*24*
The base group of Kaden’s Pack Gelbo was like most mid-sized villages: many temporary wooden structures and a handful of stone buildings. In the dim past, Quintaglios had built many stone temples and houses, but, so the stories went, landquakes had been few and far between then. These days, it didn’t make sense to lavish too much care on a building, for it would not be too many kilodays before tremors would crack its foundations or topple its walls.
The Packs had to move about, lest they hunt all the meat in an area. Soon enough, Kaden’s people would abandon this village and move to another. Likewise, after this territory had been unhunted for several kilodays, another Pack would come here.
Kaden and Afsan arrived at the village shortly after even-dawn. Both were dusty after their long hike. They’d killed well on the way, though, so Afsan sought only a brief swim in a stream before going off to see where Wab-Novato plied her craft.
Novato’s workshop was in what used to be a temple to Hoog, one of the Five Original Hunters. Although most of the temple’s rooms were no longer inhabitable, their roofs having caved in or their supporting walls buckled, several were still usable.
Kaden’s instructions had been no more precise than that — one of the rooms in the temple — and Afsan had to poke his muzzle through the entrances of three chambers before he found the one he wanted. The first housed a massive old female who worked metal into surgical instruments that were traded, so Afsan was told, throughout Land. The second was a small movable-type shop, apparently setting up documents for printing. They had worktables covered with thousands of tiny metal slugs, each one with a different glyph on it. The third was a bizarre place in which two young males had thousands of lizards in open-mouth glass jars. Something about trying to understand why some bred with certain characteristics, apparently.
These two fellows gave Afsan directions to Novato’s room — “last one on your right after you pass the sacrificial pit” — and Afsan headed down the corridor, sunlight streaking through cracks in the ceiling.
On his way, he noted that on some of the walls faded murals were still visible, depicting ancient hunting rituals and — Afsan shuddered — what seemed to be a cannibalistic feast.
Novato was nowhere to be seen, but her office turned out to be quite small, far smaller than that occupied by the lizard-breeding operation, for instance. In the foreground was a round flat basin that reminded Afsan of some he’d seen used by lapidarists to polish stones. Leaning against one wall were big sheets of the clearest glass Afsan had ever seen. Another wall was crowded with shelves containing books, carefully organized, Afsan saw, in The Sequence.
Most of the titles were recent, printed on the new presses, but a few were older hand-copied volumes. As Afsan scanned the titles, one discipline flowing smoothly into the next, his tail did an involuntary jump. Novato had a complete set of Sa-leed’s Treatise on the Planets, bound in rarest kurpa leather.
Suddenly Afsan heard a low growling from behind him. His claws automatically extended and he turned quickly around. There, in the doorway arch — whatever actual door the ancients had used was long since gone — stood a female five or six kilodays older than Afsan, her skin mottled with those yellow flecks sometimes seen on people from the mountains.
Afsan immediately realized what he had done. Having spotted the books, he had walked clear into the room, violating every territorial rule. Quickly he bowed low from the waist.
“Forgive me,” he said at once. “Your room fascinated me so I…” Afsan thought briefly about trying to explain how he’d assumed that an ancient discarded temple was open territory, but he realized that would simply get him in worse trouble. He swallowed hard. “I’m sorry; I meant no disrespect. You are Wab-Novato, aren’t you? The glassworker?”
The female’s claws were still at full extension and her mouth hung loosely open, showing serrated teeth. “I’m her,” she said after a moment. “What do you want of me?”
“I’ve traveled a long way…”
“Where are you from?”
“From Carno, originally…”
“Carno’s not so far.”
“But my home now is in Capital City.” He bobbed his muzzle toward the bookshelf. “I am Tak-Saleed’s apprentice.”
Novato’s claws retracted so quickly that they seemed to just disappear. “Saleed’s apprentice! By the eggs of creation, come in!”
Afsan clicked his teeth weakly. “I am in.”
“Of course, of course. I’ve read your master’s works a great many times. He’s a genius, you know — a complete genius! What a treat it must be to study under him.”
Afsan knew his muzzle would give away any polite lie, so he simply bobbed his head slightly.
“What brings you here, good fellow? You are a long way from home.”
“I’ve been on my pilgrimage. Our ship is docked near here.”
“Pilgrimage boats don’t come to the west side of Land.”
“This was, ah, a most unusual pilgrimage. That’s part of what I want to talk to you about. But the main thing is your far-seers.”
“What do you know about my instruments?”
“I sailed with Var-Keenir…”
“Keenir! That gruff old beast! By the prophet’s claws, he was fascinated with my work.”
“A boon to navigation, he said.”
“That it is.”
“But it has other uses,” said Afsan.
“Aye, that it does. If the hunters ever get over their silly prejudice against it, it could revolutionize tracking. And…”
“And astrology.”
Novato clicked her teeth loudly in delight, “You’ve tried it, then? To look at the objects in the sky?” Her tail pranced with joy. “Glorious, isn’t it?”
Afsan was actually slightly disappointed. He thought he’d been the first to use it for serious night-sky observations. “Indeed. I saw many things on my journey.”
“You were using that far-seer I’d made for Keenir? The brass one about this long, with an ornate crest just below the eyepiece?”
He nodded.
“Ah, not a bad effort. Exceptionally good lenses, but not all that powerful. The one I used to have up on the Osbkay volcano is much bigger. It showed a lot more detail.”
“More detail? That would be wonderful! Please, you must let me see.”
“I’m sorry, Afsan, but it’s broken.” She indicated a tube about as thick around as Afsan’s leg lying on a nearby bench. “The lens cracked — I have that problem a lot with the bigger ones. I’ve been meaning to repair it, but we’ve been getting more and more black clouds belching from the volcano. I’m afraid we’re going to have to move the village again, and my equipment does not travel well. It seemed better to wait until we get to our new location before making another lens that size.”
Afsan was disappointed. “I’ve seen some amazing sights through Keenir’s far-seer,” he said. “But with a larger instrument, you must have seen even more.”
“Oh, indeed. Wondrous things. But there is much I can’t explain.”
Afsan clicked his teeth in empathy. “Me, too.”
“Come,” said Novato. “Let me show you the sketches I’ve made. Perhaps you’ve got some ideas.”
They moved across the room, Afsan needing three steps for every two of hers. At the far side, she had a couple of wooden stools. He straddled one while Novato fetched a leather-bound book from a nearby bench. She swung a leg over her stool, too, and sat not far from Afsan, proffering the book. Afsan opened it, the stiff leather creaking slightly as he did so. At first he thought that she’d acquired the book full of empty pages, but then he saw the gut ties that pulled the spine together and he realized that she added each new leaf as the sketch on it was done. The leaves were large and square and the sketches seemed to have been created with a combination of graphite and charcoal.
And what sketches they were! Novato had a keen eye and a steady, practiced hand. Add to that the fact that she had done most of her observations through a more powerful far-seer and the results were breathtaking. At the bottom of each page she had noted the name of the object depicted and the date and time she had made the observation.
The first page showed Slowpoke, Afsan’s favorite moon, as a thin crescent with a ragged edge — mountains like predator teeth — along the demarcation between lit and unlit parts.
The next showed another moon, Swift Runner. Its surface, seen in a gibbous view, looked like spilled entrails, fresh from a kill. Lumpy forms covered its face, each shaded a little differently with charcoal smudges or graphite cross-hatchings.
Several more views of moons followed, and then Novato showed Afsan her sketches of the planets. She had devoted five pages to Kevpel, the planet Afsan believed, although he hadn’t yet told Novato this, to be the next closest to the sun from the Face of God.
The first sketch showed Kevpel with a diagonal line through it, almost as if Novato had meant to strike out the sketch, unhappy with the result. But why add it to the bound collection if that were so? The next showed Kevpel with handles coming out of each side, like a drinking bowl, similar to the handles Afsan had observed on Bripel during the voyage of the Dasheter. The third page also showed Kevpel with handles, but they seemed larger, more open. The fourth showed another view, with the handles oriented differently again. And the fifth, like the first, seemed to have a line through Kevpel, although this line was canted at an opposite angle to the one on the first page.
“What do you make of those?” asked Novato.
Afsan looked up. “The ones with handles are like what I saw on Bripe! when I observed it with the far-seer.”
“Yes, I’ve got a similar set of studies of Bripel. It’s much like Kevpel.”
“But,” said Afsan, “I don’t understand the ones with the lines through them.”
“They are the same thing. The handles seem to be thin indeed. When seen edge on, they all but disappear. In fact,” and here Novato lowered her voice, somewhat embarrassed, “I have to admit that in that last sketch what I drew as a continuous line really looked like a few broken line segments. But I knew it must be continuous; I knew it.”
Afsan’s mind raced ahead. “It’s almost like a torus, or a ring, around the planet.”
“Yes.”
“A solid ring. Incredible. It would be like a gigantic guvdok stone. Or like those great lava flows that harden into flat pathways, only in the sky, floating. Imagine walking on such a thing!”
Novato lifted the book from Afsan’s lap, thumbed it to find a particular page near the back, and returned the volume to him.
“Look at that,” she said.
“Yes?” Afsan said blankly.
“See the planet in the foreground?”
“Yes,” said Afsan. “It’s Kevpel again, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. Do you recognize the pattern of stars in the background?”
“It’s the Skull of Katoon, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. Look at the star representing Katoon’s right eye.”
Afsan scanned the page, noting the silvery-gray marks that Novato had used to indicate stars. “It’s behind the ring around Kevpel.”
“Say that again,” said Novato.
“I said, it’s behind the ring around Kevpel — by the prophet’s claws, it’s behind the ring, but still visible! The ring must be glass. No, that can’t be right; we’d never see it. It must be — it must not be solid; maybe it’s made up of pieces of — what? — rock? It looks solid…”
“From this distance, yes. But up close,” said Novato, “I bet it’s made up of countless tiny fragments.”
“Amazing.”
“And Bripel has such a ring, too,” said Novato.
“Yes.” Afsan wrinkled his muzzle in thought. “Then why doesn’t the Face of God have a ring?”
This took Novato completely by surprise. Her jaw dropped open, showing teeth, something one never did in polite company. “What do you mean?”
“The Face of God is a planet, too.” And then he told her everything he’d come to believe during his voyage with Var-Keenir aboard the
Dasheter
, told her how the
Dasheter
had sailed around the world at his suggestion, proving that the story of Land being an island floating down an endless River was just silly myth, proving that the world they called home was nothing more than one of the moons that moved in circular paths around the planet known as the Face of God.
Novato knew at a glance that Afsan was relaying what he believed to be the truth. Yet her expression made it clear that she was having trouble digesting it all. But at last she nodded slowly. “It’s incredible,” she said, “but it explains much.” She wrinkled her muzzle. “Our world a moon…”
“That’s the easy part,” Afsan said softly.
Novato nodded. “Indeed. The other part…”
“God merely another planet.”
“It frightens me to even hear those words,” she said.
“It frightened me, as well.”
“How can it be thus?”
“How can it be anything but thus?” Afsan gestured at her sketches. “You’ve seen that what’s in the sky often isn’t what it first appears to be. I didn’t set out to disprove the existence of God. I was simply looking at things to make sense of what I saw.”
“But for there to be no God…”
Afsan’s voice was softer still. “There may still be a God.”
“But you said the Face was nothing supernatural.”
“That proves only that what we call the Face is not really God. There may still be a God.”
Novato looked excited. “You’ve seen something else, then, something that could be God?”
Afsan dipped his muzzle. “No. No, I haven’t.”
“Then…?”
“I’m not sure. People believed in God long before Larsk returned with his story of having seen Her directly.”
“That’s true,” said Novato.
“Perhaps Larsk was wrong. Perhaps no one has ever seen the real face of God.”
“But She may still exist.” Novato’s voice gained strength. “She must still exist.”
“I don’t know,” said Afsan. “I just don’t know. Have you read the ancient philosophers? Dolgar? Keladax? People like that?”