Moonscatter

by Jo Clayton

  Pa’psa came back, several smaller pale brown females trailing after him, brushing wingtip against wingtip for reassurance. Shyly they circled over Hern and Serroi, then retreated to cling to the far side of the wash, watching and whispering rapid syllables to each other.

  Serroi laughed, Hern laughed. Serroi lifted the gourd to her lips and sucked the rest of the liquid out of it, Hern lifted the gourd to his lips and sucked the fluid out of it. Serroi felt the double swallowing, the double explosion in two mouths, turned her head slightly and saw she was feeling the movements of Hern’s throat and her throat in tandem. She turned back, blinked up at Pa’psa. The hair on the tiny man’s body was outlined in light. For an instant, like the fleeting touch of the flier’s talons on her knee, she felt tied to him as strongly as to Hern, sharing and passing on his delight—then it was gone, though the link to Hern still lingered. Well-being flowed through her-Hern. She laughed, Hern laughed, Pa’psa went tumbling over and over in soundless aerial laughter.

  The glow gradually muted into a calmness that left her tired but happy. Pa’psa continued to circle over them for a while, then grew bored and went soaring off. Leaning comfortably against Hern she watched more of the fliers as they flitted past, carrying webbed loads to the section of cliff where others of their clan were gouging out shallow holes in the crumbly earth. The amber fluid sitting warm in her stomach, in Hern’s stomach, they watched a vee of tiny kits fly about, chattering, wheeling away before they got too close, not daring to come really close, squeaking challenges at each other, prodding each other into darting swoops above her head. She laughed, Hern laughed. The kits went climbing frantically up the air, wings clawing for height, a little uncoordinated, lacking the smooth bite of the adults. For a moment she was annoyed at herself, at Hern, for scaring them, then she realized it was simply their flight-reflex, sighed, relaxed, felt Hern relax. The kits climbed high enough to feel safe then they were playing over Hern and Serroi, throwing loops and chasing each other with noisy exuberance.

  “Setting up house.” Hern’s voice was low and amused. He straightened his legs carefully, moving his calves up and down to ease out cramps from sitting so long in one position. Serroi moved her legs to ease cramps she hadn’t noticed before. As she continued to watch the antics of the kits, her vision doubled. She saw the kits, saw the adults working away at the wash bank, the second image alternately background and foreground. She pushed slowly away from Hern, lurched up onto her knees and worked herself around until she was facing him. He jammed the heels of his hands onto the sand, pushed himself up to face her.

  She looks at him, sees herself staring at him, him staring at her, him seeing himself looking at her, the seeing and the see-ers replicated into infinity as if she and Hern, he and Serroi, crouched between parallel mirrors. Outside that pairing both hear the whiffle of the fliers’ wings, both feel their bounding curiosity and their fizzing excitement. Serroi is distracted, Hern is distracted by the high singing chatter flung between them. Hern and Serroi break apart, blink, are dazed and bereft.

  Serroi stretched out her hand, Hern took it. “You all right?”

  She nodded. “You?”

  He laughed, the sound a bit shaky. “Shaky,” he said.

  “Me too,” she said. She pulled her hand loose, got to her feet, looked around for her spear. “Want something else in my stomach.” She glanced at the busy fliers. “Better lay off meat for a while.”

  Hern grunted up, using the two spears to help him push onto his feet. “You’re being right again.” He handed her the spear. “Watch it, little bit.”

  the tenth day

  They were moving more slowly, inadequate diet putting some strain on their strength, the continual need to hunt for food slowing them more than either liked. Hern ate the tubers she baked, the sweet fruits of the vines, the tulpa stems, the nut-flavored grains they stripped from small patches of grass, shared the meatless diet. Slow progress, meals that for the most part didn’t end, a continual eating as they walked, a continual digging and collecting. Still, they kept going. The days were warm and cloudless, the night clear, cool, brilliant.

  The fliers traveled with them. After a few days the shy females gathered courage enough to fly close and pat her cheek, pat her hair. They were fascinated by the springy sorrel curls.

  The plateau stretched out nearly flat to a distant horizon with wide expanses of grass breaking up the expanses of brush. It was a gently monotonous landscape dominated by pale browns and dusty muted greens. There was an inconspicuous abundance of vegetation, much of it smaller than the palm of her hand. A rather pleasant biting odor clung to everything growing and blew in the air they breathed and was concentrated in the honey drink the fliers kept feeding them.

  They slowly grew accustomed to living in two bodies. It made walking difficult and nights interesting. It was sometimes confusing when, for an instant at first, for expanding snatches of time, they couldn’t be sure which pair of eyes they were looking through or who was really doing the talking no matter which voice sounded. They touched a lot, walked when they could hand in hand, they came back together often just to touch hands. They slept curled up together, body pressing against body with not the slightest hint of sexual desire.

  On the tenth night they first shared dreams:

  HERN’S DREAM: “Fat boy. Greedy little fat boy. Why am I cursed with such a lump of lard?” His father’s back. His father walking away. His father ignoring him. The room is huge. There are cobwebs of shadow in the distant corners and cobwebs of shadow layer on layer brushed across the ceiling. His father’s footsteps boom even after he is no longer in sight, having passed through the door, a gaping hole in one wall.

  The boy stands up, the room echoes with every move, the sound buffetting him. He is a round little boy nearly as wide as he is tall but he moves with a quick grace that he knows nothing of. His father is tall and lean, one of the bony Heslins, and continually berates him for greed, his father has been disappointed in him almost since he was born. The boy’s footsteps echo as he crosses to the gap in the wall, following his father though he is cold and sad and knows his father doesn’t want him around.

  The hallway outside the room constricts about the boy. Sweating, gritting his teeth he forces himself into the darkness. The air is lifeless and chill, there is a threatening feel to the passage. The walls come in closer and closer until he is terrified of getting stuck, but he won’t stop or go back, his urgency drives him on in spite of his fear. The passage opens with shocking suddenness and he is in his father’s office before he can stop and he bumps into a one-legged table with an oil lamp on it. The hot oil splashes over everything, sets the rug and some papers on fire. His father stands over him, his face contorted with rage, purple with fury, his chin beard waggling furiously as he shouts curses at the cowering boy, kicks at him, growing larger and uglier by the minute. The boy shrinks back, literally shrinks, getting smaller and smaller until he is rat-sized and his father’s huge foot is poised over him about to step on him.

  He is cowering on his bed, trying to strangle his sobs before they can sneak out of his throat. A young woman comes in, one of his nursemaids, charming and neat in her crisp white blouse and pleated black skirt. The skirt whispering about her quick little ankles, she hurries to him, exclaiming with distress. Gathering him in soft herb-scented arms, she murmurs soft affectionate coos. She is warm and soft. She reminds him of when he has just taken a bath and dried off and it is just a little cool and he has on a clean crisp sleep smock and is crawling in between sweet-scented sheets. He leans against her, smelling her, revelling in the feel of her, revelling in the warmth and affection pouring out of her. She pats him a few times more, tucks him into bed, leaves the room.

  In a blink she is back. Others are with her. A half dozen nursemaids laughing and teasing him, kissing him and fondling him, feeding him cakes and tartlets and hot, spiced cider. Then they tuck him back into bed and go out with subdued giggling and gossiping.

  H
e is sneaking out with his nursemaid early in the morning. She lets him trail her like a friendly pup. She pats him like a pup, ignores him like a pup. She is sneaking down to the guard barracks to see her “friend,” taking the boy with her, knowing he won’t tell on her, knowing he’d lie like anything to protect her. She has done this before. He watches her cuddle in the bushes with her guard; he is jealous and unhappy, fidgeting from foot to foot, trying to whistle, producing a few abortive notes. The guard scowls at him over the nursemaid’s shoulder—and it is his father’s face scowling at him. He screams. The nursemaid ignores him, it always happens when his father is with a woman, even his mother, no matter how close the woman has been to him. They pet and spoil him and forget him when his father is there. He runs off into the bushes, shrunk to rat size again, bumping from trunk to trunk in his blind frightened scurry.

  A large man with dark pewter hair is sitting on the barracks steps. He looks ancient to the boy. The boy halts, sucks on his lip, watches the old man draw a piece of soft leather along a shining blade. The old man frowns at him but says nothing. The boy sees that the old man knows him and disapproves of his wandering about by himself. The old man slides the sword into its sheath and sets it down beside him, leaning along the steps. Ignoring the boy, he picks up a piece of wood carved into a knife shape, a twisted hilt and a long hooked blade, blunt along the inner curve. He slices off shaving after shaving with slow patient care, putting the finishing touches on the carving. The boy sits down some distance from the man, watches him, fascinated. The carving goes on and on. The old man works with patient care, the boy watches with the same patience. No one else comes, there is, as far as the boy is concerned, no one else in the world.

  The old man holds the carved knife up, tries its balance, throws it suddenly at the boy. It turns in the air, end over end, the boy watches open-mouthed, it comes at him, a little to one side, going to go over his shoulder. On a sudden impulse, giggling, the boy snatches the tumbling knife from the air. He runs his hand over it, delighted by the fine detail of the carving.

  “Bring me it,” the old man says. His voice is brusque, abrupt, but not unfriendly.

  The boy looks down at the knife. His small, sweaty, chubby hand is closed tight about the hilt. He doesn’t want to give the knife back. He looks up at the old man, meets stern, dark pewter eyes. Reluctantly he gets to his feet. Feet dragging over the paving, he takes the knife back to the old man.

  The old man takes the knife. “Go back,” he says in the same abrupt, not unfriendly voice. “Sit where you were.”

  The boy is puzzled, but the voice of the old man has charmed him. The man is neither shouting at him nor cooing over him. He turns and rushes back, settles himself with that incongruous grace that no one ever notices. The old man sees it with interest.

  “Catch it again.” The old man flips the knife at him. The boy snatches it from the air, picks the wheeling knife out of the air by its hilt with a quick neat snap of his hand. He starts to get up to bring the knife back to the old man. The old man smiles, a small tight upcurve of his stern mouth. “Keep it,” he says. The boy settles back, feeling a warm glow of pleasure as he fondles the carving.

  The old man lifts the sword in its sheath and gets to his feet with a quick smooth flexing of his body as if he is much younger in the body than in the head. “Come back here tomorrow,” he says. He taps the sword and smiles again. “You’re old enough to begin training.”

  SERROI’S DREAM: She is in the courtyard playing with half-grown chini pups. The sky is cloudy, the air is heavy, getting a little too cold for comfort. Beside her the tower of the Noris rises brown-black and massive. It would be forbidding if it weren’t so familiar. It starts to rain, first a few large drops then an inundation. Laughing, the little girl runs into the tower, the pups at her heels. In spite of the grimness of her surroundings, the miserable weather, she is intensely happy as she is always intense about whatever she is. The chini pups are responding to her mood, bounding up the stairs behind her, around her, before her. Sourceless light travels up the stairs with her, winding round and round the spiraling wormhole. She bursts into her own room, pulls to a stop, startled.

  A tall lean man is standing in the center of the pleasant room. He is not smiling. He wears a gold ring through one nostril from which dangles a glittering ruby in the shape of a teardrop. It glitters and shifts with each movement of his lip as he speaks, but for a moment he says nothing, no muscle in his face moves. She laughs with delight and rushes toward him, though the chini hang back silent in the doorway. She doesn’t quite hug him. He shows no response for a moment then a small smile curls his delicately chiseled lips. The ruby flashes fire. His austere face softens. Something of the small girl’s joy is reflected there. He reaches out, touches her hair, draws one silky sorrel curl through his long pale fingers. Then he fixes his fingers in her hair and flings her onto the bed.

  She scrambles onto her knees. “I tried,” she whimpers. “I tried.”

  Shaking with rage, he speaks a WORD and sets pain on her. Without looking at her, he runs from the room.

  She moves a hand, brushes it against her thigh and gasps as pain sears through her. The pain gets worse, burning all over her body. She tears off the soft robe that is suddenly a nettle shirt. Her body is bathed in sweat. She pushes off the bed. The soles of her feet burn. She sits on the bed again and feels fire searing her buttocks. She stands. The air presses against her skin and burns. She weeps, knowing that he has done this to her out of the knowledge he has gained through her, weeps, feeling tears roll like drops of acid down her face. Weeps, too, knowing there is no way she can satisfy him, no way she can take him into the Golden Valley. She tried, she really tried, but she couldn’t do it. She forces her fingers closed over the latchhook intending to make her way to him and beg him to remove his curse. Her fingers slip off the latch. She tries again. The door is locked.

  The torment goes on and on. The night passes. She burns. She can’t think. She can’t move. After an endless time the door opens and the Noris steps inside. “Please,” she moans.

  He speaks a WORD. As the fire dies out of her skin, he lifts her, carries her to the bed. She cringes away from him, lost in terror, unable to think, unable to control her body. He blurs and clears, blurs again as she tries to see his face. There is sadness in it but she cannot accept this. He puts her on the bed, sits beside her and tries to untangle her curls until he sees how stiffly she is lying. He lifts her and holds her until the stiffness melts in her. She starts shaking, he holds her until the shaking goes away. He lays her back, touches her cheek, smiles and leaves.

  The Noris is standing at the foot of her bed, his face somber. He waits in silence while she rubs the sleep from her eyes, then he says, “Get dressed, Serroi.”

  She scrambles into one of her white silk robes and pulls the soft slippers onto her feet. Hesitantly, her eyes on his still face, she takes his hand.

  The room blinks out, changes into rolling hills of sand with scattered clumps of scraggly brush. The Noris speaks. A dark robe drops onto the sand and rock beside him. He speaks again, a small WORD, and a banquet is spread out beside the robe, steaming savory food on delicate porcelain, wine in a single crystal glass, a crystal pitcher full of water.

  Serroi and the Noris are standing on a slight rise in the middle of the most barren and inhospitable land she’d ever seen. Her eyespot throbs but she can find no touch of life anywhere close, only ripples of rock and sand, cut across by straggling black lines where rainy season run-offs had eaten into the earth. A little frightened, still aching from the agony of the past days, she looks up at the Noris.

  He lays a hand a moment on her head, then steps back. “Good-bye, Serroi.” And she is alone in the middle of a desert.

  “Why?” she whispers. She stares at the empty space where the Noris had been. “Why?” She turns helplessly round and round. “Why? Why? Why? WHY?”

  Serroi pushed up, wiped a hand across her eyes, struggling to hold her
self separate for a few minutes at least. Hern sat up, wiped a hand across his eyes, struggled to hold himself separate from her for a moment.

  “Dream?” he said.

  “Yours?” she said.

  “More a memory,” he said.

  “A kind of memory. Squeezed up,” she said.

  “Why did we dream them?”

  “Don’t know. Why any of this?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Don’t know much, do we.”

  “Not much.”

  the fifteenth day—the dragons of glass

  Serroi looked at her hands, wrinkled her nose. “I’m turning into a twig,” she said with Hern’s voice; with her voice she said, “We been doing better than I thought. Should be almost halfway across.”

  Hern said in his voice, “Our little friends.” He smiled, she smiled, at the antics of the fliers air-dancing for their own pleasure over the water she’d just called forth. In her voice, he said, “Putting on a show. They like that water.”

  A small jewel form flitted past, plunged into the spring, fluttered up again, shedding crystalline drops of water, a very small dragon shape, long and sinuous with small spiky wings, transparent as glass, like a glowing glass statue given magical life. Brilliant rainbow colors rippled across the small snaky form, ruby and topaz, amethyst, emerald and aquamarine. The tiny thing was voiceless, its voice was the pulse of colors along its wavering length, she couldn’t read it, Hern couldn’t read it, they knew it was speech nonetheless. Hern held out Serroi’s finger, laughed with Serroi’s voice, his voice also, as long-toed feet tightened about the finger.

  More of the tiny dragons arrived and darted into the water, playing joyously with the fliers and dancing with them in tumbling, slithering, shimmering, fluttering exuberance.