To Storm Heaven - Esther Friesner [46]
‘All is well with my people,’ she told the Sixth Mother.
‘There is no healing left for you to bring them.’ “But the Sixth Mother watched the people of Iskir, and she saw that despite all that her sisters had done for them, they were still sick at heart for their lost kindred. There were even some of them who had banded together to build themselves a new silver ship, so that they could sail after their kindred and discover whether they were truly gone forever or only wandering lost over the seas of night.
“The Sixth Mother saw the silver ship that was being built at the bottom of the Great Break, which was the place where Yaro’s blade had first cut open the heart of Iskir. She saw it and she knew what she must do if she was to save the true people.
“Then the Sixth Mother took the shape of a dark mist, ugly and foul smelling, the kind that seeps up out of the earth in the places where Yaro’s blade marks have never fully healed. She drifted over the surface of the world, over all the sleeping people, and when they awoke’they had forgotten very much. They had forgotten so much that to this day we do not know all that was forgotten, but this we know: They had forgotten the art of building the silver ship. They had even forgotten where it lay, for everyone knows that it lies at the bottom of the Great Break, but in all Iskir no one knows where the Great Break lies.
“So the darkness lay over us for many ages, until the Lady chose to lift us from our ignorance to all this!” The old man spread his arms wide, happily embracing his world. “For all these blessings, let us be content.” He brought his hands together over his chest in what might have been Ma’adrys’s dove sign but which his age-twisted fingers transformed into a spider.
The story was done, and done in time for the children to hear their mothers calling them home to bed. Little Herri slid off Lelys’s lap, complaining bitterly, “That’s always the way it happens! Doesn’t matter what story Grandfather tells, it always takes the whole time between the end of the evening ritual and bed!” “Oh my, it does?” Lelys and the old man exchanged a conspiratorial look over the top of the child’s head.
The courtyard emptied out quickly after that.
Mothers and fathers and older siblings came to claim the children too young to find their own way home in the dark. An elderly woman showed up, rubbed her cheek tenderly against the storyteller’s, and the pair of them went off arm in arm. Soon the only people left behind were Troi, Riker, and Lelys.
Riker stared at the Orakisan ambassador, dreading the news he had to give her. Better get it over with, he thought. He started toward her, but Counsellor Troi intervened.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“You’re going to have to be more specific than that,” he teased.
“You know what I mean. You wanted to leave before the old man had finished telling the story.
Something was bothering you deeply, a thought that became an urgent reason for going back into the taproom.” “I’d left Data playing one of the local games.
Winning, of course. I thought it’d be smart to step inside and suggest he throw a match or three, in the name of helping us all stay inconspicuous.” “Why didn’t you do it, then?” The simple question left Riker at a loss. Yes, why didn’t I? “I… don’t know. I wanted to hear the whole of the old man’s story. After all, it’s the Ashkaarians’ own version of what happened when they settled this world. But you were here. You could’ve told me anything I missed.” “I had something similar happen to me when we visited Ma’adrys’s old house,” Troi said. “V’kal’s mother was telling us about the girl’s family history.
She asked me whether I wanted to hear the rest of it and I said yes.” “Well, there’s nothing strange about that. We all wanted that information.” “But I did not simply say yes. I implored her to go on. I spoke as if it were the most important thing in my life to hear what she had to say.” “Hmm.” Riker stroked his beard. “I think I remember that. You