A Rhythm Without a Call

I carried Orivane to the ancient circle after breakfast, wrapped in the same soft cloth as always. It rested against my palms while Aunt Seli walked beside me, and I wondered how much a question could weigh before anyone spoke it.

Pellune flew ahead, then backwards, then ahead again. “If we ask a small question, will we get a small answer?” she called. “I’d like to know before I ask whether the moss has been gossiping about me.”

“The size of an answer may not correspond to the size of a question,” Orivane said.

Pellune glanced over her shoulder. “That is exactly the sort of answer I feared.”

The others were waiting at the circle. The guide’s blue light filled the basin, steady and shallow. Rellin crouched at the edge, one hand near the roots running between the stones. Elder Tavar stood opposite him. Vaust had come without his black-stone instrument, as he had promised. His hands were empty, and he seemed to notice that I noticed.

“We said we would choose together,” I said. “One question, then one listen. We stop after the answer, or if anything changes.”

“And the answer may be that we cannot know,” Aunt Seli said. “We should be ready for that, too.”

I looked at the guide’s light. “What can a longer listen tell us?”

“It may let Orivane register more of the signal’s pattern,” the guide replied. “It cannot identify a source beyond what has already been established. It cannot open a route.”

Vaust folded his arms. “Then we should ask whether the signal leads somewhere.”

Orivane warmed slightly in my hands. “The reception cannot reveal a route merely because we wish to detect one.”

“I know. I’m asking what would be worth the risk.” Vaust’s voice stayed controlled, but he looked toward the northern side of the basin, as though the signal might be hiding there. “A direction would be worth it.”

“It might also be too large a question for the method,” Rellin said. He brushed a thumb along one root. “We can listen carefully to a path without asking it to carry us.”

I tried the questions in my mind. Was anyone waiting for Orivane? Did the signal know it was here? Could it show us where home was? Each one reached farther than the basin could.

Orivane spoke before I could say them aloud. “I would like to know whether the signal continues without our calling it.”

That was small enough to fit between us. It was also the question I had wanted to ask since the last time the blue points had appeared.

“Can we tell that from here?” I asked the guide.