Moon-Flash Read Free

by the family of her betrothed, upriver toward the Face.
    The journey took half a day. People kept joining them, vividly clothed and painted, laughing, chattering, carrying food, wine made of fermented honey and nuts, and cages of bright red birds. Kyreol sat silently, too unused to her new self to talk. Her father, leading the procession, was also silent. They reached the Face at noon. The River-people spread their feast on aclearing away from the spray and thunder of the Falls and sat down to wait. Kyreol followed her father alone to the dream-cave.
    The spray was blinding. It rolled off the feathers covering her, but her face and hands turned icy. She didn’t dare brush the water off her face lest she wash off her tree-sign and the moon no longer recognize her. She wished she could take her father’s hand, going up the steep, wet trail, but she was no longer a child. Neither of them spoke; the water would have roared over their voices. Finally, when her teeth had begun to chatter and her nose was numb, her father stopped.
    The trail led onward, disappeared into the water. Icrane looked at her. The distant Healer’s face changed abruptly; he touched her and smiled, put his mouth close to her ear, and she felt herself relax a little.
    “Don’t be frightened. The River will not hurt you.” He smoothed her hair, straightened a few feathers. Then he put two skins into her hands, one dyed red, one white. “Drink from the white one. It carries your dreams. You know what to do with the red one?” She nodded. “Don’t drink the wrong one.” He turned her toward the trail’s ending. “Don’t worry. Dream a happy dream and come back when you’re ready. Go, now.”
    But I’m starving,
she thought, for she hadn’t been permitted to eat,
and cold, and I’m not sleepy. I don’t like being betrothed.
The trail ascended easily, levelled behind the Falls. She stepped between two walls, one black, hard, gleaming like night, one made ofendlessly falling ribbons of light. She thought instantly,
I wish Terje were here to see this.
    The cave was a bubble of darkness. As she walked into it, the Fall’s voice dwindled. A single flame, lit by her father, floated atop oil filling a natural crevice. As her eyes adjusted to the different light, she saw what patterned the rock above the fire, and she stopped, whispering, “Oh.” The marks of the dreamers, the betrothed . . . There was an animal skin on the floor. She sat down on it. All her fear had vanished, and she felt at ease there, belonging there. She held her hands to the flame, warming them, and then she uncorked the white skin. The taste of the wine was hot and sweet, tinged with herbs. She felt her face flush, and then her hands. She smiled drowsily on the soft fur, wondering for the first time where her betrothed was hidden, what ceremony he might be going through.
Will we like each other?
she wondered.
Will he be like Terje? Will he listen to my stories?
She finished the wine slowly. The water fell constantly in front of her. Her eyes began to follow it, catching one star-gleam of spray, falling with it into nothingness, catching another, until the sheer power of the endless falling made her shift, blinking, trying to imagine what huge world of water lay on top of the Face, pouring itself day and night into the River without emptying.
Where does it all come from?
she wondered. And then she fell asleep.
    She dreamed a hundred young girls, dressed as she was, came out of the shadows of the cave to touch her face with hands soft as moth wings. She dreamed a boy’s face, dark, unfamiliar, with a deer-sign on hisforehead, and she said apologetically to the ghosts,
No, sorry, that’s someone else’s dream.
A dream already dreamed. She saw the moon and the Moon-Flash. Then she saw the strange Hunter, gazing up at the moon. O point O point O . . . the Face. Her dream went dark, then, evening-dark, silent, breathless. A star exploded in the darkness. She stirred,