The wind turned chill against my exposed hands and face. My breath puffed to a frozen cloud. A flash of color caught my eye. I turned to see Chimereon step into view in a bright, ghostly glitter of almost seen feathers. “You’ve traveled far, but there is further yet to go.” She held out a hand. “Come,” she said. “Dance with me.”
I took her hand. Memory still lay heavily upon me. I was in no dancing mood. I could hear no music, yet I followed her, shuffling out down the dusty Road and into looming shadow. Walls of darkness closed around us. I felt no fear. Darkness held nothing that I feared. But I felt something akin to wonder as our feet left the dust of the Road and she led me, stepping lightly out into a black, infinite place so vast I had not the words to wrap around it.
Then I heard the music, softly at first but swelling in volume until it reached down through flesh and blood and bone to the spirit beneath. I had never known music so pure. In it I could hear every note a man could make and more, all arranged in perfect balance.
As I heard the music, I fell into step with Chimereon. I had to do no more than cease to resist, for if I allowed it, the music moved me. I followed Chimereon’s lead, whirling further out into the deep. As I looked at her, sometimes I saw the woman I knew, other times I saw a vast serpent, feathers red and white gleaming against the blood-red scales, the enormous wings beating in time to the music. And no matter what form I saw, I knew her as she was.
Then the darkness paled. The shining face of the moon swung by, smiling and gently swaying. The sun rose from behind mother earth, roaring his vibrant song in endless waves of brilliance. We waltzed through the courses of the worlds as they swept around us in their stately dance, singing swelling songs that followed the sun’s lead and blended seamlessly to the whole. Nodding to the giants crowned with bright rings, we swept further out, the children of the dark spaces playing at our feet.
We whirled and stamped, sweeping through a growing multitude of brilliances, stars and their chorus of planets, all dancing, all singing, all filling their roles in the celestial chorus, not one ever missing a step in the dance or a note in the score. Brilliant solos flared in supernovae as stars gave everything they could give to the symphony, filling the void with all that was themselves so that they might live again as pieces of the myriad others lining up to join the dance.
Again we spun outward and upward, swinging in one another’s arms as galaxies pirouetted and came together in the soft darkness for brief moments of fire and passion only to sweep on again, changed by the brief touch of another, stars trailing out between the parting arms like distant tears.
Then again out and up, we stepped lightly down promenades of empty spaces lined by endless standing throngs of living light. Beyond the walls of galaxies moved a brilliance that we could not see, the master of the chorus, the lord of the dance. And when the dance ended, as all dances must, we knew it would be in an outpouring of glory so vast that it could not help but start the music all over again.
Then we whirled to a close, stepping down out of the light and the darkness to the cultured perfection of Chimereon’s grounds.
I kissed her deeply, still filled with the glory of the music.
She laughed. We settled in the garden as the stars whirled around us, and the moon bowed out of sight. Fire defined and then broke the horizon with surprising delicacy. As we turned our faces into the warmth of the sun, she laid one hand over mine. “You understand, now. There’s more to living than wrestling death, or waiting for your heart to stop. Even for us. Even for the Powers. Eternity, vast as it is, should be swallowed in sips, a moment at a time.”
I grinned at her, flushed with life as if I had just been born. “Next time, I lead.”
We stayed there in the garden, watching the splendor of the sunrise. Past the stairs that led to the path that wandered through Chimereon’s gardens, past the ruin of my house and the grove of willows, the rising sun painted the sky in shades of hot flame and velvet shadow. Below the magnificence of the sunrise, CrossTown burned with a grimy vigor all its own, the lights of TechTown blending into the morning glory, the shadows of NightTown settling into the deep places to drowse away the coming day.
All the many folk of CrossTown could not see beyond the rough beauty that embraced them. As they fumbled toward the mysteries that beckoned from beyond the horizon, following Ways bounded only by their own desire and imagination, the inhabitants of CrossTown, travelers all, were too busy with all the matters of living to raise their eyes and look up into the naked face of creation. That was as it should have been.
They knew, but did not remember, as I had once known but forgotten, that the journey is more than the destination. That was also as it should have been. Those who had the capacity would see through their own heart’s desire in time.
As for myself, I had set my feet on a new path. New worlds awaited me. I could not say what the morrow would bring, but I found myself looking forward to all that lay beyond my horizon.
I turned my attention from CrossTown back to my companion. I had living of my own to do.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
All the folks in the Whidbey program, without whom this book would not have been the same. And less formal first readers, Garth, Gary, Jeff—I miss the time spent idly building worlds.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Loren W. Cooper is the author of three novels, one short story collection, and one nonfiction work. He is a member of the SFWA. He won the 2001 EPPIE for Best Anthology (The Lives of Ghosts and Other Shades of Memory), the NESFA short story contest in 1998 for “The Lives of Ghosts” (title story of the anthology), and placed in the Altair short story contest with “Lanikaula and the Powers of Lanai,” a fantasy short story based on Hawaiian myth. The Gates of Sleep, his first published novel, was nominated for the Endeavor award in 2002. Other novels include A Slow and Silent Stream (2003) and A Separate Power (2004). The Lives of Ghosts and Other Shades of Memory appeared on the Real Best Seller’s List in 2004. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, with degrees in English, physics, and Russian Studies. Currently he works as a Global Systems Engineering Manager at HP Inc. Loren is married with two daughters and lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
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