Prysmcat

  The Axis was a symmetrical cone-shaped mountain in the centre of the Midnds, rising high above everything else and growing steeper as it climbed. I had no idea how I was going to get up that, but presumably there was a way.

  As the ground began to rise, the buildings stopped.

  We stopped at one more post office, so I could send my first message to all four friends, telling them where we were. I throttled the urge to get sentimental, and kept that part short: the chance existed that Logan was wrong or lying or I would somehow fail, but I loved them and I wished my presence hadn’t disrupted their lives so much.

  Then we started up a switchback road.

  Behind us the Midnds, green and alive, rich with farmnd and patches of woods, striped and dotted by water and highlighted by rock formations, fell away. Thin scrubby grass fnked us between steep bare faces, a very few bush-like trees and even those ended soon. To anyone gncing up, we must be clearly visible from a long way off.

  The slope wasn’t impossibly bad, but it did leave us with less breath for talking, and Myu wanted to be carried more often. We took more breaks than usual; a stream ran down one side of the switchback, so every time we came back to that side, we could refill water gourds. I already knew my dragon form was easiest on uneven ground, and we had an abundance of food since my friends had shopped for five people staying in the portable house for something like a week, so I stayed dragon, in my perfectly-repaired clothes, and most of the time I was the one who carried Myu.

  With the shadows growing longer, we reached a shelter and, just beyond it, the familiar standing stones.

  “Tomorrow,” I said. “I’m not tackling anything after walking up that in any form.”

  Serru nodded, setting Myu down on the unexpected green grass of the ft ground housing the shelter and its surrounding little garden. “If it weren’t for Zanshe, I might just avoid the Highnds. Hiking is easier without so much... up.”

  There was none of the wind I’d expect at this altitude, only a gentle breeze. It had been hours since we’d seen any wildlife beyond bees and butterflies. The pce had an eerie air of isotion, like the rest of the world was much farther away than it really was. In less than a day’s walk, and downhill at that, we could be back among people and taverns and farms, but in the stillness it was hard to believe that.

  The shelter was white stone with a domed top and a column at each corner, a door arch to the left of centre on each side; the odd part was that on a closer look, there wasn’t a single seam anywhere, as though it had simply been carved out of one solid piece. The yout was familiar, walled-off area with toilet and sink in a corner, water trough near it, firepit in the centre, jotun-sized cots. We set up Myu’s basket on one cot, folded a bnket on the leather for her and put her toys on it and her water bowl next to it, and turned our attention to making a fire.

  This was familiar routine by now. Comfortable, hardly needing words. Not at all like my first couple of days here, disoriented and unsure how anything worked.

  I’d expected to get here eventually. I’d expected my st night camping before it to be different, though.

  Not entirely. I still had to decide what I was going to do in the morning. The factors on each side of the scale had changed, but the choice of whether to go or not remained.

  “You don’t really need me anymore,” Serru joked, putting two kettles of water on the fire grating to heat.

  “That I’ve learned a few things from you doesn’t mean that at all. I might be able to stay fed and find pces to sleep, but I’d still be wandering around blind and probably saying things to people that make them stop and remind themselves that I’m an alien and I need some extra tolerance.”

  “You’re underestimating yourself.” She slipped a hand into her bag to look for gathered fresh stuff and id handfuls on the stone edge of the firepit. There was less to gather in the Midnds, and we’d seen nothing at all on the way up, so fresh food was somewhat limited, but right now, she apparently didn’t care. “But... it’s nicer than I expected, having company. Being able to share. Even just how many beautiful sights are out in the provinces in out-of-the-way pces many people never see. It feels a bit ungrateful, when I have good friends who understand me, but they’re happy where they are.” She cut tawny-brown mushrooms into a cup, every motion precise. “Zanshe’s in the Highnds most of the time, Jaelis and Terenei are at opposite ends of the Shallows. Although I don’t think Terenei’s going to want to just stay at home all the time any more, and I’m gd.”

  “There’s someone in the Grassnds, isn’t there? I’m sure you’ve mentioned her, or Terenei has.”

  “Terenei has met her. Kesseli. She’s human, she has a farm near a river. I’d left there the day before I met you. She... while I was a mossling, she met a man she really loves. She had cattle and poultry and grain, and he grew up with cattle and poultry and vegetable gardens, so they share a lot. They’re expanding the farm together. He’s very sweet, I don’t mean he isn’t, or that they didn’t welcome me. She told him I’d be by sometimes and I matter a lot to her and that needed to be understood, and he’s fine with that. I want her happy and she is. I think... it was a shock, I’d lost two years and came back to find him there and they were so comfortable with each other and I’d never met him or even heard about him. Everything felt... wrong. That was my first loop around after I got back. I was hoping that after getting all the way around and back to her, it wouldn’t feel as strange, but it still did. I felt alone while I was right there with a friend I love. I still don’t know what to do about that. Just... get used to the idea, I suppose. There have been messages from her in with the ones from my family. Her sister is an alchemist living with a warden so she’s been hearing things.”

  “That’s a tough one,” I said quietly, setting the box of tea on the edge of the firepit. There was pain in her voice, despite the steadiness of the words, but it was muted. Maybe, up here above the world and at its heart, even that felt far away.

  “That’s more complicated than the good friend in the Forest who moved into the capital while I was gone, to join three others in opening a greenhouse. I really dislike the capital. There are too many people, not much for me to do, and she’s busy and passionate about the greenhouse, without much time for me even if I make a detour there—maybe while visiting my family. We’ve traded a few messages, it wasn’t an angry separation. Just drifting. The Forest is a good pce for gathering, and usually I’ve taken a long route well past the ring road to collect as much as possible, but when I met you, I really didn’t want to walk through it knowing that I’d be alone until I got to Coppersands. I wasn’t going farther out than the ring road anyway. I didn’t realize until afterwards that part of why I offered to help you might have been to hide from my own shadows. Not for long, and not all of why, but it might have started that way.”

  “I am really gd you still had Terenei and Jaelis and Zanshe around the other half of that circle.”

  “Jaelis has other friends who are lovers, and en isn’t going to change that or leave Whalesong Landing. Zanshe has absolutely no interest in any kind of restrictions, and she is very deeply a part of Brightridge. It isn’t a question of love. I love Kesseli and Jaelis and Zanshe and have no reason to think any of them doesn’t feel just as strongly. But the situation isn’t going to change with Jaelis or Zanshe. They both made sure I knew that. I needed to hear it.”

  I hadn’t actually gotten around to changing out of my dragon form. It just felt more comfortable and more natural the more time I spent in it. I moved around behind her, knelt with my knees on either side of her legs, and wrapped both arms around her waist, then my wings most of the way around us both, careful not to hit the kettles or hot grating.

  She made a cute squeak, but leaned back against me anyway, letting her hands fall into her p with care for the knife in one.

  “I know they needed to go on with their lives,” I said, “but that still feels like an awful thing to be hit with, back to back, while you’re still trying to rebuild your own life.”

  “I’m not sure whether I was never lonely before, or whether I never realized I was lonely. It would drive me absolutely mad, I’m sure of it, trying to be around anyone all the time, no matter who they are. I couldn’t tolerate going to a school, only my grandmother teaching me because she understands, and even with her I needed to be alone sometimes. Settlements are useful and things in them can be fun for a short time, but I don’t think I’d be happy trying to be part of one. I suppose I need to find something halfway between. I thought I had that, moving between my friends, but... maybe not.”

  “How about this? I’m pretty sure Zanshe’s going home eventually to get back to her community and her art.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not sure what Heket’s doing, but then, cats are cats. I suspect that Ary is going to pnt himself in the school near Whalesong Landing to do research and work on his book for the immediate future. There is a lot of this world that I really want to see, and it would help to have someone who knows where to find beautiful things off the regur roads. I think we could maybe see if Terenei wants to come along, and wander. Find a settlement that’s interesting with things for him to paint or something for me to learn about medicine or alchemy, and set up the house. If you roam around the area and come back every two or three days, you can let us know when you’ve run out of things to gather, and between us we can decide when to move on and which direction to go next. For however long that keeps working for all of us. We can choose to stop near Whalesong Landing and Brightridge and Coppersands and wherever we need to go for the rest of your family and, if you feel okay with it, maybe I can meet Kesseli, because she sounds like she’d be gd to see you and maybe it would feel less strange if you aren’t arriving alone. We get a guide, you get time alone with us not far away, we all get to share experiencing the world.”

  “I think Terenei will take you up on that. I think I will, too. It sounds wonderful. Let go, or supper will be spoiled.”

  I dropped my arms and folded my wings, so she could get back to food prep, and got up. We needed cups to drink tea from, bowls to eat from, and Myu needed food. “Maybe, in that case, we should go right back down the mountain tomorrow morning.”

  “What difference does that make? There’s no connection.”

  “None we know of. Probably nothing directly. But Logan pretty much confirmed my guess. Anyone who goes to the Axis gets the option of leaving this world, but it sounds like no one gets to choose where to go. Newcomers who stay get information and some other advantage he can’t say but it’s at a price he also can’t say, and when you look at our very limited sample size, newcomers who have been to the Axis don’t age. Logan’s been here for over a century. The Moss Queen has been here for, what, over two and a half? What Logan said about Jack sounds like he was around a long time. And we have some evidence he still is in some way, even.”

  I set two mugs on the rim of the firepit, then three bowls and two spoons. I set the frying pan on the grating next to the kettles and added just enough oil to keep the fish from sticking. Funny how some inconvenient physics worked here and some didn’t. There were fillets of fish in the cold bag, replenished at a river we’d stopped at for a while, and I could fry one lightly for Myu in no time. No need to fuss over nutritionally-complete diets, she wasn’t going to suffer from taurine deficiency or anything terrible like that. Which was good, because I wasn’t even sure where taurine came from other than meat and especially organ meats.

  “That’s what it looks like, yes. Logan is very bad at finding newcomers and helping them get oriented. I suspect you’d be very good at it. That information might also give you some kind of closure, a better understanding of what happened and why you’re here.”

  “Or a hint at a way to stop the Moss Queen permanently, or something. But I really don’t want to outlive all the people who matter to me.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t speak for the others, but you don’t get to put that on me. Everything has changed since we met, and that was only a couple of very busy months ago. Even under the best of conditions, I would not promise that I will stay a part of your life forever. I currently intend to, but that is not the same thing. Would you want to always wonder whether I was still there because it’s what I want or because I feel I must, after you made a choice based on that?”

  “I... oh. Yeah.” The fish fillet sizzled as it hit the pan. Myu’s ears perked, and she stopped exploring to come investigate, sniffing with interest.

  “What kind of friend expects you to make choices based on us instead of what’s best for you? You have five close friends within a couple of months. You fit in well in this world. A few social conventions weigh little against deep values, and people will for the most part be forgiving about the small things. There are many, many diverse people out there for you to meet and befriend and learn from or teach or both and share the world with. I would not like to wonder always whether you were still with me because you had no other options, or at least believed that you did. There is music out there, and art, festivals all over and schools and individual artists and musicians who would be happy to share a passion, and your influences are different and could make what exists richer for it. You have grumbled about wanting potions in forms other than swallowed, aside from Last Chance dissolving under the tongue, and about the absence of other things you’ve found useful in the past. Your experience with healing is unique, I think there haven’t been many newcomers who share anything like it, and that can only be good for everyone. We have excellent tools but people still have emergencies and non-emergency health complications. There are cats to cuddle and other animals to make friends with. You can explore the Shallows underwater and the Highnds from the air. You can let go forever of all that poison about men and women having rigid roles, and be who you are. For all practical purposes you have five lifetimes waiting for you.”

  “Five?”

  “You keep going back to human for music and art. Maybe that will change, or maybe you’ll pick up a fifth set of skills associated with that form. I do not want to see you unhappy and regretful because you could not force multiple sides of you all into full development in half a century and you chose the path that put hard limits on time.”

  “It doesn’t feel fair, having multiple lives all at once.”

  “It doesn’t feel fair, dying and losing your parents and sister and girlfriend, and facing even one life with that loss.”

  “Yeah. There’s that.” Up here, even that pain felt distant, though I knew it was waiting for me.

  “I’m quite certain I have had multiple lives in this world, and quite certain I’ll have more. You just have them piled on top of each other. I am not telling you that you should go to the Axis. I am telling you that your decision needs to be about yourself and what is best for you, and your friends will still be your friends whichever path that is.”

  There wasn’t much more to say.

  Myu had her fish, settled on her bnket for a bath, and wandered off to explore again. We ate and cleaned up.

  Serru had, I discovered, borrowed Zanshe’s jotun-sized luxurious folding cot; she opened it outside the shelter and pulled the translucent draperies out of the way so we could lie on it and see the stars.

  I wasn’t really an astronomy buff, but there were a few patterns I could recognize, ones my dad had taught me. Even if you don’t think about the night sky, even if you live most of your life in a city where you only ever see a fraction of the stars, part of your mind just knows what they’re supposed to be, and a completely different sky is subtly discordant.

  “The sky is clearer and brighter up here than I’ve ever seen it,” Serru observed, on her back with her hands under her head. “It’s beautiful.”

  “I keep forgetting to ask. Do you have consteltions?”

  “You might consider rephrasing questions like that. Anything here is equally yours.”

  “Huh. True, I suppose, and I’ll keep that in mind. But you know what I mean.”

  “Yes. And since I know what the word means, obviously we do. Most often they’re named for some aspect of an old story. Right there... see those four bright stars that form an arc, and the one that veers off to the outside of the arc, and there are three more under the arc? That’s the Otter. There’s a story that the Shallows were ft coastnd once, with a smooth gradual slope into the water, and a family of giant otters pying there are responsible for all the isnds and the shallow water between them. There are stories about the other provinces, too. They aren’t always consistent. Whether the Forest is because of the greenelk and the Grassnds is because of countless birds dustbathing and keeping anything higher from growing, or the Forest is because of birds and squirrels hiding seeds and the Grassnds is because of the rge herbivores grazing and rolling, depends on who you ask. But there are consteltions, the Greenelk and the Horse and three very different birds.”

  She pointed them out, and then others, and the stories behind them. Myu came to join us, snuggling in the middle, and we both petted her. When it got cooler, which Serru felt more than dragon-me did, we pulled a bnket out of my bag, hanging on the corner of the bed. Myu burrowed deeper, and we took care not to move.

  We fell asleep there, never getting as far as setting up a tent.