by E A Bagby
And besides, everyone married; well, everyone except some. But after a certain age, unwed adults hardly partook in social gatherings, as though others found something odd about them.
Many of our age had already decided on partners. It just so happened none of my close friends had. Maybe we wanted to extend the freedom of our adolescence a little longer. It occurred to me that, right then, they may have been at our favorite gathering place in the commons, bantering and sharing stories.
I looked longingly. I had seen little of my friends for months, and I missed wasting time with them, especially Cleo.
Tossing aside my spear, I climbed down the berm and made my way there.
2
NO
Among the smooth, umber Deo-tree trunks and over the continuous, flat carpet of moss, Cleo’s copper-gold cab rested on its parking skis.
Every cab—a vehicle of the Deoan style—was not much more than a floating hull with wings. Hers looked a little like a rounded metal egg with long strings of silvery wing-facets arranged like leaves on vines sprouting from the top of the hull. A ring of windowpanes separated by curved muntins wrapped the circumference.
Cleo’s feet peeked out beyond a familiar oversized tree trunk. She was leaning against the other side, as she often did.
The exact sight before me was what I had hoped for.
As I rounded the tree, she turned and smiled with a gleam in her wide and dreamy eyes. “Giels, where have you been?”
“Where’ve you been?”
We laughed. It often felt like we thought the same thing. I dropped to Cleo’s left and stretched my body on the bright green moss.
For the past three months, I had seen Cleo only in passing. When I had gone to her house the few times I could get away from rehearsing, her parents told me that she had gone somewhere. “You’re never home. I was hoping you’d come see me.”
“Honestly, I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“That’s what I want you to do.”
She let out a little laugh. “It’s important, Giels,” she said.
“You should come over, seriously. My mother even asked for you.”
“Yes, I will. I’ve just been very busy.”
“Busy? So, where have you been?”
“If you couldn’t find me here or home, I must have been at Erikal’s workshop.”
Erikal was one of my closest friends, but his best friend, Meritus, often visited him at his workshop to seek help with the computer. Cleo must have been doing the same. Erikal’s talents with the machine were unsurpassed by anyone.
“Was he helping you with something?” I asked.
“My cab. It floats much better. He helped me balance the weight. But Meritus and I have been helping him too. He’s been making a new cab.”
A pang of jealousy hit me, like a punch to my stomach. Not because Cleo had much more talent at the computer than I, but because I could not work with her on cab designs like the others. It didn’t help that Cleo’s parents had once thought of Erikal as a possible match for her. “I didn’t know you were becoming so focused on cab designs.”
Her eyes met mine before looking down and away. She pulled a lone blade of grass that peeked through the moss. “Maybe we can take a ride in it, and you’ll see how nice it is.” In a small cab like hers, we would need to sit very close.
I nodded. “We could even go outside of the Deo.”
“Yes. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about a trip.”
I found myself stealing a glance at her full lips, watching her slightly open mouth. It reminded me that it had once touched mine—something youths seldom do except for those who plan to marry. Her kiss had shocked me and, having been younger, I had foolishly run away.
We were close—lifelong friends—so I had always stopped myself from making a similarly bold, sudden move. But while noticing the perfect curves of her mouth a surprising surge of passion overcame me, and I wanted to lean in and make the kiss happen again.
“Giels,” a familiar voice called from my left.
“Speak of the man,” Cleo said, and pushed herself up to look past me.
Man? I still thought of us as boys and girls.
“You should have this,” Erikal said from a short distance away. “It was your idea.” He hurried towards us in his self-assured and sturdy manner. His focused, thoughtful eyes, set within the angular features of his face, had an almost mischievous aspect at that moment. His intense stare grabbed my attention. It usually commanded the attention of those around him.
From a few feet away, he tossed me a small device.
“The recorder,” he said as I caught it.
Cleo smiled and leaned in to take a look.
The articulated copper-gold object—cylindrical, and covered mainly in foil-thin golden petals like an imaginary swamp flower about to bloom—teetered on my hand. Glints of Sunlight reflected off the petals, exposed portions of the cylinder sparkled with detail, and a tiny blue light appeared on its side. The item possessed a haunting beauty.
“Did you say recorder?” I asked. He nodded. Its presence stunned me. No other recorder existed, as far as I knew. We had the word recorder in our language, but I doubted many knew it, and the word seemed wrapped in awe and magic. I had not heard it spoken more than three times in my life, despite training as a storyteller. It never appears in our canon of stories, only offhand in informal legends, like whispers. It was as though such devices had been familiar to humanity long ago, and only the word survived as a remnant, like an impression of blurred childhood memory—not unlike the never-seen faeries.
Just as the word recorder felt imbued with magic, so did the device in my palm. Magical items were extremely rare, as were the people who made them.
I looked up at Erikal in awe. His eyes returned their typical confident pride.
Blinking, I looked down at the device.
Could my friend really have made something so special?
Perhaps not.
Of all the mechanical spirits, the computer-spirit was the greatest because it helped us make everything. It almost seemed like a creator-god, except that gods exerted their influence from afar, with the exception of Salihandron, the soul-herder, of course. But having never paid much attention to the computer, for all I knew it would help anyone make a recorder, except no one else had thought to try.
The idea for this one must have come about four months prior when Erikal had told me that he discovered the secret of how to record sound. I had always been curious what others heard when I told a story, so I’d asked, half joking, if he could make something to record my voice. I had not believed it possible at the time.
“The recordings never go away once in it,” Erikal said, “so I won’t clutter it up. But here’s how it works.” He took the device and demonstrated various ways to use its two buttons, without actually activating it—quickly pressing a button did one thing, pushing them both did another, and so on.
As though he had already said goodbye, he spun around and walked towards a vehicle in the distance. I could see only parts of it through the trees’ dark, columnar trunks. But the hull’s copper and chromadium paneling had an unusual pattern, recursive but naturalistic, like something grown, a slightly more florid version of a swamp-crab’s shell. “Is that your new ship?” I asked.
He turned. I pointed towards his cab.
“You haven’t seen it?” he said.
I shook my head.
“Right. You haven’t been around for a while. That reminds me, we’re planning an adventure, with Alana and Meritus—and you, if you can break away from rehearsing.”
“Could I ride in your cab?” I asked Cleo, having talked of traveling somewhere alone with her only moments before. If we weren’t to go somewhere by ourselves, I wanted to be sure I was with her the entire time.
She blinked as if surprised by the question. “We’d only be taking Erikal’s.”
“It’ll fit us,” Erikal said.
“All five?” I a
sked.
He gave me a terse nod.
The largest cabs fit a cramped four. Putting the improbability of such a large ship aside, I asked, “When?”
“One week from today,” Erikal said.
An ironic laugh escaped me. I thought Erikal had made a joke, but his characteristically thoughtful expression remained on his face. “That’s the night before the Equis rehearsal,” I said.
“I know, but starting that evening, we’ll have a couple of nights of bright moonlight. We’ll be driving for up to three solid days, including at night.”
“What?” I said, surprised. Lands that far away were known to shamans and other occasional travellers, but it would be further than any of us had ever gone. “To where?”
“Thinking of some options. I promise it’ll be good.” He smiled and winked.
Although Erikal was preempting my plan to ride somewhere alone with Cleo, the idea of going far outside the Deo painted irresistible pictures in my mind of exotic forests and people. “If you can wait . . .”
“Sorry, Giels,” Erikal said. “It will be months before the sky is as bright again.”
Part of me still thought he was not serious. “Then I can’t go.”
“I suppose that depends on what you want. You only need to choose to go.” His dismissive, waxing-shamanistic advice irked me. It felt almost like he was taunting me. “That reminds me,” he added, “you can recite into the recorder, but be certain to have it recite back to you from the very beginning, as I instructed. There’s a message in there. Trust me; you’ll be inspired. It might be just what you need.” He wound his way between the trees and disappeared inside his cab. The portion of the machine that I could see lifted from the mossy ground and soundlessly floated out of sight.
“I was about to tell you all about the trip before Erikal came by,” Cleo said. “You really should come with us.”
Why would she encourage me to go amid my Equis preparations? It seemed a little perplexing. “You haven’t visited me, so that I could practice. Now you want me to go outside the Deo for a few days?”
“The idea just came up yesterday. Erikal is suddenly very eager.”
Should Erikal’s mood decide whether they go without me? “When’s he not eager?” I said.
She laughed. “True, but imagine how fun it’ll be. Erikal’s cab is fantastic. I’ve ridden in it. It’s amazingly powerful, and fast!” She shouted the word fast.
Another pang hit my stomach. “You have? So much is happening without me.” If it weren’t for Erikal’s demeanor, cleverness with the computer, height, and exotic looks of the northern tribes, I wouldn’t care. I had been told by more than one girl, including Cleo, that I was handsome. And many had been impressed with my penchant for memorizing words. I rarely concerned myself with other boys, except for the one who happened to be my closest male friend.
Cleo had once, long ago, confided that her parents had suggested Erikal as a possible husband. That was before he stood half a head taller than me, his arms and chest firm with muscles. He had still been lanky, and we had been about the same height. Not until I recited my first forty-five-minute story, Sahra’s Bane, in front of her parents, had they shifted to preferring me. Or so that is how Cleo described it.
“Cleo,” I said, “I can’t put my Lead Storyteller title at risk. You know what you’ve told me about your parents.”
“My parents?”
“They seem to think it important that I have the title. You know, for the future—” I stopped. For our future, I meant. An impulse hit me to remind her that we would marry; no, to ask her to marry me. The words rested right there as though they could slip out on their own. But a kiss beforehand would be traditional. I leaned in a little to approach her lips, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“You’ll become Lead Storyteller, regardless.” She sighed. “Besides, who cares what my parents think? I’ve had enough of them.”
Her dismissiveness threw me, but her bright eyes looked into mine, and she locked her fingers between mine and squeezed. She had touched my hands that way many times, but this time, more than ever before, an electric sensation surged up my arm. Finding out she spent a lot of time with Erikal made me understand how much I wanted her in my life, always.
“We all miss you,” she said. “With how hard you’re working and your talent, can’t you take a break for a few days? I know I’ve stayed away to allow you to study, but at this point, a little time away might help, I’d think.”
Cleo had a good point. She usually made good points. And of course, I did not want to be left behind. “If it weren’t during the rehearsal,” I said.
“Does anyone care about the rehearsal version of the Equis? They rehearse just so all of the performers know when to do what. The real Equis is not for, what, another three weeks?”
“True, but . . .” I shook my head. She was probably right that the rehearsal did not matter for me, but my parents and the council would certainly not see it that way. Missing it would betray the elders’ faith in me and push them to consider someone else.
“With Erikal’s new vehicle,” she said, “faraway lands and real adventure are safely within our reach. You know how I always love hearing you recite stories about distant people?” I nodded. “We can do more than just talk about such places. We can go and actually see one next week.”
Is that how she sees the stories, now, as just talk? Was Erikal’s new cab better than my recitations?
Glints of Sunlight off the recorder caught our attention. We both glanced down at it.
“Interesting,” she said. She put her fingers on the little device, touching my hand in the process. “So pretty.”
Forgetting for a moment about the adventure my friends had planned, I rolled the cylindrical object in my fingers. Light glistened off its metallic petals. Many of our Deoan machines have organic forms, but this one especially so. “Have you not seen this?”
She shook her head. “It’s beautiful, like a golden bromeliad.”
“Let’s give it a try,” I said, and pressed the button that Erikal had instructed us to. “Hello, recorder. Capture my voice.”
I pressed the other button.
“Hello, recorder. Capture my voice,” it repeated back, as clearly as a person.
“That’s absolutely amazing,” Cleo said.
“Do I sound that funny?”
“It sounds like you. Tell it more.”
“You should say something,” I said, and again pressed the record button.
“But your voice is lovely, Giels. Talk about the Deo. Maybe we can even have the recorder recite it to people on our trip, and they can learn about us.”
“Clever idea,” I said. “Many things, like the Deo trees and our tribe itself, are named after my family’s surname, Deo. You see, my ancestors were the first inhabitants of these lands.” I figured it would not hurt to remind Cleo of my family’s status.
She slapped my arm. “Braggart.”
“You told me to tell it about the Deo.”
She laughed. “Let’s listen to it again,” she said. “But have it recite from the start to hear Erikal’s message.”
Since I had made two recordings, I pressed the button to go back three times. After doing so, the light blinked on and off. “Didn’t Erikal say the blinking means it’s at the start?” I tried several more times, with the same result. “It must be malfunctioning.” Perhaps the device was not so great, after all.
Cleo looked perplexed. “Now I’m curious. He made it sound important.”
“I bet it’s a birthday message saying this is my gift. He missed my eighteenth, probably because he’d been so focused on making that cab.”
“Maybe,” Cleo said, but she sounded dubious. The branches above swayed, and Sunlight hit her eyes. Glancing up, she pointed.
Three cabs weaved through the trees some distance away. Meritus was in the lead.
No one had raced cabs—at least, not in our lifetimes—before Meritus came up with th
e idea. He’s won nearly all of his races, although Cleo or Erikal have sometimes gotten the best of him.
Meritus must have been coming to our gathering spot for the evening, as he did every day before dusk started settling in. Why not make his arrival a little more fun with a race?
“Is it that time already?” I said, and looked at the Sun’s position through the tree canopy, verifying that the day was closing in on the late afternoon. My mother would have expected me back. “I should go now. I hate to say it, but Meritus will keep me here for an hour.” I released my fingers from hers and stood. “Tell him I had to leave. And talk to Erikal about the device’s blinking—see if it’s malfunctioning. Come visit me after,” I added, mainly to give her a reason to come to my home.
“I will as soon as I can, but we’re preparing for the journey—tweaking his cab and whatnot.”
She’ll be that busy? The idea of Cleo prioritizing Erikal burned, especially since I had told her it would be a massive problem for me to join them. My jaw clenched, and I closed my eyelids for a moment.
Cleo’s gaze followed me, oblivious to my change in mood. “Talk to your parents about joining us. It’ll be so much fun.”
It seemed the only way I would see Cleo would be to go on the journey. “Yeah, maybe I will.”
3
If You Leave
“What!” My father let out a full belly laugh. “Did you say ‘miss the rehearsal’?” When I returned to our home after leaving Cleo, I was greeted by his backside. He was kneeling in the garden and still had not bothered to turn around. I had not yet gone inside to see my mother, as our garden stretched between the Deo Stream and the main entrance.
