The Moon and the Face Read online

  She felt Nara take a deep breath, loose it. “I promised we would stay until he returned,” she explained. “I didn’t expect you to return so soon. Kyreol, I didn’t know which of you needed me most.”

  Me, Kyreol thought. But, remembering Icrane’s death, Terje’s masked face, she was suddenly unsure herself.

  “Well,” she said finally. “I came here to find you.”

  That, for some reason, made Nara cry.

  Regny made them both some tea. The house, still full of the Healer’s possessions, seemed stripped bare without Icrane. All Kyreol’s childhood was gone from it, she realized slowly; it had died with Icrane. There was a fish stew bubbling on the firebed, nut-bread and late berries in leaves. Regny put a great bowl of food in her hands. She ate one bite, then just held it, warming her icy hands, while he and Nara tried to tell her what happened.

  “Terje said what?” she kept saying. “He did what?” Their words made sense but no sense. She put the bowl down finally, knowing that her brain would never make sense of anything until Terje told her.

  “Why did he leave?”

  “It’s part of the ritual,” Nara said. “The new Healer must go to the Face. Where, only Terje knows. I’m worried about him. He’s been gone so long.”

  They were explaining, but they weren’t telling her what she most needed to know. She needed to see his face, look into his eyes, and ask him.

  Terje. Are you leaving me?

  She stirred restlessly. Then she stood up, knowing what she had to do. “I’m going to find him.”

  They looked at her silently, worried, pleading. But they had no other answers for her.

  Regny only said, “Finish your stew first.”

  She ate it quickly, in silence. Nara watched her without moving, the other woman of the Dome who had found her way back to the Riverworld. To bury her husband. Kyreol swallowed fish around a lump in her throat. She looked at her mother finally.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. There was nothing more to be said. Nara smiled, her habitually grave face showing many things in the firelight: sadness, memories, acceptance, wonder, even an odd contentment that had never been there before.

  “He proved me wrong,” she said. “In spite of everything I worked for, Icrane brought the Dome to the Riverworld.”

  Kyreol rose. She bent, kissed Nara’s cheek quickly.

  Regny said, “Be careful. You’ve only got a couple more hours of dusk.”

  “I can make it. My feet know all the trails. Will you be here?” she demanded, and Nara closed her eyes.

  “Kyreol. This time, I promise.”

  ★

  AS QUICKLY as she walked, the sky had turned a deep, soft sapphire by the time she reached the trail up the Falls. A solitary planet burned above the Face: Xtal, the world she had never reached. Perhaps, next time, she would make it. The Falls roared past her; spray clung to her hair, her clothes. She remembered the last time she had taken that path and was amazed that she had ever been so young. Kyreol, face painted for her betrothal, child of the Riverworld. Even then, the Hunter had come into her life, disturbing, with his soundless step, the patterns of her life.

  The colors of the twilight, the endless, mighty downpouring of the River, the worn trail itself up damp earth and wet stone were her heritage. She moved among them by right, and with love, knowing that however tiny the Riverworld was, the planet itself was tiny, a bright stone in the river of the night, and all things on it, in the eons of the planet’s existence, had become connected. Terje had known that, somehow. Terje had always known.

  The path curved abruptly behind the Falls. She slipped onto the ledge, stood catching her breath. It was dark there between the River and the Face. She would have to feel her way. But she wasn’t afraid. Her body still remembered the shape of the Riverworld, all the times, in day or darkness, she had found its hidden places.

  She walked slowly past the ritual caves. She knew them by the sudden yawn in solid stone of a deeper black, a rush of chilled air. These places, except for the betrothal cave, she had never entered. She felt no hesitation now; if Terje were in one—even in the most sacred of them—she would enter. She needed him. The River was the World, and the World would forgive her.

  But he wasn’t in any of them. Unless he lay dreaming on cold stone in total darkness. And that made no sense: where there was ritual, there was fire.

  Maybe he was in trouble. She stopped, halfway across the Falls, perplexed. Terje, where are you? Then she saw, on the other side of the Falls, a misty blur of light.

  There was a jagged crevice in the far wall. She stepped inside.

  He had painted his face again. There were small paint pots on the floor of the cave. Also an oil lamp, a mat, a fur blanket. There were birds all over his face. He, too, had flown away somewhere. He sat on the mat, gazing at the flame, frowning slightly, as someone might frown, concentrating, during a dream.

  She whispered, “Terje.”

  He blinked, raised his head slowly; she couldn’t see, beyond the colorful patterns of birds, the expression on his face. All around her, the walls were painted, rich with centuries of Healers’ first visions.

  He got to his feet, stumbling a little. “Kyreol?” Are you a dream, too? Then he reached her, reached out for her; she felt the chill of his skin and the warmth of his love. “Kyreol!”

  She closed her eyes, holding him so tightly their breaths stopped. “Terje.” She blinked back tears. He kissed her, again and again, until she laughed. But her voice came in a wail. “Terje, what are you doing here?”

  “You came. You came here.”

  “Well, I had to. Terje, look at your face. It’s full of birds.”

  He touched it, remembering. “I was flying…dreaming. The birds were teaching me…”

  She shook her head wordlessly, suddenly exasperated by the twists and turns of the River. “Oh, Terje. I leave you for ten days and you turn yourself into a Healer.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Now what are we going to do?”

  He kissed her again. He didn’t seem worried by the problem. He held her face between his hands, then explored her body lightly, anxiously. “Were you hurt in the crash?”

  She shook her head. “I’m fine.” She hid her eyes against his shoulder. “I was so frightened. I was alone with the dead on an empty moon…”

  He stroked her hair, swallowing. “Icrane dreamed of you.”

  “He sent me dreams. You both did. They got all mixed up—I didn’t know which of you had died. For a while. Then I knew. Terje, are you—are you ever coming back to the Dome?”

  He looked at her; the peace in his eyes was the peace of the Riverworld. “What do you think?” he asked. “Look at me.”

  “Your face—”

  “My face is next to your face. My arms are around you. I’m so hungry I can hardly stand up, but I can’t let go of you.”

  “But, Terje—”

  “Icrane opened a door between the Dome and the Riverworld. You came through it. So can I. It leads to the same place.”

  “You can’t just wander back and forth between two worlds—”

  “Why not? I’ve been doing it ever since I came to the Dome. Every ritual-time, I made my way back… Kyreol…” He put his cheek against hers, his arms shifting to draw her closer. “I’d never leave you,” he whispered. “Not even for this. I told Icrane that.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He smiled.”

  She was silent, trying to envision their unpredictable future. “But Terje, what about little things? People having bad dreams, children getting bitten by snakes, pregnant women needing teas. All that is part of being a Healer.”

  “What about you flying off to Xtal. You talking to aliens? You visiting dream caves on other planets? At least, when you need me, you’ll know where to find me.”

  “I’ll need you,” she whispered. He was silent; the birds on his face seemed to move in the flickering light.

  “Kyreol, I
had no choice. The Riverworld made the choice.”

  “I can see that. But—”

  “I needed you. And you came. It was that simple.”

  Her voice rose. “It was not simple! I had to come to you across space, and then fly myself across two worlds, from the future into the past—”

  “You came,” he said again. She gazed at him, speechless, and wondered which of them was right. Was the complexity of the world what kept her, from moment to moment, always on the edge of wonder? Or was the wonder that it was simple, that she could turn across space and time, and there would be Terje? Terje kissed her open mouth, left her without an argument.

  His hold loosened finally; he rubbed at the birds, blinking dizzily. “I’d better get back down the Face while I still have the strength. But first I have to—” He looked around vaguely for the paints. Kyreol sat down on the stones.

  “May I watch? Or is it secret?”

  “I want you to watch.”

  She glanced around at all the paintings on the walls: animals, dream-faces, designs, all crowded together, the Healers’ first comments as they woke from their long journey into knowledge. Terje found a clear space, moved the lamp so he could see. Kyreol composed herself quietly. The dreaming was private, a message from Terje to himself. She wouldn’t ask; she would wait patiently, respectfully, for the image to form under his fingers… She wouldn’t ask…

  “Terje. What are you going to paint?”

  He smiled. “You.”