Mogu Blumage's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

For twelve nights Mogu Blumage had walked the same broken trail, hunting the spot where all thirteen moons would meet. He was born under the blue planetary hand, and he believed the sealed knowledge of the moons belonged to everyone. The elders had locked it away. Mogu meant to reach the meeting point and prove them wrong. But from the ground he could see nothing. The moons scattered across the sky like spilled seeds. He had circled this grove three times, and each loop ended at the same dead trail. "Kwa," Mogu called. His blue eagle dropped from his shoulder and climbed the dark air. From above, Kwa spotted the patterns Mogu never could. The eagle wheeled once, twice, then screeched and hovered over a cluster of tall blue palm trees. Something up there had broken the pattern. Mogu ran to the palms. Their fronds glowed faint and cool, and tiny lights drifted off the leaves like sparks. He needed height. He grabbed the slender trunk and started to climb. The bark was smooth and slick. He clawed upward, slipped, and slid back down, scraping his palms raw. He tried the next tree, then a third. Each time he reached the fronds, the trunk bent under his weight and dumped him into the grass. Kwa circled lower and cried again, sharper now. The eagle saw the meeting point. Mogu could not reach it. "I know," Mogu said, breathing hard. "I see you seeing it. That's not enough." He pulled out his notebook and wrote one line: *The bird knows what I cannot climb to.* He had learned to record what stopped him and keep going. He shut the book and looked up. The fronds of the tallest palm had parted. Between them, one moon glowed bright green, closer than any moon should be. It pulsed like a slow heartbeat. As Mogu watched, its light poured down through the leaves and struck the ground in front of him. Where the green light touched the grass, a ladder appeared. It rose straight up past the palms and did not stop. Its rails were dark as deep space and dotted with stars and small planets. The rungs glowed warm and steady. It had no top that Mogu could see. Kwa landed on the highest rung within reach and stared down, waiting. Twice before, the eagle had led Mogu somewhere he came to regret. He had gone anyway, both times. He gripped a rung. It held firm, warmer than the cold palm bark. He set his boot on the lowest step and pulled himself up. The grove shrank below him. For the first time, the moons stopped scattering. From this new height they slid toward one point in the sky, and Mogu could read the pattern at last. He climbed faster, toward a meeting place that now had a direction, and toward whatever waited where the rungs ran out.