Moon-Flash (28 page)

THE RIVERWORLD people gathered, as night fell, one last time around the Healer’s house. Boats, lit by torch fire were poled up the slow currents to cluster in the dark, calm water beyond the house. The hunters came, stepping soundlesly through the forest. The gathering was silent; only very young children spoke now and then, briefly and softly. They all waited. Within the Healer’s house, Terje and Regny watched. Icrane’s body lay under a blanket of feathers the Riverworld women had sewn for him. A flame burned in an oil lamp. It lit Regny’s profile, designs in the various ritual carpets rolled in a corner, a glassy sheen in the dark tumble of feathers over the pallet.

Terje’s face was white in the glow, but after so many hours, he was beginning to think again. His cold hands were warming against a clay cup of tea he had chosen, recklessly and at random, from the jars and baskets in the house.

“We have to do something,” he said for the sixth
time. Regny nodded. He sipped his own tea and made a face. He put his cup down.

“What is this?”

“I don’t know. Regny, Korre’s mother has been telling people I’m the new Healer.”

“She—”

“She never questioned him. He was the Healer; he made the choice.”

“This is getting out of hand.”

“We have to do something.” He swallowed tea without tasting it. It warmed him unexpectedly; the blood flowed back into his fingers, his face. His eyes went to the outline beneath the feathers. Regny said nothing, watched him quietly, until the simplest of all thoughts occurred to him.

“We have to bury him.”

“That’s a good place to start,” Regny said gently. “How?”

“In the River. Everyone is buried in the River.”

“Even the Healer?”

Terje looked at him without seeing him, trying to think as the Riverworld might think, of special places, places of mystery and honor. “The Face,” he whispered. “The Falls . . . I wonder if there’s a secret ritual place behind the Falls. Regny—” He paused, on the edge of some decision. Regny waited. “Regny—”

“I’m listening.”

“The Dome would know. The Agency. They’ve been studying Riverworld ritual for centuries.”

Regny opened his mouth, closed it. “You want to bring the Agency into this?” he asked incredulously.
Terje nodded. His face was losing its frozen, dazed expression, growing calm again, as he contemplated the problem.

“There’s no other choice,” he said. “Is there? I could just tell the people the Healer was wrong, I can’t take his place. But he still must be buried. He must be given back to the River. Everyone would feel better if it’s done the way it should be. I’d feel better.”

Regny drew breath. “So would I,” he admitted. “He deserves that.”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to go back to the Outstation?”

“Can’t you call from here?”

“I can’t talk to Nara from here, not with a com-crystal. It won’t carry to the Dome. But I’ll call the Outstation, have them relay the message, and the information. That still might take a while.” He added, “I don’t know what the Agency will think.”

“It’s best for the Riverworld.”

“I know that. And you know. But—”

“They’ll do it,” Terje said. “Because they’ll have no choice. Do you know what I think, Regny? I think Nara should come back for this. Tell her.”

“How do you think she’ll feel?” Regny asked quietly. “Returning, after all these years, just to see him buried?”

Terje’s eyes strayed again to the great, shadowy wing laid over the Healer. “I came back,” he whispered, “for this. Maybe Icrane did know what he was doing. Maybe he was trying to bring the two worlds together finally.”

Regny was silent. His eyes narrowed as he looked
at Terje; the hard cast of his expression loosened a little. He said nothing more, just reached down, pulled the crystal out of his boot.

“Orcrow to Outstation Five. Orcrow—”

“Regny,” said the outstation beyond the western boundary of the Riverworld. “Outstation Five. What is it? Where are you?”

“In the Riverworld. Don’t quote regulations at me, we have an emergency. The Riverworld Healer is dead. We need instructions from the Agency.”

“Why don’t you just observe—”

“There is no ritual to observe. Yet. There is no Healer.”

“What?”

“Just listen. Listen hard. I want you to pass this message on to Nara, at the Cultural Agency.”

“But, Regny, what happened to—”

“Shut up. Listen.”

Terje went to the door as Regny spoke. The night had deepened. Stars swarmed across the sky; the moon, beginning to rise above the trees, huge, luminous, swallowed starlight in its glow. Ribbons of fire coiled and uncoiled across the dark water. He sensed eyes on him from across the River, from the forest. No one spoke. They simply waited, puzzled perhaps, but trusting the dream and the choice of the dead.

There was a long silence behind him: Regny was waiting, too, for Nara’s reply. As he had suspected, it took a long time. Regny rose after a while, brought Terje his cooling tea.

Terje drank it. It made him sweat. His head swam,
and he groped for balance against the door. He swallowed a bitter taste in his throat. The taste brought back a memory; gazing into the empty cup, he gave a soft laugh.

“I should have been more careful . . .” He wiped his forehead and came inside to sit down.

“What was it?” Regny asked tensely.

“Something for a spider bite. I used to get bitten a lot when I was little. I always thought the tea was worse than the bite.”

Regny grunted. “It must have worked; you’re still alive.” The com-crystal made a soft sound; he flicked it open. “Orcrow.”

“Outstation Five. I have Nara on another channel. She wants to know why you can’t simply follow instructions, proceed according to regulations—”

“What did you tell her?” Regny interrupted. “There are no regulations for this one. One of her agents is solely responsible for the Riverworld ritual, and he doesn’t know what to do. We need instructions.”

“She wants to know,” the Outstation said after a pause, “how you manage to get into these predicaments.”

Regny sighed. “I get lucky.”

“Do you want me to tell her that?”

“No.” He paused. Terje, shivering after the sudden sweat, watched him. Regny ran his hand through his hair—a frustrated gesture belonging to the world of the Dome. Then his eyes focused on the feathery shadow, and his body stilled again with a hunter’s stillness. “Tell her this: The Healer, her husband, is
dead.” There was silence. The crystal spoke again. “Tell her this: Before he died, he dreamed the dream of the new Healer. The new Healer in his dream held the River in one hand and the moon at Moon-Flash in the other.” Silence. “Tell her this: The new Healer in the dream was Terje . . . The Healer’s choice is known to the Riverworld. Tell her this: The Riverworld is waiting for Terje to bury the Healer. Tell her: All knowledge of the rituals died with Icrane. Ask her: What regulations would she like us to follow?”

There was a long silence. Regny paced a little, then sat beside the cold firebed. Terje, needing something to lean on, settled against the pile of ritual carpets. For a few moments he saw two flames in the oil lamp, two crystals in Regny’s hand. He closed his eyes, opened them again. The feathers drew his eyes, dark and restful. His thoughts strayed. He saw Icrane, walking up the edge of the River to the Face, close to the Falls, where he disappeared into some private place to contemplate the Riverworld. His world: life and death, ritual and dream. Sunlight and water, moonlight and forest. Adding a new pattern to the ritual carpets, a new family-sign to a child’s face. Births and spider bites, hunters’ accidents and misplaced fishhooks. Fire on the dark water and the long list of the dead, the never-forgotten, all the ghosts who, like last year’s leaves, added to the rich loam of the world.

Everything is simple.

He opened his eyes. The world was just the world: Riverworld or Dome. The language was different;
the heart of the world was changeless. The River ran to the Dome, connecting; a woman in the Dome remembered in silence the chants she had spoken in the shadow of the Face.

He said again, softly, to Regny, “Tell her to come.”

The com-crystal’s tone sounded. Regny drew his eyes from Terje. “Orcrow.”

“Regny . . .” The voice from the outstation was hesitant. “Nara asks to talk to Terje. Is he with you?”

“Yes.” He passed the crystal to Terje.

“I’m here,” Terje said.

“She wants to know what you will do. If you have accepted the Healer’s dream?”

Terje was silent, groping for words. “The Healer dreamed a dream,” he said finally. “I don’t know how to say yes or no to it. All I want to do is give him a burial ritual.”

“She wants to know: What then? Will you learn to become the Healer? Or will you leave the Riverworld, return to the Dome?”

Terje closed his eyes again, opened them to the shadows. He said patiently, “I don’t know. How can I know? It’s the Healer’s dream, not mine. Ask her to come here.”

“What?”

“Ask Nara to come to the Riverworld. Now. Ask her to bring the knowledge of the ritual herself. Please. Ask her to come. She has the right.” He paused, trying to hear Nara’s answer across the distance.

“She says—”

“Tell her nothing surprised the Healer. He dreamed about the Dome, he dreamed Kyreol’s flight between
planets, he even recognized Regny. He wanted— Tell her the Dome is just another dream of the Riverworld. Tell her—”

“Wait—”

He waited. Something he said had made Regny smile. The crystal spoke.

“Terje—”

“Tell her,” Terje said carefully, insistently, “the Healer said: ‘She ate my heart like the moon eats the sun.’ He always wanted her to return. His last words were: ‘Everything is simple.’ Tell her to come.”

The crystal was silent. The smile had vanished from Regny’s eyes. He leaned forward, drawn like Terje toward the crystal, tense, listening for its voice. But his eyes were on Terje’s face, in warning or in wonder.

“She’ll be there,” the crystal said, “by morning.”

MORNING. Kyreol stirred, opened her eyes. She was huddled against the alien, using it like a blanket. Its hands were roaming over the playing younglings; it seemed to be waiting patiently for Kyreol to move. She drew away from it; its eyes sought hers, again pale green. She smiled a little, after a moment, wishing she could thank it for permitting her to come so close. The beak clicked softly. She sneezed abruptly, from the cold and the dust; the alien gave a startled hiccup.

They both uncurled stiffly. The alien rose to gaze at the screen. Kyreol went to rummage in her pack for water and something to eat. It turned to regard her curiously as she chewed, its eyes turning the more familiar purple. She wondered what it lived on. Even as she wondered, it reached for something dangling on its knee and turned back to the screen nibbling. She joined it. It held what seemed to be a bar of green and brown seeds it picked at absently with its beak. She showed it her bar of concentrated
proteins and vitamins. It couldn’t make a face, but its sound-slits made a sudden whuff at the smell, and she laughed.

It gazed at her again. A ghostly echo of her laugh came out of it. Then it eyed the light signal, diffused a little in the hot sun pouring through the roof. It made a noise and turned again to the screen.

Dust.

Light.

Dark.

More light.

More dust.

Kyreol made an impatient, frustrated noise.

A hurricane.

They bumped together, staring at the screen. Dust whirled wildly in every direction. It began to clog the equipment, but before the image was blotted out, a streak of fire splashed across the screen.

Kyreol jumped. The alien reached out instantly, stilled the image. It went dark. But the coordinates were still there. Incomprehensible, but there.

“What—” Kyreol breathed. The alien chattered at her, pointing at the blank screen. It turned her around finally, its hands on her shoulders, and pointed at the shuttle.

A ship.

“Someone landed!” She whirled, staring at the screen. “They saw our light! But where? But where?”

The alien’s fingers were racing across the panel keys. The entire alphabet of color ranged across one of the other screens. The alien muttered at it awhile,
its eyes the deep, purple-black. Slowly, under its instructions, the tiny lines of color began to break up.