QAQANHIALH
1561 4D
Early one sleepy summer morning, Aoriver spoke in Marra‘s brain. I’m hungry. We are nearing the time of qaqanhialh, and we will need extra food.
Marra started. “Aoriver? Is that you?” Her resident had not spoken in her since the spring.
Yes, still the same one. I haven’t changed.
“What’s qaqanhialh?”
When the suns send out their power, we join with each other and dance with knowledge. That is qaqanhialh. Here it is forty-three years between dances. In this nest the moon Lulith tells us to dance when it closes the sun’s eye. So the dance is very strong.
“I don’t understand,” Marra murmured. “The sun doesn’t change.”
Every sun changes. Some change much, some only a little. Some change quickly, some change slowly. I was with one of your people, before, where your kind first grew. There the sun changed a little every eleven years or so. A poor place for qaqanhialh. ‘Sunspots’ was what you called it.
“Oh, that. But the moon?”
Here the solar eclipses match the sun’s waxing and waning. The coming one is, for us, very powerful.
“So something big is coming.”
Something very big.
“Tell me.”
There are no words I can form in your language to explain it. A cusp. A discontinuity. A knot.
“Doesn’t seem like much.”
A chaotic knot, in the whole world. Even the wisest among us can’t see past it. We will change, and so will you.
“Marra?” Deen peered around the bedroom door. “Morning tea?”
“With the ‘meg in it!” Marra stretched, scratched herself, and rolled out of bed. She whispered to Aoriver, “So this — qaqanhialh — is like a big party for you and Oortonel?”
Not just us. All the others, too. And our hosts will dance with us.
“You mean us?”
Yes. You are part of this knot. There is no escape, and no holding back.
“This would have been nice to know before we took you on.”
Knowing never helps with things like this. Only living. For a while, things will be interesting.
“I think this is just a way for you to get an early meal. That’s what I think.”
Fine. Just see what happens the next time you take someone in.
