Moon-Flash (13 page)

“But—” Kyreol felt bewildered. Where was “here”? Here was only a pause in the river’s movement, a place with no true name, a house that held only things that would never be used again, forgotten by the people who made them. The Hunter took her hands. His dark eyes looked deeply into hers.

“Kyreol. My world is very different. There, everything is spoken. Dreams mean nothing. If you see it, your eyes will change. You may never be able to look at the Riverworld again.”

“You did,” she whispered. Her throat burned. “You lived in both worlds. Why?”

THAT NIGHT, asleep beside Terje in the room full of tapestries, Kyreol dreamed she was flying on the back of a butterfly. She had seen a few tiny butterflies in the Riverworld, colored pale pink and green like the leaves of the River-Tree. This one was huge, with wings silky black as night; lights glowed in them like stars. It lifted her into the air, swooped with her; she clung to its antennae, laughing, unafraid even of its great, golden eyes. Then a voice like the voice from the crystal said, “Cleared,” and, suddenly terrified, she groped behind her, saying, “Terje.” He was there, unexpectedly; she felt his hand in hers. She woke up then and saw the tapestries settling lightly as wings in the morning breeze.

She lifted her head, saw Terje asleep. He was close to her, but she felt lonely, suddenly, as if the room were about to tear apart and float him away from her, still dreaming. Panicked, she said his name; he lifted his face out of the cushions, murmuring, blinking. He saw the fear in her face and reached for her hand. Then he shifted, pulling her against him, holding her
closely, his arms around her, his cheek against her cheek. But it wasn’t enough. She still felt far from him, as though time and water and the earth itself were between them; she couldn’t get close enough to feel safe.

“My bones are afraid,” she whispered.

“Did you have a dream?”

“I don’t know why.” Then she laughed a little at herself, because she couldn’t imagine where so much fear might come from. The laughter made her feel better. “Terje,” she said, thinking of what might lie ahead of them, “I was never afraid until now.”

“Yes, you were.”

“Not like this. Not of things I haven’t even seen.”

“Your mother has seen them,” he said, and the thought comforted her a little.

“Yes. I wonder . . . I wonder if she’ll like me.”

Terje stared at her. The expression on his face was so comical she laughed again, and the fear finally dwindled away. Then there was a silence between them as they looked at one another. The breeze seemed to still; the sunlight seemed the world might never be the same. Their faces drifted toward each other, like small boats in slowly moving water. Before they touched, the silence broke. They heard footsteps, Arin Thrase singing.

Terje’s breath drained softly out of him. His mouth crooked. He drew Kyreol against his chest; she listened to his heartbeat, felt him kiss her hair. She closed her eyes, feeling close to him at last, safe for a while.

“Terje.”

He made a noise.

“When we see the Hunter’s world, then we’ll know what to do. When we come to the end of the river.”

Arin opened their door then, bringing them breakfast.

When they left his treasure house to go downriver, they saw that their boat was no longer moored among the waterlilies. Arin gestured toward a small dock bobbing along the river’s edge.

“It will be safe there,” Orcrow said. “We’ll take a faster boat.” He was no longer the Hunter, Kyreol sensed. His face belonged to his own world; already his eyes were seeing it. Arin Thrase took her hand, put something into it.

It was a tiny painted stone, shaped like a raindrop, a hole bored at one end so she could wear it around her neck. A yellow dot rising over a line of blue . . . It made her smile.

“Good fortune,” Arin said, in the language of the Riverworld. He added something that Orcrow translated.

“If you want to come back here, you will always be welcome.” He dropped his arms around their shoulders. “Come. This is the shortest and the longest journey.”

They stepped into a boat, which wasn’t made of wood. It was bright red, and like the crystal, it could talk. Kyreol sat down with a thump on one of the cushions in it. Orcrow offended the boat; it roared beneath them angrily and went backwards instead of forwards. Kyreol shrieked and tried to hide in the carpet on the floor of the boat. Terje slid down beside her, but Orcrow, implacable, eased the boat smoothly
away from the dock. He turned a wheel in his hands, and the boat turned, picked up speed, and skimmed down the river, still thundering beneath them, tearing swatches of water into the air.

After a while, Kyreol realized that Terje was no longer huddled beside her. She lifted her head unhappily, feeling surrounded by the giant heartbeat of the boat. Terje was standing up beside Orcrow, watching the water part before them. Kyreol stared at him, amazed and annoyed. He was grinning. He had completely forgotten her. She got to her feet slowly. The wind and water whipped at her, but she moved forward, under the canopy, clear as air, hard as wood, that shielded them from the wind.

Orcrow moved a red stick, and the boat slowed, its voice softening. He glanced back, his face distant, almost hard. When he found Kyreol on her feet, he stopped the boat, let it drift in the water.

They heard river noises again, birds, the rustle of trees. Orcrow went to Kyreol, took her shoulders.

“Many things will frighten you now,” he said. “But this is what you wanted. I’m giving you what you asked for. Just remember: you are safer with me than you have ever been since you reached Fourteen Falls. And before I let anything harm you, I would die first.”

Kyreol swallowed. Her chin lifted; she lied with dignity, though he could see her still shaking. “Nothing in your world can make me afraid, Orcrow.” Then, as he smiled, she asked perplexedly, “But how does it work?”

He set the boat purring beneath them, moving sedately, and tried to explain. To explain, he had to
teach them new words. Kyreol learned them patiently, though she could have thought up a far better story of how the boat with the bellowing voice moved so quickly through the water.

Then Terje wanted to drive the boat. When Kyreol protested, he said, “It’s simple. When you turn the wheel, the boat turns. When you push the red stick up, it goes faster. When you push it down, it slows.”

“Is that all?” She turned to Orcrow. “Why didn’t you just say that?”

He sighed.

They spent that night on the riverbank under the stars, as they had done so many nights before. They built a fire and heated food that Arin had given them. Kyreol found it hard to sleep. The boat had unlocked all the noise in the world. The river chattered in a strange language; night birds made harsh noises. Even the sky spoke occasionally, droning like a mosquito. She got up finally, restlessly, and walked away from the river, homesick for the first time for the small peaceful noises of the Riverworld, for trails she could walk at night with her eyes closed, that led from one safe spot to another. She went through a grove of trees, so quietly she didn’t wake the birds, and up a small hill until she could barely hear the noise of the river.

She stood in the moonlight, searching the face of the moon, and it comforted her. It was tranquil and serene, the message-stone of the night, painted crystal-white, meaning peace. She wondered, for the first time, if it wouldn’t have been wiser not to ask so many questions if the answers were so confusing, so full of change and noise. Maybe she should go back . . . Her eyes strayed away from the moon, followed stars down
to the edge of the horizon. But they didn’t stop there. Thousands upon thousands of stars glittered on the dark earth, in the distance, on both sides of the river.

She sat down slowly on the cool, hard ground. Something enormous hovered above the lights. Big as a mountaintop, shaped like a half-moon tipped over . . . like a dome. Its underside was ringed with lights. It was dark, shadowy, smoldering from within with white fire, blue fire. Tiny burning insects winged in and out of it . . .

She huddled against herself, hugged her knees tightly, pushed her face against them. There were no stories for such a thing. There was only truth. The Hunter had told her that. The Riverworld was so small it could have been lost among those stars and never found. Once it had been the entire world. Now it was no bigger compared to the world than her thumbnail was to her.

“You wanted to know,” she whispered to herself. “You wanted to know.” She lifted her head again, crying helplessly, out of fear, for lost tales, until, in her blurring tears, the vast thing in the sky took on a fiery beauty such as she had never seen. She wiped her eyes, gazing at it, glimpsing the strangeness of the Hunter’s world. It meant nothing. It was itself. It held no messages, it had no need of stories. It was an answer.

She stirred finally and found the Hunter, sitting quietly as a stone, not far from her. She blinked at him, wondering how—wondering why . . .

“Why did you learn to move like that?” she whispered.

“To become a hunter.”

“In your world?”

“In yours.”

“Why?”

He shifted to sit beside her, said softly, “Kyreol, the Riverworld is tiny, but its names and rituals are far older than that city. Many people know it exists. Very, very few are ever permitted to go there. I was one permitted. We go . . . because the Riverworld, its tales, its way of life, is something we value. Something precious. We go occasionally, secretly, disturbing no one, to make certain that nothing we do under that great dome disturbs the Riverworld. Not only the Riverworld, but all the small worlds within the world. We go even among the mask-people, among the river-tribe who built the faces. It’s a harsh, difficult thing to do. Sometimes it’s dangerous. But we go not to bring knowledge, not to bring change, but to observe. To watch over these little worlds. To guard their peace.” His face eased a little. “That’s why when you and Terje left the Riverworld because of me, the people in that dome were so angry with me. I should never have disturbed you, never caused you to question. But, having caused that, now I’m responsible for you.”

“My mother—is she there?”

“She came there, yes. Only . . . she came alone down that river. She never saw the stranger in the Riverworld. As you did. She simply asked, ‘Where does the river go?’ And she got into a boat and followed it.”

Kyreol smiled a little, wiping at dried tears. “I’m more afraid than she was.”

“Kyreol, you and Terje have so much courage you fill me with wonder.”

“Terje . . .” She plucked a grass stem at her feet, tore it delicately along its seam. “He—we—”

“I know. You love him. And you are betrothed.” He chuckled as she stared at him. “I’m trained to know about the Riverworld.”

“He is to be betrothed, at the next Moon-Flash.”

The Hunter was silent for a long time. “What does he want to do?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t know. He—” She frowned at the grass pieces, twisting them together. “He doesn’t want to trouble the Riverworld either. To disturb its rituals. Sometimes I think he never left it. All this is the dream. The betrothal at Moon-Flash—that’s the way things really are. Not this.” The immense floating dome drew her eyes again. Lights pulsated; it swallowed tiny flying things like a fish. “What is it for?”

“It’s for—it’s like the dock where the boats were moored. Only—”

She turned to him, her eyes big. “The things that fly like birds—they’re boats? Boats for the air?”

“Ships.”

“Ships.”

“Yes. Some of them come from other worlds. Other earths.” He gestured across the endless span of stars. “From there. They make their journeys down the river of the stars to come to Domecity.”

“It’s a story,” she breathed, entranced. “You’re telling me a story.”

“Some of the animals you saw along the river were from other worlds. Worlds too crowded, too busy to
take care of them. So they were sent here, to live freely in the wilderness.” He touched her hair lightly, smiling at the look on her face. “Do you like the story?”

She nodded. “Oh, yes. What does my mother do here?”