Kata Bindu

“Hoktan was a foolish man who lived generations ago. He talked as you are now talking—as if one could leave this place. He tried another method, though: he dug and dug and dug, day after day, trying to make a tunnel out through the mountains that encircle our world.”

“And?” said Prasp.

“And one day the gods used wind against him, pulling him out through his tunnel.”

“Where is this tunnel?” asked Prasp. “I would love to see it!”

“The tunnel collapsed, the wind ceased—and Hoktan was never seen again.”

“Well, I do not plan to dig through the roof—but I do hope to find a passage to whatever is beyond it.”

Dalba shook her wizened head. “There’s nothing beyond the roof, child.”

“There must be. Legend says we came from the Old Place, and—”

Dalba laughed. “Yes, Kata Bindu. But it’s not somewhere you can go back to. The trip here is a one-way journey.”

“Why?” asked Prasp. “Why should it be that way?”

“The name of where we came from,” said the elder. “Surely you understand the name?”

Prasp frowned. He’d only ever heard it called Kata Bindu, the Old Place; did it have another name? No, no—that was all it was ever called. But …

“Oh,” said Prasp, feeling foolish. He was a hunter, of course, and a gatherer, too—and this place, this territory, this land that his people knew so well, that fed them and sustained them, was Bindu, the term in their language for place, for territory, for home—but Bindu was also the word for life, the thing the land gave. Kata Bindu wasn’t the Old Place; it was the Old Life.

And this—

“This is heaven,” said the Dalba, simply. “You can’t go back to the Old Life.”

“But if it’s heaven,” said Prasp, “then where are the Gods ?”

“They’re here,” said the Dalba, tipping her head up at the sky. “They’re watching us. Can’t you feel that in your heart?”

* * *

Prasp flew again—but this time he rose farther than he ever had before. His muscles were stronger, his lungs more capacious. All that running had had the desired result.

Prasp was close enough now to the roof to see the circular lights, each wider than his body was long. Of course, it was night now; the lights were glowing dimly. Only a fool would strap on wings and try to fly toward the lights when they were burning with their daytime intensity.

Still, this close, there was enough illumination to make out things he’d never noticed from the ground. He could see that the roof was slightly curved, slightly concave, arching up and away. He continued to fly along, but everything was the same—massive cords, circular lights, and, supporting them, a thick, clear membrane—and beyond that, he couldn’t say, for all was dark. The lights all faced down toward the ground, far below.

Prasp thought that if there were an exit anywhere, it might be at the very center of the roof—easy enough to spot, for all the radial cords converged at that point. He knew there was no exit around the edges of the roof, for others had long ago climbed the steep, rocky terraces that surrounded the valley, concentric shelves each wider and higher than the one below it. They’d circumnavigated the world, hiking around its edge, examining the entire seal between the roof and the rocky walls—but there was nothing; no break, no passage, no tunnel.

Finally, Prasp reached the exact center—and there was something special there. Prasp’s heart began pounding even faster than it already had been. There was a platform hanging from the roof, a wide square, attached at its four corners by cylinders that rose to the sky. The platform was large, and Prasp was able to glide between two of the cylinders, his belly scraping along the platforms inner surface. He skidded along, thinking that the skin on his chest would soon be flayed from his ribs, and—

Gods, no!

There was a giant cube in the middle of the platform, a building of some sort as big as a multifamily hut. Prasp wanted to throw his hands up in front of his face to shield it from the crash, but he couldn’t; his arms were strapped to the wings. He continued to skid forward, and he twisted his body sideways, finally slamming into the building.

He lay on the platform, catching his breath, supported from beneath for the first time since he’d taken flight.

Finally, he moved again. The building had a door in its side. Prasp had rarely seen doors before; some members of his tribe had tried to make them for their huts—vertical walls of sticks that articulated on gut ties down one side. This one was simpler and more elegant, but it was a door just the same.

Still, there was no way to get through it without shedding his wings— and he had to go through that door; he had to see what was on the other side of it. Prasp normally had his woman’s help in strapping his wings on before each flight, but surely he’d be able to reattach the wings on his own when it came time to return to the valley. It would be tricky, but he was confident he could do it.