Radix

Sumner sat on a lacquered tree stump and fingered a cluster of jonquils. "What can I do?"
Just what Bomescrolls has ordered. The yawps will amaze you and make you forget your fear. It lowered its gaze to meet Sumner's. And besides, it's pointless to look for a new path — unless that path is already there.
Sumner and Drift traveled upriver that day, talking about the yawps. Still clouds, waxy with their burden of rain, loomed above the green plateaus of the treetops. Drift was pleased to see that Sumner's psynergy had filled out again and was whirling tight through the lifelock in his abdomen.
I've only been with the yawps once, but that one encounter taught me the importance of keeping a clean mind.
Sumner was paddling with long, graceful strokes, his whole body swaying, urging the dugout over the amber sur-face. "Clean?"
Mirror-mind— simply watching. Drift was perched be-hind Sumner, also paddling, trying to match his rhythm but skipping every third or fourth stroke. The yawps are very serene. Very quiet. Loud minds make them uneasy.
"They're all telepathic?"
The ones I met were.
A sprawling tangle of leafed branches swam toward them, and Sumner signaled Drift to up paddle. He angled the dugout around the jutting driftwood and stroked again for the middle of the stream where the paddling was easier. "What kind of people are the yawps?"
Not People, really.
Sumner peered over his shoulder.
About a thousand years ago they were apes. The kro used them for labor. But then the world changed, and they've been on their own since.
"Apes?"
Once. Now they're a very spiritual tribe. You'll see.
Drift had given no clue as to how close they were, so when the moss and vine-hung buildings swung into sight Sumner was stunned. None of the usual telltale refuse had floated downstream to announce a river settlement. The cy-press had simply parted and there among nodding firetrees was a mound of modular pinkstone buildings virtually over-grown with jungle. Figures moved along ribbon-ramps, and in the distance were towers, sunlight blustery against elegant minarets of glass and white stone.
Someone was approaching them over the water—a tall creature glistening with red hair, standing on the water. As it drew closer they saw that it was riding a white disc, skim-ming effortlessly over the surface without controls or even a handhold. The disc-rider swooped up alongside them, and Sumner gawked at the red, glossy-furred being. Its face was simian, with a lightning-blue muzzle, stiff head fur, and large, black, expressive eyes. It wore nothing more than a purple, leather-banded breechcloth and simple cork sandals. Shay, Serbota — welcome to Sarina. Its voice in their minds was resonant. You 're expected. Please, follow me.
It backed off and floated toward the jungle-city. Sumner lifted out of his amazement and paddled after it. "A yawp?"
A young one.
The city became more wonderful the closer they got: It was a tree-flowering island where towers of silk-white stone stood about, lean and graceful as women. Sumner was enrap-tured by the technology.
"What is that water-disc? How the—"
Mirror-mind, Lotus Face. We'll talk later.
They left their dugout in a bluestone berth and followed their guide to a glade of great holy trees. The yawp left them there, and they stared around at floating fountains whose spray fell like powder in the breeze.
In the distance liquid music surfed over blue lawns. Along a wooden walkway with yellow rose-braided
posts a silver-furred yawp approached.
Shay, Drift. Shay, Lotus Face.
Shay, Bir, Drift sent.
Bir bowed before Sumner. This is your first visit to Sarina. I hope you don't find it too other.
"I didn't know such marvels existed." Sumner stared beyond the trees where slender buildings the color of moon-light arced. "How did you build all this?"
Bir's silver-hackled face grimaced a smile. If I tried to tell you that, I'd only confuse both of us. And why bore you with history when I can share this moment with you?
Bir gestured toward a tiny esplanade of green and black flagstones among the glade of giant trees. Drift led the way and sat down on the inside of a circular bench, carved whole from a petrified tree stump. Sumner sat beside him and Bir faced them. A prayer to the Infinite, Drift, Bir requested, nodding deferentially to the seer.
Drift gazed into the long stately avenue of massive trees and copper-colored grass and chanted:
Among everything that we have named
You alone remain nameless.
Help us to know you
As we know ourselves.
Bir nodded solemnly. Beautiful, seer. Your vision sees into itself. He reached into a small pouch below the knot of his maroon breechcloth and took out a sliver of glass. Now let's celebrate. The glass splinter held before him caught a thread of sunlight and flashed rainbow spikes. Adroitly he spun the prism between his silver-haired fingers. The spectral rays melled to a brilliant auroral band which, as it spun faster, hazed blue. He deftly pivoted the prism in his palm, and the band swelled like a gas flame to a nebulous globe, azure-bright.
Bir cupped the globe in his hands and sat staring beyond it into the pointillist dapple of the trees. After a moment he passed the ball of light to Drift who held it tenderly in its long spiderfingers. Then it was offered to Sumner.
He accepted gingerly, and as soon as the light grazed his fingers a beatific smile altered his features. The tension the Mothers had taught him to collect at the bottom of his spine uncoiled like a hypnotist's wheel and sparkled up his back. His scalp prickled, and a sudden and unshakable bliss rooted him, adamant as pain. Bir took the blue globe from his hands and collapsed it back to a glass sliver.
Deep humus smells, rich and varied as a symphony, anchored Sumner in the moment, and he watched with silent glee as the opaline sunlight breezed over the wind-twitched grass. For the very first time in his life he was truly and profoundly happy. Life wasn't shit, he comprehended with a bone-seizing laugh. Life was a stream of love. . . .
I must go now, Bir said, hands on his knees. Thank you for sharing this moment with me.
Sumner looked about with the glee of a lune. Drift touched his knee, and he remembered the brood jewel.
Bir accepted it with both hands. A fine gift, he said, without removing the black silk.
Sumner stared at the yawp as if he had just seen him, noticing the age in the coarse black muzzle, the heron-colored light as it reflected off his fur, the conch-pink of his ears.
Bir walked with them to a dragon-vein brook forded by a walkway of jasper stepping-stones. A parting thought, seer.
Drift bowed deferentially and psychically intoned: The eye sees but is blind to itself. Hazard is intent at high velocity.
Bir bowed and walked off, the dust motes at his feet boiling into light.
Sumner wanted to linger, but Drift insisted they go. Our purpose is done. This isn 't our place.
Pushing out of the berth with their oars, heeling into the current, Sumner refused to look back, though he was churn-ing with desire. They paddled silently with the current, each in a private reverie of sun-glinted eddies, shadowed banks, and the muscular flow of the river.
That night, beneath a sky shot with stars, Sumner told Drift about the energy that had virled up his spine, charging him with euphoria.
The yawps are masters of matter, Drift explained, its tiny eyes fixed on the flames of the aromatic barkfire. They have machines that can do anything— even create bodies. That's how the magnar has lived so long. He was once a yawp himself, you know.