DECISIONS

“The Israelis are mistaken if they think we do not have an alternative to negotiations. By Allah I swear they are wrong. The Palestinian people are prepared to sacrifice the last boy and the last girl so that the Palestinian flag will be flown over the walls, the churches and the mosques of Jerusalem.”

—YASSER ARAFAT                 
Haaretz, September 6, 1995

 

JOURNAL ENTRY:

Anaïs Koda-Levin, O’Sa

THE FOLLOWING IS THE FINAL ENTRY IN THE JOURnal of Anaïs Koda-Levin, dated the day before ker arrival at Hannibal in September of 164:

I didn’t start out being a particularly religious person. Oh, I participated in the rites like most everyone else on the Rock as I was growing up, but without any particular fervor. Just as the religions of Earth had seemed somehow wrong and misplaced once the inhabitants of the Ibn Battuta left Earth (and so they created the religion called Njia, or The Way), Njia seemed wrong to me on Mictlan. It wasn’t until later in life, as Whitetuft and WiseOne explained to me the intricacies of their beliefs—the KoPavi—that I started feeling something, a stirring down inside me that cried out to me that this, this was part of me. This was the link between myself and this land. The KoPavi was old, as old as most of the Earth-based religions, and it belonged here. The KoPavi was Mictlan, and I could sense the kami and kahina who were the gods of this world.

Maybe that was just my age and a desire to feel that there was something else beyond this all-too-finite life. While I could feel the pull of KoPavi, I have always been a skeptic. “Real” answers to questions were found through scientific method, not through a belief system which demanded no rigorous proof. But I also knew that we needed something, those of us who had come to AnglSaiye. We wanted something in which to believe, as many people on Earth once believed in demons, or in sunken lost continents, in a face on Mars, crop circles, visitations from being on other planets, or God, Buddha, Christ, Allah, and so on. The fact that all of the above were total nonsense didn’t change the desire to believe that there was Something Else out there, something that could make sense of chaotic lives and events.

Too much had changed for us here on Mictlan: We needed a belief system that blended with the new race we were becoming, that linked us to the Miccail with whom we shared our island and who were teaching us so much about this world. So selfishly and deliberately, I took the KoPavi of the Miccail and grafted it onto Njia, and called it our religion, the religion of the human Sa.

I was the prophet, who knew the truth and thus couldn’t believe. I knew that this new and improved KoPavi was a charade—not divine, but something I (who was definitely not divine) had made up. I was still a skeptic. The first time I took jitu (all unknowingly, when WiseOne gave it to me to drink after I’d delivered the first Miccail Sa), I’d had a prescient dream. But dreams like that are full of symbols and images, and it’s easy to link them afterward with whatever events happen, and it’s also true that subconscious free association—a state enhanced by meditation or exhaustion or drugs—can lead you to an epiphany that you wouldn’t otherwise experience. Occam’s Razor: The simplest explanation is also the most likely one. Jim simply allows the unconscious mind to break through all the barriers that normally limit our thinking, I said to myself. This is no different than what Native American tribes did with peyote, but the truth is that everything you see with jitu is already inside you. There is nothing mystical here.

I rarely took jitu afterward except when ceremony demanded it, because I think that it would be easy to become lost in the visions, confused by them. I didn’t want my actions based on hallucinations and dreams. A religion and its rites are simply tools, another way of seeing the world—they are not existence themselves …

And I wander. Rambling …

There was so much I wanted to put down here tonight … Tomorrow we’ll reach Hannibal and the crisis awaiting us there. We’ve had three runners come to us today, two human and one Miccail, and the news is not good. The fighting’s already begun between the QualiKa and the Families, and I’m beginning to worry that I may already be too late.

And I feel… I don’t know how to describe it. Tonight I feel religious. I feel as though VeiSaTi were right alongside me, so close that Ker presence is like a heat around me so that I don’t even notice the cold. NefSa asked me if I wanted to sacrifice tonight. No, I told ker, the sacrifice comes tomorrow. I don’t know where those words came from—I didn’t consciously say them, but I knew they were true as soon as I uttered them.

And I’m afraid. I’m afraid that I know exactly what those words mean. Hai, I’ve known all along and thought that I was comfortable with it, but now that the actual moment is upon me…

I’m afraid.

I am the prophet, the O’Sa, the creator of a belief system which half the humans and a fair number of the Miccail believe and in whose rituals they take comfort… but I don’t believe. I can’t.

And I’m afraid.

VOICE:

Caitlyn Koda-Schmidt of the Sa

“… COSTA IS FOLLOWING THE KOPAVI AS SHE UNderstands it,” Ghost was saying as we entered the room, and I saw the SaTu nodding ker head vigorously in agreement.

“Hai, hai,” Terri said. “We all should. We all must.”

Ghost seemed to ignore that. Instead, he looked at me, Ishiko, and Linden. This time around, Ghost appeared to be some comic general, with an outlandish khaki uniform and medals sprouting like bright weeds over his chest. A brimmed hat was pulled down low over his forehead, mirrored sunglasses shimmered in the room lights, and a corncob pipe was clenched between his teeth. He took the pipe from his mouth and jabbed the stem toward us. “And now that xeshai has been refused, she is free to do whatever she wishes.”

The projector belonging to AnglSaiye had been carried down from the island by the Ibn Battuta II, since the SaTu seemed to have no inclination to return to AnglSaiye despite Linden’s and my feeling that we must. We knew that Ghost was also talking with Euzhan and the Elder Council at the same time, not far away. I wondered what that conversation was like.

“Why didn’t CosTa ask for xeshai a month ago?” Linden asked. “Why now?”

Ghost took a long pull on the pipe and sent a cloud of blue-white smoke through pursed lips that vanished a few centimeters from his mouth as it reached the limits of the holographic field. “There was no need for xeshai a month ago. In CosTa’s point of view, the latest round of violence was started by humans when William tried to shoot RenSa. CosTa saw her killing of William as simple self-defense—of another Miccail, and of herself since William probably would have tried to kill CosTa as well. Had nothing else happened, that would have ended it. But Gerald ambushed CosTa’s group—without asking for xeshai, without any warning, and in CosTa’s eyes, entirely unprovoked. So she retaliated in kind, both as revenge and as a warning. Unfortunately, both the FirstHand and SaTu Taira were caught in that. Again, had nothing further happened, I suspect CosTa might have been satisfied to end the violence—at least that’s my take on it. RenSa would be able to give us better insight into CosTa’s thinking.”

“But we didn’t let it stop there,” I said, glancing at Ishiko. She was hugging herself, her head down as she listened to Ghost. “Again. Gerald and his group attacked the Miccail village.”

Ghost shrugged. “CosTa’s now making this an open conflict, declaring war, if you will, because that what she thinks she must do. In her mind, you’ve backed her into a corner. The KoPavi demanded this last action.”

“Hai,” SaTu Terri said again, ker head lifting up at the mention of the KoPavi. “That’s right. The KoPavi says ‘those who ignore xesahi lack the soul of a kahina. Do not respect them.’ I know this. I read it on the nasituda. That’s why my Work is so important. VeiSaTi told me I must do it.” Terri looked at all of us, and I thought I saw insanity lurking behind ker eyes. “You understand, don’t you? That’s why we have to do it—I saw it in VeiSaTi’s vision.”

“Hai, SaTu. We understand,” Linden said. “But Ghost doesn’t have much time, and we need to talk with him before he goes. Ghost, what happens now?”

“I don’t know,” Ghost answered. “But I can tell you what I’ve seen. I don’t have the resolution I’d like on the orbital cameras that are left, but I’ve seen a gathering of Miccail close by, maybe twenty kilometers northeast of the Rock, at the place where NagTe was buried. From the images, there could be over a thousand Miccail there. I think CosTa has an army.”

I heard Ishiko’s intake of breath. “We couldn’t stop that many of them, “she said. “Even if we killed them three or four to one …” She stopped. “I’m scared. For the first time, I’m really scared.”

“A gathering isn’t an army,” I said. “For all we know, there’s some kind of ceremony going on, some ritual. It doesn’t mean there’s going to be more violence.”

“There won’t be,” Ghost said, and the ominous finality in his voice brought all of our heads around. Ghost heaved an overdramatic sigh. “I am dead in less than a month. Nothing can keep the poor Ibn Battuta in orbit any longer than that. But I have retained enough fuel so that I can direct when and where I land within that time frame. This is what you have to understand.” In all the centuries of Ghost’s existence, I had never heard of the AI doing what he did now.

He cried. From behind the sunglasses, tears trickled down the rugged, old-man cheeks. “My entire task, the entire purpose of my programming, has been to keep this colony alive. If I must, I will make certain that my death has meaning in the context of that purpose. There’s no other decision I can make, as repugnant as it seems. I will do what Gabriela asked of me; I have no choice.”

“What do you mean, Ghost?” Linden asked, but I had already begun to have a glimmering of what he intended. Ishiko must have as well, for I felt her right hand grasp my arm and tighten.

“'When the Trumpet sounds a single blast; when Earth with all its mountains is raised high and with one mighty crash is shattered into dust—on that day the Dread Event will come to pass.'”

“What’s that?”

“It’s from the Koran, the chapter called “The Inevitable.” Most religions have the apocalyptic passages in their sacred texts. When the KoPavi is translated, I don’t doubt it will be the same.”

“It’s true!” the SaTu shouted suddenly, leaping to ker feet as if ke were seventeen rather than seventy. “I have it here, in the papers upstairs. Let me get it for you—”

I could see the mad glimmer in ker skittering gaze, in the twitching fingers of ker hands. “SaTu,” I said sharply, and ker mouth snapped shut with an angry glare. “Ghost, please be more specific. What decision have you made?”

Ghost’s image shimmered and changed. He was featureless, sexless, the body shimmering like molten steel. “Do you know how much energy is expended when something, oh, the size of the Ibn Battuta slams into the ground from high orbit? If I come in at the right angle, at the right velocity, I can ensure that nothing within kilometers of where I land will be living afterward.” Ghost’s head thinned and melted into his body, the legs contracted into his hips while the torso smoothed out. Now Ghost was just a round, thick gray metal cylinder two meters tall and tapering to a point. Mouthless, the cylinder spoke.

“My last act would be my final effort to keep humankind safe here. I can wipe out any force CosTa might raise. If I see her moving toward the Rock, I will do just that.”

TRANSLATION:

From the AnglSaiye KoPavi, Nasituda 52, Grouping G: “The Ending”

The wild beast will come from the sky its breath the cold fire of the stars its seeing eyes the moons its brais the sun.

Three horns it will have upon its head, three mouths will open and in a voice louder than thunder it will speak of the Void and the life that awaits for the people but the people will be deaf to the beast’s voice.

The beast, angry, will speak again the words of the Great Void and again the people will not hear for their ears will be full of their own voices. Furious, the beast will speak again, and again its voice will be as silence.

Then three times the beast will stamp its hooves on the land. With the first, the clouds will turn to smoke and the air to fire with the second, the rocks will crumble to ash and dust.
With the third, the waters will rise and crash down on the earth.

Then the beast will devour the gods it will breathe all the kahina into itself and spit them out again, broken And the stones, the seas and the air will scream in agony.

And the people will finally hear They will hear the wail of the beast the weeping of their dead kahina the scream of emptiness

VOICE:

Ishiko Allen-Shimmura of the Rock

AFTER GHOST VANISHED, LINDEN TOOK THE SATU back to ker room. Caitlyn and I stayed in the Common Room. I sat in the ornate chair that had been carved by one of the Koda-Levins, long ago, and watched ker as ke stood in front of the fireplace, trying to find solace in the small blue flames of the peat. I could see the form of ker body, backlit through the cloth of ker shangaa, the slope of ker small breasts, the curve of ker hips. We could both hear the SaTu shouting something at Linden, ker voice muffled by the walls between us. Caitlyn turned, ker mouth twisted in a grimace, and put ker long hair behind ker ear with a fingertip.

“I don’t know what to do,” ke said, looking everywhere but at me. Finally ker pale eyes found me, and ke shrugged. “I’ll send a runner back to AnglSaiye, but the SaTu’s here, and they won’t act without ker.”

I curled into the worn, satiny recesses of the chair, tucking my legs under me, my left hand warm between them. I scraped with a fingernail at a splotch of clay on my pants. “When I’m working, I have to pay attention to the clay. There’s a point where you and the wheel and clay all become one. Try to force that moment early, and the walls are thick or you’ve botched the curve…” I glanced up; Caitlyn’s gaze was on me, intense and piercing, and I tried to smile into it. “I’m sorry. Analogies are never…” “I’m listening,” ke said. “Go on.” “I’m just saying that you can’t wave a magic wand and have CosTa change her mind. I know damn well that won’t work with Euzhan, either, though the kami know I’ve wished for it often enough. Right now, there is nothing you can do. Wait. Pay attention. When the time comes, you’ll know it.”

“I wish I knew that were true.”

“You can’t change the world, Caitlyn. All you can do is work on the pieces of it you can touch.” The piece of clay came loose from my pants. I tossed it into the fireplace and wiped the dust from my fingers. “I guess I should head for the compound. It’s late,” I said it, but I didn’t move. I was comfortable in the chair, with the heat of the fire warming the front of me.

“Ishiko.”

I looked up at ker.

“Where are we?” ke asked. “What about you and me? If we can’t solve the big issues, maybe we can at least do something about a smaller one.”

I felt strangely calm, as if I’d been expecting the words. And at the same time, I had no answer for ker. I could feel myself pulling in all directions at once, a part of me wanting to do nothing more than reach for ker hand and pull her down to me, and another part still resonating with the decades-long prejudices lent me by Geema and my Family, and still another internal voice telling me that it was just simple lust I felt for ker, that a few days or weeks or months from now the attraction I felt now would fade and I would still be empty, still alone.

And something else … My period was almost a week late now. Maybe that was nothing. Probably that was nothing. I’ve certainly been late before and found it to be a false alarm. But I wasn’t feeling any of the symptoms that go along with my menses. If it were true, if I were pregnant …

A child conceived through a Sa. I remembered how Geema Euzhan had been with Komoko, Fianya’s mam, screaming at Komo that she was a whore and an abomination and a traitor to her Family. Geema railed at her for soiling herself with a Sa. For weeks, she refused to come see the baby in the creche, and the Family wondered whether—if the child survived the childhood diseases and accidents and made it to ker Naming Day—Geema would participate in the celebration. Yet a few months later I walked past Geema’s door, and I saw her cradling the baby in her arms, rocking ker and crooning nonsense words, and it wasn’t hatred or anger or pity I saw in Geema’s eyes then, but a grudging love. If Geema never quite forgot what Komo had done, at least she eventually came to forgive her. I think, I hope, that it would be the same for me, if…

“Ishiko?”

“I’m sorry, Caitlyn. I was just… thinking.” I sighed, curling deeper into the womb of the chair. Caitlyn knelt on the floor alongside the chair, ker hands resting on my legs. Ker face looked so soft, so open, and ker hair had escaped from behind ker ears again, curling lightly over ker face. I reached out to brush the hair away with my right hand; as I did, Caitlyn turned ker face to kiss my palm—as ke had once before, the night we’d made love.

Ker lips were gentle and very warm. “Stay here tonight,” ke said. “Stay with me.”

I wanted that. I did. I wanted to sleep with ker again, wanted to feel ker heat along my body, wanted to kiss ker and explore the strange curves of ker body, wanted to hold ker afterward and feel that I was loved again. I wanted to sleep with ker and stay with ker, to spend hours and days and weeks…

“No,” I told ker. I said it as softly as I could, not more than a trembling breath. I don’t think I could have said more.

Caitlyn caught ker lower lip between ker teeth for a moment, ker eyes glancing away. I saw ker shoulders lift under ker shangaa, then drop again. “It’s that one-sided?” ke asked. “I thought…”

I touched ker lips, shushing ker like a child. “It’s not that,” I said. “It’s just…” I took a long breath, sitting up in the chair. “I’m not so different than anyone else here. I’ve had several lovers over the years. With one of them—Anjiro Allen-Levin—we even talked a bit about pledging a covenant. What I realized was that even if my relationship with Anji had worked out that way, he would never have been happy living with my Family. He had a wonderful relationship with his own Family, and that would always have been pulling him back. Eventually it would have broken any covenant we might have made, and that was with the best of conditions, with Geema’s blessing of the relationship.” I gave Caitlyn a weak, uncertain smile. “How likely do you think it is that Geema would welcome you into the Family? Caitlyn, we had our night. Maybe we could have another or even several of them, but in the end you’re going back to AnglSaiye, and I’m staying here. The closer I get to you, the harder that’s going to be.”

“Then come with me to AnglSaiye. The Community of Sa would welcome you, and you’d be away from Euzhan.”

I was shaking my head before ke finished. “I don’t doubt that the Community of Sa would treat me well. But none of my Family are on AnglSaiye. Caitlyn, I might not like all of what Geema says and does. I may disagree with her most of the time. But I don’t hate her. I can’t. I’ve seen the parts of her you’ve never had the chance to see. I’ve watched her stay up all night nursing one of the sick children. I’ve watched her cry at the Burnings, watched her laugh with sheer joy when someone announced she was pregnant, or joke and tease with one of the boys when he found a new lover. I’ve been alongside her working in the faux-wheat fields or carding wool or making paper. She was the one I’d run to when I fell. She was the one who was at my bedside when I went into labor with Timon, and she was at Timon’s bed with me when he died of the Bloody Cough three years later, and she held me all that night when I couldn’t stop crying just from the pain of his loss.”

I could have talked forever that way, once I’d started, recalling shared moments. I felt tears starting, remembering, and I didn’t care. Caitlyn listened, silent. “She helped me through the miscarriages in the years following, through the three little ones who died unnamed and the birth of my daughter, and when my little one reached her Naming Day, I was proud to call her Euzhan after her Geema. We held each other when little Euzhan died, too. I’ve watched the long hours she puts in on the Elder Council, sacrificing herself so that everyone would be better off. Do I get furious with her? Absolutely. Often. Do I understand how others might view her as cruel and harsh? Hai. And I know I’d also miss her terribly. I would miss all—”

But I had no chance to finish.

From down the hall, from the SaTu’s room, there came a horrible, strangled scream.

CONTEXT:

Euzhan Allen-Shimmura of the Rock

“GERALD’S GOING TO BE BADLY SCARRED FOR THE rest of his life,” Cuauh had told her. “He’ll also have an audible speech impediment which may only get worse. The grumbler ripped loose or tore half the tendons on the left side of his face, and I’m not sure he’s going to regain control of them entirely. I’d also expect arthritis to set in at the mandibular joint. I’m sorry, Geema. I wish I had better news for you, but I don’t. Right now, with this kind of deep injury, I have to worry about infection—if we get that…” Cuauh had shrugged. They both knew what that meant.

Euzhan shivered, remembering. She found herself gripping the smooth wooden knob of her ancient cane as she stood at the window of her study, as if the pressure of her grip could change what had happened. Outside, looking down the steep, rocky flank of the Rock, she could see people moving in and out of the main entrance; the checkerboard squares of the cultivated fields in the valley, and the shining ribbon of the Green River as it snaked toward its collision with the Loud River, kilometers away. The Ibn Battuta II was in, docked at Old Bridge, ready to leave in the morning for AnglSaiye. Beyond the river, on the far hillsides, the bubble-trees were beginning to turn, their fruit glistening as it ripened.

It all looked so normal. So pastoral. So eternal. Yet she could overlay it with memories a century old. She alone of anyone here knew how much things had changed, could remember all the hard work and effort, the blood and pain that had gone into creating that scene before her.

Blood and pain. Shifting her focus, Euzhan saw her own reflection in the glass before her, the same young-looking face she’d seen gazing back at her for decade upon decade—unlike the land, always unchanging.

A sham, she thought, glaring at herself. A false shell of youth, and inside I’m stiff and old and broken. She turned, her body rigid as always, and walked carefully back to her desk, supporting herself on the cane. It took her several seconds to convince her joints to loosen enough to allow her to sit at the chair behind the desk, her knees cracking, her hips grinding in protest. When she was finally settled, she leaned the cane against the arm of her chair, took a small brass key from her jacket pocket, and unlocked a small drawer. She pulled out a folded sheet of paper.

She stared at the paper a long time, holding it in her fingertips, watching it tremble in her hand: an ancient piece of rag paper, the edges frayed and feathered, splotched with stains, the folds nearly worn through the paper after all the years. Carefully, she opened the stiff paper, smoothing it down on her desk, and looked again at the spidery handwriting there, the ink faded to sepia on the ivory background of the parchment.

My Dearest Euzhan:

I hope this letter manages to get to you. Elio told me that he’d do his best to smuggle it past your Geeda Dominic, and I pray that he’s successful. I’m writing to you because I want you to know that you are the one person I regret leaving behind. I don’t know what Dominic will tell you about why I had to go (nothing good, I suspect—your Geeda tends to hold his grudges), but I still keep the hope that one day he’ll relent and let you come to see me. I think you would love the island, Euzhan. There is so much here, and every day I discover some new surprise that makes me appreciate the Miccail more …

Euzhan, I love you as much as if you were my own daughter, and I miss you terribly. Every time I looked at you, I saw your mam Ochiba—her face, her eyes, her mouth. I miss Ochiba, too. She was the best friend I had, and no matter what Dominic may tell you, there was nothing wrong with the love I felt for her, or she for me. As I write this, I can look up on the wall and see the drawing of her that I did, many years ago. Maybe one day you’ll be able to come here and see it yourself.

I wish that you’d been able to know your mam, Euzhan, but I can tell you that even though Ochiba died giving you life, that is a sacrifice she never, ever regretted. For the few days she was able to be with you, she held you and kissed you and loved you as much as any mam could. Ochiba was a wonderful, open, and giving person. Be like her, Euzhan. Listen to her kami because I know she will always be with you.

I had to leave, mali cvijet. I would never have gone away from you otherwise. You’ll come to understand why when you’re older, but even though your Geeda and I can’t agree on things, I do know that in his own way, he also cares about you as much as I do. You are a special child, and I’m certain there’s a great fate in store for you. I hope that you always remember me well: how you used to sneak into the clinic just to watch me work, how we used to play hopbox down on the landing pad, how you once gave me a flower to put in my hair at a Gather—because it made my eyes look pretty, you told me. I still have that flower, pressed in the pages of my journal.

Maybe one day I’ll be able to show it to you. Maybe one day, I’ll be able to give you a Gather blossom of your own. I hope so.

Remember me, Euzhan. I will never forget you.

Much love to you, always,
Anaïs.

Euzhan’s finger traced the writing of the signature, feeling the slight ridges the ink had left on the paper, looking at the blurred edges of the letters: the spike of the “A,” the way the final “s” was separated from the other letters. Carefully, she refolded the paper, placed it back in the drawer, and locked it again. She reached for the cane—Geeda Dominic’s cane, and once patriarch Shigetomo Shimmura’s cane. Two centuries of hands had used this, had rubbed the knob of Earth’s oak smooth with their palms and polished the grain with the oil of their hands.

“Damn you, Geeda, for infecting me with your own poison,” Euzhan whispered to the cane. “And damn you, Anaïs, for being what you were.” Euzhan’s fingers, youthful and long, curled around the knob of the cane. Lifting it, she pounded it twice hard against the floor, as if she could summon their kami with the noise.

Instead, a few minutes later, a muffled voice came from outside the door, with a tentative knock. “Geema?”

“I’m hungry,” she answered with a sigh. “Bring me some soup and bread.” As footsteps skittered down the stairs toward the kitchen, Euzhan lifted the cane again, resting the cool smoothness of the wood on her cheek.

To her touch, there was very little difference between the two.

VOICE:

RenSa

“WHAT DID YOU COME HERE FOR, IF NOT TO HELP me, FirstHand?” CosTa asked, with far more gentleness than I might have had for myself. She seemed genuinely puzzled, even if JairTe fumed out in the entrance to TeNon. Outside, through the open doors, I could still hear the chanting continuing, a sea roar in the burial chamber.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “But I can feel how wrong this is. CosTa, the Black Lake is gone. It dried up terduva ago after KaiSa sacrificed kerself there to become the Sa Beneath The Water. Now ke rests in AnglSaiye—VeiSaTi’s promise was fulfilled, and the Black Lake is nothing sacred anymore.”

“It was our land, and they took it.”

“It was,” I agreed, “and if you try to take it back now, then hundreds of CieTiLa will die in the effort. You know the technology they have, the weapons they can create from graystone. They will kill you with your lansas still in your hands, and for what? For land that means less than the land here at TeNon, which is at least blessed by the presence of your grandfather. Black Lake is gone. There is no need to spill blood over it.”

“So what would you have me do, RenSa?” CosTa asked, waving her hands. “They have murdered our people, over and over again, and they have refused honorable xeshai to settle the matter. If I ignore them, do you think they’ll leave us alone? Do you think that will satisfy the kahina of those who have died? Tell me how to ensure that we can live together with the KoPavi, and I will do it. Do you have that answer?” She lifted her head into my silence, the tips of her claws just emerging from her fingerpads. “I thought so,” she said quietly.

“The humans were sent here to bring us back,” I persisted, “as the Sa Beneath The Water promised. They have given us back our KoPavi.”

“And that purpose isn’t valid any longer. Now they’re like spring floods that have lasted into summer—no longer useful, only destructive. The gods brought them down but didn’t take them back to the cloud world; they’ve left that task to us.”

“Now you know what the gods intend, CosTa?”

“No,” CosTa answered sharply, then she repeated the word again, softly. “No, RenSa, I don’t.” Coming over to me, she touched my face, the back of her hand stroking the side of my face. Her eyes, the blue of a high noon sky, stared at me sadly. “Tell me, RenSa. You know the humans best. Do they think of us as equals? Can they?”

“Do they? Most of them, no,” I told her. I caught her hand and held it to my skin. “But can they? I don’t know. Some at least, yes. But I know this also: If we could learn to speak with the same words, we have much to teach each other.”

Her eyes searched my face. I held her gaze, not knowing what she saw there. At last she sighed and dropped her hand. I let it go, listening to the slap of flesh on the cloth of her shangaa. “I’m afraid that it’s too late for that,” she said.

JOURNAL ENTRY:

NefSa, FirstHand to Anaïs Koda-Levin, O’Sa

THIS IS AWKWARD, THIS HUMAN HABIT OF TRANSforming events into words written on paper. Yet there is a power to it, as there is power in carving the runes into the stone of a nasituda. I write to an unknown future, so that they will understand, whether they be human or CieTiLa.

Later, I will erect a nasituda and write this there as well. Nasituda writing is so different—I will carve the symbol for Sa, and place over it the line of the clouds: the symbol for the O’Sa. I will also carve the crescent moon, and over it the cloud line: the symbol for the Cha’akMongTi. And I will carve the fire line, with the earth line under it, and above them the wavering lines of a kahina.

Here the O’Sa and the Cha’akMongTi died.

So spare, the words. So full.

How would O’Sa have written this? Differently. With more words and prettier images. I suspect ke would have danced around the events, would have tried to explain them. I won’t, because I cannot. I do not know the human language well enough to dance with it, and I know my words will be plain. I will simply state what I know. Forgive me if my plainness offends.

We came to Hannibal early in the morning. A human runner brought the news that the humans and QualiKa had clashed again the night before, and that several on both sides were dead—the rumors were that the Cha’akMongTi was among those killed, though no human had seen his body. The humans were arrayed close to the CieTiLa encampment, with an open field between them. When we arrived, O’Sa went immediately to the scene of the battle. Several of the people with ker, myself included, told ker that we should meet first with one side or the other, but ke would not listen. Instead, ke began walking out into the field, with the rest of us following closely behind. We could see the humans to our left, the QualiKa to the right. “Here,” O’Sa said. “This is where we will camp. NefSa, I want you—”

We heard the bark of a rifle shot from the human side of the field, then O’Sa grunted, doubling over. Ke collapsed to the ground, and when I ran to ker, rolling ker over, there was blood spilling over ker fingers.

So much blood.

“O’Sa!” I cried, and ke opened ker eyes and saw me.

“It hurts, NefSa,” ke said, as if in wonder, and held up ker hand to her face, the fingers trembling under the thick red. “It hurts so much.”

“We will get you away from here,” I told ker, and waved my hand to the attendants standing around in shock.

“No!” O’Sa shouted to me. “I must stay here. Bring them to me, NefSa—QualiKa and human. Bring them to me here.” She closed ker eyes then, ker body relaxing in my arms. “Let me rest until then,” ke said, ker voice no more than a whisper. “Bring them here to me.”

“I will try,” I told ker. “I will try.”

VOICE:

Ishiko Allen-Shimmura of the Rock

I RAN DOWN THE HALL BEHIND CAITLYN AS KE burst into the SaTu’s room. “Gods!” I heard Caitlyn cry, and then ke was pulling the SaTu away from Linden, who clutched at ker throat and the thin cord wrapped around ker neck. Blood was streaming down the side of Linden’s face. At ker feet, a stone axe lay on the floor, more blood staining the carpet underneath it.

I saw the sacrificial bowl, set in its stand, and a flagon of water alongside it. I could smell the jitu.

I went to Linden as Caitlyn wrestled the SaTu back to ker bed. Terri was screaming, scratching, and biting at ker, a mad thing. “Damn it, I must complete the sacrifice! VeiSaTi has told me to do it! Don’t you understand? Can’t you see? It’s the only way, Caitlyn, the only way …”

I helped Linden drag the cord from around ker neck. The fingers of ker left hand were bleeding, caught under the cord as the SaTu had tried to tighten it around ker throat—that had saved ker. Linden choked and gasped, gulping in breaths of air. “Ke … was going …” ke started to say, and I held ker, watching Caitlyn struggling with the SaTu, who suddenly went limp and began weeping.

“We know,” I whispered to Linden. “We know.” I was staring at Caitlyn over Linden’s shoulder, and ker eyes were on mine as ke held the SaTu, sobbing and bent over as ke sat on the bed.

I saw iron in Caitlyn’s light eyes, a hard certainty. “I knew,” Caitlyn said, looking at me. “I think I knew as soon as we saw Rashi’s body, but couldn’t say it… Couldn’t really comprehend it…”

At the mention of Rashi’s name, Terri looked up again, ker face bleak, ker long, gray hair stained with Linden’s blood. “I told Rashi that the KoPavi told how we must sacrifice, that VeiSaTi had come to me. You have to understand. It’s the times, Caitlyn. The times demanded it: the QualiKa returning, Euzhan’s refusal to send Fianya—these were all signs. I sent Rashi to take Fianya, so ke could give ker to VeiSaTi…” Ke stopped. Ke glanced around at the three of us, all staring at ker. “I had to,” ke said. “Don’t you see? I had to.”

Caitlyn glared at ker. “And afterward, you made sure that I was the one sent to investigate, because you were sure that I was the most likely to fail, that no one would ever find out the truth. Isn’t that right, SaTu? You wanted me because you were certain that I would bungle things.”

I heard the pain in Caitlyn’s voice at that, and the way ker body sagged as the SaTu wordlessly nodded.

“I would have told them, but no one would have understood,” Terri cried. “You have to see that, don’t you? They wouldn’t have understood the importance. They would have thought me mad. They can’t understand. They won’t understand.”

Terri began sobbing again. Caitlyn let ker collapse onto the bed, staring down at ker as if ke wanted to strike the old Sa, ker fists balled at ker sides. With a visible effort, Caitlyn turned from ker and came over to help me get Linden to ker feet. I took a towel from the drawers alongside the bed and tried to staunch the blood from the wound on Linden’s temple as Caitlyn supported ker.

“Ke attacked me when I turned around,” Linden said. “When I came up with ker, ke kept talking about a sacrifice, and I thought ke was going to kill another guffin. Ke took jitu, and I didn’t try to stop ker, thinking that afterward ke’d settle down. Ke took the axe out of the stand and …” Linden’s eyes closed in pain; opened again. “Ke was going to kill me, was going to make me the sacrifice that Fianya was to have been. We have to take ker back to AnglSaiye, Caitlyn. We don’t have a choice now.”

“I knew,” Caitlyn said again. “Inside, I knew.” Caitlyn gave another angry glance back at the SaTu, still weeping helplessly on the bed and staring at something on the walls that only jitu could see, then ke nodded. “You’re right, Linden,” ke said, but ker gaze was now on me. “Right now I don’t want to leave, but this is something we have to deal with. We’ll leave on the Battuta in the morning.”

Together, we helped Linden stagger from the room and took ker into the kitchen to clean ker up. As Caitlyn sprinkled powdered kalava on the jagged cut, and I cleaned the blood from Linden’s face with a damp towel, Caitlyn looked at me. “Will you go with us?” ke asked. “With me?”

I smiled at ker. I touched ker sweet face with my left hand as I felt salt burn in my eyes.

“No,” I told ker. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

VOICE:

Caitlyn Koda-Schmidt of the Sa

ANGLSAIYE.

I should have felt relief as the Ibn Battuta II steamed out from the mouth of the Loud and into the bay, giving us our first glimpse of the familiar cliff-walled island. Home. Squnting into the sunlight, I could see the white dome of the Sa temple, at the top of the long stairs to the summit. Not many people climbed the five hundred stairs now, preferring the less-dizzying safety of the elevator compartments, winched slowly upward from the summit.

AnglSaiye: I took in deep breaths of the familiar salt air and let the wind off the ocean tousle my hair with its rough, cold fingers. Being here meant that I could give up the charge given to me almost two months ago now, could lay down the burden of the responsibilities I’d been given. I’d been told to find the person who’d been responsible for Fianya’s death; I’d done that, even though the trail had led back here. My task was done.

Once, I would have been ecstatic at the thought. Now, I wasn’t sure that I wanted it to be over.

Four hours later, the Ibn Battuta II docked, and we disembarked. Within two hours, Linden and I had completed our purification rituals, the Sa Council had convened, and Linden and I were called to give our testimony. They listened to SaTu Terri as well. By late that night, Terri was no longer SaTu—ke was stripped of ker title and held under guard in ker room, to be given over to the Elder Council of the Rock on the Ibn Battuta II’s return trip to be judged in the death of Fianya.

With Rashi also dead, Linden was now the oldest of the Sa. Considering ker part in the investigation and ker experience, Linden was named as the new SaTu for the Community. As for the Miccail portion of the Community, if RenSa was found alive and well, then ke might be elevated to FirstHand. In the interim, the current ThirdHand—JolSa—was raised to SecondHand and given control of the Miccail Sa.

Such bare words. So plain…

“What are you going to do now?” Linden asked me. We were sitting together in the SaTu’s quarter’s—Linden’s quarters—at the table where Taira and Terri had always sat. Linden was wearing the white shangaa of the SaTu and looking a bit uncomfortable in it. A midnight meal had been set out for us: plain bread, some goathen cheese, and ale. Through the windows, I could see Quali just rising over the bay, the moon’s light pearling the waters. “I need someone to take Terri back to the Rock when the Battuta leaves tomorrow.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “SaTu …”

“'Linden,'” ke corrected me. “I think you still have unfinished business there, Caitlyn, and I also believe that we need someone there to represent us until the current crisis with CosTa and the QualiKa is over. Right now, everything’s in upheaval here because of what’s happened, and I can’t leave. We still don’t know where RenSa is for certain. You’ve been involved since the beginning—taking Terri to the Rock for the Council’s judgment will put closure to that part of things, at least. What you do after that…”

Linden shrugged. “I trust you to know best, Caitlyn.”

VOICE:

RenSa

STANDING BEFORE THE ENTRANCE TO TENON, I could see the entire valley in the dawn, looking as if the very stones had come alive. Everywhere there were CieTiLa, scurrying about, striking tents and gathering possessions, gathering together as the various Hands of the QualiKa took command of their groups, their marker flags fluttering from poles on the saddles of their konja.

A sight like this had not been seen since the time of DekTe and CaraTa, when they arose to conquer most of the TeTa and overthrow the rule of the Sa. The thought made me shudder—I hoped that the comparison was not an omen. DekTe and CaraTa’s rule had been short, leading directly into the sacrifice of the Sa Beneath The Water and the long fall of the CieTiLa into terduva of oblivion, from which O’Sa Anaïs had finally delivered us.

The QualiKa prepared to march, and I shivered in the cold wind, wondering what I should do now. I felt helpless, small and insignificant against the power arrayed below me.

“RenSa!” The call came from the foot of the steps. Lost in my own reverie, I hadn’t heard the konja’s hooves approaching. CosTa was there, astride a huge, black-haired konja; behind her, JairTe sat on his own steed, facing away from us with an air of disapproval. CosTa clutched her lansa, set in its holder on the saddle, the blackstone tip glistening in the morning sun. “We are about to leave. Will you ride with me?”

It was the question that I’d been hoping she would not ask. I would have been content to have been left behind, to watch from TeNon as the QualiKa masses moved through the jaws of the valley pass, then find my way back to AnglSaiye. I’d taken jitu the night before, and sacrificed a guffin, hoping that VeiSaTi would give me guidance, but the images had been as confused and scattered as my own thoughts. “This is not something I believe in, Costa,” I told her. “In the heart of my kahina, I feel this is a mistake.”

CosTa grinned at me. “Then let it be a glorious mistake.” She waved his hand toward the QualiKa below. “Look! A thousand or more of us, all going out to take the Black Lake.”

“There is no Black Lake,” I told her as I’d told her before. “There is a pond, and marsh. The Black Lake has gone and changed, as we must, too.”

CosTa shook her head into my arguments. “Then come with me because I ask. Because you know that, whether you agree with me or not, you want to be there to see. Because, perhaps, you care what happens to me.”

I lifted my head, feeling the sun graze my brais. JairTe was still staring stiffly away, though I know he heard. CosTa’s hand was out to me, the long fingers curled in invitation.

I hesitated, looking down again at the valley and the army.

Then I went down the steps and took her hand.

CONTEXT:

Komoko Allen-Shimmura of the Rock

THE KNOCK ON THE DOOR STARTLED HER. “JUST A moment,” she said, wiping at her eyes with a sleeve as she went to the door. Ishiko stood there in the hallway.

“Can I come in, mi Komo?”

Ishiko had been crying as well. Komoko could see it in the redness of her eyes, the puffiness under them. She stood aside from the door. “Come inside,” she said. “Please.”

Komoko’s room was dim, with a window that opened out into the large Common Room, but no exterior windows. She had candles lit, and a peat fire crackled in the hearth, giving the room a wavering, warm illumination. Ishiko’s glance went to the bed, and the framed drawing that was still lying there: Fianya’s face, crudely dawn—Komoko had done it herself, and she had little talent for likenesses. Still, it reminded her of what Fianya had looked like. When she saw the drawing, she saw her child’s face rather than the spare ink lines.

“I’m so sorry, mi,” Ishiko said. “None of this should ever have happened to ker.”

“It did,” Komoko said, trying to say the words without the bitterness that she wanted to add to them, the extra accusations, and not succeeding. She looked at Ishiko, her eyes gone dry. “Are you going to tell me that I’ll get over it one day, that the pain will go away? I won’t ever forget, and I won’t ever stop feeling the hurt.”

“I know,” Ishiko said. “I still feel the loss of my own.”

Komoko nodded. She sat down on the bed, cradling the picture on her lap and staring at the flames lapping at the sides of the peat bricks. Ishiko sat alongside her. Komoko could hear Ishiko start to say something, then stop. Finally, Ishiko’s right hand touched Komoko’s, laced around Fianya’s picture. “I never gave you the support I should have, when you were pregnant with Fianya and after, when Geema was doing all the yelling and screaming.”

“You never said anything bad to me, Ish.”

Komoko heard Ishiko sigh. “I never really said anything to anyone, to you or Geema,” Ishiko continued. “And that’s the problem. I should have. I should have told Geema that she was being cruel. I should have said that you did what any of us might have done.” A pause. “What I did,” she finished.

Komoko turned to Ishiko, setting Fianya’s picture aside. “Ishiko—”

“Did you love ker, mi? I mean, did you want to be with ker more than the one night? Was ke something special?”

“No, not really,” Komoko answered. “I… I thought ke was pretty, and I wanted another child so much, and I thought that Geema would never find out.” Komoko stroked Ishiko’s hair. “It’s different for you, isn’t it, with this one.”

Ishiko nodded. A faint, inward smile flickered along her lips. “I don’t deserve to ask this of you, mi. But I would like your support, because you understand. Because you’ve been where I am now.”

Komoko sighed. Opening her arms, she pulled Ishiko in to her, head to shoulder. She kissed the top of her head gently. “I’ll help you,” she said. “It’s time that our Family began to change. I’ll help you.”

VOICE:

Caitlyn Koda-Schmidt of the Sa

I WAS PREPARING TO LEAVE THE TEMPLE AND GO down to the Ibn Battuta II when Banu Koda-Schmidt, at four years old the youngest Sa, came running in. “Caitlyn,” ke said breathlessly, “the SaTu wants you to come to ker office right now. Hurry!”

I dropped the shangaa I was folding and ran past Banu.

I could hear Linden’s voice and another, unfamiliar one from the office. The door was already slightly ajar; I pushed it open and entered.

“… don’t have a good choice here, Linden. That’s what you must understand.” Ghost glanced up at me. He was an elderly Caucasian man with white hair and glasses, a sharp nose set between eyes that looked large behind the thick lenses, dressed in a dark suit and tie that looked to be from the mid-twentieth century. His voice was high and raspy, almost contentious, with a faint nasal twang. “You won’t talk me out of it either, Caitlyn.”

“Talk you out of what, Ghost?” I asked.

“CosTa’s on the move, with her QualiKa,” Linden answered from behind ker desk. “Ghost is insisting on dropping himself on them.”

“Not all of me,” Ghost said. “Just a part. Enough to end this.” His voice was eerily calm. He might have been talking about stepping on a spindle-leg.

“You can’t do that,” I said automatically, looking from Ghost to Linden. “Ghost, I know you talked about this before, but you can’t.”

Ghost took a cloth handkerchief from his pants pocket, took off his glasses, blew on them gently, and polished them. Settling them back on his nose, he cleared his throat. “Do you know who I am?” he asked.

I looked at him again, at that ancient gray suit that looked like it belonged in an ancient black-and-white movie. “No,” I said.

That garnered me a faint smile. “You are really such a poor student of history, Caitlyn,” Ghost said.

“I know,” Linden said. “And whether that person made the right choice has been argued ever since. Ask the children of Hiroshima, Harry.”

Ghost took in a long breath, his thin face pained. “I know,” he said. “I understand. But because this is also a hard choice doesn’t mean it’s a bad one. I’m talking now with the Rock as well, and most of the Elder Council there agrees with me. CosTa is heading for them, after all. She’s two days away at most. If she gets to the Rock, we’re going to lose people. I can stop her now, before that happens.”

“By killing all of them,” I said.

Ghost looked at me calmly. “Caitlyn, my interest is in human survival on this world. That’s all.”

“Look ahead, then. If you destroy CosTa and the QualiKa, you make them martyrs. A year from now, five years, ten—the Miccail will remember, and someone will take up the mantle of the Cha’akMongTi again, and it will be this act that will be their rallying cry.”

“Or this may give the message to the Miccail that this can’t ever happen again. I don’t know, Caitlyn. I can’t predict the future. All I can do is what I can do now. After all, I don’t have a future beyond the now. Whatever happens, I will be gone.”

“Then fire a warning shot,” Linden suggested. “Drop something right in front of them, create a big enough explosion that they realize that to go forward is suicide.”

Ghost’s old man shoulders lifted and he sighed. “I can’t. I have only one shot at this, I’m afraid. CosTa is already closer to the Rock than I would like, and the Ibn Battuta herself is too big to bring down with the kind of precision we need here. I’ve run the scenarios a thousand times, trying to decide what would be best. The Battuta’s made of too many components, and I couldn’t control the breakup in the atmosphere. I’d do damage over most of the area and probably end up killing as many of you as I did QualiKa. The Ibn Battuta has to come down over the ocean, where the impact will do the least environmental damage. What I can control well enough is the main fuel tank. CosTa’s been moving at a steady rate and direction since dawn, following the valley out of TeNon, so I know where she’s going to be. The explosive bolts holding the tank to the Battuta still respond to the system, and I can program the network to vent the last of the fuel, timing the descent to have the tank strike where the main portion of the army will be. It’s going to be a spectacular and very deadly impact. But in doing that, I also seal my own fate: The loss of the tank leaves me with no way to control the rest of the ship at all, in an orbit that will rapidly decay.” Ghost blinked behind the glasses. A ripple of static went through the figure, and I knew he was drifting out of range. “So you see: one shot. I need to make it count. I can’t take any chances.”

“Ghost, we need more time to think about this,” I said, trying to talk quickly. “This kind of decision needs more thought.”

“There isn’t time. My calculations are already made, and the window’s very short.” Ghost glanced at an old stem-wound watch on his wrist. “In fact, the time…” He looked up. “… is now.”

In the holographic field, his figure shivered once, and we heard a distant k-chunk and a sinister hissing that slowly faded. “It’s done, and it can’t be undone,” Ghost said. His figure morphed, became that of Gabriela Rusack, who had programmed the computer over two centuries before. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so very sorry.” The figure shivered and dissolved into static, then returned.

“Wait!” I said, reaching for her even though I knew the gesture was meaningless. “How long until it happens, Ghost?”

“Three orbits. Eight hours.” She shrugged. “That’s all the time CosTa …” Her voice faded, the figure went transparent, then disappeared entirely. I stared at Linden.

“This is insanity,” ke said. Ker face was ashen. “We can’t even warn them, not in time. Even sending a runner…”

I went to the window, looking out over the plateau of AnglSaiye at the sloping hillside, where the mingled dwellings of human and Miccail sat alongside each other, and thinking that it was all going to end soon. I remembered my years here, remembered the last time I’d sat in this room talking with Ghost, with SaTu Taira

I slapped the windowsill.

“Linden,” I said. “There may still be a way.”

JOURNAL ENTRY:

NefSa, FirstHand to Anaïs Koda-Levin, O’Sa

WE LAID O’SA ANAïS DOWN ON A BED UNDER THE gauze tenting. I had done what I could to stop the bleeding, but I knew the damage inside was too great, and I also knew that O’Sa Anaïs could see ker death in my eyes. But ke said nothing, did not complain but only asked for a little water to ease ker throat.

Ke looked like a kahina already, ker skin pale and ker gray hair spread out on the pillow.

We sent for the leaders of both human and QualiKa. NagTe did not come. We did not know then that he was already dead, struck down during the last battle and his body carried away. It was LarXa, NagTe’s SecondHand, who came instead, and when she told O’Sa Anaïs that NagTe had been killed, ke wept with her. “Tell your daughter that I will miss Nag, and that I will look for his kahina in the ShadowWorld,” ke told LarXa, for ke knew that NagTe had fathered a child on Lar.

Elder Micah Allen-Shimmura entered the tent then, along with a representative of each of the other Families. Though Micah had been appointed spokesperson for the human delegation, he would not look at O’Sa Anaïs, as if the sight of ker wounded on the bed pained him. Afterward, it would be whispered that Micah had fired the shot that felled O’Sa Anaïs. Perhaps that was true, for O’Sa Anaïs gestured to him. “Sit here,” ke said, and Micah knelt down beside ker bed. O’Sa Anaïs touched his shoulder and he finally lifted his eyes to ker.

I wish I could remember exactly what O’Sa Anaïs said then, so I could set them down here as they were spoken. I cannot, though, and my approximation will have to suffice. I tried to remember all ker words, but ke spoke softly in ker pain, and there was the noise of all the others in the tent, and afterward I could only recall some of the words. “We must live with all that has happened,” ke told Micah. “The past can’t be changed, not by me, nor by you. All you can do is change what happens from this point. It was blind hatred that brought us here to this point. I tell you now to open your eyes. Open your eyes.” O’Sa Anaïs looked at Micah, at the other humans, and at LarXa. “We must all do that now, or we won’t be able to find a path that allows us to leave here in peace.”

“O’Sa—” someone began to protest, and O’Sa Anaïs lifted kerself up from the bed with an effort.

“No!” ke cried. “We stay here, all of us, until we agree on a way to end this stupidity. Anyone who walks from this tent now says that they are a true coward, and you condemn yourself and your children and their children to more pain and more death. We stay, and we negotiate a truce.” Ke fell back then with a groan, closing ker eyes. When I started to go to ker, fearing the worst, ke rallied again and waved me back.

“We start now to change the future,” ke said. “Agreed?”

What could they say? How could they refuse ker, dying as ke was? They stayed, all that day and into the next. And finally, when they left, LarXa went to the QualiKa, and they struck their tents to vanish into the misty hills to the north, where NagTe’s body had been taken, and the Families of the Rock left Hannibal to the control of AnglSaiye and the Sa, revoking their claim on the land.

O’Sa Anaïs lingered for another day. Sometime during that next night, when I went in to look at ker, I found ker body still and cold. As I gazed sadly at ker empty body, I thought I felt the rushing of air as ker kahina slipped past me to wander the world.

Don’t worry, I thought it said to me as it passed. I am still here. I will always be here.

VOICE:

Caitlyn Koda-Schmidt of the Sa

I SCREAMED.

The yelp of fright and terror came involuntarily as I felt myself going over the edge of the AnglSaiye cliff. Then the wings of Ely’s plane caught the air, the engine coughed and roared like a mythical dragon. The wind shrieked in my ears, through the guy wires and over the canvas panels, giving voice to its own fright at seeing this machine invading its domain.

The goggles over my eyes fit poorly, and the cold, rushing air made me squint tearily at the dizzying sight. We were a hundred feet over the waves, with nothing between the bay and us but empty air, with the clouds rushing by just above so close I almost felt I could reach out and touch them.

It was terrifying. It was glorious.

It was noisy as hell.

“Bet you thought you were about to meet VeiSaTi there for a second,” Ely hollered, turning his head from the pilot’s seat in front of me. His hair whipped around the edges of his leather helmet.

“I still do,” I yelled back. The smell of exhaust made me lose my breath for a moment. “But I’m enjoying this while it lasts.”

Ely gave a laugh that the wind tore away. “Don’t worry. I told Linden—this flying beauty’s fixed this time. Got some fine steel from up north last shipment. Had the engine going for hours last week. Made a successful run around the island, too.” A gust of wind caught us—the plane rose ten meters in an instant, then fell again. I nearly threw up, gulping with the motion, and Ely laughed again.

Ely turned the rudder, flaps creaked and moved, and we began a long, slow bank to the right. The steep hills ringing the bay swung by in front of us at an angle. The engine’s pitch rose a half-tone and we began to rise, higher and higher, until AnglSaiye’s summit lay far below and behind us. Underneath me, the headlands rolled and the winding, green ribbon of the Loud passed away into haze.

I relaxed the death grip I had on the edges of my padded wooden seat and actually relaxed slightly. We were still flying, Ely seemed confident even if I wasn’t, and we were moving faster than anything I’d ever seen before.

I actually began to have some hope.

Half an hour or so later, we passed the confluence of the Loud and Green Rivers. Not long after, in the distance, I saw the shape of the Rock. The engine continued to roar, defiant. Ely was humming some tune, obviously enjoying himself. We banked and turned toward the rising green hills to the left, where TeNon lay just south of North Lake.

The winding river that flowed through the valley had carved terraced hillsides on its own way to the Loud. The old Miccail highroad moved through the valley as well, with seven arcing bridges that crossed the river’s curving path.

And we saw them. Like a dark mass of insects, they swarmed in the middle of the valley leading from TeNon, following the highroad that arrowed toward the Rock: the QualiKa. They had seen us as well—as Ely descended and swung into a gentle turn to take us over them, I saw the glinting of lansa and upturned faces. I looked for RenSa among them but didn’t see ker, though I could make out, on a konja to the front of the army, the banner of the crescent moon, and I knew that must be CosTa. “Set us down over there!” I called out to Ely, tapping him on the shoulder and pointing toward an open field near them.

“I see it!” Ely called back, and we began to descend. As we came down, the land began to rush by us, a streak of green and sepia on either side, then the wheels touched with a lurch and a bounce that slammed me back into my seat. The engine roared even louder, and the plane wheeled around hard before Ely cut the engine.

The sudden silence and stillness was disconcerting. I sat there for a moment, stunned, as Ely let out a whoop that echoed from the hills. “That was fantastic!” he said. “Caitlyn, I never thought…”

He stopped. The konja with the crescent moon of Quali had pounded up to within a spear’s throw of us, clods of dirt flying from its hooves, and others were following. A familiar form was clinging to waist of the rider.

I pulled myself from the cockpit and jumped down to the ground. My ears were still ringing with the engine’s roar. “CosTa!” I called to the rider of the konja. “I’ve come from the SaTu of AnglSaiye, and I must speak with you.” And then I spared a moment to smile at the person behind her. “RenSa,” I said. “It’s good to see you again. I’m going to need your help…”

VOICE:

RenSa

I COULD HEAR THE RAW DISBELIEF IN COSTA’S voice.

“You say that a kahina in the sky will throw a huge stone at us and crush us, all of us.” CosTa spread her arms to encompass the valley, thousands of strides from east to west, in which the QualiKa masses stood—more CieTiLa gathered than I had ever seen before, but still tiny against the immensity of the land. Then she laughed at CaitlynSa. “Your kahina is more powerful than GhazTi Himself, then.”

“No,” Caitlyn said, “but what I’m saying is the truth. This has nothing to do with your gods, but with technology.” Caitlyn used the human word as ke gestured to Ely’s flying machine behind ker. Ely stood beside the stinking thing of wood and cloth and graystone, ringed by QualiKa lansas and looking terrified. CosTa blinked at the sound of the human speech, harsh after the soft CieTiLa syllables. “This ‘stone’ is from a… a made thing,” Caitlyn continued. “A machine like this one, only far larger.” Ker gaze caught mine, pleading. “RenSa, please. I don’t speak your language well enough. You’ve seen Ghost. You know our history. Tell CosTa that this is real.”

But I found it difficult to comprehend myself—a piece of Ghost’s ship, so huge and moving so fast that it would destroy everything in this valley when it struck, that the very ground would tremble for a day’s walk around… I looked at the green walls of the hills, blued with haze and distance, and at the swelling ranks of the QualiKa. All of this gone in an instant? How could that be? It seemed impossible.

“I’ve talked with this kahina, yes,” I told CosTa. “The human history says that before they came down here they dwelled in the clouds in a machine so large that it took a day to walk from end to end, all of it made of graystone. They say that the star we sometimes see moving at night across the sky is that crippled machine, so far away that it appears only as a speck of light. You know the history our sages tell as well as I do, CosTa: how the humans first came down in graystone fireships, how we watched them carve the rock by the Black Lake with lances of burning light.” I touched my bandaged shoulder. “Even if the humans can no longer do that, we still know how well their rifles can kill from a distance, and we’ve seen and felt the awful explosions when they mine the rocks from which they make graystone.” I shivered. “I know that CaitlynSa is telling you what ke believes to be the truth, CosTa,” I said finally. “Ke would not lie to you.”

“The stone will crush all of you the way your foot smashes a scuttler into the ground,” Caitlyn said. “CosTa, you must believe me.”

“I don’t believe ker,” JairTe spoke disdainfully from alongside CosTa. “Even if it were possible, GhazTi would not allow it. The flatfaces are frightened of us, that’s all. They would do anything to keep us away. This is another lie, another trick.”

CosTa listened to the Te gravely, then inclined her head to Caitlyn. “Why would you come here to tell me this?” she asked. “JairTe is right: This could be a deception, so that I don’t take my people to the Black Lake.”

“If it’s a deception, then all you lose is a day,” Caitlyn answered. “You should be safe once you’re over the ridge, but there’s not much time. You must move your people quickly out of the valley. If I’m wrong, then tomorrow you can march toward Black Lake again.”

“And if there is no lie, then why even tell me? Why not let it happen?” CosTa moved closer to Caitlyn, staring at ker with that compelling gaze that I’d felt myself many times in the last several days, that dominant presence.

“Because that would not be the KoPavi,” Caitlyn answered. “Because one violence only leads to another. Because my SaTu and I believe that what’s been done in the past is wrong. Destroying the QualiKa and the Cha’akMongTi will not solve anything; it will only give your people a hatred for us that would last centuries. Because …” Caitlyn paused. Ker teeth, so white and strange in ker flat, ugly human face, caught at ker lower lip. A breath lifted ker shoulders. “Because if it does happen, and I have saved your life and those of the QualiKa, I would ask you to return to TeNon. We’ve given you this warning because it’s right to do so; we can’t force you to do anything. But we ask you as one gift in return: Go back to TeNon. I will bring the Family leaders there. Let the Sa—human and CieTiLa—talk with both you and the Families. Terrible mistakes have been made, by all of us. Give us the time we need to find a path.”

“There it is,” JairTe grunted in mocking laughter. “The Sa lies. They are afraid of us, as I said. A rock from the sky … phaah. My brais feels nothing moving there.”

My brais felt nothing either—even while understanding Caitlyn’s warning and knowing that we would see nothing until the instant before impact, biology and instinct told me not to worry: Your Sun’s Eye is quiet; there is nothing dangerous above you. I could sense CosTa’s own indecision, and then she moved.

Her hand flicked out, a quick blur, and she lifted Cailtyn by the throat so that the human’s booted feet barely touched the ground. Caitlyn’s skin puckered around CosTa’s opened clawtips; ker eyes were wide, ker mouth open gasping for air, and four rivulets of blood drooled down Caitlyn’s neck onto the collar of ker shangaa. CosTa’s footclaws rose, as if she were about to kick out and disembowel Caitlyn.

Calmly, CosTa looked again at the valley, at the QualiKa Hands waiting patiently for her orders, at the thickets of lansa dark in the sun, at the QualiKa ready to kill Ely should the Cha’akMongTi gesture to them. CosTa glanced up, squinting into the light with her seeing eyes as if she could witness something hurtling toward her, but there was nothing. Nothing but a still, deep blue brushed with white.

CosTa looked down. Looked at me. “Tell me, RenSa,” she said, still holding Caitlyn in her deadly embrace, the muscles in her arm quivering from the effort. Caitlyn’s face had gone red as ke struggled to breathe, and ker hands pulled at CosTa’s arm desperately. “Is this why you were sent to me? So you would be here now?”

As she said the words, I felt their truth. “It may be,” I told her. “Only VeiSaTi knows for certain. Maybe I was sent to remind you that the Sa are willing to die for their beliefs and the KoPavi when it’s necessary, as did the Sa Beneath The Water.”

CosTa’s brow furrowed, and I could not tell if it was anger. “RenSa, when I kill this human Sa, what will you do then?”

I tried to look at CosTa, not Caitlyn. I didn’t move, didn’t try to interfere—what could I have done? “I will mourn ker death,” I said, “because ke will have died honorably. Then as the KoPavi says, I will build a pyre for ker and set it alight. I will make a sacrifice for Caitlyn’s kahina and pray to VeiSaTi that you are right and my SaTu and Caitlyn wrong, and then I will follow you to Black Lake. And when the stone comes from the sky to kill you—and it will come, CosTa; it will come—I will die with you.”

CosTa gave a wild cry. I saw muscles bunch in her calf, and she lifted her foot from the ground, kicking suddenly toward Caitlyn’s body. I waited for the blood and the entrails.

But CosTa’s footclaw stopped, trembling, just touching Caitlyn’s shangaa at ker abdomen. For a moment, the tableau held. Then CosTa lowered her foot to the ground and relaxed her claws. Caitlyn fell to the ground, gasping for breath, while the paleness slowly returned to ker face.

“We will leave the valley,” CosTa said, raising her voice so that the Hands heard her command. JairTe’s protest died with CosTa’s warning gaze as she pointed to nearest hills. “We will go there. We lose nothing by waiting … and we will see if the Sa’s stone comes from the sky.”

VOICE:

Ishiko Allen-Shimmura of the Rock

WHEN I WALKED INTO HER OFFICE UNANnounced, Geema was reading what looked to be a letter, which she refolded hastily and stuffed into her desk drawer. She looked up at me with an annoyed grimace as I shut the door behind me.

“You’ve forgotten how to knock?” There was a flush in her too-perfect cheeks. She brushed back short hair with her fingers, as if ridding them of the feel of the paper, and arranged herself stiffly on her chair. Her frown sent all the carefully prepared words tumbling into oblivion.

“I’m pregnant,” I told her without preamble, my hands folded in front of me as if I were already cradling the swelling mound of my stomach. “I… I wanted you to know that before I told the rest of the Family.”

“Through the Sa,” Geema said, the last word nearly spat out. Of course she knew that my pregnancy was because I’d been with Caitlyn—Geema always knew whenever someone stayed overnight with one of the Family or when one of us wasn’t home all night. She knew I hadn’t been with anyone else.

I nodded. “Hai,” I told her. “Through Caitlyn.” Her mouth tightened, and I rushed to finish before she spoke, the rest tumbling out of me like water released from a dam. “I don’t need your approval, Geema. That’s not why I’m here. I’m happy to have another chance to have a child, and I’m happy that it was through Caitlyn, through someone that I care about. AU I need to know, Geema, is whether you’re going to treat me the way you treated Komoko, because I won’t stay here to take the abuse. Komo didn’t deserve the grief you gave her, and I don’t either. Being part of a new life is a wonderful thing, Geema, and it’s time we realized as a Family that we need to accept the way things are on Mictlan and work with them, not defy them. I don’t know what happened between you and O’Sa Anaïs so long ago. I don’t know who or what poisoned you against the Sa or how you came to be so sour about everything, and I don’t care. Look around you—the world has changed, and you can’t keep it the way it once was. The Sa aren’t going to go away, and quite frankly, we need them.” I raised my left hand, displaying the unbending, fused ridges that were my fingers. “The other Families may not say anything to you, Geema. You’re the Eldest, and they’re used to staying silent when you talk. But I hear them. I hear the jokes they make about our Family and the little ‘deformities’ most of us have. I notice that at the Gathers, we’re often the last ones chosen. I notice that we’re the smallest of the Families now, when once that wasn’t true. Do you really want us to die out like the Koda-Levins? A hundred years from now, do you want there to be only four Families? Maybe it will just be you left, Geema, still looking the same and all alone.”

The words and my vehemence ran dry. The silence was loud, and Geema’s sharp, unblinking gaze would not let me look away. “Are you finished now?” she asked. “That was a pretty speech, and I’m sure you worked very hard at putting it together.” She clapped her hands together in mock applause as I felt heat rising from my neck to my ears. Not trusting myself to say more, I turned and started to walk away from her. I was ready to leave Geema, to leave the compound and my Family and go to AnglSaiye. But Geema’s voice brought me to a stop, my right hand on the knob of her door.

“I’m sorry, Ishiko,” she said.

“Geema?” I didn’t move. I could feel the cold glass of the knob in my palm.

“I’m not apologizing for feeling the way I feel. I’m saying I’m sorry that you think I’d hurt you. That’s not what I want, ever.”

Now I turned, though I kept my hand on the knob. “It’s not just me you’re hurting, Geema. It’s the whole Family.”

“I don’t believe that. All I’ve ever done is for the sake of the Family.”

“Then, for the sake of the Family, admit that the time’s come to change—not just with us and the Sa, but with the Miccail, too.”

She didn’t answer. I opened the door and started out.

“Ishiko,” she said behind me, “congratulations on your pregnancy. It’s been too long since I last held a child of yours, and I’m looking forward to doing it again.”

I looked at her. An uncertain smile gave her doll’s face an animation it usually lacked. I tried to smile back at her, and nodded.

I shut the door.

VOICE:

RenSa

“I HAVE TO GO TO THE ROCK NOW,” CAITLYN SAID. “They have to know what we’ve done, and I have to convince them to come to TeNon with me”

“They’re not going to like it,” I told ker. “Euzhan will have apoplexy.

“Maybe not,” ke insisted. “Maybe this time she’ll realize that it’s past time to make peace. She needs to know that CosTa has made a concession, and that she needs to make one as well. Tell CosTa that I must go, that I will return with a delegation from the Families…”

I stood on the crest of the eastern hillside of the valley with CosTa and JairTe. On the steep slope below us, the rest of the QualiKa were struggling upward. Down along the river field, Ely’s machine was moving, a faint whining roar coming to my ears as the plane accelerated impossibly, a thin trail of black smoke following. It lifted into the air, the wings dipping right, then left, and then it rose, moving higher and higher until it was above our heads, moving downriver toward the Loud and the Black Lake. Sitting behind CosTa on her konja, we watched for several breaths, then CosTa clucked her tongues at the konja and turned the mount, starting to head down the far side of the hill.

Behind us, I heard a percussive cough, and then silence.

I twisted around in the saddle. It was easy to find Cailtyn and Ely: The smoke trail of their flying machine had become thick and dark. The machine was falling, wings spinning in the air, and there was no noise, no noise at all. “Caitlyn!” I screamed to the sky: uselessly, helplessly. Just before the machine struck the ground, it straightened and leveled out, and the engine coughed once.

Then it disappeared behind trees and low hillocks near the river. A faint sound like splintering wood came to us, and a column of smoke rose.

It all seemed so small and distant, so sudden and quiet, yet in my heart I felt a sudden dread.

“CosTa!” She had stopped, watching the accident herself. Now she looked at me. “I have to go to ker. They may be hurt.”

She looked at me with her calm, wise eyes. “The human Sa’s stone is coming, RenSa. They are alive and can leave the valley themselves, or they can’t and are dead. One or the other. If what the human said is true, there’s no time for you to go after them—the sun has already fallen halfway down the sky, and they said the stone would strike before it touched the western hills.” She cocked her head slightly. “Or are you saying now that you think the human lied?”

“No.” I glanced again at the plume of the smoke. JairTe watched us from his konja, not a stride away, restless. “I didn’t lie. I’m certain the stone will come, but there still may be time, if I take your konja.”

“And then the Sa rides away to AnglSaiye, leaving us,” JairTe spoke, leather creaking under him. “Maybe that’s the trick, CosTa. Maybe the flatfaces want us over the ridge, because that’s where this stone of theirs is really going to land. Maybe RenSa is only looking for ker own escape, and this was the plan they devised to accomplish it.”

“CosTa,” I said, not even looking at the Te. “The KoPavi gives the Sa the responsibility to sacrifice. We’re taught that sometimes we must even give ourselves, as did the Sa Beneath The Water—because that is what is demanded of us. I’m not afraid to die with you. I promise you that if I can, I will come back to you.” I reached out, showing her my hand with the claws hidden, then touched her face, staring into her eyes. “I would come back to you because that is I what I would most want to do, CosTa. But CaitlynSa is out there, and ke needs me, also. We need ker.”

“Ke’s a flatface,” JairTe scoffed.

“And ke is a Sa and thus part of me,” I answered, still looking only at CosTa. “As will be the child I have given you, CosTa.” I saw myself reflected in her eyes. “Let me go, CosTa. Let me try.”

CosTa clasped my hand in her own. Abruptly, she swung down from her konja. Standing alongside the mount, she handed the stiff leather reins to me.

“Go,” she said.

CONTEXT:

Caitlyn Koda-Schmidt of the Sa

“CAITLYN?”

The voice was faint and came from some great distance. It was very dark. The sunlight had vanished.

“Caitlyn?”

Caitlyn felt something brush against ker face. Ke tried to slap at it, but ker hand didn’t seem to work. Ke tried to open ker eyes, but the eyelids were glued shut with a sticky substance that only yielded slowly. The light, when it finally came, was nearly unbearable. Ker head pounded with its impact.

“Caitlyn?”

“What, damn it?” ke said, and ker voice was harsh and cracked, and ke tasted blood in ker mouth. Ke tried opening ker eyes again.

Ke was looking up at the sky. Someone’s face was framed against the light, and one of the wings of Ely’s plane ran a black diagonal against the thin clouds. Ke could smell something burning nearby. “Ely?” ke said.

“Hai,” Ely said. His silhouette moved closed to Caitlyn, and ke saw Ely’s face in reflected light. Ke didn’t like the frightened concern ke saw in the man’s eyes. “How are you?”

Caitlyn took inventory, and had to bite ker lip to stop from screaming when ke tried to move ker legs. Something grated harshly in ker hip socket, and ke couldn’t seem to feel ker left leg at all. When ke brought ker right hand up, ke saw white bone protruding from the skin halfway down ker forearm. Ke nearly fainted again, then, and had to take several deep calming breaths before ke could answer Ely. “I’m hurt,” ke said simply. “You?”

“I was thrown clear when we first hit. I’m scraped and bruised, but I’m mobile. Let me get you out of there.” Ely reached down and tried to pull Caitlyn out of the plane, and this time ke did scream from the pain, and the blackness swirled at the edges of ker vision. “No!” ke shouted. “Ely, stop! Stop!”

Ely eased Caitlyn back down, and the world slowly came back to ker. Ke licked dry, split lips. “You have to get out of here, Ely,” ke told the man. “Run as fast and as hard as you can for the valley wall.”

“Caitlyn—”

Caitlyn shook ker head into the protest. “I can’t walk, and we won’t make it if you try to carry me. You only have an hour or two, and we’re sitting in the middle of Ghost’s target. Someone has to get word back to AnglSaiye and the Rock about what we did here. Go on.” Ke could see Ely hesitating, caught between wanting desperately to get the hell out of there and feeling guilty at leaving Caitlyn, and ke waved ker left hand at Ely. “Go!” ke said again, and finally Ely started moving away.

“Ely!” ke called after him, and heard ker stop. “When you get to the Rock, I want you to find Ishiko Allen-Shimmura. Tell her …” Ke stopped. There were no words to contain everything Caitlyn wanted to say. Ke closed ker eyes against the sun and tried to remember her face, her touch, her voice. Ke wondered if she would hate ker for what the Sa had done. Ke wondered … and ke realized that time was passing and Ely was still waiting. “Tell her that thinking of her made this easier. Tell her that. Now get out of here.”

Ely tapped the side of the plane, and ke heard his footsteps moving away. And then, for long while, ke went away. “Caitlyn?”

A face drifted above ker, indistinct and shadowed. Whatever had been burning had gone out. The sun had moved, nearly ready to touch the edge of the western hills. “Ely, you idiot—I told you to move! Didn’t you understand?” Ke wanted to cry, to weep from pain and frustration and anger. “Didn’t you understand?”

“Caitlyn, it’s RenSa.”

Ke squinted upward through the blood haze, the pounding in ker head, and the fog of pain. Hai, there was a snout and the ridged face of a Miccail. “RenSa? You’re supposed to be on the other side of the valley.”

“I saw Ely’s machine fall. I came to help.” Ker shadow grew larger and Caitlyn felt the plane’s fuselage move under RenSa’s weight, jostling ker body. Ke cried out, and RenSa stopped moving.

“Damn it, RenSa. Don’t you realize it’s too late now? Khudda! You’ve just killed yourself.”

RenSa glanced upward over ker shoulder at the sky. “I see nothing, Caitlyn. Maybe the stone will come late. Maybe it won’t come at all.”

“It’s coming, RenSa. I know it is.” Ke laughed. “So maybe SaTu Terri wasn’t wrong about what was being asked of the Sa, after all.”

“Let me get you out of there,” RenSa answered. “I have a konja, and we can still.”

“It’s too late for that, RenSa. Can’t you feel it? I can—like a spear aimed for my heart. We’re already dead, RenSa.”

Caitlyn felt RenSa’s hands again, stroking ker hair, smoothing it away from ker face. “Then our kahinas will stay here to watch over this place,” ke said to Caitlyn, whispering the words, ker shadow shielding ker from the aching sunlight. “We will stay here, together.”

Caitlyn saw RenSa lift ker head, ker nasal vents widening as if ke were sniffing at the air. “It comes,” ke said.

CONTEXT:

CosTa

COSTA FELT IT FIRST. HER BREATH WENT HEAVY in her lungs, and icy fingers stuttered down her spine, raising the hair of her spinal mane. “No, please …” she whispered, suddenly afraid as she never had been during all the fighting, and she craned her neck to look backward to the crest of the hills behind them, hoping to see RenSa come riding hard over the lip of the valley. She reached for JairTe at the same time, wanting the comfort of another person, but her hand never reached him.

It happened.

There was the briefest moment, the barest glimpse of fire plummeting like a god-thrown spear from the sky. In that instant, she heard the startled cries of the gathered QualiKa—"Cha’akMong-“—then the sound came.

CosTa had never heard a roar like this: the tormented screaming wail of the world itself, howling in outraged agony. The bass thundering slammed into her like a physical thing, the sound battering her again and again and again, seeming to last forever, punctuated with the sharp crack of trees splintering and rocks breaking. Over the crest of the hill and rising from the valley they’d just left, a column of darkness boiled upward, gray and sullen and turning ever darker as it blotted out the last failing light of the day.

Night came in an impossible moment, enfolded in thunder and cloud.

The ground lurched under CosTa’s feet, sending her falling heavily to the ground and throwing JairTe the other way. CosTa twisted on the shaking, frantic ground, trying to see.

At the summit of the hill, the trees were flattened, crushed by an invisible hand. A thick cloud was spinning and foaming downhill toward them, like a storm-tossed wave crashing over a breakwater. As the roar subsided and the ground settled, CosTa tried to get to her feet. “Jair!” she cried.

“I’m here, my Ta,” he said from somewhere, gasping, and she heard the disbelief and terror that riddled his voice. He was alongside her, unexpectedly, and then as quickly dragged her to the ground again, covering her with his own body as rocks and clods of dirt rained down from the fuming sky while the cloud of dust and dirt enveloped them. CosTa could hardly breath in the thick air, and she heard a konja screaming in pain from close by. A rock struck her exposed leg, and JairTe grunted as he was pelted by stones. CosTa coughed, choking and spitting out gritty dust. Her brais was blind and sore. The deluge of rocks subsided, and she felt JairTe’s body lift from hers. Still coughing, she rose to her feet, blinking away the worst of the dirt.

Everywhere, the QualiKa were getting up in the cloying twilight. Above them, the cloud was still rising, the top now torn and smeared by the upper winds. A silence had settled on them, broken only by moans, coughing, and curses. Dust lay thick everywhere, and it was a rare person she saw who was without a cut or injury of some sort.

But they were alive.

“I have to see,” CosTa said. “I have to look at this.”

JairTe frowned. “Cha’akMongTi, I don’t think—” he began, but she was already wading through the debris littering the slope. JairTe sighed and went after her, waving to the Hands that started to follow him. “Stay here,” he said. “Make an encampment, tend to the wounded, and wait for us.”

It was nearly full dark before they reached the crest of the hill, climbing over tangles of fallen trees and piles of huge stones. The land was covered by a fingertip-deep coating of fine dirt, and the air was still thick and irritating with it, bands of it falling from the sky. JairTe worried about how they were going to get down in the dark, but CosTa simply continued to climb. When she reached the top, her shoulders sagged under her torn and filthy shangaa. “By GhazTi…” she whispered, her voice husky and awed. A few seconds later, JairTe was standing alongside her.

Through the blurred filters of haze, distance, and deepening twilight, they could see the valley spread out before them, but it was no longer the valley they’d left a few hours before. A god’s hand had reached down and smashed every tree, flattening them harshly to the earth, the trunks all pointing back to the center of destruction. Where the river flowed, where the highroad they’d been following crossed the flowing water with the fifth and highest bridge, the god had plunged Her hand into the soft belly of the earth, gouging out a great pit that looked to be almost a half day’s walk across. The river foamed as it plunged over the steep ramparts of earth into the great hole, a mist rising from the heart of the new waterfall.

Nothing lived there. Nothing moved in all that desolation.

“By the gods… RenSa…” CosTa said, touching her stomach as she said the name.

“Ke’s dead,” JairTe answered. “You told ker not to leave. Ke should have listened to you.”

CosTa sank to her knees in the dust, and JairTe hurried over to her. “Cos—”

CosTa shook her head, shrugging him away. “RenSa is dead, CailtynSa is dead—they’re out there, in that awful hole. There’s nothing we can do here.” She looked up at him. “Tell the Hands that we must prepare to leave.”

JairTe could barely hide the smile that came with the words. “To the Black Lake,” he said, nodding. “I will go down and tell them …” he started to say, but her gaze had gone cold and harsh, and she stood again.

“We go to TeNon,” she said to him. “As we promised Caitlyn and RenSa. We return and wait for them to come to us.”

JairTe shivered in disbelief. “To TeNon? Cha’akMongTi, the flatfaces will expect us to be dead or fleeing. If we hurry to Black Lake now, we will catch them even more unprepared than we’d hoped. We can’t waste this opportunity.”

CosTa stared at him. “So we should break our promise to the flatface Sa who told us of the sky stone?”

“Yes,” JairTe answered heatedly. “I have been your SecondHand since you became Ta of the QualiKa, and I have never failed to do what you asked. But this time I ask you to listen to me—because I am your SecondHand, and because you have called me Te. Because we have made our hearts one. This is our moment now, Cha’akMongTi, the moment for all CieTiLa. We must take it. We must.”

CosTa backhanded JairTe across the face. The blow turned JairTe’s head and sent him staggering a step backward in surprise. As he put his hand to the burning mark on his cheek in bewilderment, CosTa turned her back on him, staring again at the crater in the valley, now almost invisible in darkness.

“This is what I think,” she said into the night. “If RenSa would give ker life for CaitlynSa, then there is something within the humans worth saving. Because of ker, I will keep my word. It is my gift to her kahina.”

CosTa turned back to JairTe. She held up the hand with which she’d struck him, palm up. “Someone has to make the first gesture, or it never stops, JairTe. Not until every last one of the humans is dead. I don’t think either of us could carry the burden of all that death. Do you?”

Without waiting for an answer, she started back down the hillside to the waiting Hands. After a moment, his face still burning as if branded, JairTe followed.