Shadow World (10 page)

The last of the Elpind's purple and white plant products disappeared, and the humans recycled their dishes.

"What's the schedule for today?" Cara rose to her feet, the little autocam readjusting its position in the air next to her.

"Eerin and I will spend this week boning up on survival skills, advanced first aid, and any special info we'll need to perform our pair project assignment--

which we'll find out about from Rob this afternoon. All the while we'll be using our free time getting to know each other and each other's ways better, trading language skills, that kind of thing. Next week we'll learn what our specific assignment is going to be, so we can begin planning for it."

Cara gave Mark a long look. "You sound pretty enthusiastic about this pair project. Does this mean you've changed your mind about leaving

StarBridge, Mark?"

He shook his head, feeling his own features tighten. "No, I'm just doing this because I was the most experienced student who was currently available.

My way of saying thanks to Rob Gable and this school, I guess. I owe both of them a lot."

"Maybe you'l change your mind," she said, giving him a sideways glance as they moved along the crowded corridor.

"That's obviously what Rob's hoping, but I won't," Mark said shortly, hoping she'd take the hint.

Eerin, in hin's typical fashion, had forged ahead of them.

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Finally, the Elpind halted and waited for hin's slow companions. "Hin has observed that humans are capable of moving faster than Mark and Cara,"

hin said with a hint of reproof.

"What did hin say?" Cara demanded.

"We're a pair of tortoises, it seems," Mark told her, chuckling dryly. "And Eerin is the hare."

Cara watched the Elpind bound ahead of them with all of hin's exuberant energy. "Don't they
ever
slow down?" she wondered aloud.

"No," Mark said slowly, suddenly sobered, "they can't afford to slow down.

Eerin can't afford to waste time."

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Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5

The Mortenwol

Morning came early, but a gritty-eyed Mark rolled out of bed without a grumble. Eerin had ignored every attempt yesterday to find out just what this Mortenwol thing was, and by that time his curiosity was acute.

After a quick shower, he felt better. "I'm ready," he told Eerin expectantly.

"You can start the Mortenwol anytime."

"At home it is done in the part of our dwelling that is open to the sky."

"A courtyard?" Mark guessed. "Okay. You want to go back to the observation dome?"

Eerin nodded. Hin disappeared into the other bedroom and came back with the two cases Mark had seen the day before. Hin handed the long, thin one to Mark to carry. It was very light.

When they reached the observatory, Mark settled on one of the low couches to watch whatever was about to happen. Eerin took position in the middle of the room, beneath the peak of the great dome. Hin's creamy coloring glimmered palely in the starlight. The Elpind had not spoken since arriving, and there was a strange, distant look in the golden eyes.

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Placing the long case on the floor, Eerin opened it, removing six feathers.

Each was black-tipped and yellow-spined, but two were deep red, one a dark green, two a soft blue, and one a pure, startling white. The plumage was full and springy, not tired-looking the way Mark had seen old feathers become.

With quick motions of hin's long, slender fingers, Eerin wove the six feathers together until they became a chaplet. Hin slipped the headband over hin's head, where it made an attractive contrast to the Elpind's creamy down.

Next the Elpind slid a small oblong board out of the second case. About half a meter long, it appeared to be made of wood and was finely worked.

Carefully Eerin twisted a short lever attached to the underside.
Some type of
winding mechanism,
Mark decided. Then, standing, hin bent and spread long fingers to press the four corners of the board simultaneously. A low, powerful hum emerged.

A music box of some kind?
Mark wondered. At Eerin's next touch, this time a gentle tap over a spidery-looking symbol in the center, the box began to play. The purity of its sound impressed Mark; each note was like a little bell.

The Elpind stood motionless for the first few notes, gazing distantly up at the stars overhead. Then, with an incredible leap straight into the air, Eerin was dancing.

Many heartbeats later, Mark realized that his mouth was still hanging open.

The agility, the pinpoint control, the amazing strength and power that the movements implied: he'd never seen anything like it, not in holo-vids of professional ballet, not in tough gymnastics contests ... not anywhere.

Mark himself was a good dancer. He was highly skilled, too, at the stylized, rhythmic movements that were the foundation of the self-defense training he'd taken for years; he knew how to think and move in patterns. But Eerin's dance was incredible. The intricacy, the quick repetitions, the grace with which every movement was made ... it awed him.

The music from the little board swelled out in high, reedy notes, wild and sweet and joyous. It was full of energy, like the Elspind themselves.

Pattern after pattern of rising notes repeated and crescendoed. The weaving of the rhythms was complex, but simple to follow, and Mark felt a response rise from deep within

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him. The notes called to him, quickening the blood in his veins. He found he had to consciously keep himself on the couch, that the music was practically pulling him into joining the wild dance. He perched on the edge of his seat, feet twitching.

Mark kept his eyes fixed on Eerin. With each repetition of the musical theme Eerin seemed to leap a little higher, whirl a little faster. Yet there was no sense of frantic exertion. Each movement floated, as if a feather danced. The dance was gracefully effortless and obviously fraught with deep emotion.

A piercing new note sounded, and Mark sensed that it signaled the

beginning of the end. Sounding again, it began a pattern of its own, moving in and out of the established melody, slowing the wild rhythm bit by bit. Then with a long trembling of the high, sharp note, it was over.

Eerin came back to the couch, eyes shining with energy and joy. Hin wasn't even breathing hard.

Mark hunted for words. "That was--that was worth getting up for!"

The Elpind nodded graciously, seeming to understand the depth of the compliment, coming, as it did, from a species that craved hours on end in a comalike state. Hin began unweaving the feathers, laying them carefully in the oblong case.

"Really, Eerin. I loved it, all of it!" Mark walked over to collect the music board and bring it back to Eerin. 'Tell me what it means. It's more than just a dance, isn't it?"

"It is a ritual, the most important ritual of the Elspind. The movements are learned by al , but each individual makes stylistic variations meaningful to hin. The sequences of movements that form the internal patterns are handed down from family to family. Any Elpind watching a Mortenwol can tell from which family line the dancer has descended."

"Are you telling a story in the dance, the story of your family? What does

'Mortenwol' mean? And what do you call that thing?" He pointed to the music board that Eerin was now tucking back into its protective covering.

"This is a kareen," Eerin replied. "No, the dance is not a story. Mortenwol means ... the best words are ... death dance," hin said calmly.

Mark recoiled as if he'd been struck.

The Elpind did not seem to notice. "It is performed each

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morning to greet a new day of life and to prepare the body and the mind should death come in the midst of that life. And there are other ritual times when the Mortenwol may also be danced. If death is imminent or inevitable, for example, an Elpind will dance the Mortenwol--or, if incapable of performing the dance, the Elpind has the right to ask any other Elpind to dance in hin's, heen's or han's stead."

"Death dance," whispered Mark, shocked.
"Every
day?"

"We Elspind live close to death," said Eerin serenely. "Don't humans wish to be ready when death comes?"

Mark was trying to get control of his emotions. This was an important part of Eerin's culture; it wasn't his place to criticize it. Interrelators were trained to understand, rather than judge. But death was hardly his favorite topic right now!

Thanks a lot, Rob,
he thought bitterly.

"Mark?" Eerin was staring at him. "Don't humans wish to be ready when death comes? What do they do to prepare?"

Mark sank back down onto the couch. All the energy and lightness he'd felt watching Eerin dance had fled; he was tired and depressed.

"Humans do wish to be ready," he said after a moment's thought, trying to answer Eerin's question honestly. "But very few ever are. Some religions have rituals, but usually they occur after the person dies. Most humans'

preparations are financial or legal, to provide for their families. To dwell on the idea of death every day would seem morbid to a human."

"It does not seem morbid to Elspind."

He looked thoughtfully at Eerin. "I know. That music you played ... it was happy!"

"Do humans dance?"

"Sure. Most do, anyway. I love to dance, myself."

"When Mark dances fast and free, does Mark feel afraid?"

"Well, no."

"Sad?"

Mark shook his head.

"Because dancing drives out the negatives, brings up energy. It leaves one strong and clean. Full of life, Mark."

"That's my point!" the human protested. "Full of life.
Not
ready for death."

"Death is a part of life. Mortenwol celebrates the whole of

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the pattern." Eerin blinked. "Can we have breakfast now?"

Mark heaved himself off the couch. "Sure. I'm trying to understand, Eerin, but to me, death just isn't something to celebrate."

"No," agreed Eerin, making an obvious effort to slow hin's usual exuberant rush toward food. "It is each day of life that is the happy occasion. The joy of Mortenwol each morning is that hin is alive to dance it again. It is also a commitment to give hinself gladly to life that day. That includes the part of life that is death, if it should choose that day to come. No one can separate them."

I
can.
Out of deference to the Elpind, Mark didn't say the words, but he felt oddly betrayed, not knowing why.

"It is all tied together: the dance, the music, the feathers," Eerin continued, oblivious to Mark's mood. "The feathers are more than decoration. They come from the tails of the Elseewas. That translates to 'Shadowbird.' " For the last word, Eerin abandoned Mizari to combine two of hin's limited supply of English words. Without teeth, the "sh" sound definitely lost something in the translation.

Eerin switched back to Mizari. "This beautiful, multicolored bird lives in the mountains of my world. Their feathers are rare, so they become family treasures, handed down from generation to generation. They are priceless; no amount of money can buy one. It is a sign of hin's family's rich heritage and high esteem that hin was given six to have for hin's very own," Eerin finished with pride.

Mark was glad to pursue the seeming change of subject. "Why are the feathers so scarce?" he asked. "Has the bird been hunted too much?"

"No. Hin's people do not eat flesh, and rarely hunt unless in the case of a rogue predator. It is forbidden to kill an Elseewas, Mark. Their feathers can only be found, not taken."

Eerin stopped talking for a moment as they entered one of the dining areas.

The Elpind waited impatiently, hopping a little from foot to foot, as the human got his food.

When they were seated at the table, the Elpind continued, "The Elseewas is an important symbol to Elspind. The adult bird lives only six days. We feel a certain kinship to it, since the Elpind adult lives only six years, at most, after the Change."

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Mark wondered how Eerin could sit there, calmly eating and speaking so matter-of-factly about what seemed to him to be a tragically early death.
It's
normal for them,
he reminded himself again. I
can't judge the Elpind culture
by my feelings. Remember, understanding, not judgment.

"Six days?" he said, carefully neutral. "That's not long."

"The Elseewas grows very rapidly, mates, hatches one brood, then dies,"

said Eerin. "But it sings so marvelously and dies with such grace and passion that it symbolizes the way we, too, wish to live and die."

The Elpind's golden eyes grew faraway and hin stopped eating for a second.

"Elspind say that to see the death of an Elseewas changes one's life forever.

Hin has never been so fortunate."

Mark didn't want to ask, but he had to. "How do they die?"

"They drown."

"Drown? A bird?"

"They fly out over a body of water and perform a ... well, we call it a dance. It is an incredibly acrobatic effort. Parts of the Mortenwol symbolize that last flight. Then, when the bird is spent, it plunges into the water. Some speculate that it dies in the air and merely falls, but those who have seen it say that isn't true. They say the Elseewas seems eager for its last adventure and dives to find it."

All of a sudden this talk of last flights and death plunges was too much for Mark. "Uh, excuse me, I'm through," he said, getting up to ram his tray down the recycling chute with more force than necessary.

He turned around to find the Elpind studying him carefully. Mark cleared his throat.

"Uh, we've got advanced first-aid training this morning. If we go now, we can practice a bit ... you know, name the items in the kit for each other ... before the instructor gets there."

Eerin waited until they were in the hall before hin spoke.

"The CLS team that prepared hin to leave Elseemar warned of this. They told hin not to speak much of our culture's way of facing death because it would seem callous to many. They said the young of most species often have not even seen death yet."