She could see his flushed face in pale stripes of light from one of the tubes. He was grinning. He kissed her again slowly, and again, discovering all the different ways a mouth could fit against another mouth, until after a while she forgot the terrible sadness of her dream and became interested in what he was doing. Then she remembered where they were.
“Terje,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Where is my mother? Where is Orcrow?”
He sighed a little and settled back against the odd writing. She curled up against him, her eyes in the crook of his shoulder, half-closed, so that she couldn’t see the strange things around them.
“Orcrow sent you here,” he said.
She shook her head bewilderedly. “But he wasn’t—”
“We watched you on a screen. He said you might like this room, so he had all the other places guarded.”
“I was trying to get back to the River.”
“He knew that.”
She stirred a little, frowning. “He’s a good hunter… Terje, what is this room?”
His arms tightened; his voice came against her hair. “He told me. People from many different worlds—in the sky—send things they make to the Dome, as gifts. He said this room is like Arin Thrase’s house, full of other people’s lives and dreams—” He stopped, as all her muscles froze. “Kyreol—”
“Terje.” Her voice wouldn’t come; it was barely a whisper. “Terje. I dreamed—I dreamed one of their dreams. I dreamed the message on this—this…” She jerked herself out of his hold, turning to touch the writing. She couldn’t see it in the dark, but her fingers knew it. The dream ran like water through her thoughts, dimpling, reflecting, hurrying on. “Someone—it’s a message to someone. She was turning into something, going away from the water where she was born, up into the air to live. She was saying goodbye to someone she loved. She was so sad. ‘May we meet in the wind.’” Her head turned suddenly. “What was that noise?”
“I don’t know.”
“Someone said something in the dark…” She listened, but the shadowy air was still. She eased herself, bone by bone, back against Terje. He was very quiet for a while.
“What are you thinking?”
She felt the rise and fall of his breath. “Just that—worlds aren’t so different, even in the sky…”
“This one was very different… Terje, she used her finger to write in this, as easily as I write in sand. And the world… The water is deep under the ground, in great shining passages and caves; that’s where she lived.”
“In a Riverworld.”
“Yes. And above, people live in the air like birds. The winds are always blowing; the air is gold with dust. The water-shape can’t live in the air. So people are born in the water underground, and then they—go to sleep, I think, and find themselves living in the air. But they don’t remember. They can watch each other change, so they know what happens, but still they forget, when their own time comes. They even forget who they love. That’s why the message is so sad. She was remembering, for one last time.”
“That’s sad.”
“Yes.”
“Kyreol.”
“What?”
“That’s a wonderful story.”
She sat up indignantly. “It’s true! Terje, I wasn’t just telling a story—”
He was laughing. “I believe you. I think. You may hate the Dome, but you can’t say there are no stories here.”
She gazed down at him surprisedly. “That’s true.” A single bar of light fell across his eyes. She watched his hand rise, the shadow of it fall across her vision, felt his fingers at the back of her head, drawing her down toward his own eyes, as gold as the planet she had dreamed of. She fell slowly toward them, remembering the singing of the water. Her face rested against his face; their eyes considered one another, shadow and dust.
“Terje.”
“What?”
“What should we do?”
He answered calmly, instantly, “Well, tonight is Moon-Flash. I think we should watch it.”
She drew back. He watched her steadily, but his eyes were wary. She moved farther back, and his hand moved again, caught her wrist. She stilled, her own face expressionless.
“How do you know?”
“Your mother told me.”
“Well, why? I mean why should we watch it?”
“Why not? The whole world watches it. Even the Dome. I think we should.”
“Terje—”
He held her tightly, his hand strong from rowing down half the world. “Kyreol, it’s—” He paused, struggling for words. “It doesn’t matter. What it is. Did it matter to the man who was dead inside the stone face?”
“Well, he was dead.”
“I know, but it must have mattered to the people who carved the Moon-Flash on the stone. They put the Moon-Flash there because it’s far away, strange, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the living, it just keeps happening over and over—the fire strikes the full moon. It always happens, just like the sun rising. So they found a story for it. They called it a death sign, but I don’t think they meant it as a sad sign. It’s something that always happens. But it’s always mysterious.”
She shook her head, bewildered. “Yes, but it’s not mysterious. I mean the Moon-Flash isn’t. What would happen if those people found out what it really is?”
“Then they’d find something else.”
“No, they wouldn’t. Because there’s nothing mysterious left. These people here have everything explained.”
He said simply, “I think everything is mysterious anyway.”
She blinked. “Even the Moon-Flash?”
“Especially the Moon-Flash. Kyreol, I don’t even know how to make a fire with sticks.”
She was silent. She smiled suddenly, feeling a little foolish, then said softly, “It’s just that—when my mother explained the Moon-Flash—something happened to me in my heart. She took—she took something away from me. She took the Riverworld. I will never see it again. I stepped outside of its story.” She stopped. A tear slid down her face, glittered briefly through the air. Terje sat up quickly, put his arms around her.
“Don’t cry,” he pleaded.
“Why aren’t you sad? It was your world, too.”
“But it’s still there. And this is the world, too.”
“Maybe.” She was silent, while one of the odd things in a far comer shimmered and subsided again. She felt very tired, as though she had walked for miles, or swam through a river storm. She kissed Terje, wishing she could sit there with him for a long time in the silent, glinting darkness. One last Moon-Flash she would watch, she decided. And then, never again. It would belong to her childhood, like the boat she and Terje had built, like the River itself, with the turtles sleeping on its banks. She would learn about the Dome, about the worlds in the sky. But she would never believe in a story again.
Terje stirred, as though he were reading her thoughts. “Let’s go up.”
“Where?”
“To the top of the Dome.” He helped her to her feet. She touched the great love-message gently before they left. Good-bye, world where I was born.
Orcrow was waiting patiently for them in the hall. He smiled when he saw Kyreol, but his eyes were concerned. He led them to the elevator and said to her gently, “Up? Or down.”
Her chin tilted. “You didn’t give me a choice before.”
“You didn’t give us a chance. The Dome is not such a terrible place, even though there is no river running through it.”
“I know.”
“I know you do. I was listening.”
She felt her face heat, her eyes grow big. “Orcrow!”
“Well, Kyreol, you were hysterical.”
“I was not! I’m only betrothed, not married, and Korre wouldn’t want me now, anyway—I know too many strange things.” Her words ended in a sigh. Orcrow put one arm around her.
“Hysterical means very upset.”
“O
h.”
“I didn’t want any harm to come to you. That’s why I sent Terje to find you. He has a calming effect on people. Even on me.” He paused, waiting. She stood very straight, her shoulders squared, her head held proudly, masking all her terror as she prepared to step blindly into the future.
“Up.”
The top of the Dome was dark, now. The shielding that protected them from intense light during the day was open to reveal an arch of glittering white crystals. The night sky, the realm through which the moon wandered. It had just risen within the Dome opening; it was perfectly full, so clear Kyreol could see for the first time the scars on its ancient, battered face.
People are on it, she realized suddenly, and tried to imagine them: tiny specks, tinier even than the First Man and the First Woman. Orcrow led them through the gardens, where people stood in the moonlight, sipping drinks and talking softly. Among the trees, directly under the moon, her mother waited.
“Kyreol!” She held Kyreol tightly, as though she were a small child. “I thought I lost you again.”
“Terje found me.” She paused, wordless questions hovering in her mind. She found words for one finally. “Are you happy here?”
Nara, gazing anxiously into her eyes, seemed to understand the roots of the question. “Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. But I always know that, when I left the Riverworld, this is the place I was looking for.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Everyone in the Dome has places they can never return to. For some, it’s their earlier years, for others, a city or a forest, for others, a place in the heart where they loved or were loved. At first I missed Riverworld terribly. Now, not very often, especially when I’m happy. Besides—” She touched Orcrow. “I can always send my messengers out to bring me news.”
“I’m going,” Terje said, and Kyreol’s heart froze.
“You’re leaving me,” she whispered. She saw him collect his patience visibly.
“Kyreol, don’t be stupid.”
“But—”
“I’m going with Orcrow. He’s going to train me to be a Hunter like him. No one will know I’m there, but I want to go back. Just—” he shrugged a little. “I don’t know why. To smell the River, listen to the trees.”
“I never want to go back,” she said, surprising herself. “It won’t be the same. Are you sure you’ll remember to return here?”
He was silent a moment. Then he kissed her gently, unabashedly, in front of her mother. There was a sudden stirring around them, a murmuring. Kyreol opened her eyes and saw the fire brush brightly, tenderly, against the face of the moon. How can they think it’s a death sign? she wondered. It’s a sign of love. Then she remembered: It’s a ship’s fire. Then another kind of wonder filled her. The people of the Dome sent the ship out for one reason: because the people of the River, not the people of the moon, needed it. All over the world, faces were lifted toward the Moon-Flash: the Dome’s gift to all the people it cherished.
“It is a sign of love,” she whispered.
“A confused sign,” her mother said. “And maybe not very wise. But for now, it’s the best we can do.”
Kyreol moved closer to Terje, her own face lifted next to his face, and wondered, as he took her hand, how far it was to the end of the stars.
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