‘Gone,’ answered the villagers, and now Marlowe stepped down from the verandah of the hut and walked to the funeral pyre in the middle of the square, Maze and Zoe walking on either side of him. He laid Helena’s body on the pyre, and then Maze plucked the burning torch from the ground and handed it to Zoe. Zoe took it, but hesitated. ‘You’re her nearest female kin,’ said Maze, ‘you must do this.’
Blinking back her tears, Zoe thrust the torch into the base of the pyre. The kindling crackled into flame. Night was falling.
Meanwhile in the Looters’ village the raiding party was about to enter the tunnel system and the Don turned to Meg and said, ‘You’re not coming.’
‘I’m sure as hell not staying here by myself,’ she responded with some vigor, and for a split second the Don considered the alternatives, then nodded. ‘I then order you to accompany us.’
Meg smiled in a caricature of obsequiousness and said, in a girly little voice, ‘I hear my master and obey.’
‘No need to go overboard,’ muttered the Don, and led the way down into the tunnel system. The torches were casting an eerie light, bones lay scattered on the floor and on the old brick walls graffiti told of former times: “AC/DC RULES OK?”, “SK8ERS 4EVER” and “GOTHS SUX” read some of them. They passed a human skeleton, dressed in decaying rags and chained to the wall, and Zachary muttered ‘Must’ve been too tough to eat’, and then looked around and said, ‘What was this place?’ ‘Sewer maybe, telephone tunnel?’ Harold said and then the Don told them to be silent. They crept along the tunnel into the darkness.
In the forester people’s village, Helena’s pyre was now a pile of glowing ashes, and Marlowe sat by it, wrapped in his cloak, excluded because of his gender from the women’s mysteries being enacted in Helena’s hut. There, a bowl of ashes slaked with water sat on the floor and around it sat Maze with Zoe on her right hand and some of the older women of the village. Maze solemnly put her hand into the slaked ashes and drew a line from the top of her forehead down over her nose and ending on her chin, and then two more lines, one across her forehead and one across her mouth. The elder woman to her left did the same, and around the circle it went, ending with Zoe, who followed the lead of the others.
‘Tonight is the night of the vigil,’ Maze intoned.
‘Tomorrow the day of the robing,’ the elder women replied.
‘Tonight Our Mother is dead.’
‘With the dawn, Our Mother will live.’
And one of the elder women looked at Zoe, and the look was not lost on either her or Maze. ‘Maze is the Choosen,’ Zoe said sharply, ‘and I stay here only to advise her.’
The elder woman who had looked at Zoe now spoke directly to her. ‘You’re the one who came back from the grave,’ she said, ‘the Twice-Born.’
‘But Maze is the Choosen.’
The elder women looked at her, their ash-smeared faces blank, unreadable. Zoe stood. ‘There is someone older and wiser than us all. I must consult her.’ And she walked out, leaving them to their vigil.
In the tunnel system, the patrol moved deeper into the earth and suddenly from further on they heard the scurrying of feet. Cautiously they crept forward and came around a bend in the tunnel where the walls changed from brick to solid rock. In the distance they could see light, a dim pulsing glow. They moved closer and found themselves at the end of the tunnel and at the entrance to a cavern, so vast and so dark that they could not see its walls or roof, and in the centre of the cavern was the source of the pulsing light. As they watched, hands were momentarily silhouetted against the glow, which became brighter as the fabric shielding the light source was unwrapped to reveal the missing crystal. The hands which had unwrapped it now lifted the crystal and the face of the Eldest was revealed. ‘Dark One!’ he shouted.
And the Looters, unseen in the dark, their voices echoing and re-echoing in the vast chamber, responded, ‘Dark One!’
‘Dark One revealed in light!’
‘In light!’
And then, rushing past the raiding party in the dark came a Looter, who saw them and kept running before they could bring him down. ‘Trollmen!’ he shrieked, ‘Trollmen!’ And the Eldest threw the cloth back over the crystal and hiding it within his cloak he plunged the cavern into darkness once again!
At the starship Zoe came running into the clearing, the hatchway opened for her and she ran inside, calling on Guinevere even before she reached the bridge. Panting and distressed she reached the bridge and Guinevere manifested before her. ‘What ails thee Zoe?’ she said, and Zoe explained. ‘Helena is dead, and the village is divided. Some want Maze for Our Mother and some want me. And I don’t want them divided! I just thought I’d stay on and be Maze’s adviser but suddenly I’m the meat in the sandwich, I…’
‘Stop!’ said Guinevere sternly, ‘and examine thy heart. Dost thou wish to be Our Mother?’
‘It’s … kind of flattering. But I don’t want to take it from Maze! She’s been trained for this since she was born.’
‘And yet there is that within thee which harbors ambition. Look on this screen and see ambition’s fruits.’
The main screen became a swirl of darkness and many colors. Images began to appear and disappear. Maze, dead at Zoe’s feet, with Zoe triumphant. Then the reverse, Zoe dead at Maze’s feet and Maze triumphant. Maze ruling alone. The village derelict and deserted. Possible futures formed and reformed before her. ‘What are you showing me?’ Zoe cried, and Guinevere replied, ‘Possible futures. We stand at a crossroads in Time, and anything may happen. Maze slaying thee, thou slaying Maze.’
‘If there’s any possibility of that I’m not going back. I’ll never do anything to hurt her.’
‘Thou must go back and face thy test. If thou goest not back ‘twill wreak chaos and worse. It must be settled in the next few hours. Now go! Hasten!’
Zoe turned to go but then paused and looked back. ‘You lift off at midday?’
‘Aye, if they find the crystal. With thee or without thee we shall lift at noon. Now go and God speed!’
And with that, Zoe quit the bridge.
In the Looters’ cavern, the Don’s party advanced, holding their torches high and as they came to the centre of the Looters’ meeting place, they were faced with the Eldest, who whipped the cloth off the crystal and glared at them. ‘Why do you come to Dark One’s home, Don Costello?’
‘We come for the crystal in your hands,’ he replied.
‘This Dark One’s Eye. Belong to Human Race. Not for you.’
The Don and his party advanced on the Eldest. ‘The crystal,’ said the Don, ‘we will take it from your living hands or your dead ones. The choice is yours.’
‘You come of your own free will to place where Dark One is strong,’ the Eldest said, ‘and for that your bones will stay here forever.’
‘The crystal. Now,’ said the Don, but as he spoke the Eldest turned and took flight, screaming ‘Kill foods!’ and his followers rushed at the Don’s party from all sides. The Trolls’ swords were out and they were suddenly fighting Looters armed with club and spears, while the Don, Meg, Zachary, Harold and Marine fought their way clear of the melee and ran off in pursuit of the Eldest, leaving the Trolls under Ulf’s leadership to deal with the Looters.
The Eldest shot into a side tunnel running off the cavern, and they ran after him. Harold, who was the swiftest runner of them, took the lead, and then the Eldest, his pace beginning to fail, dodged into yet another side tunnel. Harold was still leading the pursuit into the new tunnel at the end of which was a dim light, shining through what seemed like vegetation. The Eldest reached the end of the tunnel and now stood at bay, silhouetted by the light behind him, and as Harold reached him, the Eldest, holding the crystal in one arm, grabbed him in a choke hold with his other arm, and dragged him through the screen of leaves at the end of the tunnel and out of sight!
The others were only a few yards behind and as they crashed through the vegetation at the end of the tunnel, they found themse
lves on a narrow rock ledge lit by the rising sun. The ledge was only a few feet wide, and beyond its edge lay a terrible drop into the valley below. The Eldest stood on the ledge, the crystal under one arm, and his other arm holding Harold in a choke hold, and he said, ‘You want Dark One’s Eye? Or you want boy? Which?’ and by way of illustration, he pushed Harold toward the edge of the rock ledge. It crumbled underfoot and stones and earth fell outward and down into the abyss.
Zachary was closest and he muttered to the others, ‘Let me handle this. Slaying isn’t my thing but talking is,’ and he took another step toward the Eldest, speaking very calmly. ‘We want the boy. We want the boy safe and that’s all, okay? No crystal, forget about the crystal. So if you just let him go, let him walk towards us, we’ll back off, no sweat, no one’s going to get violent, and we can all get out of here alive. Everyone behind me, off the ledge, Harold’s going to be coming right along now.’
The Don, Meg and Marine backed into the tunnel mouth as Harold said, ‘we need the crystal.’
Zachary sighed. ‘Harold, who’s running this negotiation?’
‘I’m just saying we could get a better deal. We need the crystal.’
‘And I need you alive,’ said Zachary, ‘because if I blow this and you go over the edge I’m never going to hear the end of it from the women, okay? Now just shut up!’
‘I say we can reason with him,’ said Harold.
Meg, Marine and the Don stood at the tunnel’s mouth, listening. ‘Is the boy stupid?’ asked Marine.
Meg shook her head. ‘No, if anything he’s too intelligent.’
‘Can be the same thing. Please? Permission?’ and she gestured that she wanted the dagger from the Don’s swordbelt. The Don, though puzzled, handed it over hilt first. Marine weighed it in her hand, and seemed satisfied. ‘You think the primitive will let Harold live? ‘
Harold, being too intelligent, had now taken over the negotiation. ‘Now look,’ he lectured the Eldest, ‘you’re all going to die if we don’t get this crystal. Big explosion. Boom! Everyone dead. So if you hand it over we’ll give you whatever you want.’
‘Want Dark One’s eye!’
‘Apart from that. Think.’
Zachary felt like howling with frustration. ‘Harold! He cannot think!’
All this reasoning was getting the Eldest agitated. ‘You want Dark One Eye, you want boy, choose, choose now, Food you get back in tunnel, you go right back, you go to village, you leave me, boy alone, you trust me or boy die now!’ he babbled.
‘Okay! Okay!’ said Zachary, edging backward.
‘Boy die now!’ The way the Eldest said it made it sound as if he liked the idea. It was in his view a good idea, an idea whose time had come. To emphasize his point, he thrust Harold to the brink of the ledge so that Harold was now trying not to look down into the dizzying depths of the valley.
Marine stepped from the tunnel onto the ledge, one hand holding the Don’s dagger at about ear level. ‘Zachary? Duck!’ she yelled and then as he did so, she hurled the Don’s dagger and it thudded into the Eldest’s chest! He fell backward, dragging Harold with him, and Harold reached for the crystal, once, twice, got a grip on it, but he was falling, being dragged by the Eldest into the abyss! Zachary dived forward, got a grip on Harold’s jacket as the Eldest, howling, spun away into the depths, but then Harold’s jacket was tearing away in Zachary’s one-handed grip and Zachary was sliding across the smooth stone of the ledge with Harold’s weight dragging them both off the ledge! Zachary reached down with his other hand to get a grip on Harold’s arm, but his hand was sweaty and Harold’s arm was sliding through his grasp. All this had happened in an instant and Marine was now airborne, diving in to pin Zachary to the ledge, while Meg and the Don were moving in to help. Harold, dangling over the edge, tossed the crystal up to whoever could take it, and used the hand which was thus freed to grab Zachary’s arm. The crystal rose in an arc above the ledge but was going to drop back into the valley! Meg went for it like a fielder and if the Don had not caught her from behind she would have gone off the ledge in her eagerness. Her hands touched it, she juggled the crystal, once, twice, she nearly had it and then it fell from her questing hands and dropped, pulsing light, down into the depths of the valley!
Zachary and Marine dragged Harold back onto the ledge and they lay there panting, and then Zachary looked up at the Don, who was still holding Meg. ‘Can we get into that valley and back by midday?’ he asked.
The Don shook his head. ‘It’s a five day trip.’
‘Ropes?’ suggested Zachary. ‘We could abseil?’ but the Don again shook his head.
‘So far so good then,’ said Zachary, and put his head in his hands, panting like a winded hound.
In the village, three chairs now stood in a row on the verandah of Our Mother’s house. The central chair was the chair of office and the two which flanked it were smaller by half. Several of the older women were now sweeping the last of the ashes from Helena’s funeral pyre and sprinkling the area with water, and other village women were gathering, while Marlowe watched from the doorway of his hut.
In Our Mother’s house, Maze and Zoe sat on the floor as one of the elder women explained what was to happen. ‘Since some in the village want Maze, the Choosen one, and some want Zoe the Twice-Born, we must go into Clan session and divide until there is no more division. You will each sit one side of the seat of power,’ she said and stood and beckoned them to follow her outside. They rose and went out of the hut and on the verandah she assigned each of them one of the smaller chairs flanking the seat of power. ‘You will sit in these chairs until the women of the Clan have divided until there is no more division.’
The women of the Clan had now assembled, and the elder woman who had been instructing Zoe and Maze stepped forward. ‘Before you is the Choosen and the Twice-Born One. There is division among us as to which of them will become Our Mother. Let us divide until division ends.’
The women silently divided. Some moved to the side of the village square opposite Zoe’s chair and some to the side opposite Maze’s. A clear majority favored Maze. Zoe breathed a sigh of relief. ‘That’s it then,’ she said to Maze, ‘most of them want you.’
‘Most is not all,’ said Maze, ‘and here there is no tyranny of the most. In Clan session, all must agree.’
‘Can I speak to them?’ Zoe said.
‘In Clan session all may speak.’
So Zoe rose to her feet and addressed the assembled women. ‘I came back today because a very wise woman told me it would bring chaos and disaster to the Clan if I didn’t. What I have to say to you is this. I’m flattered that some of you want me to be Our Mother, but that was not my sister Helena’s wish. She too was a very wise woman and she wanted Maze to succeed her. Some of you believe I came back from the grave. I can’t explain this very well, but I’m not returned from the dead, just from the past before the Great Exit. I was born before my sister Helena, but in many ways I’m younger than Maze here. It’s her that you need, not me. She was born for this, trained for this, and is the choice of the last Our Mother. And I urge you. Divide and choose her.’ She sat down and waited and there was silence for a moment, and then some of Maze’s supporters moved over to Zoe’s side, making the clear majority with her. Zoe stood, appalled. ‘Did you not hear me! I said to choose her, not me!’
‘You just showed wisdom, generosity and foresight,’ Maze said to her, ‘and that is why they are now choosing you.’
‘I’ll never understand people,’ Zoe said, looking up at where the sun was now behind the tops of the trees, ‘never.’
83: ONE LAST CHANCE
The Don had sent the rest of the Trolls back to Trollcastle and so it was only he, Meg, Zachary, Harold, Marine, Ulf and Rocky who rode disheartened into the clearing before the starship. As they dismounted, Meg said to him, ‘Shouldn’t you be trying to get your people away?’ while knowing it was hopeless. Guinevere had to lift at midday to avoid self-destruction and there was no time
now for anyone to escape the area which would be destroyed.
‘A hopeless task,’ the Don said, ‘and I’d sooner face death than run from him.’ Then he smiled. ‘And if I’m to die, I’ll die with my Lady Henderson beside me.’ Then he turned to Ulf, moved to him, and embraced him. ‘To your own family, Ulf. Your Don gambled and lost. Goodbye, old warhorse.’ Ulf slapped the Don on his back, nearly winding him, then mounted and rode out, and now the Don turned to Rocky, who simply shook his head and said, ‘I have no family but you, Don Robert,’ and the Don put one arm around the boy’s shoulders, and one arm around Meg’s waist, and they followed Zachary, Harold and Marine up the ramp into the starship.
As they entered the bridge, despondent at their failure, the Wyzen rolled on her back and purred, which was her way of getting humans to lighten up. Usually the ploy worked, but today it had no effect. ‘We blew it, Guinevere,’ Zachary said, ‘we were that close,’ and he gestured with finger and thumb and then flopped down onto an acceleration couch. ‘I keep thinking,’ he said after a while, ‘that I’ve seen another crystal exactly like it right here in this ship.’ Everyone thought hard, but so exhausted were they, that no one could think where Zachary might have seen such a thing.
In the village, a clear majority now stood in front of Zoe. A few more on Maze’s side now silently crossed the invisible line and added their numbers to Zoe’s side. ‘They’re making the wrong decision,’ Zoe murmured to Maze.
‘What you say has no meaning,’ replied the child. ‘A Clan session decides. A decision is. It is not right or wrong, it simply is.’
‘I don’t understand that,’ Zoe said.
Maze patiently took her through it again. ‘The Clan meets, decides, and what is, is.’
And again, Zoe did not understand her, and knew how alien this culture was from her own. Then, in the corner of her eye, she was aware of movement, and looking up she found that more village women had joined her side, leaving only three supporting Maze’s right to succeed Our Mother.
Starship Home Page 45