Moon-Flash (8 page)

This is the Face. This is the River. This is the boat with Terje and me in it, going toward the Falls. This is the boat, breaking in half, with two tiny people falling out of it. This is the cave where I slept.
She drew a square face with square eyes over the sleeper. The cave where the mask-people came.

The woman squatted and stopped her hand then.
She tapped at Reed-Face several times, saying a word over and over, until Kyreol understood what she wanted.

Where is Reed-Face?

She turned, pointed up the river, and the Sun-Woman nodded shortly. Then she looked at Kyreol for a long time out of her shrewd, wrinkled eyes. She snapped her fingers again, speaking, and two mudmasks came forward with bowls and began to paint Kyreol’s face blue.

She and Terje huddled together later in a vast, firelit cave full of paintings of dreams and nightmares. They were alone; the cave entrances were guarded. Kyreol was surrounded by pots and bowls of paint, and Terje by weapons, drums, fierce masks, and round red shields with the flash of light hurtling into them.

Terje, scowling back at the masks, only answered Kyreol’s questions in grunts until Kyreol asked in wonder, “Terje, did you forget your own language?”

He stirred. “No.” His frown moved from the mask to her. But he wasn’t seeing her. “They made me—They were waiting for me just outside the cave. They scared me. I tried to run, but they caught my arms and all the berries scattered all over the cave. I didn’t understand for a while that the masks weren’t their real faces. It was raining; night was coming; it was hard to see. They came out of the shadows like bad dreams . . . Then they put a face on my face, and I knew they were people. Like us. Only . . .” He paused, drawing breath. He let his head drop back against one of the dreams on the wall. “They took me to another cave. They kept touching my hair, looking into my
face. I think they think I’m a ghost. They kept trying to teach me to throw a spear. At a mask and a bunch of twigs. Maybe they needed a hunter. Only the mask was a man’s skull.” He touched a spear point. “They kill each other.”

“I know.”

“Well, why?”

“I don’t know.”

His brows pinched together. “I can’t think of any reason. How could people on the River come to be so different from us?”

“They have signs. They have a dream-cave. They know the Moon-Flash. Only here it doesn’t mean good fortune or betrothal. It means—”

“Killing.”

“That’s so strange,” she breathed. “The Moon-Flash has nothing to do with that. Everyone knows what it means.”

“Maybe they’re younger than we are. Their world hasn’t been on the River as long as the Riverworld. So they make mistakes.”

“Maybe,” she said doubtfully. “Terje, how can people see and dream the same things, yet have a different language for them?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Kyreol, let’s go home.”

“You dream.” She sighed. “And then you tell me your dream bcause nobody else can understand you, and I paint it on the wall. Then they’ll let us out. This isn’t the world I wanted to find. I wanted the Hunter’s world. He knows everything.”

“How do they expect me to dream here? I can’t sleep.”

“Terje, this morning, just before I woke, I had a dream warning me of danger. Then I woke, and the mask-people found me.”

“You dreamed—”

“Of the Hunter.”

“The Hunter.” He gazed silently at the full red moon of a shield. Then he said softly, “Well. Paint that on the wall. Then we can leave.”

She lifted her head, smiling. So, on the inner walls of the dream-cave, among the frightening masks and animals and death-dreams, she painted a tall dark man cloaked in feathers, with the speaking crystal in his hand. She grew absorbed in her work, coloring the feathers neatly and accurately, so absorbed that she didn’t hear Terje’s sudden gasp, or see him rise and stumble against the weapons. When she turned finally, satisfied, she found two people watching her.

She whispered, when she could find her voice, “I painted you, and you came.”

THE HUNTER had cloaked his feathers in fur. A wooden mask dangled by its strap from his hand. He was staring at the painting with a peculiar expression on his face, as if, Kyreol thought, he were seeing a turtle fly, or a boat sitting in a tree. He looked at Kyreol finally, with the same expression.

“What are you doing?”

“Well,” she said shyly. “Terje couldn’t dream. This is a dream-cave. So I painted my dream about you.”

“Me.”

“I dreamed you were trying to find me.”

“I was,” he said. “But how do you know what this place is?”

“I saw it in the paintings. The young boy enters the dark cave . . . He sees frightening things, or dreams a terrible dream. When he comes out, he makes his mask. Maybe Terje was supposed to dream his mask-face. But he couldn’t, so I painted you. So we could leave.”

The Hunter’s mouth eased into a faint smile. “I see. Kyreol, I thought you and Terje must have died going over Fourteen Falls. I found the broken pieces of your boat. But here you are, deep in the sacred caves of another world, painting my face on the wall.”

“You followed us,” Terje said. He was back against a ferocious nightmare; his face seemed calm but wary.

“Yes.”

“So you’re not—you’re not of the Riverworld.”

“No.”

“Or of this place.”

“No.”

“Oh.” His shoulders eased a little against the stones. “How—why can we understand you? I couldn’t understand the Sun-Woman.”

“The world is full of languages.” He contemplated Terje a moment, his face motionless as a mask. “Kyreol was the one who found me. Who asked the questions. What are you doing here?”

The side of Terje’s mouth curved upward. “I just wanted to see the rainbows.”

“Is that all?”

“Kyreol . . . she tells me stories, and then they come true. I had to come with her. Besides, the boat was ours together, and she needed it. And—”

“And?”

“She—we were always together, until she got betrothed. I didn’t want her to go off by herself.”

“I see.”

“She wanted to find the end of the world. But it hasn’t come to an end yet, and she won’t go home.”

“Even now?”

“Ask her.”

“I want to see your world,” Kyreol said patiently to the Hunter. “You know all the answers.”

Th Hunter smiled, the dark, grave lines in his face softening. “You,” he said, “are going to get me into trouble.” He took out his crystal; it sprang open in his hand. “Channel two,” he said softly. “Regny Orcrow. North Outstation Five. Acknowledge. Acknowledge.”

“Acknowledged,” the stone said. “Orcrow, where are you? Did you find the children?”

“Yes.”

“Are you coming in? You missed the pickup craft; there won’t be another here for two weeks.”

“I know.”

“Well, where are you?”

“I’m in the Cliff-Dwellers’ Passage of Dreams.”

“You’re . . . What on earth are you doing there? Are you hurt? In disguise? Do you want assistance? Where are the children?”

“Right here in front of me.”

The stone’s voice rose. “Orcrow, you’re fired!”

The Hunter’s mouth crooked ruefully. “Probably. But listen, it’s a bit complicated—”

The stone didn’t listen. It spoke steadily, angrily. The Hunter listened impassively, his eyes focussed on a distant point, as though he were watching an animal move slowly toward him. Finally he broke into the torrent of words. “All right. All right. I know. Ultimately I’m responsible. So right now, it’s more important for me to get these two out of here than listen to you chew my ear off. Send a message to Domecity for me, will you? This might take longer than—”

“Orcrow! Take the kids back home and get to Outstation
Five immediately. I’ll request a pickup craft. Is that clear? Orcrow? Acknowledge—”

“Just send the message,” Orcrow said. “I won’t let any harm come to the children. Out.” He closed the stone and sighed slowly. Then his head turned, with a hunter’s alertness, toward some sound. He breathed, “Come.”

He led them through a small passage in a wall of dreams and then upward, endlessly upward. The shining stone lit their way. Kyreol realized finally that they were travelling through the heart of the stone cliff, behind the dwellings. The Hunter did not let them speak, but they met no one in the damp, winding pathway. Finally, they reached what seemed must be the top of the world.

It was night. The sky was a glittering cap of stars touching all horizons. The vast circle of blackness rising up to meet the stars was the world as Kyreol had never seen it. She shivered in the wind, not with cold, but with wonder, and she wanted to peel back the blackness to see what marvels lay around them.

“Where is your home?” she asked the Hunter, and his answer stretched the world even farther.

“At the end of the River. You can’t see it from here.” He added mysteriously, “The world curves.”

“Will you take us there?”

He was silent for a long time. His face was motionless against the brilliant stars, as though it were carved out of river stone. “Not yet,” he said finally. “I have to leave you.”

“But—”

“Can you sail in the dark?”

“Yes,” Terje said gruffly.

“I’ll show you a trail back down to the river. There will be a boat tied there. Take it, and go swiftly. As swiftly as you can. Don’t sleep. You’ll hear drums; you’ll see fires. Don’t stop. Keep to the middle of the river. If you see any other boats, try to hide until they pass. And, here—” He gave Kyreol his stone. “This is for good luck. If you are in danger, open it and speak to it.”

She took it from him, feeling cold again as the shining slid into her fingers. “My mother’s stone,” she whispered. “The dream-stone.”

“Go downriver until dawn. Then, if you want to go home, open the stone and tell it that. Someone will come to lead you back.” He put his hands on their shoulders, led them across the top of the cliff to a trail. “Hurry.”

“But, wait—” Kyreol cried, standing still against his hold, and she saw him smile a little. “Will we see you again?”

“I don’t know. But I think so.” His hands nudged them forward. “Go.” He put on his mask, then; the last glimpse Kyreol had of him was a black oval face with white circles widening on it, like ripples on the river. Then the mask turned away from them, and he was gone.

The high cliffs blotted out the stars until they were once again a thin, curving river of light far above, mirroring the path of the water. The small boat tugged against its moorings at the trail’s end. The Hunter had put food in it, fishing lines, a tiny lamp, his knife, and Terje sighed with relief. They pushed the boat out and spent a few moments turning circles until they learned to handle the oars. Then, catching the
swift current, they rowed, out of the place of masks and caves and harshly singing drums, into morning.

At sunrise, they stared at each other, their faces smudgy with sleeplessness. The cliffs were gone. The river had broadened and flowed slowly through groves of odd trees with prickly, honey-colored barks and plump, yellow fruit. The banks were sandy gold. The blue sky seemed to have no beginning and no end.

They pulled the boat up onto the sand and lay in the warm light, their faces turned toward the sun like flowers. They ate dried fish and cracked nuts lazily, tossing shells into the river. The water was so clear they could see the stippled backs of fishes flickering through the gold-green depths. The sun climbed higher into the sky; distant mists dispersed, and the river glinted toward a far, flat horizon.

Terje counted days and nights on his fingers. “Two—three—four. This is the fourth day we’ve been gone. Kyreol, your father must be worried.”

“I’ll send him a dream,” Kyreol said drowsily, “so he’ll know I’m coming back.”

“We should go back now. Open the stone and tell it.”

“No . . .” she pleaded. “Just a little farther. Besides . . .” The river dimpled and tugged at her words. “You want to be back for Moon-Flash. For your betrothal. I’ll have to go back to Korre. I won’t see you anymore, then. Now, I have you with me for a while. Like we used to be.”

He rolled over, his back to the sun. She looked at him, but he wasn’t looking at her, he was frowning at the distance. The strange, spikey leaves of the trees rattled drily in the breeze. Then his eyes came to her
face. He smiled, the leaf-shadows sliding over his hair and his bare arms.