by Baen Books
They turned Bluntspear downward until he reached the bottom. "Somewhere along –"
Bluntspear shied abruptly, and at the same moment something lunged from what had seemed featureless mud.
"Miremaw!" Jetgrab hissed in dismay.
A sinuous, three-jawed monstrosity, the miremaw struck again, trying to catch either the slower Bluntspear or smaller midsters. Swimming fins extended from its ridges and while it could not match their jetting speed, it could turn and maneuver very quickly.
But she and Jetgrab were also warriors of the Seven Vents. We can't let it get Bluntspear! The stolid haulfin was one of the best workers of the Pod, and even if it wasn't, quite, able to think and talk, Blushspark thought of him as a friend.
Jetgrab, she could tell, had the same reaction, and they moved almost as one. The two midsters rippled back from the lunge, then twined arms around the bright spears and charged.
The miremaw was huge, twelve spears or more in length, the uncontested master of its stretch of ocean, and it was simply not ready for the smaller – scarce two spears in length – creatures coming towards it. In startlement it balked, and that was fatal. Jetgrab's speartip took it straight through one eye, and Blushspark rammed hers home directly into the gaping maw, digging into the dominant jaw's roof and striking into the brain from the other side.
The creature's convulsive death-throes shook the water, but it was dead in that moment. The two members of Seven Vents let themselves drift momentarily, shaking from reaction, before Jetgrab let loose a shaky yowl of triumph, one she echoed; they grasped arms and repeated the victory howl. "Skies," she gasped finally. "A miremaw. We just killed a miremaw."
"Yeah," Jetgrab said in a hushed voice. "And a monster. There's meat and bone in that for. . . well, a lot of people."
"Do you think Bluntspear can move it?"
"Maybe. Dragging even really big weights is what he does. But it'll be slow going. Look, you stay here with it and Bluntspear, I'll jet back to the Pod and bring help. Won't take me more than a little bit to get in safe calling range."
She thought for a moment. So much for our search, but this is so much more important for the Pod. "Okay, but be fast. You know scavengers. . . or worse. . . are going to pick up on the blood pretty fast."
"Yeah." He glanced around, hovering in the water nervously. "Okay, I'm gone."
To keep herself busy, she brought Bluntspear down and started to harness him to the body. Jetgrab would bring help but there was no reason not to prepare. And while she kept her senses on full alert, doing something helped keep her from getting more and more nervous; working on the black plain with the immense, monstrous form of the miremaw looming nearby would unsettle anyone, but just sitting there in the never-silent yet lonely black? Eww.
Thump.ThumpThumpThumpThumpTHUMP!
The quick, sharp sequence of sounds echoed faintly from overhead, with muffled, sharp overtones unlike anything she'd ever heard. It sounded almost like snapping sky inside woven padding, or like the hollow sound inside a tub being pounded from within. But there was something about that sound, the way it resonated – or didn't – that was simply . . . wrong.
Now there was more. . . a faint hissing, chiming, impacts of something falling, but it was falling and hitting things. Impacts with a solid surface, when there was no solid surface above her except. . .
The Sky.
She stared upward, knowing that somewhere far, far above, beyond where she'd ever been allowed to go, perhaps fifty thousand spears above, something was falling. Falling on the Sky.
But how could something fall on the SKY? She couldn't grasp it, except in the legends, those that said that there were gods, spirits, things beyond the Sky…
THUMP! THUMP!
Two more of the strange quick sounds, then three more just as something huge struck something else – several somethings, perhaps, but struck with an impossible sharpness that nothing falling through water could ever make. But what else is there to fall through? her mind demanded, almost running itself in circles trying to understand the incomprehensible, and then a slow hissing roar like a landslide, but that, too with the sharpness of impossibility.
Slowly the sounds diminished, faded to silence. She became aware that there were other figures around her, Steadyglow among them, all pointed upward, all staring into the enigmatic black that absorbed sightpings and returned nothing.
For several minutes all of them waited, listening. Aside from faint, faint traces of settling sky or stone, it was quiet from above. Finally, Steadyglow turned to her.
"It would seem," he said, "that the Sky is restless here." His tone was calm, but there was an undercurrent of excitement. . . or even fear. . . in it that shocked her, because the Elder never displayed such emotion. "This is the same place, hmmm?"
"Yes, it is."
"Hmmm." He studied her, even as the others began affixing their lines to the miremaw's body. "And both times the . . . events happen when you were present."
"What. . . are you. . .?"
"I do not know," he said, with a chagrined flash, red and blue-green and patterned like ripples. "But history is long and patterns are woven in it, woven ever and always, and running through them as a single long blade is that some people are those to whom things happen, who are chosen by . . . chance or perhaps something else to be given opportunity."
He looked at the body of the miremaw, and his customary control reasserted itself. "Of equal moment is that you and Jetgrab performed a hunt – albeit unplanned! – worthy of the finest Hunters. You are midsters. . . yet few Elders could have done better."
Her ruddy-bright namesake flashed out. "We didn't really think, we were just protecting Bluntspear."
"Defending one of our most faithful friends? Do not belittle that reflex. You leapt to the defense, you acted, you triumphed. You think fast, and act correctly. I can ask no more. And coming at this time, such a mighty kill is a great blessing; we have more refugees come today, and the ability to lay in many provisions. . . this is well."
She looked up again. "What should I. . . do, Elder?"
He stared into the darkness with her. "Let us wait a few cycles. See if more signs from the Sky come to us. If they do. . . it is your mystery, and your right, Blushspark. I will not prevent you from seeking it, if you dare."
She looked up and thought about fifty thousand spears of darkness, with nowhere to hide, no ridges to dodge around, open water where the Orekath ruled, cruising silently and invisibly until it drove at you in a rush of death.
Do I dare?
Do I dare not?
iv. Answers.
The first answer came only a feedcycle later; echoing, shrieking, the sound of an Orekath in fury, and then in shocked, disbelieving agony. Blushspark heard it only because she had swum high, very high, above the boundaries of even the highest peaks of Hotwall, feeling the shift of pressures within her, readying herself for a venture she was still not sure she dared take.
The high-pitched shriek, carried along with a deep undertone, was of a full-grown predator, not a youngster, not a dying aged creature. There were larger monsters, of course; the miremaw itself was larger, though it struck mostly from ambush, but there were others, vastly greater than the Orekath though far from as common. But such monsters, if they chose to attack one of the other predators, were not silent; they would first stun their opponent with a great shock of sound that would resound across many thousands of spears like doom.
She heard no other sound; just the angry attack and sudden scream of agony and flight.
And it came from far, far above. Towards the Sky.
"Something is there," Jetgrab said quietly, startling her.
She realized her senses had been so focused above that she had actually missed his approach. Stupid! Stupid midster! If I do that on the way through the great void, I'm dead. "Yes, something is. What are you doing all the way up here?"
He flickered oddly, a friendly yet nervous shimmer that was echoed in his skinsigh
t resonance. He's nervous. "Wanted to know if you were really, really going. I. . ." He suddenly turned, curved away, rippled back. "I. . . don't want to. . ." Jetgrab's body rocked indecisively, then he sighed, a burbling sound that reflected his tension. "Blushspark, you know I . . . really like you."
Suddenly even the mystery of the Sky seemed almost irrelevant. Me? Is he saying. . .? "Jetgrab. . . you. . . we're just midsters."
He reached out hesitantly with his top arm, touched her own. "Not much longer, not now."
That's true. We completed that hunt. The Elder's letting me make a decision to go or stay. I guess that means we're going to be Elders soon. "You choose the least-warm setting for such a glow, Jet," she said fondly.
Her tone relaxed him, and he gripped her fingers a little tighter. "Needed more here." He looked up. "It's not my place to go with you unless we were paired, and we can't do that now. . . even if you do…?"
She laughed, letting the blush not just spark but flare long and bright. "Of course I do, Hurunnda," she said, using his real name. "I guess everyone's known we would, sooner or later."
They hung there for moments, resting atop Bluntspear, letting skinsense and sound intermingle as they hadn't ever quite done before. Finally, though, Jetgrab let go, slowly, reluctantly. "You're going, aren't you?"
"I have to, Jet. I have to know."
"You always have to know. The girl who spent all her time in the Archives because people got tired of answering your questions. You learned to read the weedrecords whole hands of cycles before most of us. You're probably going to be a Designer. Of course you have to know." He wavered, then bobbed forward and embraced her whole body for a second. "Just. . . come back, okay?"
She hugged back. "I will. And I'm not leaving quite yet. I need to get prepared." She looked up. "But now I know I will go."
The two returned to the Pod, and she found Steadyglow working with the Designers on new weavehouses; the Seven Vents were going to let all the refugees stay, and that meant expanding the whole village. "Blushspark Vuundi," Steadyglow said. "I've been expecting you."
"Elder Pollesi," she said formally. "I have heard a dying Orekath far above where nothing should be. That has decided me; I'm going."
He turned to face her fully, all three eyes focused upon her. "Hmmm, yes. I had no doubt you would. And on speaking with the Archivists, we are agreed that this is worth the risk to the Pod." He reached over and handed her a large weavebag; inside were several large, black, almost shapeless objects. "Four breathsponges. You are going to the top of the world, and often the water breathes foul there."
"Four?" She was astounded. Breathsponges, which accumulated. . . well, whatever it was that made breathing work inside of them, and could be peeled and squeezed to vent the good water within directly into the body, were rare, and usually kept for healers or for those on dangerous expeditions for the Pod, not for some midster on a crazy quest. "Elder, that's an eighth of our reserve. I can't –"
"We insist. Any venture to the Sky is dangerous, Blushspark. And these mysteries are ones the Pod would like answered, so it is within my discretion. Do not use them if you do not need them, of course. . . but we shall all feel better knowing that you will not be felled instantly because the water is foul."
She saw her mother hovering in the back, ripples of worry clearly visible. "All right, Elder. Then I can provision myself from the storehouse?"
"Of course."
She swam over to Heatdancer and embraced her. "I'll be okay, Mother."
"I . . . I know you will. But forgive me for being worried; your father was lost in the Dark, too."
"I'll come back."
Heatdancer's smile was sound and light. "Don't break that promise."
A cycle later she began the ascent. Bluntspear calmly swam up in a lazy spiral, letting their bodies adjust to the slowly falling pressure. There were some creatures, she knew, that couldn't survive the shift, and that could be an advantage if you realized it; run higher or lower and they could not follow. But her people could fly to the Sky or dive to the Deeps, and so could the haulfins.
Suddenly, from above, she heard a humming buzz, a sound like a pinched vent. But there are no vents in the Sky.
The sound went on for several spiral arcs, then stopped. But a few moments later, it started again, and lasted for about as long. The cycle repeated, again and again, and she felt a slow chill of awe or fear. It's. . . regular. . . it's not random.
Of course, many creatures could do regular actions; the careful, precise approach of an Orekath, criss-cross and close, criss-cross and close, the stalking of a ridgeclaw in three taps and a pause, and so on. But this sounded like a . . . a moving vent, and that made no sense at all.
At twenty thousand spears up she stopped, waiting, stretching her senses as far as she could. A few faint movements in the distance, but no sign that anything was tracking her or even noticing her and Bluntspear.
She ate, a twistmeal of shimmerleaf with miremaw meat, and gave a large chunk of the meat to Bluntspear. Then they started again.
Thirty thousand spears up. Forty thousand spears, and she was now closer to the Sky than anyone she had ever met, and even the sounds of the deep bottom were faint, faint, and she drifted in darkness almost absolute to sound, to eyes, to skinsight.
But. . . far, far above still. . . she suddenly caught a hint of song, a thrill in her skinsight. It's there!
There was no doubt; waiting there, just beneath the Sky, was something singing the song of the Skyspark.
She drove Bluntspear faster now, as fast as she dared ascend. Forty-five thousand spears high, and the song was louder and glorious, not one song but many, as though a hundred Skysparks were hovering, waiting. She felt a thrill of dread and awe, that she was approaching answers or death, or perhaps both.
Then the ocean boomed, a thrumming thunder that roared like a vent just opened, but more and different, a howl and rumble that went on and on and on, as though the Sky itself was about to erupt. She froze, pulled down, waited, wondering if this was the rage of those above the Sky, warning her to come no closer to the mystery dropped from above.
But the sound, awesome and terrible though it was, came no closer; it did not change or waver as she cautiously urged the now skittish haulfin higher. Whatever was happening, it did not seem to be directed at her.
And the Skysong was still calling to her, beyond the rumbling roar of the venting Sky.
She felt the cold of the Sky now, and the water smelled of old breath and feedwater and death. Yet. . . not so much as she had expected. There was movement above, the water . . . flowing toward the sky. . . and disappearing into the roaring whirl of sound.
Disappearing WHERE?
And then she saw it; the tiniest glimmer of pure white, shining through the water a hundred, two hundred spears above, and she knew that she was near the Sky, and near the answers she sought.
Slowly, slowly she rose, approaching to get a glimpse.
Something floated there, floated just below the Sky. It was larger than she was, larger even than Bluntspear, probably five spears or more long, massive, shining white and reflective as a fresh-hewn spear from the heart of its weed, other parts dark as muck, still others seeming made of solid water, clear to sight yet distorting faintly like heatshimmer.
And it shone, dozens of Skysparks set about it, singing in light and skinsight so beautifully that she felt her whole body rippling with the ache of her heart.
She backed off then, not sure what to do next. What is it? Is it. . . a Sky being? What will it do?
The thing was . . . strange. The overall lines were smooth, and she could see there was a clear front to the thing, with two arms extending from it – arms with strangely simple, almost crippled-looking hands, maybe four or five fingers on each. Along its sides were several round things that extended slightly below the main body, which hung at a steep angle from the Sky. There were no fins, and it seemed stiff and hard as stone. How can it move?
The thing had to be able to move; it hadn't been there all this time, someone would have found it thousands of cycles ago.
Gripping her spear tightly, she told Bluntspear to stay where he ways; the haulfin seemed quite content to get no closer. Slowly, slowly she approached the singing Sky-thing, swimming to one side. It seems to have anchor-tendrils, holding it to the Sky. That explained why it was staying in one place without fin or jet. She didn't approach the anchor yet; that would be a delicate maneuver and Blushspark had no idea what the thing's reaction would be. "Hello?" she said. "Do you understand me?"
The Sky-thing made no reply; whether that was because it could not reply, or did not deign to, she couldn't guess. She was no longer afraid, but she was puzzled. This thing sang like it was not merely alive but transcendent, yet it didn't feel alive. It didn't move like the living; right now, in fact, it wasn't moving at all; she couldn't figure out how something could sing that way without any motion of any kind. From . . . inside, she thought. . . she could sense other vibrations, again of a sort she'd never heard before, with that sharp overtone that was so utterly alien. She drifted down towards the area that had seemed clear as the water.
And something moved within, moved back as though startled.
Blushspark stared, fascinated. That moved like it lived. She remembered the rockbites. They, too, had a hard, unmoving shell, anchored themselves, and inside a moving, living creature.
It was a grotesque thing that seemed to face her. "Seemed to" because there were two round, moving dots in the generally circular part pointed towards her, dots that looked very much like eyes. Above these possible eyes was a mass of filaments, very fine filaments pulled back and away somehow, and below a part that opened and closed on occasion – a mouth? And the whole area around that possible-face seemed surrounded by another layer of that heat-shimmering solidity.
It was excessively eerie; the thing seemed to have no symmetry at all.
