Until the Celebration

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  For several minutes Raamo listened to one speaker after another try to comfort D’ol Falla, telling her that she was not to blame—that under the circumstances her decision to keep the existence of the deadly weapon a secret was understandable and justified. One of the speakers, a Kindar woman, turned to Raamo.

  “You have not spoken, Raamo,” she said. “Do you not agree with us that D’ol Falla should not blame herself and must not leave the Council?”

  “Yes,” Raamo said. “I do agree. But I must speak of something else. Something that concerns the tool-of-violence. I have just come from a meeting with one who has given me important information about the tool-of-violence, and about other things, also.”

  So Raamo told Quon’s story to the Council, taking care to leave out no detail concerning Regle and his community of Wissen-wald and of his secret spies and the woman Maala D’ach, who had been given the task of stealing the weapon. When he had finished, D’ol Falla was the first to speak.

  “Yes,” she said. “I see now that it must have been Maala who found the hiding place.”

  Neric was on his feet. “Why are we sitting here wasting time,” he said. “Let us immediately go to the palace to bring this woman before the Council. Ruulba, will you go with me to summon the traitor, Maala D’ach, to appear before us?”

  But D’ol Falla was shaking her head.

  “It is useless,” she said. “For two days Maala has been absent from her duties at the palace. It seems she has already gone to this new city of Regle’s, this Wissen-wald, with the weapon. It would seem that we now have two who have gained the means to threaten us into submission. Axon Befal has the children, and Regle again has the tool-of-violence.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  JUST AS THE NEWS of the abduction of the children had spread over Green-sky with great swiftness, so too did the incredible facts concerning Axon Befal’s demands and the stolen tool-of-violence. But this time, instead of a silence, there was a great increase in conversation. People gathered everywhere—in guild halls and nid-places, at places of service and on the public branch-ways—and talked about the two secret cities hidden somewhere in the open forest; about the woman Maala D’ach, and her treachery; and about the terrible threat of the tool-of-violence, once more in the hands of Regle.

  The tool-of-violence was, perhaps, the most discussed of all. A year earlier, the people of Green-sky had been intrigued and horrified to learn that such a device existed. In the intervening months a new mythology had grown up around the ancient weapon, based partly on fact, but largely on surmise—a mythology that covered its appearance, its history, the terrible deeds it had once performed, and the source and extent of its awful power. This new mythology had made of the ancient weapon a symbol of evil that their ancestors had escaped by flight, but which pursued them, only to be conquered by the power of uniforce and of the Rejoyning.

  That it had been conquered, they had not doubted, since it was assumed that it had been destroyed after the Rejoyning. And now, to learn that it still existed and that it could not be destroyed, transformed the triumphant myth into one of almost fatalistic fear—a fear that the curse of violence was indeed unconquerable, and that the tool itself was the physical manifestation of a hidden evil that still lived and moved among them. They spoke of it during the day with superstitious awe, and during the night it became the nightmare monster of their dreams—a thing of living, knowing evil, forever willing the return of its ancient power over life and death.

  In the great assembly hall, the Council, also, talked. The Councilors present at the meeting at which the new revelations had been made had decided to meet again in two days’ time, and every two days thereafter until a solution had been found. By the first such meeting Hiro D’anhk had recovered enough to resume his duties as Chief Mediator, and even the grief-stricken parents of Teera had returned to their places at the table.

  The Council had sent a message to the Citizens’ Senate in each of the seven cities, as well as to the city-masters and clan-leaders of Erda and all the surface cities. The message asked that representatives be sent to inform the Councilors of how the people felt about the threats of the two renegade leaders.

  The representatives had begun to come, but they brought few suggestions as to what should be done. There was, however, general agreement on what should not be done. Very few, it seemed, thought that the Council should ransom the children by swearing allegiance to Axon Befal, and even fewer advocated an attempt to rescue them by means of force. It seemed clear to both Kindar and Erdling that either solution would be a denial of the children—a denial perhaps more final than their deaths. To most, it seemed that no answer was possible, and all that could be done was wait and hope—hope that Axon Befal and Regle D’orte would not be capable of the evil they had threatened, or that the power once before manifested through the children would somehow keep them and all Green-sky safe from harm.

  And so the waiting continued. In the Vine Palace, D’ol Falla also waited, through days that had become, for her, eternities of torment. She waited in constant expectation of the news that Regle had presented his demands to the Council—demands based on the power of the stolen weapon—or that a message had arrived from Axon Befal, a message, perhaps, that he was advancing on the city.

  Just as she had done before when disaster seemed imminent, she fell back on her faith in Raamo. Summoning him into her chambers, she urged him again and again to seek for Spirit-guidance. But, just as before, Raamo was unable to summon a foretelling.

  “I’ve tried,” he told D’ol Falla, “but there is no answer.”

  “Perhaps you have not tried hard enough,” D’ol Falla said. “Perhaps if you spent more time in seeking—in fasting and in meditating. You have often been gone from your chambers in the last few days. Where have you been and what have you been doing?”

  “I have been to the youth hall, and now and then to meetings of the Ny-zhaan.”

  “Do you feel, then, that the Ny-zhaan have discovered answers to our problems?” D’ol Falla said with some impatience. “Answers that the Council is not capable of discovering, or that you might not find in foretelling if you spent the time in fasting and ritual?”

  “I don’t know. I have heard little concerning answers at their meetings. But they are seeking.”

  “Many others are seeking,” D’ol Falla said. “We are all seeking. But I feel that there is no hope of an answer except through the Spirit, and in the past the Spirit has spoken through you.”

  Raamo would only shake his head. His reaction puzzled D’ol Falla. He seemed preoccupied and strangely calm. Earlier, when the dangers had been so much less urgent and serious, he had been violently distressed; and now, with even the life of his beloved sister hanging in the balance, he seemed to have retreated into a calm denial of the truth. There were times when she almost wondered if he were Berry-dreaming. She wondered, too, if the Ny-zhaan were in any way responsible for his inexplicable behavior. It was on the sixth day after Befal announced his capture of the children that Raamo arrived at the Council meeting with a message from the Ny-zhaan—a message that several of the fellowships of Orbora had organized searching parties and sent them out into the forest to seek for the children and for the secret communities. There was much consternation in the Council.

  “But what will they do if they find the Nekom or Regle’s city?” Hiro D’anhk asked. “Surely they would not be so foolish as to approach them.”

  “I think they were planning only to observe them,” Raamo said, “without making their presence known.”

  “But what if they are seen? They may be attacked themselves and destroyed; and that might well start the destruction of all Green-sky. I feel that it is the duty of the Council to advise these searching parties to give up their plans and remain in Orbora.”

  The Council seemed to be in agreement with Hiro. There was much nodding of heads and many gestures of support.

  “I think ... I am afraid that it is too late,” Raa
mo said. “The search parties have already set out. By now they are far into the forest. I am sorry. I did not know that they planned to set out before the Council was notified or I would have advised them to wait for your approval.”

  There was little that could be done. It was agreed that other searchers would be sent to look for the Ny-zhaan parties, to warn them of the danger and to urge that they return immediately to Orbora. But there was little hope that all of them could be found in time.

  On the tenth day, the day on which, according to the message of Axon Befal, the children were to die if his demands had not been met, there was great unjoyfulness in Orbora. People spoke solemnly in hushed voices, and greetings were made with tears instead of smiles. Outside the Vine Palace a great crowd of people gathered on the central platform of the Temple Grove. The crowd, composed of both Erdlings and Kindar, sang softly. At times they sang Kindar hymns of peace and comfort, and at others they chanted dark, grief-filled Erdling songs of exile. Throughout the long day, as some left the crowd, drawn away by duty or responsibility, new arrivals took their places, and the singing continued.

  When night came and the first rain began, an old serving man appeared at the entryway of the palace and asked the singers to come into the great hall. There, under the vaulted ceiling of the ancient palace, the old songs echoed and reechoed, until their soft sounds became as continuous and soothing as the murmur of forest rain-song.

  Throughout the next day and the next, the people of Orbora waited in constant expectation of disaster. If a newsinger appeared on a branchway, he was immediately surrounded. In fact, wherever people were gathered, the entrance of any new arrival caused heads to turn in fearful expectancy. Anyone, at any moment, might be the bearer of the dreaded tidings: that the children were certainly dead, that Regle had made known his plans for the future of Green-sky, to be enforced by the tool-of-violence. But no word came, and the hours passed and the days, and the people went about the daily pattern of their lives because it made the waiting easier to bear.

  Almost a week had passed since the day given by Befal as the time the children would die if his demands were not met, when the first of the Ny-zhaan search parties returned to Orbora. It was a small group, only five men and two women, and they made their way to the nid-place of Hiro D’anhk without attracting attention. There they spoke for some time to the Chief Mediator and then were sent home to their nid-places to rest, with instructions to be present at the Council meeting on the following day.

  Raamo arrived at the assembly hall the next morning in a state of great excitement. He had been told that a search party had returned, but nothing of what information they would have for the Council. But he felt certain that there would be news of great importance. One of the members of the search party was Quon, who had once served in Wissen-wald and knew its location.

  As Raamo had discovered before, Quon’s stories were not told quickly. His obvious nervousness did not prevent him from telling of the search with proper thoroughness and deliberation. He told first of how the group had taken more than two days to reach Wissen-wald by a roundabout route, to avoid a chance meeting with an inhabitant of the community.

  Then, when they were very near, they had climbed high and approached the community from the farheights, advancing slowly through thickets of endbranches until they were able to see the roofs of the highest nid-places. There they had waited while Quon went on alone, climbing lower with extreme caution, until he had reached a hidden vantage point from which he was able to observe the comings and goings along the main branchpaths of the community.

  “But there was little to see,” Quon told the Council, his pale eyes blinking rapidly with nervousness. “The buildings were there, the nid-places and the public pantry, just as I myself helped to build them. But the people—either many of the people have gone elsewhere, or they were staying shut up in their nid-places from morning ’til night like a bunch of nightflyers. For two whole days I watched the main branchpaths, and in all that time I saw only four people—or perhaps it was only three.”

  “And who was it that you saw?” Hiro prompted.

  “Well, I saw D’ol—that is, Regle himself, I’m sure of that. You couldn’t mistake the size of him. And one other Ol-zhaan. I think it might have been the young Ol-zhaan, D’ol Salaat. That is, he still calls himself D’ol Salaat, Councilor.”

  “And no other Ol-zhaan?”

  “No others.”

  “How many Ol-zhaan were there at Wissen-wald when you were last there, Quon?”

  “Well, I hadn’t been back there since I was sent to Orbora as a recruiter, so it was some months ago. But at that time there were eleven or twelve Ol-zhaan, and more than three times that many Kindar. But I think they must have built a new community someplace else. Otherwise I’d have seen more and heard more. The place was as quiet as moonshine, Councilor. And no one on the branchpaths except Regle and the one other Ol-zhaan, and now and then one Kindar. I think it might have been Tam D’ald, or that friend of his who is called—Pino, I think it is, Councilor.”

  “And there was no sign of the tool-of-violence?”

  “Well, I don’t know if I’d know a tool-of-violence if I saw one, Councilor. But the only person I saw carrying anything was the Kindar when he went back and forth between Regle’s nid-place and the public pantry. And from where I was, it just looked to me as if he was carrying eatables—and not a whole lot of that.”

  So the meeting ended with no great revelations and only deepening bewilderment, although Raamo felt that there was a significance to Quon’s story that had not yet been understood. Within the next few days, other search parties returned, and new and larger groups went out into the forest. Soon the return of search parties became almost a daily occurrence, and every meeting of the Council was at least partly devoted to hearing their reports. But there was strangely little to be told.

  Other groups had found the city of Wissen-wald, and their reports were much the same as Quon’s. D’ol Regle had been seen and two or three others, but the rest of the community were not in evidence.

  One searching party, scouting far to the southwest of Orbora, had located the deserted remains of a small surface camp. Too small and makeshift to be called a city or even a community, it might have been, the searchers thought, an outpost of the Nekom. The remains of hearth-fires, as well as the style of construction, indicated that it had been built by Erdlings; and a Nekom emblem—a curved knife mounted on a long staff—had been found in one of the roughly built shelters. But, although the area for many miles around had been thoroughly searched, no sign was found of the headquarters of the Nekom. Nor did any of the searching parties bring back the slightest clue as to the whereabouts of the children.

  As the days passed, the searching parties ranged farther and farther afield. The forest was scoured, grundleaf by grundleaf, not only around Orbora, but also in the vicinity of each of the other seven cities, while below the forest floor, teams of Erdling searchers ranged through the caverns and tunnels of Erda. It began to seem that a dark hole had opened somewhere in space and had swallowed up a large number of people—all of the Nekom, most of the followers of Regle, as well as the two children who had come to represent the last hope of the people of Green-sky.

  Chapter Eighteen

  SEATED AT THE HEAD of the council table in the assembly hall, Hiro waited and thought back over the events of the past year, struggling against an un-Kindar-like feeling of bitterness. Almost twenty days had passed since the disappearance of the children, and the strange illness of the Spirit that had stricken him at that time had receded, but it had left him subject to sudden fits of depression. The depression deepened as he considered how few days remained before the Celebration, and how little had been done in preparation for it, since the children had been abducted.

  In the last twenty days there had been no time to even consider the vast number of petitions, protests, and complaints that had once seemed urgently in need of arbitration. They had been pushe
d aside and all but forgotten. And none of the final decisions as to ceremony—what rituals would be performed, traditions observed, and personages honored—had been made. Now and then a Councilor would mention the need to move forward with the plans for the Celebration, and there would be general agreement, but a more pressing matter would soon intervene, and the suggestion would be forgotten. There was, Hiro thought, a kind of relief in the forgetting. For the moment at least, they were not forced to acknowledge a painful conviction shared by all—a conviction that the last day of the year of the Rejoyning would arrive without bringing anything that would give cause for celebration.

  There were, however, some preparations that had continued to move forward. On the floor of the forest, just to the south of the city of Orbora, the great new amphitheater was nearing completion. Driven, perhaps, by the need to forget their fears in hard physical activity, the Erdling work crews had begun to labor prodigiously. In the absence of directives from the Councilors, Erdling craft-masters and clan-leaders had been directing their traditionally independent and unregimented workers with results that surprised Erdling and Kindar alike. Rank on rank of benches, huge platforms, and soaring stages had appeared in an amazingly short time, while overhead, Kindar craftsmen had almost completed the elaborate decorative arches of woven tendril.

  Throughout Green-sky, other craftsmen, both Erdling and Kindar, had continued to work on tasks that were related to the Celebration. In the silk halls of Orbora, weavers and embroiderers were completing banners and tapestries destined to decorate the streets and branch-ways. And in the craftcaves of Erda, workers in precious metals were producing hundreds of pendants decorated with engraved representations of the palm-joined hands that symbolized the Rejoyning.