Horizon Storms - Kevin J. Anderson [36]
Now, as the vehicle sped across the ground, the dusk grew darker. Ilure’l adjusted the internal lights so high that Anton had to squint to make out their course. Up ahead he could see white plumes like exhaust from the towers of an industrial fabrication plant.
Ilure’l said, “Each year I come to observe this.” Vao’sh’s face swept through a symphony of colors, expressing with tints and hues what he could not yet put into words.
Anton stopped the vehicle where he could watch the curls of mist boiling upward like steam from an alien teakettle. He was the first out of the vehicle and into the crackling cold. A low reverberant rumble made the ground vibrate from the continuous boiling of water deep beneath the rocks. “Can you hear it?”
The steam fogged the air around them in the abrupt darkness. Moisture settled out in snowflakes that dropped to the ground, building spires of encrusted ice around the open mouths of fumaroles.
According to engineering and seismic surveys, the ground underneath Maratha Prime was riddled with aquifers and thermal channels. Hot springs bubbled into the city itself, for the enjoyment of the Ildiran visitors. As temperatures dropped with each sunset, thermal plumes that normally vented invisibly into the hot daytime air suddenly became prominent, booming explosions of heat and moisture. Within weeks, the exhaled steam would freeze and form a cap over the geysers, silencing them until they were explosively reborn the next dawn.
Vao’sh and Ilure’l remained by the safe illumination of the ground vehicle, while Anton strode fearlessly into the shadows where he could better see the pearly white mists. “I have always been interested in natural wonders, but transient phenomena like this are so much more…poignant.”
“A wilting flower is more beautiful than an enduring statue of our Mage-Imperator?” Ilure’l sounded skeptical.
“In a different way, but…yes. Knowing you’re about to lose something demands that you value it before it is gone.”
“Rememberer Anton has a point,” Vao’sh said.
The lens kithman was troubled. “The thism is beautiful because it never changes and always endures. By its perfect reliability, it inspires faith. While I can admire the natural uniqueness of these formations, I find them less beautiful than the Lightsource, by virtue of their very evanescence.”
“Humans believe there can be two or more ways to interpret a story,” Vao’sh pointed out.
Anton smiled. “Arguing over such things has kept many of my…esoteric colleagues in university jobs for their entire careers, and generations of predecessors before them.”
Ilure’l seemed disturbed by the discussion. “When I interpret the thism, Rememberer Anton, I do not want other Ildiran kithmen to draw their own conclusions. Too much discussion creates questions, not answers. When I give an answer, then the matter is settled.” After looking at the Cannons for only a few more moments, the lens kithman turned to climb back into the vehicle. “If you are ready, I would like to go now.”
As Anton drove off toward the glowing domes of Maratha Prime, he tried to placate the agitated lens kithman. “With all Ildirans connected through thism, maybe you can give absolute answers. But when I’m retelling one of our legends, it’s…just a story.”
Now Vao’sh’s face flushed with multicolored alarm. “Rememberer Anton, nothing is ever just a story.”
Chapter 17—MAGE-IMPERATOR JORA’H
Jora’h sat in his private contemplation chamber, a smooth-walled room with blood-red crystalline walls, while seven frenetic attenders combed and oiled his golden hair, then pulled the twitching strands. Despite their overlapping tangle of hands, the servant kithmen managed to braid his hair. The length was not sufficient for more than a modest plait that reached barely to the base of his neck, but over the years it would extend and grow into