Flight To Exile

by Chris Reher

  “Yala brought those. And a few things from your home. She’ll fetch what you need but it might not be safe to return there. She said there were some of those emissaries nosing around the harbor.”

  She came to the table and carefully lowered herself into a chair. “She’s a sweet girl. Her father is a decent sort but without a mother she’s grown into a reckless little rogue. I don’t want her snooping where there are emissaries about.” She closed her eyes and gripped the edge of the table when the room suddenly lurched sideways.

  “You all right?”

  She took a deep, hitching breath and nodded. “It’ll be a while before I'm well again. I haven’t really eaten in days. I'll need to sleep a lot. And bathe.”

  “There is a bathhouse out back,” he said, grimacing. “Although that’s a rather grand term for it. We have to leave this place soon. There is some suspicion about us downstairs. They saw us carry you up here; I’m sure they’re... uh... wondering what’s going on.”

  She winked lewdly, amused by his discomfort. “I’m not sure what’s going on, either, but something tells me it’d be best to have them thinking exactly what they’re thinking.” She shrugged. “Right now I'm starving!”

  He gestured at the food on the table and tipped his chair back to watch her dig into the bowl of boiled grains, fish and vegetables. “Don’t you people here use forks or spoons or something? I don’t think I’ve seen anyone use anything but their hands to eat. And everyone eats from the same bowl.”

  “I wasn’t aware that you folks in the north are so fussy.” She nodded when he offered tea.

  “We’re not from the north, but you knew that,” he said as he filled her cup. “We are called adepts. People with a gift for… magic. You’ll meet more of us once you're home.” He smiled at her astounded expression. “Eat!”

  “What do you mean: home?”

  “We’re taking you home with us. You are needed elsewhere.”

  “And where’s that?”

  He looked beyond her to the open window. Through a haze of clouds a wedge of the Homeworld planet was visible within its frame. Its oppressive nearness when in a clear sky was burdensome to Thali moon’s citizens and many felt relief when the perpetual cloud cover hid it from sight. To feel it hovering over their heads served as a constant and unwelcome reminder of their exile. Shortly, the planet would move over the sun to blot out daylight for one of the frequent eclipses involving either the Homeworld or the second moon, or even both. “Over there. The planet. Our Homeworld.”

  She stared blankly at the planet before turning back to him. “Is that meant to be funny?”

  “Why would you think it's funny?”

  She jumped up and her chair clattered to the floor. Could this man really be a Homeworlder? One of the Old Ones, returned to this moon to spread mischief and terror? “I don't belong there! And if you two are from there I’ll have nothing to do with you.” She edged around him to the door before she remembered that he had barred it. “You are enemy to Chenoweth.”

  “Yes, I know that,” he said, seeming surprised by her reaction. “Why does that upset you? We mean you no harm, I promise.”

  “You’ve locked me in here. That doesn’t seem harmless.”

  He nodded toward the door. “There, open. Leave if you want, but you need to hear what I have to tell you.”

  She lifted the latch but then left the door closed. “Hear what?”

  “Come, sit down, you'll wake Chor up.”

  “He's no more asleep than we are,” she said but after a moment returned to pick up her chair. The stranger slouched casually and she felt none of the violent hostility that had exuded from him when they had faced the slaver and his guards. There was nothing here to fear. “What’s your business with that planet?”

  “We live there. You belong there, too.”

  “Not likely! Your people left us in exile. It’s because of you that we are locked away up here on this moon.”

  “We didn’t leave you on purpose. We were prevented from coming here by Chenoweth.”

  Aletha’s eyes involuntarily moved the window when he mentioned the second moon above the Homeworld, the icy, distant Chenoweth. “Yes, of course you were. They banished you. How did you two find your way back up here?”

  “Chi’ro.”

  “Chi what?”

  “Chi’ro, or sometimes called chiaro. You mentioned it this morning when you called it magic.”

  “Our magic has a name?”

  He nodded. “But it isn’t magic. It’s an element that exists on the Homeworld and on both moons. There is very little of it here on Thali moon. It’s like an intense, living energy that rises from the ground but it can’t be seen with the eyes. Chi’ro affects some people’s brains. Their minds. You and I have the gift to use this energy to suit our purposes. There are many like us on the Homeworld.”

  “People who can magically visit the moons?” she said, sarcasm evident in her tone.

  “Not any more. Coming here was quite a feat, even for us. But at one time this was easy. Not just for the ‘magic users’, but for everyone. There are places where chi’ro is concentrated in what we call risers, like little clouds of it, coming up from the ground. And back in time there were places so dense with it that the risers reached out to the moon, or to other places on the planet, to form conduits, gateways of sorts. We call those launches. At one time these were stable and led from one place to another. From one moon to another. We used it to travel.”

  “That’s a long way to travel.”

  He smiled. “It takes only a moment to step through those conduits. It’s like space and even time don’t exist in there.”

  Aletha considered the prospect, curious despite her doubts about what this stranger was telling her. “Sounds like magic.”

  “Well, I guess it does. In any case, a few hundred years ago something happened and Chenoweth cut themselves off from the Homeworld and then cut this place off as well. They found a way to seal all of the launch sites that lead to the moons. It took a long time and much of our resources to find a way to send us here from the planet. We were sent by… by the most powerful mind on the Homeworld. It was difficult for her to open a conduit to let us through and it isn't something she can do very often. It takes up an incredible amount of chi’ro now. I don’t know why Chenoweth sealed the launches.” He looked to the window. “I don’t know much about this place at all. It’s a bit of a mystery to us.”

  “Chenoweth sealed them to keep you out. You should not have come here. You are in more danger than I am, Demon.” Her eyes moved to the planet that on clear days seemed close enough to touch. “It’s because of your ways that we were trapped up here.”

  “Tell me your story. We’ve had no news of you for hundreds of years. This place isn’t what I expected.”

  She shrugged. “It’s like you said, Chenoweth severed our worlds from each other. At one time we got along, we were neighbors. My people here on this moon, the Homeworlders down there, and the gods on Chenoweth.”

  “Gods?”

  “Yes, how can you not know about them? They live on Chenoweth now, the Garden of the Gods.”

  “They used to be over here on this moon?”

  She nodded. “For many years the people and the gods traveled among the three worlds as they wished, like you said. I guess through those conduits you described. Thali was peaceful and beautiful and things were plentiful here. It wasn’t a crime to be a magic user and we weren’t called demons then. But then something happened. The gods blamed the Homeworlders for some terrible feats of magic and punished all of us by locking the doors to Chenoweth and the Homeworld. The storms came, and earthquakes, and our healers slowly lost their talents. So now, for our sins, it is only when we die that we are permitted to visit the Garden on Chenoweth and the gods who live there and wait for us.”

  “And so the Descendants are people who still have the talent for using… magic?”

  “People like me. Like you. Dazai, the el
der god, commanded all of us to be destroyed. No one but the gods is allowed to use magic. And so we are hunted and murdered by their emissaries. Their work is nearly done; there are fewer of us born with each generation.” She sighed and paused before continuing, her eyes bright with unspilled tears. “Some say that we are no longer human. We’re an abomination in the eyes of the gods and will not be welcome on Chenoweth.”

  “Yet you don’t try to avoid the magic you find.”

  “Avoid it? Could you avoid it? Can you avoid breathing?”

  Galen smiled thinly. “No, I don’t suppose so.”

  “And so we live with this… this sin. We know what we do can cost us our lives on Thali at the hands of men, and it will cost us our afterlife in the Garden of the Gods. Yet we are unable to stop, like drunks who crave the next cup of wine. But we’re not evil. We hurt no one.” She considered for a moment. “Well, I suppose some of us engage in petty thievery and the occasional swindle. That’s hardly evil.”

  He returned her grin. Aletha was again struck by the warmth of his eyes and his smile. Yet even on this moon, where struggles and warfare among clans was commonplace, he and his kind were the worst enemy imaginable. Were these people not supposed to look like monsters, like some evil spirit unleashed by their equally evil magic? Was it possible that he and his twin were as ordinary as anyone else here that shared her gifts?

  “All this talk of gods and Chenoweth has me feeling very dramatic.” She slouched back in her chair with a careless shrug. “You’ve caught me in a weak moment, Homeworlder. Displeasing the gods bothers me less than being feared by my own people. Who can tell what truly happens when we die? While we pray for redemption, we have our doubts. While we elude the emissary, we question their authority. Maybe the Garden is waiting for us and maybe it isn’t. We’ll find that out soon enough.” She waved a hand in Chor’s direction. “You and your brother, however, are real. You intrigue me. Why do you think I belong over there? You didn’t travel all this way just to rescue a god-cursed Descendant.”

  He smiled. “We did. Your gifts, your talents, are much stronger than you think. You need a skilled mentor to show you what is possible for you.”

  “Ah,” she said dryly. “And so you’ve come all this distance to be such a mentor?”

  “I’m just a messenger.” He jerked his chin toward the bay where dozens of sailboats would be bustling among the islands, tides permitting. “Although it rises from the ground, imagine that chi’ro is like the wind. Sometimes it’s stronger than at other times, and sometimes it’s more consistently found in some places than others. If you have a sail you can use this wind as a source of power. Some people have a better sail than others, or perhaps they are better sailors. No amount of wind can help you if you don’t know how to harness it. Chi’ro is like that, and you, Aletha, have a very good sail that you don’t know how to use. You have far more talent than most people on the Homeworld. That is why we were sent to fetch you. The Homeworld needs your help now.”

  “Oh?”

  He listened for a moment, assuring himself that no one loitered in the hall, perhaps with an ear to their door. “There is a war coming. The… gods of Chenoweth are returning, this time to the Homeworld. You said, before they left here, they ordered the magic users destroyed, through their emissaries. We fear the same will happen on the Homeworld. They are powerful and we need your gifts to help us against them. Without you, we won’t be able to withstand their forces.”

  She stared at him, wordless. After a time she got up and paced across the room. She stopped to gaze out over the harbor for a moment and then left the window to look down at Chor’s sleeping face. Pleasant lips, she thought idly before realizing that her mind kept slipping from the subject at hand as if it were too large to grapple. “If the gods choose to return now, to punish your people again for your deeds, who am I to stand in their way?”

  Galen was momentarily speechless. “Those gods want you dead, too,” he said at last. “Would you take their side?”

  She turned back to him. “Would you have me prove I’m a demon by defying them? How do I know your side must win this war?”

  “Because you are one of us.”

  She froze.

  “You were stolen from us when you were only a child. You don’t belong here. We've been sent by... your family to return you to them.”

  Aletha turned her face toward the hazy planet in the sky. Everyone who lived on Thali had at one point gazed at the colorful orb, thinking about the people who had caused their exile, and wondered what life on the Homeworld would be. She knew that her ancestors, the Old Ones, had come from another world a thousand years ago or more. They had settled on the beautiful Homeworld and then set out to explore her moons as well. The thought that she might actually belong down there filled her with both longing and unease. “I was a foundling,” she said finally. “Or so I was told. No one ever mentioned the Homeworld. But my people are not the sort who steal children.”

  “I can’t pretend to understand it,” he said. “But you know you’re different, don’t you?”

  She nodded slowly, her eyes still on the planet. “Are they like me?”

  “Adepts tend to run in families,” he said. “They want you back, and they need your help.”

  She rubbed her face with both hands. “This is all so much. Too much. I have to think about this.”

  “Think about it?” he exclaimed. “Think about what? You’re hunted here, despised even. People want you dead. I’m offering to take you where you have a family. A wealthy one! Freedom to use as much magic as you want. Safety. You belong with us. You know you have to leave this place.”

  “I know,” she sighed, feeling fatigued again. What he told her was so enormous and so wonderfully strange that it just didn’t seem possible. And yet it felt right. This man felt right. She sensed no ill will toward her, although clearly he was not as self-assured as he tried to appear. Something worried him. “Your offer seems a lot more appealing than some schemes I’ve come up with. How would we get there? Through one of those conduit things?”

  “Yes. There is a place north of here, in the mountains, where I’ll have enough chi’ro to create a conduit. The launch is a sort of crystal among the rocks there. They’re very old and very rare. We should leave as soon as you’re well enough to travel.”

  “What is it like on the Homeworld? Is it better than this moon?”

  He looked around the crude room. “I'd say. It is comfortable and peaceful, most of the time. It rains less.”

  “No one is afraid of demons?”

  “Almost everyone is a demon!” He laughed. “You will never again have to hide your talents.”

  “What about the giants?” she asked.

  “What about the giants?” he repeated. His smile faded when he said that.

  “It is said that there was a race of giants on the Homeworld. Some of them were exiled up here, too, when Chenoweth locked us away. Many of them were killed or driven away. We are told the giants will return some day and destroy us. Is this true? Are there giants on the Homeworld?”

  He regarded her wordlessly, a slight frown deepening a groove between his eyes. It seemed as though he would answer but then something stopped his words

  Seeing his hesitation, she smiled and busied herself with gathering some things for a trip to the bathhouse. “How ridiculous that must sound! We are full of legends and fanciful tales on this moon. We’ve spent so much time wondering about the Homeworld that we imagine the most bizarre stories of what’s happened in the past. You’ll no doubt hear more of them. Tales do grow with the telling.”

  Galen looked over to his twin, still appearing to ponder something. Finally, he shrugged. “Few people on the Homeworld are taller than we are. Yes, tales grow with the telling.”

  Chapter Three

  Not having heard from the Homeworld since arriving on the moon, Galen and Chor were in no real hurry to return to the launch site in the mountains. Aletha needed a few more days to
recover from her ordeal and so one of the twins stayed with her while the other nosed around Phrar, the first large town they had encountered on this moon.

  Phrar was a town completely immersed in the business of fishing and shipbuilding, using methods invented even before humans had arrived on the Homeworld. Loud, untidy, perpetually soggy and rodent infested, the harbor area formed the heart of the town where life and livelihood were inextricably tied to the sea. The stink of the fish processing shops was as much a part of this quarter as the biting fumes of hot pitch wafting from the shipyards. Above the waterfront, a crescent of hills followed the contour of the bay, sheltering a scattering of suburbs less crowded, less raw and, to Galen, far less interesting.

  Following the entire western seaboard of this continent, thousands of small islands filled the sea, some separated by no more than a few feet of shallow water. A confusing network of bridges and stilted walkways connected groups of inhabited islands with each other or the mainland, some barely wide enough for one person to pass, others elaborated with cart tracks and tollgates.

  The low tides revealed these islands to be quite extraordinary. Instead of revealing themselves as connected high points of some submerged ocean shelf, the islands rose into the air on pinnacles, suddenly inaccessible but for those connected to others by bridges or rope ladders. From higher points in the hills above Phrar, one could see patterns in the arrangements of the islands, showing the directions of the deep fissures that had some eons ago split the islands from the main landmass. Like an old ice floe breaking up, the mainland was crumbling apart along its edges.

  On the other side of this chain of islands was the Great Strait, a body of open water and the continent’s main sea-lane. Remembering observations from the Homeworld, Galen knew that nothing but a string of barrier islands protected the lane and coast from an endless, tempestuous ocean covering more than half of the moon’s surface.