Zadayi Red (35 page)

Zeya nodded. That was what his mother did sometimes, and that was why she treated her drum as a sacred object.

“Drink,” said Tsola. “Then we will begin the ceremony.”

Zeya turned into a crystal. His mind, all of his being, was shafts of light reflecting in more directions than the sky has stars. Colors he had never imagined shot through the inner space of his angle-cut head. Each color showed itself in a fanfare of hues, far more than had names in any Earthly language. The colors swirled continually, and he was floating in them, as he had floated in the cavern itself, with no sense of which way was up or down. Nor did he care.

He watched a display of greens. Yes, there was the light green of new buds, the forest green of leaves and pine needles, the dark green of the sea, the silver-green of leaves along the creeks, and thousands more. He could distinguish between the greens of different grasses, and between the eager new grass of spring and the weary grass of early autumn. He was lost in greens.

So it was with purples. He recognized the hue of violets, of certain moments in sunsets, of larkspurs, irises, and harebells. He was also bathed in reds, yellows, blues, and oranges, in colors he could name, in colors he had never seen or imagined. He was lost in radiating light, and lost in time.

After a dozen breaths or a dozen lifetimes, Tsola tied the bag of feathers to his chest. Then she took him by the arm. He got up and went willingly. For him every direction was ecstatic. He was pleased to discover that his legs worked. He wondered where they were going and hoped that when they got there, he would be able to recline again and watch the grand display.

He felt the water on his feet and knew it for what it was. Up to his knees, his groin—he wondered if he could shoot his
do-wa
all the way across the lake, now that the world was freed from logic and limitations.

Up to his ribs. Tsola said, “Keep your eyes closed. Dive. Find the bottom. Let the current take you to the opening, and keep swimming down.”

He did. More ecstasy. His fingers found the rocky bottom, and he followed the slant down. Soon he began to feel the motion of water flowing, and he let it guide him. When he felt the water pulling him faster, he gave himself to the current and to the colors ricocheting around his mind. He saw the lights against the night sky instead of the bright day. The water rushed fast—he felt like he was falling, falling, that was good—this was his journey.

It came to his mind that he had no air. The lake was a waterfall now, and he would never be able to swim up it. Maybe there was air below. Or maybe he would die. That was good.

When the time came, he didn’t fight his lungs. They made a great spasm, sucked in the death-giving water, and Zeya died.

Z
eya woke up in . . . Had he woken up? He could see nothing in any direction, left, right, ahead, back, up, even down. Was he conscious? He abode in absolute darkness.

He waved his arms. He kicked his feet. He tucked his head to his knees and rolled himself like a ball. He waved his hands at the universe. He could move, so he must be awake. The odd part—the impossible part—was that he was in a world with nothing else, or at least nothing else that he could see, smell, touch, hear, or taste. Nothing.

Fear zinged tremolos through him, body and soul.

He looked around again. His eyes brought him nothing.
I am in utter nothingness.

He put his hand on his heart like he would have put it on
Awahi’s zither. He wanted to stop the vibration and end the sounds. They were terror aborning.

Terror equaled death.

He rolled his body in several directions. Nothing.

He swam through emptiness as he would have swum through water. Nothing.

He shouted. No sound.

He spoke softly. No sound.

He reached for the pouch at his neck to get his flint to strike a spark. No pouch—he’d forgotten he and Tsola came through naked. But something strange. His neck felt feathery. His touched his face with both hands. They felt feathery.
I’m carrying the feathers somehow.

He couldn’t worry about that now. Tsola? Where was she? Nowhere.

The Land beyond the Sky Arch, where was it? Surely this could not be where the Immortals lived. He had a strong sense, an absolute conviction, that what lived here was nothing. Not nothing in the sense of all things being absent. Nothing as a solid entity itself. Nothing as the jam-full population of an impossible place.

Then how was Zeya here? He could breathe, he could think, he could move.

Impossible. This place was an impossibility. To be here was impossible, impossible, impossible . . .

What on Earth . . . ?

Well, this isn’t Earth, that’s for sure.
He smiled.

Smiling reminded him. Tsola had told him, “If you get scared, talk to me. I’ll be alongside you, and I have experience with this journey.”

“But you aren’t here,” he said out loud, although no sound came out.

I am
, she said in his mind.

He jumped. From here to places beyond the furthest stars he felt alone. Nothing inhabited in this world. Yet someone was inside him.

“Help me,” he said.

What do you want?

“Not to be scared.”

Tsola said,
Is that why you spoke? You are afraid?

“Of the dark,” Zeya said, hanging his head.

Yes, the darkness goes forever,
said Tsola.

“Is that what we’re doing? Making me face my fears?”

You overcome fear by doing something. What are you going to do?

He was completely bewildered. He said, “Give me light.”

Immediately, he was surrounded by bright stars. He saw no sun or moon, but a shimmery star-glow, faint as moonlight reflecting off water, allowed him a kind of sight.

Yet he saw nothing, nothing but the light itself.

It felt ridiculous, but why not try? He said, “Give me company.”

Immediately, people clustered around him. His mother. Tsola. Klandagi. Paya. Jemel. And a stranger.

Somehow he knew he couldn’t touch them—these beings were insubstantial. He stood and looked at Jemel. Their eyesight seemed to create a winding cord of connection, mind to mind, heart to heart. Feeling traveled through that cord like blood, and it said without words,
I love you.
He was happy.

Sunoya said—no words traveled through the air, all were in his mind—
Zeya, I introduce you to your father. Tensa, this is your son Ulo-Zeya, who was known as Dahzi as a boy. Zeya, this is Tensa, who died so that you might live.

Never in his life had Zeya wanted so much to embrace someone. The joy he felt at his father’s presence was like a huge spring of fresh water leaping from the ground.

“Someday I want to talk to you,” he said.

Tensa said, “Someday you will.”

Zeya looked happily at everyone. “Walk with me,” he said.

A path had appeared among the trackless stars, a path of flat stones wandering off to . . . where? He didn’t know. He was full of joy now, and in his delight he knew that these stones were for him, they were a way laid out only for him, they were his journey.

He started stepping from stone to stone. They were set a little apart, but no more than an easy stride. Walking along them was simple and pleasant. With every step he saw new stars ahead, more light, more excitement. He laughed.

He turned his head to share it with his company of loved ones, and two of them were gone. Paya had dropped out for some reason. And Klandagi.

Oh well
, he told himself,
it isn’t their path. It’s mine.

The departed often leave gifts
, Tsola said.

“Gifts?”

You’ll see.

He turned back to the path and saw that it was getting more complicated. The stone steps were a little further apart, and not quite in a straight line. He eyed them carefully, saw what would work, and started skipping along the stones. Hop left, hop right, hop to the left. It was fun.

He went quite a way before he looked around again. Jemel and Sunoya were skipping along behind him. They looked content, but their eyes held knowledge he didn’t have.

Behind them was no one. His father and Tsola were gone. Dropped out.

I suppose their paths branched off in some other direction.
He hadn’t seen any other stone paths. He thought,
Maybe their life directions aren’t mine to see.

He looked back at his path and at once was absorbed. Now it was changing, intriguing. The stones were set farther apart
and at odd angles, so that you couldn’t actually stand on a lot of them. All you could do was jump forward, plant your foot momentarily, and quickly leap to the next stone.

The challenge was irresistible. He strode forward, he sprang, he leapt, he teetered, and he sprang again. As he went farther, the path got trickier and trickier. He couldn’t stop now—he would fall. He leapt and cavorted and played his way along.

At last he came to a large, flat stone and stopped to rest. Then he saw why it was a stopping place. The next stone was set too far away. No one could jump to it.

Yet. There was something curious in the space itself. It was like a dust devil, but in a world without dust. It was a congruence of breaths of air, of energies. If he could figure out exactly where to put his foot, he might . . .

A sense of loss lanced him. He turned around. His mother was gone now. Only Jemel stood with him. Her eyes were songs, one of love, one of grief. Tears streamed down her face.

He understood with all his being. He had to go on. Ahead of him was his way, the path made for him. Though it would get harder and harder, it was his joy, it was his one true life.

But it was not Jemel’s way, not Jemel’s life. Hers led in some other direction from here. He could not see the direction, or even say for sure that it existed. But she saw it and would take it now.

He knew. He looked at her with a longing and a grief beyond all imagining.

Then he turned his back, looked hard at that convergence of energies. Yes, yes! Incredible! He did see where he could put his foot. He stepped out, felt for its tricky purchase, and . . .

Z
eya stood in a crazy version of his home country. Mountains jutted up in every direction, but steeper than in his homeland, and thicker with pines on the high slopes. The lines of the ridges were sharper and wilder, the peaks higher, and they were covered with snow.

Snow? But the land was in bloom. He looked down again at the hills and valleys. They were lush with mountain ash trees, yellow birches, hemlocks, red oaks, and other broad-leaved trees in full glory. The dogwood trees in the wide valleys were in bloom, and the fields were wild with flowers.

Everything was altered. The grasses were pink, the rivers orange, and the sedges along their banks turquoise. The rhododendrons flung out blossoms in mad colors, scarlet, fuchsia, and canary yellow. The rocks of the hills glittered like gemstones. Above them the sun was rising, and its globe was silver.

He laughed. A very gaudy version of his home.

He was standing on a high aerie, a rocky point that offered a vista in every direction of whatever country this was. A nagging thought popped up clear, and he grinned at himself. How could he see the flowers of the low valleys from here on top of the mountains? If this was the Land beyond the Sky Arch, his eyesight was extra-powerful here. He liked that.

The sky above the peaks was a faint lilac. He found that he could look directly at the silver sun without hurting his eyes. He thought the color was terrific.

It’s rising
, said Tsola’s voice inside his mind,
except that it never comes up. It’s always rising.

He laughed out loud at that notion—what else could he do?

Suddenly he heard song and looked around. The sky below him, close to the trees, was filled with birds. Taking his time, he spotted warblers, scarlet tanagers, sparrows, owls, chickadees.
Where are the ravens?
he asked himself, and then saw a sprinkle of them on a ridge across the way. He raised his face high, made a wish, blinked, and saw the big birds he loved, the ones that rode the winds far above the trees and even above the balds—a half dozen hawks spread out, a pair of war eagles near a nest, and on the eastern horizon a lone buzzard.