Infinity's Shore

“This was the site of the first forge,” Ulgor announced, her voice tinged with awe. She tilted her muzzle to the right, and Sara made out a tumble of stone blocks, too poorly shaped to have been laser-cut by the Buyur, and now long-abandoned. Such tumbled shelters were hand-hewn by the earliest urrish seeker smiths who dared to leave the plains pursuing lava-borne heat, hoping to learn how to cast the fiery substance of Jijoan bronze and steel. In its day, the venture was fiercely opposed by the Gray Queens, who portrayed it as sacrilege — as when humans much later performed the Great Printing.

In time, what had been profane became tradition.

“They must’ve found conditions better, on high,” Jomah commented, for the trail continued steadily upslope. An urrish guard nodded. “Vut it was fron this flace that early urs exflorers discovered the secret way across the Sfectral Flow. The Secret of Xi.”

Sara nodded. That explained why one group of urs conspired to thwart another — the powerful Urunthai — in their plan to make horses extinct when humanity was new on Jijo. The smiths of those days cared little for power games played by high aunties of the plains tribes. It did not matter to them how Earthlings smelled, or what beasts they rode, only that they possessed a treasure.

Those books the Earthlings printed. They have secrets of metallurgy. We must share, or be left behind.

So it was not a purely idealistic move — to establish a secret herd in Xi. There had been a price. Humans may be jijo’s master engineers, but we stayed out of smithing, and now I know why.

Even after growing up among them, Sara still found it fascinating how varied urs could be. Their range of personalities and motives — from fanatics to pragmatic smiths — was as broad as you’d find among human beings. One more reason why stereotypes aren’t just evil, but stupid.

Soon after they remounted, the trail followed a ridgeline offering spectacular views. The Spectral Flow lay to their left, an eerie realm, even dimmed to sepia shades by distance and dark glasses. The maze of speckled canyons spanned all the way to a band of blazing white — the Plain of Sharp Sand. Dedinger’s home, where the would-be prophet was forging a nation of die-hard zealots out of coarse desert folk. Sandmen who saw themselves as humanity’s vanguard on the Path of Redemption.

In the opposite direction, southwest through gaps in the many-times-folded mountain, Sara glimpsed another wonder. The vast ocean, where Jijo’s promised life renewal was fulfilled. Where Melina’s ashes went after mulching. And Joshu’s. Where the planet erased sin by absorbing and melting anything the universe sent it.

The Slope is so narrow, and Jijo is so large. Will star gods judge us harshly for living quiet careful lives in one corner of a forbidden world?

There was always hope the aliens might just finish their business and go away, leaving the Six Races to proceed along whatever path destiny laid out for them.

Yeah, she concluded. There are two chances that will happen — fat and slim.

The trek continued, more often dismounted than not, and the view grew more spectacular as they moved east, encompassing the southern Rimmer Range. Again, Sara noted skittishness among the urs. In spots the ground vented steaming vapors, making the horses dance and snort. Then she glimpsed a red glimmer, some distance below the trail — a meandering stream of lava, flowing several arrowflights downslope.

Perhaps it was fatigue, thin air, or the tricky terrain, but as Sara looked away from the fiery trail, her unshielded eyes crossed the mountains and were caught unready by a stray flash of light. Sensitized by her time in Xi, the sharp gleam made her cringe.

What is that?

The flash repeated at uneven intervals, almost as if the distant mountaintop were speaking to her.

Then Sara caught another, quite different flicker of motion.

Now that must be an illusion, she thought. It has to be … yet it’s so far from the Spectral Flow!

It seemed … she could almost swear … that she saw the widespread wings of some titanic bird, or dragon, wafting between—

It had been too long since she checked her footing. A stone unexpectedly turned and Sara tripped. Throwing her weight desperately the other way, she overcompensated, losing her balance completely.

Uttering a cry, Sara fell.

The gritty trail took much of the initial impact, but then she rolled over the edge, tumbling down a scree of pebbles and jagged basalt flakes. Despite her tough leather garments, each jab lanced her with fierce pain as she desperately covered her face and skull. A wailing sound accompanied her plunge. In a terrified daze Sara realized the screamer was not her, but Prity, shrieking dismay.

“Sara!” someone yelled. There were scrambling sounds of distant, hopeless pursuit.