Chapter 1

    Nineteen-year-old Trenekis Idero entered Counselor Votig Brem’s home, having been summoned minutes earlier.  Trenekis crossed the spacious central room and pushed open the wooden door separating it from the smaller bedroom further on.  Turof, one of the counselor’s caretakers, was sitting next to the man’s bed.  She greeted Trenekis as he entered. 

    A scratched and dented lightstick, hung horizontally from ropes, was attached to the ceiling.  The room seemed bright and cheery, in sharp contrast to what Trenekis saw laying in bed.  The counselor lay under a thin sefa blanket, his head propped up by several pillows.  The room was quiet except for the soft whirring of the fan at the end of the duct which supplied the room with fresh air. 

    The counselor looked much older than his fifty-six years.  Votig’s normally light brown skin had become pale over the last several weeks.  A week ago, he had become bedridden and was no longer able to carry out his normal day-to-day activities on Hiera’s small law council.

    The counselor’s eyes were closed when Trenekis entered the room.  He opened them now and focused on the youth.  Tren’s shoulder-length brown hair, lightened in streaks by long hours in the twin suns, perfectly complemented his bright deep-green eyes.  An even tan covered the boy’s body.  The dark grey-brown drel skin shirt Trenekis wore was unlaced, exposing the middle of his chest and stomach.  The light down that covered Tren’s belly had only recently begun turning into a man’s darker hair.  The same soft drel skin had been fashioned into trousers as well.  Laced up the side and form-fitting, its thin leather had molded itself to his body.  His close-toed boots were laced at the top just above his ankles.

    “Tren, you’re here,” Counselor Brem said.  Then to Turof, “You may leave.”  He smiled wanly at her as she pulled the door shut behind herself. 

    “Why did you have her leave?” Trenekis asked.  He wasn’t sure if he was going to be asked to tend to the counselor or not.

    “Because I have something important to tell you.”

    Trenekis took a seat on the stool Turof had just vacated.

    “I have, at most, four months left,” the man told him.

    Tren did his best to fight the tears.  He had known the counselor had been sick for some time now.  He had known this man his entire life.  Although not related to his family, he considered Votig his uncle.  Votig had been one of the original founders of Hiera.  The counselor had been a close friend of Tren’s father since before Tren was born.  Votig considered Trenekis the son he never had.

    “But we have medicines, equipment.  There’s Bosh.  My mother can help!”

    “Yes, we have all of that, Tren.  But you, of all people, know the equipment is old and worn out.  Much like me, it seems.  The med scanners are the only things that work well nowadays.  That’s how Bosh knows I’m dying.  I have tumors he can’t remove.  Your mother delivers children.  She can’t help me.  The best that can be done is to sustain my life for as long as Bosh can do so.  Then it will be over.  Perhaps it’s for the best.”

    “No!  It’s not for the best,” Trenekis said, his head shaking.

    Brem reached out, took Tren’s hand and squeezed it.  “I must tell you something far more important.  Check the door.”  He pointed toward it.

    Tren noted that despite his sickness the man had plenty of strength left.  Perhaps he might still pull through, Tren thought.  He rose and made sure the door was firmly shut, then returned to the stool.  What could possibly be more important, he wondered.

    “Who are your parents?” the man asked.

    “My parents?”  Perhaps he didn’t hear the counselor correctly.

    “Who are they?”

    “Ayvik is my father.  Ellu is my mother.  You know that.”  Perhaps this sickness is causing him to ask stupid questions.

    “Tren, they’re not your parents.”  Votig watched confusion sweep across the youth’s face.  “We swore to keep it from you.  You were just an infant when I… found you.”

    “You’re ill, counselor.”

    “No, Tren.  They’re not your birth parents.  They took you as theirs before you were even a year old.  I-I asked them to.  It’s the truth, Tren.  I’m sorry we’ve kept this from you.  It was for the good of the village.  But you turn twenty in five weeks.  It’s only right you were told before you reach the Age of Inclusion.  Since I was the one who found you – saved your life – I asked to be the one to tell you.”

    Trenekis was stunned.  This was impossible.  His parents were his flesh and blood.  No one had ever alluded to anything else.  There were no clues to say otherwise.  No one had ever even hinted at it, least of all his mother and father.  “Why did no one ever say anything?  Ever?”

    “Because of your father.  His name was Arasen Vatch.”

    Alarmed, Trenekis stood, nearly knocking over the stool.  “What?”

    “Him,” Votig replied, nodding.

    Tren could barely breathe.  “No…”

    “It’s not spoken of except by a few who are still alive who used to live in the city.  There is very little need to discuss those days.  They were filled with many painful events.  The Path Holders were ruthless.  Are ruthless.  And nearly mindless in their fanaticism to this day.”

    Trenekis was overwhelmed. “W-why was I brought here?”

    “I found you as we abandoned the city.  I couldn’t let an infant die.  It wasn’t until later that we determined who you were.  That’s why we kept this from you.  No one wanted you to be burdened by it, or ashamed.  Tren, you’ve turned out to be more than we could have hoped for.  Far more.”

    Trenekis sat back down in stunned silence, now barely able to think.

    The counselor continued.  “You know, as does everyone in the village, that Arasen ruled the city before a quake took his life,” he said as he shook his head, a far away look in his eyes.  He cast his gaze back to Trenekis almost immediately.  “You just didn’t know he was your father.  Tren, his death revealed our mistake, the mistake of following him to Ithos, of living in his city, of believing he had some sort of answer we thought was missing from our lives.  He had no answers, none at all.  That much became evident nearly the first day we gathered to give thanks that we had made it safely. 

    “Ironic, isn’t it?  We weren’t safe at all.  We were in more danger than we’d ever been.  Our attempt to rectify that mistake is only one reason why we’re separate from the Path Holders.  So many of us wanted to find a new way, a way that didn’t involve his misguided message.  The disaster simply provided the impetus to do something we had long wanted to do.  We didn’t know your mother had survived the disaster until much later.  The last we know, she was still alive – a Path Holder in Kelesat.”

    This was the first time Tren had heard any of this.  It was almost too much to bear that his uncle was dying, but to be confronted with this!  Arasen was his father?  His birth mother was a Path Holder?  It was nearly impossible to absorb.  “I have to go,” Trenekis said.  He needed to get to Sanctuary, his place, his keep, so he could to stabilize himself and sort it all out.  He had to or he might burst.

    The counselor grasped Tren’s hand.  “Trenekis, I’ve never lied to you.  Your parents have never lied to you about this either.  All of us just omitted it.  You’ve lived a good life, a life far better than you could possibly have had if you had grown up with the Path Holders.  Your parents are good people.  They’ve always been.  It was better you weren’t burdened with this.  You must believe me.”

    Angry and bewildered, Trenekis pulled his hand away.

    “Be good to them.  They’re not to blame.  If anyone is, I am, since I urged them to stay silent about it until it was time.  We did it for you, Tren.  For you.”

Chapter 2

    The path through the scrub was easy to follow in the dusk.  After all, Trenekis had been coming to Sanctuary for years now.  Enyi, the second sun, had just set, making the horizon glow fiercely reddish.  Trenekis had his lightstick.  The casing was scratched and worn.  The depression on its side where it was activated was smooth from years of use, but its light still shone steadily.  The display showed nineteen percent power available, enough for at least eight more years of continuous use, even at full power.  Then it too would go offline and into the storage cavern with the rest of the discarded items – the cavern that was becoming more and more crowded with worn out tek.

    The evening was warm, as it was year round.  Dry breezes caressed Tren’s upper body as the opened halves of his shirt flapped back and forth.  His chest didn’t glisten from sweat but rather from tears which rolled now and then off his cheeks.  He followed the trail through the short bushes, then across the wide-mouthed canyon, and finally up the series of ladders to the top of the mesa.  To Sanctuary.

    At the top, a flat horizontal stone sat at the very end of the mesa.  One could sit on it and literally dangle one’s feet over the edge of the sheer vertical cliff face.  It was nearly fifty meters to the ground.  From it, he could see for dozens of kilometers across the valley floor.  Not toward Hiera but rather toward the low foothills that separated the village from the Nolont Dunes further beyond.  And beyond that, the Jaster Mountains that presented an effective barrier to parts further north.  Days beyond lay the abandoned city.

    Trenekis halted a few steps from the cliff edge but didn’t sit on his flat stone.  Rather, he stood and raised his arms up to the sky, tilting his head back slightly.  As he had done so many times before, he implored the vast wide sky to bring him solace.  Standing this high above the valley, seemingly able to reach right up into the infinite blackness at night, he was a conscious point.  With his feet on solid ground and his eyes fixed upward, it was as if he was a link, a conduit to things known and unknown.  How just looking up into it did that when he was younger, he never understood.  But it was so.  Yet, as the years had passed, it was becoming more and more difficult to feel that almost magical feeling.  Tonight, this simple action brought him no solace.  Not while Counselor Brem lay dying.  Not while it had been revealed to him that he was the son of the most despised man anyone had ever spoken of.  That his very own mother was not who he thought she was.

    The counselor said he was much more than they could have hoped for.  Trenekis was certain that wasn’t true, especially now.  After his Age of Inclusion ceremony, he had up to a year to wed.  He would have to take the bride his parents had chosen for him long ago.  He was sure Falla knew about him, despite his subterfuge.  Sure, he could play the game, but for the rest of his life?  He didn’t think it would be possible.  Despite the desperate bid he felt inside himself to conform to the village’s adherence to norms, he was nearing a breaking point.  He knew why those norms were there though.  The village’s population was small.  There had to be a strong ethic to grow because of their isolation.  Expanding the gene pool was paramount.  Yet, despite the fact that he was fully capable of fathering children, it didn’t feel right.  Having erotic thoughts about Falla was difficult at best.  It hadn’t prevented them from experimenting, but Tren knew he was playing a hollow game of make-believe.  After he and Falla married she would know why he didn’t want to have sex with her.  She would have no choice but to talk to Bosh about it.  Everyone else would learn the truth, including Tren’s parents.  They would have no choice but to invoke Hieran law.  He would have to produce children or be banished.

    Everyone of childbearing age would grow the village.  The only way there would be no children was infertility.  Every boy and girl was told how children came into being, and scanned at puberty.  He was very aware how children were born, mainly due to his mother, who worked with Bosh as a midwife.  In addition, he had been scanned years ago.  He was fit, healthy and biologically capable of helping Falla bear children.  His family looked forward to the day when that would happen, but it was not a time he looked forward to, not at all.  Eventually, he would be turned away from the village. 

    There was so much he couldn’t tell anyone.  How it wasn’t Falla’s lips when they kissed, it was Keenam’s.  How it wasn’t her skin he touched, it was Keenam’s.  It wasn’t her he lay with, it was Keenan; the boy he could never truly have, because no one could take a male partner. 

    It didn’t matter whether Counselor Brem had cared for him his entire life, had been his surrogate uncle, and had had so many talks with him about so many important things.  Now he knew why the man had taken such an intense interest in him.  He was watching out for me because I’m Arasen Vatch’s son!

    The city hadn’t been visited by anyone for a very long time.  The whispered conversations he’d heard about it told him that it was nearly a kilometer across and surrounded by a high wall.  The city was once full of medicines that were far better than anything they had concocted from the plants and other materials around Hiera; with new tek that far exceeded anything they had left.

    It didn’t matter what he had just learned.  It didn’t matter that the man he loved as if he were family had never told him this ugly truth.  He couldn’t just let Counselor Brem die.  Not without trying to stop it.  Not without breaking the long silence about the city to see for himself if anything was left, anything that might be helpful for the man who… saved his life.  Maybe, just maybe, such a selfless act would prevent him from being banished.  Maybe he could implore the counselor to make an exception for him.  It was a long shot, but he had to try.  Yet, he couldn’t do it alone.  He needed help.  And there was only one person he would even think to ask: Keenam.

*

Fifteen-year-old Trenekis Idero and sixteen-year-old Keenam Rethla rounded the wide boulder and turned to the right.  The trail of nertic bushes, with their spiky orange and red leaves, and twisted purple bark, was starting to peter out as they walked along.  Before them was a wide canyon with a flat sandy bottom.  Keenam had only occasionally come this way.

    That’s because hardly any animals worth hunting made their home in this environment. 

    “What are you making me for my birthday?” Tren asked as they walked.  He would be sixteen in twenty-one days.

    “For the second time, nothing,” Keenam told him.

Trenekis grinned.

    The canyon walls were perhaps thirty meters high.  Made of arkose sandstone, its reddish hue was a variation of Keenam’s dark red hair color.  “Which way now?”

    Trenekis pointed.  “That way.”  Although they were at the mouth of the canyon where it was easily ten meters wide, the wind funneled toward them.  It momentarily whipped Keenam’s hair into a frenzy before dying down to a soft caress.  But the frenetic air had merely climbed inside Tren’s head.  There, it nestled.  Lurked. 

    Keenam’s shirt was unbuttoned.  Trenekis forced himself to look away from the stocky boy’s chest, now completely exposed because of the wind gusts.  He had to keep his eyes from the considerable bulge in Keenam’s tight drel skin trousers, away from Keenam’s peach-fuzzed face, the flawless jaw.  Trenekis gulped, hoping the intense feelings it was creating inside him would dissipate, relinquish control, and let him breathe again.

    They did not.

    The boys continued for several dozen meters more.  The canyon veered to the left.  They walked another twenty meters.  Trenekis stopped two meters from the cliff face by a crack in the wall.

    “Now what?”  Keenam asked.

    “We go in.”

    “In?”

    “Through here,” Trenekis said as he tugged on Keenam’s hand. 

    If not for the hour and the fact that the suns were casting their double shadows at just the right angle, Keenam would never have seen the opening.  He leaned forward and peered in.  His sharp eye told him that an ancient watery cascade, or a series of them, had carved the crack into the canyon wall.  There was nothing unusual about that.  But this one was a narrow slot canyon that wended its way deep into the wall of partially lithified sandstone.  The slot went inward as well as all the way to the sky and was wide enough for them to traverse.  Tren led Keenam left, then right, another right, then straight ahead.  As they made their way into the slot, they became enveloped in shadows.  Finally, they came to a dead end.     

    “Where did this come from?”  Keenam asked as he placed his hand on a post.  It was crossed every half-meter with a lashed piece of phalwood.

    “I made it.  There are six of them that take you all the way to the top of the mesa.  I named this Ladder Canyon.”

    Keenam’s face brightened with a snow white row of teeth.  Trenekis nearly told Keenam he should never do that without first warning him.  Just about every time he smiled it seemed like an invitation to kiss him. 

    Without another moment’s hesitation, Keenam started to climb.  In seconds, he was standing on a flat ledge several meters up.  He looked down at Trenekis.  Trenekis looked up.  Keenam’s rusty locks framed his face; his hands on his hips, legs spread slightly apart.  Trenekis prevented himself from staring where those legs came together.

    The top of the pole was lashed by a rope to a stake to keep it in place. Trenekis was up and at the stake moments later, grasped it and hoisted himself up next to Keenam.  His heart was beating fast.  His chest heaved in great breaths despite the oxygen-saturated atmosphere.  Tren looked down.  They were leaving Hiera behind.  He and Keenam were becoming more and more alone.  Together.  Just as Tren planned it.

    “Five more of these ladders to go,” Trenekis told him.  This time he took the lead as they continued in a horizontal direction to the left, then to the left again.  Some of the ladders were longer.  Some were shorter.  At each level, the slot went further into the mesa.  They were getting closer to the sky, too.  Minutes later they were at the very top. 

    “Who else comes up here?” Keenam asked.

    “No one.  It’s my sanctuary.”  Sanctuaries are only for important people, Trenekis thought.  That’s why you’re here with me.

    They reached the very edge of the mesa and gazed out over the valley.  The Nolont Dunes were visible from up here.  The Jaster mountain range was at the horizon further on.  Adrenaline surging through Trenekis delayed him catching his breath, although they were standing still now.  It was impossible to tell Keenam what he felt.  They had been friends since he could remember and he had tried.  But he didn’t have the right words.  Somehow, the trying was going to come to an end today.

    Tren looked out toward the mountains, keeping his attention far away, lest he completely lose control.

    Keenam approached from behind, then placed his hands on Tren’s shoulders.  He drew himself closer and ever so gently kissed Tren’s cheek.

    Startled, Tren’s focus snapped back to the pinpoint of quickly drying wetness.  He whirled around.  Keenam raised his hands up then dropped them back down on Tren’s shoulders.  They stood face-to-face, out in the open, far above the valley, at the top of the mesa. Trembling with equal measures of hope and fear, Tren placed his hands on Keenam’s hips.  Tentative.  Unsure of himself.  Without hesitation, Keenam kissed Tren full on the mouth.

    What seemed like an electric charge ran through Tren’s body as his penis swelled.  He pressed against the hardness that graced the front of Keenam’s trousers.  They rubbed up and down, holding onto each other buttocks, unable to control themselves.  Slowly at first, then picking up the pace, Tren quickly found himself lost with desire.  He could no longer catch his breath.  His eyelids fluttered.  The explosive power of his orgasm caught him by surprise.  Tren’s moans reverberated against Keenam’s chest.

    Both still breathing hard, Keenam turned Trenekis around, slipped his penis out of his trousers, pulled Tren’s down to the boy’s ankles, and slid himself up and down, pressing himself against the cleft of Tren’s butt cheeks.  Not more than ten seconds later Keenam cried out multiple times, as if he were hurt.  But Trenekis knew otherwise. 

    Once his orgasm faded, Keenam used his fingers to scoop up the sticky streaks and flick them away.  With most of it gone, he wiped the rest of it away until only dry crusts remained on the fine white hairs of Tren’s lower back.  Still hard, Keenam turned Trenekis back around.  Tren’s penis pointed up at him.  Keenam pulled Tren’s pants up, attempting to scoop up the mess inside the boy’s trousers and flick it away.  Tren held the waistband as Keenam retrieved his canteen, opened it and poured a bit into his hand.  He wiped the inside of Tren’s pants several times.  It would take a good washing to remove all of it.

    “Uh...,” Trenekis started after Keenam was done.  He hadn’t said a word so far, still amazed at what had just taken place. 

    “You wanted to,” Keenam said, with a failed attempt at innocence.

    “No one can know,” Trenekis told him, a flicker of fear in his voice.

    Keenam’s eyes narrowed as he shook his head.  “Of course not,” he said matter-of-factly. 

    His trousers were still at his ankles.  He turned and peed, sending a loud stream into a meddeti bush.  Trenekis did the same, then wiped more of the wetness from the inside of his trousers.  It wasn’t going to be a pleasant walk back.  Their erections now mostly gone, they managed to stuff themselves back in to their trousers.

    “It was fun, right?”  Keenam said.  Half-question, half-statement.

    Tren’s covert reason for bringing Keenam up here had backfired.  “I...,” Trenekis started.  He grasped Keenam’s bicep.  He didn’t know how to answer that question.  He only knew there was a need fulfilled.  A seam stitched together.  A chasm crossed.  One he had intended to cross if Keenam hadn’t pre-empted him, circled around and delivered his plan literally into his lap.  If only he had been the bold one and taken the lead.  But Keenam had lain in wait and pounced instead, the hunter that he was.

    “No one will know when it happens again,” Keenam told him probingly.

    Trenekis sucked in a surprised breath.  ‘When it happens again!’  Joy superseded fear in that instant.  “Only us,” Trenekis responded, nodding his head rapidly.  He hugged Keenam almost with violence, unable to withhold an upwelling of glee, of insane happiness.  Keenam hugged back with equal strength.  They held on to each other as the intimacy they shared only moments ago rewove their friendship into something new, until Tren reclaimed the equilibrium that had balanced them forever.  “We’ve always been friends,” Trenekis said at a whisper, his chin resting on Keenam’s shoulder.

    Keenam pulled back and looked Tren right in the eye.  There was a mischievous look to his grin.  “And we always will be,” he told Tren with a solid presence, an emphatic nod, a promise. 

    They were halfway back to Hiera when Trenekis realized he had received an early birthday present.  Keenam had planned it all along.

*

    Trenekis climbed down from Sanctuary and marched fiercely back home.  His mother and sister were in the great room, his father was in the kitchen.  As Tren was wont to do, he demanded an audience with his parents.  He told them he planned to go to the city to find remnants of tek.

    Tren’s mother shook her head.  “I won’t permit it.”

    “And I will not permit it,” his father repeated.  “There’s nothing left in the city.  You will not go there.”

    Tren merely wanted to test his resolve and theirs.  He had yet to tell them the reason why he was going.  “Have you not taught me to value questions?  To always ask why and never accept anything that doesn’t follow reason?”

    “What has that to do with this issue?”

    “Why did you never tell me the truth about my past.”  Tren’s words were filled with such hurt it was palpable.

    There was a desperate silence in the great room that served as their family den.  His sister Zenna, younger by three years, was on the large plush couch.  She drew her knees up to her chest, then wrapped her arms around them as if to ward off the intensity of Tren’s angry words.  It wasn’t unlike him to have such outbursts, but she hadn’t seen him this emotional for quite some time.

    “What do you know of that?” Ayvik asked, unsure of what Tren was actually saying.

    “Counselor Brem told me who I am.”

    Ellu quickly grasped her husband’s hand.  “He told you.”

    Trenekis nodded his head, his mouth tight.

    Ayvik stood taller and glanced at his wife.  “Then he also told you why we never did.”

    Zenna looked confused now.  “Told him what?”  Trenekis looked at her.  “Told you what, Tren?”

    He glanced over at her then back to his parents.  “That you’re not my sister.”

    Ellu’s response was swift.  “There will be no talk like that in this house,” she said angrily.  “Zenna is your sister as much as you are our son.”

    “I am Arasen’s son,” he told her, pointing to his chest.

    “No!” Zenna exclaimed.  She knew that name, as did everyone.

    Trenekis looked at her.  “The very same.”

    “Trenekis, you will sit at our table,” his father demanded, directed, with the weight of his will, with the raw power of his voice.  “My… son will sit at our table.”  His chin trembled a little.  He often wondered what he would feel when this day arrived.  Now he knew. 

    At first, Trenekis refused.  He hurt like no other time in his life.  But his mother looked at him, silently, staring into his eyes.  Pleading with... her son.  So, they sat. 

    Ellu poured water from a pitcher into tall glasses.  The family talked.  The wind gusted now and then against the door that held back the growing night.  His mother held her son’s hands across the table where they had eaten thousands of meals together, laughed together, and where endless love had been given and received, like this moment.

    His hurt feelings were exposed one by one.  Several tears dropped to the tabletop – his tears.  The explanation of that desperate decision made years ago was given out in measured doses, and the story of how he had been found was told in great detail.  Ellu’s acceptance of the infant she adopted was made clear.  As Tren’s panicked breathing gave way to calm, he finally understood their reasoning, at least as much as he could do so right now.

    Nothing had changed in the warm round room.  Trenekis knew – knew – he was the son of Ayvik and Ellu.  His sister was Zenna.  Love was not in short supply here.  It had never been in short supply.  Even now.  Even though Trenekis felt he had been betrayed.  But that feeling of betrayal was not true.  Counselor Brem could only be accused of an omission, as he himself had said.  His parents could only be accused of it, too.

    There was a long silence.  Zenna had fallen asleep on the couch.  The lightstick that hung from the ceiling above the table made the room glow softly.  A glow that felt as warm as the love his parents still held for him, and he felt for them.

    “You must let me go,” Trenekis told his father.  “There may be something that might help him.  There must be dozens of things still left there.  Maybe-maybe a medbot still asleep or-or hidden away.  Instruments.  Anything.”

    His father and mother looked at each other.  Ayvik already knew that no matter how strongly he objected, Trenekis would go anyway.  He stood.  Trenekis stood, too.  Ayvik rounded the table and hugged his son.  He held Tren tightly, stroking his hair.  Tears welled in his eyes.  Trenekis hugged back, basking in the man’s strength.  The strength and love of the only father he’d ever actually known.

    “You’re nearly the Age of Inclusion.  I can’t keep you from doing anything you will do anyway.  Even if I threatened you with reprimand by the counselors you would find a way to go.  You must know you’ll be heading into danger.  Path Holders may still roam there.”

    “I won’t be going alone.  Tomorrow, I’m asking Keenam to help me.”

*

    It was break time at school.  Eighteen boys and twenty girls were busy pairing up, trebling; laughing, giggling, sneaking glances, trading jokes, jibes, gossip.

    Sixteen-year-old Keenam peeled off from a swarm of boys and found Trenekis.  “Come with me.”

    “Where?”

    “A hunt, of course.”  It was something Keenam was painfully aware that his friend had little interest in.   

    “How about Ladder Canyon instead.”  Trenekis deliberately draped his words under layers of innocence, carefully removed from any hope of a repeat of three days ago.  They hadn’t said a word about it to each other.

    “Dhalkens don’t live there.”

    Trenekis shook his head.  “You’re the hunter.”  His words were no longer innocent but rather laced with exasperation.   

    “I know you like roasted dhalken,” Keenam urged.  He was also painfully aware that Trenekis could sometimes be totally dense. 

    Trenekis had his back against the outside wall of the school hut.  Keenam placed his hand against one of the wall beams as he leaned into Tren’s space.  The aroma of his armpit bloomed.  Like an animal, Trenekis caught Keenam’s scent and involuntarily breathed in deeply, with relish.  He was captured.  There was no way out of Keenam’s trap.  His heartbeat intensified.  Unable to stop himself, the word spilled out of his mouth.  “When?”

    That was easy, Keenam thought, wondering what had changed Tren’s mind all the sudden.  “After school,” he said with a curiously satisfied look.

    Two hours.  An eternity.

    Tren fought with himself as they exited the south trail out of Lancel Canyon onto the edge of the plain.  He desperately wanted to say something to Keenam about what happened those short days ago, but Keenam seemed as if he had no time to discuss it.  Only the hunt was on his mind.  There were dhalkens to find.  Small, skittish, yet with plenty of juicy meat on them, they were creatures of the forest.  They were also quite tasty.  Tren’s mouth watered at the thought.  He didn’t care to hunt them but he certainly enjoyed eating them.   

    They followed the creek, then bypassed the dam, heading for the forest.  Soon trees closed in, shading both Belat and Enyi’s light just enough to reduce the heat of the day.

    “Stop,” Keenam commanded.  Tren stopped dead in his tracks, thinking Keenam had spotted something.

    Keenam put his hands on Tren’s shoulders and guided him to the closest tree trunk.  There, he turned Tren around and gently pressed his back against it.  He smiled, then kissed Tren in the most tender way he could muster.  It wasn’t exactly his style.  Keenam was a bit clumsy.

    Tren’s heart pounded.  His palms grew sweaty.  He felt as if his head would explode as he kissed back.

    Keenam’s hand went to Tren’s hair.  Fingers explored the back of his head.  Tren did the same to Keenam.  Keenam pressed his mouth even harder against Tren’s.  He stopped and drew himself back.  “Whew!” he said with a huge smile.  He reached down and adjusted an obvious erection.

    Trenekis was unable to utter much more than a loud exhale.  He reached out, took Keenam and hugged him, not believing the surge of feelings spilling out of him; enjoying the swelling in his own pants.

    “Was it fun?”  Keenam asked when Trenekis released him.

    “Fun?”

    Keenam looked into the branches behind Trenekis, ignoring the reply.  He pressed an index finger to his lips, then extended his hand, palm down.  Trenekis didn’t look back.  Instead, he dropped to his haunches.  Keenam’s bulging erection, outlined behind thin drel skin trousers, was mere centimeters from his face.  Inexorably drawn toward it, Tren reached up.

    Slowly, Keenam retrieved the bow from across his back, an arrow from the quiver, strung it, aimed, and fired.  He missed.  It was impossible to concentrate.  His heart was pounding far too hard.  “Arrrgh!” he exclaimed.  Now he had to recover the arrow.  He started ahead, skirting a thicket in his path.

    Trenekis was still sitting on his heels.  He had almost reached far enough to touch Keenam’s crotch.  “Wait!”

    Keenam didn’t look back.  Instead, he beckoned Trenekis with a flutter of his hand.

    Trenekis caught up.  “What are you doing?”

    “Dhalken,” Keenam said matter-of-factly.

    “Stop it with the dhalkens,” Trenekis told him.  He took Keenam’s arm and pulled him to a stop.  “Why did you kiss me?”

    “Because I wanted to.”  Keenam took Tren’s hand and pulled him along a slightly perceptible trail.  Off to the left behind some low bushes, the stump of a norit tree stood alone behind a boulder.  It had been cut down long ago for use in the village.  Keenam continued to pull Trenekis along, then sat on the edge of the circular gray trunk.  He removed the bow and quiver from his shoulder and laid them next to the stump.  He quickly shed his shirt and tossed it at Tren.  “Take yours off,” he said excitedly.

    Listening for anything that might spell disaster, Tren quickly pulled the cord that laced up the front of his shirt, then pulled it over his head.  He let it drop on top of Keenam’s. 

    It was difficult for Trenekis to keep his breath steady as Keenam directed his actions.  Keenam spread his legs slightly and pointed.  Sit on my lap, facing me, he pantomimed. 

    Trenekis straddled him and was immediately engulfed in Keenam’s arms.  The kisses were fast and furious.  Keenam seemed on fire.  His warm hands were all over Tren’s shoulders, arms, back, his crotch, his thighs.  Tren did the same.  It was impossible to stop himself.  Keenam refused to stop for even a moment as he took the lace that held Tren’s fly together.  He pulled it, then spread the laces apart.  Tren’s upturned penis popped out.  The excitement surging through Tren’s body threatened to burn his entire body to ash.

    Keenam pulled and tugged before abruptly stopping.  He pushed Trenekis backward.  Get up, he meant.  Trenekis stood as Keenam unlaced the tops of Tren’s boots, pulled them off, and in seconds had the boy’s trousers at his feet.  Tren stepped out of them.  He looked left, right, behind himself, keenly aware of each and every forest sound.  He was terrified they’d be caught, now that he was standing barefoot on his trousers, his penis pointing toward the sky.

    Keenam quickly shed his own trousers and sat back down on the stump.  Both butt naked now, he pulled Tren close.  His hands around the globes of Tren’s buttocks, he made Tren impale his mouth.  Tren sucked in a shocked breath as Keenam pulled Tren’s hips back and forth, sucking, slurping and trying his best to keep his teeth from scraping the sensitive skin of Tren’s rock hard penis.

    Tren clutched the back of Keenam’s head, oblivious to everything except sixteen and a half centimeters of his body.  Keenam wrapped his thumb and index finger around Tren’s balls, trying to prevent them from pulling up too high.

    Without warning Keenam stopped, pulled back, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.  Tren’s heart rate was hypersonic, his breath nearly impossible to catch.

    Keenam scooted himself back on the stump and opened his legs.  He directed Tren to sit on his thighs facing him again.  Still breathing hard, Tren sat, gazing down at Keenam’s skyward-pointing penis, marveling at how beautiful it looked.

    Keenam took Tren’s penis and started stroking.  He refused to stop.  Tren’s come jettisoned onto the Keenam’s chest and abdomen.  Keenam kept going even after Tren’s loud cries died out.  Tren had to stop him.

    Keenam scooped up the white goo, then spat into his palm.  He clamped his hand around his own aching penis and smeared it all over.  With his other hand, he gently pushed Tren back to get him off his thighs.  Wobbly-legged, Tren backed up and stood.  His penis refused to deflate.  Semen oozed down the shaft.

    With his hand still on his penis, Keenam directed Tren to bend over and place his hands on the stump.  Trenekis complied, not caring what Keenam had in mind, knowing precisely what was next.

    Keenam spat into his palm again, smeared some of it between Tren’s buttocks, poked his finger in a few times, then slowly pushed his penis inward.  Tren gasped in shocked pain, which turned into extreme pleasure once he felt Keenam’s pubic hair against his skin.  Keenam held onto Tren’s slim waist as he started bucking back and forth slowly at first, then quickly upped the tempo.  He cried out mere seconds later.  Trenekis counted nine cries from Keenam’s mouth, the most rapturous sounds he’d ever heard.

    Keenam kept himself inside Tren, as if not wanting the experience to leave him, his breath heaving, his legs wobbling.  Tren eventually reached back and pushed Keenam away.  Tren turned around, observing Keenam’s slick penis still pointing north.  Tren’s still pulsated at attention as well.  Keenam’s face was shiny from sweat.  He was still breathing like he had just finished running a marathon.

    “Sorry it was so... fast,” Keenam said between gulps of air.  “I couldn’t help it.”

    Trenekis felt terribly vulnerable now.  It was over and they were completely naked, with sticky evidence of what just took place obvious all over both of them.  Keenam looked up at Tren’s face, then back down at the boy’s still-hard penis.  The quiet forest sounds were a serenade for their final moments of rushed intimacy.

    Keenam was a mess.  The front of his body was covered with long streaks of Tren’s now-liquefied semen.  His penis was slick and shiny.  His hands were covered in saliva and semen.  Tren poured some water from his canteen onto his hands, then wiped Keenam’s chest.  When he got to Keenam’s penis, he grasped it.  Keenam flinched.  “It’s sensitive.”  Tren held on to it, admiring it instead.  It refused to deflate.

    Finally, both as cleaned up as they could muster, Keenam wiped his forehead with the side of his hand.  “Whew!” he said as he sat on the stump.

    Trenekis sat next to Keenam in the sunlight.  Twin shadows danced over his skin.  His penis refused to call it quits. 

    Tren looked down at himself and grinned.  He looked over at Keenam’s penis.  His, too, still pulsed at attention.  “I thought we were going hunting,” Tren told him.

    “You’re the smartest person I know, but the dumbest, too,” Keenam replied.

    Leaning back in the dappled sunlight, Trenekis was suddenly taken by how he had no desire to even reach for his clothing yet.  “You were hunting me,” Trenekis said, surprised at his sudden revelation of the obvious.

    Keenam chuckled, stood and faced his friend.  His penis was only now beginning to fall over.  He squeezed out the last bit of semen, licked it from his finger, then seductively looked at Trenekis as he pulled his trousers back on, pulled his penis back in, laced his trousers back up, then pulled his shirt on.  He did all of it with slow deliberate purpose, enjoying being watched.

    Trenekis was mesmerized at the show.  Keenam had always been bold, but this was something entirely new.  A sudden shiver racked his body, which made his penis, at last, fall over.  It was time for him to get dressed; for Keenam to kill a dhalken so no one would even have an inkling of what had taken place here. 

    Trenekis picked up his clothing, shook off the detritus, and placed his trousers on the stump.  His shirt was first.  Just as he got it over his face, he felt hands envelop him.  Keenam was behind Tren, his hidden penis already half-hard again as he pressed against Tren’s bare buttocks, his arms wrapping around Tren’s chest.  There, he lingered as he pinched the boy’s nipples, which electrified him, making him hard again.  Keenam pulled the shirt down for him and kissed the back of Tren’s neck.  “It might happen again,” he whispered. 

    Tren only nodded as he placed his hands on top of Keenam’s, unable to speak, defenseless against powerful unfamiliar emotions surging through him.

    Keenam let go as quickly as he had taken Tren, picked up the quiver and slung it over his shoulder.  The bow was next.  He walked away, further into the forest, as if nothing had happened.

    Keenam’s action was so abrupt that Trenekis gasped.  “Where are you going?”

    “My arrow,” Keenam told him.  “Get dressed.”

    It was difficult for Tren to lace his trousers up because his penis refused to get out of the way. 

Chapter 3

    Trenekis awoke as soon as the sliver of sky above the canyon started glowing with early dawn light.  He quietly ate a light meal, then took his clothing and kit bag and headed to the bath area that served the five families closest to their home.  Despite plumbing inside their homes becoming more common as time went on, bathing facilities were still communal.  Early on, such facilities had been well-built and elaborately appointed.  They bore an opulence unmatched by most other public facilities Hierans had grown to enjoy.

    Whereas the boys were always attempting to peek at girls in the adjacent shower buildings, Trenekis never did.  He was much more comfortable being in the presence of half-naked or fully-naked boys.  Trenekis had had that opportunity since he could remember.  It was only natural, Ayvik had told him when he was twelve, to sometimes get an erection in the showers, when it first happened to him.  Hormones were difficult to control as puberty worked its power to force boys into manhood.  He knew it.  All the men knew it.  It was nothing to be ashamed of.  Trenekis was only ashamed when, at thirteen, he realized it wasn’t accidental anymore.  Especially when Keenam was nearby.  Today, there were only two other men at the far end of the large semi-open shower.  Keenam, now that he was married, was no longer part of their shower group.  He lived further away now.  Tren quickly finished, cleaned up behind himself and left.

    At the extreme southern end of Hiera was Jalteb Rethla’s glassmaking shop.  His shop was adjacent to a metalworking shop.  The pottery-making shop was next to it.  Further down were the woodworking shops and several cloth weaving rooms.  Lots of activity took place here where the relatively narrow canyon widened considerably.  The open area at the mouth of the canyon was used for finished products as they were set out in the sun, covered by pergolas, or placed in storage for future consumption.  Its location also prevented smoke, ash and other noxious fumes from permeating the otherwise clear village air.  The remnants of the old tek had provided the starting points for these low tek industries. 

    Twenty-year-old Keenam Rethla worked with his father Jalteb.  Keenam, now past the Age of Inclusion, had married three months ago.  Keenam and his wife Meretesh had secretly started working on children weeks before they were married.  Meretesh was recently announced to be with child.  All pregnancies were made public once they were confirmed by Bosh.

    Jalteb’s shop held six workers.  It was quite noisy here, with the ironworkers banging out pieces of metal next door, the pottery wheels sometimes squeaking across the open area to the left, the flames of the glass furnace flaring up, and the two drab and dented haulbots, used by all the shops in common, dropping loads of raw materials in various holding areas, and taking finished goods away when necessary.

    Trenekis yawned again.  It was still early and he had eaten only two caracasis nuts.  Usually he needed four to be wide awake.  He felt around in his pocket for a third.  Finding it, he quickly popped it into his mouth and bit down.  Its bitter taste, yet creamy texture, always hit the spot.

    There he was.  Every time Trenekis saw the dark red hair, now longer than Keenam used to keep it, the intense blue eyes, the tanned freckled skin and the firm muscles of his friend, his pulse quickened.  If only desire could be quashed.  If only memories were capable of being excised.

*

    It had rained the night before, a slow, unsteady rain, like always.  There was enough to collect in a bowl-shaped area of solid rock at the top of the mesa, several centimeters deep.  The now-drying rivulet that had spilled over the edge of the cliff proved it had rained quite hard up here.  The water was serving its purpose right now.  Trenekis and Keenam had shed their clothing and were standing facing each other in the middle of the two-meter wide depression.  The water just covered the tops of both of their feet.

    “How’s your finger,” sixteen-year-old Trenekis asked.  He was sure Keenam’s nail was going to turn black. 

    Keenam held his hand up.  It was still a bit red, but not nearly as bad as when the pole had landed on it.  “Still hurts.  Maybe I shouldn’t have helped you after all.”

    Trenekis grinned.  The single poles with the crossbeams that led them to the top of the mesa were a ridiculous idea, Keenam had told him.  They worked, but since they had both been climbing up here a lot recently, the crossbeams were no longer staying horizontal.  They needed proper ladders.  It had taken days to collect the wood, cut the leather straps, and fashion the pegs.  It had taken five hours of continuous work to put the ladders together.  Both were exhausted and covered with dust and salt.

    Keenam bent backward slightly as Trenekis scooped some water into his hands.  Tren poured it on Keenam’s throat.  He did it twice more.  Keenam did the same to Trenekis.  After they were dripping wet they wiped each other down.  Tren didn’t even try to prevent himself from becoming hard.  Indeed, that was the other reason for doing this.  Getting clean was only an excuse for getting naked again and another opportunity to feel each other up.  Keenam kept rubbing his fingers between the Tren’s buttocks more and more often as if trying to find that last bit of dust and grime to loosen.  He wasn’t trying to be subtle about it.  Trenekis was all smiles.  He grasped Keenam as Keenam rubbed.  Trenekis pulled and tugged on Keenam’s upturned penis.  Keenam did the same to Trenekis.  Within minutes, both were catching their breath as their semen splashed in long urgent spurts into the water.  Clean now, inside and out.  That was the second time for them today.  This time though they had finished their task before stopping to play.  The sefa-stuffed pad beckoned.  It had been covered by an oiled cloth and was dry.  They had made it, brought it up to Sanctuary two months ago; and it had served its purpose many times. 

    An hour later, the clouds that had softened the daylight all day today were moving off.  The sky was starting to empty.  The boys were on their backs.  Tren’s fingers were laced underneath the back of his head, as he stared into the darkening vault.  It felt like he was waiting for something to happen, but what?  Tren could go on for hours like that.  Keenam couldn’t.  He always felt filled with primal energy that needed discharge.  Trenekis could stare and ponder for hours, especially at the night sky.  Even tired, like he was now, Keenam felt the need to do something, even if it was only to fiddle with his genitals.  Tren glanced over at him doing that but took no interest in participating.  That was odd, Keenam noted.  Here he was hard again and Tren wasn’t making a move.  He shook his head.  It was difficult to get inside that boy’s head at times.

    The first stars started to appear.  Near the horizon the last of the day’s clouds were slipping away, chasing the last setting sun.

    “Have you ever dreamed you were flying?” Tren asked from his long silence.

    “Flying?”

    “Like you have huge wings and can soar for hours like an avorina.”

    “You always amaze me.  Every time I think I’ve figured you out you come up with something new.”

    Tren looked over at Keenam.  “You haven’t?”

    “I hardly ever remember my dreams.”

    “Twice now I’ve found myself outside of my body.  But they weren’t dreams.  I saw myself sleeping.”

    Keenam momentarily touched Tren’s face.  He was listening but he also felt horny again.  “And?”

    “Both times I flew up here.”

    “Flew?” Keenam asked, incredulous.

    Tren nodded.  “When I got here I came down right over there.  Then I jumped off the mesa and flew way up into the sky.”

    “Even I know you’re not going to go up if you jump, Tren.”

    “But I wasn’t in my body.  I didn’t have any weight.  I went to the very edge,” he said as he pointed, “and jumped.  I kept going up as high as I could go.  I almost made it into space, Keenam.  Almost.  But I couldn’t figure out how to do it.”

    Keenam studied Tren’s face.  As always, Tren was serious.  “Something tells me you’ll figure out how to do it,” Keenam told him.  “If you do, let me know, okay?”

    Tren reached out and placed a palm on Keenam’s chest, feeling the contour of the boy’s pecs briefly.  “Really?”  He knew Keenam was far more practical than that.

    “Why not?  If you can learn how to fly, you can figure out how to go into space, even if it’s only a... dream.  That would be different.  Just like you, Tren.  Different.”

    “In a good way, right?”

    Keenam looked directly into the eyes, then reached over his head to get his trousers.  He regretted having to get dressed, but it was going to be totally dark if they didn’t start heading back.  “Always in a good way,” he replied.  He gave Tren a quick kiss then pulled Tren’s trousers toward him.  With a sigh, Tren took them, stood and started dressing, too.

*

    “Tren,” Keenam said upon seeing him in the glass shop.  Keenam issued a wide smile, the one that Trenekis was ever fond of.  Keenam’s dark fire-red locks glistened with sweat at his scalp. 

    Tren had decided he liked Keenam’s hair longer.  It had taken him a while to get used to it because it had always been far shorter in the past.  Was there any way Keenam could actually wear his hair that Tren wouldn’t like?  He found that a hard question to answer.  “Hey,” he replied.

    “What’s up?”

    “I have something important to tell you.”

    “How important?”

    “More important than what you’re doing right now.”  Tren motioned for Keenam to exit the shop.

    “Let me tell my dad I’m taking a break.”  Moments later he returned and they quickly went out the back way into the wide flat finished goods area.  Two people were tallying a stack of items at the far end.  The boys avoided going that way.

    “Okay, what’s so important that it couldn’t wait until the end of the day?”  Keenam asked.

    “Remember when I told you that one day I would take you on an adventure that would make all other adventures seem like nothing?”

    Keenam chuckled.  “Yeah.”

    “Well that adventure is here.”

    “That was a game, Tren.”

    Trenekis shook his head, dismissing Keenam’s rebuttal.  “I’m going to the city.  And you’re coming with me.”

    “The-the city?”  Keenam studied Tren’s face.  “You’re not joking.”

    “I’m not.”

    “I’m going with you,” Keenam stated.

    Trenekis nodded.

     “What makes you think that?”

    “Because I need you.”  With that he explained how Counselor Brem had only months to live, and how he had been given the okay by his parents to go to the city to see if there was anything – anything – that might be helpful in curing him.

    “Second Harvest is only a few weeks away.”

    “We’ll be back in plenty of time to help.”

    “You know Meretesh is pregnant.”

    “So.”

    “Being a father isn’t a game.”

    “Trying to save Counselor Brem isn’t a game either.  Look, I can’t do this alone.  You’re the best tracker in the village.  Both of us know that.  I know the sky like no one else.  We’ll be able to get there and back together.”

    Keenam was well aware that Trenekis had virtually memorized the annual sky.  Tren knew almost to the minute when each sun would rise and set for both seasons.  He had made tables.  Lots of them.  He knew within a week when to start planting for optimum timing of crops.  He knew when first and second harvest should occur.  He knew when each of the four moons would rise and set.  Tren could determine north as soon as it was dark enough to see only three stars no matter what time of year it was.  Yes, Tren knew the sky like no one else.

    “Why can’t the other counselors go?  All of them lived there.  They know where it is and where to look.  We’ve never been near there.”

    “I’ll tell you why later.”

    “Tell me now.”

    “I owe him.  None of the other counselors owe him like I do.”

    Keenam’s brow knitted.  He had never heard Tren sound so urgent, or this cryptic.  “You owe him?”

    “Trust me.”

    There was a moment where both were silent.  Trenekis was at best only three-quarters of a centimeter shorter than Keenam now.  They stared virtually eye-to-eye at each other.

    “You are serious.”

    Trenekis nodded.  “He needs me… us.”

    Keenam looked back at the shop.  He bit his lip, hesitated, looked down uncomfortably, then nodded his head and looked up at Trenekis.  “Okay.  When?”

    “Day after tomorrow.”

    “What!”

    “He’s dying.”

    Keenam shook his head, then angrily kicked the ground, which raised a puff of dust and sand.  “My dad’s not going to like this at all, much less my wife.”

*

    Sixteen-year-old Trenekis and seventeen-year-old Keenam sat cross-legged on the sefa pad.  Their shirts were spread out across the boulder behind them, their bare backs against it, their trousers still mysteriously on and completely laced up.  Trenekis insisted that Keenam look out at the night sky.  It was difficult for Keenam to keep his attention at what appeared to be nothing more than blackness littered with random stars.

    “Belat circles Enyi, but Enyi also circles Belat,” Trenekis told him.  “I don’t get how yet, but that’s what they do.  And The Eye circles them both, but much further away.  That’s why it hasn’t set yet.”  He pointed to the red pinpoint above the horizon.

    “Okay,” Keenam said, not sure why he needed to know that.

    “I’ve been watching them for months.”  He pulled the vidpad toward them.  He had been making tables of when everything rose and set, then had the vidpad create graphs.  He showed Keenam.

    Keenam looked at them, but nearly instantly gave up trying to figure out what he was supposed to do with that information.  That kind of pursuit was for Trenekis.  A different type of pursuit ran in Keenam’s blood.

    The vidpad’s display was scratched more than he cared for, but Tren insisted on keeping it.  It was the one Counselor Brem had given him.  The storage module still called up and saved files.  It hadn’t become sluggish like some of the others had, the ones that had far better displays.  It had mountains of data in it he still hadn’t started sifting through yet.  Now he was adding to that mountain.  After all, the power supply still energized.  It said it had fifteen percent reserve left.  It was enough power for at least another five years, Tren figured.

    For months, he’d been plotting the times when the four moons were in the sky, when Belat, Enyi and The Eye set and sometimes rose as well.  He had also noted when their two suns occulted each other and brought somewhat cooler temperatures for a few days.  Chores were far too taxing to make proper and detailed observations in the morning.  Plus, it was nearly impossible to do so from the bottom of Lancel canyon.  So, with just his evening observations it was finally starting to make sense now how their suns and moons orbited, what they did, how they moved.  Why no one had ever bothered to do this before was beyond him. 

    As usual, events were coalescing in Tren’s head.  Pictures of an imagined past flashed by as if he was watching disparate scenes of a play transform into a coherent whole.  Perhaps twenty years ago when Hiera was first established, and with only a narrow stretch of sky above them, there was far too much work to do to stop and record observations.  The priority was to make sure people were fed, shelters were built, and facilities set up.  Who had time to bother with things like casually observing the sky?  Yet, that’s all it was.  Simple observation.  Just note the time.  Then watch the trend.  However, despite watching, as he had for a while now, much of what he was recording was still elusive.  Extremely complicated math was involved here.  The dance of the suns and the moons were mocking him, daring him to understand their choreography.  Maybe if he built the telescope he read about in one of the files in the vidpad, it would make more sense.  There were only two files he had found that described how to build a primitive one.  The majority of what was described taxed the limit of his youthful understanding of such instruments, but the basics were clear.  It had  lenses, a tube, and a way of gathering and focusing light.  As he thought about the concept, it made sense.  The only problem was that using imperfect and improperly ground glass would create what he learned was called chromatic and spherical aberration.  The creation of a telescope that could minimize such aberrations was daunting.  He would have to make sure the glass was as perfect as any ever made in Hiera.“I think I figured out how Belat and Enyi go around,” Trenekis said.  “There’s some sort of tether that keeps them together.  They’re traveling around some central part of that tether.  I don’t know how, but that’s got to be it.”

    “Gravity,” Keenam told him.  He had studied physical science, too.

    “But I don’t understand how come they don’t bump into each other,” Tren told him.

    They were quiet again as they watched the horizon grow darker. 

    “My father told me people knew a lot about the sky before they came to Ithos,” Tren lamented.

    “That was a really long time ago,” Keenam emphasized.  To him, ‘Before Ithos’ was, at best, nothing more than a hazy imagining.

    Tren was busy doing a mental inventory of the tek he was aware of.  “But I bet no one in the village ever had a telescope.”  None of the older people had ever mentioned one.

    “What’s that?”

    “Something you’re going to help me make.”

    “What is it?”

    Trenekis described it in detail.  “Another reason why we’re together,” he added.  One of the many, many reasons why Trenekis felt bonded to Keenam like no one else.

    “How are we going to make one?”

    “Hello.  You’re father’s a glassmaker.  You’re already his apprentice.  You can help me find out more about where we live.”

    Keenam listened as Trenekis described the primary, secondary and correction lenses, and how they were going to grind them.  “We’re going to make sure that aberrations are at a minimum.  We’re going to borrow the measuring kit from Dalet.  We’re…, ” Trenekis continued, outlining the steps quite visible in his head, out loud.

    Once again, Trenekis amazed and disturbed Keenam.  The boy constantly drew Keenam in as if he were a powerful magnet.  A few minutes ago, Keenam had never heard of a telescope.  Now he was enthusiastically agreeing to help Tren make one, though Keenam was sure it wouldn’t work.  He had never attempted to make something with the precision Trenekis described.  He would have to solicit his father’s help for sure, but he wondered if his father would put up with such nonsense.  The glass shop was for making practical things for practical purposes. 

    Tren stopped his description.  He reached over and kissed Keenam on the cheek.  Tren couldn’t quite say he was in love, but he certainly felt an attraction like nothing else.  An attraction he knew was dangerous and would somehow have to stop before he reached his Age of Inclusion.

*

    Jalteb agreed to the project, grinning at the boys’ insistence and resolve; and it did work.  Five weeks later, after one of the lenses failed to cool properly and cracked, and after the second one was ground improperly, they had their three lenses properly ground, mounted and sealed in a dense norit wood tube.  It took another week for the glue to cure and it was ready to be used.

    The tripod was easy to construct.  Ayvik helped find a way to attach the telescope to it so it would disconnect easily.  Holib, from the metalworking shop, fashioned locking rings from iron slugs, which Tren coated with a hard finish resin from his father’s shop to prevent rust, to keep the telescope in place.  Trenekis had no idea who had invented the right ascension and declination system for placing an imaginary grid in the sky, but found it to be a brilliant way to determine where objects were.  In short order, he fashioned his own such grid system, using key bright stars as guides.  Now he was able to make far better calculations for objects in the sky.

    Keenam willingly came to Sanctuary with him on that first night so they could test it.  He looked through it, more fascinated than he thought he would be.  He was amazed that The Eye resolved into more than just a point of light.  Bright in the night sky, and far brighter through the telescope, it wasn’t so bright as to prevent him from seeing it was disc-shaped.  Trenekis told him it was nothing more than a sun, emphasizing how ridiculous it was to think Path Holders thought it was a place they would be ‘living’ after they died.  The very idea made no sense whatsoever. 

    The second night Keenam reluctantly came.  After all, this was Tren’s project, his fascination.  Unfortunately, partly cloudy skies had turned mostly cloudy.  There was a parting of clouds a half hour after Tren had set everything up, but he was unable to do much observing.  Disappointed, Tren’s mood turned foul.  Keenam removed Tren’s shirt and kissed him.  Soon enough the sefa pad was warmed up by their bodies as they wrestled away that frustration, letting orgasms fill each other’s throats.  Both boys were startled when Keenam’s father showed up only moments after they had put their clothes back on.  Another parting of the clouds had drawn him.  He wanted to see what the excitement was all about, unaware of the excitement that had just taken place. 

    On the third night Keenam declined going.  He had too much to do anyway.  Luckily, the sky was perfectly clear.  Alone at Sanctuary, Trenekis aimed the telescope at the north-south band of the Milky Way, as everyone older than him called it.  It wasn’t just a luminous band that stretched across the sky, beset here and there with bright stars.  Instead, he discovered it was made of more stars than he could count.  The dark haze near the bright cluster of stars to the north, many degrees off the Milky Way, had tentacles that reached in two directions, obscuring entire swaths of stars.  The Bellis Cluster was tightly packed with dozens of stars, not just the eight bright ones visible to the naked eye.  Ulm, the third largest moon, didn’t just have pocks, it had mountains.  The mysterious dark sky that had so mesmerized him was transforming itself into a treasure trove of previously unseen objects.

    Being here under a roof of twinkling stars, knowing that all this time he had seen but a fraction of them was a revelation unlike anything he’d ever imagined.  The sky was hiding objects in plain sight!  And he had only observed tiny portions of it so far, for only a few moments.  What would he see next month when the sky moved on?  What about half a year from now?  What else was still hidden right out in the open?  What else had yet to be given a description?  A name?  What else was yet to be recorded by Trenekis Idero?

    A frisson of extraordinary wonder descended upon him.  Tren’s heart pounded with such excitement that he could no longer look through the telescope.  The frisson came in waves, each more powerful than the last.  Those two times he had found himself outside his body, speeding away from the village, flying to the top of the mesa, then lifting up into the sky, came back to him.  That feeling of being lifted up threatened to overwhelm him again, and this time he wasn’t even asleep! 

    Tren took several steps back from the telescope.  With a feeling of reverence he had never felt in his entire life, he lifted his head up, then his arms above him, stretching them up high.  The sky was so huge, so beautiful.  “I see you!” he shouted.  “I see you!”  Without warning, tears cascaded down his cheeks.  He could no longer hold his arms up.  Sobs racked his body.  Without warning, a bizarre feeling of expanding started growing inside him, terrifying him and mesmerizing him at the same time.  It seemed he was bursting at invisible seams.  He dashed to the sefa pad and dropped to his knees, as if doing so would anchor him safely to the ground.  He wrapped his hands around himself, trying to hold himself together from the feeling of himself filling a void, of a void filling within himself.  Through the veil of tears still streaming down his face, he looked up again. The crystal-studded darkness was beckoning him, begging him to visit, to leap upward, to climb into the sky.  But he couldn’t.  He couldn’t!

    He had no idea how much time had passed before the mysterious feeling of expanding beyond all boundaries dissipated.  Slowly but surely, the tears that had involuntarily poured out of him ceased, the grip the feeling had on his entire being dissolved.  In its place was a soothing, restful sensation he had never experienced before, which put an uncontrollable smile on his face.  The telescope still stood over to his left, pointing upward to the infinite reaches of space.  Its miniscule glass windows had guided and gathered pinpoints of light into his very soul and filled him with ecstasy. 

    “I’ve seen beauty... beyond imagining,” Trenekis whispered aloud.