Moon-Flash

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  It looked translucent by day, floating like a cloud, catching sunlight on its rim. It was barely visible, a fragile half-bubble, so light it might be pushed with one hand. Ships buzzed in and out of it like bees. Now and then a tiny violet patch appeared in the bubble and swallowed a ship. Airy as it seemed, its walls blocked out the sky.

  “Reflectors underneath it catch the sunlight,” Orcrow said mysteriously, “and pour it down over the city.” He showed her, angling sunlight into his palm with a piece of metal. “Otherwise it would cast too great a shadow.” Kyreol, dizzied by the constant, incomprehensible variety of the city, too numb to ask questions, nodded wordlessly. Orcrow glanced at her sharply. “We’re almost there.”

  “Where?” she asked helplessly. “Orcrow, I’ve never seen so many words I don’t know.”

  “I know.” He withdrew the crystal from a pocket and spoke into it. They were going slowly now, because the river was so crowded, and faces, skin-colorings, clothes on other boats were clearly visible. Sometimes Kyreol heard words she understood, carried at random across the water.

  “Channel two. Regny Orcrow. Open channel to airdock six, please, channel to airdock six.”

  “Regny Orcrow,” the stone said in a woman’s voice. “Acknowledged. All channels closed to that name except channel one priority, one priority. Please contact the Dome.”

  Orcrow closed the stone. He stood silently a moment, his face the Hunter’s face again: unreadable, contemplating distant movements. Then he flicked the stone open again. “Regny Orcrow. Channel one priority.”

  The stone spoke in a woman’s voice again, but this was soft, husky, with a way of pronouncing words carefully, as if they were always new. “Channel one. Orcrow.” Unlike Joran, she didn’t shout at him; her voice was very grave. “Are the children safe?”

  “They’re with me. They’re quite safe.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Still on the river. We’ve entered Domecity. They’re tired and hungry.”

  “No doubt.”

  “I think I should tell you—”

  The stone broke into his words. “An air-shuttle will be waiting for you at airdock six. Please maintain contact with the Dome. I must warn you that at any moment I cannot contact you, you may be liable to prosecution. You will proceed to the Dome for a full inquiry into your astonishing lack of judgment. The children, of course, will not be submitted to air-flight. I’ll send someone from the Cultural Agency who speaks their language to meet them at the airdock.”

  “I’d rather not leave them.”

  “It seems to me,” the voice said severely, “that they have already seen far too much of you.”

  Orcrow sighed. “I can’t imagine what I did in the Riverworld to get myself recognized. But having inadvertently caused them to leave, please remember that I did everything in my power to keep them from harm. Please believe me when I tell you that under the circumstances, there was nothing I could do but permit the children to come to Domecity.”

  “Under what circumstances?”

  “Kyreol. She’s here beside me.” He waited; the stone was silent. A breeze wrinkled across the water. In the silence, they passed from sunlight into the shadow of the Dome. “Nara,” said Orcrow gently, and Kyreol’s hands turned cold. Terje lifted his head slowly, blinking.

  “Bring them to the Dome,” the woman said.

  10

  THEY FLEW, as Kyreol had flown in her dream. Only it wasn’t a butterfly, but a craft of silver, which winked and glowed within and spoke to itself. Kyreol, strapped to a seat, huddled against herself, pushed her hands against her eyes as she felt the earth fall away from her. She heard Orcrow talking in her own language; she felt Terje’s arm on her shoulders. But the Hunter’s words made no more sense than birds fluttering around her head, and fear lay like a chasm between her and Terje’s arm. I’ve left the River, she kept thinking. I’ve left the River. How will I ever get back? Then another shock of cold would go through her. The woman’s name is Nara. Nara of the Dome. Or is it Nara of the River-Tree? She lifted her head finally, jerkily, and interrupted Orcrow’s noises.

  “Is that my mother?”

  “Yes,” Orcrow said, and went on talking, but “yes” was all she heard. Nara. She saw her own dark face in her mind, heard the low, careful voice again. Then the voice out of her dream said, “Cleared.” Blinking, she saw the Dome yawn open in front of them, and she hid her eyes again.

  “Kyreol,” Terje said. “Kyreol.” She heard him dimly, as though she were dreaming. “Kyreol.” She realized suddenly that the ship had stopped. People were standing; a hatch had opened. “Kyreol.”

  She drew a deep breath. Orcrow was gazing at her anxiously. He unfastened the strap across her quickly. Her whole body was tense; her fingers clung like bird claws to the arms of the seat. She heard herself say shakily, “I was afraid, Orcrow.”

  “It’s all right.”

  She looked up at Terje wistfully. “Weren’t you afraid?”

  His face was so white it might have shown in the dark like a moon. “You didn’t give me a chance.” He coaxed her up. She closed her eyes again, envisioning the airy nothingness the Dome rested upon.

  “Kyreol,” Orcrow said. “The world itself floats like a bubble in space.”

  “I didn’t know,” she whispered. Her lips felt numb. She took a step and didn’t fall through clouds. She took another. “Orcrow… How—how can people build things like this?”

  She saw them both smile, as in relief. Then she saw her mother.

  It was as though she looked into water and saw her own reflection. Only her reflection was dressed like Orcrow, like the people of Domecity. Her hair was drawn severely back from her face and knotted on top of her head. She belonged to a world of airships and dwellings that floated above the air. But her skin was black as the gleaming, water-carved walls of the Face, and her eyes, as she gazed at Kyreol, were overflowing with memories.

  Her voice was the gentle, careful voice of the stone. “My little Kyreol.” Then she brushed at her tears and slowly, tentatively, Kyreol smiled.

  Nara led them out of the silver ship, through a door at the dockwall, into a tiny room whose doors closed like a mouth. Nara spoke to the room; it rose upward, unsettling Kyreol’s stomach. Ships that flew, rooms that moved and understood words… How did people dream such things? The doors opened again; they entered a vast domed room full of light.

  “This is the very top of the Dome,” Nara said. “This is where I live.”

  Trees and flowers dwelled under the soft light of the tinted roof. Fountains and small pools sparkled among the leaves. The trees didn’t seem to mind being detached from the earth; they gathered light eagerly into their many-colored leaves. But they had forgotten how to speak; there was no wind. Doors circled the walls. People came in and out of them, their voices muted among the growing things. Some of them, catching sight of Nara and Kyreol together, stared in amazement. Kyreol could see the wonder, the questions in their faces. The children—the Riverworld children. How dared they leave the River to float higher than a mountain above the earth? What will they do now? What language do they speak? Can they live without wind? But they only smiled a welcome and left Nara to ask their questions.

  Nara opened a door in the circle of doors. Kyreol, stepping inside, had an impression of light, bird cries, green growing things. The room seemed full of leaves, like a forest. She blinked. Then she realized the bright birds were caged; the trees and ferns were in pots. Nara, watching her, smiled a little, almost shyly.

  “I made a tiny Riverworld for myself,” she explained. “Except there is no water.” On the wall beside the bird cage hung familiar things: a painted leather amulet, a necklace of seeds, feather ankle-bracelets, a gold feather vest. Nara followed Kyreol’s gaze. “I was married in that vest. I lost the marriage skirt, coming downriver, when my boat overturned.”

  “What did you do then?” Terje asked. Memories came into her eyes again.

  “I made a r
aft. I had a bundle of clothes—I found them farther down, snagged on the bank.”

  “Your betrothal skirt,” Kyreol said abruptly. Nara nodded surprisedly. Kyreol thought of her, homeless and alone on the great river, not knowing where it might take her. “You didn’t have a speaking stone.”

  “No. Not then. Nor a Hunter. Sit down.” They sat on the soft carpet among the trees. But she didn’t move; she was looking at them as though she were trying to understand how they could have changed so from the children she had held. “Terje, do you remember me at all?”

  He nodded, frowning a little. “I think so,” he said shyly. “You used to—you used to tell us stories. Like Kyreol does now. You took us with you when you went to find herbs for—for the Healer.” His face had flushed scarlet. “You—then you weren’t there anymore. Ever. We looked for you… We thought you must be somewhere. Behind the next tree. The next rock. We would meet you at the next bend in the River. I would go to your house and think, This morning Kyreol’s mother will open the door for me. But—” He shrugged a little. “You never did.” He added huskily, remembering, “We were so small.”

  Nara’s head bowed. “I missed you,” she said to Kyreol, in the language of the Riverworld. “Going down the River, I cried for you.”

  Kyreol’s eyes filled. “How could you do it? At least I had Terje with me.”

  “Aren’t you angry with me for leaving you?”

  “No. I was sad for a long time. That went away and, after another long time, when my—when my father said you weren’t dead, I started to wonder where you went. Where the River went.”

  “You… How did he know?” Nara said wonderingly.

  “He had a dream.”

  “Of me? Here?”

  “He dreamed a beautiful stone opened and said your name. And you followed it into the sky. He never said your name during the chants for the dead.” She added, “When I saw Orcrow for the first time, he was talking to a stone. So I thought of my father’s dream. I started to wonder if it were the same stone. If the Hunter knew you.”

  Orcrow made a soft sound in the back of his throat. “They live in our past,” he murmured. “Yet they dream of us.”

  Nara was smiling again. “So you asked the Hunter with the stone. When I left, you had just begun to talk, and already you were asking questions. All day long, you would bring me things. A leaf, a berry, a frog. ‘What is this? What is that?’ You weren’t happy until I answered, until I gave you a word to learn. And you made me remember all the questions I had inside me when I was growing up. I wanted to find someone who could answer my simple questions the way I could answer yours.” She shook her head a little. “I thought I could go a little way and come back. I didn’t know that once you leave the Riverworld, you can never return.”

  There was a silence. Kyreol swallowed. “It’s easy. I mean, it won’t be easy because of the people and animals, but you just follow the water—”

  “Well.” Nara looked as though she was sorry for what she had said. “We can talk about that later—”

  “But Terje—he has to be home at the next Moon-Flash. He has to be betrothed to Jage.”

  “Moon-Flash.” Nara’s eyes went past her then, to Orcrow. There was almost an appeal in them. Orcrow drew breath audibly, in response to some question hidden in the air. Terje shifted. His face seemed calm, and the edge of fear in Kyreol died away. He doesn’t believe her, she thought. Why should he? The River is the River, and it will lead him home. She felt confused again, suddenly lonely, as if he had already left her, and then he met her eyes. He looked annoyed. She felt her cheeks bum.

  “Jage,” Nara murmured. “Jage. Oh, I remember. Of the Turtle-Crossing family.”

  Kyreol nodded, a different well of emotion making her forget the problem of returning. “That’s what I’ve been wanting to ask you. Why did you betroth me to Korre instead of to Terje?”

  “But Kyreol,” Nara said, half-laughing. “I did that the day after you were born. How could I have known you and Terje would become so close?”

  “That made me angry,” Kyreol said darkly.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “It’s hard,” Nara said apologetically, “when babies are so tiny, to know who they might grow up to love.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “And most Riverworld children are very much alike.”

  “Except us.”

  There was a little silence. Nara was smiling, but there was a faint worried expression in her eyes, as though she were seeing something even more confusing than everything the River had led toward. It made Kyreol uneasy again. She moved, then touched Terje impulsively, drawing from his calm.

  For some reason, that made the worry in Nara’s eyes deepen. But she only said, “You must be very hungry. I’ll get some food.”

  She went into the next room. After a moment, she called, “Regny, there are all kinds of messages for you on my channel. Call the North Outstation, call Arin Thrase, call the Cultural Agency, call Domecity security, call the Dome Comcenter to clear your calls. And call home.”

  Orcrow sighed. “I almost wish I were back in the desert.” He joined Nara, leaving Kyreol and Terje among the silent trees.

  Terje spoke finally, breaking their own amazed silence. “I just wanted to see the rainbows…”

  “Terje.”

  “What?”

  “What did she mean we can’t go home? I was afraid to ask.”

  Terje stared at her so incredulously she smiled. But her brows were still puckered. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think she meant—”

  “Because you have to go home.”

  “Will you stop saying that!” The sudden anger in his voice startled her. They faced each other silently again, tensely. Then he picked at the green carpet and the flush faded out of his face. “Do you think I want to leave you?”

  “But Terje,” she said in a small voice.

  “I followed you all the way down the River. I’m sitting here with you beyond the edge of the world—”

  “Pretend it’s a dream,” she said helplessly. “You’ll wake up, and there will be Jage—”

  His voice rose again. “Why?”

  “Because what will you do here? There’s no place to fish. The birds are caged. The River ended. You only came to see rainbows—”

  “Kyreol.” He stopped and sighed. “You aren’t making any sense. What are you thinking? That nobody will notice that I vanished with you one day and came back without you? You think they won’t ask why?”

  “I don’t want them to ask!” she said vehemently. “Anything!”

  “Then what do you—”

  “I don’t want any changes! You go back, you marry Jage, and never say anything—never tell anyone. Oh, Terje—” she cried softly, as his face began to understand. “I want the Riverworld to be always alive. I never want it locked behind cases or nailed to walls. You go back, you keep it alive.”

  “I can’t,” he said softly, reaching out to her. She shifted, pushed herself close to him, her eyes wide, unseeing.

  “I’m afraid again,” she whispered.

  “Of what?”

  “I don’t know. Terje, the Riverworld itself is like something kept in Arin Thrase’s house. It’s guarded, protected, just like my mother’s betrothal skirt—”

  “No.”

  “Yes. We—we look at the world one way. A simple way for a tiny world. But I wonder what—how these people look at the world. They watch our world so it doesn’t change. But what is it they see surrounding the Riverworld? They see something. That’s why they won’t let us go back. Because they know something—something that can’t live in the Riverworld. And if we stay here long enough, we’ll—”

  “Kyreol, how can you say that?” he protested softly. “How can that be true?”

  “Why else did my mother say we couldn’t go back?”

  “Do you want to go back?”

  “I want—” She stopped, f
rowning at the deepening shades of green in the carpet. Then her face cleared a little and she sighed, leaning back against Terje’s shoulder. “I don’t want to give anything up. I wish I could be here and there at the same time. And you What do you want?”

  He scratched his head. “I would like a boat like Orcrow’s,” he said, and she shifted, laughing.

  “Terje—”

  “I do. And I want—” His hands moved vaguely in the air. “It’s hard to say. I want…just to live. To see new worlds, or see the same world, and know that everything is new. Or that there’s no difference. Between this world and the Riverworld. Everything is the same. The dreams change shape, but the dreamer never changes.”

  She was silent, her lips parted, glimpsing now and then what he was trying to say. She turned her face, kissed him, as though she could understand him that way. “But Terje,” she said tentatively, feeling stupid, “what do you want to do?”

  He smiled. But he looked a little bewildered, too. Nara came in then, with trays of steaming dishes. The smells were familiar: fish stew, warm bread made with nut flour, a sauce of berries and plums. There were even wild honeycombs to dip the bread into. Kyreol, aching with hunger, remembered the sound of bees swarming on a sun-soaked afternoon, with the green River dreaming in the distance. She saw herself picking up Korre’s little sisters, telling them stories… Where was that Kyreol now? Maybe I should have stayed, she thought. There was no reason not to love something so simple.

  “Eat,” Nara said gently. Kyreol broke off a piece of bread, got it past the burning in her throat, and felt better.

  Orcrow joined them again, looking tired. “I told the Agency I was back. They seemed surprised that you were feeding me instead of firing me. I tried to explain to them that the lure of the world drew the children, not some stranger wandering around their home dressed in feathers. But all they can envision is two terrified children, like aliens off another planet, understanding nothing.”