Jerry stepped away from the door to let me through. "Come, look!"
Sunlight.
Blue sky and sunlight.
In the distance, over the sea, new clouds were piling up; but above us the sky was clear. Neither of us could look at the sun directly, but we turned our faces to it and felt the rays of Fyrine on our skins. The light glared and sparkled off the ice-covered rocks and trees. "Beautiful."
"Yes." Jerry grabbed my sleeve with a gloved hand. "Davidge, you know what this means?"
"What?"
"Signal fires at night. On a clear night, a large fire could be seen from orbit, ne?"
I looked at Jerry, then back at the sky. "I don’t know. If the fire were big enough, and we get a clear night, and if anybody picks that moment to look…" I let my head hang down. "That’s always supposing that there’s someone in orbit up there to do the looking." I felt the pain begin in my fingers. "We better go back in."
"Davidge, it’s a chance!"
"What are we going to use for wood, Jerry?" I held out an arm toward the trees above and around the cave. "Everything that can burn has at least fifteen centimeters of ice on it."
"In the cave—"
"Our firewood?" I shook my head. "How long is this winter going to last? Can you be sure that we have enough wood to waste on signal fires?"
"It’s a chance, Davidge. It’s a chance!"
Our survival riding on a toss of the dice. I shrugged. "Why not?"
We spent the next few hours hauling a quarter of our carefully gathered firewood and dumping it outside the mouth of the cave. By the time we were finished and long before night came, the sky was again a solid blanket of grey. Several times each night, we would check the sky, waiting for stars to appear. During the days, we would frequently have to spend several hours beating the ice off the wood pile. Still, it gave both of us hope, until the wood in the cave ran out and we had to start borrowing from the signal pile.
That night, for the first time, the Drac looked absolutely defeated. Jerry sat at the fireplace, staring at the flames. Its hand reached inside its snakeskin jacket through the neck and pulled out a small golden cube suspended on a chain. Jerry held the cube clasped in both hands, shut its eyes, and began mumbling in Drac. I watched from my bed until Jerry finished. The Drac sighed, nodded, and replaced the object within its jacket.
"What’s that thing?"
Jerry looked up at me, frowned, then touched the front of its jacket. "This? It is my Talman—what you call a Bible."
"A Bible is a book. You know, with pages that you read."
Jerry pulled the thing from its jacket, mumbled a phrase in Drac, then worked a small catch. Another gold cube dropped from the first and the Drac held it out to me. "Be very careful with it, Davidge."
I sat up, took the object, and examined it in the light of the fire. Three hinged pieces of the golden metal formed the binding of a book two-and-a-half centimeters on an edge. I opened the book in the middle and looked over the double columns of dots, lines, and squiggles. "It’s in Drac."
"Of course."
"But I can’t read it."
Jerry’s eyebrows went up. "You speak Drac so well, I didn’t remember… would you like me to teach you?"
"To read this?"
"Why not? You have an appointment you have to keep?"
I shrugged. "Nohing that can’t wait." I touched my finger to the book and tried to turn one of the tiny pages. Perhaps fifty pages went at once. "I can’t separate the pages."
Jerry pointed at a small bump at the top of the spine. "Pull out the pin. It’s for turning the pages."
I pulled out the short needle, touched it against a page, and it slid loose of its companion and flipped. "Who wrote your Talman, Jerry?"
"Many. All great teachers."
"Shizumaat?"
Jerry nodded. "Shizumaat is one of them."
I closed the book and held it in the palm of my hand. "Jerry, why did you bring this out now?"
"I needed its comfort." The Drac held out its arms. "This place. Maybe we will grow old here and die. Maybe we will never be found. I see this today as we brought in the signal fire wood." Jerry placed its hands on its belly. "Zammis will be born here. The Talman helps me to accept what I cannot change."
"Zammis, how much longer?"
Jerry smiled. "Soon."
I looked at the tiny book. "I would like you to teach me to read this, Jerry."
The Drac took the chain and case from around its neck and handed it to me. "You must keep the Talman in this."
I held it for a moment, then shook my head. "I can’t keep this, Jerry. It’s obviously of great value to you. What if I lost it?"
"You won’t. Keep it while you learn. The student must do this."
I put the chain around my neck. "This is quite an honor you do me."
Jerry shrugged. "Much less than the honor you do me by memorizing the Jeriba line. Your recitations have been accurate, and moving." Jerry took some charcoal from the fire, stood, and walked to the wall of the chamber. That night I learned the thirty-one letters and sounds of the Drac alphabet, as well as the additional nine sounds and letters used in formal Drac writings.
Squiggle squiggle, dot, break, dot dot, loop, squiggle, break…
"I, Mistaan, who created the marks-that-speak, set down before you the words of Shizumaat who recited before me the Myth of Aakva, the Story of Uhe and the First Truth."
It was Genesis and the Garden of Eden for hermaphrodites. And there was a time when all of the sayings and signs of the god, Aakva, were gathered before a head priest, the "chief of the servants of Aakva," and Rhada sorted through it all to determine the true laws of Aakva. And then the laws were doubted and the god took them away, plunging the world into war. After the horror of the war, the laws of the god were no longer doubted and the god was begged for their return. The world was divided, separating the warring peoples of the Sindie, and then there was peace and plenty, until the next doubting, and the next war.
There is a fabric to things, patterns, weaves, and an occasional pulled thread. Once in awhile everything unravels and goes up in flames. An awfully old story.
I felt a bit like when I was back in college. A universe of problems, endless tons of worthless attempts at solutions, and snotty kids a couple of years past acne looking to philosophers, ancient and modern, to flash a bit of magic on us and solve all of the predicaments.
I headed for the wind and the cold outside to spit my curses into the winds, wondering if the universe will ever grow up.
The wood eventually ran out. Jerry was very heavy and very, very sick as Zammis prepared to make its appearance, and it was all the Drac could do to waddle outside with my help to relieve itself. Hence, wood gathering, which involved taking our remaining stick and beating the ice off the dead standing trees, fell to me, as did cooking.
On a particularly blustery day, I noticed that the ice on the trees was thinner. Somewhere we had turned winter’s corner and were heading for spring. I spent my ice-pounding time feeling great at the thought of spring, and I knew Jerry would pick up some at the news. The winter was really getting the Drac down. I was working the woods above the cave, taking armloads of gathered wood and dropping them down below, when I heard a scream. I froze, then looked around. I could see nothing but the sea and the ice around me. Then, the scream again.