Eleven Isles

Or, Fireside Tales for Curious Kits


I ’ve never seen the ground, but we lived there once.

That’s how all Oppa’s stories started. Sat by the little potbellied stove in the kitchen, he would puff on his pipe till all was quiet and all eyes were on him. Even Mother, perpetually harried by the chaos of her incorrigible brood, found the time to sit and listen with a cup of tea and her knitting, weaving yarns along with her brother. 

Do you remember the story of Magpie, he would ask, how she plucked a star from the Nightfather’s quilt and brought it down to earth? Yes, we would chorus, me and Lily and Brem all sitting huddled together around his little three-legged stool. Good, he would say, because this is what happened next:

Peregrine, soaring high over the dark lands, was the first to see Magpie returning with the star. When he saw its brilliant light shining from her beak, he swooped low over the forests and the mountains and the seas and cried for all to hear, “Creatures large and creatures small, come see what Magpie has brought us!” 

He flew so far and so swiftly that when Magpie at last landed at the edge of the great forest, all the animals of the land had gathered to greet her. 

“Magpie brings light for dark forests,” said Hedgehog, who was a wise gardener. Oppa would soften his voice to a tiny squeak whenever Hedgehog spoke, and we would all laugh uproariously. I had heard real hedgehogs talk, of course, but there was something so contagious about his jolity that I forgot all about the world beyond the kitchen window. 

“Magpie brings warmth for cold winters,” said Mole after the last chuckles had subsided. Mole was a great miner. In one story she dug all the way to the center of the world just to see what was there, or tried to.

“Magpie brings fire to cook our food,” said Greymalkin, who was a clever hunter–the first and greatest of cats, Oppa would say proudly. 

Old Tortoise watched all this, but he knew that light would not be an easy burden to bear. “You have plucked light from the darkness, Magpie,” he said softly, “and for that the earth is grateful. But your work is not done yet.” Oppa always looked at Mother when he said that; his clever eyes shining in the glow of the stove.  “The star is too great a power to remain here. Its light will burn and blister, its heat will scorch; it will bring not life but death. We must find some other place for it.” The fire seemed to flare up at Old Tortoise’s warning, casting harsh shadows across the room. Our old den knew the twists and turns of the tale as well as anyone, and it always found ways to play along. I saw an opera on the grand stage once at University, and it was the closest I’ve come to recapturing the wonder of Oppa’s stories; the world seemed to stop spinning when he spoke, caught in the gravity of his words.

When the creatures of the forest heard Old Tortoise’s warning, a great clamor arose. Magpie, once an outcast, was now the thief who had stolen a star, and each animal in their turn wanted to be the one to lighten her burden. 

“I will spin a silken net to carry the star,” said Orb Weaver. I used to be afraid of spiders, but now whenever that panic starts welling up I just imagine them talking like Oppa did, with two claws stuck in the sides of his mouth. 

Mole waved her long nose in the air, trying to get Magpie’s attention. “Give the star to me,” she said, “and I will keep it safely under the ground!” Beaver offered to dam a river so that it could hold the star; Squirrel promised to find the tallest tree in the forest to hang it from. But amid the chaos, Old Tortoise just shook his head sadly. 

Magpie knew what she needed to do. She had carried the star this far; she could bear it a little further. With three beats of her little wings she was in the air once more, soaring skyward. 

When I heard this story for the very first time, I didn’t understand why none of the animals could help. Why not make a basket, I protested in my mewling little voice. Oppa just smiled and scratched behind one ear. Some burdens, he said wistfully, you have to carry alone. 

None of the others saw her go, of course, except Old Tortoise. By the time they looked up from their well-meaning quarrels, the light had faded–brilliant blue to warm white to flickering orange-gold. They all watched as Magpie plucked a thread from the Nightfather’s quilt and strung the star high in the sky, just below the edge of night. Then, with her work done at last, a weary Magpie faded into the stars, where the Nightfather embraced her as one of his own; a constellation. 

By this time, it would always be dark out, and Oppa would turn to the little box window with a twinkle in his yellow eyes. To this day, he would say, Magpie still rests in his embrace, so that even when the star is veiled in darkness we can remember the brave little thief who stole it for our world. 

There he would pause, wait, smiling at our ears pricked forward with anticipation. Do you want to know what happened next, he would ask, and Lily and Brem and I would chorus our readiness.

Good, he would say. I’m coming to town for the harvest moon, to tell stories to all the good little cats who’ve helped their mothers with the washing and cleaning, and if you’ve earned it, you can have another tale like this. 

I was usually the quiet one, but never more indignant than when a story ended with questions, not answers. But you didn’t finish, I protested. What about the great bite? And clay men? Scholar Singh told us about them in academy! Is that why we live in the sky, because the clay men are hunting us like we hunt fish?

Are the clay men going to eat us, if we don’t do our arithmetic? I don’t remember whether Lily said that, or Brem, but Oppa just stroked his whiskers and sighed. Singh, that old fibkettle. She’s been filling your brains with flax.

All right, Mother would say, herding us with firm paws down the hall to our bedroom. That’s enough, you brave little thieves. To sleep now, come on. Usually, I relented, but if the story had been particularly good, she would have to nip me by the scruff of the neck and carry me off to bed. Remember, she would gently warn, that answers are more dangerous than questions. Of course it wasn’t until much later, at university, that I heard aloud the phrase she had probably been pondering for years: curiosity killed the cat. 

The waits between Oppa’s stories were the worst. Sometimes, he would tell us when he was returning. Other times, once he’d shrugged on his coat and scarf, he would simply walk out the door with a wink and a nod and vanish. His spontaneity was a godsend for Mother, who could dangle the promise of his return over us whenever she needed to. Be good kits and finish your supper–you can’t hear a story from Oppa on an empty stomach, can you now? You know your Oppa has a sensitive nose; If you don’t do your washing, he’ll be too busy coughing to tell any tales. If you sharpen your claws on my rug one more time, young lady, when Oppa’s here next time I’ll tell him to throw your gifts off the edge. 

She almost did it, too, when I was climbing in the rafters and fell on her grandmalken’s vase. Mother always said that when the world hurts you, it’s trying to teach you something. I landed on my feet, but the vase wasn’t so lucky, so she stepped in to deliver the lesson. 

I’d never heard Mother so angry before. Is this house a skyship? No! Do the jibs and zephyrs need trimming in here? No! Her yowling was piercing, but what hurt far more was seeing all Oppa’s gifts swept off their shelf and into a bag. I tried to snatch the old compass–real brass; clay folk made, I later learned–but Mother had her iron paws on it. All I managed to do was leave claw marks on the cover as she yanked it away, which made me feel even worse. 

How many times have I told you not to climb around the den, she demanded, striding for the front door. I blustered, bargained, mewled, and finally apologized profusely and with sufficient shame that she relented and only put the sack with Oppa’s gifts on a very high nook, instead of actually scattering them to the winds. I remember thinking I could climb up there. But I didn’t. There’s adventurous, and then there’s just plain foolhardy. 

Instead, I was patient, studious, cautious. When Lily and Brem asked if I wanted to sneak out and prowl the docks, I bent further over my little desk and flicked my tail until they left. When Scholar Singh asked me to memorize the currency exchange rates between all the Eleven Isles, I put my whiskers to the grindstone, and by the time the academy closed for the harvest I could rattle them off as quick as any broker’s clerk in Thressic. Mother was impressed by my work, and that night my little shelf in the den was full again with Oppa’s gifts. 

Of course, nothing Oppa brought us was very valuable, but to me, every trinket was a treasure. Maple candies from Nali Point, wooden toys from Krakat, brightly painted tin whirligigs from Sarath–Mother hated those; she always said they got lost by accident but coming back from University one year I swear I saw the neighbor’s kits playing with them. Once he gave me a wooden Yo-Yo and showed me how the whole world spins around the star, just like this, see. I almost threw it away, after Scholar Singh laughed at me when I showed it to her, but I didn’t. I never got rid of anything Oppa gave me, not after Lily traded his old rain hood for an umbrella and got struck by lightning. Even the things I never use, like his old pipe, I still keep with me. As for the compass, it never left my side again, and it was still tucked safely in the pocket of my coat the next time Lily and Brem and I all gathered around Oppa’s little stool.
I’ve never seen the ground, but we lived there once. 

The Oppa in my memories is older and tireder when he knocks at the door, but sitting by the stove, leaning forward earnestly with a story on his tongue, his presence is the same magnetic force as always. 

And once, long ago, the world was rich and flourishing, for Magpie, the brave thief, had given it light. The trees no longer grew thick and tangled, the fields sprouted not thorns but flowers, and all the creatures of land, sea, and sky were content. There was only one sadness in that time, and it was the sadness of the star. She had been stolen from her father’s arms, and though she hung in the sky, she could not reach her sisters in the great quilt of the night sky. 

“I am alone,” she lamented, and not even Peregrine, soaring high above the snow-kissed peaks, was close enough to hear her call. 

Then one day as she cast her glow over the world, she saw Badger teaching his cubs to write their names in the clay by the river’s edge. “All the other creatures have their children; why should I not make my own,” she thought. “Then they can speak to me and I can speak to them, and we will not be alone.” So she gathered up her light, and her passion, and her will to create, and she sent them all in a brilliant flame down to the ground. 

Oppa would thrust out a paw at that, drawing gasps from us. The fire in the little stove would be just beginning to really burn around now, and as he told of the starfire falling to earth his words would mingle with the hissing and crackling of the charcoal. 

The first creature to see the flame was Badger. He watched it settle into the mud and begin to shape and twist itself, and in time a creature emerged. It had skin like clay and walked on two legs; where its eyes should be, there were two small fires. 

“What are you,” asked Badger.

“I am Terra, first of my kind.”

And so the Clay Folk joined the world, and for a time all was well. The Clay Folk were not like the other creatures of the world–they had no feathers or fangs or claws, for these gifts were not the star’s to give. Instead she had given them her light, and her passion, and her will to create. And so create they did. 

I remember the moment I understood with such clarity. It was a lightning bolt of an epiphany, so charged with excitement that I could not contain it, not even for the sake of Oppa’s tale. They built the Isles, didn’t they? The engines that keep us in the air, the Clay Folk built them!

Yes, he said. Very clever, little Lyn. They did indeed. He sounded disappointed, or so I thought at the time. Now, I know that feeling well. It is the melancholy of answers, of final words past which no tale can continue. 

But of course, such great works as the sky engines took time, and practice. At first, the Clay Folk needed all their craft and skill merely to survive. Harsh winters came and covered the land in frost, and the clay folk turned to Mole, who showed them how to dig homes from the earth. Swift winds tried to snatch away their flames, and heavy blankets of rain shrouded the star for weeks on end, but the creatures were always there to lend aid to Terra and their kin. Hare taught the Clay Folk to run swiftly before a coming storm, and Hedgehog helped them to grow a bountiful harvest for those times when the star could not feed them with her light. 

The Clay Folk were grateful for these gifts of kindness, and they promised to repay them one day. “The light you have brought us will be kept safe in our hearts, until the day we can return it to you,” said Terra to all. The way Oppa spoke as Terra, that deep voice–it always scared me, though at the time I didn’t know why. 

Before long, the first engines of the Clay Folk were complete. They were simple and crude, but they made life easier for the Clay Folk. Where once every day had been a struggle, now the Clay Folk had time aplenty for song, laughter, and foremost of all, craft. Often, the travails of one creature or another would bring them to the halls of the Clay Folk, and each time the halls were grander and the engines more splendid than before. When Oppa got to this part, he would raise his paws high, and I remember feeling a wondrous thrill. Sheltered kit that I was, I pictured the domed chamber in the Academy where Scholar Singh gave her announcements, never imagining that I might one day set foot in the halls of a university made by their hands. 

Rumor spread from snout to beak, and soon the dwellings of the Clay Folk were the wonder of all. 

“I am a great builder, but even I have never seen such things,” said Mole in Oppa’s high, squeaky voice. It set him to coughing once, a dry rasp in his throat that I had never heard before. “Your engines run faster than Hare, harvest more than Hedgehog, and dig better than even I can!”

The Clay Folk were happy to share the secret of their engines, for they saw no harm in it. “The star, our mother, gave us life with her fire,” said Terra. “It is a simple thing to give life to metal and wood with her flame.” 

And so they gave their engines to Mole, and in exchange she offered them gemstones from her caves. Soon, more creatures came, for Mole had boasted of the wealth of minerals she had extracted with this new engine to dig for her. Hare wanted an engine to spare his sore legs, Hedgehog a machine to sow her gardens, and even Old Tortoise at last agreed to trade his walking-cane for a chair that walked on its own. 

With each new work of artifice, the Clay Folk drew more fire from the star, and soon she grew weak, her light no more than a dim, red glow. 

“The star is fading,” the creatures whispered. “Where will we get our light now?”

The charcoal in the stove was burning low now, Oppa’s face falling into shadow. The dark days he spoke of were long ago, but in that little kitchen it felt as though we were there with the Founders, watching the world slip back into night. 

“Do not fear, my friends,” said Terra, and I shivered as he spoke, as though he were there in the kitchen, eyes burning like the coals of the fire. “Our mother’s light may be failing, but we will not fail you.” And so began work on the greatest engine yet, the star engine. Long and hard did the Clay Folk toil, but after seven days and seven nights the star engine stood ready. The wonder of the world it was, a great sphere wrought of shimmering ore, and who else was to kindle it but Terra himself. 

Oppa would shake his head sadly, even as Lily and Brem and I all pricked our ears, hanging on every word. 

The moment Terra lit the flame at the center of the great engine, a terrible voice rang out for all to hear. “You, first of my children, now take my light for yourself. It is your folly that has brought darkness to this world, and if I cannot have my flames, then neither shall you!”

Terra knew at once the magnitude of their folly, but it was too late. The great engine sprang to life with a heat so great that all who stood near it were burned to ash and stone. Mole’s vast mines were drowned in molten rock; Hare’s legs burned where they touched the ground; Hedgehog’s gardens became scorched deserts. Soon only a few of the Clay Folk remained, and with the last of their craft they built the sky engines. There was only enough flame for eleven engines, and so the Founders, those creatures who had survived Terra’s folly, gathered themselves into eleven cities and journeyed skyward away from the ruined land that had been their home. 

Oppa let the last words hang in the air. Then, with a sigh and a smile, he got up from his stool and walked to the stove to put on the kettle. Keep going, we pleaded. You can’t stop there! What about the skyships, did the Clay Folk build those too? What happened to Mole and Tortoise and Hare?

With a shake of his mangy head, Oppa demurred. I’m getting too old to be telling stories all night, he said. Bad for my lungs. 

When Mother tucked us in that night, she promised that Oppa would be coming to stay more often now. He needs to settle down, she said. Don’t worry, you’ll have more stories. 

But we never did. His battered old pipe, wrapped in a dishcloth, was the last gift he ever gave. 

In a way, the story ends there. Much to my mother’s disappointment, I’ve never been one for weaving yarns of any kind, and as Scholar Singh could tell you I’m not much of a writer. I went to University for navigation, joined the Pathfinders’ Guild, and signed on with the captain of a Skyship. But in another way, it doesn’t have to. After years of sailing the Isles, I still check for the familiar weight of Oppa’s pipe in my pocket and take my bearings with his compass today–only now, my destination lies not above the clouds, but below them. 

I’ve never seen the ground, but I intend to change that.