“How blue the sea,” she said abruptly, as if she would turn her thoughts outward. “It is gray along the shores of Uighur, and too dark in the north where it washes the Barren Lands-”
“Why do you call them the Barren Lands?” Ray asked. “There is wilderness, yes, but they are not barren. There are forests-” He paused, thinking of trees dark and tall, yet alive.
“Perhaps because no colony has been set there,” replied Cho. “To us of the motherland, they seem forbidding, as if hiding secrets not for the eye of man.”
“Yet it is not so in your time, is it?” the Lady Ayna said. “Tell us about them then.”
He told them of the crowded and crowding cities, of the ever-pushing population that covered the earth with more and more dwellings, of superhighways, of airfields, of the thrusts into space
“You seek to rule the moon, perhaps land ships on other worlds!” marveled Cho. “Man does so much, yet you say that all this is still flawed.”
“Yes. The more devices man makes, the more death comes from them. Machines take to the skies, they fall, and those in them are killed. Or else they sow death as they fly, and women and children are killed in their homes. Men talk around the world, but they break every law they have made. Some of them have greater wealth than they can reckon; others die for want of bread. So it is-”
“As it always has been,” mused the Lady Ayna. “Yet you are still men, some good, some evil. Have you ever ridden in the sky?”
“Yes.”
“What was it like?” Cho demanded.
“Like swimming, a little. One can see the world below or be caught in the clouds-”
“That I would like,” said the Lady Ayna. “It would have been good had you brought such a bird with you-”
Ray laughed. “There are many things I could have brought that would have been highly useful, but I never thought of a plane.”
He told other tales of his own time as they sailed. across the western ocean. But the Lady Ayna never tired of hearing of the planes that took men through the clouds:
“The Naacals should be able to make such,” she observed. “It should be suggested that they seek such knowledge.”
Cho was startled. “But one does not suggest matters to the Naacals; it is for them to decide the paths of wisdom to be opened to our feet.”
“When they hear the words of the Lord Ray, they should be moved into that path,” she insisted. “It would be pleasant to look down upon the clouds, to travel as a bird-”
Her insistence apparently disturbed Cho. “Ray shall talk to the Naacals, yes. That is only what will follow when they hear of this coming. But we cannot make suggestions-”
“Who are the Naacals?” Ray asked quickly when it appeared that the Lady Ayna was prepared to argue.
“The priests of the Flame who are the guardians of ancient wisdom and the seekers after new-to teach mankind. They journey between colony and colony spreading knowledge, increasing as ever they can our
stores of learning. Many things they tell only to the Re Mu, and perhaps a few of the Sunborn who are discreet and have the proper care for wisdom. My mother was so honored when she became a daughter of the temple after my father’s death.”
“I shall enter the temple when my sea duty is done,” said the Lady Ayna.
Cho smiled. “Say you so now, my lady. But I will wager that within the year you will summon some warrior to your right hand. Then we shall hear no more of temples-”
Her eyes sparkled, and there was a curve to her lips. “Do you have the power to read the future as a Naacal or one who has passed the Nine Mysteries?” Then she swung away from them and was gone to the inner cabin. Ray looked to Cho for enlightenment.
The Murian still smiled. “So say all women sometimes-that they would have naught of us and prefer temple powers. It is quickly forgotten when the time comes for the marriage bracelets-”
“We are not too far from Mu. now?”
“We should harbor before nightfall and sleep this night in my mother’s courtyard. I do not believe we shall be summoned for audience before the morrow, though the Lady Ayna may go this night.”
Within the hour came the welcome call of “Land!” Then the oars were put out, and the rowers took their places. One of the officers beat stroke time on a small drum, and they pulled together with practiced ease.
“Harbor police.” Cho indicated a light craft skimming toward them.
“What ship?” They were hailed from the police boat.
“Wind Ruler of the northern fleet, the Sunborn Cho commanding, with urgent news for the Re Mu.”
“Pass free.” The police cutter was already on its way to meet a lumbering merchantman.
The oval harbor was full of shipping. Heavy merchantmen, stately passenger vessels, ships of the fleet, barges, and fishing smacks swung at anchor. And the docks hummed with throngs of laborers. city wherein most of a world was stirred into one rare mixture. And he longed to be able to sort out sounds, sights, and impressions at greater leisure. Cho turned into a narrow, quiet lane, outstripping their officer escort. He stopped before a scarlet door set in the left-hand wall. “Many thanks for your company and aid, my lord,” he said, the door already swinging under his sharp push. Ray hesitated for a moment, and the officer smiled. “All of us know of the Lord Cho. He is a good son to the Lady Aiee. May you rest in the light of the Flame, lord.” With a salute he was gone.
Ray entered a large garden, closing behind him the door Cho had left ajar. There were palm trees and flowers, and a pool rimmed with mossy marble. Ferns grew there, reflected in the quiet water. Cho stood by it, and now he looked to Ray. “She is coming-” The woman who crossed a lawn of closely mown grass did not look up but seemed intent upon her own thoughts. She was as tall as Cho, her skin almost as fair as the pearls about her throat and the robe she wore. Her hair was yellow and hung in thick pearl-twisted braids to her waist. But the calm beauty of her face was all Ray saw. Memory stirred in him, and he could not help what he did then. He turned on his heel and went back to the red door in the white wall. He went blindly, seeing not what was there but what was in his mind. The door did not yield to his push, however, as it had to Cho’s eager hand. And he beat on it with force enough to bruise his fist.
“My son-” No words-only in his mind, as it had been with Cho when they first met. And-somehow-healing flooded in with those words, pushing away memory. But he would not turn; he dared not. For the last time his fist struck against the stubborn panels of the door. He did not want-he could not turn and face-Beyond, the city rose terrace by terrace, such a one as might have come out of a dream. White flashing metal, rainbow hues, it built by wall and tower up and up. The houses and palaces Ray had seen from afar at Manoa were the rough dwellings of an outpost village compared to this. “There lies the heart of our world. What think you of it, brother?” asked Cho. “Does it equal the cities of your age?” “I do not think my time holds its equal. In size, yes, but not in beauty.” They docked, and Chu-handed over his command to his second officer. There was an honor guard drawn up to salute them with swords as they disembarked. Its officer spoke to Cho. “You have made a quick voyage, Sunborn.” “Three days from the Inner Sea,” Cho answered with some pride. “Fair time indeed, my lord. There is a litter waiting for the Lady Ayna. And you, my lords, are you for the Lady Aiee’s courtyard?” “Yes-” Cho sounded impatient. The Lady Ayna stepped forward. “It seems our ways part here, my lords. Surely friends and battle comrades need no farewells of ceremony. Till we meet again may the Flame guard you.” She raised her hand in salute and was gone with her escort, swiftly swallowed up in the crowd. But the officer had remained behind. “Your commands, Sunborn?” “Let us go as swiftly as we may-” He opened a passage for them. Ray would have gone more slowly, trying to see what he could, but Cho hurried him on. Two or three turns from one crowded street to another brought them away from much of the press of traffic. There were still carts, horses, camels, but many pedestrians. And the range of garments, the brightness of color, and the difference in races Ray glimpsed were hard to assess when he was constantly urged on. It would seem that he walked the streets of a “Ray.)) His own name, not as he had feared to hear it in re-awakened bitter pain, but in another voice. His hand dropped to his side. “Ray-” That was such a call to obedience as he could not push away. Reluctantly, how reluctantly, he turned-and faced eyes-eyes that were all encompassing. They saw into him, not just as he stood now but as it had been for him in the months past. Those eyes reached across the barrier between this world and his own, and knew-He was sure that they knew- “Ray-” for the third time. This was not a demand for attention now but a welcome. And there was a hand on his. He was as aware of that as of those all-knowing, all-seeing eyes. The hand drew him back into the garden, and somehow it also drew him in the same instant over or through another door, unseen but sensed. For a space Ray was free of the world-of his birth.