Jim Baen's Universe Vol 1 No 2 by Eric Flint

Author:Eric Flint [Flint, Eric]
Format: epub
Published: 2009-10-01T03:00:00+00:00

But curiosity remained.

The answer surged from beneath, pushing him higher and higher until he was blinded by light again, felt air surging into his lungs, grabbed for anything and found himself held instead.

"Be still, boy." He knew that voice. Agnon turned.

The woman treading water beside him smiled. She looked like anyone he'd pass in the corridors, the same dark hair and skin, older than some, younger than others. Then he looked deeper, and saw the rare beauty in the lines of bone, the will etched in flesh, the warm laughter brimming in her eyes. He knew that face. "Dir Skalda!" he gasped, caught between an honest terror and rising joy.

And a rising world. They clung to one another as the sea beside them swelled overhead, then burst into a hill, then a mountain, draining down its sides in a thousand waterfalls adorned with black sand, drowned candles, and flower petals, hapless fish caught on spikes and spires of coral.

The water calmed and an impossible head turned, its three eyes, each taller than a ship's mast, gazing not at them, nor at the people lining the terraces, nor at the ships cowering along shore, but to the opening to the sea.

"Agnon?" A hoarse whisper, close enough that Agnon wasn't surprised to see Dir Segnon stroking towards them.

"Here! We're here!"

In the distance, the Quiet God answered a call as old as time itself, freedom. With a heave that carved the cliffs on both sides, it shoved its way through to the open ocean, ignoring the ships scattering from its path. With a last mighty whoopmf of air, it disappeared into Her Depths.

In the sudden calm, Dir Segnon's astonished "We?" skipped along the surface like a pebble tossed by a child.

"We," said Agnon happily. He rolled on his back, floating beside a legend come true.

Immense plumes of every colour suddenly shot upward from the decks of the P'okukii ships, as though, like the islanders, they honored their heaven with flowers. Answering cheers ran out with each new explosion, until the cove rang like thousand bells.

And the legend laughed.

* * *

Shafts of sunlight disappeared, reappeared; they filled at times with motes of life, golden suspended dust, then at others reflected silver as the great flocks swam through their columns, dancing with the light.

I was content thus, to gaze upward through the lens of my eye into the living magic of my world, my place, and see only that which belonged here. I felt the surge of waves over the crust of my side, reading there the approach of storms, the tug of moon and sun—events distant yet intimate. I slept, as some life reckoned this state of consciousness. It was as true a description as any; since I needed nothing and need do nothing.

If this is sleep, I sometimes wondered, struck by some particular beauty above me or caught by starlight through a rare clarity of ocean, perhaps I dream the world.

* * *

Julie Czerneda is the author of many novels and short stories.

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