by Paula Guran
They washed with the clear, cold water of the lake, and then, while Aluan dressed and cooked a hare he had shot, Ly faced Primus, closed her eyes—staring at the glory that was Primus, even for a few seconds, would have blinded her—and sang her morning prayers.
Giver of Light, First Among Equals. You are the warmest, brightest, most life-giving of ten brothers. We give you thanks, Lord Primus. May our Headman lead us as wisely as you lead the suns of Zyxlar.
She noticed that Aluan refused to join in the prayer or to even pause his work. Has he really grown so full of pride? Her anger grew. He doesn’t know everything. No one does. Haven’t the Wandering Sages of the Grasslands always taught that the Terrans are meant to be ignorant about much of the world, lest we become as the Zyxlar?
After the meal, as they washed their hands and faces by the lake, Aluan said, “Would you try to hunt for some supper by yourself? I need time to prepare something to show you.”
Ly nodded, preoccupied with thoughts of how to reconcile her father and Aluan.
By the time Ly returned to their campsite, Primus was nearing the western horizon, and Secundus and Tertius were rising in the east. She had a pair of rock-shelled voles hanging from her saddle and a dozen prairie gaswing eggs, a delicacy, packed in soft grass in her pouch. Aluan had been a malnourished little boy when he had first arrived in their tent, and for years, her father had saved all the prairie gaswing eggs for him. Maybe the sight would guilt him into agreeing to return home with her.
Aluan, sweaty and exhausted looking, was working on some contraption. By the looks of it, he had been at it all day. It was possible that he had skipped lunch and even his nap.
“Hey, time to eat.”
He looked up and smiled at her. “I’m almost finished. I have to get this done before Primus sets.”
She sat down next to him and brought the fire back to life. She set the eggs to boil in a bark-pot and began to dress the voles, peeking at what Aluan held in his hand.
He had constructed a long, rectangular box out of skins wrapped around a frame woven from the tough reeds growing at the edge of the lake. One end of the box was covered by the soft, supple skin of a young fox, stretched taut across the opening. There was a tiny hole in the middle of the skin, apparently poked by a sharpened reed.
“What are you making?”
“You’ll see.” He flipped the box over to show her the other end. She gasped. A translucent, pale white, thin screen covered the opening of the box.
He had collected the gossamer threads spun by the spiders whose silken balloons drifted across the prairie in spring whenever there was a breeze. The threads were so thin that he must have spent all day painstakingly picking up each strand with a reed stalk to carefully lay it across the box opening. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
She frowned. “That’s a lot of effort for something that will fall apart with a puff of breath.” On the grasslands, effort had to be conserved and survival was tenuous. The amount of effort he had spent on something like this could have been spent on hunting. She lamented the waste.
“Then don’t blow at it.” He held the box up so that the end with the tiny hole in the fox skin faced Primus, and the end with the gossamer screen was in front of her face. She looked and gasped again.
On the screen was an image of Primus, about the size of the palm of her hand. It was another shade of white, much brighter than the screen itself. But unlike staring at Primus itself, it wasn’t painful to stare at this echo of Primus.
“What kind of magic is this?” she asked.
“It’s not magic,” he said. “The box is light-proof—”
Ly shuddered. The world was never without light from one or more of the ten suns. Lightless places, where the sun could not shine, existed only in caves deep under water, in snake nests hidden underground, in stone houses where murderers and witches were left to die in darkness. To construct a light-proof thing was to brush against evil.
But Aluan went on, oblivious. “—and through this pinhole, only a thousandth of Primus’s strength can pass through. That light, falling against the screen on this end, forms an image of Primus. But because the image has only a small amount of the strength of Primus, it’s possible to look at it without hurting your eyes. I call it the sun-gazer.”
“That’s very clever,” Ly said. She marveled at the image on the screen, the first time she had ever been able to truly see what Primus looked like.
Instead of the perfect outlined circle she had always imagined, she saw a disk with fiery, indistinct edges. Curling tongues of flame shot out from the disk, reminding her of the tiny swimming legs of the gigantic jade-jellyfish drifting in the lakes. And the disk itself was hardly like the surface of a pearl. Dark patches, like impurities drifting in a cup of kefir or pimples on a youthful face, dotted the white surface and marred it.
But Lord Primus was without flaws. Unlike earthly objects, Primus was heavenly and contained no impurities.
“Hardly perfect, is it?” asked Aluan. She could hear a kind of weariness as well as relief in his voice. “But that’s not even the most interesting part. Try to memorize the pattern of the dots.” Aluan then moved the box so that the pinhole end pointed at Secundus. “Tell me what you see.”
Secundus was not nearly as bright as Primus, and the image on the screen was far dimmer as well. It took a few moments for Ly’s eyes to adjust. Once again, there were the curling tongues of flame reaching out from the edge of the disk and the scattered black spots across the surface: here’s a bunch that reminded her of the shape of the rocks poking out of the lake’s surface; there’s a bunch that she thought looked like the hundreds of cairns snaking across Tannerjin, the holy site where all the tribes gathered every year . . .
Wait!
She grabbed the box from Aluan’s hand and looked back at Primus, and then at Secundus again. Then she turned to Tertius, and then back to Primus. Finally, she put the box down and stared at Aluan.
His face was completely expressionless. Not even a muscle twitched. He was waiting for her to say what she thought before he would react.
Her voice trembled. What she had seen was too incredible, too strange. She was sure she was hallucinating. “Secundus and Tertius . . . looking at them is like looking at Primus . . . in a mirror.”
Whatever Ly had been expecting from Aluan wasn’t what she got: he whooped and roared with laughter; he did a cartwheel; he came up to her and kissed her, hard.
She was too stunned to speak.
“Finally, finally!” He put his hands on the sides of her face and touched his forehead to hers. “I’ve been unable to share what I’ve seen with anyone. For the longest time, I thought I was crazy, mad, that I hallucinated. I made sun-gazers and then destroyed them, only to rebuild them again. But you see it, you see what I see! It’s true.”
“But what does this mean?”
“I don’t know! I’ve been observing the suns in secret for years. The patterns have been getting denser.” He took out and unfolded a large sheet of the thinnest tauroch skin, cured and scraped and worked until it was as soft as a newborn’s nose. It was filled with dense drawings of disks with patterns of black dots. “The patterns of dots shift over time. It’s always the same: whatever shows up on Primus can also be seen on Secundus, Tertius, Quartus . . . but backwards, so that what’s east is west, and west east.”
Ly looked at him, terror in her eyes. “I don’t understand. Are you saying that the nine suns other than Primus are illusions? That they don’t exist?”
Aluan shook his head. “I don’t have answers. But I do know that the stories your father insists on are not true. The ten suns are not each unique; the drought has been getting worse; we used to have more and bigger game to hunt, and maybe we once didn’t need to hunt at all. I don’t know how these things are connected, but I do know that I can’t make myself believe in lies anymore.” He nodded at the sun-gazer in Ly’s hand.
Ly thought about what she ha
d seen on the translucent screen. It was true. Once she had seen the flares curling away from the edge of the image of Primus, it was impossible to believe in the perfectly smooth, unchanging flow of her father’s stories.
But she was reminded of one particular story her father had once told her after he had drunk too much kefir, a story that he had laughed at and said contained no truth at all.
“It’s an old myth of Earth,” he had said, “just a made-up story.”
No one knew what “of Earth” meant—whether it was the name of a place or person or god. Ly knew only that it meant this was a story from before the time of the Zyxlar, brought from the womb of the Terrans. And the story had frightened her.
Long ago, when the universe was young and the Terrans still lived on our home world, there were ten suns.
The suns did not come out all at once. Instead, they slept beneath the world, and each day, a different sun rose from the east, heated and lighted the world, and set in the west to bring forth night.
—Ly, what’s “night?”
I don’t know, and my father didn’t explain. But since the suns only came up one at a time, I guess night is when there is no sun.
—But there is always at least a sun, or a few suns, in the sky.
Let me finish the story. One day, the ten suns grew bored, and decided to all come out and play at the same time. The combined heat of the ten suns was unbearable. Water boiled from the ocean and the lakes; the exposed riverbeds cracked with the heat; plants wilted and animals panted with thirst; those laboring in the fields fell down—
—What does “laboring in the fields” mean?
I don’t know!
There were lots of things my father said that didn’t make sense.
What happened next was that a great hero, whose name was Hou Yi, came to save the Terrans. He climbed the tallest mountain, and, from its peak, demanded that the suns resume their orderly course.
The suns refused.
And so Hou Yi took off his bow, which was made from the horns of the strongest, biggest bull taurochs, and he notched an arrow, which was made from the sharpest reed growing by the shores of the Yellow River and the longest wing feathers of migrating wild gaswing. Hou Yi pulled the bow until it was as round as the disks of the suns themselves. Then he let go.
The arrow struck one of the suns, and it dove into the ocean and sank beneath the waves like a fiery bird shot out of the sky.
One by one, Hou Yi shot down nine of the suns. The last sun, terrified, promised to rise and set every day as regularly as the swings of a pendulum, and that was how the great hero restored balance to the world.
Aluan pondered Ly’s story. Then he opened his eyes.
The determination in Aluan’s eyes both excited and frightened Ly.
“What have you decided?” Ly asked.
“I must become Hou Yi and shoot the suns down. I must go to the City. It’s the only way to save our people.”
“You’re crazy—”
Aluan smiled at her. “Why do you think I’m the one who’s mad? Isn’t it even more mad to go on pretending year after year, decade after decade, that nothing is wrong, that nothing has changed, that we can do nothing?
“But now we know what our people are capable of—”
“—it’s just a myth—”
“—but myths can become true. Would you have believed that you could gaze at the face of Lord Primus one day without being blinded? Would you have believed that the other suns are but mirrors for Lord Primus? Had I told you these things but yesterday, you would have dismissed them as myths, too!”
Ly’s heart felt uplifted. His faith was like the light of life-giving Primus. “Then I’m coming with you.”
Our ancestors once lived with the Zyxlar in the City, far to the north. There, the mountain-houses were so dense that they formed a forest. Thousands, perhaps even millions, lived in the forest, along with metal beasts and machine birds.
—That’s not even remotely possible, Aluan.
Don’t talk to me of possible and impossible. Haven’t we already reached the edge of the grasslands, supposedly endless? Haven’t we already seen animals you’ve never imagined? Haven’t we already been journeying in this land where there’s nothing but sand for days? Haven’t we seen the Silicates and Saurians scurry out of our way even though we were told that violating the Separation would surely bring us death?
Back to the story. One day, the Zyxlar decided to abandon our ancestors and left them on their own. Without the Zyxlar, the magic that kept the City running died.
—I’m going to die of thirst if I don’t get a drink of water.
Here you go.
—Why aren’t you drinking?
I’m not thirsty.
—Liar! That was our last bit of water, wasn’t it? You should have taken it yourself. You haven’t drunk anything for a whole day.
I told you. I’m not thirsty.
—Our horses are dead. We’re never going to get out of this place, are we?
Of course we will. Didn’t Hou Yi have to climb the highest mountain? Didn’t Neil the Strong-Armed have to endure a house of darkness propelled by a pillar of fire? We will make it.
—Finish telling me the story. I’m not so thirsty when the story gets good.
The lights in the mountain-houses dimmed. The stale air inside the City became suffocating. The metal birds fell out of the sky, killing those who rode on them. The metal beast no longer obeyed. The Terrans had to leave the City to survive, and the City fell silent and disappeared from our memories.
But it’s there Ly, I know it’s there, and I will find it. That is where I will find the bow that will shoot down the suns that are drying this world and killing us.
The rain came like a solid sheet of water descending from the sky. The two of them were drenched in minutes. Still, they lifted their faces to the sky and drank and drank.
All the suns, even Primus, were hidden behind thick layers of clouds. Light seemed to come from everywhere.
The country they were in now was mountainous, and the water, more water than they had ever seen, coalesced into rivulets, collected into rivers, and thundered through the valleys into some misty distance. The mountains, steep, hard, and soilless, supported no vegetation. Any seeds that tried to take root would have been washed away.
“Do you think that’s where the ocean is?” Aluan asked.
“Perhaps.” Ly was no longer able to doubt anything, no matter how fantastic.
“No matter how hard it rains here,” Aluan said, “the water doesn’t seem to be able to cross the desert before it’s boiled away. It rains hard where there’s too much water, and it doesn’t rain where the ground is thirsty.”
When the rain stopped, they emerged from the valley.
The City loomed before them, a forest of towering steel skeletons that seemed to reach for the sky. At their feet were piles of rubble like giant cairns. As Ly and Aluan made their way through the City, broken shells of metal beasts, some with stiff wings like dead birds, lined the wide avenues. Beds, chairs, tables and other strangely shaped furniture whose purpose eluded them were scattered here and there, crumbling to dust at one touch.
“So, it’s all true,” whispered Ly. It was so quiet save for the occasional twitter of a bird or the scrabbling of some animal’s feet. The place felt unwelcoming; everything seemed alien.
They headed for the center of the City, where a gigantic domed structure rose out of the rubble, the only intact building left.
The build had heavy metal doors that slid on rails. They were stuck, semi-open. Beyond the opening was darkness.
Ly hesitated.
“Hou Yi would not be afraid,” said Aluan, even though Ly could tell that he was terrified. Nonetheless, he took a deep breath and stepped inside.
Immediately, a booming, disembodied voice whose tone betrayed no emotion spoke: “Access denied. Unaccompanied members of the Slave Races must be authorized.”
The heavy d
oors came to life can began to slide towards each other. Aluan tried to back out but his right leg was caught between them. He fell to the ground and began to scream. The doors groaned and the sound of rusty, ancient machinery drowned out his screams.
Ly rushed over and tried to pull him out, and then she tried to push the doors back. It was like struggling against a mountain. Aluan’s leg slowly deformed in the crushing grip of the doors, and then they heard it break. He screamed again. But the doors still would not let go.
Ly prayed to Lord Primus, she called out to the Zyxlar. She shouted for her father’s help. But no one answered her.
Then she saw a row of five impressions on the surface of the door, one of which was in the shape of a hand. Without thinking, she put her hand in it. She felt a sharp stab of pain, and when she pulled her hand out, she saw beads of blood at the tips of her fingers.
“Identity of authorized Terran confirmed,” said the disembodied voice. “You may enter.”
The doors scraped even more loudly in their rails as they slid back open.
Ly cradled Aluan’s head in her arms and kissed his face. “Oh thank Lord Primus. I thought I had lost you!”
Aluan gave her a wan smile. “Thank yourself. The bloodline of the Headmen flows through you. The Zyxlar authorized you.”
A second set of doors slid open, and they were bathed in milky white light.
Inside, the domed building was just one massive circular hall. Ly had splinted Aluan’s leg, and slowly, with Aluan’s arm over her shoulder, the pair climbed up the long, spiraling stairway along the wall on three legs. It was like being inside a mountain.
A great chandelier hung suspended from the apex of the dome. As they passed clusters of strange machinery along the wall, full of levers and buttons and blinking lights, the strange voice would speak up as they passed each:
“Terraforming Station Fifty, Solar Observation: heightened solar activity exceeding safety levels. Recommend decrease in illumination.”
“Terraforming Station Forty-four, Hydrology: water table depleted in temperate zone.”
“Terraforming Station Twenty-one, Meteorology: extreme weather patterns in progress. Recommend decreasing global temperature.”