by Chris Reher
“Well, yes. But I wish you wouldn’t put it like that. You make me sound like an emissary.”
She kept her eyes on her feet, picking her way through the dense growth as cautiously as she was choosing her next words. “I didn’t mean you couldn’t lawfully have a family. I meant La’il won’t let you, anyway. Let you have wives I mean, or whatever they’re called on the Homeworld.”
Galen threw his half-eaten fruit into the thicket, stung by her comment. Would she? Would the La’il ever grant him the freedom to pursue any significant bond with another woman? Would anyone want to enter a union with someone utterly enslaved to the cruel whims of the Homeworld’s supreme ruler? He thought of the women who had passed through his life and his bed over the years. He remembered few faces and even fewer names. It wasn’t something that had ever really mattered to him. “I’ve never thought about it,” he said truthfully but he felt the ever-present chains that tied him to the La’il as if Aletha’s words had tightened them a little more.
Mindful of the morose expression on his face, Aletha did not press onward with her questions. “We’ve reached the edge of this forest,” she said. “I can smell the sea.” Indeed, they soon broke from the trees into a meadow of shrubs and tall grasses where a fresh breeze greeted them. The ground now rose toward a steep ridge of stone and they began to climb, sometimes needing their hands to help in the ascent. Breathlessly, Aletha looked around to get her bearings. “I’ve never been this far inland.”
Galen studied the smooth, bare rock rising before them. The slabs of stone they were traversing were volcanic. The twisted surface here seemed pliable, like masses of thick dough left here to harden for eternity. Black sand filled crevasses and gathered in between the larger rocks, crunched beneath their boots, and made the stone surface slippery. Scrubby vegetation clung wherever a little soil had accumulated. “I have not seen any volcanoes,” he said, mostly to himself, looking around. Indeed, he saw thick, gray plumes of smoke and dust rise into the air in the distance.
“What are those?” Aletha asked.
“Volcanoes? A mountain with a hole at the top that spews fire and smoke and ashes into the air. You can see it for many days’ travel in all directions. These formations here are caused by them.”
“Nothing like that here. We call these fire chasms.”
“Fire chasm?”
She nodded. “Deep fissures in the ground that contain molten rock. Do you have those on the Homeworld? Some people here call them lava crocks because it’s as though someone was cooking stones.”
“These must be very new, then. Have you always had so many earthquakes?”
She shrugged. “You know our stories. They say this place changed after the gods left us here. The quakes are worse in the north. The really strong ones only come along every few years. They make big waves, too. The waves are worse than the quakes. I think we fear that more than anything.”
“I would, too. Can you feel the riser?”
She nodded. “Yes, it’s over there. You know, I’ve sensed this in the past but I didn’t know what it was. It used to scare me. Since you showed this to me in Delann’s garden I can feel it more strongly. It’s like, oh I don’t know, like a breeze blowing past me, through me, somehow.” She found something of interest on the distant horizon and shaded her eyes with her hand. “Into me. It… it fills me up, I feel…” She glanced at him. “Kind of sated. I’m blushing, right?”
“It can have some interesting effects.” He grinned. “What you feel is the power of the risers moving toward you, into you, so you can use their energy. Like what happened on the ship. Your talents are then a hundred times stronger than usual, aren’t they? Without knowing it, you’ve already taught yourself to use this to some purpose. Imagine if you had limitless amounts of this. Imagine what you could do if you had a teacher!”
“You can teach me,” she said, a stubborn edge creeping into her voice.
He shook his head. “I can teach you how to light a fire, but I cannot teach you to direct the weather, or how to move tremendous payloads through the air, or to send people between planets. Once you know how you could even prevent earthquakes! But for these things you don’t just need an ocean of chi’ro, you will also need a proper mentor.”
“Like the La’il,” she said. “Who isn’t very nice.”
“She’ll be nice to you,” he promised. “Look, we’re almost there.”
They had reached the flat, windswept summit of the hill that afforded a dizzying view of the coast. Fingers of densely forested land jutted into the island-strewn water below them and, distantly, the northern mountains beckoned. A sharp breeze buffeted them to herald the oncoming storm, tugging at their clothes and hair. They stood on a crest of rock stretching for a distance to the north where it disappeared into the jungle. Before them, just a short walk away, the ground had cracked as if by lighting, emitting a dull red glow. Plumes of slate-colored smoke were quickly carried off by the breeze toward the Great Strait to the east. The volcanic fissure was spectacular enough, but it also contained a riser that vented into the air, unaffected by heat and gases.
“Don’t go too close. The air there is poison.”
Galen nodded and raised his arms toward the riser to draw it closer. Soon, it washed over them to refresh them after their long walk. He closed his eyes and gave himself up to the soothing influx of chi’ro with a smile and a sigh.
Seeing him so engrossed, Aletha was able to study his face. A few fine lines radiated from his eyes, their creases lighter than his sun-browned skin. Besides the silver strands in his hair, she now also saw a few gray hairs peppering his unshaven cheek. Apparently the people on the Homeworld did not age more slowly in all ways, she thought idly, and let her eyes drift down along his body before she remembered that Chor was standing nearby. He cocked his head as if wondering why she was scrutinizing his brother so closely. Something seemed to amuse him. “You two need a shave,” she said.
Galen roused himself from his encounter with the riser. “It takes the keen intuition of an adept to make such an astute discovery,” he said sarcastically, grinning at her before turning back to the fledgling volcano. “There is something odd here.” His senses probed the source of the emanation, somewhere in the depth of the gas-choked fissure. What he felt there seemed familiar, albeit in a rather inconvenient location. “I think this might be a launch.”
“A what?”
“One of the access places I told you about. With enough chi flowing into it, a conduit is formed that can reach through space to the Homeworld or to the other moon. You can step through this like a doorway.”
She peered doubtfully into the depths of the fire chasm. “Looks dangerous.”
“Well, this one is peculiar. Usually the launch sites look like big slabs of crystal. Or they do now, anyway. Something must have happened here to rip open this fissure.”
“How do these things work? The ones that do work, I mean.”
“We think they were formed by enormous amounts of chi’ro concentrated in a small area. Originally, these apertures, these crystals, were connected by conduits to random points on the planet and the moons, fed by their risers from both sides. They were so stable that it didn’t even take much chi to keep them open. By stepping onto them you were able to travel from one place to another almost instantly. We learned from that and some of us can form a short conduit from one place to another on the Homeworld. But to get from the Homeworld to the moons you need one of the crystals to amplify the riser’s power.”
“And I’m not supposed to call that magic?”
He chuckled. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t work anymore. The Chenowans sealed the launch sites up. Now it’s a few hundred years later and La’il has figured out how to open them again. I saw her take an incredible amount of chi’ro to shape a conduit on the crystal. This opened the seal just long enough for us to get through. We’ll have to do that when we get to the launch in the mountains.”
“We are? How?”
“Me? Why can’t she make another conduit to come and get us?”
“Not enough chi. It takes a whole lot of it to open a conduit for even just a moment. And then it’s just a sort of one-way door. You would need an adept on both sides to anchor the conduit properly, to keep it open and stable. Or a constant source of chi’ro. And that just doesn’t exist on Thali.” He realized that she was regarding him with a mixture of puzzlement and annoyance. “What?”
“How did you think you were going to get home again if I hadn’t turned out what you thought I’d be?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if I hadn’t wanted to come? What if you hadn’t found me? What if the emissaries had killed me before you got to Phrar? Was she just going to leave you up here?”
“Well, yes.”
“And you agreed to that?”
“Hadn’t occurred to us to disagree. It isn’t healthy to refuse the La’il when she has her mind set on something.” He shrugged. “There is a lot at stake here. This is what we do. This is what we were bred to do.”
“To give up your life for your ruler?” she exclaimed. “For her?”
“No, for my Homeworld. But I don’t intend to exile ourselves up here. We’ll get through the seal.”
She glanced back at the poisonous fume rising from the fissure. “Please tell me that one is a bit cooler than this thing.”
“Actually, it’s very cold in there. Come, let’s have some fun while we’re here.” He sat on a boulder and tipped his head toward the riser. “Draw this chi into yourself and then pick up that rock and move it over there.”
“I’ve moved things around before,” she said. “Sort of. But the rock is too heavy.”
“Yes, it’s heavy,” he said. “But not for you. Touch it with your thoughts, understand what it’s made of, how much it weighs and then apply enough chi’ro to move it. Never use more than you need. Try sliding it.”
She gripped her lip with her teeth, concentrating on the stone, and pushed outward. “Ah, I can feel it, it’s moving!”
“Use your hands if you need something to focus with. Or a stick, even.”
“Will that make me look like a novice?”
“Yeah. But it also lets people know what you’re about to do, or who is doing what. It’s a polite thing to do.”
“Well, I am a novice. I have no pride.” She lifted her arms toward the stone, pleased when something seemed to nudge it a little further out of place.
He shook his head. “With this you couldn’t find work in a stone quarry! You can do better.”
“I happen to think this is going very well!”
“Let go, Aletha. No one can see us here; no one forbids what you’re doing. There are no emissaries here to stop you. You are not even close to using the talents you have. Pick up that rock and throw it into the volcano.”
“What? How?”
“Just do it! Pick it up!”
She looked back at the rock and projected outward, thinking only about its shape and weight, and laughed out loud when it scraped along the ground, caught on something, and then tumbled away, bouncing end over end until it dropped off the side of the hill. “That’s it!” she cried. “I got it. I understand what you mean! Oh, this is so exciting!”
“That it is. Now do it again.” For the next hour Galen directed her through simple exercises, moving rocks around the hillside with increasingly more precise targets, velocity, or elevation. She delighted in each success, especially pleased when she nearly matched Galen’s accuracy in a game of aiming pebbles into the cauldron of lava.
It was a while before they tired of the sport and she looked for greater challenges. “Show me how to make fire.” Aletha peered over the edge of the plateau and let her thoughts reach into a tangled heap of deadfall near the foot of the incline. “Let’s burn that thing. Uh, wait, it’s stuck on something.”
Chor strolled over to where she stood to observe her progress. “That’s a whole tree. Are you planning a bonfire?” he inquired, looking into the ravine. He bent to gather a handful of moss from among the rocks. “This will do, you know.”
She ignored him, captivated by the task of untangling the branches. Wielding chi’ro as a blunt force was no longer a secret to her. Using it for more complex manipulations seemed a far more intricate mind game. He watched silently, his amusement as palpable as if he were taunting her with words. At last, with a muttered oath, she hauled at the tangle with great force and simply snapped the main branch. Unfortunately, it snapped too far and swept toward them, bark and leaves scattering in the wind, and slammed into Aletha and Chor to fling them both to the ground. He slid down the hill and Aletha tumbled after him, erasing blouse and skin from her elbow. She cried out when their rough descent finally bounced them over a sharp outcropping and they were momentarily airborne. There was a peculiar shift in the air or light around them and she realized that Chor was projecting chi’ro outward in a desperate attempt to break their fall. They struck the ground hard, cushioned from more serious impact much like he and Galen had cushioned the ship in the island channels, bounced, and lay still.
Chor coughed and, with a groan, raised himself up on his hands and knees. “Are you all right?” He flung aside some of the forest debris that had tumbled down the hill with them. Worried, he bent over her to look into her dazed face. “Hold still.”
Not inclined to do much else at this moment, Aletha watched his hand hover over her body, moving slowly as he scanned for injuries. He, too, was still gasping for breath and she thought it very strange, indeed, for him to be exploring her body in this state, even if he was not actually touching her. It was barely perceptible but what little she felt was vaguely pleasant, like some gentle warmth passing through her skin. “That tickles! Can I learn how to do this?”
He nodded, his attention on her abraded elbow. “You’re fine,” he said, moving his hand in one final pass over her. “Some scrapes and—” His eyes widened when Aletha gasped in surprise. “Sorry,” he said quickly and withdrew his hand. As if suddenly aware of the strange intimacy of this encounter, he moved away from her.
Aletha exhaled sharply. “Can I learn that, too?” she said, grinning when she saw his face flush. She looked uphill. “We’re all right, Galen,” she shouted in the direction where they had last seen his twin before peering more closely at Chor. “Um, are you all right? Nothing broken?”
They regained their feet, brushing dust and debris from their clothing. “Perhaps this is enough exercise for today,” he said, picking some thorns out of his palm.
“I’m sorry this happened. I got impatient with that stupid tree. I didn’t think it would break like that!”
“We’re lucky there was a riser nearby. Without it we would have been in trouble. You’re learning things much faster than expected. Don’t get ahead of yourself. This moon isn’t a good place for this training and we’re not suitable teachers for you. Some things will have to wait.”
“I’ll be more careful, I promise!” she exclaimed. “Don’t stop now! This is so exciting. I think I’d die if I couldn’t learn more. Please don’t give up on me.”
He stepped out of the way when his twin dropped from the ledge above. “I guess we don’t really have a choice,” Galen said. “I can’t imagine what you’d get up to if you were left to your own devices with this.”
* * *
By the time they returned to their camp it had begun to drizzle and soon a steady rain fell, creating a curtain of water across the mouth of the cave. Only the light of a few candles illuminated their shelter, leaving most of it in the dark. “I had no idea that so much is possible with this magic of yours,” Aletha said. “It’s almost like I’ve waited my whole life to find out what I really am. I can’t wait to get to the Homeworld. It must be wonderful where there is so much more to work with.”
“It c
an be.” Galen leaned back to let Chor move past him into one of the cave’s side passages where he had laid his bedroll. “But not everyone has as much talent as you do. Some people have none at all, like here on Thali. Your worth on the Homeworld depends on how adept you are. What you are able to do with your gift suggests the kind of work you do, your wealth, your privileges. And although there is much more chi’ro on the Homeworld than here, even adepts like us can’t simply do what we want with it. Most of it is needed as fuel for things like heat, or power for trains. I spend much of my time tracking down people who take more than their share. Battles have been fought over how chi’ro is shared.”
“What will you teach me next?”
He considered. “There is a war coming. I don’t know how La’il will use your skills, but you will need to know how to protect yourself. You will be a target. I think you need to learn some, well, battle skills. If you can heal people, you can also harm them.”
“I don’t like the way that sounds.”
“We’ll hunt something down tomorrow. You can kill quickly and painlessly. There are many ways—”
“Absolutely not!” she exclaimed, appalled. “You want me to murder some innocent animal just so I can learn how to murder people? Are you mad?”
“No, I’m tired of eating fish. If you can kill a squid then you can kill a reef crane. Preferably one with nice plump legs with lots of meat on it.”
She grimaced. “Well, it just seems wrong. In the end, you want me to kill people. I don’t think I can do that.” She shook her head, looking more resolute by the moment. “I won’t do that.”
He smiled, thinking of the La’il. What would she make of this adept? Possibly the greatest weapon that ever existed and one that refused to be aimed at the enemy. What would it take to change Aletha’s mind? “Then don’t. There are other ways you can help, I’m sure. What else would you like to learn about?”
“That thing you do with your heads,” she said at once.
“What thing?”
“The way you talk to Chor. Or the way you talk with the La'il. Is that hard? Do you need a lot of chi?”