“Nobody’ll steal it here,” I protested.
“One of them Tuatuans’ll magic it away.”
“Hickey…!”
“It’s happened. ‘Course, they always bring it back…”
The load-out from Three Sisters still clogged his minimal floor space. Lyre-backed ladies’ chairs and turned mahogany plant stands awaited a lift to storage in the upper stratosphere of the Cage. Near the door were gathered what seemed to be every artificial bush, tree, and plant Hickey had in stock.
“What’s all that for?”
“Greenery for the Barn. Emergency request. The Eye can’t stand it in there anymore without.”
I eyed the pile dubiously. “But it’s all fake.”
“What’dya want me to do, cut down Founders’ Park?” He dropped into his old wooden office chair, setting off a chorus of creaks. I perched on an upholstered straight chair.
“Don’t sit on the props.”
I got up and wandered. “So, Hick. Any word on the CDL?”
“Not a peep.”
“You saw yesterday’s e-mail?”
Hickey brandished a rumpled sheet of printout. “ ‘CITIZENS OF HARMONY! BEWARE SUBVERSION MASQUERADING AS ART! CLOSE THE DOOR!’ ”
“I don’t think you’re taking this very seriously.”
“Yeah, I am, but you gotta admit, their rhetoric leaves something to be desired.”
“Howie says they’re after the Eye.”
“Mali and Omea agree.”
“Cris says if they’re this hard to smoke out, it means they’re very well organized.”
“Un-hunh. Only pretending to be the lunatic fringe. My friend at Town Square News says it costs a bundle to buy an e-mail widecast if you don’t have nonprofit status.”
“Who does have it?”
Hickey resettled on a stool-sized crate. “Oh, the charities, educational organizations, most of the theatre and dance companies.”
“Like the Arkadie?”
“Sure, we’re nonprofit.” He gestured at his unkempt desk and his baggy, paint-stained clothes. “Can’t you tell?”
“Could your friend at Town Square find out who the CDL ‘cast was charged to?”
Hickey smiled at his fingernails. “She’s already on it.”
“Really? Hickey, that’s great!”
“Don’t expect the right name’ll turn up that easy, though. How ’bout the latest entry?”
“What latest?”
“Probably still sleeping at eight A.M.”
I made a threatening face. “In the shower. What was it?”
“Ten unbroken minutes of bright blue screen on the public-access channel, at the end of which was superimposed in pearly white: ‘The Color of Open Sky.’ ”
Bright blue. “No shit.”
“Another county heard from. Damn well about time.”
“You think there’s Open Sky sympathizers in Harmony?” I had a sudden image of the dark earth below us seething with underground movement. They say worms are supposed to be good for the soil.
Hickey stirred in his chair, cropped his feet from the desk, and stretched them thoughtfully in front of him. “You know, Sean thinks it’s high time management listened to him about scheduling. Could be he’s chosen The Gift to teach them a lesson.”
I settled down on a box labeled LACE CURTAINS, ANTIMACASSARS. I’d have preferred to pursue that ten minutes of blue screen, but Hickey’s rhythm was more indirect. “Why The Gift? Crossroads is the real backbreaker.”
Hickey’s shrug was more like a shudder. “The main stage gets priority? Sean wants to pressure the office but not the subscribers? Maybe he just figures Micah will understand.”
“I can’t believe Sean would take advantage of a friendship like that.”
“Between you and me, Sean doesn’t think our audience will take too well to The Gift. It’s not about them, he says.”
“Neither is Crossroads.”
“Ah, but they’d like it to be.”
I packed the silver into its bags and the bags into a crate, then wandered over to check out the newly built Gift props, laid out for inspection on Hickey’s workbench, the only remaining clear space. I found them properly and satisfyingly exotic: the round Gorrehma, squat as a wooden toadstool, the hollow, resonant box of the Duli, and the strange Burinda, like a paddle made of tree bark.
“Nice work, Hick.”
The curves were fluid and smooth, the joints tight. The broad-grained, colorful woods shone richly even in an unfinished state. The Matta was a towering pile of shimmering greens. I fingered its silky, dense weave. Lightweight, but would drape like a dream. “Mmmm. Great fabric. A shame to put paint all over it.” I picked up one of the sticklike Puleales. The others were longer, shorter, fatter. The purpose of none of them was evident.
“They get feathers and a leather cross-wrap, but Cu’ll want to do his taboo number on them first.”
“So this is the Heeckee’s lair!”
A dark troll face peered around the doorframe. Gray hair spiked out in all directions from a white-fanged maw. Hickey shrank into himself, then gave up an embarrassed snort. Te-Cucularit brushed past the leering apparition, glancing his disapproval, and stalked to the workbench.
“No feel for cheap humor,” the troll sighed. He tossed his string mop and ivory chopsticks into a handy packing box, then favored his somber companion with a tolerant sneer and capered up to slam Hickey familiarly on the shoulder. The little dance man wore his usual ragged cutoffs and multicolored braided cap. His body was knotted and veined like an old prune, but it improvised motion as if it were a jazz riff, not always melodious or even in tune but in rhythm with the moment, part commentary, part counterpoint to the more regimented music of speech.
“Oh, Heeckee, I heard her today, singing those woman’s chants.” He squeezed his butt onto Hickey’s crate, shoving the bigger man sideways until Hickey stuck out a foot to keep from toppling off.
“The Mule has arrived,” Hickey laughed.
“The very same! No kidding, Hick, I heard her. Watch out, boy. Women’s magic is strong stuff.”
Hickey glanced at me sidelong. “Come on, Ule—”
“Don’t blame me if she takes you by surprise!” No-Mulelatu planted his hands on his knobby dark knees and grinned at me. “Now who’s this?”
Hickey mumbled an introduction.
Ule bounded off the crate and straight at me. When I recoiled from this whirlwind of public nakedness and energy, he guffawed hugely and snatched up my hand to bend over it with a courtier’s smooth flourish. “My lady,” he murmured.
Speechless, I giggled.
At the workbench, Te-Cucularit set down his well-worn notebook and cleared his throat. The sharp crease of his tan slacks and the tight roll of his sleeves were softened only by feet as shoeless as Ule’s. Hickey levered himself off his crate and slouched over to join him, head cocked at an angle of listening and respect.
Ule settled more comfortably onto the crate and threw me a long, slow wink. “Ver-ree serious biz-ness here, y’know?” His legs did not quite reach the floor.
I made getting-up motions. “I should really—”
He slapped at my knees, urging me down. “Take a break! Keep me company. I’m so easily bored.”
I sat. Ule kicked his legs idly against the crate, then reached out, and flicked the bead at my throat. “Good you decided to wear it.”
Word gets around with these guys, I noted, stroking the leather braid. “Isn’t it an interesting coincidence?”
Ule laughed. “Is that what you think?”
“Well, it was three whole years ago…”
“The blink of an eye. Time is not yesterday and tomorrow to everyone, you know.”
“No, I guess not.” That really left me casting about for conversation. “So how’s your new housing?”
I’d seen Cora Lee’s famous mansion during a spectacular opening-night party to which even the apprentices had been invited, that being Cora’s st
yle. Cora Lee was Howie’s wealthiest board member, as well as one of Lorien’s two Town Council members. She was close with certain information about her past, plus it was rumored she owned her own private hover. She lived in a true fairy castle, dressed stone and pointed turrets, leaded windows and tapestried great hall, at least twelve bedrooms and a spectacular skylit studio in the top of a tower for Cora’s large and very popular paintings. All this in half scale, which brought the great-hall doors down to normal size and miniaturized the castellated architecture’s more militaristic details into the sweet and quaint. And no automated home services. No hookup to the Town network. No vid. Cora was a first-class eccentric.
“Not bad for Insider digs.” The gnome’s mouth twisted faintly and his nostrils flared as if testing the wind. “A real lawn, nice grove of trees at the back.” He made a bored, regretful face. “We’ll manage.”
I detected mockery but couldn’t tell if I was its target or merely its audience. “Sounds like you’d prefer to be Outside.”
He cackled merrily. “You domers.”
“What do you mean?”
“You make it sound crazy, like some kind of aberration. You ever been underwater, ladykins? For a time, I mean. Breathing through a tube, the only natural sounds you hear your own?”
What on earth was he talking about?
“That’s what it’s like Inside, when you’re used to the open. You ever seen the sun rise? For real, not on some damn vid box. Ever seen the thunderclouds, Moorililil’s messengers, glower along the horizon or crowd up against the mountains, waiting to dump their piss and rage all over you?”
“We have weather here. We have—”
“Pah! An obedient, programmed air current. You call that wind? That’s man’s magic, not the world’s.”
“Man’s magic saved the world.”
Ule sat back and tilted his head. “My, my, ladykins, perhaps you are stupider than you look. Let me try it out in domer words: like the human body, the world is a coherent system. If your body falls sick, you don’t go separating the parts of it and walling them off from each other. Now, man’s medicine is certainly more evolved than man’s politics. There the practice is to treat the whole body, taking all its complexity and interrelatedness into account.”
His tone riled me. “The domes are the only coherent system now. The Outside is…”
“So much leftover trash?”
“No, chaos.”
“Living creatures are a system, too. All of us. Think about it, ladykins.” He pursed his lips, nodding sagely. “Think about how much of your human ‘body’ has been left outside the walls. How long do you think you can manage to go on without it?”
I was outmatched. No-Mulelatu had passion and eloquence on his side. I had only my childhood assumptions, never deeply questioned. I glanced again at Hickey and Te-Cucularit. “I really must…”
Ule chuckled and let me go.
At the workbench, the tall Tuatuan cradled the unfinished Gorrehma in the crook of his arm. His long-fingered hands stroked its satiny curves with an appreciation nearing reverence. He was nodding gently, his already perfect face suffused with the surprising grace of an inward smile, rarely seen in life but often painted on the faces of Renaissance madonnas.
The soft smile vanished as I moved into view. Cu’s questing fingers found a flaw in the working of the wood.
“This will need further attention before you paint it,” he said. He set the Gorrehma aside and moved on to examine the Burinda.
Hickey and I exchanged glances.
“You ask him,” I whispered.
Hickey’s posture shifted from respect to submission. “I thought you were going to do all the painting yourselves?”
Cu nodded. “We had intended to.”
“I mean,” pressed Hickey, “I thought we weren’t allowed.”
“This we can allow. I will show you how to do it in the way that will properly honor the Ancestors.”
“I hadn’t really planned—” Hickey began.
Behind us, Ule said, “What Cu means is, we just can’t find the time to do it now, so you’ll have to do it for us.”
Te-Cucularit glowered, Hickey frowned.
“And of course,” Ule added, “it must be done.”
Cu flipped open his notebook. “The drawings on the wood tell the secret history of the world.” He painstakingly separated several leaves from their binding, each filled with the same elaborate designs that decorated the cover.
“This is the surface.” He pointed to the background cross-hatching. Small patches of fine parallel lines jostled together into a crazy quilt of opposing directions, like herringbone gone awry. “It means the world. Into the world enter the things that live in the world. Here are some that you can use without… prejudice.” He spread the loose pages across the bench, indicating symbolic representations of animals and plants worked into pauses in the background. “Allow no snakes to enter your tale, or lizards. Birds and fish are very neutral. If you tell an incorrect tale about them in your ignorance, it will not be grave.”
Hickey traced a graceful almond-shaped eye set inside a border of leaves. “This one’s nice.”
“You may not use it. That is ours. I’ll add it later if I think it right.” Cu sent a chill flicker of smile to Ule on his crate. “What if you write us into your tale where we don’t belong?”
“Right,” said Hickey. “Don’t want to do that.”
“Damn right you don’t.”
Hickey glanced up. “Hey, Sam.”
The company’s official magic man strolled in, hands shoved into the pockets of a dark brown coverall. With that and his solid, unremarkable looks, he might have been a visiting repairman.
“When Howie asks,” he remarked amiably, “I’ll just say it was you kept the boys so late.”
“Sure, sure.” Hickey nodded. “Just one more thing for him to blame me for.”
Sam surveyed the Cage with a methodical sweep. “Holding a rummage sale?” When his intent gaze reached my heading on his inner compass, he nodded and offered a bland if pleasant smile. His eyes took in my necklace. It seemed to amuse him. “Gwinn Rhys, isn’t it?”
We shook hands. His voice had a light, non-actorish timbre and the remnants of an Aussie accent. As our hands parted, his wrist flicked and the same palm that had pressed empty against mine mere seconds before came up holding a single white rose, which he presented to me with a diffident bow.
“Always the gentleman,” snickered Hickey.
At my elbow, Ule advised, “You want to watch out for Sam, now. A real lady-killer, he is.”
“I’m sure.” I stared at the rose in my hand, fresh, fragrant, and real even to the thorns. Only a moment ago, I had wondered how this very ordinary man made his way in company with the Eye’s beauty and eccentricity.
Hickey laughed. “Just don’t ask him how he did it.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Sam let the banter flow around him. “They’re waiting on us, Preacher.”
Te-Cucularit grunted. He snapped his book shut and stuck it briskly under his arm as if hurrying off to rehearsal had been his idea all along. “I will come now and then to see the tales you are telling.” He sent Ule an imperious jerk of his head. The little choreographer bounced off the crate with a bow to Hickey, a mad grin and a “my lady” to me, then capered out after the young archivist like the court jester trailing the prince.
“Bye-bye.” Sam winked at me and followed at a more leisurely pace.
I turned to Hickey. “Preacher?”
“That’s what Sam calls him. No wonder. That Cu has a real rod up his ass.” Then he gave me his most woebegone face. “So how busy is Micah really? Looks like I could use some major help down here.”
THE SURVIVAL GAME:
The Survival Game took on a new edge, not only because of Bela. After his disappearance, we began to hear of others who’d been expected to make the cut and didn’t. The custom had been not to talk about the fai
lures, but now the rumor mill was keeping track.
In the late Friday dusk, our usual group hunkered down at the Brimhaven, still Rumor Central for the BardClyffe apprentices. The air was motionless and heavy, the weather computer’s idea of deep summer in Vermont. Our cheer had been already dampened when we were asked to move to a small table to make room for a party of tourists. Asked to move, in our Brim. I was scandalized.
It was Yolanda’s turn at the Game. She was a strong, serious girl apprenticed to a ceramicist a few streets away from Micah’s. Her big hands could do remarkably delicate work. Cris had been chatting her up a lot lately, but I noticed she wasn’t chatting back. For some reason she considered me a role model. She looked to me when she said, “I keep a pack under my bed now, with everything I’ll need, so I can grab it quick if Security comes for me.”
“Do we know they’d let you take it?” I glanced to Cris for a rules check.
“We don’t know they wouldn’t.”
Yolanda continued. “A complete change of warm clothing, basic medicines I’ve cadged from the dispensary, matches, knives, you know.”
“What about food?” I asked.
“You better bring fishhooks,” spoke up little Ivan, a first-year apprentice in the same studio as Yolanda. We knew he must be extraordinary to have qualified so young, but that didn’t keep him from being a pain in the ass. He tagged after Yolanda mercilessly.
“What’s fishhooks?” asked Jane, who had lately begun to see the practical applications of this Game she hated so much.
“To get a fish, you know, a wild one,” the boy explained.
“I suppose there might be fish Out There somewhere,” I mused.
“Probably nothing you’d recognize as one,” said Cris.
“I saw in an old vid once how travelers used some pills to purify drinking water,” Yolanda went on.
“No, you just boil it!” insisted the boy, who didn’t understand yet that keeping to the proper sequence of turns was part of the seriousness of the Game. “And you gotta take seeds!”
“Cram it, Ivan,” said Yolanda.
“Seeds wouldn’t be a bad idea,” noted Cris. “Out There, healthy germ stock could be bartered for more immediate needs. That’s the key, of course—to bring stuff you can trade.”
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