Bright of the Sky (11 page)

A woman peered in at him, old and strangely dressed. She spoke to him in a jumble of sounds, then handed him a cup of what smelled like water. He leaned on his side to slake his thirst, and this brought him closer to the edge of the overhead canopy. Gaping at the sight of the sky, he dropped the cup, drawing a blameful stare from the woman. She left, and his view widened.

The sky was on fire. High, stratified clouds boiled in a blue-white fire. It seemed as though it should blind him, but after the initial shock, he realized the fire was both gentle and bright. Why didn’t the woman look up and remark on the clouds being on fire? But even as he thought the question, he knew the answer.

Because it was always like this: the sky, on fire.

It wasn’t until that moment, as his transport beast crouched on the ground, and as the woman brought him another cup of water, that he was certain he was back. “Back,” he croaked, using his voice for the first time. His eyes watered, perhaps from too much sky-gazing, and a longing welled up in him. To see Sydney once again. To bring her and her mother home. If they were here, that thin hope that had become thick with repetition.

The woman narrowed her eyes, watching him drink.

He slept. When he woke, they were on the march again. The woman led a beast, massive in the shoulders and head, through a gilded landscape of yellows and brownish golds. When he scratched a wound on his temple, bits of dried blood flecked onto his hand. Punching through had been a rough journey—either that or he’d landed badly.

His guide saw him stir but, with little more than a backward glance, continued in front, holding the beast’s lead. Her cloak, frosted with the gloaming light above, fluttered in a stiff, warm breeze. On either side, low desert hills hunched up, confining their path to a narrow track.

He was in a new land. He was
back
. There would be time enough to make sense of the fiery sky, and whether he had a friend or foe walking ahead of him. It was curious that the woman was human. How could there be humans here, in this place of strange grasses and alien beasts? Once he had known the answer. With this question began the great struggle that would engage him for the rest of his days: wrestling with his mind, with his soul, for what he’d known and what he had been. Before.

In time the beast stopped, and in a convoluted process of collapse, settled onto its knees. With some difficulty, Quinn dismounted and regarded the creature.

The animal munched on grass, reaching the clumps from its great height by virtue of a long but powerfully built neck. Topping the massive, scoop-jawed head was a small cranium and dainty ears. The four long, meaty legs ended in the broad-hooved pads of its feet. Coarse hairs on its hide sheltered small critters catching a free ride, or a free meal.

The woman rummaged in one of the animal’s saddlebags. Presently she presented a few tidbits of food on a cloth, but they smelled inadvisable. Of more interest was the woman herself, her white eyebrows and golden eyes giving her an albino appearance. She wore Asian-style pants and a short jacket, silken and sturdy. Around her neck was a string of red, irregular stones. On her head she wore a wrap of silken cloth that slightly overhung her eyes, protecting them from the sun. From the sky-bright. He called it that, for lack of a better word.

From her packs the woman retrieved a new food offering. This was a kind of cereal that she mixed into a cup of water. He took the proffered cup, liking its smell already. Gulping it down, he held out the cup for more. She refilled it, smiling. He knew the word that was called for.

“Nahil,” he found himself saying.
Thank you.

At this, the woman froze. Her lips parted to say something, then closed as she stared at him.

He had just revealed that he spoke at least a little of her language.

Finally she uttered a short phrase, a mash of words anchored by heavy glottals.

He didn’t understand. The language lay buried inside him. Yet he’d said
nahil
.

His utterance had staggered her. She walked away, gazing down the valley, standing immobile for a long while.

Had he just made a drastic mistake? What a fool he was, to reveal something so important. But couldn’t he be a stranger from another nation, who knew only limited words in her language? He waited, letting her make the next move.

Coming back, she looked up into his eyes and said something in her language.

He shook his head.
I don’t understand.

She squinted her eyes at him, perhaps disbelieving him, that he knew a word of her language, but not others. But why was this so disturbing?

Then it became clear. If he hadn’t been so addled, he would have known instantly: She had known from the beginning that he wasn’t of this world; and when he said thank you, she knew he’d been here before. Evidently this was not good news.

She turned away, then sat on a rock, staring at the dust. From time to time she glanced up irritably at him, muttering.

This woman had saved his life. Where would he have found water in this barren place? But where was she taking him? He was not ready to face others in this state: weak, disoriented, confused. And now he appeared to be a less-than-welcome guest. If he could just
remember
. Whatever had transpired the last time he was here, it was an unclaimed territory: deep inside of him yet out of reach.

At last the woman rose and, coming close, scrutinized his face. She nodded, pursing her lips, as though she’d just swallowed something distasteful. She turned to the pack beast and retrieved a length of cloth. By her gestures, he realized she wanted to drape his head. He kneeled as she wound the cloth and tucked it in.

This accomplished, she brought out a small box, opening it to reveal a remarkable thing: two small golden lenses. With gestures she showed him how to wear them.

He hesitated to put them on.

Her mouth formed a sneer of impatience. She gripped her neck and made a choking gesture. Evidently there was danger in being blue-eyed. He had little choice but to trust her, and he knelt down to cradle the box and insert the lenses into his eyes. Annoyingly, his vision clouded, but he was not uncomfortable.

The woman nodded with satisfaction. “Nahil,” she said.

He decided to trust her for now. She had revealed that he was in danger, and that she would help him. Even so little information was priceless.

They set out again, his guide insisting that he ride. Quinn felt a new energy, even an exultation. His strength was returning. He had survived. So far, he had survived.

At length they and their pack beast emerged from the narrow valley down which they had been traveling for hours. Before them lay a sight that both thrilled and sobered him: a colossal plain, relentlessly flat. Spanning it all, the heavens sparkled, forming an endless bright cloud to the limits of vision. In the sky’s soft folds he perceived just the slightest dimming into lavender.

As they descended onto the plains, he saw that at the edge of the flatlands was a towering wall of blue-black that stretched to the limit of sight. The valley they had just come down—perhaps five miles wide—pierced that wall like a tributary. They had been in a minor valley. Now they were in the heart of things.

The wall was a dark escarpment, appearing to form the boundary of the world itself. At an awful height, it bore down on them, bringing a feeling of chaos restrained. It raced toward them over the dry mud pans. . . . But even as his eyes told him this, he knew the wall didn’t move.

Later. He would understand it later.

Several people with pack beasts passed them on their route. The road was little more than a dusty track. If they knew how to make eye lenses, he thought it strange they used no mechanized transport.

One man turned around to take a second look at Quinn, but otherwise he did not draw attention. His skin was slightly darker than most others here, but there were variations in skin tone, and he thought he might pass as long as he didn’t have to speak.

The clouds overhead were cooling toward a time that might be dusk. It seemed that the day had been many hours too long already, yet still the sky-bright churned. They were approaching an inhabited place.

They came upon a corral of pack beasts like his own. Beyond this, a dusty but clean settlement—little more than three dozen or so huts, made of an irregular, molded material of an indescribable color somewhere between black and gold.

The people here conveyed an impression of lean physicality, precise of movement with little wasted on gestures. He would have said fighters, though he saw no arms. By their behavior they appeared more like traders— ones who knew a fair price and meant to fetch it. He had difficulty distinguishing men from women at a casual glance, for their dress had no obvious gender markers.

Into one of the huts his companion went barefoot; when she emerged, she presented him with a quilted jacket to go over his shirt. Peering into the doorway, Quinn saw goods laid out. Cottage industry.

His guide glanced ahead, and her face took on a look of alarm. In their path was a small crowd. This seemed to confound his guide, who looked to the left and right for a way to pass. But the line of huts funneled them toward the gathering, and it would draw attention to pause. As they moved closer, they heard voices raised.

They moved closer. In the midst of the small crowd lay a man, garroted. A device of sticks and wire was wound around his neck, and he was dragging air in between swollen lips. His hands bled as he pulled on the wires, to no avail.

Astride him, standing perhaps seven feet tall, was an extraordinary creature.

Thin, almost impossibly elongated, the being wore a long, narrow skirt, sleeveless tunic, and elaborately silvered vest. His powerful muscles declared his gender, when otherwise he might be mistaken for female. His face was deeply sculpted, and his lips, sensual and fine.

Quinn locked in on that face. It was the one on his door knocker. He felt the shock hit deep, into his bones. Here, beyond doubt, was the thing he must hide from.

Every aspect of this creature—his stature, bearing, and motions—was oddly beautiful. Beside him, the villagers looked fleshy and sordid. The creature’s skin was a deep bronze, darker by far than any of those who stood staring at the victim, one of their own. The executioner straightened from his task and skimmed the crowd with his eyes, stopping for a moment on Quinn.

The creature held him under a dark gaze. Quinn fought for standing, wrestled for control, until the gaze dismissed him. To such a being, Quinn was not interesting.

Then the creature strode off, with a grace of movement unlikely in one so tall. The crowd parted for him swiftly, but no one would meet the creature’s eyes. As the crowd dispersed, Quinn watched for the figure, but it had disappeared.

A tugging at his arm got Quinn moving again, despite a sense that he had just been given a clue to some profound puzzle.

They went past the strangling victim, who lay, one knee raised up, hands clutching at his throat, staring at the sky-bright. Those watching him lost interest, leaving him in his agony.

This vision clung to Quinn. Then the woman was leading him off to the side, down an alley with wagon ruts carved in the golden soil. He followed her, feeling drained by the day’s irreconcilable images. He held the pack beast’s reins as his companion made yet another house call. This time, though, she came back outside and motioned him to enter.

One look at the four men inside, and Quinn knew they were lying in wait for him. He landed the first blow, sending one of them crashing. The hut was small, and he was confined amid the three remaining men and the woman, all of whom rushed him. Filled with a savage will to escape, he spun around, lashing out again and again. He jabbed backward with an elbow and connected with flesh, but as he swung around to complete the assault, his stomach met a fist even larger than his own. The man looked surprised when Quinn managed a knee to his groin. But then Quinn was down on one knee, and they had his arms behind his back.

Looking up from the floor where they were securing ropes around his wrists, he gazed into the eyes of the woman who’d saved him from the desert. She slowly unwound her head scarf, then pulled her hands through her hair in a casual gesture of one home from a trying journey. Her hair was startlingly white.

They had been traveling for many days. Gagged and bound, Quinn was imprisoned in a tall jar with breathing holes at the top. His kicks could not shatter it. With no vision of the outside world, he couldn’t gauge the passing of days, and slept between bouts of shouting for release. All ignored.

The jar was bad, but he could bide his time. They hadn’t killed him, nor delivered him to the bronze creature. They had taken his boots and his pictures. At intervals they let him out to take food and walk and relieve himself, under guard. So he was not dead yet.

Sometimes he fell to thinking that he had gone mad at last. That this impossible world was his final refuge from sanity. He had seen unearthly creatures, and an unearthly sky. The black wall that rose like a tidal wave. Yet it was a consistent madness; and in his better moments he knew just where he was.

On his brief reprieves from the jar, he found never-ending desert—all hard yellow soil, without landmark or habitation. No trees grew on these plains, increasing its look of blasted flatness. Once, he saw a few round shapes floating in the sky. With no way to judge distance he couldn’t tell if they were large or small. Dirigibles, he guessed. He listened to every word the guards spoke. The sounds of some words were familiar, and now and then a bit of meaning coalesced and shredded under his scrutiny.

When his captors tried to put him back in the jar, he fought them, even weak as he was from inactivity. Since they avoided hitting him, he presumed that they wanted to keep him healthy. He held on to this thread of hope— that they were permitting him to live—for all the reasons that he had to live: for Sydney, here, and for Mateo, there. Both in jeopardy because of Titus Quinn.

For a time he was sure that he was traveling on a train, or at least some kind of rolling transport. He tried learning about his captors and his surroundings by smell. He had taken to standing in a half crouch, with his fingers gripped through the holes in the top of the jar. There, the air was freshened, laden with scents other than his own. He let the air flow over his tongue, under the roof of his mouth. As he concentrated on the smells, an odd thing began to happen. Wisps of memory came riding on the smells. Faces of people, structures. Emotions, not all of them bad.