Dying of the Light

back. That was all he needed to flip over again, and he began careening through the sky above Larteyn in a mad cartwheel.

Gwen was behind him, shouting something. Dirk blinked and noticed that he was about to crash into the side of a tall ebony tower. He played with his controls and shot straight up, still fighting to steady himself.

He was high above the city and standing upright when she caught him. 'Stay away,' he warned with a grin, feeling stupid and clumsy and playful. 'Knock me over again and I'll get the flying tank and laser you out of the sky, woman!' He tilted to one side, caught himself, then overcompensated and swung to the other side yelping.

'You're drunk,' Gwen shouted at him through the keening wind. 'Too much beer for breakfast.' She was above him now, arms folded against her chest, watching his struggles with mock disapproval.

'These things seem much more stable when you hang from them upside down,' Dirk said. He had finally achieved a semblance of balance, although the way he held his arms out to either side made it clear that he was dubious about maintaining it.

Gwen settled down to his level and moved in beside him, sure-footed and confident, her dark hair streaming behind her like a wild black banner. 'How you doing?' she yelled as they flew side by side.

'I think I've got it!' Dirk announced. He was still upright.

'Good. Look down!'

He looked down, past the meager security of the platform under his feet. Larteyn with its dark towers and faded glowstone streets was no longer beneath him. Instead there was a long long drop through an empty twilight sky to the Common far below. He glimpsed a river down there, a thread of wandering dark water in the dim-lit greenery. Then his head swam dizzily, his hands tightened, and he flipped over again.

This time Gwen dipped underneath him as he hung upside down. She crossed her arms again and smirked up at him. 'You sure are a dumbshit, t'Larien,' she told him. 'Why don't you fly right side up?'

He growled at her, or tried to growl, but the wind took away his breath and he could only make faces. Then he turned himself over. His legs were getting sore from all of this. 'There!' he shouted, and looked down defiantly to prove that the height would not spook him a second time.

Gwen was beside him again. She looked him over and nodded. 'You are a disgrace to the children of Avalon, and sky-scooters everywhere,' she said. 'But you'll probably survive. Now, do you want to see the wild?'

'Lead me, Jenny!'

'Then turn. We're going the wrong way. We have to clear the mountains.' She held out her free hand and took his and together they swung around in a wide spiral, up and back, to face Larteyn and the mountain-wall. The city looked gray and washed-out from a distance, its proud glowstones a sun-doused black. The mountains were a looming darkness.

They rode toward them together, gaining altitude steadily until they were far over the Firefort, high enough to clear the peaks. That was about top altitude for the sky-scoots; an aircar, of course, could ascend much higher. But it was high enough for Dirk. The chameleon cloth coveralls they wore had gone all gray and white, and he was thankful for their warmth; the wind was chill and the dubious day of Worlorn not much hotter than its night.

Holding hands and shouting infrequent comments, leaning this way and that into the wind, Gwen and Dirk rode up over one mountain and down its far slope into a shadowed rocky valley, then up and down another and still another, past dagger-sharp outcroppings of green and black rock, past high narrow waterfalls and higher precipices. At one point Gwen challenged him to race, and he shouted his acceptance, and then they streaked forward as fast as the scoots and their skill could take them until finally Gwen took pity on him and came back to take his hand again.

The range dropped off as suddenly to the west as it had risen in the east, throwing up a tall barrier to shield the wild from the light of the still-climbing Wheel. 'Down,' Gwen said, and he nodded, and they began a slow descent toward the jumbled dark greenery below. By then they had been up for more than an hour; Dirk was half numb from the bite of the Worlorn wind, and most of his body was protesting this maltreatment.

They landed well inside the forest, beside a lake they had seen as they came down. Gwen swooped down gracefully in a gentle curve that left her standing on a mossy beach beside the water's edge. Dirk, afraid of smashing into the ground and breaking a leg, flicked off his grid a moment too soon and fell the last meter.

Gwen helped him detach his boots from the sky-scoot, and together they brushed damp sand and moss from his clothes and from his hair. Then she sat down beside him and smiled. He smiled back and kissed her.

Or tried to. As he reached and put his arm around her, she pulled away, and he remembered. His hands fell, and the shadows swept across his face. 'I'm sorry,' he said, mumbling. He looked away from her, toward the lake. The water was an oily green, and islands of violet fungus dotted the still surface. The only motion was the half-seen stirrings of insects skimming the shallows nearby. The forest was even darker than the city, for the mountains still hid most of Fat Satan's disc.

Gwen reached out and touched him on the shoulder. 'No,' she said softly. 'I'm sorry. I forgot too. It was almost like Avalon.'

He looked at her and forced a faint smile, feeling lost. 'Yes. Almost. I've missed you, Gwen, despite it all. Or should I be saying that?'

'Probably not,' she said. Her eyes avoided his again and went wandering from him, out across the lake. The far side was. lost in haze. She gazed into the distance for a long time, not moving except once, when she shivered briefly from the cold. Dirk watched her clothing slowly fade to a mottled off-white and green to match the shade of the ground she sat upon.

Finally he reached to touch her, his hand unsure. She shrugged it away. 'No,' she said.

Dirk sighed and picked up a handful of cool sand, running it through his fingers as he thought. 'Gwen.' He hesitated. 'Jenny, I don't know…'

She glanced at him and frowned. 'That's not my name, Dirk. It never was. No one ever called me that except you.'

He winced, hurt. 'But why-'

'Because it isn't me!'

'No one else,' he said. 'It just came to me, back on Avalon, and it fit you and I called you that. I thought you liked it.'

She shook her head. 'Once. You don't understand. You never understand. It came to mean more to me than it did at first, Dirk. More and more and more, and the things that name meant to me were not good things. I tried to tell you, even then. But that was a long time ago. I was younger, a child. I didn't have the words.'

'And now?' His voice was edged with overtones of anger. 'Do you have the words now, Gwen?'

'Yes. For you, Dirk. More words than I can use.' She smiled at some secret joke and shook her head so her hair tossed in the wind. 'Listen, private names are fine. They can be a special sharing. With Jaan it is like that. The highbonds have long names because they fill many roles. He can be Jaan Vikary to a Wolfman friend on Avalon, and high-Ironjade in the councils of Gathering, and still Riv in worship and Wolf in high-war and yet another name in bed, a private name. And there is a rightness to it, because all those names are him. I recognize that. I like some of him better than other parts, like Jaan more than Wolf or high-Ironjade, but they are all true for him. The Kavalars have a saying, that a man is the sum of all his names. Names are very important on High Kavalaan. Names are very important everywhere, but the Kavalars know that truth better than most. A thing without a name has no substance. If it existed, it would have a name. And, likewise, if you give a thing a name, somewhere, on some level, the thing named will exist, will come to be. That's another Kavalar saying. Do you understand, Dirk?'

'No.'

She laughed. 'You're as muddled as ever. Listen, when Jaan came to Avalon he was Jaantony Ironjade Vikary. That was his name, his whole name. The most important part of it was the first two words-Jaantony is his true name, his birth name, and Ironjade is his holdfast and his alliance. Vikary is a made-up name he took at puberty. All of the Kavalars take such names, usually the names of highbonds they admire, or mythic figures, or personal heroes. A lot of Old Earth surnames have survived that way. The thought is that by taking the name of a hero the boy will gain some of the man's qualities. On High Kavalaan it actually seems to work.Э

'Jaan's chosen name, Vikary, is a bit unusual in several respects. It sounds like an Old Earth hand-me- down, but it isn't. From all accounts Jaan was an odd child-dreamy, very moody, much too introspective. He liked to listen to the eyn-kethi sing and tell stories when he was very little, which is bad for a