Memory

Chapter 11

Much later that night I was awakened by my savant, whispering my name. I opened my eyes to find it floating beside me, its wing emitting a soft, golden illumination that did not reach to the edges of the little room. “A call,” it said in its old man’s voice. “From Jolly.”

A cold flush ran through me as I sat up on my pallet. I stared at the gleaming savant, afraid to speak, afraid that speech would shatter the dreamspell that surely held me.

“It is a time-limited channel,” the savant added.

“But how could it be Jolly?”

The savant hesitated a second. Then it answered confidently: “It can be Jolly because the biometrics are correct.”

“That can’t be.”

“Rechecking. Done. Identical results. Reminder: this is a time-limited channel.”

“Answer it!”

It was not Jolly calling me. That’s what I told myself. But I wanted to know who it was, and why.

A rectangular window appeared within the golden glow of the savant’s wing. At first the mimic screen was dark, but a second later light stirred, rising like silver in the night to coalesce in a face half lit, half in shadow—a boy, with beautiful, dark, fearful eyes.

It was as if the years between us had been erased. Here was my brother, hardly older than when I’d lost him. “Record,” I whispered to my savant. Then louder, “Jolly?”

“Mama?” He cocked his head; a look of confusion crossed his brow. “You’re not my mother! Where is she?”

“No, I’m not Mama. It’s me, Jolly. It’s Jubilee. Were you calling Mama? She’s home—”

“You’re not Jubilee! And this is my mother’s link. Why do you have her savant?”

I caught my breath. What Jolly was saying was true. When he was alive—

(When he was alive? What was he now? I could not doubt it was him, yet he looked only a little older, hardly touched by seven years of time.)

—yet it was true. When he was taken, this savant had belonged to my mother. It had not become mine until I was thirteen.

My astonishment was like a keening climbing higher in intensity and pitch until I could no longer hear it. I spoke calmly. “Mama gave me the savant, Jolly. A long time ago. And it is me. I am Jubilee, but time has gone by… for me. I’m seventeen. We thought you were gone. Lost.”

“I’ve been lost.” Tears started in his eyes. “Jubilee?”

“Yes.”

“It can’t be you. You’re littler than I am.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know how, Jolly. I don’t know what’s happened, but this is me. Look—” I patted my thigh, calling Moki to my side. “Here’s Moki. Your dog.He’s just the same.”

Jolly stared at the little red hound, looking like a boy sinking beneath clear water, dumbfounded, drowning in confusion. “Moki?” His voice cracked. Moki pricked his ears, sniffing furiously. “Moki!” Jolly shouted, and Moki jumped off the bed, searching behind the savant. “Moki!”

Time was counting down in the corner of the screen. “Jolly. We only have a minute left. Tell me where you are. Tell me where I can find you, and I’ll come.”

“You’ll tell Mama and Dad?”

I winced, but I nodded.

He licked his lips, looking uncertain. He glanced to the side, but apparently he got no counsel there. Moki returned to my lap, and Jolly’s gaze fixed again on his dog. “I’m at a small temple… in the Iraliad. It’s called Rose Island Station. Ficer is the temple keeper. He lives here, by himself. He keeps the antennas.”

Time was ticking down. We had only seconds left. “How did you get there, Jolly?”

“Out of the silver.”

It was the answer I’d expected, and still it rocked me. I struggled to keep my voice calm. “Send me your address, Jolly.”

“How—?” Again he turned as if to ask someone offscreen.

“Tell the savant,” an old, low voice advised in gruff syllables.

“Send the address,” Jolly said dully.

The connection closed.

I held on to Moki and cried for several minutes. Then I wiped my face and blew my nose and got up. I walked around my little room, pinching myself, jumping up and down, stroking the walls to feel the complexity of their texture, the pain of corners pressed against my fingertips, the detail of sensation as I rubbed my face and swallowed.

Details that were never mimicked in dreams.

Only when I was sure I was awake did I call the savant back to me. “Replay the last call.”

I watched Jolly and listened to my voice talking to him.Not a dream. I watched again.

Then I sat down on my pallet, my back braced against the wall and the savant balanced on my knees. I launched a search for Rose Island Station.

The library access took only a few seconds. It was a real place, in the Iraliad, just as Jolly had said. The station keeper was recorded as one Ficer Elmi.

Of course, someone who wanted to deceive me might easily use the name of a real place. But why try to deceive me about my brother?

My brother was not a deception.

I had talked to him and he’d been real. Impossibly real. Only a little older than the boy I remembered.

I had promised to tell his mother where he was.

I gripped the savant, not daring to even think what I would say to her.

I sent the call.

My mother’s confusion and grief, and her anger: they warred with a quiet joy as I told and retold every detail of my story, many times over, each repetition making it more real. At last she asked me this question: “Jubilee, do you believe it’s Jolly?”

“I do.”

She nodded, her face reflecting a stern resolve. “We have to bring him home.”

“I’ll go,” I said quickly, for I was afraid she would go herself. “Liam will go with me.”

My mother looked doubtful. “It’s the Iraliad.”

“I’m not afraid.”

Her hands met, palm to palm, beneath her chin. “What about Yaphet?”

Yaphet was even farther away than Jolly, though every step closer to the Iraliad would bring me closer to him. It was a thought that made me uneasy, as if I were contemplating a betrayal—but of who? I shook my head. “If that’s meant to be, then it will happen,” I said. “Someday. For now it’s Jolly who matters most.”

“I wish I could go with you.”

“You can’t. You have the babies to care for.”

“Yes… Jubilee? When you are deep in the Iraliad, there may come a time when you look back and realize that your home has become too far away. Too far to ever risk returning. If that happens, I’ll understand. If you want to take Jolly and push on to Vesarevi, to Yaphet… well… it might be best.”

“No.”I rejected the idea immediately. “No, Mama. I’ll bring Jolly back to you. I will.”

“If you can,” my mother said firmly, for she knew the ways of the world far better than I.

I checked the time. Still two hours before sunrise. From the window of my room I could look out over the gardens and the temple wall, to the north end of the valley. There was no sign of silver, and the odds of it rising so late in the night were very slim. So I went to wake Liam.

He had the room next to mine. I slipped past his unlocked door and shook him awake. Then in a whisper I told him all that had happened. “I’m going after him,” I concluded.

“Into the Iraliad?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not a land I ever thought to visit. It’s said the silver rises there almost every night, and for much of the year the land is pummeled by terrible storms that blow in from the ocean. The antennas there come down almost before they’re grown. The Iraliad’s the reason the channels are limited to Vesarevi.”

I nodded. “Terrible stories are told about it, but Jolly’s there.”

I heard something then: the crack of a stick, the rustle of a shrub. I went to the window to look, but saw only the night shapes of the garden. From my room next door I could hear Moki’s nails tapping on the tiled floor, but nothing else.

Liam joined me, moving so silently I didn’t know he’d stirred until he brushed against me. I flinched away, then laughed softly at my own reaction. “I’m feeling jumpy.”

“I’m thinking that’s good. This Kaphiri could be after us, if he learns you’ve found Jolly.” Then he added, “If we leave now, we might leave unobserved.”

“You’ll go then?”

“Of course I’ll go.”

I gave him a quick hug. “I knew you would.”

We retreated from the window. “We need supplies,” I said. “Should we return to Temple Huacho?” I didn’t want to. It would mean time lost, and time was crucial, for Kaphiri was looking for Jolly too. “It’d be foolhardy to set out with nothing, but—”

A faint knocking sounded from the hallway. Liam went to the door, listening as the knock repeated. “Your room,” he whispered. I came to look over his shoulder as he opened the door a crack.

Elek was just down the hallway, standing before my door with a flashlight glowing golden in her hand. She turned a startled gaze on Liam. Then she saw me and took a tentative step. “Jubilee,” she said in a soft whisper, “your mother has just called. She has asked me to outfit you for a journey. A long journey. You are not to worry about the debt.”

I breathed a silent thank you to my mother.

“Can you do this now?” Liam asked. “We’d like to be gone long before dawn.”

Elek nodded. “Come. My supply room is yours. It will take only a few minutes to gather what you need.”

Temple Nathé was a stop for almost every trucker making the run between Xahiclan and Halibury, and Elek’s supply room looked to be stocked with samples of nearly everything that had passed on that well-traveled road. There were field clothes and jackets, machine parts and electronics, agricultural seed, precious stone, kobolds, artifacts, and objects of art, and wines from all over the world, bows and rifles and skins… and food. Most of the food was in bulk: huge wheels of cheese and massive sausages and sacks of grain, but one shelf held travel rations, each portion neatly sealed against time and weather. Liam made most of his selections from these, taking enough to fill our saddle boxes. He had brought our rifles from home and there were sleeping bags already on the bikes. I found a field jacket to fit me. Then I hunted down two shirts, and one pair of long pants. I already had shorts. A length of rope and an extra water cell went into Liam’s sack, and already I thought it was more than we could fit on the bikes.

We wanted no light in the courtyard that might draw attention, so we worked by starlight as we loaded our saddle boxes. The courtyard gate stood open, for Elek had already gone down through the garden, to open the temple gate.

The night was clear, the stars bright and plentiful, but the Bow of Heaven had faded entirely from sight. Unlike the stars, the Bow does not rise and set but remains always at the zenith. Even when it seems to disappear, it’s not really gone. With a telescope it can still be seen as a thin, black ribbon eclipsing the stars. What it truly is, no one can say. The best telescope shows no detail. Even when its light is bright, all that can be seen is a glowing, rounded surface as of some fine flawless glass. By observing the way it eclipses stars, scholars have estimated that it is two hundred thousand miles above the world—an indomitable gulf that cannot be crossed by any physical means.

As I worked to pack the saddle boxes I found myself thinking about Fiaccomo, and his tryst with the goddess. If the silver was the manifestation of her dreams in the world, did the rest of her mind dwell in that inconstant arch of light? Then a new thought came to me: Had Jolly been to Heaven? He had to have been somewhere after all…

What was the Bow of Heaven? I thought of it as a placeless place, not truly of this world… and perhaps that’s why our telescopes never seemed to bring us any closer to it. Maybe the Bow was no physical thing at all, but only a boundary, bleeding the white light of some other realm. I couldn’t imagine what such an other-place might be like, but in that cool predawn morning, working hurriedly under the stars, it was easy to think that time might run very differently there.

The last saddle box was full. I leaned on the lid, pressing it down until the latch clicked. Several packets remained, with no place to put them. “Do you have any room?” I asked Liam.

“No, I’m full.”

I frowned at the leftover packets. I didn’t want to leave even one behind, for if the weather was against us it could take days, even weeks to cross the Iraliad. I wore my new field jacket to hold back the night chill. So I started filling the pockets. “I guess I’ll carry them then.”

Liam came over to look at my bike. “You’ve got room up front,” he said. He was pointing to the bin where Moki would ride.

I snorted. “I can’t hold Moki in my arms the whole way.”

Liam hesitated. Then he asked, “You’re not planning to take the dog?”

“Of course I’m taking him… did you think I was going to leave him here?”

“He’ll be fine here. Elek can put him on the next convoy bound for Huacho—”

“I can’t turn Moki over to strangers!”

“Then Rizal can come get him! Jubilee, bringing a dog on a trip like this is only asking for trouble. If he even survives—”

“He’ll survive, Liam! And he’s going with us. Moki is Jolly’s dog. He’s the only thing left of the life Jolly used to know—”

“Hush,”Liam whispered. He looked past me. I turned, but saw no one. The temple stairs glimmered white and empty in the starlight. Then Liam bolted past me, dashing up the stairs, taking them three at a time before disappearing into the hall. A moment later he came stumbling back out as Udondi emerged, her arm wrapped around the chest of Mica Indevar. The stoop-shouldered scholar sagged against her, his bald head nodding and his feet dragging like the feet of a baby who has not learned to walk. His eyes fluttered open as Udondi brought him to the top of the stairs, but then his knees gave way. She laid him down, none too gently.

“What have you done to him?” Liam asked in a low voice, full of horror.

“Only made him sleep,” Udondi said as she came down the stairs. “He was listening most intently just inside the door. Did he hear enough to earn the favor of his master?”

My cheeks grew hot. I had been speaking of Jolly. “He heard enough,” I admitted.

“It can’t be taken back,” Liam said gruffly. “And that’s all the more reason to leave now. Come on. Elek is waiting at the gate.”

I nodded and mounted my bike. Then I called softly to Moki, who had disappeared into the garden.

Udondi gripped my handlebar. “You’ve had news,” she said.

Liam and I traded a look. Then I whispered, “We were wrong and Kaphiri was right. My brotheris alive. I talked to him myself this night.”

Even in the darkness, I could see the surprise on her face. “Alive…? Has Kaphiri found him?”

“Not yet.”

“I would go with you.”

“We’re leaving now,” Liam said.

“I can leave now.”

“What about your sleeping scholar?” Liam nodded at the dark figure at the top of the stairs. I could hear Indevar’s soft, sonorous breathing, like the song of some night insect.

Udondi’s teeth flashed white. “We will ask Elek to see to it that he leaves this morning with the Ano truckers. He will be far away—and so shall we!—by the time he is conscious enough to protest.”

At the courtyard gate I called again to Moki, and this time he came. I put him in his bin. Then we let our bikes roll through the expansive gardens propelled by gravity alone. Elek waited for us at the outer wall, ghostlike in her white robe. If she was surprised to see Udondi in our company, she showed no sign. We stopped to talk with her, and she agreed to do what she could with Indevar. Then she took my hand. “I thought I knew the rules of the world, but all that changed the night the wizard came. Now myths are coming real, and I don’t know anymore what is possible and what is not. Perhaps it will be up to you to find out.” Then she hugged me, and I thanked her, and we left Temple Nathé behind.