Racing the Dark (15 page)

"You'll be in for a treat, then, if you've never seen the liha'wai dance."

"Liha'wai? What's that?" Lana asked, turning her attention away from the water.

"River nits. Strange creatures that come out at night ... entirely for their own purposes, whatever those might be. But they make a beautiful display for humans anyway."

Akua fell silent and Lana turned back to the water. She could imagine swimming in it, darting back and forth like a fish with moonlight glinting off her skin. Gradually she realized that river water was indeed shimmering more than could be accounted for by the moon. Then in a sudden rush like the sound of thousands of tiny splashes, the moonlight itself seemed to fly up from the water and hover above the boat. Around her sailors and passengers alike stopped what they were doing to look. Strange, tiny silver-scaled creatures that looked a little like fish with membranous wings and long skinny webbed legs danced in the silvery light. They arched and plummeted, spun and zipped around each other so quickly they looked like blurs of illumination. A smile lit Lana's face and she stared, transfixed. How had she never known that something like this existed? She wondered if she would see miracles like this wherever she traveled, or if such wonders were far fewer than the pain she had become accustomed to. Did moments like this simply exist to convince humans to continue their largely painful lives? Or, was there was no design to it at all and it still served, unwittingly, the same purpose?

"This is their mating dance," Akua said. "All autumn long the river lights like this, and then these creatures will give birth and die. Come summer, every beautiful spark you see here will be dead."

The very imminence of their deaths, Lana realized, made their dance that much more poignant. "But next year their children will dance the same dance ... that's a kind of immortality, isn't it?"

Akua looked at her curiously, and then shrugged her shoulder. "For some, perhaps, that's sufficient."

"What other options do we have?" she asked, gazing at the liha'wai.

"Ah, Lana. There are always other options. It just depends how much you are willing to sacrifice for them."

Lana looked at Akua's empty right sleeve and wondered what option she had chosen. Then she looked back up at the dancing nits and wished her mother were here to share it with her.

5

MEA SAT WITH KOHAK u in the back of the lecture hall, watch ing his hands translate what Professor Nahe was forcefully declaiming on the podium. As part of the citywide celebrations of the spirit solstice, the Kulanui was giving a series of decently well-attended lectures on the history of the spirit bindings. The room this evening was packed with studious-looking students clad in orange or green robes and a smattering of civilians drawn by Professor Nahe's reputation as a popular speaker. Kohaku wore green robes and the woven purple headband of an adjunct professor, which he had just been awarded the week before. Emea was, of course, incredibly happy for him-she would never tell him that the main reason he had finally been promoted was because Nahe had spoken for him on her behalf.

Though she had spent most of her life in a silent world after the fever that stole her hearing, Emea found it amusing to try to imagine what Nahe's voice sounded like, up there on the podium. His mouth was firm, but she knew that it could be achingly soft and pliable under her lips. His eyes raked the crowd, and for the briefest of moments they rested on her, leaving her breathless. She turned back to Kohaku, terrified that he had noticed, but he was still signing, seemingly unaware of Emea's wandering attention.

Ever since Kohaku had returned from the outer islands two years ago, she had lived in terror that he would discover her relationship with Nahe. Kohaku would never understand how much she loved Nahe. He would demand that she never see him again, and she couldn't bear to have to pick between them. It wasn't that her brother would begrudge giving her to any man; the problem was that Nahe was already married. Kohaku would never let her become a lowly second wife. To be perfectly honest, Emea herself knew she would be unhappy in such a situation, much as she loved Nahe. So she kept her relationship a secret and never thought too far into the future-for now, it was enough just being with him, and having her brother back.

She refocused her attention on Kohaku's hands, since he would find it suspicious if she didn't pay attention to what was being said when she had practically begged him to attend the lecture. Nahe was speaking of the great fire spirit, Essel's ancient patron. Nui'ahi, the great volcano, was held in check because of the fire spirit's binding, and in return the spirit held ultimate control over the greatest nation-state of the islands. Every fifteen years, any who dared could undertake the great pilgrimage to the inner fire shrine, where the fire spirit itself would pick the next Mo'i, Essel's supreme ruler. The time of the next trial was looming-in three years Ehae, the current Mo'i, would step down and a new one would be chosen. With the recent rumors of possibly spirit-caused disasters on the outer islands, people were anticipating this pilgrimage more than any in recent memory. Ehae's son, now fifteen years old, was expected to be a supplicant, but history had taught them all that there was no telling who the fire spirit would pick. And those it didn't pick, of course, served as freely given sacrifices. It was a common adage of the great pilgrimage: many venture, but only one returns. The power and the prestige that went with becoming Mo'i were such that many were willing to take the risk, although Emea herself could never understand it.

She preferred less drastic measures of honoring-or at least propitiating-the great fire spirit. Before her fever, her father had always taken both of them to the local temple at sundown on the last day of the solar month. They, along with a diminishing but determined few from their city, would burn thick candles and beg the fire spirit for forgiveness and temperance in the face of its thousandyear imprisonment. According to Nahe, worship of the fire spirit had been drastically different before the binding. Now, priests were mainly concerned about the strength of the bonds and worked to reduce anything that might weaken them. Fear-not respect, and certainly not love-motivated modern religious observance. Yet, in the remote and shadowy days before the bindings, respect and love for the spirits had apparently been normal. Without any clear knowledge of sacrifice, or of the great geas, the primitive people worshipped and honored and prayed to be spared. Nui'ahi, Nahe said, erupted no less than five times in one century, an image that made Emea shudder with a mix of horror and guilty pleasure. To see the sentinel in full rage ... it would have been a truly awesome sight.

Before she was really prepared, Nahe's speech ended. He caught her eye just before he left and signaled discreetly for her to find him outside. Emea looked frantically at Kohaku, but thankfully he was adjusting his headband and hadn't noticed.

"I have to ... ah, use the facilities. Wait here, I'll be right back," she said.

Kohaku nodded absently, already focused on chatting with a high-ranking professor two rows away. Outside the lecture hall, she felt the jarring impact of her wooden heels on the hard inlaid marble of the corridor. Covered lamps in sconces on the walls wavered as she ran past, making her shadow dance. She dashed up a rounded flight of stairs and then through another smaller corridor that ended in two closed doors. One, however, was open very slightly, letting in a thread of the chill night breeze. Emea forced herself to approach it slowly. She brushed back her hair and closed her eyes briefly before pulling the knob with shaking hands. Nahe was sitting on the edge of their hidden balcony, his graying hair pulled back into a short ponytail save for three loose braids around his temples. A fashion for a younger man, but the brashness suited him. The harsh planes of his face were not softened in the moonlight, but Emea had always found him beautiful. He turned to face her when she stepped onto the balcony and closed the door behind her. A smile played around his lips.

"I couldn't stand to see you sitting there with him, pretending that you didn't even know me," he signaled. His hands were clumsier than Kohaku's, but he could sign well enough for her to understand him.

Emea shrugged. "What else could I do? It's so hard to see you sometimes. Your wife can't know about us, and neither can my brother."

"Ah, my wife. She knows more than I give her credit for, I think. But still, in my position, it wouldn't do for us to be found out."

Emea hated when Nahe spoke like this-so ... callously. Times like these she wondered if he could possibly understand how much she loved him. To dispel her doubts she shook her head and hugged him fiercely. He returned the gesture after a moment and then lowered his head to kiss her.

His passion was enough to eradicate any niggling doubts, and she gave herself up to it for a few heady moments before she gasped and broke away.

"I must go back," she said. "Kohaku is waiting for me."

He stared at her for a long moment, and Emea wished for the thousandth time that she could be with him openly. She had halfhoped that he would beg her to stay, or at least make some show of regret, but he merely shrugged.

"Go back to your sycophant of a brother then," he said, and then turned back toward the moonlit sky.

Emea tried very hard not to cry when she closed the door behind her, but she wasn't entirely successful.

Dear Lana,

You'll be pleased to hear that your father's shop is getting some recognition from people in very high places. A council member on the musician's guild who is training a young bow-harp virtuoso to play before the Mo'i on her birthday next month came by today to test some of your father's instruments. As you can imagine, Kapa was nearly delirious. Instruments made with his own hands played before the Mo'i! After two years in Essel, his dreams are beginning to come true.

As for me, I still help out in the shop most of the time, but I have recently found another small occupation. This will probably sound as strange to you as it did to me at first, but I have begun to teach swimming lessons to rich families' children. Can you believe that most people in this city die without ever touching the water for any purpose besides bathing? We, of course, learned for necessity, but as my students will probably never have to dive for their livelihoods, they are learning it for their own amusement. I also seem to have a certain exotic cachet, since I was once a mandagah diver. Their skin is all so pale here, and no wonder-I remember complaining about the weather on Okika, but it is a hundred times colder in Essel. Sometimes I almost wish that volcano would erupt, just so I could be truly warm once before I die. No, I'm kidding, Lana, don't worry-it may be cold here, but I'm not that desperate yet. Lucky for me, though the air is cold, the water is mostly warm. I train the kids in a lake heated by underground vents-sometimes it's so hot I have to get out and cool down!

As always, I miss you and I wish you could be here with us, so that we could be a proper family again. It was so wonderful seeingyou during the holidays-I couldn't believe how much older you looked. I guess that's what happens in a year. And I love the mirror you gave me, although Kapa has threatened to take it away if I keep looking at myself so often. I guess I just can't get over the novelty of seeing my face in something other than water. I never knew that I had a mole below my right eye! For some reason that keeps astounding me, although I'm sure you're now laughing over what a country bumpkin you have for a mother! Oh, and needless to say, Kapa loved the tortoiseshells. He's working on them right now, in fact. I have to stop writing or I'll be late for my swimming class. Please write back when you can.