I decided to break the deep silence of the valley.
"Why are you helping us?" I asked, still trying to understand the reason behind this sudden kindness.
Yalaz shrugged faintly.
"I don't look for reasons anymore. Does there have to be one?"
"What happens when we reach the village?" Yavuz murmured, his voice still trembling.
Yalaz paused, turned away, and looked at us one last time before taking his first step into the darkness.
"There, you'll either grow used to the savagery of this world and become warriors, or you'll be grains of dust scattered on the winds of the Ruined Lands. The choice is yours, but the road is mine."
The more time I spent with this man, the more used to his metaphors I became. Maybe he couldn't speak the truth any other way. Maybe that was just what old age was.
"Anyway, sleep for now. If you want to come to the village tomorrow, we'll have you go through your Awakening. After that, our journey toward the pass leading to the village will begin."
"Awakening?" I asked curiously.
Yalaz crouched by the fire. His face was in shadow, like a stone with its shell cracked.
"In this world there are three energies."
The sentence hung in the air. He was going to wait for a response—and he did—but none of us could say anything.
"Most people have no affinity," he went on. "They die without ever feeling it. That's not a bad thing. It's just an ordinary thing. But some have certain affinities for these energies. They can feel them, direct them, make the impossible possible."
Hazar parted his lips, closed them, opened them again.
"Do we… do we have it too?"
"I don't know."
The sharp answer left only the crackle of the fire to be heard for a while.
"Not all of you may have it. Some of you might, some might not. It has nothing to do with who you are. It's just—something like luck. Like birth. Like rain."
Poyraz pressed his fingers together.
"What do we do tomorrow?"
"I'll draw a circle. You'll sit inside it. You'll close your eyes. Then… you'll wait. Some of you will feel something. Some of you will feel nothing."
"What do the ones who feel it feel?" I asked.
Yalaz looked at me. The fire flared in his eyes for a moment, then slipped away.
"Hard to explain. Not seeing. Not hearing. More like… realizing that the things that exist exist more. A warmth inside you, or a pressure in your chest, or a murmur in a corner of your head. It comes differently to everyone."
Hak spoke for the first time, his voice low and flat.
"And if we don't feel it?"
"Then you'll wait until we reach the pass. The passes are dense; they affect someone who hasn't awakened. You'll faint. Maybe worse. That's why I'll try to awaken you."
Sevda rested her elbow on her knee.
"So now we sleep, in the morning you sit us in a circle, and then we try to survive."
"Correct."
"What a lovely surprise."
"You don't have much time to complain," said Yalaz, though there was no bitterness in his voice. "In a few hours you'll see."
A fresh log was thrown on the fire. Sparks rose and mingled with the cold.
"One more thing," said Yalaz. He wasn't looking at me, he was looking at the fire. "There are three different energies. Some of you may feel one, some of you two. Some of you, none at all. Tomorrow I'll see which of you it is."
"Do they have names?" I asked.
"They do."
I waited. He wasn't going to say them, I understood that.
"The names come tomorrow. Sleep now."
With that firm command from Yalaz, the conversation cut off like a knife. The others slowly withdrew to their beds. Brush, rocks, hard earth; everyone collapsed wherever there was room.
I got up, but I didn't go to my bed. I walked a few steps away and watched the valley. The cold light of those glowing stones on the ceiling made the artificial night that had settled into the valley's depths even more eerie. Though it couldn't really be called night. The valley was still bright.
The only reason we behaved as if it were night was that the air had grown cold and the fatigue had piled up on us.
For a moment I thought I saw one of those stones flicker, blinking out and back like an eye. I narrowed my eyes and waited, but it didn't happen again. "Fatigue," I murmured. "Just a trick my mind is playing on me."
Right then a dark figure appeared beside me. It was Poyraz. Hands in his pockets, he too was looking at the lights on the ceiling.
"Three energies," he said, his voice a whisper but clear. "Do you think we have one of them, Tunay? Or will we just be ordinary and faint?"
"I don't know, Poyraz," I said honestly. "According to Yalaz it's a matter of luck. Like birth, like rain."
"Luck…" Poyraz laughed bitterly. "Then ending up here was luck too. Can't say our luck's been on our side."
He paused, looked at the stones above, and went on.
"I wasn't very lucky on Earth either."
I looked at him. He understood my questioning gaze.
"I don't know if you've ever known the streets. They're cold, merciless. Every day is a different battle."
He lowered his gaze to his hands.
"I never had a home, a table, even a wall that told me 'you belong here.' I grew up with no one. I made do with whatever the streets gave, made to feel like surplus at every door."
He fell silent, sank his hands deeper into his pockets and squared his shoulders.
"Now this man has come and tells us that our survival is once again a matter of luck. That some will awaken, and some will only watch… If that old luck of mine has followed me all the way here, tomorrow I'll be one of the ones sitting empty in that circle."
There was movement beside us. It was Hak; I didn't know how long he'd been there.
"Don't worry about it."
Hak said only a few words.
As the valley's false night wore on, many had already fallen asleep.
It was truly strange how easily people adapted. Despite my fatigue, I didn't think I'd be able to sleep.
It seemed Hak and Poyraz had no intention of sleeping either.
I asked, "Why are you telling us all this?"
"I don't know. I just wanted to pour my heart out to someone. You were the most fitting person."
Poyraz drew his gaze from his hands and fixed it on a rock in the depths of the valley.
"This place, these rocks, this valley—all of it is more unreal than I could ever imagine. But somehow those streets, in the old man's words, feel more ill-omened and more unreal to me than this cursed place."
Poyraz fell quiet for a moment, and a faint, rueful smile appeared on his face.
"What about you, Tunay? What do you think about these ill-omened lands and the ones you left behind?"
Poyraz's question made me pause for a moment, then it hurt.
I hadn't thought about it; my family, my home, my friends…
I hadn't wanted to think about it…
It was as if I'd refused the cold reality and forgotten what I'd left behind.
The blurred image of my family, my home, my friends—even the café, my last memory left from Earth—rose before my eyes.
The bitter smell of coffee, the road I walked to get to the café, the house I lived in—each came back into my mind one by one.
To keep from hurting, from grieving, I had chosen not to think, not to remember.
In that moment I understood that I hadn't adapted to this world.
I'd only made myself believe that I had.
When the truth appeared before my eyes, I felt relieved for a moment.
I'd been able to understand myself, at least a little.
But there was still an unrest in my mind: harsh, fierce, and deep.
I had no idea why, but it was as real as these ill-omened lands.
This unrest frightened me.
It forced me not to think about myself.
It made my heart clench, my hands sweat.
It hurt.
I didn't know.
I didn't remember.
I didn't want to remember.
I was afraid.
Noticing that I was trembling with fear, Poyraz put his hand on my shoulder.
"Are you okay? What's wrong?" There was worry in his voice.
Poyraz's question calmed the fierce storm in my mind for a moment. The weight of his hand on my shoulder pulled me out from among those dark memories and pressed me back down onto the valley's soil.
"It's just…" I whispered, my voice trembling. "Until now I'd chosen not to think about it. But the sudden question forced me to remember what I'd left behind on Earth."
For some reason I didn't want to talk about the unrest that was really bothering me. I didn't know it, didn't want to explain it.
It was as if it were something I shouldn't tell anyone else.
And so I didn't.
Hak, without looking at us from where he sat, cut in.
"Not remembering… I wish I could not remember too, that I could forget…"
Poyraz gave my shoulder a light squeeze.
"I understand you. Sometimes when I remember those back alleys, those merciless fights, my breath catches too. But tomorrow, in that circle, even those pains might be of some use."
I took a deep breath. The tightness in my chest slowly eased, but that harsh, fierce, deep unrest in my mind didn't go away completely. It only lay in wait.
"Thanks, Poyraz," I said, trying to stop my hands from trembling.
"You're right. Maybe it's just fatigue. Or maybe it's just… reminding me that I'm human."
Poyraz drew his hand back and fixed his gaze again on that stone flickering on the ceiling.
"Let's get some sleep. Tomorrow's going to be a very long day for all of us."
Hak too quietly stood and withdrew into the darkness to his own spot.
I went back to my bed; the hard earth didn't feel so cold this time.
When I closed my eyes, the smell of that blurry café left over from Earth was still in my nose, but this time I didn't run from it.
I tucked that smell away in a corner of my mind, like kindling for tomorrow's awakening.
But the unrest still filled some part of my mind.
And so I decided to sleep, resolving not to think about the unrest for a long while.
My tired body, with the faint ease that had come over it, couldn't hold out long.
I slept.