“I wish you luck,” said Keenir pointedly, and turned for the door. “Saleed,” he said over his broad shoulder, “the Dasheter sails in a dekaday. Until then, I’m staying at The Orange Wingfinger. If you change your mind about this new tool, send word.”
Afsan clicked his teeth quietly. He had never known Saleed to change his mind.
“Young Afsan,” Keenir said, “a pleasure to have met you. Your light will glow brightly as time goes by, of that I’m sure.” There’s no way Keenir could have bowed—without a tail to balance the weight of his head, he would have fallen over—but something in his warm manner gave the impression that he had done so nonetheless.
Afsan beamed. “Thank you, sir.”
The sailor hobbled out the door. The ticking sound of his walking stick on the marble floor faded into the distance.
Afsan didn’t like asking his master questions, but he had to know what brought the great Keenir to the palace.
“He is a dreamer,” replied Saleed, who—much to Afsan’s surprise—failed to reprimand him for impertinence. “He has a device he claims lets him see detail on distant objects, a metal tube with lenses at either end. Apparently a glassworker on the opposite shore of Land built it for him. Keenir calls it a ‘far-seer.’ ” Saleed spat the compound word. His hatred for neologisms was well-known.
“And?”
“And the fool thought it might have application in my work. He suggested I turn it on the moons—”
“Yes!” crowed Afsan, and then shrank, expecting a rebuke for interrupting his master. When the sharp words did not come, he continued meekly. “I mean, it would be wonderful to find out what they are.”
“You know what they are,” said Saleed, slapping his tail against the floor. “They are the messengers of God.”
“Perhaps Keenir would let me borrow his far-seer for my pilgrimage,” said Afsan. “Then I could use it to examine the Face of God.” The words came tumbling out, and Afsan began to shrink the moment they were free in the air.
“Examine?” Saleed roared, his voice erupting from his giant, ancient chest, shaking the wooden furniture in the room. “Examine! An eggling does not ‘examine’ the Face of God. You will bow down and worship before It. You will pray to It. You will sing to It. You will not dare to question It!” He pointed his scrawny freckled arm at the doorway. “Go now to the Hall of Worship and pray for forgiveness.”
“But, master, I meant only to better see my creator—”
“Go!”
Afsan’s heart felt heavy. “Yes, master.” Dragging his tail behind him, he left the dimly lit room.
*3*
Afsan hated the Hall of Worship. Not all such halls, mind you: he did have fond memories of the small, cheerful one his Pack had built on the shore of Lake Doognar. But this one in particular was loathsome.
The Hall of Worship at the imperial palace! He’d expected it to be holier than any room he’d ever been in, for here the very Empress balanced in prayer, the regal tail held firm and rigid parallel to the ground. Here, the Master of the Faith, Det-Yenalb, spoke directly to God.
There was no real difference between this hall and the one he’d attended as a child. Both had the same circular layout, although this one was five times the diameter of Carno’s. Both had the same wooden floor, although poor Carno’s was deeply scratched with claw marks, whereas this one constantly received fresh planks, stained a pale green, from the nearby madaja grove maintained solely for that purpose. And both halls were divided in half by a channel of water, representing the mighty River on which Land floated. In the hall of his youth, the channel had been just wide enough to accommodate supplicants in single file. But here Afsan had often seen processions of Quintaglios wearing broad leather sashes marching six, seven, and even eight abreast.
But now the huge hall was empty. Major services were held every fifth even-day and whenever a boatload of pilgrims returned from gazing directly at the Face of God. Afsan’s footfalls echoed in the chamber as he entered from the sinner’s doorway, set at right angles to the channel of water. This was significant, he knew: those who came through this entrance, passed beneath this arch of blackest basalt, had turned as far from the natural flow of life as was possible.
He walked to the mock river and tested the ankle-deep water with his toes. As usual, it was uncomfortably cold, although he had heard tell that when the Empress was to walk here it was heated. Afsan stepped into the channel of water and leaned forward, his torso parallel to the floor, his tail swinging up to balance his weight. He’d never been good at this, and he had to splay his legs slightly to make it work, but it was considered disrespectful to drag one’s tail in the holy water.
The last thing he wanted to do was appear disrespectful, for he knew that High Priest Det-Yenalb might be watching even now from his secret place, high above. Afsan kept his muzzle pointed ahead, as the posture of respect demanded, but he rolled his black eyes upward. Painted on the bowl-shaped ceiling was an image of the Face of God, swirling and colorful. But one of the black circular God’s eyes was really a window through which Yenalb sometimes watched, or so Afsan had heard from a court page. Afsan would make sure that Saleed would get a good report of his penance.
Afsan had started in the middle of the river channel, as sinners must, and was now working toward the west end. The symbolism had been explained to him kilodays ago at Carno’s Hall of Worship, the first time he’d had to undergo this humiliation. He’d bitten off a playmate’s finger during a game. The other boy—what had ever become of Namron, anyway?—had regenerated the digit in a few dekadays, but he’d also tattled to the creche master about Afsan.
Anyway, walking to the west end meant walking into the fading light of dusk, reminding one of the darkness that awaited sinners. Even then, Afsan had enjoyed the night, but he had been restrained enough not to point that out to the creche master.
At the end of the channel, balancing all the while, he bobbed his whole body three times. It was an emulation of the instinctive gesture of territoriality, and, in this context, meant, as the sacred scrolls said, here I draw the line, I will allow darkness to come no farther. After the ritualized bobbing, he turned tail and began the slow march the other way, splashing down the river toward the east, toward dawn, toward light, toward knowledge.
Knowledge! Afsan clicked his teeth in rueful humor. How little knowledge we have. What do we really know of the planets? Of the moons? How can Saleed turn down an opportunity to study them in detail, to learn their secrets?
“Boy! Your tail!”
Afsan’s heart jumped, and his fingerclaws unsheathed in surprise. Having lost himself in thought, he’d let his tail dip into the water. He quickly pulled it up and then swung his head around to find the source of the voice, echoing in the domed chamber.
It was the wrong thing to do. With legs splayed, tail swung way up, and head turned around, he lost his balance. He came flopping down belly-first into the river, splashing holy water everywhere. The impact hurt—he could feel the free-floating riblets across the front of his belly pressing in on his organs. He quickly got to his feet, and, fear on his face, hurried onto the madaja-wood flooring, the sound of drips hitting the planks echoing much too loudly in the Hall.
He scanned around for the source of the voice again. There, at the head of the mock river, standing where the sun would rise, was Det-Yenalb, a mid-sized male with an exceptionally long muzzle and earholes that seemed a bit too high on the side of his head. Yenalb wore the swirling, banded, colorful sash of his office.