“Yes,” she said. “I thought of that, also. I think you are right.” The boy’s gaze met hers, and she pensed his shared delight at this gift that had been returned to her after so many years. For an amount of time that seemed fleeting and yet endless, she was once again caught up, lost, and freed, in the intensity of mind-touch.
Later, when Raamo was preparing to leave, he spoke of the woman, Maala D’ach. “Do you think it is in the power of the healers to help her?” he asked.
“Poor woman,” D’ol Falla said. “I spoke to her of healing, but I am not certain. I have never seen such a wound.”
“Kir Oblan said it resembled the wounding caused by fire,” Raamo said. “But how is it that she was wounded simply by carrying it on her back? Others have handled it without harm. And your joysingers lived above it for many months.”
“I don’t know,” D’ol Falla said. “But Hiro thinks it is possible that its materials have begun to decompose with age. And perhaps the jarring motion of constant carrying hastened the disintegration so that the force with which it is empowered began to leak out. There were forces used on the ancestral planet that had such corrupting powers.”
“Yes,” Raamo said. “I think Hiro is right. It leaks an evil, now, that corrupts the body. But it has always leaked a more deadly evil.”
“Yes, but that will soon be over, Raamo. Before this day is done, it will be gone, and forever.”
“I don’t know,” Raamo said. “The Council agreed to do away with it because they were afraid. But they did not deny its right to be. I am afraid ... He paused, and D’ol Falla saw that his eyes were unfocused and inward, as if turned towards far-distant sources. After a time he went on, “Without their denial, its power will not be destroyed.
“I am afraid ... he said again, and turned away; but at the doorway he turned back, smiling, and sang the parting.
The procession to the Bottomless Lake was the strangest that Orbora had ever seen. The ancient weapon, now tightly sealed in a heavy metal urn, was strapped to a litter with greatly extended carrying poles. The litter was carried by teams of bearers, who were changed every few minutes. The Councilors who had agreed to accompany the procession were divided into two groups, one to proceed and one to follow the litter and its deadly burden. A procession, by long tradition, symbolized glory and honor, and was conducted in an atmosphere of triumphant Joy. But this procession was grim and silent; and fear, like an unseen canopy, hung heavy about it.
There was, of course, reason enough to be afraid; but the deep, pervading apprehension that surrounded the procession was beyond reasoning. If anyone had questioned them, some of the marchers might have said that they feared the mysterious contamination that had wounded the serving woman and that might not be wholly contained inside the metal urn. Others might have said that they feared the procession might be in danger from an outside source. If Nekom informers had been at work during the hours of darkness, there was the possibility of an attack by the followers of Axon Befal.
Hiro D’anhk, leading the procession with Ruula D’arsh and Kir Oblan, told himself that he feared an explosion. From what he had learned of the ancient sources of power, it seemed possible that a long fall and the shock of striking water—or a projecting rock—might cause a cataclysmic release of power that could entomb them all.
Walking with the group of Councilors who followed the litter, Neric’s mind surged with the fear that they had made a mistake in deciding to rid themselves of the weapon so hastily. There had been no attempt to discover if its leak of power could be controlled—and if it would still function if the Nekom did, indeed, attack the city.
But Raamo felt fear as an evil ghost of the past. The fear that had made their ancestors refuse to give up the power that had, at last, consumed them. It seemed to Raamo that the fear spreading out around the metal urn was almost willed into being by the thing inside—by something alive and sentient and determined not to relinquish its ancient authority.
The journey was not quickly accomplished. It began on the Lower West Branchway of Hallgrund and made its way to the new stairway that, circling Halltrunk, led down to the forest floor. From there the party went by winding surface pathways, where dense growth pressed close on either side, and fern frond arched, lush and green, above. Skirting the surface city of Upper Erda, they came at last to the mouth of a tunnel, where a loading platform for railcars now ran all the way from Upper Erda to the caverns of the old underground city. A train of seven cars was waiting, and when the urn had been placed in the central car, the Councilors boarded the others. It was while he was waiting for a chance to board that Raamo became aware of the fixed gaze of a young man with a wide flat face and wild, unruly hair.
The young man was not the only person who had been following the procession. Processions were traditionally followed, and this one was no exception, although these followers were grim and silent, rather than joyful. They did not press close in their efforts to see, but only continued to follow, at a distance, and with a strange, patient persistence. At the loading platform they came somewhat closer, and it was then Raamo realized that he had seen the flat-faced youth before.
When the train was finally loaded, the young man was still on the platform, but sometime later, when the rail journey was over and the procession continued, once more on foot, the followers appeared again. And once more, the flat-faced boy was among them.
The journey went on and on. The tunnels narrowed, and the glowing wall torches became fewer and farther between. At last they stopped altogether and there were only hand-held lanterns to light the way. The tunnels turned and twisted, narrowing at times to mere crevices, and then giving way to enormous caverns where water dripped endlessly down slimy walls and grotesque formations hung down from above like organic growths.
Chilled by the deep, dank cold and burdened by exhaustion and ever-growing fear, the Councilors at last saw before them a grillwork of close-set metal bars. Near the grill a crew of Erdling metal workers waited. Their flaming torches revealed a narrow gap in the barricade, where several bars had been removed. Behind the grill the flickering torchlight struggled against a wall of darkness, revealing, now and then, a black nothingness, sharp-edged and sudden, beyond the wet gray rock of the cavern floor.
The bearers slowly approached the barricade, and placing the litter in front of the opening, they stepped back quickly into the crowd of Councilors. The Councilors stepped back also, back and back, until they had retreated halfway across the cavern floor. The urn sat alone, and the torchlight reflected by its burnished surface made it seem to glow with a pulsing inner light.
Raamo looked around him. All the Councilors, men and women, Kindar and Erdling, were staring with fear-glazed eyes at the urn and the darkness that lay beyond it. He could feel their terror growing and spreading like a living thing. And he knew that although they called their fear many names and gave it many faces, in the end it was the same fear that had caused their ancestors to shape the evil the urn contained—and then refuse to deny it until it was too late. If something were not done, and quickly, it might be too late once more; they would find reasons to retrieve the urn from the edge of oblivion and carry it back with them to Green-sky.
Suddenly he was walking forward, past Neric and then past Kir Oblan and Hiro. The straps that held the urn fell away easily, and he lifted it in his hands and stepped through the opening in the barricade. Behind him there was a rush of sound as the Councilors surged forward, as far as the barricade. The light from the torches leaped wildly and then stilled, and all sound died away. He moved forward slowly over wet and slippery rock.
The rock sloped steeply downward to where, only a few feet away, it ended in the sharp-edged slash of darkness. Tiny streams of water trickled past his feet and slid silently over the edge to disappear forever into the lake that waited far below.
Raamo walked slowly and with great care. He reached the edge, and when he was certain that his feet were firmly planted, he leaned forward and e
xtended his arms, to hold the urn out over the darkness of the crevice.
But the thing in the urn was not yet conquered. Its power still lived and took strength from the minds and Spirits behind him that had not yet denied it. A numbing indecision gripped him, making the urn seem to cling to his hands. He struggled to release it; and in the struggle, he slipped forward and plunged over the precipice.
He was frightened as he fell, but the urn was still in his hands, and as the waters of the lake closed over his head, he saw with a clear foretelling that the evil in the urn would be denied in his memory, and his name would become a talisman against it for many years to come.
To those who were present—the Councilors, the Erdling workmen, and those who had followed the procession—the time that followed was a wild confusion of hopeless effort and strangely violent sorrow. There were screams and moans, people who ran uselessly in circles demanding that something be done, and others who sank quietly into motionless mounds of grief.
Ropes were finally produced; and Neric, screaming and shouting orders, insisted that he be lowered down over the rim of the precipice. And it was done. The rope was not long enough to bring him near the dark surface of the lake, but by the light of the lantern that he carried, he was able to see the water below him was as smooth and untroubled as if it had been undisturbed for a million years. When Neric was drawn back up over the rim, he had ceased to shout, and he was not the same.
There came a time when they knew that there was nothing more to be done, and all sound and motion stopped except for quiet weeping. The people stood quietly, close together, touching each other for comfort, and stared through the iron grillwork towards the dark slash of the crevice. They had stood thus, quietly, for some time, when suddenly someone cried out, as if in pain, and a figure pushed forward.
Hiro was standing near the opening in the barricade. As the one who had cried out pushed past him, he saw that it was a young man, and that his wide flat face was violently contorted. The young man stepped through the opening before Hiro could reach out to stop him. For a moment he seemed to be fumbling with a large carrying pouch at his waist, and then he took something from the pouch and held it high above his head. Perhaps a foot long, metallic, and sharply pointed, the thing gleamed in the torch light. Then the young man threw it fiercely towards the chasm. It struck the rocks at the rim with a loud clanging sound and then plunged over into the darkness. When it was gone, the youth crumpled to the floor and began to sob and moan with wild abandon.
They pulled him back, then, behind the barricade, and Hiro tried to question him; but he was hysterical and almost incoherent. They were able to learn only that his name was Dergg and that he had something to tell the Council. So they took him with them on the long sad journey back to Orbora.
That night, weighted down by exhaustion and sorrow, the Council heard the story of Dergg Ursh—and with it the story of Axon Befal. Dergg Ursh, they soon saw, was a simple, graceless boy who was not at ease with the more complicated forms of spoken language. But it was impossible to doubt that he spoke sincerely. And the message that he brought was of utmost importance.
“I was always lonely,” he told the Council. “I was lonely in Erda, and in Upper Erda. My parents died when I was very small, and I had no true clan, so when I was asked to join the Nekom, I felt that at last I had something to belong to. Something important and strong, so that someday people would look up to me and give me honor.
“At first when I joined the Nekom, I was only a secret member. I was told to go on working at the lapan-house where I had been so that I might feed and shelter the members when there was need of it. And so I did.
“But one night, at the lapan-house, Axon Befal spoke of something that frightened me and almost made me wish I was not a Nekom. He spoke of how he had tried to attack Raamo ...
Dergg’s voice broke, and for a while he struggled to regain his composure. When he went on, there were tears on his cheeks and his voice trembled. “But Raamo got away; and I was glad, because I saw him once, and when I saw him, I knew that he was good. But later that night Axon Befal sent me away because he was going to speak to some of the Nekom about a great new plan. And when he had told them, there was an argument with much shouting, because some of the Nekom did not like the plan. I heard Axon Befal shout that if they would not help him, he would do the plan alone.
“Then I did not see Axon Befal for some days; and when I saw him again, he came to the lapan-house all alone. He spoke to me with great kindness and listened to me talk, and then he asked me to come with him to the forest and be a real Nekom, not just a secret one. So I went with Axon Befal into the forest.
“But when we got to Axon Befal’s city, I was surprised because it was not a large city, and many of the nid-places seemed to be empty. It was after that that Axon Befal told me what had happened—how his great plan had been to steal the holy children and take them away into the forest so that the Council would be forced to listen to him and do what he said. But some of the Nekom did not like the plan. That was why there had been shouting, and Axon Befal had said that he would do it alone.
“But he did not do it. Axon told me many times that he did not do it. Because when he was almost ready, he heard that someone else had already stolen the children.
“But on that very day—the day that the children were taken—Axon had gone out alone into the forest to look for a place to hide the children. So all that day no one had seen him, and when the Nekom heard that the children were gone, some of them would not believe that it had not been Axon who took them. So some of them were angry, and they went away from Axon’s city and took most of the wands-of-Befal away with them. And the city was almost empty.
“On that night, the night that I came to the city, Axon talked to me for many many hours. We drank many tankards of pan-mead together. And he told me over and over again about his great plans, and about how evil and treacherous it had been of the Nekom to go away and take his wands-of-Befal. I was honored that the Great Leader would speak so long to me alone and share his thoughts with me. And I swore to him, before the morning came, that I would not desert him and that I would follow his orders no matter what he might ask.
“So by the next day Axon Befal had made a new plan; he would send a message to the people of Orbora saying that he had taken the holy children, even though he had not. Because they were gone and the people of Orbora would not know that he had not taken them. Before they found out that he had not, he would be in the temple, and all the power and glory would be his, and mine also, because I had been brave and loyal. So I carried the message for him to the newsinger, and we waited to hear that the Council had sworn to serve him and had obeyed his orders.
“But nothing happened except that the rest of the Nekom went away from the forest city, and we were left alone. Then searchers began to come into the forest, and we had to leave the city. So I went back to work in the lapan-house, and I hid Axon Befal in the back of the pantry behind some bales of lapan fur. He stayed behind the bales during the day, but at night when the light was dim, he disguised his face with a false beard and came out into the hall of food-taking to talk with the people who had come to eat lapan.
“Last night Axon Befal heard that the Joined Council was going all the way to Erda and the cavern of the Bottomless Lake. And he made a new plan. His plan was that I should follow the procession, and that I should—”
Once more the boy was overcome by sobs. Tears ran down his cheeks, and his blunt, unformed features twisted into a grotesque mask of grief, but he did not turn away or hide his face.
When he was able to go on he said, “His plan was that I should creep up behind Raamo—and that I should strike him with a sharpened tool—so that he would die. Axon Befal said that if I did it carefully so I was not seen, the Kindar Councilors would blame the Erdlings, and the Council would destroy itself. Then there would be much fear and confusion, so that people would turn to Axon Befal as a great strong leader who would help them
and take away their fear.
“I did not want to do it, and I asked if it could be some other besides Raamo. But Axon said no, because no one else was important enough, and besides, if Raamo lived, he would turn the people against us. So he made me swear a great oath. He said it was an ancient oath of great power, and if I broke it, I would die. I swore the oath, and I went out to wait for the procession.
“When I saw him, I could not strike him. But I was afraid not to because of the oath. So I followed, not knowing what I would do, or not do. Then in the cavern when I saw what happened, I knew. I knew that Axon Befal had told me to do an evil, evil thing, and I knew that I was evil for thinking that I would do it.”
The boy had begun to sob again, and his voice came in choked painful gasps. “If I die of the oath, I will be glad. I only wish that I had thrown myself into the chasm— with Raamo—instead of only the evil tool.”
Chapter Twenty
THE ENORMOUS AMPHITHEATER WAS full to overflowing. The rising ranks of benches were packed with people, and in the semi-circle before the central stage, a dense sea of humanity covered the forest floor.
It was the day that was to have seen the Celebration of the Rejoyning. A full year had passed since the holy children had taken the tool-of-violence from D’ol Regle by means of the power of uniforce, and the Geets-kel had renounced D’ol Regle and embraced the cause of the Rejoyners. But there was to be no celebration.
The people had come together to mourn the loss of the holy children. And to mourn also for Raamo, who only six days before had taken the tool-of-violence into the dark waters of the Bottomless Lake.
For six days the people of Green-sky had been in mourning. The Erdlings, long familiar with suffering and loss, had learned a new and purer grief, and the Kindar had found tears, which had been denied them for generations. For six days they had shared the age-old torments of loss—the tragedy of what might have been, the torture of if only, and the sad mystery of why. And on the morning of the day that was to have held the Celebration, they came quietly to the amphitheater to share in a ceremony of mourning.
Until the Celebration Page 16