"They are all I have to offer, anymore."
"But they weren't enough for our people, and all you do is grieve." The youth turned and folded his wings against his arms with that graceful smooth snap. "Something will happen, someday, and they'll have to return. They'll spread the sails and catch the rays of some distant sun, and they'll feel grateful that they have some place to come home to. But they never bothered to look at it, they only cared about ways to leave it. So now it's dying, and when they crawl back there won't be anything left."
The keeper realized what the youth was saying. "Thou must have had delusions in thy sorrow and pain," he said. "A world cannot die."
The youth glared at him, and his gaze did not shift, as if in anger he could forget his shame. "This world is dying. If you would sleep and attune yourself to it, the way you did for people, you'd see it. Or come outside your prison and look around."
"I never leave the temple grounds."
The youth closed his eyes, resigned. "Then sit and wait, until the auroras die too." He left the keeper alone, and walked away with the tips of his beautiful wings trailing in the dust.
The keeper wanted to dismiss the youth as unbalanced, but nothing was that easy. It was true that their people had cared more for the sky and the nearby stars than for the world they rested on. It was only natural that this be so for a people who could soar so high that the ground curved away below them,
admitting without defense its smallness and insignificance. Only natural for a people whose children make toy gliders with lifting wings by instinct. The stars were so close, they hung in the sky calling, hypnotic. The keeper and his mate, in their ion boat, sailing past the bay between the world and its moon, had navigated by sight and feel alone. And he had seen the ion ships, when the idea was still a fancy, in visions. Before the first was even finished, he had seen the thousand of them, carrying all the people, spread their huge sails and catch the sun's rays and begin to move, very, very slowly, toward a star the passengers already knew had planets they could touch their feet to and leave again.
His people had known much of stars. But he could not say that the world was not dying.
After a little while, he stood up slowly and went to find the youth. "What dost thou mean to do?"
He reached down and picked up a small stone. "What is there to do? I almost wish you had let me die." He hefted the pebble, as if he would throw it into the auroras. The keeper flinched, and saw him hesitate. He thought he would still throw it, but the youth lowered his hand and tossed the pebble back to the ground. "If I knew what to do, I'd do nothing."
"There are still people-- "
"You and I may be the last, for all I know. Maybe all the others have killed themselves. I'd have it lonely to deny the rest a sanctuary."
"Must we both be lonely?"
The youth turned his back, hunched his shoulders. The keeper thought he was offended by the implication. "I meant no impropriety-- "
"Traditions are as dead as the god in your temple." He shrugged his wings. "You would have me stay."
"I would ask nothing."
"You'd hope."
"One cannot control one's dreams."
"I'll stay for a while."
* * *
Later the keeper slept, alone in the close and oppressive darkness of the temple. He expected a vision of the youth, alone in some future that did not include the keeper. He had never seen any part of his own destiny in his prophecies; that made him strangely afraid that no one could ever stay with him. He did not believe he could influence the future. Perhaps the future must influence him.
He saw his world, for the first time since he had come to the temple, and he saw that the youth had been right. Skeletons of rabbit-deer lay scattered on the hunting plain, and the vines that climbed the rock pinnacles of nests shriveled and died. Even the thorn bushes, which could grow where nothing else lived, dried, crumbled, burned. The death of their world would be slow, but the places he saw, deserted, were dying. He could not truly tell, but he thought he would die first. His visions had never frightened him before; now he came out of sleep screaming.
Soft wings rustled beside him. "Did you dream?"
"I did as thou asked," the keeper whispered, lying very still.
"And I was right."
"Yes."
"Is anyone else alive?" In the darkness, the young voice was fervent.
"I saw no one," the keeper said.
"Ah," the youth said, satisfied.
"I am not omniscient."
"You'd see what's important."
"Other people were left."
"They had nothing to keep them alive. Not your strength, nor my hate."
"Thou hast made us too unique."
"I hope not," the youth said. "I think your vision was right, and your hopes are wrong."
The keeper sat up, unwilling to sleep again. "I will never know."
"It would hurt you to know that truth." The tone held compassion that sounded strange after the exultation in death, but the keeper was grateful for it. He watched the shadow of the youth move across the stone floor to the entrance and stand in the wavering light. He rose and followed him, stopping close behind him in his shadow. The youth began to talk, slowly, tentatively. "When the last of them left, I followed them as far as I could, until the sun was so bright I thought I'd go blind... I couldn't see them, but I don't think any of them looked back."
"They did not," the keeper said, and the other did not question his knowledge. "It isn't the character of our people to look back. I think they'll never need to."
"And if they don't-- my determination is foolish?"
The keeper spoke very cautiously, afraid to go too far. "Perhaps. Or futile. Thou wouldst deny thyself rather than them."
"I will... think about that."
Behind him, the keeper nodded to himself. "Wouldst thou eat?"
"All right."
* * *
The youth had not noticed the food while he was sleeping, but awake he had found it less than pleasing. "I'll go out and hunt as soon as I can fly again," he said.
"I'm used to this. The auroras make a long path for thee to walk."
"It's better than staying here."
"I'm used to that, too. But hunt, if that is thy wish."
"Soon?"
"Yes. It is almost ready."
"It's still stiff."
"Thou must stop favoring it." He sipped at his broth. "I will massage it again."
The touching was very much like the motions of love. The keeper could not remember touching any person before this youth since the night his mate had died. They had been flying. She was aged, but still beautiful, and she had decided to die.
It was the way of things. He had chosen her, and made his decision by his bond to her, when she was adult and he, not yet "he," was youth. Half a lifetime before, she, not yet "she," had courted and had bonded with another male, and in time he had aged and died.
Now, she did not wish to grow helpless. She would do what their people had always done, and forever would do, when it was time to die. And he would accept her decision, and carry her veils, as the mates of aging ones always had, and always would. Their children, one youth, one newly adult, bade her farewell. There would have been three, but their second was born with a twisted wing, so they had exposed it.
They flew together for a long time. No clouds obstructed their view of the hunting plain. Had they been hungry they could have feasted on warm meat and fresh blood, but this last night together they did not hunt. They drank thick salty wine and soared higher, giddy. She brushed her wingtip against his cheek, dropped back and down and caressed his chest and belly. She laughed, and made lewd and joyous remarks about whoever would become the next member of their long marriage line. She wished him happiness, and pulled a silver veil from his ankle band. He garlanded her with others. Defying her infirmities, she flew higher. He followed her, feeling the air grow thinner, dangerous, and suddenly cried out in ecstasy.
the veils seeming only to drift beside her. He saw her wings begin to stiffen, and he knew that she was dead.
As another shower of subatomic particles exploded themselves in his eyes, brighter than any spark through the shielding of their ion boat, he realized he had flown past his wings' ability to carry him, and he felt himself begin to fall.
When his struggle against the vertical wind ripped his wing, perhaps he should have allowed himself to die. Fighting, he slowed his fall, but in the end the earth had grasped and shattered him.
"Keeper-- "
The word, and a touch on his hand, brought him back. He glanced up, startled. The youth's face showed apprehension, irresolution. He drew in his wing-fingers, folding the smooth membrane. "It's not stiff anymore."
"I was remembering," the keeper said. "Thy words gave me hope, and I... I am sorry-- "
"It doesn't matter." He let his touching fingers and half-exposed talons linger on the keeper's hand. "Nothing should be forced to die twice," he said. "If we continued our people, the world would kill our children, or the children would kill the world again."
"Thou art not fair," the keeper said. "Some expression of my memory has frightened thee, but I asked for nothing."
"It's true that I'm frightened." He touched the keeper's throat, slid his hand to his shoulder, down his arm, back along the wing-fingers, and this time he didn't wince. "Of your kindness and your strength."
"I do not understand thee."
"I'd change for you, I think."
The keeper sat back, reluctantly, away from the youth's hands. "Then thou wilt leave?"
"I must."
The auroras led the youth on a long, twisting, directionless path to the hills. Outside, the thorn bushes should have been flowering. The youth stood at the edge of the temple's guardians and looked out over the land, at the brown and black thickets of twisted, dying branches. The wind blew hot against his body, and nothing moved as far as he could see. He felt death, and with it an ugly triumph that had ceased to give him pleasure. He glanced back, and almost turned, but reached high instead and snapped open his wings. The wind caught the webbing. He could feel the place where his bones had broken, and hesitated.
Disgusted by his fear, he launched himself from the top of the hill, slipped sideways in a current, angled up, and flew.
* * *
After the youth left, time passed strangely; it might have been a long or a short time later that the old breaks in the keeper's bones began to ache constantly. He had begun to age, and once aging started in his people, it progressed rapidly. His sharp sight began to dim. Only cowards and weaklings lived long enough to go blind naturally. He knew he should allow himself to live no longer, but still he did nothing. He did not wish to die on the earth, and he dreamed of dying properly, radiation-blind, flying.
He felt gentle hands that roused him from a doze, or perhaps it was all a dream.
"Keeper, I am back."
He raised his head and looked calmly into a face made ugly by its eyes. "It is thou."
"No more," he said. "Not 'thou' for a long time."
The keeper seemed not to hear. "Hast thou seen everything die, then?"
The other supported him, and he smelled fresh blood. "No. You were right. There are others. Around them, the earth lives." He held the warm body of a small animal to the keeper's lips. "Drink it," he said. "Last time I was selfish."
Blood ran hot in the keeper's throat; he had almost forgotten the hunt. "Why art thou here?"
"For the same reason I left."
"How long has it been?"
"A year."
"Ah." Dark eyelids closed over darker eyes, tired. "It seemed longer."
"It seemed very short, to me."
The keeper did not speak or move for a long time. "I am dying. Will you carry my veils?"
He saw that the old one, half-dreaming, thought he could still fly. "I will. The stars will touch you." He gently lowered him. "I'll build you a glider, keeper," he whispered. He lay down beside him to wait, and opened his wing across him. He hoped the keeper could still feel it, and know the presence of one who loved him.
Published by Alexandria Digital Literature. (http://www.alexlit.com/)
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