A Fire Upon the Deep

Scriber Jaqueramaphan had been all over, mindlessly running around on both sides of the valley. He'd collect in twos or threes and execute some jape that made even the dour Tyrathect laugh, then climb to a height and report what he saw beyond. He'd been the first to see the coast. That had sobered him some. His clowning was dangerous enough without doing it in the neighborhood of known rapists.

Wickwrackrum called a pause, and got himself together to adjust the straps on his backpacks. The rest of the afternoon was going to be tense. He'd have to decide whether he really wanted to enter the Castle with his friends. There are limits to an adventurous spirit, even in a pilgrim.

"Hey, do you hear something bass?" Tyrathect called from across the valley. Peregrine listened. There was a rumbling — powerful, but almost below his range of hearing. For an instant, fear crossed his puzzlement. A century before, he'd been in a monster earthquake. This sound was similar, but the ground was still beneath his feet. Would that mean no landslides and flashfloods? He hunkered down, looking out in all directions.

"It's in the sky!" Jaqueramaphan was pointing.

A spot of glare hung almost overhead, a tiny spear of light. No memories, not even legends came to Wickwrackrum's mind. He spread out, all eyes on the slowly moving light. God's Choir. It must be miles up, and still he heard it. He looked away from the light, afterimages dancing painfully in his eyes.

"It's getting brighter, louder," said Jaqueramaphan. "I think it's coming down on the hills yonder, on the coast."

Peregrine pulled himself together and ran west, shouting to the others. He would get as close as was safe, and watch. He didn't look up again. It was just too bright. It cast shadows in broad daylight!

He ran another half mile. The star was still in the air. He couldn't remember a falling star so slow, though some of the biggest made terrible explosions. In fact… there were no stories from folks who had been near such things. His wild, pilgrim curiosity faded before that recollection. He looked in all directions. Tyrathect was nowhere in sight; Jaqueramaphan was huddled next to some boulders ahead.

And the light was so bright that where his clothes did not protect him, Wickwrackrum felt a blaze of heat. The noise from the sky was outright pain now. Peregrine dived over the edge of the valley side, rolled and staggered and fell down the steep walls of rock. He was in the shade now: only sunlight lay upon him! The far side of the valley shone in the glare; crisp shadows moved with the unseen thing behind him. The noise was still a bass rumble, but so loud it numbed the mind. Peregrine stumbled past the timberline, and continued till he was sheltered by a hundred yards of forest. That should have helped a lot, but the noise was been growing still louder…

Mercifully, he blacked out for a moment or two. When he came around, the star sound was gone. The ringing it left in his tympana was a great confusion. He staggered about in a daze. It seemed to be raining — except that some of the droplets glowed. Little fires were starting here and there in the forest. He hid beneath dense-crowned trees till the burning rocks stopped falling. The fires didn't spread; the summer had been relatively wet.

Peregrine lay quietly, waiting for more burning rocks or new star noise. Nothing. The wind in the tree tops lessened. He could hear the birds and crickers and woodborers. He walked to the forest edge and peeked out in several places. Discounting the patches of burnt heather, everything looked normal. But his viewpoint was very restricted: he could see high valley walls, a few hilltops. Ha! There was Scriber Jaqueramaphan, three hundred yards further up. Most of him was hunkered down in holes and hollows, but he had a couple of members looking toward where the star had fallen. Peregrine squinted. Scriber was such a buffoon most of the time. But sometimes it just seemed a cover; if he really was a fool, he was one with a streak of genius. More than once, Wicky had seen him at a distance, working in pairs with some strange tool… As now: the other was holding something long and pointed to his eye.

Wickwrackrum crept out of the forest, keeping close together and making as little noise as possible. He climbed carefully around the rocks, slipping from hummock to heather hummock, till he was just short of the valley crest and some fifty yards from Jaqueramaphan. He could hear the other thinking to himself. Any closer, and Scriber would hear him, even bunched up and quiet as he was.

"Ssst!" said Wickwrackrum.