He will be born on a night of light and dark.
What a person sees that night is a window to his soul.
-Sirah Anath Sorrel Albandor of Dunaya
The figures in Canúden's algebra book blurred and his eyes stung. Muffled commotion echoed from the street, noises previously obscured by the concentration he had been giving to his homework. He glanced at the clock on the shadowed mantle, a relief to his eyes; squinting, he saw that the clock confirmed evening should be coming on. Eyebrow raised, he stared at the sitting room curtains, which glowed as they did when the sun peeped over the mountains after dawn.
"Canúden! Canúden! You've got to come out here!"
It took a moment to realize it was his mother's voice from outside, and she sounded like she may have been running. His standing slammed the book shut and dropped the writing slate onto the floor. Peeking around the linen curtains above the desk, he saw his mother beckoning to him from beside the orangeberry hedge that bordered their yard.
Everything glowed. His mother's loose auburn hair glimmered like a bonfire, and she wore a crown of flowers and verdant leaves; oranges, reds and purples radiated from autumn trees along the street; orangeberries in the hedge shimmered like gold. Brightness obscured anything beyond his side of the street.
His mother's fingers gripped his arm as soon as he stepped outside.
"What's... going on, Ma?" he said.
"I have no idea! But look at those plants!"
The potatoes and carrots and flowers that he had spent all summer digging and tending seemed to have doubled in size, their greens and browns, purples and reds as vivid as the colored windows in Sirah Anath's sanctuary. Vines in the neighbor's garden matured and bloomed, while earlier in the afternoon they'd been sagging over the fence.
"Yeah, Ma," he said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "I'm going to go see what all the noise is about." She followed him through the gate.
The chaos clarified. Screaming and noise vibrated the air, and people knocked past them as they made their way to the square. Neighbors' eyes darted wildly, and some screamed as though monsters chased them. A few stumbled along with arms outstretched, bumping into people, hedges and shops, as though finding their way in the dead of night. About half of the villagers he saw gazed up slack jawed and wide eyed as though they were in some kind of trance. Some pointed to the sky that should have been dusky, then whispered to friends in awe.
A girl strode through chaos, clutching an infant in a sling around her shoulder. The girl, probably four or five years older than Canúden, was skinny and had wavy dark hair that stuck out messily from a braid down her back. She glanced up at the sky as often as she glanced behind her, and when she looked ahead, her feet quickened. He knew everyone from Ocher and the surrounding forest; this girl was not from his village, or any village nearby. Maybe she was from the city, Vishall, that the villages surrounded. She disappeared into the whiteness down the street, towards the forest.
Out in the square, Canúden got a better view of the sky. The sun hung as a yellow half circle behind the Amethyst Mountains to the west, but everything brightened. The Amethyst ridges glowed nearly translucent against a swirling silvery-white dome of sky. His eyes stung and watered, but looking away proved difficult. Ma's mouth hung open, her lips contracted into an awed smile, her eyes scanning. She gripped his fingers.
In the east-south- eastern sky towards the Kanterol River and Vishall, an Object rose. Something that bright should have produced heat like summer, but the air felt comfortable as though he had just come out of a cold pool on a warm afternoon. While he squinted sharply to look at this object, it was possible to do so, even to know its shape and color. It wasn't exactly round, but six pointed, almost like it was trying to look like Galia's banner. It seemed to be made of living silver with sinuous rays pulsing, as if to music.
Drab wood moths that fluttered in patches of light glowed like the rarest butterfly he'd seen in a nature book at school. With brown-fringed feathers and yellow beaks glowing, nut-seeks chirped as though they'd never been so happy. Rabbits, mice, and squirrels dared to step into the village square, perhaps where they could see the sky without trees in the way. Dogs and wolves yelped together playfully. The animals sang, and what had been a cacophony of voices sounded vibrant, as though everything knew the words to the music of the sky. Canúden's heart found the rhythm, the grasping of meaning hanging just outside his senses. The meaning trembled closer as he stared at the sky.
"Oh, Anath, save me!" A thin, white haired woman shoved him to his back with long, knobby fingers. "It's dark, it's so pitch dark. I can't see! Not again, please, Anath!" It was the old healer, Gizelle, who lived tucked away in the forest outside Ocher. Some folks said she dabbled with dark forces and did dark things. Ma said most of their neighbors were too scared to go to her unless it was life and death. Probably her pale, bluish skin had more to do with people's fear than any wild story of harm she'd done. Hardly a reason to reject such a fascinating old lady who told him anything he ever thought to ask. Besides, she paid him to run errands because she hated to go into the village.
"You!" Ma's euphoric gaze turned a tinge blank as she stepped away from Canúden's fall, away from the old woman. "What's going on with you?"
Canúden jumped to his feet before Gizelle staggered away, and she shook when he grabbed her arm. "Gizelle!" He made his voice as calm as he could. She looked towards his voice, but her eyes wandered everywhere. "It's just me, Canúden, and my ma. What's the matter?"
She shivered in his grasp and her voice rasped. "Why is it so dark?"
"Dark?" Ma said. "It should be dusk, but it's bright out here, how couldn't you tell?"
"Maybe the weird light did something to your eyes," said Canúden, with a little glare at Ma for her rudeness to his friend. "I couldn't see much for a few seconds either." He thought about taking her to his home to let her rest, but Ma would have a fit to have her sit on one of their chairs or eat any of their food. Gizelle's apparent confusion dashed any hopes that she could tell him what was going on in the sky, though he had been heading to her house to ask, Ma or no Ma in trail. "Would you like me to help you home?"
Ma rolled her eyes. Her hair stopped glowing, like she had stepped indoors. "Go right ahead." She swept her fingers ahead irritably. "But this thing in the sky should be for family."
"Ma! She needs help. She's got no one else."
Gizelle nodded and patted his arm. "You're a good boy, Canúden. I haven't been this scared for a long while, and people can be so cruel."
Ma's cheeks flushed as her hair brightened a tinge. "I'm sorry, Gizelle. I don't know what's wrong with me."
Gizelle reached out her pale blue fingers, then withdrew them. "You have cause to distrust me, I'm sure, and I'm sorry for what I almost did to you back then. I was horribly mistaken. And I know a mother needs to watch out for her son. Harren, you needn't worry about the past. I will do all I can to protect your son. I am not that woman any more."
Ma raised an eyebrow, but her lips managed a smile. "I hope not, Gizelle. Do go ahead, Canúden. See how you can help her." She embraced him. "At least I have raised a kind son, despite myself."
"That's what I have been saying, Ma!" said Canúden. "Let me be kind."
He took Gizelle's firm grip and wove through people in the tight streets. Canúden and the old woman slowly made their way south towards the river side of the forest where the music of the water added another harmony.
Gizelle stared blankly ahead as she took shuffling steps. "I was born blind, and the world opened up to me when I was healed. I do not want to live that again."
"You were blind?" Canúden said. He hoped she'd elaborate. She shuddered.
They walked along the path north of the Kanterol River. On the grassy banks and in many forest clearings, families stretched out on blankets, or danced, or sang in harmony as though they'd practiced the same song in that funny language. The music felt familiar, but Canúden couldn't place where or if he'd ever heard it.
Gizelle's closed attitude kept Canúden silent about what was going on.
As they proceeded, spinning white fire reached the earth all around the river, the rocks, the grass, the people, and the forest. Green and gold and scarlet shimmered from within the trees. Music filled the forest as though everything was more happy than it knew how to be. Somehow trees and river had learned to sing.
Canúden shifted his shoulders and looked at the sky again. Figures came vaguely, then intensely, into view, filling the sky around the object. Human figures in silvery clothing. Their song seemed to be where all the light and color came from.
They were the Ancestors. No wonder everything sang.
"You're blind, but you must at least hear the singing," he ventured.
"All I hear is buzzing," she said.
"It's so amazing," he said. "The Ancestors are singing in the sky, and there's this bright... thing, only it's much bigger than the sun. And everything is glowing."
She stopped dead, and pulled away from him. He'd never noticed how very blue her eyes were as they stretched open. "Bless my soul and my resurrection, what have I done?"
"Huh?"
"Hallel is here," is all that managed its way out of her mouth.
Canúden stared at her. "Um, what does that even mean? What's going on?"
"What have I been doing?" Her voice sounded dry and weak.
The orange and green hedge around Gizelle's house loomed ahead. "We're almost there," said Canúden.
"Anath bless you, boy." Her mouth trembled, like she was having trouble breathing easily. Her knobby fingers quivered as she took his arm, but she stepped ahead more confidently.
Canúden pushed her gate open, and two steps inside she fell to her knees. She said some things in what sounded like the same funny language everyone was singing in, then she shook. When he touched her shoulder to see if she was all right, their minds connected and the meaning of her words came clear to him. Prayer to the Creators. Gizelle knew something about everything, so likely she knew a bit about them. He knelt as well and considered what exactly the old woman needed. He finally said, "Anath, open her eyes, please."
Tears wet the leaves under her prostrate face. She spoke again in Gungali. "Oh, please! Take it away from me! I can't live like this anymore. I am blind, but I see now! I see! Take the horror away. I never wanted any of it."
Canúden felt images of her life, and deaths she had caused to prolong it. She had fed on the wari of babies. His stomach squirmed. She was hundreds of years old. She had indeed dabbled in dark things, though she'd begun innocently, just wanting to understand everything she touched. Someone close to her had influenced her badly, and Gizelle hated herself every day for it. Black talons clutched her heart.
Gizelle lifted her eyes and sang with the trees and the river.
Taleni em hak ari et anel
Tanal chi fo metanal
Creators who are pure and wonderful
Forgive us as we turn and forgive.
Taleni em chanel
Hija dal tavaris
Creators who comprehend all
Cast out the dark.
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