Digital ISBN: 978-1-61696-419-1
Printed in the United States by Versa Press, Inc.
First Edition: 2024
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For the exiles and the translators
I. Downward
In the beginning, Bird brought us the stars.
There were twelve of them, each of different color—twelve triumphant stars that sang in the tail of the goddess as she descended toward the newborn land. Down there, in the scorching heart of the desert, the first guardians sang and danced as the goddess swooped closer, and Bird danced with them, and one by one the stars fell down from her tail. Each guardian caught a falling star, and later they planted the stars in their many homelands. From these buried stars, magic was born: deepnames shining like seeds of light in the earth, and in people’s minds. And these great buried stars have guarded the land since then; they guard it even now.
It’s a common story, I think. I learned it here, in the desert. But there is more than one way to tell about the Birdcoming. Each tradition is different—some very different.
Here is the story I learned long ago. I, Stone Orphan of the siltway people, translate it now into your language.
The goddess Bird was nearing her destination when the Star of the Shoal began to remember itself. The past was dangerous, so the star would allow itself to remember only what was useful for its survival.
More was needed now. Having recalled just enough to re-form a consciousness, the Star of the Shoal looked inward, where shimmering, fishlike nodes came together in a whirligig of silver—scales and shards of light. Sea-minnows they were, and also souls, souls of the dead who made up the star. Magical deepnames flared within some of the minnows, and others were magicless, but all were bonded together—soul to soul, deepname to deepname. Those without magic were held by magic extended from others, forming a collective which was the Star of the Shoal.
Eleven other stars clung to the streaming tail of the goddess, and they were so different. There were no souls inside that the Star of the Shoal could discern. Only deepnames, brighter and stronger at the core and wispier and longer at the outer tendrils. People are needed to give birth to deepnames, but only the magic survived.
But what about those without magic? Were they abandoned?
The Star of the Shoal shuddered with the repulsive strangeness of it, examining itself once more, tracking each soul-minnow and every bond just to make sure of its people. Some were missing, indeed, but most were accounted for, each soul a part of a generation extending in a horizontal plane and connecting vertically to generations below and above.
All dead, something deep within it suggested.
Death has no meaning within the collective of the Bonded Shoal, something else within it supplied. Bodies are always temporary.
Shhh, whispered another voice. This one was soft and at the same time wise, and it carried in it a melody which was immaterial and endless like the void. This voice sang, Attend now.
Bird was descending.
Through the outer layers of the sky the goddess plunged, her tail streaming behind her. The air around her was multicolored, a melody wrapping around her like an embrace that guided her gently down toward the newly formed world.
Not much could be seen from above but for the parting of clouds, and the clear skies below. The rainbow of music surrounding Bird dissolved into the air. Some moments later, music rose from a place of sand, to greet the descending Bird and the stars she was bringing.
A dozen people swayed and sang and played instruments, reveling in the dance of the goddess, the great Birdcoming. And oh, how she danced, her tail as wide as the sky and as narrow as shards, swirling and diving and circling through the air above the desert and its dancers. One by one, the people there lifted their hands toward Bird, and one by one, the stars fell from her tail, each singing or humming softly in anticipation of being caught.
The Star of the Shoal edged farther away from its jubilant fellows, and began to discourse with itself.
These dancing guardians are untrustworthy, said something within it.
These are nameway and dreamway. We’ve had such neighbors before, echoed another.
They won’t understand us, let alone safeguard us.
They will trick us and trap us. Betray us, just like before.
