but they managed. They did it so well that Ember and Edeline didn't know they were there. Ember, though, was aware of the gathering Smackers, and it troubled her too. Saviors usually stayed out of their way. It was a Gatherer's problem to worry about. Now that she was stuck with a Gatherer, however, it was also her problem, and Edeline being such a newcomer, it could even be a little bit dangerous.
Twilight was coming on fast, and they'd been traveling much longer than either had realized. Edeline suggested it was getting to be time to make camp, and Ember had pointed out a smooth clearing, where the ground was softer and not very dusty. She thought Edeline might be more comfortable there. They collected some apples from a nearby tree and settled down to enjoy them along with some clover that Edeline had saved from the morning. Both were feeling a tad weary, and sat on the ground, chewing in silence, when Ember perked up her ears, stopped eating, and listened. Edeline noticed and ceased chomping as well, but she didn't hear anything unusual, just the tweeting of birds and the chirping of a lone cricket.
It was the cricket that caught Ember's attention. She turned her head toward the sound and listened intently. The chirping diminished in volume, stopped for a moment, then started again further off. Ember jumped to her feet.
"Come with me," she ordered Edeline, who reluctantly rose and followed. Ember stepped into a hedge and came out on what looked like a definite path. The ground was settled as if it was raked, and the sides were lined with small stones, clearly set there on purpose. The path curled about several trees. Edeline wondered where they were going and why, but didn't say anything. Picking up speed ahead of her, Ember still wore a look of great concentration. Edeline hurried to keep up. As she turned the last corner she came to a halt. Ember stood staring at the sheer, flat gray wall of mountain that blocked them. The path simply came to an end. A sheer cliff was towering above them, a hundred feet high at least. Its surface was totally smooth. Not a root, not a stem, not a twig emerged from it. Curiously, the cliff was only about six feet wide, and uniformly so all the way up, a gigantic impossible rectangle of granite.
Edeline put her hand on the wall. It was warm to the touch, very warm, as if heated by some invisible source. Ember put her hand on it too, and then both hands, then pressed herself fully against it. The rock filled her body with warmth like a blanket. Ember held her cheek against it also, and Edeline followed suit.
"I could do this all day," Edeline purred. It felt unaccountably good. She realized she'd been cold, all over, non-stop for days. Even in the sun she'd felt chilly, but now, this cliff gave her strength, made her feel recovered and healed from the day.
"It's remarkable," Edeline murmured.
"What did you say?" Ember replied dreamily.
"Remarkable," Edeline repeated.
Twenty One
"If you said what I think you just said," Ember said, "then we're close. We're very, very close."
"I don't want to leave," Edeline answered. "If I could just sleep standing up then I would. I'd sleep where I'm standing right now."
"You have to look around," Ember told her, and gave her a nudge with her hand. "Look, I'm letting go too."
Ember pushed herself away from the slab, although every nerve in her body seemed to want to return, like a paper clip drawn to a magnet. Edeline also struggled to release herself from the grip of the rock.
"Look around where?" she said sleepily. The heat had been numbing her senses, making her drowsy. She shook her head quickly, trying to awaken.
"Anywhere," Ember replied, taking a step away from the cliff. "But stay on the path," she advised. "We're supposed to stay on the path, but not go, stay right here, but keep on the path and just look around."
"You're babbling," Edeline told her, but did as Ember instructed. The path was lined with the usual trees - always trees everywhere, Edeline thought, and the ground was the usual duff.
"Nothing to see here," Edeline reported. "Branches and leaves and twigs and stones, dust and dirt and oh, what is that?"
"What's what?" Ember asked, turning toward her.
"Over there," Edeline pointed at something that lay snugged on a branch near the trunk of a small sapling pine.
"Looks like a nest," Ember said. "Can you reach it from here, from the path?"
"I don't think so."
Edeline took a step toward it and reached.
"I could get it if I stepped off the path," she told Ember, who again warned her again not to do that.
"Well, okay," Edeline said, "then I guess that I won't," and retreated. Just then a very large bird came barreling down from the sky shrieking loud cries as it came. Edeline jumped out of the way as the crow rushed right to the little pine tree and landing, danced on the branch, seeming to curse out the women, guarding its brood. The crow flapped its wings and showed them its claws.
"All right," Edeline said, holding up her palms in a show of good faith. "I'm backing away now, okay? You don't have to come scratching my eyes out."
"He's talking to you!" Ember scolded. "Don't you know anything?"
"What?" Edeline turned toward the girl. "What is this? Make fun of the new girl day? Sheesh! It's just a bird protecting its nest."
"Oh really," Ember sighed, "and I suppose birds always give you their eggs?"
Edeline turned back to the tree as the crow held out its claw once again. Sure enough, it was clutching a very small egg and hopping up and down the branch toward her. Edeline walked up to the edge of the path once again and stretched out her arm, holding her palm up with her fingers extended. The crow made its way where she was and then, to Edeline's immense disbelief, the bird dropped the egg right into her hand. It hopped back, gave another great cry, and then took off up into the sky.
Edeline cradled the egg carefully and brought it up to her eyes. The growing darkness made it difficult to see but she could tell it was light blue and speckled. Edeline nearly stopped breathing as too many thoughts rushed into her head. She felt such a surging of love for the thing, unlike any sensation she'd ever experienced. This egg was her hope. It was her strength. The egg held the promise of endless fulfillment. She would tend for it, nurture it, care for it, mother it. All of her life from them on would be meant for the egg. All of these thoughts flashed in her mind for an instant. In the next instant, everything changed.
Figures dropped out of the trees from all sides. Voices were yelling, Edeline was jostled, knocked to the ground. She tried to hold on to the egg but then she was slapped in the face by a hand she couldn't see. Then it was gone. They were gone. Everything was just as it had been before the bird came, except that Edeline was lying on the path, her nose was bleeding, her face was scratched, and the egg had disappeared. She wanted to cry. She did cry. Edeline was weeping like never before and pounding the ground with her fists. Ember stood over her, waiting. She too had felt the power of the egg, but also knew Edeline was a Gatherer, the egg was the ball, and the Smackers had known it was coming. She could still hear the chase through the trees until all the Smackers were gone. Who had the egg now was anyone's guess. It would change hands a thousand more times, Ember thought, and then what?
"The goal!" Ember shouted out loud. "We have to get back to Baudry!"
Twenty Two
The pack of wild Smackers roared through the trees, some twenty or more of them keeping up the chase, pursuing the egg at every turn as they flung themselves impossibly from branch to branch to branch. They were astounding athletes, every one, performing moves which no circus acrobat would ever attempt. Many of them had years of experience under their ivy belts, while all of them exercised and experimented constantly, and for moments just such as this. Once a Gatherer picked a new ball, it was up to the Smackers to carry it forth. If there were rules in this part of the game, they were unwritten and unspoken at best, except for one and one only. Smackers knew best, and Smackers never told an outsider what really went on in these mad airborne scrums.
No one Smacker carried the ball very long. Instead, they passed it, threw
it, chucked it, heaved and tossed it up in the air, leaving it up to the others to snag it as best as they could. Astoundingly, the small egg never got scratched, never got nicked, never got broken. Smackers pulled at each other, leaped at each other, clawed and dragged and tugged one another. Sometimes they fell. Sometimes they flew. Always they landed cleanly and safely. And all the while they made a huge noise, bellowing their way through the forest. One of their favorite routines was a call-and-response sing-song banter made of childhood poems passed down from the old days. Lucky witnesses below might hear a snatch or two of songs such as this one, where one Smacker went solo while a chorus responded in alternate lines:
Don't knock on the door
(I'm putting on my shoe)
Don't knock on the door
(There's nothing to do)
Don't knock on the door
(I'm putting on my sock)
Don't knock on the door
(Just please, don't knock!)
Or one of the many variations of this one:
You can call it San Francisco
(I will call it Sam's Clam Disco)
You can roll, in the grass
(I'll just sit here on my ass!)
And they'd laugh and they'd scream and they'd whoop and they'd holler, all the while covering great distances. The one and only hard and fast rule was this, the time limit. Smackers could only ferry the ball for exactly one segment. A segment,
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