looked almost as if they wanted to shout something out, but thought better of it after more thorough consideration.

‘An expected response,’ chuckled the woman. ‘You are right not to recognise what you see here, for this is the world as it looked before the Forgotten Years.’

Her audience was stunned as they all leaned closer to carefully examine each and every detail they could.

‘You might notice your continent is nowhere on here. Where you might have found Aurialis …’ She pointed to the new map and then back to the other, ‘there is water. And where the great continent of Equadon rests now, there existed a land called “Aus-lia”. We do not know their real names … only what letters are left on this map. If you look here, Cejian is in place of “Mer-ca”, and the others … I cannot read well enough.’

‘You think the entire face of the world was changed?’ asked Jaden, suddenly switching from curious to objective.

The woman looked up and scanned the audience, searching for the one that had spoken, but was evidently unsuccessful as she looked to several different people as she spoke next.

‘Think? No, no, I do not merely think it. I know it as fact. This map is proof!’

‘Proof that in a matter of years all the continents were changed to look entirely different?’ asked Jaden.

The woman spotted him. ‘Ah, I see you,’ she said, ‘come forward. That’s better, I do not like to converse with those who stand behind others. It is not polite, you know. Now, as for your question … maybe not years, the Forgotten Years is merely a name, but the continents could have been changed over centuries, thousands of years perhaps.’

‘It would take millions just to move them. For what you suggest, all life as we know it would have been made extinct.’

The woman smiled as if she had expected every word he had said. ‘You are right. But they were strange times, where the impossible was made possible—where the weak became strong and the strong became invincible. Do not underestimate the Forgotten Years; it was both an amazing and tragic time—horrors and miracles went hand in hand.’

‘I understand,’ said Jaden, ‘but how could it be possible?’

The woman’s smile faded to a charmingly bemused grin as her eyes wandered upward to the right, then crossed over to the left. She then leaned backward on the log she was sitting on and took a deep breath, as if contemplating how best to deal with a troublesome child. As she released her breath, she rolled forward again, lowered her brows as she leaned closer and asked him, ‘Do you know what is possible?’

‘I know that the continents changing that quickly is impossible.’

‘That is not what I asked. I asked do you know what is possible?’

‘Possible is what can happen,’ said Jaden unsurely.

‘Simply put, that is correct. Now let me ask you this; do you know of all that can happen?’

‘No…’

‘Then how is it that can you claim now that something cannot happen?’

‘I know I cannot touch the stars, but I can touch a lamp. It is a matter of scale. There are things that are just impossible.’

‘Or are they?’ asked the woman. ‘You know, it was once thought impossible for humans to make shields of energy that would defend the innocent. Imagine that, a power from your own hands able to challenge and defeat missiles from the Alliance. “There is no way it could be done!” they said when the stories were first reported, and yet now here we are today, accepting that the Daijuar do have such abilities, and we know it as fact. So, my young friend, I ask you again; what is possible?’

‘You still speak on small scales in an attempt to prove the large,’ said Jaden, now losing hope that this woman was any different from the others.

The woman looked at him sternly then began putting the maps away, glancing up at him occasionally.

‘Very well,’ she said finally as she had seen her audience had grown restless. ‘You want something more to scale … I shall give it to you. Look to the sky. Don’t be shy. Right now. Look up.’

Jaden reluctantly glanced upward. How would this prove anything?

‘What do you see?’ asked the woman.

‘Clouds,’ he said.

‘And?’

‘Rings…’

‘That’s it! Rings.’ The woman sounded triumphant.

Jaden looked down again. ‘What do they prove?’

‘They prove the Forgotten Years were real.’

Jaden paused, thought about it for a moment, and then said bluntly, ‘No they don’t.’

‘Be quiet, rodent!’ came a harsh, deep voice.