5 - a chill when the dead man smiles

His long stick prodded in the scree. Fuz, son of Slayer, scrabbled in the detritus of a landslide picking out shards of stone for his project. He was of the Sullen, bent in stature and unobtrusive in his gray garb. They lived in the shadow of the mountain among the boulders, hiding, wary of the sky. The Sullen were taught to hate anything of distinction. The galaxies frightened them, the skyriders with their blatant displays of color and frivolity outraged them. In their holes they prayed to a thing they did not understand and some, the elders, relayed a glowering message of nothing. The absence of something.

He came upon her at dawn, with the landscape dimly lit from a shrouded sun. The Sullen never ventured out at night, when the stars were brightest. Emerald held her breath, crouching in a corner of the shelter with her steed, but the translucent wheezed and Fuz jumped at the sound. “Who is there?” he called, jumping back into the open beyond the overhang. He pulled out a polished waxstone and angled it under the leaning boulder, shooting vague illumination into the shadows. First he saw only a bulbous sheen, then he lowered the lamp and a light fell upon her smooth face. Fuz gazed stupidly at her, saw the large eyes and pink lips, parted slightly into a surprised O. Her tanned face, obvious even in the sparse light, furrowed Fuz's brow. “You are one of them, a flyer!” He turned to go, intent on sounding the alarm.

“Wait.” It was a tiny voice, thin from fear; and fatigue. “Wait. Come back.”

In the communal cave his mother was pale and bent, crouching over a stone mashing seeds into a tasteless pulp. Or she was working on an animal hide, pounding it into cloth, weaving stiff cords in and around the rough holes the men punched out. Her face was always downcast, she was nameless and alone in a family of men and infants. Daughters never stayed beyond their tenth year. This, flyer...was a woman.

“What is your name?” she asked. “I am Emerald.” Emerald leaned from her corner and held out a hand with a finger and a thumb extended. Fuz began to make out the shape of her grounded beast. It was spreading out along the dirt as it tired. He moved in closer and felt along the base of the thing with his stick. “Gently,” said the woman, “your hand would be better.”

The girl was beautiful, much more so than any of the women he had seen before. She was not dirty; her face was not crippled by desperation or odium. He sat on the ground, laying the stick over his knee and tentatively lay a hand on the quivering mass. Even so, Fuz could hardly keep his gaze from Emerald's bright face.

“It is a translucent. It sees. But we, my kind, we ride them.” Emerald was hungry and wanted to ask for food, for her and the translucent. Not yet. Soon.

“I have seen it,” Fuz answered. “I am Fuz.” He wondered what 'Emerald' could mean.

“Fuz.” Emerald repeated. They sat looking across the translucent at each other. Out in the open Emerald heard a scrambling noise and falling rocks. She shivered and fell back into shadow.

A low voice growled. “Who is in there? Fuz, come out.”

He stood and backed from the overhang. “It is just I. I have found nothing here of use.” The older man brushed Fuz aside and peered under the boulder, seeing the girl and her woebegone beast.

“You lie, boy. Say nothing, these creatures belong to me.” The man who was slightly larger than Fuz, but decrepit and askew, pushed aside his Sullen brother and moved closer to Emerald. The translucent trembled and blanched as the man waved a spear at it and Emerald cried out.

“It is dying, do not harry it further!” She jumped up and covered the thing with her body. The Man lowered his weapon and leered at the girl. He stepped closer and put a grimy hand on her shoulder. Emerald screamed as a stick cut the air, skimming the rock over their heads and sending sparks into the chasm. Fuz thrashed heavily across the intruder's cranium, spattering blood into the crevice and the man's neck snapped throwing him limply across the translucent and knocking Emerald sideways into the black. She breathed heavily.

Fuz shoved the dead man aside and pulled her up. “Come Emerald, will your beast follow? It is not safe here. I know a better place.”

part 6