The Keeping Place

by Isobelle Carmody

  “There is that,” I said noncommittally, thinking that I must look as badly as I felt. Angina’s condition had improved, but he was far from able to resume playing for Dragon, and nights were again dangerous for me. Only Maruman’s constant vigilance enabled me to avoid her dream beast, and I relied on Roland to drain me of fatigue, for I was unable to manage more than a few hours of sleep a night.

  Of course, I could not tell him that I did not dare leave Obernewtyn for fear of missing whatever it was that had caused Atthis to summon me back to the mountains.

  But I didn’t have to wait much longer for a clue. When I rose the next morning, a message had been slipped under my turret room door. Taking it up, I read:

  My dear Elspeth,

  We have found a monument in the waters under Tor that will be of particular interest to you. If you would see it, you must come at once.

  Garth

  30

  LATER THAT MORNING, Roland, Gavyn, Dameon, Zarak, and I rode down to the White Valley. I had been surprised when Dameon chose to accompany us, for he was not a good rider. But Gahltha offered to carry us both, so he was safe enough behind me.

  He admitted sheepishly that he had less interest in our destination than in knowing he would have a decent sleep, since we planned to stay the night. Like the rest of us, he had been sleeping badly since his return to the mountains.

  “It is hard to believe Dragon is causing such lurid nightmares as I have experienced,” he murmured.

  “Nightmares?” I echoed.

  “Matthew is in them,” Dameon said. “He is somewhere hot and dry.”

  “What do you see in the dreams?” I asked.

  “I do not see anything,” Dameon told me gently. “I dream as I live; I dream of words spoken, of smells, and of feelings. It is always the same dream. In it, I am standing with my bare back against a stone wall. I feel heat radiating from it and from the sun above. I am, I think, in some sort of stone quarry, for I can hear the stone being broken with metal picks. I smell the sea somewhere at a distance, when the wind blows, and from another direction, the smells of a city like Sutrium, only more spicy. I smell the sweat of workers and the sweet oils worn by their masters. I hear the crack of a whip, and I hear Matthew’s curses. That’s how I know he is there—I hear his voice. Then I hear something else: the roaring of some indescribable beast.” He shuddered against my back. “Then I wake.”

  Avra had drawn level with us, and Gahltha turned to nuzzle affectionately at her neck. The mountain pony was carrying Gavyn and his owl, and her pitch-black foal pranced behind alongside Rasial, shying playfully at every leaf that fell and darting skittishly sideways in little wild outbursts of excitement. The tiny equine was so full of bright-eyed mischief that, looking at him, it was impossible to feel downcast.

  We made an exotic group. It was queer to think that, for the first time, we need not hide our oddness, since no authority existed to persecute us. Just the same, none of us could be sure exactly what would happen the first time a Misfit used their Talent openly among unTalents. I feared there would be trouble, unless the occasion and the Talent had been very carefully chosen.

  It was growing late in the afternoon by the time we reached the Teknoguild camp at the foot of Tor. It was deserted, which meant everyone was still inside the mountain. Divested of their loads, the horses wandered off to graze, and Gavyn and Rasial vanished into the trees.

  Roland had brought a number of parcels and baskets of delicacies conjured by Katlyn and Javo, with the intention of inviting the gypsies to share our campfire later in the night. Zarak volunteered to find them and render the invitation, and Dameon elected to accompany him, saying he needed to stretch his legs.

  “Elspeth! I am glad you have come,” Garth said, helping me to clamber from the raft onto the island of rubble. It looked much as I had last seen it, piled high with equipment and rusting metal boxes. Even the three divers were the same ones I had met before. I waved to them where they sat wrapped in blankets and drinking from steaming mugs, and instead of responding, they gave looks of such profound wonder that I grew uneasy.

  “This monument…,” I began.

  Garth’s eyes virtually glowed, and he nodded violently. “Yes. The monument. It’s under the water, of course, but we managed to break off a section and haul it up. No easy task, I assure you, and furthermore—”

  “Garth. What is so special about this monument?” I asked warily.

  “It’s better if you see,” he said, moving to what I thought was a rock draped in stained canvas. He drew the sheet carefully away to reveal what appeared to be a great, ragged chunk of ice, glimmering in the torch-light.

  Then I realized it was not ice, but glass, and far from being randomly jagged, it was hewn roughly into the face of a woman. Then I gaped, and my skin rose into gooseflesh, for I realized the face was mine.

  It was not a carving of a woman who looked somewhat like me; it was me. It even looked to be my current age.

  What sort of sign was this?

  “But…but how can that be?” Roland stammered.

  “That is what I should like to know,” Garth said almost smugly. “How could a Beforetimer carve the face of a woman who had not yet been born?”

  “The carver had to have been a futureteller,” Roland murmured.

  “Of course. But why did he see Elspeth’s face?” Garth asked.

  “Where did you find this?” I whispered, still unable to tear my eyes from my own decapitated head.

  “The monument is in the foyer of the Reichler Clinic building,” one of the divers said. They had all drawn about us now, trailing their blankets and staring down at the glass head.

  “The foyer? Not the basement of the building?”

  “No. It was in the public domain. We have not yet figured out a way to enter the basement. It might be impossible,” Garth admitted in a disgruntled tone. “We’ve spent the whole blasted day trying to figure it out, but time is running out.”

  “What has time to do with anything?” I asked.

  “There is an unstable airlock in the foyer.”

  “Like this,” one of the divers volunteered, cupping a hand and holding it upside down. “The base of the building is watertight, so when the city flooded, the air stayed where it was. But our clearing the rubble from the entrance has destabilized the lock, and so each hour a little more air is lost. Eventually, the lock will give way completely, and water will rush in with such force that it will tear loose anything that is not firmly fixed. The monument is already badly cracked and will almost certainly be destroyed.”

  “This woman who looks like me,” I said carefully. “What is she doing in the monument? I presume it is a statue of a full person?”

  “Zadia?” Garth prompted the diver.

  “The foyer is constructed on two levels,” she said, her breath steaming in the chill air. “The first is already underwater, so you have to swim in and up a set of steps, which brings you above to where the air is still trapped. The statue looms above the steps. It would have been designed to be the first thing you would see coming in the door of the place. It is enormous. You…I mean, the woman is all wound about with a great serpentish beast, but there are many animals carved into the monument as well. It is like a rendered dream or maybe a kind of nightmare.”

  I took a deep breath. “Was there…were there any words on the statue?”

  She nodded. “There were: ‘Through the transparency of now, the future.’”

  “It has to have been a futureteller who carved it,” Roland said positively. “They dreamed of the future, and they foresaw Elspeth.”

  “So it seems,” Garth said, but there was a dissatisfied note in his voice.

  I took a deep breath. “I must see the whole monument,” I said.

  “I felt the same, but—” Garth began.

  “No, you don’t understand,” I interrupted brusquely. “I must…dive down and see it for myself. And right now.”

  Garth stared at me in h
orror. “Now! But…but you are not trained to dive….”

  “You said yourself it could be destroyed at any moment,” I said determinedly.

  “I will take you,” Zadia said.

  “Are you both insane?” Roland raged. “I forbid it!”

  Garth stuttered, “Elspeth, you can’t be serious. He’s right. Rushton would…”

  “Rushton is in no condition to approve or disapprove anything, and right now, I am Master of Obernewtyn. Zadia, you are ready?”

  “Ye gods!” Garth exclaimed, wringing his hands and looking truly distressed.

  “You must not do this,” Roland said.

  Zadia ignored him and shed her blanket. She found two of the flabby gray suits, still wet, and ordered me to strip down to my underwear. I did as she bade, trying not to shudder at the clammy feel of the material as it was rolled up over my skin. Once sealed into the suit, I warmed up very quickly. Despite its bulk, it was remarkably light. Zadia gave me a weight belt, and I fastened it with trembling fingers.

  There was no time to worry about consequences. If the monument was a sign from Kasanda, nothing Zadia or Garth had said suggested what it might mean. Perhaps the message was one that I alone could interpret.

  Zadia donned the other suit and her own belt, then handed me several small bulbs of glows and a little pair of goggles shaped to seal to my face and keep water from my eyes. As she passed me one of the breathing tubes, she asked, “You’re sure?”

  In answer, I took the leather loop fastened to the end of the pipe and slung it around my neck.

  Zadia said, “The important thing is not to panic down there. You must breathe normally. It will feel as if you can’t get enough air, but that is only an illusion. I will lead you, and we will go down the rope.”

  “Elspeth!” Garth pleaded.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  The other two divers gave me somber nods and went to the pumps. I followed Zadia to the water’s edge, my heart pounding with trepidation. We were up to our necks before Zadia pulled on her goggles. Then she put the mouthpiece of the hose between her lips. I did the same, resisting the urge to gag as it pressed against my tongue and the roof of my mouth. Zadia made me breathe until she was satisfied that I was doing so normally; then she went under the water.

  I glanced back at Garth and Roland and the others standing on the rubble shore, faceless shadows with the light behind them. Forcing myself to be calm I, too, sank beneath the impenetrably dark surface of the water, and silence pressed on me from all sides.

  I was terrified into complete immobility and immediately felt myself to be suffocating. The only light came from the bulbs, and it seemed feeble and inadequate faced with all that liquid darkness. My heart thudded in my chest, and I was on the verge of catapulting myself back to the surface when Zadia floated up to me, her face pallid and greenish.

  She lifted a thumb and pointed upward, tilting her head in inquiry.

  I had never wanted anything so much in my life as to nod and rise into the world of light and sound and warmth. It took an immense effort for me to shake my head and point down. Zadia gestured to a rope running from the surface down into the lost depths; then, taking hold of it, she began to descend hand over hand.

  I followed.

  The sensation of weightlessness and the numbing silence were so alien as to feel like a dream, and I tried to summon the accepting passivity of the dreamer as we descended. I realized very quickly that the rope was only a guideline, for the weight in the belt dragged me gently downward without any effort.

  I concentrated on breathing calmly, looking neither up nor down, and so it was a shock when I noticed buildings appear out of the murk and then vanish again, as the feeble light shed by the glow bulbs brushed them and rendered them fleetingly visible. A strange pity filled me at the sight of those once mighty towers, green-furred with algae and hidden in endless shadow.

  We descended through the wavering tips of giant plants that danced in the slight currents, and as we penetrated deep into the watery forest, glimpses of buildings were less frequent. The plant foliage looked leathery, but it felt smooth and silky against my cheeks. Gradually, the stems thickened until they were as wide as tree trunks, and then we were at the bottom, hovering above what must once have been a Beforetime road. The water plants grew alongside the road, but not on it—as if the substance of the road was inimical to life.

  I watched as Zadia removed one of her glow bulbs and attached it to the end of the rope we’d descended. Then she swam to another rope, which ran alongside the Beforetime road. This time, she did not take hold of the rope but swam directly above it.

  Emulating her slow writhing movements, I followed, glancing back nervously to ensure the air hose was in no danger of being snagged. It snaked away and up until it vanished in the gloom and the wavering fronds of the towering water trees. I squashed another spasm of panic at the thought of how much water lay between me and the surface.

  Zadia had stopped to wait for me, her eyes calm but watchful behind the glass goggles. When I caught up, she turned and swam on.

  Eventually, we came to a clearing where a single level of a great windowless building stood half buried in rubble that had obviously fallen when its upper levels had been wrenched away. What was visible of the upper edge was jagged, and here and there, twisted pieces of metal protruded at wild angles. The ruin was also partly covered in a rampant waterweed.

  A path had been cleared through the broken stone and vegetation running down to a broad door, really little more than a metal frame with thick grooves that must have once held glass.

  Passing through the doorframe, I checked my hose again before paying attention to my surroundings. The glow bulbs revealed that the floor was a pale, shining stone flecked with something that sparkled. Like the road, it was smooth and bare, suggesting no plant had been able to gain a foothold. On the other hand, perhaps it was simply that there had not been enough time for anything to grow, since the foyer had only just been exposed to water.

  Zadia stopped, and I saw that we had come to the steps she had described, leading to the upper part of the foyer. I glanced up and saw the surface of the water shimmering not far above. Instead of swimming straight up as Zadia did, I made my way to the steps, put my feet on them, and walked up out of the water. As I climbed, the sound of water dripping from me and of my soft, slushing footfalls echoed as if in some vast cavern.

  Zadia had removed her mouthpiece and goggles, and I did the same apprehensively. The air was icy cold and tasted of metal, but there was nothing else to say that it had been trapped for so many years.

  When we reached the top of the stairs, the teknoguilder lifted the thong from around my neck so that she could remove the air hose. She tied both to an ornate post set into the floor and attached another bulb of glows to it. “They’re not long enough to stretch any farther,” she murmured.

  I looked around, squinting against the impenetrable darkness and wondering where the monument was.

  As if I had spoken my question aloud, Zadia pointed straight ahead. Only then did I see that there was something in the center of the foyer. That the monument was constructed of glass prevented its being solidly visible.

  “Are you all right?” Zadia asked, laying a hand on my shoulder.

  “I am,” I said.

  I went forward, and when I was close enough for the glow light to reach the monument, it suddenly took on a brilliant life, its many facets catching the light and throwing shimmering knives to illuminate all corners of the massive foyer. Now I could see flat soaring walls set with metal plates, and an ornate, vaulted ceiling high above. The foyer took up the entire floor of the building, and its only furnishings seemed to be the monument and a table constructed of the same stone as the floor.

  I walked forward, stopping only because I noticed that the ground around the plinth sparkled with millions of slivers of broken glass, and my feet were bare. A splintered crack ran its full length, branching off to where the
head had been fixed.

  Zadia murmured that the monument had probably been damaged when the upper stories of the building were torn away. It was a miracle the foyer had not been destroyed and the statue crushed. There was no doubt in my mind that this would happen when the airlock failed.

  I walked around the statue.

  As Zadia had described, it was the figure of a young woman encircled by what looked to be some sort of snake. But when I saw its head, I sucked in a breath of astonishment, for surely the serpentish beast was an elongated dragon! But rather than being given a threatening mien, the dragon was curled about the woman’s figure protectively, and one of her hands rested gently on its scales.

  My hands, I thought, and shivered.

  The remainder of the glass was carved into a seething free-form mass of beasts that reminded me of the shawl Maryon and the futuretellers had made.

  “It is very beautiful,” Zadia murmured. “It is a pity it cannot survive, but I am glad to have seen it.”

  I took a few careful steps forward and studied the workmanship. Being created of glass, it was difficult to compare the style with that of a stone or wood carving. It seemed as much melted into shape as chiseled, but I felt fairly certain that the artist had not been Kasanda. There were similarities, but the work was raw and un-polished compared to the mastery revealed in the doors of Obernewtyn or in the Earthtemple reliefs. It was as if a talented student had emulated a master.

  “There is the name of the piece,” Zadia said, pointing to a glass plaque set into the floor.

  I read: “Through the transparency of now, the future.” Beneath this, in smaller lettering, were other words, and I knelt down to make them out. They read: “For one who has the courage to see what will come, and hope.” Under this dedication, in still smaller lettering, was the name of the monument’s creator: Cassy Duprey.

  Cassy. I thought of the dark-skinned girl from my dreams. She had been an artist.

  There was a slight creaking sound, and I looked up at Zadia in alarm.