Wings of Creation (25 page)

Caro led us, Jherrel behind her, then me and Liam, and Bryan and Alicia. Behind us all, and before the next group, Kala, head up, an amazed look on her face.

Our pace was slow. Not because of Caro’s short legs, but because the beauty we passed needed to be admired. Each group traveled at close to the same speed, like a slow wave of humanity heading for the center. On either side, the flowers lining the path were miracles of creation, more beautiful and perfect than anything on Fremont. Each petal had the perfect shape, the perfect balance of wildness and sculpted design. Even though the sun had not yet kissed us or the garden around us (it was beginning to light the group across the circle from us), the colors were clear and crisp, almost as if I could see the very cells, the water the petals drank, the effect of air on a leaf.

The orderly, kept land around SoBright, too pretty just yesterday, had become pallid and unruly, and Fremont became a wildness beyond imagining. This perfection went beyond order to something more profound.

We approached the center of the circle, which was the only lawn in the garden, just large enough for all of us to gather, folded in rows. Sunlight spilled onto the grass as we moved into the middle, sunlight and us meeting, all of the people who had become the family in our circle meeting.

In the very middle, Mohami.

Caro went to him. He knelt and picked her up and held her above his head, his thin arms shaking, a smile pasted across his face.

One of my tears splashed onto my hand.

He set Caro down and came to me, his fingers under his chin while he looked into my eyes.

Then he knelt on the ground in front of me and my daughter. “We are blessed.”

T
he withered old man knelt in front of Caro, his eyes shining. Chelo looked as beatific, almost lit from within. Sunshine poured down on the upturned and smiling faces of travelers from all of the five planets. Flowers filled the spaces people did not; tall stems netted with purple and violet, great yellow bells, bright blue stalks as high as a person. In keeping with this mad place, the flowers smelled stronger than the people, the scents mixing like honey in the air.

And we thought these soft people were going to join our side in a war?

More likely, Chelo’s viewpoint would win. Everyone would sing songs and hold hands and watch the war, and then when it was over they’d kiss the victors without even bothering to check which side they were on.

Mohami offered Chelo his hand and she took it, putting her other hand in Caro’s. Caro linked Liam in, and they all turned out, facing us in the four directions. Chelo looked toward us, her dark hair hanging on her shoulders, her olive skin sun touched, and her eyes full of tears. She clearly saw more than just me and Bryan. But maybe when you wanted a home so bad you prayed for it with every breath you took, it was easy enough to find one.

The crowd gently pressed Bryan and me forward, and we went, shuffling, having trouble breathing. I sidestepped to be in front of him, and tilted my head back and whispered, “Stop.”

He did, whispering back. “Thank you.”

The whole ceremony seemed overwrought and funny-sad. I stood in front of Bryan, his broad back serving as a wall that the slow stream of people parted around. They still moved forward all around us, many almost dancing in place, the group excitement worse than the day the roamers came into town. Three women passed us, looking joyful, sighing softly in the back of their throats as if they beheld a litter of new puppies instead of an old, bald man. A swarthy man in a gold shirt with black pants and gold sandals held his hands in front of him, folded, as if in prayer. A pair of tall lanky men held hands and walked solemnly forward, eyes shifting back and forth as if they were afraid they might miss something.

Above us, the sky was clear of fliers. Beside us, a flier with maroon wings striped in black and yellow brushed my arm and, absurdly, I looked to see if he had dropped a feather.

Bryan took a step back. Good. I followed. Slowly, ever so slowly, we two crept backward.

One step at a time.

I wanted the far edge of the crowd in the worst way.

The sky-dance of the fliers had enthralled me, but it hadn’t painted me with love for everyone else nearby the way it seemed to have affected Chelo. Before the crowd closed entirely in front of us, I caught a glimpse of Chelo’s face, laughing, her dark eyes sparkling as she said something to Mohami, the Keeper of the Ways of the Fliers of Lopali. I wondered if he’d studied at the School of Heaven’s Flight and showered in The Stream of Heaven’s Water and ate the Bread of the Enlightened and what the people called it when he went to the bathroom.

Once we finally moved far enough back for some fresh air and the crowd had lost its forward momentum, mumbled words I couldn’t quite make out rose above the crowd for a moment, and then a great deep buzz started from among the people. It turned out to be a hum. A single syllable: “uu.” Starting low and then rising, the syllable held through repeated breaths, in the end sounding like “you you you you” and then starting over.

All around us, people were clasping each other’s hands.

A voice spoke behind us. “Hum. You’ll like it.”

I turned back to see our Keepers from this morning, Kala and the
vacuous-eyed Samuel. His face was all sweetness, her voice encouraging. “Hum. Just do it. For some people, it takes a few days to feel the power of the ceremony of Morning Services.”

Hopefully it would take me forever. But we were guests, and so I hummed and Bryan hummed behind me, and at least we two hummed together, even if there was no unison between us and the crowd. What we did was more like the
uu
of two people struggling not to laugh.

Thankfully, the grand all-together hum and holding of hands seemed to be the last requirement for the morning. People began to whisper to each other, and then to talk, and, finally, to walk back toward the barracks. I pointed at the tops of the green hills where the watchers had been, which were quickly emptying. “Let’s go sit up there.”

We made it up the first low part of the grade before Kala caught up with us. She called my name, and Bryan’s, and we stopped and turned and looked down at her. “I just . . . wanted to see it from up above,” I said to her.

That made her smile. “I’ll go with you.”

“What if I promise we’ll come back?”

She only smiled again, and went past us, leading on up the hill. The ground below us that had seemed so crowded a few minutes ago was now almost empty. I spotted our family by finding Caro and Jherrel racing circles around Liam and Chelo, who walked side by side, intent on a conversation with Mohami. The mandala garden seemed even prettier from up here, but I’d come to mistrust all the beauty of Lopali.

On the other side of the hill’s crest, more hills, just like we’d driven through. I watched Kala’s back. She didn’t have the misshapen figure of a failed flier, but rather looked like most women in the Five Worlds—well-formed and strong and pretty, with no gray hair or lines by her eyes. With Kala, I had the sense she was actually young.

Weren’t they supposed to be keeping gardens instead of us?

I didn’t want to ask if there was anyplace we could talk privately. I caught up to her. “Look, Kala, one of the things we need to do is exercise. Every day. We already missed yesterday. We need to run.”

She looked like she had expected to hear something about the ceremony or a question about how we might save our souls, but to give
her credit she parsed my words well enough after a few breaths. “There is a track.”

“Can you tell us how to get there?”

“I’ll take you there.”

Of course. We weren’t dressed in exercise clothes, but we had on good enough shoes. She was in a long robe; we could outrun her. Not to get away, not yet, but we could talk to each other and maybe we wouldn’t even be overheard.

My plan worked, except for Bryan mumbling that he didn’t want to work up a sweat in his good ceremonial shirt.

I decided to take that as sarcasm.

The oval track Kala led us to hummed with activity. A busy game that involved teams and balls threaded up and down the middle, the players calling and hooting back and forth to each other. The balls were large and heavy, and looked slick. A short wall separated the game from the track itself, where five other runners circled, two lazily, two together in a race, and the other running steadily with great long bounds.

I watched Kala to see what she would do, and she camped out on a low rise where she could watch the whole track. There, she folded her hands in her lap.

Bryan sprinted out ahead of me, the footing a soft foamy material that gave underfoot and had just enough roughness so that my feet didn’t slip as I leapt into a slow run.

We went two full rounds in silence. A few more people joined us, probably also refugees from the ceremony. A woman from the game fell near us and bounced back up quickly. Bryan matched me step for step and spoke softly, his voice edged. “I need to get out of here.”

Good. No kidding. “This whole planet creeps me out. But this is the worst spot yet. Besides, we’re not exactly hidden standing around with hundreds of people every morning.”

He must have understood my meaning. “You need to stay and watch over Chelo.”

“She has Liam.”

He waited until we’d turned halfway around the track before answering. “I don’t want her hurt. You’re strong enough to take care of her.”

“So are you. You could stay and I can go.”

He grunted. “We should have heard from the Gang of Girls by now.”

I glanced across the track at silent Kala. “Neither one of us can stand this much longer, you know.”

“Seeyan may hear something. She’ll tell us if she does.”

We sped up, passing the single runner. When we passed in front of Kala, it looked like her eyes were closed. “I bet if we just ran off the track, she’d follow us.”

Bryan laughed. “So she’s good. Want to try it?”

“Surely we’ll hear from them soon.”

“Ming was supposed to contact me yesterday.”

I almost stumbled over my feet. “How?”

“We have a two-way she bought on one of the ships.”

He wasn’t carrying anything big. “Where?”

“In my jaw.”

Good for him. Good for them both. “Nice. Sometimes I think we’re all too compliant.”

“You would think that way.”

But he’d acted on it. He must be worried sick. “Maybe she just couldn’t reach you. I mean, what if she’s just out of range, or they’re being watched too closely?”

“As a dance teacher?”

There was that.

I
nduan, still carrying our wings, seemed to disappear as she walked into the cave. I squinted after her. The cave made a door in a wall of rock. Here and there, yellow and light green grasses had found enough dirt in the cracks of the rocks to send up thin tendrils, and in three places, bright yellow flowers bloomed. Red and orange leaves on long stems hung across the mouth, like a high curtain. Behind them, just darkness. No Induan. No wings. No Kayleen.

Not even any sound.

Marcus grinned as he watched me stop and stare, and then take a few more steps. Induan had gone through, so I followed what looked like her footsteps, and walked into the blackness.

Light and sound startled me, and only Marcus’s firm hand in the small of my back kept me going forward into it. When I looked behind me, the blackness was gone entirely. A ray of late sunshine speared into the cave, illuminating the darkness for quite a distance before bright artificial light took over. Our cave at home had felt big. This was . . . big enough to hold all of Artistos, and that was in this one chamber.

The walls had been made. The floor was flat, the walls a combination of squared-off and rounded, perhaps following the contours of natural veins of rock. “Wow.”

“It was created long ago, fashioned inside the bones of the moon that was the seed for Lopali.”

That sounded so Marcus. There were at least twenty or so people
in view, maybe twice that many, mostly wingless humans like us. Buildings hugged the walls. Some of the main floor had been cleared with lines painted around it. Storage? Whatever, it was empty now. A shaft of light from above lit one corner, although I couldn’t see the opening that let the light in.

I hadn’t expected a small city.

Induan’s light blond hair and Kayleen’s unruly dark tresses drew my eye. They stood bent over something in a near corner of the cave. I started toward them.

A black-and-white streak emerged from between them and bounded toward me. Sasha. I whispered thanks to whoever had brought my dog to me.

I knelt down and let Sasha barrel into me, so tired that the strength of her enthusiastic leap knocked my feet from under me; I landed on my backside covered in black-and-white dog.

Laughing, Marcus helped me up. “It’s grand, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

He grinned. I grinned back. “So why wasn’t this always our destination? I mean even before SoBright?”

His cheeks actually reddened. “It’s a secret.”

“It looks safer than SoBright.”

He gave me one of his steady you-don’t-know-everything looks. “You needed to be seen.”

I decided I’d regret answering that before I thought about it, and kept going toward the girls. Seeyan was seated on the far side of the small circle. That explained Sasha. I went right to her, and she held out her hand, putting her long slender fingers into my palm. She smiled. “Your sister is safe. And the others who came with me.”

“Where?” They hadn’t known when they left.

Seeyan shook her head. “They’re near the center of Oshai, and well guarded.”

“But I need to know where she is! What if she needs my help?”

Marcus had come up beside me. At least he looked contrite. “It’s best . . . for security . . . if you don’t know each other’s hiding place.”

I turned around on him, all the pain in my still-aching shoulders and the fatigue swimming through my body turning to a flash of
anger. “I should never have let you separate us! We should never have agreed to this.”