One hand gesturing, she announced to the world, “These are the Creators themselves.”
Her words rushed across the gray plain.
Whispers chased after her voice.
She needed to be believed. Elata needed to believe herself. And that’s when she spoke again, crafting the finest lie of her life, shaping a universe and the greatness of gods while inventing all of the sterling reasons why even the lowliest life, particularly the lowliest life, should give their Creators some measure of help, or at least stop trying to murder what simply could not die.
In the orange-headed tongue, his name was The-Man-Who-Stood-Tall. But a long while had passed since he stood that way.
The old woman and man/boy left him, taking the others away too. Alone inside the big rooms, he could nap where he wished and eat whatever he found for himself, and this seemed like the best kind of day. Even when the sun died, he was happy. There were no windows to scare him. The electric lights remained strong, and he was accustomed to the sirens and banging of cannons. But then the panicked monsters flew high, attacking the palace, and the power failed, and two soldiers ran through the darkened hallways, arguing about foolish human matters. One man or the other had done something wrong. Who would wear the shame remained undecided, but an important door was left open, and The-Man-Who-Stood-Tall was brave enough to walk where he wasn’t allowed, finding a window and jumping up on the sill long enough to see the unexpected night and a thousand giants trying to kill him and nobody else.
The little man with the gray beard hid where he felt safest.
He was in the man/boy’s bed, inside a fortress made of pillows and blankets. Eyes closed tight, he saw nothing except for what he imagined, which was terrible enough. Cannons fired and wood burned and fuel was spilled nearby and then set ablaze. Great pieces of the palace were torn away. He felt the bed jump and the floor tilt. He fully expected to die. Then a human came into the room to sit on the edge of the bed. The hiding man didn’t recognize the newcomer’s scent. He was a stranger who talked to himself and to the Creators. Suddenly a nearby portion of the palace fell away, and the stranger fell silent for a moment, and then he sobbed, and then he shot himself with one bullet. But it took a very long time for him to bleed to death.
After that, the world fell silent.
Soon the hiding man felt a chill, and despite his fine big lungs, he felt as if he couldn’t breathe fast enough.
Death was everywhere.
Even under the blankets, the world appeared doomed.
Then after a very long wait, after no sleep and no food and one ugly moment where he peed in the corner of his fortress, a light came on somewhere. The light passed through the heavy blankets, and the man heard a voice calling. He knew that voice, and he crawled out slowly, cautiously, ready for quite a lot but not for a bird with a blue head and green body—an usher bird that had wandered far from home.
The bird flew away.
Avoiding the corpse, the orange-headed man gave chase.
Haddi’s room had been stolen. The far side of the hallway was gone. But he stood on the last of the floor, gazing down at a brilliant sun that seemed wrong and felt lovely, and he smelled moisture in the wind, and after more time passed, he smelled at least one human that he knew and loved.
Elata demanded a ride to the world’s edge, and the papio from the slayer ship volunteered, out of respect as well as simple terror.
Diamond told the lady captain to let the wind pick her direction.
Every hallway in the ship was wide, every room huge. The papio never stopped watching their bizarre guests. The Creators and their tree-walking attendants were led inside the cargo hold where they could watch the gray floor sliding beneath them. Time passed, and the Eight healed completely. More time was crossed, and the airship stopped where the giant cylinder ended. A towering gray wall stood before them. But the wall never reached the floor. There was a gap at the bottom, and the spotlights couldn’t find any end to the gap. Perhaps it went all the way around the world’s bottom. The gap looked large enough to let the ship to pass, but the captain refused to try. So the passengers embarked, and Elata thanked the papio for the kindness, and Seldom thought to ask the captain to wait for them. “We might be back soon,” he said hopefully.
Seven bodies walked with the wind. King carried the gray ball. Their only lights were handheld torches, and nothing changed. Even the humans sensed that time was running out. The Eight offered various opinions about Diamond’s guidance and the trustworthiness of old memories and dreams. But what worried the boy was when the Eight stopped talking, and his friends didn’t say a word to defend him.
That’s when Diamond ran as fast as he could, alone and happy enough. And that was why he came first to the room at the end of every possible route.
The room was small and very dark until he stepped inside, and then it was smaller and quite plain, round and brightly lit and made of the same mysterious gray material. There were no furnishings. A simple fire pit waited in the middle of the round room, empty of ashes or logs or old coals. Diamond was standing beside the far wall when the others arrived. He was hunting for a door that didn’t exist. King asked some question that Diamond didn’t quite hear. Then one of the Eight said that this felt like the right place, although she wasn’t certain why.
Then Karlan said, “Hey, have a look.”
The fire pit was smooth before. But now there was a hemispherical depression in its middle, and at the bottom were fourteen holes.
“Say something,” King said, nudging his brother.
“Like what?” Diamond asked.
“This is a great moment, a historic moment,” King said. “Give us some important words.”
But the boy couldn’t think of anything to say, except, “I was waiting for something stranger.”
King handed him the key.
Diamond climbed into the ring, setting it inside the locking mechanism. And time passed without passing, and everybody was left naked, and everybody was weak, lying on a different floor.
Far above was a smooth gray ceiling.
The ceiling fell away on all sides, vanishing behind ground that also fell away in the distance. They seemed to have been dropped on top of an enormous hill, and the land was black and glassy, dotted with great pools of water and the occasional pool of molten red rock, and strange creatures flew and screamed, and trees stood strong beneath the sky that had no sun yet couldn’t be brighter.
Walking towards them, wary but curious, were too many children to count.
Each child wore clothes made from leather and hair and bone, and each carried some little machine that made light and made noise. Those noises were words, Diamond sensed. The machines were talking to each other, and the new world was full of sound. But not the children. The children were silent and a little cautious and very curious, marching barefoot across the sharp volcanic rock, every foot being cut and every cut healing in an instant.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Reed has published twelve novels. Since winning the first annual L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest in 1986 and being a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer in 1987, he has had over two hundred shorter works published in a variety of magazines and anthologies. Collections include The Dragons of Springplace, Chrysalis, The Cuckoo’s Boys, and The Greatship. Reed’s stories have appeared in at least one of the annual year’s best anthologies in every year since 1992, and he has received nominations for the Nebula and the Hugo Awards, as well as numerous other literary awards. He won a Hugo Award for his novella “A Billion Eves.”