Up above the town, I could see the blackness of the ridge against the paling 
indigo of the half-dawn. Half-dawn it was, for a full view was made forever 
tantalizing by the intervening hill. The rise of the island blocked the east. 
Instead of watching the dawn itself, I sat upright on my mat and gazed 
between the lightest patch of blue and the sky above, counting the stars as 
they winked out one at a time and guessing where the sun would first appear.

Either my concentration was parahuman or I fell asleep sitting upright, because 
I didn't associate pebbles bouncing across the rooftop with someone throwing 
them at me until one stung me on the back of my head. More embarassed than 
angered, I rubbed absently at the spot and turned my head around. Mer‡n had 
already lined up her next throw, but put her pebbles down on the rooftop and 
vaulted over the edge of the staircase to come up and join me. Bero remained 
where he was, prefering to watch the scene play out a little more before he 
decided to join or go.

"Good morning! What are you up to?"

"Oh, just watching the sun rise. That's all."

"Hey, how did you sleep? Did you get a good night's rest?"

I shrugged. "I feel all right. But I've been up for a couple--I've been up for a 
while now. I just didn't feel like trying to sleep after a while."

"Any dreams?"

"Pfft. It's been too long, I don't remember them."

"You! What were--oh, sorry." She went on in a loud whisper. "What were you 
thinking? You should always remember your dreams. Maybe they'll tell you 
about your past life! That's reason enough."

She had a point. My past was like the sun at that instant, it's effects were 
present but the source remained hidden. I was going to ask her more about 
what she said when she said,  "Mirasol!"

"Eh?"

"That's what we should call you! Mirasol!" She gave me a poke on the shoulder. 
"Because you're always looking towards the sun, or you're trying to get every 
bit of yourself towards it. Right?"

"I suppose, yes," I replied slowly. I rolled the name around in my head. It 
seemed to me that a name should parallel identity; Mirasol was an apt name. 
Still, my doubts lingered until I realized that the evidence I needed was staring 
me in the face. Indeed, I had been gazing at the sun right up until my 
interruption. "You're right. I do. And it's as good a name as..."

"We'll tell everyone as soon as they're up!" she blurted out. "It's a great name! 
Maybe Mama will even make you go through the naming ceremony with 
Do–a Peque–a, wouldn't that be wonderfully funny?"

"Sh! Not so loud!" I said in a loud whisper. "Other people may be trying to 
sleep--AND," I went on over her protests, "and I know that the neighbors can 
hear us up here, so talk reasonably."

"It doesn't matter," she grumbled. "Anyway, most people are already up, or 
should be.

"Where did Bero go off to?"

Mer‡n twisted around and looked back to the staircase from downstairs. Bero 
had disappeared. She groaned. "Probably, as soon as we started talking about 
dreams he ran off to be with Mama. You don't know it yet, but Bero has 
terrible nightmares. And those are in the nights when he can sleep. I shouldn't 
have said anything."

"Why is that?"

Mer‡n considered the question before she said, "I'd better not tell you. Mama 
can do a better job, and if I say something I'm not supposed to she'll get mad 
at me." She tugged at a piece of my hair and said, "I'll tell you this, though, but 
don't snitch on me. It's because he's an orphan, it's all tied together. Don't ask 
questions, though, you hear me?"

"I hear you, I hear you. Hey, why--"

"Stop that!"

"One moment, one moment." I moved myself around in front of her, now with 
my back to the rising sun. "I was going to ask, why does everyone keep 
pinching at my hair and tugging like this?"

I demonstrated. Mer‡n was perplexed by the question, "It's to let you know 
we're telling you something important, so you should listen, of course. Why?"

"I just didn't know!" I replied defensively.

"All right, all right, so you don't know somethings. Fine." She picked herself up 
without offering me a hand. "Let's go see if breakfast is ready or not."

"What makes you think it will be?"

"I was sent up here to tell you."

"What? But you waited all this time?"

"Well, I liked talking to you. And you got a name!" She poked me lightly in the 
stomach. "Don't be thankless, you fool boy."

Only when the subject of breakfast had come up did I notice the sounds from 
the kitchen; from them, I woke up to how hungry I had become. In contrast to 
the day before, there was no urgency in the kitchen in the morning. Two 
cooks, middle-aged women in tight shirts with full-length sleeves and very 
stained aprons, were fussing over large loaves of bread, some still steaming 
from the ovens. It was a warm golden smell that came from the ovens, so full 
of life and richness. I followed Mer‡n out to the deck, where a whole crowd--
Arrasco, Ibanez, Bero,Do–a Peque–a, Capo and Grandmother--was already 
eating. They stopped when we joined them, and Ibanez once again led us 
through the hand-clapping ritual. Then the meal continued, with people 
serving themselves the warm bread and large, dark pulpy fruits.

"Well, boy," said the grandmother, "did you have a good night's rest?"

"It wall all right," I replied. "No dreams. I thought you'd be interested to know."

"No dreams, hah!" she scoffed. "You just can't remember them, that's your 
problem."

"And he isn't 'boy' any longer!" Mer‡n said in an inappropriately loud voice. 
"He's 'Mirasol' now, we decided!"

Her announcement caused a great deal of consternation and spilling of food, so 
I tried to explain. "Well, she did suggest it, because, you know, I like the sun, 
and she pointed out how I'm facing it all the time, like some kind of reptile. 
And I think that somebody's name should tell you about who they are, you 
see, and while it doesn't say much of anything important, it is fine, I think..."

"So do you like it?" asked Ibanez. It was a fair and practical question, so I gave 
her a straight answer. "I think it's just fine. I certainly haven't come up with one 
on my own, and I'll need a name, the sooner it is the better."

Arrasco and Capo had started to ask the same question simultaneously, but 
only Capo finished: "What will you do if you remember your old name, then?"

"I don't want to worry about that now," I said. "I only need somewhere to 
start. And right now, this--" I swung my finger around to indicate the island, 
the restaurant, and the people--"is all I have. And that's fine. I'll just be 
'Mirasol'."

And after that, everyone took turns trying it out. "Please pass the bread, 
'Mirasol'." "Would you and 'Mirasol' like more water?" "What are your plans 
for the day, 'Mirasol'?" For the last question I had an answer. "We had talked 
yesterday about, I could go up and visit the library, and read the books up 
there. Capo, when do you plan on going up the hill?"

"I'll be leaving in a little while," she said, "but there's no reason to hurry. Today 
I don't have to be at work until the afternoon. If we go up early, you can spend 
the morning studying before we usually open."

"So the two of you can walk up the hill together," Ibanez pointed out. An odd 
remark, I thought, but maybe she doesn't like the thought of us walking up 
the hill alone. It hadn't seemed dangerous the day before, but Ibanez's 
maternal concern was an understandable irrationality. Instead of replying, I 
focused my attention on my breakfast, which--owning to my sudden case of 
identity--I had been too busy to eat. The bread, I was disappointed to discover, 
was as grit-filled as the bread of the day before. However, the fruits were 
another matter. Though their black exteriors were leathery and almost greasy 
to the touch, they had a very sweet, almost sugary taste that was rich in the 
juice of the fruit. I would bite through into the brown fruit itself and eat around 
the four large stones that were in the middle of every fruit. Watching the 
example of those around me, I put the stones on the side of my plate and made 
liberal use of the finger bowls.

While I waited for Capo to finish getting ready I enjoyed the morning on the 
veranda.The morning was turning out to be balmy, with a warm wind coming 
up from the south along the land. Although my vision wasn't good enough to 
make out the detail, to the north I could see that a great number of boats were 
making use of the early wind to sail off into the sea. Out a few hundred geofeet 
from shore, where the air was cooler, whitecaps countered the blue of the 
ocean. Before long Capo was ready and we went off into the street. She was 
dressed in a different tunic than she had worn the day before: this one had a 
pair of buckles sewn into the back, which in turn were fastened by pieces of 
shell or stone to a small backpack on her back.

We climbed up out of the town following the main arterial streets of the town. 
bringing a lunch of bread and dried fruits with us. Even though the sun still 
wasn't visible, it seemed to me like most of the people of Astro were up and 
getting underway with their lives. The stalls I had seen the day before were set 
up again, and people were already buying and selling from them. Capo set a 
rapid pace through the town, though, and I had no time to stop and watch the 
commerce of the people. Our destination, after all, was a long ways ahead of 
us.

Once we were outside of the town, Capo tried to interest me in conversation, 
but neither of our hearts were in it: she asked some simple, almost silly 
questions, and I limited my replies to monosylables. The more she failed to 
interest me in conversation, the faster she walked instead. By the time we came 
into sight of the school, we were both exhaused, and had to stop within sight 
of it to catch our breaths.

Capo led me around to the largest of the buildings. It had a thick wooden door 
on the front, held in place with an ornate lock. "I don't have a key," said Capo, 
repeating something she had told me on our way up the hill, "so I hope that 
someone's home." She knocked forceably on the door, then stood on one of 
the flagstones around the doorway and waited.

Presently, the door was opened by a middle-aged woman dressed in a full-
length muumuu and a thick shawl. She was thin, almost gaunt, with red 
sunken eyes. Though not attractive, she possessed an air of organization and 
efficiency that riveted the attention. Her left hand held a small oil lamp that cast 
a very bright light for its size.

"Se–ora Ocalo?" said Capo. "Good morning. Do you mind if I come in a little 
early?"

"Of course not, please come in," she said, motioning Capo in. It was only when 
I stepped forward that she took notice of me. "Who are you?"

"This is Mirasol, Se–ora," said Capo. "He's a castaway, with amnesia, who my 
grandmother found washed up on her beach several days ago. He's staying 
with us, at least until he recovers his memory."

"I'm pleased to meet you," I added, finally making contact with her.

"Oh, I see," Ocalo said absently. As an afterthought, she said, "How do you do," 
and let me follow her inside the library proper. The ceiling was black from 
what I assumed was the smoke of the oil lamps. All around on the walls were 
enormous windows with huge shutters, probably designed to block even the 
most severe weather. At the foot of each window was an enormous wooden 
table. Although they were still very beautiful, ages of use had made them 
scuffed and worn. In the interior of the library were the great cases of books, 
each one as wide as my forearm. They were all stone, but attached from both 
the ceiling and floor; and I was surprised, upon pushing one, to see how easy it 
was to move them from place to place. All sorts of bound manuscripts, scrolls 
and rolling manuscripts were on stacks.

We walked through the main path to the back of the library to Ocalo's office, 
which was cordoned off with a beaded curtain. Ocalo motioned me to sit down 
at a chair of mortared driftwood while Capo brought in another from the 
adjoining office. Ocalo herself took a seat at a fine wicker chair behind a 
matching desk. On the top of the desk were two pots carved out of coral and a 
variety of pens and styli.

By way of introducing myself and my purpose I told the two women, in as 
excruciating detail I could, about the preceding eight days. Capo had heard the 
story before but was polite enough to pay attention again. Ocalo remained 
quiet during my monologue, keeping her eyes half-closed and facing directly 
over my left shoulder. As I ended my tale I had begun to wonder if she had 
fallen asleep or not, in fact only Capo's attitude had kept me from trying to 
find out.

I needn't have worried. I fell silent at the end of my story, and Ocalo took the 
opportunity to clear her throat and respond. "I'm going to ask you a very 
practical question, young man: can you even read?"

"Huh?"

"Write your own name." She pushed one of the pots and a quill ink pen over to 
me, then drew out a sheet of cheap paper from somewhere behind her desk. I 
took the quill in hand and dipped it in the pot, priming the quill with ink. Then 
with great difficulty I scrawled the word "MIRASOL" upon the paper.

Ocalo took it from me and stared at it for a long time, maybe subjecting the 
entire word to her rigorous analysis, before she folded it in half and slid it back 
to where it had come from. "So, indeed, you can read and write handwriting," 
she said. "But what about printing?"

"Printing?" I asked. "Do you mean, writing made by a press?"

"Yes. Capal’sia, please bring him something to practice with, thank you." As 
the young woman left the room, Ocalo spoke again. "You do see my purpose 
in doing this, don't you?"

"Yes, I think..."

"It interests me to know if you are simply a local amnesiac, or what manner of 
man you are. You see, the people of this archipeligo are much more educated 
than they are in, say, Las Langostas, or even El Este. Thank you, Capal’sia." 
Capo had returned with a scroll of some kind whose halves were held together 
with a latch. Ocalo fumbled with the lock and unrolled it for me.

The printing on the page was utterly alien. It consisted of perfect vertical rows 
of circles, wedges, ovals and the occasional dot or line. I shook my head. "No, I 
can't read this."

Ocalo seemed pleased by this result, and explained. "There are six ways to cut 
along a conical shell: perfectly vertical, vertical off of the main axis, perfectly 
horizontal, imperfectly horizontal--that is, at an angle--tangential to the apex 
and parallel to the exterior. So, if we used four different kinds of shells, we'd 
have enough to have each represent a letter of the alphabet.

"But, of course, the tangential and parallel sections would appear the same no 
matter what kind of a shell we used. Instead, five kinds of shells are used, and 
one has the two extra cuts. Each shell is cut, mounted on a block, and used in a 
printing press...which, it seems, you have some knowledge of."

"Yes, but I'm more used to seeing printed words that look like written ones. I 
remember than."

"Well, you will have to learn everything again. Pay close attention." She 
indicated four markings with a particular thickness and the dot and vertical 
line. "These are the vowels, a, u, o, e, i, and y. Because i and y sound the same, 
they are the dot and the line." She pointed to a shell that had a kind of 
arabesque on its edge, and then to others similar to it. "This shell can be s, z, th 
or ch. This is n, m, b and p. This is t, d, j and f. This last one is k, g, l and r." 
Ocalo broke off at that moment to pull out my piece of paper again, and I 
wrote down a few notes for myself. When I looked up again, she pointed back 
to the scroll. "Read that line there."

<<En...este...momento...kuando...Ácu‡ndo! Cu‡ndo tenemos la luz, 
adelantamos.>> "Right now, when we have the light, we go forward." I looked 
up at the women. "Is that correct? Did I do that right?"

Capo deferred to Ocalo's opinion. "Well enough, young man. Your reading 
ability needs more work than your comprehension. There's only one thing to 
do, and that's practice."

I nodded, and then said, "That brings me back to my reason for coming here. 
Do you know where I might find out if there have been people like me, people 
from other places who arrived in Marmundo?"

Ocalo thought about the question, heaved a sigh, and then thought about it 
some more. After a few moments of preparatory silence, she began. "Well, that 
won't be easy to find out. Every culture across Marmundo has many similar 
elements in their folklore. Warriors, demons, gods, what have you. Of course, 
they all serve the same purpose: to pass the values of a society from one 
generation to another. And, maybe, to explain the state of the world as a 
culture is aware of it.

"I know for a fact that the character of El Peregrino, or whatever you may call 
him, appears again and again. Someone who doesn't want to touch or be 
touched, someone whose heart cannot be warmed. This person comes from 
without, like you. He sees what is wrong, and his position as an outsider gives 
him the power to do what is right. He comes as he goes, and life returns to 
normal.

"Now, there is a difference between that myth and real people from history. I 
can think of, perhaps, three times when people such as yourself are recorded 
as coming to Marmundo. But in each case, as I recall, very little is said about 
their origins. So the purpose of searching for them becomes blurred.

"I think it's worth your time to do research. Whoever you may be, you are in a 
land that is not your own, and you need all of the knowledge you can learn, 
may the gods be with you. Your act of trying to find these three people will 
serve as a beginning point, if nothing else."

She fell silent. I was compelled to do nothing more than nod; after all, what 
more could I say? My path, the only one I could see, had been laid out before 
me. All that remained for me to do was to act on it, and follow it until it 
concluded, or I could think of something new to do on my own initiative.

"This," said Ocalo, indicating the scroll, "is a copy of the 'Song of Tzchal'. It's an 
old story. The people that lived in Las Berrotas before our people came and 
moved them east kept it as a spoken poem, but it was one of the first written 
down when we introduced writing. This is a copy of copies generations old, 
and the originals have long since crumbled into dust, but the story is as 
powerful now as it was then. It's a favorite of many people's. Why don't you 
begin with this, since it's out already, and you can practice your reading. 
Capal’sia, I want you to get to work, but if this boy needs anything--Mirasol, 
you can turn to her. Do you understand?"

"Yes. Thank you very much for your help." I carefully rolled the scroll together 
and carried it to a table by a window, where the light could catch the 
parchment and its words. I skimmed backwards until I could find where the 
story began, almost at the terminus of the left half of the scroll. I spent the 
morning and early afternoon in the library, going outside only to join Capo in 
a silent luncheon.

The story itself was the biography of a man named Tzchal, who--from the 
description--had been a warrior-king on one of the largest islands of 
Amanecer. His physical as well as his supervisory prowess were so great that 
he was loved by his subjects and held in awe by his allies. The Rain God, on 
hearing tales of Tzchal, came to his palace and challenged him to a sport called 
'pun—n' that I didn't recognize, but seemed to be composed of a ball game, a 
stick game and a race. Needless to say, Tzchal won with ease.

His pride taken away, the Rain God offered Tzchal a hundred years' plentiful 
rain as a reward. Tzchal, however, was more taken with the Rain God's 
appearance and instead took away the Rain God's coat of fine bird feathers. 
The Earth Mother--more properly, "The Mother of Dry Land"--heard of 
Tzchal's vanity from her humbled son and vowed revenge. She sent a blue 
lobster seven geofeet long to kill him, but Tzchal killed it with his bare hands 
and hung it on a pike by the palace front gate. The Earth Mother sent another 
curse, this time in the form of a tiny snail. The snail stung Tzchal on his face 
with a poisonous dart. Instantly, Tzchal was driven insane and killed his wife 
and their baby son before the palace guards could restrain him.

Tzchal prayed to the gods for forgiveness, first for his vanity and then for his 
murder, but the oracles were silent. So he left the kingdom in the hands of his 
brother-in-law and set out on a wandering quest to recover his peace of mind. 
His first stop was the neighboring island, where he met his old friend Men-
Men the Reaver. Men-Men was clearly a man with a story to tell as well, for 
though he had been a mighty warrior, at his introduction he was missing one 
eye and living as a beggar in the streets. Tzchal offered to buy Men-Men a 
drink at the local pub, but Men-Men refused the alcohol, prefering to sit by the 
public water trough and talk.

That was as much as I read on my first day in the library. It was starting to 
become dark. My eyes were very tired, and my voice was starting to fade 
from sounding out so many words I half-knew and could barely read. Capo 
met me at the table, and we bid Ocalo farewell together.

"Did you have a good day?" Capo said as we left the library behind us.

"Oh, I had a very good one," I said. "I think that my reading ability will 
improve as time goes by. I enjoyed the story, too, do you know much about 
it?"

"Not really."

"Do you know what 'pun—n' is?" I tried, not willing to let the conversation go 
as so many others had done.

"Well," she began, "there's three parts. In the first one you try to be the first 
one to put five balls into a hole in a pillar using only your legs. In the second 
one you push each other with sticks while you float on rafts. The third one 
begins when someone falls off, and you swim to shore."

"Do you score points? How does the game work?"

"I don't know."

Two lines of conversation had failed, so I tried a third. "What kind of work do 
you do for the library? You haven't told me."

"That's because I can't," she replied. "I work in the restricted area, where men 
aren't allowed."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, so please don't ask. I forgive you," she said turning to stare at me, 
"because you don't know better. But my work is to catalogue and repair the 
old books and set some aside for copying."

"How do books get damaged? Wear and weathering, or sunlight, or what?"

"Mostly, the parchment becomes too old. But we had a very bad time three 
years ago." She sighed and shifted the weight of her backpack around. "Pirates 
come in from Las Langostas. Now, by and large, the people in Las Langostas 
are good and fair. They tax the ships that go between Amanecer and Dinero, 
but you can understand that. But the people who live in the west of Las 
Langostas...they're a bunch of half-wits. They don't live near anyone and they 
don't like outsiders."

"So they become pirates?"

"Many do." She sighed again, and this time she slowed down almost to a stop. 
"Usually, they come after the ships, but sometimes they land and raid the 
towns. That's how my father died. He was on one of the ships that threw 
themselves at the pirates when they came just after I was born. The pirates 
didn't touch land, and they didn't come near again until two years ago, when 
three ships came into port. Two ships were sunk in the harbor, but one landed 
and the pirates ran up into the hills. We found two of them ransacking the 
library, the gods only know what they wanted."

We were down in the grain fields. Capo was shuffling along looking at the 
ground with her hands at her sides. I didn't think she would feel comfortable, 
or I would have been closer to her than I was.

"Is that when Bero was orphaned?" I asked. "He looks old enough."

Capo nodded. "He still has bad dreams about it. He only talks to Mama about 
it, though."

Our return was in silence, amid the fields of grain and with the golden ocean 
stretching out to the horizon. The beauty of the scenery seemed so 
inappropriate to the tragedy I had just heard about, I almost felt disgusted by 
it; and I had half a mind that Capo was feeling much like I did. She hurried 
down the path before me, and was almost out of sight by the time we were on 
the familiar street I had come to call my address.

I realized, though, that I didn't know much about the kind of people we lived 
around. True, most of the adjacent houses seemed like houses; but each one 
was filled with real people, not simply anonymous beings called "neighbors". I 
took a look as I walked the last few doors to the restaurant. Apart from the 
patterns of purple in the exteriors, the houses looked very much the same. 
Some houses had stands out front, selling woven hats or pipes made out of 
shells; and some did not. The exception was our neighbor two doors down. As 
I walked by the doorway, I felt an incredible heat coming from inside. Unable 
to squelch my curiousity, I stuck my head inside.

From where I sat I saw an enormous furnace, radiating the warmth I felt 
twenty geofeet away. Seated in front of it was an immense man with a long 
metal tube pressed to his mouth. On the other end of the tube was a bright 
orange sphere with a long neck at its end. The man was a glassblower, 
practicing his trade.

I watched in silence as he completed forming the vase. He plunged it into a 
bucket of water, then stepped away from the doorway to do something else to 
it. I heard the sound of breaking glass, which must have come from his 
separating the glass from the blowing tube; but I couldn't say exactly what he 
did. I called out to him as he walked back across the room, and he came out to 
greet me.

"I know you," he said as he bowed. "I saw your face as you and the kids were 
walking around town the other day. You're new here, aren't you?"

I nodded. "I'm an amnesiac. Mer‡n is calling me Mirasol now, so that's what 
you can call me. What's your name?"

"Lionius Zar," he said proudly. "I grew up in Espuma, but I found my way out 
here when I became a man. I'm a glassblower by trade, and I'd love to show 
you my work and hear your story. Won't you come in?"

I shook my head. "Tomorrow, I promise, after I'm done with work. Se–ora 
Ibanez is having me work at the restaurant to pay for my meals and lodging."

"And now you're going to take advantage of that?" Zar laughed a very deep 
and avuncular laugh. "I've had a long day too, I could use a rest and a meal. I 
will see you tomorrow, Se–or Mirasol."

"I'll be looking forward to it." With that I made my way two doors down to the 
restaurant.