Afdool meant “meaty legbone.” Afsan meant “meaty thighbone.” It was a forgivable mistake, especially since Afsan was by far the less common name.
“Uh, it’s Afsan, actually.”
“Afsan. Of course. Saleed’s apprentice. I hope you last longer than your predecessors.”
“I already have.” Afsan instantly regretted saying that; it sounded boastful.
But Keenir did not seem to be offended. “Your master and I go back a long time, boy. We were creche-mates. But he was never as skinny as you are. What’s a slip like you doing with a name like Afsan, anyway?”
“I did not choose the name.”
“No, of course not. Anyway, I thank you for your good wishes. Successful hunting to you, too, young Afsan — whatever it is that you seek.”
“Actually, sir, there is something I seek.”
“Eh?”
“The far-seer, sir…”
“The far-seer?”
“Yes. You remember, you had it that day we met in Saleed’s office.”
“Indeed.” Keenir’s tail swished. “Saleed thought it had no applicability to his work. Would he approve of you using it?”
Afsan felt his posture drooping. “Um, no, sir, he wouldn’t. I’m sorry I asked.” He turned to go.
“Wait, good Thighbone, I’d be delighted to let you use the far-seer.”
“You would? But why?”
“Why?” Keenir clicked his teeth in glee. “Simply because Saleed would disapprove. To my cabin, lad!”
*11*
The far-seer was marvelous. Before dark, Afsan practiced with it, looking up at the
Dasheter
’s riggings, catching sight of old Dath-Katood snoozing in that little bucket atop the lead mast, the place from which he was supposed to be watching for — for Afsan knew not what, but Captain Keenir had insisted that there be someone in the lookout’s perch day and night. Afsan had heard grumblings that Keenir was obsessed with having the waters watched, and that, in the view of at least some of the crew, it was a waste of time. Apparently Katood was one of those who felt that way, and so was taking advantage of the quiet and warm sun for a rest. Afsan wondered how Katood’s stomach stood the swaying of the mast at that height.
Afsan also briefly turned the far-seer onto the sun itself. That had been a mistake. The sun was always glaringly bright and hot, but, except when seen at the horizons or when partially obscured by clouds, it was hard to tell that it was a disk rather than simply an incredibly bright point. But through the far-seer, the radiance was amazing, and Afsan’s eye had stung with pain. For the rest of the day, he had dark afterimages floating in front of him.
There was little else to look at in the daytime. Waves through the far-seer looked much like waves close up. It was briefly amusing to examine things through the wrong end of the tube, and see them as though from very far away. Land was quite hilly, so this reverse view was an unusual perspective. Afsan had never seen another Quintaglio from such an apparent distance. Still, even looking at them this way, Afsan could tell some of his shipmates apart. Dybo’s round shape was unmistakable and Captain Keenir’s stubby tail betrayed him when seen in profile.
At one point, Afsan saw a giant wingfinger in the distance. Its wingspan was perhaps as great as the length of the
Dasheter
. The graceful tawny shape in the circle of light at the end of the far-seer never flapped its leathery wings. Rather, it seemed to glide forever, rising and falling on currents of air. Afsan wondered if the huge creature spent its whole life aloft, skimming the surface of the water to scoop up fish or baby serpents. The freedom of its flight captivated Afsan, and he watched for a good daytenth before losing sight of it.
Four moons were visible as faint ghosts in the purple sky. It was not unusual to see a few during the day. Afsan turned the far-seer on each of them, but the images were washed out by sunlight.
Patience
, he told himself.
Night will be here soon.
And, indeed, it did come quickly. The sun, purple with the age of the day, egg-shaped, veiled with wisps of cloud, slipped below the horizon. Darkness gathered rapidly, and a few pinpoints of light appeared. Afsan, of course, knew which were stars and which were planets. He chose a star, the bright one that represented the shoulder in the constellation of Matark, the hornface upon which the great hunter Lubal had led her disciples into battle. A few twists of the far-seer’s tube, already cool in the night, brought the star into crystal focus. Afsan was disappointed that, although the image was perhaps sharper than what he was used to seeing, it revealed no detail: just a yellowish-white pinpoint of light.
Undeterred, he aimed the brass tube at Kevpel, one of the planets, a speck in the firmament that, to the unaided eye, appeared no different from a regular star.
Afsan staggered backwards, almost tripping over his own tail. He put down the far-seer, rubbed his eye, and tried again. The planet showed as a disk —
a disk
! — in the eyepiece. No doubt: it was a circular object, a solid object. He marveled at the sight for some time before he realized that there was more to the image than he’d at first realized. Off to the left of the disk, there were three tiny specks of light in a line, and on the right side there were another two specks, one of which was so faint, Afsan wasn’t absolutely sure it was even there.
He swung his gaze closer to the horizon, not far from where the sun had gone down, and turned the far-seer on Davpel. Again, Afsan was shocked by what he saw. This planet showed a white crescent face! Did the planets go through phases the way the moons did? Incredible.
And what of Bripel, the only other planet visible tonight? Afsan trained the magnifying tube on it. The
Dasheter
chose that moment to roll violently under a wave, and Afsan heard the creaking of the hull, the snap of sails, the pounding of water. When the ship had calmed itself, he searched again for Bripel. What he saw he could not believe. There were handles on the sides of Bripel, hollow curves protruding to the left and right.
He lowered the eyepiece to contemplate. One planet apparently went through phases, just like the moons do. Another had an accompanying collection of lesser points of light. A third had handles, like a two-fisted drinking cup.
Afsan shook his head. It was all too much to absorb at once. But, already, one thought burned in his mind. He couldn’t give up using far-seers upon return to Capital City, regardless of what Saleed demanded. There was more to the universe than Saleed knew, more than Afsan had ever imagined. He was determined to learn its secrets, no matter what.
*12*
“Godglow!” shouted Dybo, pointing to the eastern horizon. At once, every head turned to look. Afsan couldn’t see what his friend was referring to. The sun, purple and fat, had set on the opposite horizon less than a daytenth ago, its sinking below the waves accelerated by the Dasheter’s steady drive to the east. Afsan’s eyes had already adjusted to the darkness of night, or so he’d thought, for he could see many stars, the sky reflection of the River, three crescent moons, and bright Kevpel, one of the enigmatic planets he had been examining on previous nights with the far-seer.
“Where?” came the skeptical cry from one of the other pilgrims.
Dybo was adamant. “There! See how it banishes the stars!”
“I don’t see anything,” said the skeptic.
“Douse the lamps, you hornface dropping! It’s there!”
Afsan and some of the others hurried to the glowing oil lamps mounted high on the gunwales and quickly turned off their flames. Darkness enveloped everything, broken only by the twinkling stars and bright moons overhead. No, no, that wasn’t quite right. Afsan stared intently at the distant horizon. There was a glow there, a faint, ethereal luminance, barely perceptible. Dybo must have had keen eyes indeed to have detected it while the lamps were still ablaze.
“I still don’t see anything,” said a voice from the darkness, the same gainsayer as before.
Afsan worked his muzzle to form the words “I do,” but was so moved by the wondrous sight that no sound passed his throat. He tried again, overcompensating, speaking too loudly for such an awesome moment. “I do!”
Hushed whispers of “Me, too” filled the air, then everyone fell silent. They watched, intent, for most of the night before any real progress became visible. The glow spread left and right across the horizon line, illuminating the crests of distant waves. As it grew brighter it took on discernible color, a pale yellowish-orange. It was dimmer than the early morning glow that heralded the dawn, and completely the wrong hue, but still it gave Afsan the feeling that something huge and bright and powerful was lurking just below the horizon.
Near him, one of the other pilgrims began to rock backwards, balancing against her tail, a low thrumming sound coming from deep within her chest. Afsan glanced at the other’s fingers. Her claws were still sheathed; this rocking was the beginnings of rapture, not a fight-or-flight instinct.
“God made us,” said the pilgrim softly. A few others echoed the chant. “God gave us the Land.” Several pilgrims were reciting the prayer in unison now. “God gave us the beasts upon the Land.” Three or four others were rocking back on their tails. “God gave us the teeth of a hunter, the hand of an artist, the mind of a thinker.” The glow was slightly brighter now, covering most of the horizon. “For these gifts,” said the crowd, now only Afsan’s voice missing from the chorus, “God asks but one thing.” But by the next verse, Afsan found himself joining in the chant. “Our obedience. And that we give with joy.”
They rocked together for the rest of the brief night. Even though it was even-night, when many of them should have been sleeping, they pressed on in their worship, the ship rolling back and forth along the waves, the sails snapping in the steady wind.
When dawn came, the sun rose in the east directly out of where the Godglow had been, its blue light replacing the yellow radiance. They took turns scanning the eastern horizon, the tiny, furiously bright sun tracking across the sky, but no more Godglow was to be seen. That night it returned, and ship’s priest Det-Bleen led them through many prayers, but it wasn’t until shortly before sunset the following day that Dybo’s voice went up again. “There!” he cried, loud enough for all to hear above the sounds of the ship, the thunder of the waves. “There! The Face of God!”
All eyes turned to the eastern horizon. The assembled group cast long shadows in front of themselves on the deck as the sun lowered to touch the waters behind them.
At the very edge of the eastern horizon a tiny point of yellow appeared. A few individuals gasped. Afsan was content simply to stare in wonder. It took most of the night before there was more than just a point, before there was something that had a discernible shape. It soon became clear to Afsan that he was seeing the leading edge of a vast, circular object.
According to Captain Var-Keenir, they would have to travel four thousand kilopaces more before the Face would clear the horizon. Tacking alternately port and starboard, that would take thirty-two days, the Face rising by just three percent of its total height for each day of sailing.
Time passed. The
Dasheter
continued east. The Face crawled up the sky from the horizon, a vertically striped dome growing wider and wider. It swirled with colors, yellow and brown and red and mixes of those in every imaginable combination: oranges and beiges and rusts, pale shades like dead vegetation, deep shades like fresh blood, dark shades like the richest soil.
Every morning, the sun emerged from behind the Face, a tiny blue point rising up into the sky, the Face illuminated only along its upper edge as the sun rose from it, as if from behind a vast round hill on the horizon.
It was a glorious double dawn, the top of the Face lighting up as the sun rose over it. As the day progressed, illumination pulled downward over the Face like an iridescent eyelid sliding shut over a dark orb.
Each day, dawn came a little later, the sun having to climb higher to clear the spreading dome of the Face of God. Afsan took advantage of the prolonged nights to do more observing.
That the Face was not always fully lit fascinated Afsan. In the afternoon and at night, it was indeed a bright dome on the horizon, but every morning only its upper edge was illuminated, a thin line arching up from where the water met the sky, the part of the Face beneath the line dim and violet.
And sometimes none of the Face was lit at all.
It didn’t take Afsan long to figure out what was happening, but the thought staggered him nonetheless.
The Face of God, the very countenance of his creator, went through phases, just as the moons did, and, as he had seen through the far-seer, just as some of the planets did.
Phases, waxing vertically from top to bottom. Part lit, part dark.
Phases.
The Face of God continued to rise, broadening each day, a vast dome lifting from the distant waves, until at long last, eighteen days after Dybo had first spotted the Godglow, the Face’s widest part cleared the horizon. That event, too, was marked by a prayer ceremony. It was mid-afternoon and the Face’s entire visible hemisphere was illuminated: a half circle, a vertically striped dome, standing where the River met the sky.
Afsan retained enough of his astrologer’s senses to gauge the object’s size: some fifty times the width of an outstretched thumb. He looked to the east and held both arms out horizontally so that his left hand touched the southernmost tip of the Face and his right hand touched the northernmost. Tipping his muzzle down, he saw that his arms were making an angle equal to an eighth of a circle.
Afsan had always admired sunset, had studied the wonders of the night sky, had recently seen more marvels than he’d ever imagined through the far-seer. But he was left dumb by this sight, the single most beautiful thing he had ever seen; indeed, he knew at once that this was the single most beautiful thing he would ever see.