The change impressed itself on us when the light went out as though someone had closed a shutter. Even in a sunlit canyon there are often narrow shadows thrown across the way by protruding boulders on the rims, but we had come to a veritable lake of shadow, thrown by a monstrous monolith we could see black against the sun glare, south and east of us. We blinked and murmured and stared around ourselves, dark afterimages of the sun dazzle swimming across our eyes. Only after we stepped into the shadow and let our eyes adjust to it did we realize we had come to the place of fire.
Songfather had often amused the children of Cochim-Mahn with tales of this place, but I’d never imagined it as it really was. I’d thought there would be small fires here and there, like a gathering of campfires, perhaps. When our eyes cleared, however, we saw a world of flame. Fountains gushed everywhere, up the sides of the walls, along the rubble slopes, in the canyon bottom, beside the steamy stream that trickled along beside us, braided into a dozen vaporous streamlets. We were surrounded by firelight and water noise, by fire roar and water glimmer. The light and the sound twisted and warbled together, so that it was hard to know whether we saw the movement or heard it. There was a mineral smell, not unpleasant, and warm damp upon our skins that turned clammy as we moved.
“Worthy of a tourist’s visit,” murmured Leelson, an awed expression on his face. “Why have I never heard of this place?”
“Because Dinadh does not want tourists,” Lutha said, in a voice equally awed.
I had no words at all. Around us the fountains burst forth from smooth basins they had polished into the stone over the centuries. Some were clear jets like pillars of glass, others were peaks of foam; some were single towers of evanescent light, others were multiple spouts that collided in fans of glittering gems, then drained away through multiple fissures, back into the fiery depths below. The small streamlets beside us carried away only a tiny fraction of the leaping water. Mostly it was recirculated, seeping away, bursting forth again, every shining cascade lit by the changing, evanescent spirits of flame burning within the water. Sometimes the fire topped the foam, sometimes the water leapt higher; no instant was like any other. Together, the plash and burble of water and the muted roar of flame hummed like a giant voice, a great harmonic chord.
“Wow,” whispered Lutha, cupping her hands over her ears. An inadequate response, I felt, becoming for an instant very planet proud.
“You could make hard coin bringing tours from Simidi-ala,” said Trompe.
I said, “It is a tortuous distance overland, and we will not fly unless it is absolutely necessary.” My voice was properly stiff and Dinadhish, but my senses echoed Leelson’s pleasure. Why shouldn’t people from other worlds see this wonder? I knew the answer, of course, but for that moment it did not seem sufficient.
Our mutual awe and pleasure was quickly lost.
“Uh-oh,” murmured Leelson. I looked in the direction of his gaze and saw what the fiery fountains had prevented our seeing until that instant. The pallid wings. The shining forms. Not one or two, but dozens, scores. I found myself counting. There were a hundred of them, at least, sitting around a fountain at the foot of the wall, heads resting on their folded arms or lax upon their shoulders.
We made no sound, almost holding our breaths. A long moment went by. The pale forms did not move. They took no notice of us. One of the gaufers grew impatient and struck the rock with the hardened skin of his foot. It made a rough, scraping noise, quite loud, but it occasioned no reaction.
I was close at Leelson’s side. I felt him drawing in a deep, quiet breath before he clucked to the gaufers and shook the reins. They moved, their heads down and forward at the end of their long necks. They are curious beasts. So they greet the offer of some new kind of food or the hand of some new handler. We approached the first fountain and its surrounding forms. The fountain danced and chuckled. The Kachis did not move.
The gaufers drew their heads back, snorting and spitting as they jerked the wain into quicker motion. The next fountain was larger, with even more Kachis about it. We drove by and they did not move. So we went on, four fountains, seven, ten: all of them ringed by Kachis, none of the Kachis moving. Gradually, as our eyes accustomed to the variable light, we saw more Kachis, thousands of them scattered all the way to the canyon walls, up the rubble slopes, behind broken boulders and pillars.
Lutha tapped my arm and pointed upward. They were there as well, high upon the narrow ledges left when blocks of stone had fallen away. Every shelf was edged with them, like white tatting on the edge of a sleeve.
“Are they asleep?” Lutha whispered to me.
How did I know? I had never seen a Kachis asleep. Still, most things sleep, so one might suppose …
I shook my head at her. Who would know what Kachis do when they are alone, afar, away from us? Who knows the truth of what they do even with us?
Finally, at the end of the dogleg, Leelson gave the reins to Trompe and told him to drive on. He was going back to examine the Kachis.
“Don’t be a fool,” said Lutha, yearning toward him, furious at him.
“I lead a charmed life, remember?” he told her, actually smiling.
“Leelson! It’s dangerous!”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Drive on. I’ll catch up with you in a while.”
Trompe grunted in annoyance, but he drove on. We kept going for some
