Molly Fyde and the Land of Light

the door and across the carpet. The two officials waved the group further inside.

“This shelter is for alien use only,” one of them thought. “It has been closed for many of your years; it was reopened for your companion one of your solar days ago. You will rest for one of your nights, and then gear up and depart on the Rite.”

Heads nodded to affirm that they heard and understood. The thinking continued: “The rules are few and simple. Do not follow one another. Do not assist one another. Choose your own path and capture your own Wadi Thooo. If, in the extremely unlikely event you come across one of our youth that has wandered over this far, please do not interfere with his or her quest. The only advice you will get from us is to stick to the shadows, capture your Wadi Thooo, and try to return safely.”

Cole seriously doubted the sincerity of the last bit of advice, even hearing it in his own voice.

Molly raised her hand up to her shoulder. “What do you mean by ‘your companion’?” she thought.

One of the two officials looked at her, his face expressionless and a chilly blue. “The one you call ‘Edison.’ He requested the rite after meeting with Lady Hooo. You will no doubt be sad to hear that he entered the canyons almost one of your days ago and has not been seen since.”

The thinker turned away from them to begin the tour of the facilities. The other official looked at Molly gravely.

“Only Drenards can become Drenards,” he thought to all of them.

••••

After a brief tour, the red bands were taken back, and all three initiates were locked in separate quarters. Even with Anlyn’s testimony absolving them of any crime, they were still non-Drenards on the race’s home planet. Certain rights were not yet theirs to enjoy.

Cole slept fitfully on one of the two small blue cots in his room. When he felt like it should be morning, he got up, splashed some water on his face in the adjoining bathroom, and started his stretching routine.

His internal clock must have been off by several hours; it was that long before his hosts stirred and unlocked the doors. Molly was already up, but they had to go into Walter’s room to wake him.

A simple meal awaited them, along with some water. Around bites, Cole explained to Walter the reason for the heavy winds, how the heat from one side of Drenard rose, leaving a vacuum, into which the air from the cold side rushed.

Although the boy had asked, he began nodding at the answer as if he already knew it all—a habit of the boy’s that drove Cole crazy.

After the meal, the initiates were led to the gear room and assigned new suits and booths in which to change. First, a cloth underlayer went on, followed by the outer lining. These were silver, like foil, and extremely light.  The shoulders were a tad low to suit the Drenard frame, which left a pooch of material bunched up on either side. Otherwise, the fit seemed to satisfy the officials.

Next came the boots, and there was a massive assortment of them. Walter had a great time digging through them, hunting for the newest-looking pair. Cole and Molly found some that fit and laced them up over the bottom of the suits. As they moved around and busied themselves with these tasks, the shiny material rubbed on itself and made a racket of sharp hissing. It sounded like three or four Palans on a looting spree.

Once they were suited up, they surveyed one another and took turns giggling. But back in the commons, all levity soon drained away. The Drenard guards stood at attention, the officials rigid and stoic. Cole, Molly, and Walter remembered why they were here—the seriousness of the ritual—and adopted a demeanor to match.

With much ceremony, each of them was given a small version of the guard lance. They lacked a trigger, Cole noted—just solid metal with a point on one end and a hook on the other. Next, each received a cloth map more than half a meter to a side depicting the canyons beyond. To Cole, the layout of the ditches resembled a vascular system or an upside-down tree. Thin and narrow lines, thousands of them, grew larger and fewer in the direction of the suns. A dot of blue ink represented their location in the shelter.

Red bands were passed around for final instructions, their voices filling their heads: “We will wait for two of your days. Not even Drenards can survive in the canyons for much longer than that. Since none of you are expected to enter our caste system or work in Drenard society, do not take unnecessary risks.”

Molly raised her hand. “Have you heard from our friend? Is he okay?”

“The Judges he came with were resting when we arrived yesterday. Now they have gone.”

“Gone where? To help him?”

“They gave him two of your days,” was the response.

“So he’s still out there?” Molly glanced at Cole. He could tell she cared less and less about this ritual, more concerned with Edison. He could practically hear her feelings through the band.

“I’m sorry to say that he would be dead by now,” an official said.

“Concern yourself with not joining him,” came another thought. The two officials stepped to the side and gestured toward the door.

The sky beyond bled rainbows through the glass. The trio shuffled toward the haunting, gorgeous sight, passing over the large stain in the carpet. One of the guards opened the door and the other held out his hands. “Return the bands,” he thought.

They did, and the three friends exited into a strange world full of howling winds and a chorus of moans from the distant canyons. With the bands gone, they found themselves feeling more alone than ever before, the flapping of their suits loud in their ears, no thoughts in their heads but their own.

The Rite of Wadi Thooo had officially begun.

12

The three of them split up outside the building, Molly walking straight ahead while Cole angled right, the direction from which their shuttle had come. Walter went to the left.

Once beyond the break provided by the shelter, the wind began pushing against their backs, propelling them forward. Cole tried to keep the direction of the breeze in mind as he found his pace; the hike back was going to be much more difficult than the walk in.

“Good luck and be safe,” he thought to Molly, then remembered she couldn’t hear, the habit of the red bands not yet worn off.

As he marched along, the loose folds in Cole’s suit seemed to flap louder and louder. The noise rose from rustle, through various states of annoyance, and on up to sonically painful. He chose a small gully to follow and looked forward to descending into a canyon to see if the breeze would be reduced. As strong as the wind felt, the gale on the prison rooftop had sounded much stiffer. Whether that was due to altitude or the city serving as some sort of buffer, he couldn’t tell.

Less than a kilometer into the hike, the moaning from the canyons could be heard again over the loud flapping from his suit. It sounded as if the entire land was clutching its belly, doubled over and dying. Then the wind freshened, and his suit drowned out the haunting sound once more.

Cole held out his arms, gathering the wind at his back, allowing it to push him along. It felt like he was sliding down a rock incline, shuffling his feet to keep from falling. He was almost going too fast when he came to the terminator, the line separating night from day.

Pulling his arms in quickly, he leaned backwards into the gusts to keep from being thrown forward into the light. Kneeling, Cole marveled at how defined the shadow was, even though it must be cast by a ridge some dozens of kilometers distant. He leaned down to get a closer look. Ahead of him, waves of heat rose off the rock like smoke, the lit areas of stone baking in the sun. Cole thought about how long the rock endured that state, no respite from the glancing rays, no time to cool off for hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of years.

He waved his hand through the sunlight and felt just a slight difference in heat. The air remained cooled by the wind from the dark hemisphere. He set his lance down and pulled one hand inside his metallic sleeve for