Infinity's Shore

Perhaps it’s because they have no men, Sara thought. Indeed, she saw only female youths and adults, tending chores amid the barns and shelters. There were also urs, of Ulashtu’s friendly tribe, tending their precious simla and donkey herds at the fringes of the oasis. The two sapient races did not avoid each other — Sara glimpsed friendly encounters. But in this narrow realm, each had its favored terrain.

Ulashtu knew Kurt, and must have spent time in the outer Slope. In fact, some Illias women also probably went forth, now and then, moving among unsuspecting villagers of the Six Races.

Melina had a good cover story when she came to Dolo, arriving with letters of introduction, and baby Lark on her hip. Everyone assumed she came from somewhere in the Vale. A typical arranged remarriage.

It never seemed an issue to Nelo, that his eldest son had an unknown father. Melina subtly discouraged inquiries into her past.

But a secret like this …

With Ulashtu’s band came a prisoner. Ulgor, the urrish tinker who befriended Sara back at Dolo, only to spring a trap, leading to captivity by Dedinger’s fanatics and the reborn Urunthai. Now their roles were reversed. Sara noted Ulgor’s triplet eyes staring in dismay at the astonishing oasis.

How the Urunthai would hate this place! Their predecessors seized our horses to destroy them all. Urrish sages later apologized, after Drake the Elder broke the Urunthai. But how can you undo death?

You cannot. But it is possible to cheat extinction. Watching fillies and colts gambol after their mares below a bright rocky overhang, Sara felt almost happy for a time. This oasis might even remain unseen by omniscient spy eyes of alien star lords, confused by the enclosing land of illusion. Perhaps Xi would survive when the rest of the Slope was made void of sapient life.

She saw Ulgor ushered to a pen near the desert prophet, Dedinger. The two did not speak.

Beyond the women splashing in the pool and the grazing herds, Sara had only to lift her eyes in order to brush a glittering landscape where each ripple and knoll pretended to be a thousand impossible things. The country of lies was a name for the Spectral Flow. No doubt a person got used to it, blanking out irritating chimeras that never proved useful or informative. Or else, perhaps the Illias had no need of dreams, since they lived each day awash in Jijo’s fantasies.

The scientist in Sara wondered why it equally affected all races, or how such a marvel could arise naturally. There’s no mention of anything like it in Biblos. But humans only had a sprinkling of Galactic reference material when the Tabernacle left Earth. Perhaps this is a common phenomenon, found on many worlds.

But how much more wonderful if Jijo had made something unique!

She stared at the horizon, letting her mind free-associate shapes out of the shimmering colors, until a mellow female voice broke in.

“You have your mother’s eyes, Sara.”

She blinked, drawing back to find two humans nearby, dressed in the leather garments of Illias. The one who had spoken was the first elderly woman Sara had seen here.

The other was a man.

Sara stood up, blinking in recognition. “F-Fallon?”

He had aged since serving as Dwer’s tutor in the wilderness arts. Still, the former chief scout seemed robust, and smiled broadly.

A little tactlessly, she blurted, “But I thought you were dead!”

He shrugged. “People assume what they like. I never said I’d died.”

A Zen koan if she ever heard one. But then Sara recalled what the other person said. Though shaded against the desert’s glow, the old woman seemed to partake of the hues of the Spectral Flow.

“My name is Foruni,” she told Sara. “I am senior rider.”

“You knew my mother?”

The older woman took Sara’s hand. Her manner reminded Sara of Ariana Foo.

“Melina was my cousin. I’ve missed her, these many years — though infrequent letters told us of her remarkable children. You three validate her choice, though exile must not have been easy. Our horses and shadows are hard to leave behind.”

“Did Mother leave because of Lark?”

“We have ways of making it likely to bear girls. When a boy is born we foster him to discreet friends on the Slope, taking a female child in trade.”

Sara nodded. Exchange fostering was a common practice, helping cement alliances between villages or clans.

“But Mother wouldn’t give Lark up.”

“Just so. In any event, we need agents out there, and Melina was dependable. So it was done, and the decision proved right … although we mourned, on hearing of her loss.”

Sara accepted this with a nod.

“What I don’t understand is why only women?”

The elder had deep lines at the corners of her eyes, from a lifetime of squinting.

“It was required in the pact, when the aunties of Urchachkin tribe offered some humans and horses shelter in their most secret place, to preserve them against the Urunthai. In those early days, urs found our menfolk disquieting — so strong and boisterous, unlike their own husbands. It seemed simpler to arrange things on a female-to-female basis.