Memory

Chapter 21

Sleep did not come easily that night. I lay awake, listening, I don’t know for what. I could hear a distant guitar, and closer, the soft scratch of kobold feet on the stone windowsill. The rich, cloying scent of temple kobolds pervaded my every breath.

A restlessness grew in me, so that after some time I left my bed, to stand watch at the window. From my room I could see the plain below the pinnacles. The silver was just taking form there, as a thin, bright sheen like liquid glass poured across the flat basin. I could feel its presence, as a strange new awareness in my mind. I could feel it, as if the silver had somehow become part of my mind. I felt it flowing past the rocks and swallowing them whole. I felt it rising.

Fear took me, and I retreated from the window, but it made no difference. My preternatural awareness continued, as if some outpost of my mind existed down there on that plain, looking, listening, waiting on my instruction while my familiar self trembled in the darkness of my borrowed room.

A terrible suspicion took root in my mind. “No,” I whispered. “No. I am not him.”

But had some part of him gotten inside me, when his blood mixed with mine? Had that poison wakened something in me? Was this how Kaphiri sensed the silver? Was this how he felt?

A faint glitter caught my eyes and I looked down, to find my hands surrounded by tiny sparkles of silver. Horror washed over me. I was not like him! I dashed my hands against my thighs. “Go away!”

The vision snapped, as if in obedience to my command. My awareness collapsed, to become only a human awareness. Fatigue rushed over me, and I soon convinced myself it had been nothing more than a dream.

I awoke in the morning to find my strength returned and I refused to stay longer in bed. I repacked my bike and checked my rifle, and when that was done I spent some time translating the lists of configuration codes in Known Kobold Circles for the scholars of that house—a payment of sorts for the kindness they had shown me—but I could not keep my mind on it. I was impatient for Liam and Udondi to return.

By late afternoon the waiting became unbearable, so I slipped away from a discussion of the nature of silver, and with Moki at my side I climbed the long stairway to the top of the pinnacle to look for my companions. Maya had warned me not to show myself outside the temple, so I sent my savant to look over the wall, while I lingered in the stairwell.

The day was clear, and the savant had command of the land for miles all around, yet it reported no sign of movement. I told myself not to worry. Sunset was still more than two hours away.

I called Yaphet, but he didn’t answer, so I left a message. I started to call Liam, then remembered I had destroyed his savant. So I called Udondi, but there was no answer. Next I tried Jolly, using the new address he’d given to Liam. No answer.

I grew annoyed. No one I cared to talk to ever seemed to be within reach. I understood the difficulties of communication in the Iraliad; I knew that a savant stored in the bin of a bike would be unlikely to catch a radio signal, but that knowledge did not ease my isolation.

After an hour or so I heard footsteps climbing the stairwell, and a few minutes later Maya appeared from below. “Ah good,” she said, when her gaze fell upon me, crouched at the top of the stairs. “I was afraid I’d find you in the open. Have you sighted your companions yet?”

“No, and they should have been back by now. They wanted to leave again at dusk.”

“There are many reasons they might be delayed. Don’t worry too much.” She sat on the stairs, unfolding a square of paper across her lap. “I’ve had a map made for you. It shows all the refuge mesas in the northern Iraliad… and it also charts several wild kobold wells. It might be helpful to know where they are. Not that the wells offer much shelter. Most are in the open desert, or in boulder fields. A few are in canyons, or on cliff walls. Still, you’d be safe from the silver if you camped at any of these sites, and it’s unlikely anyone else will know of them.”

I leaned over her shoulder, studying the map. The nearest wild kobold well was only fifty miles or so away. “So if Kaphiri has sent more players, they’ll likely look for us at the mesas, and not at these wild wells.”

“That may be,” Maya said, “but if you camp at the wells you’ll find no food or water or shelter from the elements, and no defensible positions. It’s a trade-off, though it may be a worthwhile one. You’ll have to decide as you go.”

I nodded. “Thank you for all you’ve done.”

“Too much and not enough,” she said as she handed me the map. “We do ask this of you: make no copy of this map for your savant, and destroy it as soon as you have left this region. The life span of a wild well is fleeting, but the life span of expired information is not. In a few months this map will show only where wells used to be. I wouldn’t want anyone to follow it to their death in the silver.”

Dusk came and went, and still there was no word from Liam, but as the scholars had predicted, the silver did not immediately appear at the onset of darkness.

The scholars based their predictions on the rhythm of storms that arose in the Iraliad’s southern basin. Little was known of the basin, except that silver seeped from it, even in the daylight. It was a lowlying, broken land, “As if the fist of the god had struck the world,” Emil said. Like the other scholars, he believed some force or factor, hidden there beneath veils of silver, controlled the rise and fall of silver storms even as far away as the northern edge of the Kalang Crescent.

“Our histories tell us the goddess spun the world from a cloud of silver, and that the silver is her mind, dreaming the world into existence. But where does the silver come from? And how could the goddess control it? I believe some hint of an answer might be found within the southern Iraliad. That region is different from all others in the world, for the silver is never absent, and no player may go there, and live… except perhaps the traveler.

“Once, I tried to go there. I was already old, so there wasn’t so much to lose. I was determined to discover what was there, even if I never escaped alive with the knowledge—but the goddess has no patience for hubris. I barely penetrated the rim of the basin, for the silver became a wall that would not let me advance. In that land you can feel the forces that made the world, still at work, endlessly building up the land all around. You came across the Kalang Crescent. Did you know that it grows higher every year?”

“We had guessed,” I said, quietly astounded at this confirmation. “And we saw the southern desert, when we were on the Crescent.I have no curiosity to go there!”

“Wise youth! For myself, I decided that life was precious to me after all, and I turned for home, but it took me a hundred days to return a mere two hundred miles to these friendly lands of the north.”

Emil sighed. “If we could but understand the factor of the southern desert, we would be so much closer to understanding the tide of silver now rising in the world… or so I believe.”

The scholars had collected notes for centuries, but they could only predict the rise and fall of silver in a radius of some hundred miles around the Temple of the Sisters. Farther than that, their studies failed. This one night they could guide me. Then I would be dependent on luck once again.

Leaving my savant on the pinnacle, I retreated down the stairs to eat some dinner. When I returned half an hour later I found the stars out in all their glory, and a message from Jolly recorded on my savant. I cursed my timing. But when I sent a link Jolly answered immediately, his youthful face gazing from the screen of my savant with worried eyes. “They said you were sick.”

“I’m over it now. Where are you?”

“It’s an old station. I don’t know if it has a name, but we’re only staying here this night. We’ll leave again in the morning. Ficer says to tell you we’ll be at Azure Mesa by tomorrow afternoon.”

I consulted the map Maya had given me. “That’s only a hundred twenty miles from here!”

A gruff voice spoke from offscreen. “Ask her if that’s not too far… now that we’ve crossed almost all the North Iraliad to meet her.”

Jolly grinned. It was infectious. “I’ll be there,” I promised. “In fact, I’ll be waiting when you arrive.”

“If the silver allows it,” the gruff voice amended.

“Yes,” I agreed. “If.”

Only 120 miles—a few hours by bike, if all went well… though things had not gone well for some long time. After Jolly had gone to have his dinner, I cradled the savant in my lap and considered.

Liam and Udondi still had not called. Did that mean they could not? If they had found trouble, it might mean trouble would find me if I stayed at the Sisters.

I could leave tonight.

Liam had been planning to set out tonight anyway. The silver wasn’t expected to rise until late. I could set out, get as far as the first wild well on the map, and camp. That way I’d have a start on anyone who might come looking for me… and if Liam and Udondi showed up at the Sisters tomorrow… well, I’d leave a message with Emil telling them where I’d gone.

I took my savant downstairs. Emil nodded when I told him my plans, as if he’d expected as much. He summoned Maya. “She has decided to leave us this night.”

“There are no safe choices now,” Maya said. “You should have until midnight to reach shelter, but in the darkness you’ll need to go slowly. You weren’t planning to use a light?”

I shook my head.

“By starlight,” Emil said. “By the light of Heaven.” He clasped my hand. “If I were younger I’d go with you. As it is, I can only watch… but I’ll watch well. The traveler will have no news of you from this old man.”

“No, Emil. If he comes, you must tell him whatever he wants to know. He’ll learn it anyway, and I would not have you or anyone else hurt.”

His eyes were moist. “That task may be too hard for me.”

I kissed his cheek. “Still I ask it of you.” Then I whispered the name of the mesa where I was to meet Jolly, and I left him and went downstairs.

My bike was ready. I put on my field jacket while Maya made sure I understood how to find the first wild well. I thanked her, then I called Moki and put him in his bin. Maya opened the door for me. The Bow of Heaven glimmered overhead, giving me a little light. There was no sign of silver. I wondered if Kaphiri lay hidden somewhere among the boulder-strewn slopes. I desperately hoped it wasn’t so; I didn’t want him to know I lived. But even if he was watching, at least he would have no way to follow me except on foot. He would have no way of knowing where I went.

Maya set her hand on my shoulder. “Go slowly,” she whispered, “and with great care. The Iraliad will not forgive any mistake tonight.”

I nodded. Then I set out alone on the path she had shown me.

Coyotes were about that night, and for two or three hours they followed me, appearing as silhouettes on the ridge tops, or as dark shadows against the pale sand of a desert wash. When I first saw them I was frightened. But they did not attack, and when they vanished an hour before midnight I felt terribly alone.

It was only fifty miles to the well that would be my refuge, but the Bow of Heaven was stingy with its light and I worried I would lose my way so I went slowly, making sure of every landmark Maya had told to me. In this way I came to a wide plain.

In much of the Iraliad the land is a hard mineral soil, but the silver had made that plain a fertile place, and despite the rarity of rain, tough sedges grew knee-high, with waxy white flowers looking out among them, their petals agleam in the starlight. Far away I could see the dark shapes of mesas rising against the star-spangled sky, and closer, an ethereal gathering of white standing stones half-melted by the passing tides of silver, so that some stood on stems, looking like elongated white mushrooms.

I hurried forward, for this was the last landmark Maya had described. The well was supposed to be a mile beyond the standing stones—“No farther,” she had warned. “You must be very careful. It would be easy to pass it in the dark.”

It would be easy to pass it in the daytime too, I thought ruefully as I looked out on that plain. Maya had carefully described the well, but she had not mentioned the dense sedges. I was supposed to search a little north of east for the mound of the kobold well, but if her description was accurate, the mound did not stand as high as the sedges. I could see no hint of where it might be.

I headed out anyway. There was still no sign of silver, but I knew it could not be far away. The hour was late, and Moki—who had been excited at the scent of coyotes earlier in the evening—now huddled fearfully in his bin. I spoke soft reassurances to him as I watched my odometer measure the distance.

A mile passed, but I discovered no sign of the well.

I stopped and looked about. The sedges were so dense that even in daylight I might pass within ten feet of the mound and not see it. How could I expect to find it in the dark?

I had to find it.

Moki whined his fear. Faintly now, I could smell the crisp, clean scent of silver, and as I breathed that scent I felt something waken within me, just as it had last night when I stood by my window, looking out on the silver-covered plain. I could feel the silver, unseen and lying close against the ground, but rising into life… and into my awareness. Stay back, I thought. Stay away. Suddenly, sparkling motes were dancing around my hands.

Moki whined again—and then the silver emerged all around us, rising in a silent flood among the sedges, everywhere, except at our feet, and around the tires of the bike.

Stay back.

Moki panicked. He scrambled out of his bin.

“Moki!”I caught him with my sparkling hands just before he touched the ground. He shook in my arms. “Moki, stay with me.” I held him against my chest, and slipped the bike into gear.

Back.

I leaned with my mind against the silver. I raised my hand in a warding gesture. The motes brightened, and I felt as if I had raised some larger hand that I could not see, one thatpushed the silver back, pushed it away from my path. I felt it fall back. Not so much as a physical sensation, but as a kind of cool awareness sliding away from the pressure of my will.

Oh, it was a neat trick! But it was also a gift from Kaphiri, and I did not trust it. I had to find the well.

But how?

A well is made safe by the kobolds that grow within it. The first that emerge are always of the kind we call “temple kobolds” whether a temple is ever made around that well or not. They are similar to the kobolds my mother had used to call the silver during my father’s memorial ceremony, but their duty is the opposite: the petals on their backs exude a sweet scent that somehow works to keep the silver away. I sniffed at the air.

Moki watched me and whined again, the fur on his neck standing straight and stiff beneath my hand. I set him on the ground, keeping my hand on him until I was sure he would not panic and run. He edged forward, sniffing at the air. He edged right up against the silver, and whined.

“Do you smell the well?” I whispered, rolling my bike up behind him. I held my hand out and pushed, and the silver retreated before us. “Find it, Moki,” I urged. “Find the way.”

He turned a little toward the south.

Push.

The silver rolled away from our path. Moki hurried forward and I followed. But when I glanced back the silver was rolling in behind us. I panicked. As if by instinct I raised my other arm and pushed, and the motes that clung to my hand brightened, and the silver fell away.

Why?

I didn’t want to think too hard on it. I didn’t believe this new power of mine would bear up under examination. What I had done was impossible, and if I thought too hard on it, surely it would cease to be, just as childhood fantasies fade when we enter the age of reason?

“Hurry, Moki,” I whispered, and I pushed and a channel opened before us and closed behind, while the silver climbed as high as my waist, as high as my head. Then suddenly the sedges ended. We came to a mounded ring of barren soil a full nine feet across. Moki scurried over the mound and I pushed my bike after him. “Moki, you did it!”

In the darkness I could just make out the black circle of the well, hardly a foot across, at the very center of the mounded ring. I rode my bike to its edge. I could hear kobolds moving in the loose soil. I knew I must be crushing more beneath my tires, but what could I do?

I dropped the kickstand and slipped off, staggering to keep my balance, I had gone so weak with fear. All around the well, silver drifted as high as my head so I could not see the standing stones. But even with my eyes closed I could feel the silver, as if it were part of my mind, leaning on my awareness, waiting for me to invite it in.

I remembered the night Jolly had invited it in.

“Not me,” I growled. “That’s not me. Stay back! Please. Just stay away.”

That night I did not sleep. The silver rose so high around me, it was as if I huddled at the bottom of a well of light. Far above, hundreds of feet as it seemed to me, there was a disk of blackness I took for the sky, but the glow around me was so bright, I could see no stars.

I waited for Kaphiri to step out of the silver. Did he know I was alive?

How could he not know? He had poisoned me with some splinter of his nature, but the silver remained his element. He existed somehow within it. He emerged from it whenever he desired, and surely he desired to find me? I held my rifle with bloodless hands, on guard all that night, but Kaphiri did not come.

What ruled his comings and goings? I didn’t know, and not knowing, I worried he might be occupied elsewhere… at Temple Huacho, or the Sisters, or that he might have found Liam and Udondi, just as he had found my father.

That night seemed endless, but at last the dark circle of sky above my head began to lighten. I returned my rifle to its sheath, eager to be on my way. Minutes passed, gathering together until most of an hour had gone by, but to my consternation the silver did not break up. The sky had lightened just enough to show me why: heavy clouds lay over the desert and only a wan light reached past them—not nearly enough to drive the silver away.

I looked around at the pale, misty walls of my cage, and fury built inside me. Had I been betrayed? Why had no one warned me? If the scholars at the Temple of the Sisters could predict when the silver would rise, surely they also knew when it would subside? But they had said nothing.

And what of Jolly? Was he trapped too? Did the world conspire to keep us apart?

But I wasnot trapped. I could push the silver away, as I had done last night. I could hold open a bubble within the silver and go where I liked… if I dared. I wanted to go, but I was afraid. I didnot dare. I could not bring myself to do it.

Frustration fed my anger. I cursed the silver. I dared it to take me. I shouted for Kaphiri to come, and threw handfuls of dirt into the mist. But while I succeeded in terrorizing Moki, my rage was a tiny thing, unmeasurable against the reach of the world and soon spent. Afterward, I gave into sleep like a tired child.

I slept for many hours. When I awoke it was to the howl of a cold wind against my cheek. The silver still surrounded me, but it was breaking up under the pressure of the wind. Tufts of it whipped across my sanctuary so that I did not dare to sit up above the shelter of the mound. Moki was of a similar mind. He huddled at my side, his tail thumping nervously in the dirt. I thought about taking him down into the well. The blowing silver could not touch us there, but my first experience in a kobold well still haunted me, or maybe it was the stunned look on Kaphiri’s face when he saw my scar…

But I was saved from a decision by the sudden appearance of the sun. It broke past the fleeing clouds and the silver was immediately transformed. Its menacing tendrils became a thin mist, sparkling in a watery atmosphere, and then it was gone, leaving only the wind and the blowing dust.

I stood cautiously and looked about. The coarse sedges in that place had not been harmed by the flood, though the white flowers were closed now in daylight. Here and there in the near distance clusters of irregular standing stones glistened, looking as if they were made of fine leaded glass. But what caught my attention was a mesa standing far away on the flat horizon. It was a pedestal, narrower at its base than at its flat summit, for the silver had eaten away at its foundation for untold centuries. Its color was a light, bright blue, like turquoise, only a little darker than the afternoon sky. Azure Rock. Where I would meet Jolly, if only I could get there.

I whooped and whistled to Moki. It was late in the afternoon. No more than two hours of daylight remained to me, but that was enough.