Moonstar (20 page)

“I reached Cameron on Eighteen, another damaged darkday—even Lagin's beacons now were gone. There was the low west twinkling of the Bogin satellite, however—someday there'd be a moondrop there, an umbrella for a sea that even now was filling. I still had a way to travel, slightly north now, mostly west. From Cameron to Lone, to Ellastone and Fire Wall, Hard Landing and then home. I hoped.

“I stole a boat. The docks were deserted, the natives had fled eastward out of fear. There were catamarans and dinghies tied up everywhere, but few to move among them. I picked one out, then went and bought a store of food—Dew-Ayne had given me some cash and I took it without shame—then I went and took the boat. I told myself that it had been abandoned, that I needed it far more, and what I did was necessary. ‘I'm sorry, Mother Reethe, but I am soulless now, I cannot feel guilt for this when I have done far worse.' Besides, worse things were being done all in the name of virtue. The craft had a single sail, and a small field-effect motor for when the winds were wrong. I caught a head wind almost immediately—Reethe's way of warning me?—and so I used the motor to head for Kossarlin. I could be home before the long sunday began.

“Darkday faded in the east behind me, and the stars came out like jewels. There was the curve of Tango's Arms cradling the Infant Graye; looking north from there, following the Infant's gaze, one could trace the Pilgrim's Course; it was sheltered by the Hand of Squeak. A bright red star named Chorizon marked the Heart of Darkness; it was called the Bloodstone and was said to be the home of all the evil pranks that Dakka's ever loosed on us. I kept the Bogin beacon just ahead and to my right. I had to pass by Wullawen and circle Van Cott crater, then through Crabtooth Straits. Hard Landing was dead ahead, beyond was home. I sailed ten hours west and slightly north. I watched the stars and shivered in a robe that someone had left inside the little cabin. The night was warm and getting warmer. I watched the Bogin beacon creep higher in the sky, knowing when it reached the point halfway between the zenith and horizon that I was nearly home.

“It felt eerie to sail beneath a sky without a zenith beacon. I felt naked, unprotected—but the beacon had been terminated to keep unwary travelers from sailing into those unshielded waters. Only a fool would set her course for empty skies.

“Dawn is defined as the moment when there is enough light to distinguish a black thread from a white one. It was shortly after dawn that I stood up and sighted Easterlin, our jagged boundary rock. Behind, a disk of sun was glaring white and baleful, awakened from its rest beneath the shadowed waves. It climbed upon the dark horizon. It spread its eye like molten light upon the pale pan of the sea; the sky was pink around it. Ahead, my shadow stretched across the waters. I could see the bottom of the sea; plants and coral made a garden underwater. Morning fish leapt through the air, playing tag with motes of twinkling light; they flashed through sprays of water. This was the Shallows and I had to watch my navigation. The catamaran had a shallow draft, but still I had to watch for coral and occasional jagged rocks. Soon there would be buoys to mark a deeper channel, but even if I had to, I could have walked the distance—the seas here never averaged more than a meter deep. There were colored shells and waving plants along the ocean bottom and I slid across them like a dove. The water was so clear I might have been aloft above a vast and wondrous landscape—

“Kossarlin bounced up on the horizon shortly after. My shadow now was shorted, but still pointed straightly toward it; the boat raced my shadow home. Even from this distance, I could see that much was wrong. There was smoke rising from the shore—not a lot of it, just the smoldering remainder of a larger fire. As I drew closer, I could see the vegetation on one side of the mountain had been burned away. The rest of the island looked brown and dead. There had been six long sundays now without a shield—I was afraid of what I'd find. And for the first time, I began to wonder why I'd come. If anyone was still alive, they would have left by now. There was no point in staying in a place turned uninhabitable. And yet, I could not imagine my family fleeing home . . .

“There were no boats tied at the dock, except Thoma's gaudy dinghy; her one extravagance had been the colored filigree we'd added in a bit of silliness. It looked baked and faded now. All the paint was peeling. I tied my boat and hurried up the path with dreadful fear; as I ran, the dead moss crunched beneath my feet, like bones of tiny creatures. One either side, the graceful sky-feather trees had wilted, lost their shading leaves. The ferns were lying withered on the ground, their blossoms looked like shrouds. Everything was silent. There were no birds, no bugs, no buzzing things, nothing flittered, crawled or climbed or hopped. No mice, no moths, no dragonflies nor lizards. No wings, no legs no beaks—no voices. All was covered with a pall of gravestone white, a dusty layer of powder, like ash—but finer, like a fall of smoke—painting the world with a gray mood of despair. It was a land of dead and dying things—this was the death of hope. Everything was gray, except above; the sky was blue and patient. Kossarlin was waiting for immersal in the fire once again.

“The family dome was fallen, like a ball punched in one side. A storm? A fire? It didn't matter, I couldn't tell—half of it was ashes, the other half was sodden. There were brackish puddles everywhere. Kuvig's pride, her silken hangings, were draped across a fallen beam and soiled beyond repair. And here—Suko's handmade chandelier—and the bed-stands, and the chairs—and this porcelain bowl, I used to eat my rice from it—and this cap that lay in pieces, this was my favorite one; when you drank down to the bottom, a fat green frog grinned up at you. Now the frog was chips of glaze and pottery, lost in ash.

“I pushed a beam aside and went into the nursery, where I'd left a few belongings. I saw a tiny wooden hand reaching out from beneath a charred timber that once had been a bed.

“It was Gahoostawik, her charred corpse. Her face was burned away, she'd lost one arm and both her legs were broken and hanging oddly, but I recognized her anyway and I hugged her close. And cried—I should have returned her to the sea before, instead of letting her live to see such pain.

“I remembered something Suko said—every moment is a door, and once you pass beyond it, it is locked to you forever. Whatever happens, it is done; like my birth, it is part of my experience. I could not go back and do it right. It was fact, and I was here and had to make the best of it. Today I knew my childhood was over, the door to it was gone. My body would confirm that. Somewhere in the twenty days since Option, I'd passed my second blush, almost unnoticed—I could feel the tenderness of my breasts and nipples announcing that my body had followed Reethe while my soul had followed . . . no one.

“I stood there in the ashes of my home, not knowing where my family was, too dazed and dumb to cry. I just wandered, holding little dead Gahoostawik and wearing smudges of her charring on my face and hands. I went out into the garden, black-baked dirt and again the ever-present ash. There were markers there for all the souls we had known. Grand-Uncle Kossar, Baby Kiva, Toki, Baby Leille, Yasper, Fellip, Dardis, Thoma, Baby Nua, Kinam, Potto, Kirstegaarde and Suko. It was like something slamming into me. Half the people that I loved the most were dead.

“I screamed. I wailed. I sobbed. I ranted and I cursed. I swore and stomped and hollered. I raged and moaned and heaved my grief in racking gasps. And finally, exhausted, I collapsed before those markers. There was hope here anyway—someone had loved them enough to put these markers up—that meant someone still survived. Hojanna? Porro? Kuvig? Orl? Who? . . .

“I realized I couldn't stay. The sun was climbing toward eclipse that wouldn't happen. The day was getting warmer. I still carried my foolish little doll—why hadn't she been smart enough to go? And yet, I was still glad to see her even as she was—had she been as dumb as I? I had traveled fourteen days across the sea to get back here; had she waited here for me, knowing that I had to come? It had cost Gahoostawik her silly wooden life, it had cost me my Choice.

“I wrapped her in one of Kuvig's hangings and placed her in Thoma's dinghy. I untied it from the dock and pushed it toward the sea. ‘Take it please . . . ‘ and said a prayer to Reethe. You might outgrow your toys, you don't stop loving them. “Good-bye, little friend. Wait for me on the other side.' And also, ‘Please take care of her, Mother Reethe; she's a good child.'

“And then I was on my boat again—directionless, drifting on a hot black sea that smelled of rot and garbage. The wind was as dead as the island—as if the world held its breath in the fear of fire to come. I was tired, frustrated and frightened—unsure of where to go—and then an otter climbed aboard the boat, so huge it must have been the Great Otter of all the otters in the sea. She looked at me with huge dark eyes, and blinking water from them, she wiped her whiskers and studied me. I offered her a fish, but she just continued to regard me impassively. Finally, she cleared her throat and asked, ‘You are Jobe?' I nodded. ‘Sail west,' she said. ‘Sail west and north.'

“‘Deeper into the circle? I asked—but she had turned and disappeared back into the water, leaving not a ripple, only a wet place on the canvas decking of the boat.

“And then, as if in confirmation, there came a cry from overhead—there was a bird, like none I'd ever seen before; all large and white, too big to be a gull, too sweet of voice—and crying like a newborn infant gasps for air. Distressed. She came hurtling from the east behind me, as if created from the Nona Shield—but she wasn't flying; she was high and being hurtled by a spinning wind; she was wrapped in strange debris that whirled round her, tumbling her as well. The bird was fighting to break free of her air spun prison, but was failing—crying, like an infant, and hurtling westward, ever west, beyond herself, her self-control was illusion. Her cries hung in the air long after she was gone. I sailed after her. I don't know why.

“I sailed west, into the Empty Reaches west and north. The sun reached zenith and refused to disappear. I painted my body with oil and ash to protect me from its glare. When the heat grew too much, I dipped into the water for a while, a rope around my waist, and swam or walked behind the boat. The seas were even shallower on this side; the only deep water near Kossarlin was on the north side of the island; the Cold Shelf where once I'd been caught in an undertow.

“I dipped into the water to cool off, then oiled myself again, then dipped again, and oiled again against the sun—alternating like that, I sailed steadily west. The sun remained at zenith and the temperature passed sixty and kept on climbing. I might have passed out . . .

“When I came to, the sun was still above me, still bright and burning whitely—but a cold breeze swept across my body like a wraith. I was conscious, first, of thirst, and leaned over the edge of the boat to drink my fill of the sea's fresh water. My throat was parched and aching and I kept my face and cracking lips immersed as long as I could; I couldn't drink enough, it was so sweet and cold. Only slowly did I become aware how cold the air around me was. I stood, curiously, naked and black and oily, covered with ash, and looked around. The sun was still has hot as ever, the sea and sky were blue as stingfish eyes. But the air was fiercely cold. I shivered in the middle of a burning sunday and wondered if this were a miracle of Reethe to save my life.

“It was not a miracle—it was a warning of a greater disaster still to come. However, I didn't know it at the time; to me it seemed reprieve, as if the hand of Reethe had reached down to shelter me as she had sheltered Lono and Rurik in the legend. But I wasn't ready yet to die; I used what strength I still commanded to set my sail for the Bogin Circle; beyond it lay the Astril, perhaps safety. I set my motor for the highest speed, no matter if I burned it out. Some inner voice told me to escape the Lagin as fast as possible. The cold air chased me west, getting colder all the way, leaving me shivering—I'd brought no blanket, the robe was not enough. I dipped into the water to keep warm, tied to the boat so it wouldn't get away from me. The wind grew strong around me, driving me before it, stinging me with drops of ice and rock. Behind me something roared and growled—

“What had happened was this—the heating of the Lagin Circle had triggered storms around the borders of adjacent circles. The storms had triggered earthquakes—the crust of Satlin was still nervous from the pounding it had taken half a thousand years before—the quakes had triggered new volcanoes; high ones pouring ash into the sky and magma into oceans. The Southern Rift reopened as far south as the polar cap; part of it must have fractured, great chunks of ice avalanching into roaring magma—and turning into steam. Explosions, violent, roaring, ocean-ripping—billions of tons of ice turning into steam—the heat fracturing the shattered crust of Satlin once again—breaking off still larger pieces of the polar ice, until—finally, the great sheets of frozen ground cracked and shuddered and collapsed. Uneasy on their base already, they slid off their sloping shelf into the sea, into the raging fires and steam, exploding with a force as vast as that created by the crash of any ice asteroid. Vast winds of cold air swept outward in all directions, chased by clouds of super-heated steam and fog and raging fire. Churning walls of water were already heading north. The cold air I felt was just the first breath of Reethe's revenge against the sun—she could be violent when she was angered, even more than Dakka ever could be. The islands behind me would be flattened when the walls of water finally came, smashing mountains down before them. The whole Southern Reach was struck—Cameron was decimated, Fire Wall was crushed, Wullawen was scoured, the Swale Friend and all she carried were never seen again. Hard Landing disappeared beneath the waves, Kossarlin was—