“Oh.” He was silent a moment, staring down at the plain. “I guess you should, then.”
So I described the vision that had come to me as I slept in the sanctuary of Azure Mesa. And then I told him of the experiment with the kobold circle. “It was called‘the mirror of the other self,’ and he was there, within it. But why was it him, and not you?”
“Did you want him to come?”
“No! Have you not been listening? He is wrong. There is something about him that is corrupt. It was so, even in that vision of my other life.”
“But he was your lover.”
“In another life! And even then it was a mistake.”
“But it makes me angry! What’s wrong with me? I’ve never felt this way before.”
“I haven’t either.”
We sat in silence for some time, while the night gathered around us. Stars pricked the blue sky, while on the plain below silver filled the canyons, so that the dark land seemed infused with veins of luminous metal.
“Is that all?” Yaphet said at last. “Or is there more still?”
“A little more.”
He made a groan of mock despair. “Say it, then. Let me have it all, for you could tell me anything now and I would believe it.”
I snorted—“That’s what you say now”—and I told him of the goddess and the task she had given me. He listened. He made no comment on it except to ask, “Now is that all?”
“It is.”
He looked over his shoulder. I followed his gaze, to see Jolly, playing a game of fetch with Moki beside the flying machine. “I want you to be my wife, Jubilee. Now.” He put his finger against my lips. “Don’t speak! Because you’ll say it’s impossible, that we don’t know what will happen to us tomorrow. But that’s why I want you to marry me now. We are caught up in something, and maybe this time is all the time we’ll ever have. Marry me now.”
“But Jolly is here!”
“Just the words. Just share the words with me.”
My mouth felt dry. “I cannot kneel. My knee is swollen—”
“Then we’ll sit. Take my hand.”
“All right.” I laid my hand in his, but in that moment the awareness of silver stirred in my mind. I turned, to see a herd of goats hurrying down an invisible trail on the valley’s sheer back wall. “There is a silver storm coming.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do. We should bring your flying machine into the circle of the well.” I started to get up, but my knee quickly reminded me that was not a good idea.
“Stay here,” Yaphet said. “Jolly will help.”
The flying machine was cleverly designed, so that Yaphet was able to collapse the wing. With Jolly’s help he dragged the folded frame into the circle of the kobold well. The nose and tail stuck out beyond the mound, but we gathered handfuls of freshly spawned kobolds from the mouth of the well and scattered them about, expanding the protected zone.
When all the gear was safely within the circle, Jolly crept up to the precipice and looked over. “The canyon floor is flooded,” he called back.
Yaphet went to look, and an expression of awe came over his face. “You can see it climbing. Does the whole Iraliad flood every night?”
Jolly answered, “Ficer said it’s worse now than when he was a boy.”
The goats snorted when they found us occupying their well, but they joined us anyway, and after a few minutes Moki gave up growling at them.
We were halfway through a cold dinner when the savant spoke in its cultured voice. “A call,” it said. “From Liam.”
“Answer it!” I had been sitting shoulder to shoulder with Yaphet, but when the savant settled in my lap, he moved back, positioning himself so that he could see the screen without being seen by those on the other side.
The image that formed was of stars, faint above a horizon limned with silver, “Liam?” I heard the scuff of a boot on gravel, then the tumbling bounce of a small stone. “Liam!” I called, louder this time.
“Jubilee?” His shadowed face filled the mimic screen, and in a moment the savant compensated for the lighting. He was dusty and haggard, his face thinner than I had ever seen it. The patch was gone from his eye, but there was a pink scar across his lid where the rock fragment had cut him. His eyes were red. From the dust, I told myself. The dust. “You’re alive.” His voice was a whisper of disbelief. “We found your bike. We thought—”
“I’m alive. And I’m free. Jolly is with me. Is Udondi—?”
“She’s here.” He looked away, calling to her. “Udondi! I’ve found Jubilee!”
A few seconds later her face appeared beside his. “Jubilee! Where are you? How did you—?”
I wasn’t ready to explain. “Did you set the explosives?” I asked. “Was that you?”
Liam nodded. “Ficer is with us. He brought them from the Temple of the Sisters. We found your bike after. We thought you must have been with them, when—” He shook his head and stepped away.
Udondi looked after him with a troubled gaze. “I think this has been the longest day of his life,” she said softly. Then she looked back at the screen and her gaze grew sharp, though it was not fixed on me. “Is that Jolly?”
I turned, expecting to see Yaphet, but it was Jolly who stood at my shoulder. He had come up silently while we spoke.
“This is my brother,” I said.
Then another face crowded in beside Udondi’s.
“Ficer!” Jolly shouted. “You came back!”
“Of course I came back. Didn’t I say I would?”
We demanded their story first. Ficer told of how he had reached the Temple of the Sisters at midmorning yesterday, minutes ahead of a convoy of three trucks. “The drivers did not speak the name of the traveler, but it was clear who they served.” He hid his bike and pretended to be one of the scholars and in that way the day passed. Dusk came, but Ficer would not risk suspicion by climbing the tower to send a message. “There is a cavern that opens on the white plain, that is used to garage the passing trucks. In the morning, when the drivers went down there, I tried to call you, but it was well past sunrise, and I think you were gone from the mesa top by then. Emil was very worried. He sent me back up the tower, saying that if I could not find you, I should try to find your uncle, and in that, at least, I had some success.”
Udondi nodded. “We had already encountered that convoy. There were five trucks altogether—too many for us to stop, but we delayed them a day when we released the last of our metallophores into their engines. We spent that day in hiding, while they spent it repairing their trucks. But they also used the time to put up an antenna, and in the morning it was clear why. They had decided to split up. Only three trucks went to the Sisters, while the other two went north.
“We used the antenna to call ahead to Emil, and he told us you were gone, and that we should look for you at Azure. We cut the power supply to the antenna, and then we left, but it was a dark day, and by noon a great bank of silver drifted in from the west and we were forced to take shelter in a refuge mesa.” She shook her head. “The next day was no better. We could not leave, and we could not contact you. It was maddening! To be trapped there, not knowing what harm you might be facing. But this morning the sun came out, and Ficer called, with word that you were still free. You did well, Jubilee.”
“It was my luck.” My usual harsh luck that I had lived, but only at the cost of Kaphiri’s drivers, crushed beneath tons of stone.
“We are sheltering at Azure this night,” Udondi said, “but on the mesa top, and not in the cavern, for the silver does not look like it will rise much tonight. I slept in the cavern once, years ago, and once is enough.”
“What shelter did you find?” Ficer asked us. “Or have your gifts protected you from the silver?”