Fire in the Sky

1

Banikoлh, Medon Pass, sun not fully up yet

The morning was cool with dew glittering in the long shadows that filled the pass. Shadith stood with Aslan outside the tower’s iron door, watching Maorgan lead the moss ponies down the switchback from the tower to the road. She rubbed at her eyes, yawned, her body still aching with sleep-need. “If you’ll take Danor, it’ll be easier on him riding in the flikit than trying to sit a pony.”

“You’re sure you won’t come along?”

“Can’t leave the ponies, Scholar. Besides, this is how we were told to come. I think it’s better we stick to the script.”

“Right. We’ll give you an hour’s start and stay low when we follow.”

Shadith grinned at her. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

Aslan raised a brow, then grinned back. “Right.” She sighed. “This is a fascinating society. Isolated all these years, working out a way for disparate species to live together and like it. There’s the sioll bond. I want to know more about that. Other bonds. Something about the way the two species interact. Maybe part physical. Interesting to see if over time the Yaraka that stay here long enough will go the same way.

Ah! Shadow, this is a lifework, the one I’ve been hunting for.”

“Unless the Chave take over.”

Aslan grimaced. “If they do, we’ll all be dead, so I’m not going to worry about that.” She turned the grimace into a grin, made a fist and thumped Shadith’s shoulder lightly. “I’m going to let you do the worrying, Shadow. And the figuring out how to keep that from happening.”

“Oh, thanks.”

Aslan chuckled. “Yes. And there’s something else we’d better get settled.” She unclipped a remote from the Ridaar. “I’m going to register the completion of your contract, if you don’t mind. That way you don’t have to worry about University constraints.”

“Hm. Let me think about this.”

“Shadow, you know you might be doing things that University would have to take notice of if you were still under contract. Listen, this protects your base. If you’re not acting as their agent, the Governors can ignore a lot more interference in local matters.”

Shadith sighed. “All right, let’s do it.”

Melitoлh, Dushanne Garden, Kushayt, night

Hunched over, mind eating at itself because of his inadequacy, Ilaцrn crouched beside the stream listening to the harped messages hammering at him from outside the walls. When? the sound asked him. When will you act? He shuddered. We have to know, Ard. When? He’d left his own harp inside. He didn’t have an answer. He couldn’t say Not yet. The answer might be Never. All day he’d watched the air intakes, watched every move Hunnar made. He’d walked behind the Chav, provoked nothing but an irritated sweep of a hand.

I can’t, he thought. I can’t do it. I can’t make my hands do it.

Banikoлh, Medon Vale, approaching noon

The Vale of Medon was a squat oval with the lake at one focus and a continual shimmer of mist from the hundreds of hot springs that bubbled up through layers of moss and lichens, geysers that sprayed upward higher than trees, as if the Vale breathed in and out, water not air.

Hundreds of Eolt floated over the city, drifting in and out of clouds like fleece. Half a dozen were hovering at tentacle length above a herd of small warty beasts, rather like frogs on deer legs. These beasts stood head down, legs set, the Eolt tentacles sealed to large humps above their shoulders, dark fluid rising up the tentacles to spread swiftly through their translucent bodies, fading as it spread. As she watched, one by one the Eolt broke free of the beasts and rose to join the others.

Maorgan was busily scanning the Eolt. Hunting for Melech, she thought. I wonder if he can recognize his own? She glanced back at the feeding fliers. How and what the Eolt ate wasn’t something she’d thought about before, and definitely something Maorgan hadn’t wanted to talk about. It was a prettier thought, that that shimmering beauty fed on sunlight but more of a dream than reality.

Part of the valley floor was broken into a patchwork of fields, lush green punctuated by small figures. Odd how easy it was to tell Denchok from Fior even from this distance, a difference not in shape but in the way they moved. She watched them, trying to find words for that difference but could not. There were groves of fruit and nut trees around the edge of the valley, and in the rolling foothills grazing herds of bladlan and cabhisha and the food beasts of the Eolt.

Beyond the field there were clusters of houses set haphazardly here and there. It was the rocky land with thin soil, land not suited for farming, that the Vale folk had built on. The places where the hot springs bubbled up.

Near the far end of the lake there were a series of massive buildings unlike any others in the Vale. They were faced with marble and gleamed eerily white in the light of the nooning sun. The steep-pitched roofs shimmered like fish scales, the same translucent shingles that she’d seen on all houses where Denchok lived and worked. The area around these buildings was crowded with Fior and Denchok, male and female alike, some moving in pairs, some alone, some in large fluctuating, groups. She noticed for the first time that she saw no children, no Meloach and no young Fior.

Beyond this complex was a kind of arena. A round flat open area surrounded by tiers of benches and a broken circle of tall marble columns tied together with stone lintels and capped with odd bronze arrangements that puzzled her until one of the Eolt brushed low across the arena, caught hold of a bronze rod and used it to hold xe in place. Xe rested there a moment, swaying gently.

Maorgan thrust two fingers in his mouth, let loose a whistle that made her ears ring.

The Eolt at the arena loosed xe’s hold, rose till xe found an air layer traveling the way xe wanted and came rushing toward them.

Xe dropped and coiled xe’s speaking tentacle about Maorgan’s neck. Maorgan’s eyes glazed and his face relaxed into a shapeless joy that made Shadith uncomfortable-as if she had inadvertently broken into someone’s bedroom. She looked hastily away, went back to examining the Vale.

A number of other Eolt had started drifting toward them and there was a stirring in the crowd outside the large buildings, a swirl that gained definition and direction as half a dozen Fior and Denchok started marching along the road that ran from the lake toward the pass.

They were at least ten miles off so it would take a while to get here, but she didn’t want to wait. She glanced at Maorgan, sighed and looked away again. They’d been apart for days. She could remember the burning excitement when Melech had touched her that once. She moved her shoulders, shifted the strap of the harpcase and started Brйou down the trail. He could follow with the other ponies when he felt like it.

It felt good to be riding finally without the need to extend the mindtouch and sweep the land in front of her. She was still very tired and relaxing the stress made it hard to keep her eyes open, even with so much interesting strangeness about.

An Eolt tentacle brushed against her, sending a jolt through her body. She looked up. Eolt were circling thick above her. As she watched, another tentacle dropped. Hastily she extended her arm and let it touch the back of her hand. It was easier on both of them that way. Touch and touch and touch till she was near drunk with them. Power surges ran through her body, Brлou squealing as they passed through her and stung him.

Behind her Maorgan shouted and the Eolt cleared reluctantly away.

She looked round. His caцpa coming at a jolting trot, the packers following free, he was riding toward her, Marrin in the flikit close behind, holding the flier only a few feet off the ground. That was dangerous, but tactful under the circumstances.

“Shadowsong!”

She wrinkled her nose at the irritation in the word. “Calm yourself, Ard. No harm.”

He stopped the caцpa beside her, grabbed her hand, inspected the palm, turned it over, inspected the back. He let it drop. “I told you, Shadow, they’re dangerous. Especially free Eolt like these. Sometimes they get… cha oy… funny when they’re very old. And there are a lot of Old. Ones here.”

“We’ve got an escort coming to meet us, Maorgan. I doubt the Eolt would get that funny when we’re expected.”

“You don’t know that, Shadow.”

“Well, I do, Ard. There was only curiosity, no malice.”

“I forget you can do that. Cha oy, there’s still clumsiness to figure in. So be careful.”

She smiled and shook her head, then urged Brion onward, thinking fond thoughts of the sturdy if stinky beast. He’d done well by her on this long trip. She glanced back at the flikit and giggled. It looked so silly trailing there behind them, sitting on top of billows of white dust that the lift effect etched from the unpaved track. Like an odd-shaped black balloon. More balloons overhead, golden and bell-shaped. She looked up. Not so dreamlike when you saw the underside with its nests of coiling and uncoiling tentacles, the multiple mouths the Eolt used for their singing-and, no doubt, excretory functions. That thought made her giggle again.

They met the escort an hour later. Shadith dropped back, let Maorgan do the talking.

“Buli Terthal. Buli Dengol.”

The Denchok Buli banged xe’s official staff on the dirt of the roadway as a prelude to speech, then glared at Maorgan with a down-browed annoyance. “Ard Maorgan. We summoned one mesuch and one only. Who are they?” Xe swiveled the staff up, pointed it at the flikit.

“They are the reason we’re alive and here,” Maorgan said. He extended his voice into song mode so it reached beyond the speaker to the Denchok and Fior who’d gathered to watch the show. “We were attacked at the Pass Tower by a score of choreks. The watchmen there are dead; we laid out their bodies on the lower floor. Unless you insist on keeping us out here when we’re tired and hungry, this can be explained to the Meruu.”