An urrish guard nodded. “Vut it was fron this flace that early urs exflorers discovered the secret way across the Sfectral Flow. The Secret of Xi.”
Sara nodded. That explained why one group of urs conspired to thwart another — the powerful Urunthai — in their plan to make horses extinct when humanity was new on Jijo. The smiths of those days cared little for power games played by high aunties of the plains tribes. It did not matter to them how Earthlings smelled, or what beasts they rode, only that they possessed a treasure.
Those books the Earthlings printed. They have secrets of metallurgy. We must share, or be left behind.
So it was not a purely idealistic move — to establish a secret herd in Xi. There had been a price. Humans may be jijo’s master engineers, but we stayed out of smithing, and now I know why.
Even after growing up among them, Sara still found it fascinating how varied urs could be. Their range of personalities and motives — from fanatics to pragmatic smiths — was as broad as you’d find among human beings. One more reason why stereotypes aren’t just evil, but stupid.
Soon after they remounted, the trail followed a ridgeline offering spectacular views. The Spectral Flow lay to their left, an eerie realm, even dimmed to sepia shades by distance and dark glasses. The maze of speckled canyons spanned all the way to a band of blazing white — the Plain of Sharp Sand. Dedinger’s home, where the would-be prophet was forging a nation of die-hard zealots out of coarse desert folk. Sandmen who saw themselves as humanity’s vanguard on the Path of Redemption.
In the opposite direction, southwest through gaps in the many-times-folded mountain, Sara glimpsed another wonder. The vast ocean, where Jijo’s promised life renewal was fulfilled. Where Melina’s ashes went after mulching. And Joshu’s. Where the planet erased sin by absorbing and melting anything the universe sent it.
The Slope is so narrow, and Jijo is so large. Will star gods judge us harshly for living quiet careful lives in one corner of a forbidden world?
There was always hope the aliens might just finish their business and go away, leaving the Six Races to proceed along whatever path destiny laid out for them.
Yeah, she concluded. There are two chances that will happen — fat and slim.
The trek continued, more often dismounted than not, and the view grew more spectacular as they moved east, encompassing the southern Rimmer Range. Again, Sara noted skittishness among the urs. In spots the ground vented steaming vapors, making the horses dance and snort. Then she glimpsed a red glimmer, some distance below the trail — a meandering stream of lava, flowing several arrowflights downslope.
Perhaps it was fatigue, thin air, or the tricky terrain, but as Sara looked away from the fiery trail, her unshielded eyes crossed the mountains and were caught unready by a stray flash of light. Sensitized by her time in Xi, the sharp gleam made her cringe.
What is that?
The flash repeated at uneven intervals, almost as if the distant mountaintop were speaking to her.
Then Sara caught another, quite different flicker of motion.
Now that must be an illusion, she thought. It has to be … yet it’s so far from the Spectral Flow!
It seemed … she could almost swear … that she saw the widespread wings of some titanic bird, or dragon, wafting between—
It had been too long since she checked her footing. A stone unexpectedly turned and Sara tripped. Throwing her weight desperately the other way, she overcompensated, losing her balance completely.
Uttering a cry, Sara fell.
The gritty trail took much of the initial impact, but then she rolled over the edge, tumbling down a scree of pebbles and jagged basalt flakes. Despite her tough leather garments, each jab lanced her with fierce pain as she desperately covered her face and skull. A wailing sound accompanied her plunge. In a terrified daze Sara realized the screamer was not her, but Prity, shrieking dismay.
“Sara!” someone yelled. There were scrambling sounds of distant, hopeless pursuit.
In midtumble, between one jarring collision and the next, she glimpsed something between blood-streaked fingers — a fast-approaching rivulet winding across the shattered landscape. A liquid current that moved languidly, with great viscosity and even greater heat. It was the same color as her blood … and approaching fast.
Nelo
ARIANA FOO SPENT THE RETURN BOAT JOURNEY mulling over her sketches of the tiny space pod that had brought the Stranger to Jijo. Meanwhile, Nelo fumed over this foolish diversion. His workmen would surely not have kept to schedule. Some minor foul-up would give those louts an excuse to lie about like hoons at siesta time.
Commerce had lapsed during the crisis, and the warehouse tree was full, but Nelo was determined to keep producing paper. What would Dolo Village be without the groaning waterwheel, the thump of the pulping hammer, or the sweet aroma that wafted from fresh sheets drying in the sun?
While the helmsman umbled cheerfully, keeping a steady beat for the crew poling the little boat along, Nelo held out a hand, feeling for rain. There had been drops a little earlier, when disturbing thunder pealed to the south.
The marsh petered out as streamlets rejoined as a united river once more. Soon the young people would switch to oars and sweep onto the gentle lake behind Dolo Dam.
The helmsman’s umble tapered, slowing to a worried moan. Several of the crew leaned over, peering at the water. A boy shouted as his pole was ripped out of his hands. It does seem a bit fast, Nelo thought, as the last swamp plants fell behind and trees began to pass by rapidly.
“All hands to oars!” shouted the young hoon in command. Her back spines, still fresh from recent fledging, made uneasy frickles.
“Lock them down!”
Ariana met Nelo’s eyes with a question. He answered with a shrug.
The boat juttered, reminding him of the cataracts that lay many leagues downriver, past Tarek Town, an inconvenience he only had to endure once, accompanying his wife’s dross casket to sea.
But there are no rapids here! They were erased when the lake filled, centuries ago!
The boat veered, sending him crashing to the bilge. With stinging hands, Nelo climbed back to take a seat next to Ariana. The former High Sage clutched the bench, her precious folio of drawings zipped shut inside her jacket.
“Hold on!” screamed the young commander. In dazed bewilderment, Nelo clutched the plank as they plunged into a weird domain. A realm that should not be.
So Nelo thought, over and over, as they sped down a narrow channel. On either side, the normal shoreline was visible — where trees stopped and scummy water plants took over. But the boat was already well below that level, and dropping fast!
Spume crested the gunnels, drenching passengers and crew. The latter rowed furiously to the hoon lieutenant’s shrill commands. Lacking a male’s resonating sac, she still made her wishes known.
“Backwater-left … backwater-left, you noor-bitten ragmen!.. Steady … Now all ahead! Pull for it, you spineless croakers! For your lives, pull!”
Twin walls of stone rushed inward, threatening to crush the boat from both sides. Glistening with oily algae, they loomed like hammer and anvil as the crew rowed frantically for the narrow slot between, marked by a fog of stinging white spray. What lay beyond was a mystery Nelo only prayed he’d live to see.
Voices of hoons, qheuen, and humans rose in desperation as the boat struck one cliff a glancing blow, echoing like a door knocker on the gateway to hell. Somehow the hull survived to lunge down the funnel, drenched in spray.
We should be on the lake by now, Nelo complained, hissing through gritted teeth. Where did the lake go!
They shot like a javelin onto a cascade where water churned in utter confusion over scattered boulders, shifting suddenly as fresh debris barricades built up or gave way. It was an obstacle course to defy the best of pilots, but Nelo had no eyes for the ongoing struggle, which would merely decide whether he lived or died. His numbed gaze lifted beyond, staring past the surrounding mud plain that had been a lake bed, down whose center rushed the River Roney, no longer constrained. A river now free to roll on as it had before Earthlings came.
The dam … The dam …
