Moon-Flash

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  He led them through a small passage in a wall of dreams and then upward, endlessly upward. The shining stone lit their way. Kyreol realized finally that they were travelling through the heart of the stone cliff, behind the dwellings. The Hunter did not let them speak, but they met no one in the damp, winding pathway. Finally, they reached what seemed must be the top of the world.

  It was night. The sky was a glittering cap of stars touching all horizons. The vast circle of blackness rising up to meet the stars was the world as Kyreol had never seen it. She shivered in the wind, not with cold, but with wonder, and she wanted to peel back the blackness to see what marvels lay around them.

  “Where is your home?” she asked the Hunter, and his answer stretched the world even farther.

  “At the end of the River. You can’t see it from here.” He added mysteriously, “The world curves.”

  “Will you take us there?”

  He was silent for a long time. His face was motionless against the brilliant stars, as though it were carved out of river stone. “Not yet,” he said finally. “I have to leave you.”

  “But—”

  “Can you sail in the dark?”

  “Yes,” Terje said gruffly.

  “I’ll show you a trail back down to the river. There will be a boat tied there. Take it, and go swiftly. As swiftly as you can. Don’t sleep. You’ll hear drums; you’ll see fires. Don’t stop. Keep to the middle of the river. If you see any other boats, try to hide until they pass. And, here—” He gave Kyreol his stone. “This is for good luck. If you are in danger, open it and speak to it.”

  She took it from him, feeling cold again as the shining slid into her fingers. “My mother’s stone,” she whispered. “The dream-stone.”

  “Go downriver until dawn. Then, if you want to go home, open the stone and tell it that. Someone will come to lead you back.” He put his hands on their shoulders, led them across the top of the cliff to a trail. “Hurry.”

  “But, wait—” Kyreol cried, standing still against his hold, and she saw him smile a little. “Will we see you again?”

  “I don’t know. But I think so.” His hands nudged them forward. “Go.” He put on his mask, then; the last glimpse Kyreol had of him was a black oval face with white circles widening on it, like ripples on the river. Then the mask turned away from them, and he was gone.

  The high cliffs blotted out the stars until they were once again a thin, curving river of light far above, mirroring the path of the water. The small boat tugged against its moorings at the trail’s end. The Hunter had put food in it, fishing lines, a tiny lamp, his knife, and Terje sighed with relief. They pushed the boat out and spent a few moments turning circles until they learned to handle the oars. Then, catching the swift current, they rowed, out of the place of masks and caves and harshly singing drums, into morning.

  At sunrise, they stared at each other, their faces smudgy with sleeplessness. The cliffs were gone. The river had broadened and flowed slowly through groves of odd trees with prickly, honey-colored barks and plump, yellow fruit. The banks were sandy gold. The blue sky seemed to have no beginning and no end.

  They pulled the boat up onto the sand and lay in the warm light, their faces turned toward the sun like flowers. They ate dried fish and cracked nuts lazily, tossing shells into the river. The water was so clear they could see the stippled backs of fishes flickering through the gold-green depths. The sun climbed higher into the sky; distant mists dispersed, and the river glinted toward a far, flat horizon.

  Terje counted days and nights on his fingers. “Two—three—four. This is the fourth day we’ve been gone. Kyreol, your father must be worried.”

  “I’ll send him a dream,” Kyreol said drowsily, “so he’ll know I’m coming back.”

  “We should go back now. Open the stone and tell it.”

  “No…” she pleaded. “Just a little farther. Besides…” The river dimpled and tugged at her words. “You want to be back for Moon-Flash. For your betrothal. I’ll have to go back to Korre. I won’t see you anymore, then. Now, I have you with me for a while. Like we used to be.”

  He rolled over, his back to the sun. She looked at him, but he wasn’t looking at her, he was frowning at the distance. The strange, spikey leaves of the trees rattled drily in the breeze. Then his eyes came to her face. He smiled, the leaf-shadows sliding over his hair and his bare arms.

  “They’ll be angry with us.”

  “But when we’re old—old as that man in Little Spring—we can tell each other stories of going to the end of the world. And everyone else will think we dreamed it. But we’ll know.”

  “This place is beautiful,” he said softly. “If there are people here, I wonder how they dream.”

  She picked up the stone, which she had laid carefully beside the dried fish. It dazzled in her fingers. She turned it, pressed facet after facet, murmuring, “How can I get inside you, dream-stone? I want to talk to you.” It opened itself to her finally. It’s insides, delicate threads of crystal and gold, made no sense to her. She held it in her palm as she had seen the Hunter do. “Stone, this is Kyreol. I am talking to you from the place beyond the cliff dwellings, where there are big yellow trees and the river is peaceful.”

  There was a flurry of strange language within the stone. She blinked. Terje leaned forward to listen. “Stone. I can’t understand you.”

  A different voice spoke; the language became comprehensible. “Who are you?”

  “It’s me. Kyreol. Of River-Tree and Turtle-Crossing.”

  “Kyreol—”

  “The Hunter gave me this stone. Orcrow,” she added carefully, and the stone said a word she didn’t understand.

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. He went away. Terje is here, though.”

  “Listen,” the stone said. “Listen to me carefully. Tell me exactly where you are, then stay there. Don’t move. Someone will come and lead you back to—”

  “But we don’t want to go back,” Kyreol said patiently. “Not yet. I like seeing new places. I just wanted to talk to you, tell you what I’m seeing.”

  The stone was silent a moment. “What are you seeing? Exactly?”

  She looked up, preparing to describe the sky and the trees. But Terje shifted abruptly, put a finger on his lips. So she said, “Stone, I have to go now. Goodbye.” She pressed it closed. Terje had already risen and was pushing the boat into the water. She gathered their food reluctantly.

  “I want to sleep. Then I want to swim.”

  “Later.” He stopped moving and straightened, gazing at the huge blank sky, the golden land, and he laughed suddenly, as if he had just glimpsed their freedom. They splashed through the shallows, skimming the boat with them, then hoisted themselves into it and rowed, while behind them a startled flock of yellow birds swept like a shower of leaves out of the trees.

  For a long while then they lost track of time. They let the river carry them through changeless days and starry nights. They slept on soft banks beneath their fur; they swam and fished and tasted strange fruit and counted the number of birds they had never seen before. They made pipes out of reeds and played them when they ran out of stories to tell. The Riverworld seemed as far away as the moon, and they left no traces of themselves along the river for anyone to follow.

  One night the breeze brought them a faint scent of smoke and roast fish that seemed to come from nowhere. In the morning, they searched the banks cautiously, but saw nothing, not even charred wood. Later that day as they sailed in a lazy silence, they heard what might have been a light flurry of tiny bells. They watched the shores sharply, but saw no one, until dusk, when a shadow in the sand seemed to detach itself from the twilight and move deeper into the night.

  “It might be an animal,” Terje said.

  “Animals don’t cook fish. They don’t wear bells.”

  “We thought we smelled fish. We thought we heard bells.”

  “People don’t think they hear bells in the middle of a d
esert. Either they do or they don’t,” Kyreol said. She was cross because she was afraid. But Terje only laughed, guiding the boat into shallows on the other side of the river. Maybe his laughter was reassuring to their shadow, for that night they saw a single flame on the shore across from them. The next morning they saw nothing at all. But at midmorning, as the sun peeled away the last of the night coolness and the river burned as brightly as the sky, they saw a figure striding across the sand dunes along the bank, keeping abreast of their boat.

  It vanished after a while, slipped in the wink of an eye back into the desert. But not before they heard again the teasing shake of bells.

  As they sat at their own fire at dusk, eating fruit and fish, a boy appeared out of the wind in front of them. He had settled himself cross-legged and laid a strange ball in front of Terje, before Kyreol, her mouth hanging open, realized that he hadn’t come out of the air. There were his footprints in the sand. But he had walked so quietly, as quietly as a bird’s wing brushing the evening.

  “Who are you?” she breathed. But he only shook his head, smiling, and prodded his gift. Terje touched it puzzledly. It was big, round, hard as a nut and hairy.

  “Maybe it’s some kind of drum,” Kyreol guessed, rapping it with her knuckles. She transferred her attention back to the boy. He was very tall, very thin, all bones and angles. His skin was dark, but not as dark as hers. He wore a length of black cloth tucked over one shoulder, under one arm, and draped down around his knees. The cloth looped up again, wound around his hips a few times, then was tucked back into itself to make a pocket. His eyes were very dark, his hair dark and curly; his smile was wide and very friendly. He stopped smiling briefly, to gaze back at them, and there was an imperious, watchful tilt to his face. Then his teeth flashed cheerfully, and he unfolded his bony fingers, pushed at the ball again.

  “It’s a game,” Terje guessed.

  “Where does he keep his bells?”

  Terje picked up the ball. He sniffed at it suddenly, then shook it. The boy laughed and held out his hand for it. In the firelight, pictures danced on the underside of his arm, telling a story from his wrist to his shoulder.

  He saw them staring and promptly pulled the cloth down around his waist. The story marched across his chest in vivid colors and odd shapes and then back down his other arm.

  Kyreol stared, fascinated. There were birds in the story, strange signs, bright lines of dots, intricate knots of color. The boy’s smile disappeared again; he gazed with pride at his arms. Then he reached across the fire, touched Terje’s bare, upturned arm.

  The lack of pictures on it seemed to bewilder him. He tapped Terje’s wrist a few times, his eyes demanding an answer to his puzzlement. Kyreol giggled at the image of a painted Terje.

  “He has as many signs on him as the betrothal carpet. Look, Terje, there’s a butterfly. And two snakes. Maybe it’s just…”

  “Just what?”

  “I don’t know.” She brushed a flat space in the sand and drew their own signs. “This is me. A tree and a turtle. And this is Terje. Three Rocks.” She added, “That’s all we have.” She touched her forehead. “We paint them there.”

  The smile shone again; the boy nodded approvingly. He tapped his left wrist and then his heart and then his wrist again. He held his arm above the fire for them to see his sign.

  A white circle, a star of fire… Kyreol’s voice went small with astonishment. “Moon-Flash.”

  The boy’s head lifted. The moon was only a thin curve of white in the sky, but he stretched out his arm toward it, showing his sign, in a movement that was at once a ritual and a proud gesture of kinship. Watching his face, Kyreol thought, The moon recognizes him. He is the moon’s child. The son of a healer, maybe, or a ruler, like the Sun-Woman.

  “But where is his home?” she asked aloud. “And where are his bells?” She tilted her head, shook something invisible near her ear. “Bells.” She tapped her ear, then pointed at the boy and tinkled the invisible bells again. The third time she did it, the intent look left his face, and he laughed.

  He untucked the end of his cloth and spread it flat on the sand. Kyreol, gazing at the small collection of possessions, realized that he had nothing else. He had his sandals, the voluminous length of cloth, the vast blue sky, and the endless sand. He separated things carefully, laying them out on the cloth, his long fingers gesturing, talking. A stone for fire. A tiny net of leather laces attached to a bone handle. He demonstrated that, sending a stone hurtling out of the net into the night. A small knife with the most beautiful handle Kyreol had ever seen. Bells. He had wound cloth tightly around them to keep them silent. He shook them into his palm: tiny bells stitched to circlets of leather. He slid them over his wrists and shook them, smiling at their expressions. A few bundles of dried herbs. A small skin for water. That was all.

  Terje drew a breath. “He’s all alone in the desert, taking care of himself.”

  “Maybe he’s learning to be a hunter.”

  “Maybe. But he doesn’t have a spear or arrows, or traplines. Not even fishing line…”

  She watched the fearless, eager eyes flicking back and forth as they talked, as he listened for one familiar word. But he seemed patient with his wordlessness, as though their language was just one more noise among all the vast and varied noises made on the earth. He caught her eye, and the ready smile sprang forth again. She smiled back.

  “Maybe,” she said, “he’s just learning to live.” She drew houses in the sand, little people, and finally he grunted. He gestured away from the river. His people lived that way, under the rising sun. He raised his arm again, showed his sign to the moon, then swept his hand around him, circling the desert. Then he tapped the moon on his wrist, and then his heart.

  They shook their heads over that one. He grinned, and raising the ball he had given Terje, he cracked it in two like an egg against a stone.

  “It’s something to eat!” Kyreol said. He handed them the dripping halves, and they drank a sweet, milky liquid. He showed them how to pry the thick white flesh from its shell. They offered him fish in return, but he shook his head, munching at the fruit. Then he made a small face, and they laughed. Fish, his expression said. Nothing to eat but fish.

  Then he was gone. A shadow, a brush of wind, leaving not even a name they could call. A boy, kin to the moon, learning how to live under the sun.

  “I wonder what his dreams are like,” Kyreol murmured later as they lay beside the embers, listening to the river sigh. “Terje.”

  He grunted.

  “We never even spoke. Terje…”

  “What?”

  “That was a different Moon-Flash. How many things can Moon-Flash mean?” She didn’t hear if he answered; she was drifting gently into her night journey. The thin moon-paring hovered before her in her dreaming, giving her no answers.

  The land began to change, then. The silky desert sand bunched up into hard dry hills covered with stones and scrub brush. Far in the distance a mist slowly became a line of blue mountains, marching across the desert. Kyreol wondered what kinds of people lived among the high jagged peaks. They began to be wakened by odd noises in the dead of nights. One morning, their boat curved around a bend in the river and interrupted a herd of animals, big as small huts, lumbering into the water to drink.

  Kyreol groped urgently for the stone, which she had all but forgotten, while Terje, his muscles hard with exertion, sped to the far side of the river.

  “Stone. This is Kyreol.” She spoke softly, so as not to annoy the animals. But they seemed more interested in blowing water out of their noses at each other. “Stone.”

  “Kyreol!” the stone shouted.

  “Sh!”

  “You’re still alive!”

  “Stone, there are some enormous animals in the river—they’re grey and black, and they have teeth as long as this boat sticking out of their mouths.”

  “Stay away from them.”

  “Oh, we will.” Her mouth was dry. “Will they stay
away from us?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Stone, what are they?”

  The stone hesitated. “Animals,” it said finally.

  “Well, I know that, but—” A blaze of color caught her eye. “Now there is a cloud of birds. Green, with white stripes down their wings. As tall as people.” She listened, entranced as one of them sang. It was a haunting song, deep and pure as notes out of a huge reed pipe. “Stone—”

  “I hear it.”

  “Where are we? Is this the same world?”

  The stone seemed to sigh. It spoke to itself a moment, quickly, incomprehensibly. Then it said carefully, “There are places in the world where animals are gathered to live freely, away from people. You’re passing through one of them. Kyreol—”

  “What language were you speaking?” she asked abruptly. “Is it the Hunter’s language?”

  “It—yes.”

  “Will you teach it to me?”

  There was another conversation within the stone, much longer than before. Then it said resignedly to her, “Wouldn’t you rather go home?”

  “No.”

  “Then—all right. At least I’ll know you’re still alive. Now listen carefully.” It said something slowly. “That means, ‘My name is Joran.’ Now say this.”

  She repeated it delightedly. “My name is Kyreol. Terje, listen!” She caught his arm, making the boat swerve. “You say this: ‘My name is Terje.’”

  He pulled up his oar, looking in disbelief at an enormous, silky animal with a mane sunning itself on the shore and then at her. “My name is Terje,” he said huskily. “Now ask it what that is.”

  They spoke to the stone intermittently throughout the day, learning the names of dozens of birds and animals, along with the words for boat, fish, fire, tired, hungry, river, world. Only when Kyreol asked the word for Moon-Flash did the stone refuse her.

  “You’ll have to ask the Hunter.”

  The stone advised that they stay in the boat, so they rarely left it. They kept it in mid-river, taking turns sleeping at night while the other rowed. During the day, in clearings where they saw no animals, they stopped briefly to cook the fish they caught, to gather fruit that Joran told them was safe to eat.