Below the Root

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  Extending both arms toward the Flower, Raamo centered the force of his Spirit into his fingertips and concentrated—narrowing and channeling all his body energy until he could feel it flowing out toward the loop of Vine that bore the Sacred Bloom. The tingling in his fingertips grew stronger, and the Vine began to move closer until the Flower was only inches from his face. Still holding the looped Vine by the force of kiniporting, Raamo drank in the beauty of the pulsing colors and breathed deeply of the intoxicating odors. But as his face approached the edge of a petal it recoiled, thickening and shortening as it drew away from him, back into the center of the Bloom.

  “Raamo,” his mother’s voice startled him, and as his Spirit-force wavered, the loop of Wissenvine straightened, pulling the Blossom upward and away. Hearba came to the window and stood beside him looking up at the glorious Blossom.

  “How lovely it is,” she said, “and how sad that it dies so easily.” She smiled at Raamo. “I see that you are still able to kiniport.”

  “Yes, a little. I can lift things of little weight or substance, and move them toward me, but that is all. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary?” Hearba questioned. “Do you mean you know others of your age who can do as much?”

  “Why yes,” Raamo said. “In my last year of kiniport at the Garden there were many who could move the cylinders more rapidly than I.”

  “Truly?” Hearba asked. “I had thought—” She paused and then continued. “But Pomma told me that she believes that no one in her class can truly kiniport anymore. And even when I was a child in the Garden, most of my classmates could no longer lift or summon so much as a feather by the time they were nine or ten years old.”

  Raamo was puzzled. “But I have seen them kiniporting, and not long ago. The children in Pomma’s class and even older ones.”

  “Pomma told me—only last month when she brought home her latest reports—that she could no longer kiniport except by illusion. I had praised her for her good mark in kiniporting, and she giggled dreamily—I think she had been eating Berries on the way home—and said she should have gotten failing in kiniporting and excellent in illusion. She said she was really very good at illusion.”

  “Illusion?” Raamo asked. “What did she mean?”

  “I asked her, of course, and she seemed, for a moment, worried that she had told, but then she giggled again and said, ‘All right, I’ll tell you.’ And she told me that two or three years ago when she began to be unable to move the cylinders by Spirit-force, one of the teachers kept her in after class and showed her how the tables were hung and balanced so that a touch of knee or elbow would set them vibrating in such a way that the cylinders began to move toward the end of the table where the one stood who was practicing—or pretending to practice—kiniporting.

  “And after that, she said, she watched the others closely and saw that most of them were vibrating the tables also. She said that she had become very good at causing the table to vibrate in a manner that was very difficult to detect, and that the teacher praised her for it and said that when one loses Spirit-force one must learn illusion to take its place. She also said that there are ways of practicing illusion in the pensing class and that her good mark in pensing was also due to the use of illusion.”

  Raamo shook his head disbelievingly. “But if all, or most, of the children were not able to pense or kiniport, and if the teachers were telling everybody else about this—this illusion—why is it that I didn’t know? I realize that most people lose the Spirit-force. But to such an extent—so soon. Surely some one would have told me.”

  “Perhaps,” Hearba said, “the teachers did not tell you since you were still able to practice the Spirit-arts truly, and therefore there was no need for them to teach you false ways. And the other children might not have told you because of shame. Pomma said the teacher who spoke to her told her that it was a great disgrace to lose the Spirit-skills at such an early age—that none of her classmates had yet lost them—and that she was being taught about the art of illusion in order to hide her disgrace. The teacher said she should not speak of the matter to anyone—not even her own family.” Hearba paused. “But I do think it strange that you did not learn the truth by pensing.”

  Raamo nodded slowly. “I think I know—” he said. “I often wondered why everyone mind-blocked so carefully during kiniporting class. And during pensing it always seemed to me that everyone was mind-blocking much more than at other times. I always found it harder to pense in class than at other times. I often wondered why.”

  “How are the pensing classes conducted now?” Hearba asked. “Is it still by image-sending?”

  “Yes. Almost entirely. The sender and receiver sit in separate screened booths, with several familiar objects on the table in front of them. The sender opens his mind to one object only and the receiver, if he can pense what the object is, sets the same thing from his table in the booth window—behind a curtain. Then the sender tells the examiner what object he was sending—and the curtain is opened to see if the pensing was correct.”

  “Is there time,” Hearba asked, “to change the object in the window—after the sender tells what it was that he was sending?”

  “I—I suppose there would be,” Raamo said. “I had never thought—but yes, there might be time.”

  There was a silence while Raamo and his mother stood by the window together, and yet alone in their separate thoughts. A trencher bird flew by, the early sunlight burnishing the iridescent blue of its scaly wings. It was carrying a large breadnut in its enormous beak, and Raamo leaned out the window eagerly trying to determine the direction of its nest. The beak had been dark in color, suggesting that it would soon be shed and that its huge, tightly woven nest might contain other discarded beaks as well—a treasure chest of sharp blades to be used in every kind of cutting tool from fruit knife to wood chisel. To seek out trencher nests with their harvests of indispensable blades was the task of every Kindar child old enough to climb or glide.

  “I think I know the grund he’s headed for,” Raamo began excitedly. “This afternoon I’ll get Bruvo to help me, and I’ll—” He stopped suddenly, as the remembrance came to him that he was no longer a carefree child with no more pressing duty than the seeking out of trencher nests. He glanced at Hearba and saw on her face an expression he had not seen before. She seemed to be regarding him, her own son, with a kind of wonder. Turning his mind to hers, he found that she was not blocking and that her thoughts were clear to him—if puzzling. She was thinking of how she had long suspected that he might be destined for a high calling.

  “I never knew you thought such things of me,” he said. “I always thought I was only—”

  “I took care that you should not know,” Hearba said.

  “Mothers are often wrong about such things, and I would not have wished to fill your head with grand ideas and false ambitions.”

  “But these things of which we have been speaking, pensing and kiniporting, do not explain the choosing,” Raamo said. “Surely an Ol-zhaan is not chosen on the strength of his ability at such children’s games.”

  “The Spirit-skills are more than children’s games,” Hearba said. “They are—they are the branchway to holiness. Surely the Spirit Hymn is still sung every morning in the Garden?” Hearba began to sing softly, and Raamo blended his voice with hers.

  “Spirit-gift is the glory of Kindar birth.

  Spirit-force is the seventh and highest sense.

  The Spirit-skills are the branchway to holiness.

  Spirit is the All-in-One.”

  When the blending tones of the last, long drawn-out syllable had died away Raamo said, “Yes, of course, the

  Hymn is still sung. But what does it mean? The teachers lead us in the singing of the Spirit Hymn every morning, but when I asked them to explain its meaning, they said but little.”

  Hearba nodded. “Little was said concerning it even when I was a student in the Garden. But there is an o
ld saying that goes, ‘As the orchard nourishes the pan-tree, so does Spirit grow in the Garden.’ I have heard that in the olden days much more emphasis was placed on the importance of the Spirit-skills. And who knows, perhaps even today it is important and the new Ol-zhaan must be chosen from among those who show unusual Spirit-gift as infants. Perhaps such early skills are in some way related to the great powers of an Ol-zhaan.”

  “Perhaps,” Raamo said, “but still, I don’t understand—”

  At that moment his words were interrupted by Pomma’s voice shrilling, “Baya! Baya! Come back here. Drop that.”

  The sima burst through the door hangings and scuttled across the floor of Raamo’s chamber carrying a small gathered bag in one of her front paws. Pomma was close behind, but before she could catch her pet it had leaped to the window ledge and tossed the bag away. Pomma grabbed for it and missed. Leaning out, she watched it fall slowly down and down toward the forest floor.

  “Oh, Baya!” she cried, her face contorted. “I’m going to—I’d like to—dead you!”

  “Pomma,” Hearba’s voice reflected her shocked amazement. “Where did you learn such language? Go to your chamber at once and chant the Hymn of Peace until you are ready to speak decently.”

  Raamo was a bit shocked himself. Even among older children such a curse word was not commonly used. The word “dead,” while perfectly acceptable as an adjective describing the condition of not being alive, when used as a verb meaning the taking of life was officially a non-word, and therefore carefully avoided.

  Pomma stood facing her mother for a moment breathing deeply, her small body clad only in a short waistcloth, trembling with every breath. Then she hung her head and turned to go.

  “Pomma,” Hearba called after her, “what was in the bag that was important enough to make you so forget yourself?”

  Without turning Pomma answered, her voice low and trembly. “It was Berries,” she said. “It was all of my Berries.”

  When Pomma was gone and the heavy doorway tapestry had fallen into place behind her, Raamo said, “She eats too many Berries, Mother. Can’t you explain to her that she is too young to need so much mind-soothing. She should be out climbing and gliding and dancing instead of Berry-dreaming on some lonely branch. Did you see, Mother, how thin she is and how the light shines through her fingers as if they had no more substance than the wings of a silk-moth?”

  Hearba nodded, sighing. “I have tried,” she said. “But with the Berry so plentiful, and so much encouragement—in the Gardens and elsewhere. Pomma says that some of the teachers distribute Berries in the classroom when the children become noisy or restless. Even in their songs there is encouragement—so much praise of the Berry and its happy dreams. It seems that in recent years the Berry-songs are the most popular of any, among the children.” Hearba sighed again. “I have been thinking of taking Pomma to the next assembly of healing.”

  Raamo bent to pick up the sima who had been sitting at his feet, looking up at him and tugging at his shuba. Cradled in his arms, the little creature looked anxiously up into Raamo’s face as he asked, “Do you think, then, that it is more than just the Berry-eating? Do you think that she is really ill?”

  “I don’t know,” Hearba answered. “But I am troubled that it may be so.”

  Illness of any kind was rare in Green-sky, and there were no minor illnesses, so Raamo’s mind was darkened by his mother’s words.

  In his arms the sima’s tiny lavender face contorted as if in pain, and it rocked itself to and fro, wailing softly, as if it understood their words and was troubled with them.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE DAY HAD STARTED poorly, with Pomma’s outburst, but by the time the ceremony of the new day had been completed, the solace of song and the release of meditation, along with the natural Kindar tendency to hopefulness and good cheer, had worked their magic, and the D’ok family was at Peace. Pomma no longer pouted, and Raamo and his mother had freed their minds, at least for the moment, from the shadow of worry. Immediately after the morning food-taking, Valdo took his leave, since the day of a harvester began very early. Even in their head shades and protective shubas, the strength of the midday sun in the orchards was oppressive to the forest-bred Kindar, so they were forced to begin their work early and to rest during the hours of high sun. More than an hour later Hearba, Raamo, and Pomma left their nid-place together, on their way to separate destinations.

  Raamo was on his way to Temple-grove, a stand of exceptionally large grunds on the northern boundary of the central city of Orbora. It was there that the Ol-zhaan lived, in lavish chambers among great palaces and temples, and it was there that he had been told to come on the morning after his Second Counseling. He had not been told why or what he was to do there, but only that he should wait in one of the smaller reception halls until he received further instructions.

  Hearba was on her way to her place of work in the silkhouses where she did print embroidery, and where her days were spent in alternating hours of work and social communion—song, dance, and conversation—with other members of the silk guild, with spinners, weavers and keepers of worm and moth.

  They would stop first, however, at the Garden of Song and Story, where Pomma, along with every other child in the city between the ages of two and twelve, would spend her day.

  Although their destinations were different, they began their journey together, and in the same way. Not far from the dooryard of their own nid-place, a large branchfork, unhampered by the trunks of roof trees or curtains of Wissenvine, offered a perfect launching spot for long glides. It was there that Hearba first, and then her two children, leaned forward into the open air, hundreds of feet above the forest floor, and began to fall. By stretching their arms and legs wide, they tightened the flowing wing-panels of their shubas into taut sails that caught the air and buoyed them up. After the initial sharp plunge, their descent was gradual, and they swooped and banked, and at times even soared briefly upward as they were caught by sudden updrafts of warm damp air.

  Dropping down past great networks of Vine and grundbranches of ever-increasing size, they at last reached the lower regions where, along the enormous public branchways, were to be found not only the large nid-places of high officials but also the great public buildings and assembly halls. Banking in unison, like a formation of large birds, the D’ok family skirted a gigantic grundtrunk, festooned with dozens of Vine-woven ladders, and dropped lightly to a landing in the public door-yard of the Garden.

  On each side the branchpaths were thick with Kindar hurrying toward the Garden, and others glided in constantly to land nearby. Parents of infants in their first year at the Garden arrived either walking or gliding, with their offspring strapped to their backs—as they would have to do until the Garden teachers certified their children as proficient in the use of the shuba and capable of gliding on their own. Large groups of older children arrived together, singing and shouting as they ran along the branches or swooped down from the heights. Touching palms briefly with her mother and brother, and chattering a few disjointed words of the parting, Pomma dashed away after a group of her fifth-year classmates, who were just disappearing behind the door hangings of the main entrance. She turned once to wave, a quick birdlike gesture, the rich color of her bluegreen eyes in striking contrast to her small pale face, and then using both her tiny hands to push aside the heavy draperies, she, too, disappeared. For several moments Raamo and Hearba stood watching the dwindling flow of students as the time approached for the beginning of the morning’s classes.

  Raamo was thinking of his own days at the Garden, which had ended such a short time before, but which seemed now to be already fading into a distant past.

  Like all other Kindar children, he had begun to attend the Garden classes at the end of his second year of life, and by the time he reached his third birthday he had been taught many things. He had learned, of course, to wear a shuba and to glide, so that he no longer needed to be watched and guarded every moment to pre
vent a tragic fall to the forest floor; but also he had begun to receive instruction in many other areas of study.

  Already, in that first year, he had begun classes in Love, where he was encouraged to relate to his fellow students by playing games that emphasized cooperation and shared achievement, and the delight of shared emotions. In Peace class he was taught how to control and make positive use of his emotions by using ritual and meditation; and in his first year of Joy, he had learned to appreciate not only the pleasures of song and dance but the many other delights of body, mind, and Spirit.

  He had also begun instructions designed to increase and prolong his use of Spirit-force, and in a daily class known as Story, he had been taught to recite by memory the chants and songs and narrations that told the history of Green-sky.

  But memorization, so necessary for Kindar children, had always been hard for Raamo. It was with difficulty that he had learned not only the long sacred stories but also the songs and chants used in the many rituals and ceremonies of daily life. He had often been chided by his teachers, who told him that he could easily do better if he would only try—that there was nothing really wrong with his memory if only he would spend more time remembering and less at asking pointless questions and daydreaming about strange and disquieting ideas. “You are as curious as a sima,” his teachers had told him,” and almost as destructive.” That had been the time he had almost spoiled a book by trying to write on one of its pages with various juices squeezed from fruits and tree bark. He had been trying to find a way to produce books more quickly and easily so they would be more plentiful.