The Letter, Part 7
Gilbetron did everything he could to keep his jaw from dropping to the floor. Despite his efforts, he found himself staring at Telematrice open-mouthed for several minutes, unable to form words.
“Invasion?” he asked slowly, trying the word out for size. “Invasion from where?”
Telematrice sat forward in her chair. “According to our most ancient legends, there was a time many centuries ago when the people of our country traded openly with strangers that came across the northern ocean. There aren’t many remaining records of this civilization, but we do know they existed and traveled regularly across the sea.
“About three hundred years ago, their ships stopped coming, and we didn’t bother chasing after them. The stories tell us that they left on account of some great offense suffered by a group of dignitaries visiting the court of King Daelyo II. Of coures, you won’t find any of these details in historical texts, but fiction writers have long guessed at the nature of the dispute. Nobody really knows for sure, but now,” she indicated the letter, “we seem to have our first good clue.”
“What does it say?”
“First of all, I should point out that the letter itself appears to be some thirty years old, though of course we would have no way of knowing for sure just how long…” She trailed off, suddenly in deep thought. “If the letter warns of invasion, and thirty years later we get the note with not so much as a bird flying low across the northern horizon —”
“They’re either about to knock on our front door or the whole thing’s some colossally stupid joke,” Gilbetron interrupted.
“It’s no joke,” Telematrice intoned. “Whoever sent it went to a great deal of trouble to insure it wasn’t read until falling into your hands. No, this is the real deal.”
Gilbetron didn’t like the sound of that. “You said something about a clue. What did you mean?”
“On the second page, the writer makes reference to the Great Purge. I don’t know what that refers to any more than you do, but by my reasoning that’s most likely their way of describing the great offense of our legends.”
“But we still aren’t any closer to knowing what we did, and for that matter why they would want to invade us!”
“True,” she said. “One thing’s clear, though. The main reason for invasion has to do with us breaching some ancient arrangement.”
Gilbetron snorted. “How could we break an arrangement with a civilization of people we completely forgot even existed?”
Telematrice shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “I guess that’s what we’re going to have to find out.”