by Robert Reed
Elata was beside Seldom, crying and jumping. And the Master was behind them, quietly saying the same word again and again.
“Remarkable,” he said.
But then the parachute was blown off the Happenstance, falling past Seldom’s windows. He was brave enough for one squinting glance, and he saw what he feared, shutting his eyes and pushing the binoculars hard against his sorry stomach. The pilot had warned them how the air was still near the demon floor, how they had to fly low to intercept their people, no room for second chances. And now their friend was going to be a cinder, and Merit was sure to die.
Seldom wasn’t ashamed to cry.
“What’s wrong?” Elata asked.
What was right? Nothing was.
And deciphering the tears, she laughed at him.
Anger made the eyes open. The parachute was a floppy mess, nobody riding it to their doom, and the loud little pilot was climbing stairs somewhere above them, shouting instructions to his people. Then Diamond’s mother came into the cabin, smiling warily. Seldom wiped his face with the sleeve of his school uniform and the Master patted his shoulders.
“Just remarkable,” he said.
In that instant, Seldom went from miserable to joyous. Pushing the binoculars against wet eyes, he watched the Ruler of the Wind continue to break open and fall to pieces. But the little airships that it had carried were free and racing off. Maybe the crew and everybody had been saved. That’s what Seldom wanted, but he didn’t want that very much. He hoped the Ruler would catch fire, which would be spectacular, and that’s exactly what happened next: hydrogen was leaking where the corona skin was ripped open—more hydrogen than any fire retardant could fight—and touched by a spark, the gas exploded. The blaze was blue on the edges and invisible inside its fierce heart, and the nearby canopy began to burn, and the ship’s cabins and fuel tanks and every giant engine too.
Seldom was so thrilled that he felt weak, almost sick. His mind started jumping, as it was known to do, and he suddenly remembered how Nissim had talked about worlds other than this world. The boy hadn’t believed the Master. Of all the things that happened today, that possibility had bothered him more than any. Yet now, wearing this seamless, effortless joy, Seldom could believe impossible ideas. Of course there were worlds past theirs, just as there were other creatures like Diamond, and not only did he embrace what a moment ago seemed ugly and impossible, but Seldom found himself half-fearing, half-wishing that somehow he could visit one of these worlds.
Wouldn’t that be a wonderful journey?
Diamond walked into the little cabin with its lightweight chairs and flexible windows and the big flanking engines, repaired and roaring. Elata gave him a sturdy hug and the Master clasped his hand.
Seldom was standing at the window with binoculars in his hands. “What happened on the Ruler?” he asked.
Diamond didn’t want to talk about the fights.
“I thought I could see you,” Seldom said, waving the binoculars. “You had a sword. Then the glass broke, and out you jumped out.”
“Seldom,” said the Master. “Leave our friend alone, please.”
Diamond wiped at his dirty face.
“Sit,” the Master suggested.
“I’m hungry,” Diamond confessed.
Seldom dropped the binoculars and both children ran off on a food hunt.
Mother was sitting in the middle of the cabin. She looked pale but happy, waving to him. “Here. Please, keep me company.”
He sat, and she held his hands.
The Master sat elsewhere, Father joining him. The two men spoke quietly, every word serious and every gesture careful. They were talking about laws and the codes of the slayer and political matters that shouldn’t matter to normal boys.
Diamond leaned into the old woman, and she leaned into him.
“I’m tired,” she said.
He nodded.
“Are you tired?”
He said, “Maybe.”
“Weak?”
He thought for a moment, one hand grabbing the other wrist. Both were healed, and he said, “I’m back to the same.”
She felt the arm. “You are.”
They sat together for a few recitations, saying nothing.
Elata returned with two ancient meals wrapped in clear rubber, plus a flask of warm water. “This is all, so far. Seldom’s chasing rumors about a lost lunch. But nobody remembered to load food at the reef, what with the engine and the excitement.”
“Thank you,” Mother said, using a smile to coax the girl to leave.
Then to her son, she said, “Eat it all.”
The meals were dry and nearly tasteless, and he wasn’t sure what the food had been when it was fresh. But he was famished, and she watched him for a little while before saying, “Diamond.”
“What?”
“Your name. I want you to know where it came from.”
His mouth stopped chewing, and he looked at her.
She motioned at Father. “He told me you understand, you know where he found you and how he brought you home.”
“Yes,” said the boy.
“Afterwards, I pretended to be pregnant,” she said. “At my age, that seemed unlikely. But we announced that you were coming and I didn’t let myself get seen without wearing a pillow under my shirt. Then we announced that you were born at home and sickly. Maybe we shouldn’t have. It might have been smarter to run off to the wilderness and live like bandits. But your father had his work, and wild country has its dangers, and so we kept up this lie until too many people were asking to see you, wanting to help.
“Friends found the doctor for us, and the doctor convinced himself of your afflictions, at least for a little while. You were one bug away from death, and in one fashion or another, we believed our own lie.”
Diamond listened intently.
“I used to watch you lying inside your crib,” Mother said. “Your father was working, and I didn’t have anything half as important as studying you. Such a little baby, you were. So sweet you seemed, but odd. Sometimes you’d gaze at me and smile and make me weep, I was so happy. But there were spells when I would do everything I could to win a grin, and you did nothing but stare at the darkest piece of your room, watching nothing. As if you were hypnotized by the darkness. And then sometimes, without warning, you laughed for no reason, and you smiled like you smiled at me, only better. A radiant smile, and that’s when I realized you were remembering your real mother. Whoever she was, whatever she was. Ages spent in the belly of a corona, yet you still hadn’t forgotten this other life that I can’t begin to imagine.”
“I don’t remember anybody else,” said Diamond. But the words felt forced, and when he fell silent, he could almost see another face.
Sipping stale water, he waited.
“Your father and I fought,” Mother said. “We argued about what to teach you about the world and yourself. In the end, I won. I said you were happy as you were. I reminded him that I was responsible for you, day after night after day, and if you knew too much about the world—if you ever decided to leave—I wouldn’t be strong enough to keep a creature like you in one place.
“That’s not a worthy reason for everything. I feel terrible. I deserve to hurt. But that’s one reason you were locked away, so a weak old woman didn’t have to make impossible choices.”
Diamond wasn’t sure how to react.
Seldom returned from his search, empty hands held high.
“My name,” Diamond said.
“What?”
“You were going to explain my name.”
“I’m sorry. I distracted myself.” Mother made herself laugh, just to prove she could. “When I was a girl, about the age of your friends, I was a student at the Marduk school. There was one very long day, and my class traveled to a special place where ancient artifacts are kept safe. We were shown one rare, exceptional marvel. It was a rock. The rock was tiny, like the tip of the tip of your finger, but it was bright and glittery in the
special light they shone on it. The story that I was told was that there are only so many of these tiny rocks in the world, and the gems were stronger than everything but the shell of the world. They’re called diamonds. According to legend, when the first humans in the world were married to one another, the man and the woman each wore a ring encrusted with these exceptional gemstones. That’s the way the Creators made us. People died, but diamonds are the everlasting symbol of love. But there are very few diamonds left in the world, and thousands of days later, I was gazing at a baby who had come across an unimaginable route, enduring untold miseries to find me, and it seemed to me that the world would be better—a stronger, more enduring place—with one more diamond among us.”
SEVENTEEN
Every course has its benefits. Flying beneath the wilderness canopy, the Happenstance pushed ahead as fast as the repaired engine allowed, following the straightest possible line back to the Corona District. And every course had its risks. Any moment, some wild branch might drop or an entire tree could tumble free on top of them. And if the other engine exploded and punctured a bladder, they would start a long horrible fall without any snags to stop them. Flight meant calculations, and their course was the best imperfect choice. But at least the sun was so weak that nobody wore goggles, and Diamond could sit at the window with his new friends, everybody watching a vista that few had seen before.
Mother and Father were sitting with Master Nissim, talking in whispers.
Seldom started to laugh.
“What’s funny?” Elata asked.
“School,” he said. “When we go back tomorrow, what are we going to tell people?”
“The truth,” she said.
“They’ll say we’re lying,” Seldom said, laughing harder.
Elata was laughing. She patted Diamond on the knee and smiled at him, and when he looked at her face, she said, “When I talked to you that first time, when you were standing on your landing . . . do you know what I thought . . . ?”
“No.”
“You were boring.”
Diamond nodded slowly.
“Oh, I knew he was fascinating,” Seldom said. “Right away, the first time I looked at you.”
“You did not,” said Elata.
“I did.”
“You’re lying,” she said.
“Maybe,” Seldom agreed. Then something was so funny that he couldn’t speak, shaking his head as he giggled and snorted.
The reef country had vanished into the late-day haze. Between the Happenstance and where they had been, an entire tree suddenly ripped free, plunging from the canopy without sound or apparent haste, twisting until the heavy base of the trunk was leading the way. Diamond watched it grow small, and then came the demon floor, heat and pressure claiming their prize, and he thought about the monkeys trapped on that doomed wood.
His friends kept laughing, and he was sad.
“After school,” Seldom said.
Diamond blinked. “What?”
“I could come to your home. I’ll bring my two-wheeler and teach you how to ride.”
“Maybe.” Diamond looked at his parents. “I don’t know.”
“Riding is easy, if you try.”
Balancing on two spinning wheels didn’t sound easy. But Diamond wanted to sound positive, saying, “Okay,” while pulling up a smile.
The overhead wilderness was changing. Corona blackwoods pushed out from the paler green limbs, and a single blimp moved sluggishly from one destination to another. Diamond watched the blimp and the dense canopy adorned with cultivated epiphytes and fancy flowers, and suddenly they passed close to a suspended platform where long green blades hung off the bottom—like hair, except that it was some kind of plant.
A word came to him, and he spoke it.
Nobody understood him.
The word brought a brief image, real as any dream, of green vegetation standing tall and the sun overhead and an impossibly beautiful woman watching over him.
Diamond shut his eyes, clinging to the image.
Master Nissim came over and sat among the three of them, and after a while the man said his name.
Diamond looked at him.
“I’ve been talking to your parents. About quite a lot, and all of it wrapped around you, of course.”
The boy nodded, waiting.
“Do you know what a tutor is?”
“No.”
Seldom knew. His cheeks blew up big, and guessing the rest, he said, “You’re going to tutor Diamond.”
“That’s the plan of the moment, yes.”
Seldom leaned close. “This is great. You’re so lucky.”
Diamond said nothing.
The Master watched him until their eyes met, and then he laughed quietly and a little sadly. “I don’t believe in luck. I never have. ‘Good fortune is the sweat of good acts,’ says the proverb. But if ever there was a creature smiled upon by Fate, it has to be you, my boy.”
“I don’t feel lucky,” Diamond admitted.
His tutor leaned close, nodding. “Which is perhaps the best part of the blessing.”
The canopy gave them a suitable gap, and dropping water, the Happenstance rose toward a place that Diamond already knew. Marduk welcomed him and welcomed everyone with its enduring trunk, with the landings and shops and the now-empty school that looked small against that great wall of bark. A vessel designed for speed had to coast and crawl its way around to the far side. Some features were familiar. Elata pointed to the public walkway where Diamond had crashed and healed again. He looked the other way. Where was the falling water? But the runoff always dried by afternoon, Seldom explained. There was no mist, the air dry and clear, and the green sunlight was on the brink of being extinguished. Hearing big engines, people came out from their homes to watch the first fletch ship they had ever seen in this space. They waved with exaggerated motions. Elata and Seldom waved back. Father left to help guide the pilot, and the engine that hadn’t been broken before started leaking smoke, making the air stink. Then the Happenstance got into position, its nose pointed at Marduk, and the engines were throttled back and more water was dropped, and Diamond felt the world falling around them.
Nearly forty people were sharing one large landing. Seldom pointed and hollered. “My mother. Your mother too. Do you see her, Elata?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Karlan was alone at the railing, standing almost exactly where he had been when he tossed Diamond over the edge. He was still wearing the school uniform. He looked as if he hadn’t moved all day, waiting for this moment, and now it had arrived and he wasn’t happy or sad or anything. He just stared at the spectacle and at Diamond, and then Diamond waved to him and Karlan’s face flushed and he pretended to be fascinated by the smoking engine.
Every landing was crowded with people, save one. The pilot nudged them ahead, and the little gangway was dropped and secured to the weather-stripped wood. Citizens were hanging on the various ropes above, and they jammed the walkways. But only three people occupied the landing. Two of the strangers remained near the ladder. A woman was standing alone in front of the curtain, two women’s faces watching the world, and as his parents walked Diamond down the gangway, each said, “This is our Archon.”
Their voices were the same, quiet and respectful.
Prima was smaller than Diamond imagined, and younger. She stared at him as if one hard look would answer every mystery. But nothing was answered, so she turned to the face that she knew best. “Merit,” said the Archon. “We haven’t seen each other since when? The Festival of Lasts, wasn’t it?”
“Something in that order. Yes, madam.”
“And it’s been too long, Haddi. How are you holding up?”
“Well enough,” Mother said.
The short woman bent lower. An adult who had no children, she was both too formal and too eager to be a friend. Her smile was brilliant. She spoke with a voice accustomed to being listened to. “So. So you are the famous Diamond.”
“Yes, ma
’am.”
A buzz of voices fell from above.
Diamond looked up at the staring faces, and his Archon dropped to a knee, saying, “It’s been a storm of rumors, I’m afraid. Your father’s crew talked, and my staff said too much, and now every call line in the District is busy. And do you know what people are saying? The kinder voices, I mean. They are saying that you are some great gift from the Creators, and today you bested the big Archon, and you have magical powers, and by the way, you turned the flagship into torn cloth and scrap metal.”
Diamond didn’t know how to react.
“A quiet boy,” she judged. Then she stood, waving for her assistants to approach.
The Master and other children joined the group.
“There are some weighty legal questions,” Prima told everyone. “But the best course, from what I can see, is that my office and my good word grant you asylum from other claims. So long as you stay inside the Corona District, you are my guest. You are protected and free, and let’s let the lawyers fight the rest of the battles for us. Does that sound like a reasonable strategy?”
Diamond didn’t know whether to nod or not. He decided to turn to his mother, asking, “May I go inside? I’m tired.”
His parents laughed, their exhaustion easy to see.
The Archon made the decision. Backing away, she told everyone, “Diamond wants to finish his journey home. Let’s allow him, please.”
Diamond walked.
His parents and Nissim stayed behind, discussing abstract matters of state and law and simple decency.
Seldom and Elata fell in beside the boy, each asking if he or she could see him tomorrow.
“Maybe,” he started to say.
A rough voice interrupted. From his perch on the railing, the orange-headed monkey shouted, “Good.”
One of the assistants took it as his duty to shoo the animal away. But Diamond said, “No, please, leave him alone.”
“He’s yours?” the man asked doubtfully.
“I’m his,” Diamond answered. He gave Good the finger that was bit off once, and the monkey looked at it and at him and then cackled wildly. Then both walked to the curtain, and Diamond turned, telling Seldom and Elata, “Come by after school.”