Flight To Exile

by Chris Reher

  He smirked and propped his forearms against the top frame of the door, using his bulk to block most of the entrance and the view of anyone who might be passing by outside. His hair curled freely to his bare shoulders and the long, green sarong contrasted nicely with the deep tan of his skin. Aletha wondered if any of the women of this village had made their way past his own door yet.

  Galen crouched beside her pallet. “I'll be back soon. Stay exactly where you are. Don’t move.”

  “Hmm, don't know if I can wait.”

  He regarded her sternly. “Keep your hands outside the blankets until I get back. I'll take care of things then.” He swooped down to kiss her before turning to leave.

  Aletha giggles followed him as he ducked out of the hut.

  But suddenly her laughter died in her throat. Her mouth went dry and the edges of her vision narrowed as if she were about to faint. Wide-eyed, she stared at the space that Chor had just occupied, the memory of him standing there etched in her mind. A low whimper passed her lips, threatening to evolve into something louder.

  When Galen had just now stepped out of the lodge, his brother had turned aside, his arm still resting on the lintel of the door. Clearly, she had seen the broad, painful-looking scar twist across the man’s ribs.

  Jolted into action, Aletha scrambled to the opening of the hut to peer outside. Chor and Galen were at the bottom of the ramp, talking to one of the villagers. As she watched, the twin in the green sarong accepted a length of string from his brother and reached up to tie his hair back. The angry scar at his side was now clearly visible from above. Amazed, Aletha realized that the other man down there, the man who had just shared her bed, was none other than the taciturn, absent-minded Chor.

  * * *

  Galen and Chor ducked into Minh's hut, uncertain of the protocol involved when speaking to one of the village's leaders. They glanced about the simple room, seeing the many implements and accessories belonging to a healer but no obvious signs of power or religious significance. Like many of the cabins, the walls were made of loosely connected panels, lightweight and easily replaced if damaged in storms or earthquakes. Clean, woven mats covered the floor and something steamed gently on the brazier, exuding a soothing aroma.

  Galen turned when someone entered from the rear room of the cottage. “Oh, hello,” the man said, not particularly surprised to see the twins here. He carried a toddler on his hip and moved past the twins to rummage through some containers on a shelf. “Get comfortable,” he said, gesturing toward the floor. “Minh’s along in a bit or so.”

  The twins, forced to stoop in the low-ceilinged room, knelt gratefully on two mats set out for them. Another child padded into the room, stopping to stare critically first at Chor and then at Galen. Thoughtfully, she pulled a finger out of her mouth and reached up to poke Chor’s eye.

  “Tsu-Tsu,” the man said cheerfully. “Don’t be bothering them.” He scooped the child into his free arm and moved to the door where he nearly collided with the healer. “We’re out of tea,” he said, maneuvering around her. “I’ll send Geb to fetch some.” He looked beyond her. “Now, everyone outside. Give your mother some quiet.”

  It was a while before the chatter in the back of the room subsided and the twins were left alone with the woman. The healer squatted beside the brazier in that oddly comfortable-looking way common to those who lived without furniture. Her arms were wrapped around her knees as she busied herself with some parcels on the floor, balanced perfectly on splayed feet. Her yellow hair was cropped very short except for a surprising fringe of ringlets around the hairline.

  Minh remained silent and they followed suit, willing to observe whatever customs they encountered. This woman was no adept, yet Galen perceived a wisdom that by far outshone any he had found on this moon. Likely, she would be counted among the Descendants in towns like Phrar. He felt her presence, faintly, although the chi’ro she surrounded herself with was likely not enough to really matter. Here she was simply a healer and sage, perhaps using her small talent to bolster empathy and intuition to useful levels.

  “I know who you are,” she said suddenly, without preamble, startling them. “Or what you are. What Aletha didn’t tell me speaks louder than what she revealed. Which of you speaks for you?”

  “I do,” Galen said after a long moment, regarding her warily. “How did you—”

  “You are of the giants,” she said, settling herself onto a cushion. She fussed with the edges of her wrap, intent on arranging them neatly. “Somehow sent here by the Old Ones to bring her to the Homeworld.”

  Hesitantly, Galen nodded.

  “And do you know why?”

  Galen began to speak, but then suddenly realized no explanation could give this woman the answer to her question. While nebulous, undefined doubts had nagged him since he first learned of his mission to return Aletha to the Homeworld, the fundamental cause of it all had seemed clear: Aletha’s ultimate role was to help protect the Homeworld from invasion by Chenoweth. Looking at Minh, he now knew that something eluded him. The seer did not have some peculiar gift for making him suddenly realize some formerly unknown fact, but something about her compelled him to tell her the whole truth. Unfortunately, this then made him realize that he simply did not know the whole truth. Perhaps at some point it hadn’t mattered – questioning the La’il’s motives was dangerous at the best of times and his job was usually far less troublesome if he stayed out of her politics. But this was no longer just a job. There was so much more to be known beyond the simple explanations with which he had been dispatched on this quest. Things that went far beyond anything he had imagined. His head spun with this knowledge, although he had no idea how he knew. He looked at Chor to see his confusion mirrored on his twin’s face. At last he shook his head. “Tell me,” he managed.

  “I don't know much, but I will tell you what happened, how Aletha came to be here. She believes herself to be a foundling, and I suppose in some way that is true. I found her, but only after a long search. She was already three years old by that time. How did you two find her?”

  “What you call magic is rare on this moon. We are able to perceive it at a distance, especially when it’s disturbed. Aletha has a way of causing great disturbances of it, even when she’s not aware of it.”

  “That is what guided me to her, but it took a long time. I lost my way many times, misled by curious apparitions seeking to lead me astray. But I found her. I purchased her from her parents who by then were so frightened that they were willing to hand her over.”

  “Her parents?” Galen asked, less surprised by Aletha’s legal status as a slave than the news that she was of no relation to the La’il.

  Minh nodded. “They would have given her to me, but I insisted on payment to cut all ties cleanly. She would have brought terrible trouble to her family if she had been found out. Don’t think too badly of them; they did not part with the child easily. But they believed I would provide a safe haven for her, which was beyond them. The sound of her mother’s weeping haunted me for a long time.”

  “What made you search for her?”

  “We try to find all the new Descendants before the emissaries do,” Minh said. “Sometimes, mercifully, their talents are so weak that they escape notice entirely. Others have a gift so strong that we must strive to suppress it, guard it until they have learned to use it only with great caution. Aletha has such a gift and was already wielding it as a toddler, to the peril of all those around her. I decided long ago to keep the extent of her abilities hidden from her, for her own safety. Then I taught her how to hide it from others, too. Even those with the gift find it impossible to detect the one within her.”

  “Such a waste.” Galen shook his head. “No one on the Homeworld lives in such fear. Our Descendants use their gifts to benefit others. That is our law. Surely something like that is possible here also. Why hunt them for their talents?”

  Minh reached into the folds of the gown pooling around her legs and withdrew a small bu
ndle tied with a beaded leather thong. Placing it carefully in front of her, she unrolled a long, narrow strip of leather. It was worn thin by many years of handling, as supple as any woven cloth. She straightened it out on the floor. Galen bent to view the tightly arranged writings on the vellum.

  “What is it?” he said. “This would take me a long while to decipher.”

  “This is one of the original transcriptions of the words left to us by the Old Ones, before they left this world. It describes their commandments as they gave them to their emissaries, not as those fools on the mainland would like to interpret them.”

  “Can you translate this for me?”

  “That would take a long time. But I will tell you what it says.” She pointed a finger at a section of minute script. “Thali moon, this world, was once like the Homeworld. People were able to live in peace, there was no sickness, and they were able to create a good life out of the abundance of this moon. No earthquakes, few storms, gentle tides. What a wonderful place this must have been!” Minh smiled happily as she contemplated. “Then changes came,” she continued. “The people changed. Each generation brought people of smaller size. Those born here were so different that they were unable to return to the Homeworld. Nor did they want to. Thali had become their home.” Minh traced her fingers over the writings, as if reading them for the first time. Galen waited silently, imagining this moon as she had described it. He thought of its beautiful landscape, long days, plentiful food sources, and an abundance of water - all of this without the storms and earthquakes now a part of life here. No wonder no one had worried about returning home again.

  Minh’s words nagged him, confirming some things La’il had said only yesterday. “Why were they unable to return to the Homeworld?”

  “They sickened. Maybe because everything was the wrong size. Maybe the air just didn’t fit into their lungs quite right again. For whatever reason, moving between the Homeworld and either moon was something you either did for a short visit, or forever.”

  Galen’s eyes returned to her scroll. “Go on,” he said.

  “Well, then the great upheaval took place,” Minh said.

  “Upheaval?”

  “Storms, fire, earthquakes,” she pointed at a series of characters. “It turned to panic and some of our people were forced to enter tunnels leading to the other worlds. Magic users, mainly, and most of the giants here at the time. Some of them escaped and were left behind. Then the doors to the Homeworld were sealed. These were not gods who did these things, but a mortal man named Dazai and his followers. They retreated to Chenoweth and closed the doorway behind them.”

  Galen nodded, his brow furrowed. “Your document confirms our own account of this history. But ours makes no mention of adepts being forced to leave Thali. Why was the Homeworld blamed for all of this? Why are the giants feared? Dazai was a giant, wasn’t he?”

  Minh’s thin fingers meandered over her archive, sorting through information that Galen was certain she knew word by word. “Yes, but the giants they left behind were blamed for his displeasure. They were just some poor magic users, visitors from the Homeworld who were abandoned here. We needed someone to blame, I’m sure. For their size, they weren’t difficult to point out. They were murdered, and some driven away. We now have stories of giants still living in caves in the mountains, their bodies covered in fur because of the cold. Some think they will return some day to avenge their ancestors. Or the giants will come up here from the Homeworld for the same reason. You see, once abandoned, we were free to create our own history. Aided, no doubt, by the emissaries left here by Chenoweth.”

  “So the emissaries really were appointed by Chenoweth?”

  She nodded. “By Dazai. Before they left, he gave us a commandment. No one, he said, was to use magic on this moon ever again. I suppose they feared that we would learn how to reopen the gates to the Homeworld. The emissaries were to enforce their decree.”

  “And turned it into a religion.”

  “Yes. That was about three hundred years ago. Since then many adepts were killed and unable to pass their talents on to new generations. And those born with it had no teachers to show them how to use it. Now there are few of us left, a miserable handful of Descendants who know about the magic even if our powers are limited. We hide, or we disguise our talents.”

  Galen stared at the ancient writings before him. “Does this talk about the La’il?”

  “As Dazai’s enemy. Bitter enemies. I could try to read the spaces between these characters and tell you that she killed Amaya, Dazai’s companion. Then she took his sons and hid them on the Homeworld when the doors closed. What do you know of her?”

  He hesitated. “I’m more and more convinced some things exist that should not be made known on this moon. Your people and mine are no longer even of the same race. We see the same thing but we have different truths for it.”

  The seer bent to furl her parchment again, her movements carefully deferential. “You have much to tell me, young man, but I no longer want to hear. This scroll has become a heavy burden to me and I don’t wish to add to it. Few copies of this exist. There are truths in here that would change how people perceive Chenoweth. And the Homeworld. But there are facts that justify the emissaries’ actions. We cannot risk what would happen to this if the emissaries had the chance to interpret it for the people. And so it remains hidden.”

  Galen watched her put the parcel away. “Are there not enough of you, people who know what you know, that can counter the emissaries’ lies? I saw carvings of Dazai in the headman’s lodge. Your own people here pray to Chenoweth. Even Aletha, even now, won’t let go of her gods. How can you stand to let them live in ignorance? There must be a way to stand up to the power of the emissaries.”

  Minh cocked her head to study him for a long moment, her brow furrowed. “Do you have gods?”

  “Me? No, not really.”

  “Your people, I meant. The Old Ones.”

  Galen thought about the confusion of histories belonging to the people who had come here from Earth. “We have many. Sometimes it seems that each of our clans has their own set of deities. There are some very strange ones among them! It’s an interesting study, if you care about things like that.”

  “And your people obey the commandments of their deities?”

  He shrugged. “Only if they don’t interfere with the laws of the Homeworld. Our laws are not given to us by any gods. They are decided upon by our rulers, to serve all.”

  “Good laws?”

  He grinned, understanding her point. “Not according to some.”

  “We have no rulers here, son. No one to make laws for us except for our gods.” She waved a hand at the scroll. “Of course, it’s the priests who interpret for our gods. We have many good laws and our lives are made easier because of them. We have a tale that the goddess Aysel was turned into a seal by another deity. And so Dazai decreed that no one may hunt for food or profit the sacred crested seals that roam the southern coasts. How fortunate for us that he gave us this law, because those seals thrive on the poisonous leeches infesting the seaweed plantations. Our harvesters can dive there freely, knowing the seals are there to guard them, waiting for the leeches that seek human blood. We need those seals. And so I say: what difference does it make if our laws came from Chenoweth or if they were decided upon in the chambers of the Grand Priestess? The emissaries are simply a part of this land as much as those poison leeches. I know even some of our clergy view with distaste their besotted hunt for even the most circumspect of magic users. Of course they would not say so for fear of the emissaries’ accusations. We could not rise up against the emissaries; we could not tell the truth about Chenoweth without endangering everything that keeps us safe here. We have no one as capable of maintaining order as our priesthood and the promise of the Garden. You don’t like some of the laws you must obey. Do you rise up against your leaders? Surely not. Because they make things work, be that for better or not. Who am I to try to change our world for
the sake of a few Descendants?”

  “Yet you harbor some of them here,” Galen said, tipping his chin toward the rear room of the cottage. “Those aren’t all your children, are they?”

  “My compensation for keeping this ugly secret!” She winked at him. “Sometimes changing a little piece of what you don’t like is enough, don’t you think? By sheltering Descendants here, I am opposing the emissaries very, very quietly.” She chuckled. “Aletha is my own little rebellion.”

  “She was safe out here, with you. Why did you send her to Phrar?”

  “To learn, Homeworlder. What could I possibly teach her here, other than to keep her great gifts a secret? This is her family, but she doesn’t belong here any more than you do. Her abilities are far beyond anything any of us have encountered here. You know this is so or you would not be here. Her talents are even noticed on the Homeworld, after three hundred years of silence. Her destiny won’t be found here in the islands. Maybe you are part of it, who can say?”

  “She is so very important to us. My people believe Aletha’s gifts will help us defend ourselves against… an enemy’s advances.”

  “Your enemy,” Minh said. “Is that also her enemy?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know any more. But if we fail to take her home our people will suffer. My choices are few.”

  “And what is her choice?”

  Galen smiled sadly and rose to his feet, stooping under the low roof. Minh reached up to grasp his hand before he could turn away.

  “Will she be happy there, Galen?”

  He hesitated, unable to meet her eyes. “She will be well. She’ll have power and influence and the means to do great things to help many people. I think that will make her happy.”

  * * *

  Brooding over what Minh had told him, he returned to their cabin, needing to talk to Aletha about these things. But when the twins arrived there she was not inside. None of the villagers seemed to have seen her this morning. They walked down to the lake where she might be bathing. No one had seen her there, either. They combed the village and even walked a short way along some of the paths weaving through the forest. Nothing. At last Galen concentrated on a weak riser nearby, drawing its essence into himself. He cast out his mind, searching for any sign of her, any fleeting thought or emotion he would recognize as hers. Cursing her knack for remaining invisible, he returned to the village. The morning was drawing toward noon, but she had not appeared at the communal eating place by the time the twins joined the others there.