And All Between (21 page)

Raamo smiled sadly. “The answer,” he said. “What is the answer?” Covering his face with his hands, he began to sway to and fro, and after a moment D’ol Falla could hear that he was humming softly to himself.

D’ol Falla sighed and fell into a deep silence, and it was into that silence that the sound came—the sound of many footsteps in the darkened entryway. Shadowy figures crossed the dimly lit reception hall, and a moment later the soft rays of the honey lamp fell on their faces. It was Neric and Genaa and the exiled Hiro D’anhk. Behind them came two strangers, a man and a woman dressed in the close-fitting fur garments of Erda. The waiting was over. The travelers had returned.

The Joy of reunion, of adventurers safely home from a dangerous and unprecedented journey, was great—but very brief. There was the truth to be told. The terrible truth of the children stolen and held hostage, and the threats of D’ol Regle and the Geets-kel. Most painful of all was the telling of Herd and Kanna Eld, who had faced the dangers of the journey in good spirits, strengthened by their hope of an early reunion with their child. They came only to learn that she was held captive, and lay under threat of death. The telling had to be repeated many times and in many different ways before the Elds were able to grasp and understand its awful meaning.

At last Herd Eld said, “You tell us, then, that this D’ol Regle, this Geets-kel, has in his possession a weapon capable of causing the deaths of many people in an instant, and that he has said that he would take the lives of Teera and the sister of Raamo if we set about the freeing of the Erdlings, or if we even so much as tell the Kindar the truth concerning what lies below the Root and the true nature of the Pash-shan?”

“Yes,” Raamo said. “It is unbelievable to me, even now, but it is true.”

Turning abruptly, Herd walked away into the shadows, and Kanna followed. It was many minutes before they returned. When they, at last, came back into the lamp light, the dusky gold of their Erdling skin seemed to have paled and grayed, and their eyes were wet with tears. It was Kanna who spoke first.

“We have spoken together of this thing, and we have come to a decision. We cannot save Teera at the expense of all the people of Erda. The Erdlings are starving, and we were sent here as their representatives. We have no right to barter away the lives of hundreds to save the life of one. Even though the one is of our own flesh.”

It was D’ol Falla who spoke at last, after the long silence that followed the words of Kanna. “Truly, the Erdlings are well represented in Green-sky,” she said. “But you must know that your sacrifice may be for nothing. If D’ol Regle is capable of killing the two children to save the power of the Ol-zhaan, he is surely capable of killing all those who oppose him. And in the tool of violence, he undoubtedly has the means to do it. I have never seen it used, but I have read descriptions of its terrible effects. It was once used to kill multitudes, and there are in all Green-sky only we seven and the two children who know the truth. And if we die, the truth dies with us.”

It was Hiro D’anhk who spoke next. “It seems difficult, almost impossible, to believe that there are many, even among the Geets-kel, who would agree to such evil. In the days when I lived in Orbora as director of the Academy, I often worked with the Ol-zhaan. Can you tell me, D’ol Falla, which Ol-zhaan are among the Geets-kel?”

“There are sixteen, besides myself. Among them are D’ol Wassou, D’ol Birta, D’ol Fanta, D’ol Praavo, D’ol Vesle—”

When the sixteen were named, Hiro shook his head slowly. “I have known nearly all of them well. They were not all as wise and noble as we were taught to believe, but they were—human, and for the most part, I think, well meaning. I cannot believe that they would agree to this—to this atrocity. If we should go to them; if we appear before this Council of the Geets-kel, to which D’ol Regle has summoned us, and if we tell them about the plight of the Erdlings; if they see Kanna and Herd and Teera, standing before them as fellow beings and not as dim and threatening shadows, surely they will see that the Kindar must be told the truth and the Erdlings freed, whatever the changes and dangers that may follow.”

“I don’t know,” D’ol Falla said. “I have asked myself that question over and over, and at times my answer has been the same as yours—that when the time came, and the decision had to be made, finally and irrevocably, that the Geets-kel could not bring themselves to choose such evil. But at other times I am not sure. I have read many of the ancient histories of the days before the Flight, and in that reading I have learned that is almost easier for humans to give up their own lives, and those of their children, than to willingly relinquish privilege and power. I truly cannot say what they will do.”

“Perhaps it would be best not to wait to find out,” Genaa said. “I know that you, D’ol Falla and Raamo, have promised that you would do nothing until you have appeared before the Geets-kel, but Neric and I have not promised. Nor have my father and the Elds. If we should go now to the city and seek out the leaders of the Kindar, the grandmasters and the learned men of the Academy, and tell them, the truth will spread so quickly that D’ol Regle will not be able to kill all who know it. I know that it would be far better and safer if the Kindar could be prepared more gradually, but it seems now that they must learn at once, or not at all.”

“I agree,” Neric said quickly. He turned to Hiro and the Elds for their approval, but even as he did so, he was already in motion towards the entryway.

“Wait, Neric,” Raamo spoke urgently. “You will not be able to reach the city.”

“What do you mean?” Neric asked.

“They are watching. For several nights now when I have come to the palace to wait with D’ol Falla, I have seen them.” Turning to D’ol Falla he said, “I did not tell you because there was nothing we could do, and I did not want to burden you further. But I am quite certain. They wait and watch from the branch ends and Vine clusters around the palace.”

“But who? Who are they?”

“I’m not sure. I have not seen their faces. I think that they may be Kindar in the service of D’ol Regle. Or they may be Geets-kel.”

The stunned silence lasted only a moment. Then Neric spoke. “How many of them are there? There are six of us here who are strong enough to—”

He stopped there. His face was flushed and twisted with a wild excitement, and his eyes were fixed and rimmed with white. His glance burned across the faces around him. Striding past them, he approached a pedestal that supported a carving of a paraso bird in flight. Seizing the carving, he swung it from side to side with great force, then tossing it aside he grasped the pedestal itself. Holding it before him with both hands, he returned to the others.

“Will you come with me?” he said, and it seemed to Raamo that it was not Neric’s voice that spoke. And though they stood face to face, staring into each other’s eyes, Raamo could awaken not the slightest echo of Spirit-force.

Putting his hands over the fists on the pedestal, Raamo said, “I will go with you but not like this. I will go with you only if you go with open hands.”

Neric frowned and raised the pedestal higher above his head, pulling free from Raamo’s grasp.

“Stand aside,” Neric said, but Raamo continued to stand before him. The heavy pedestal jerked up and back, and D’ol Falla cried out sharply.

At that moment the sound of trampling feet came from the entryway, and three figures moved swiftly forward across the huge chamber. Two of the three wore hooded shubas, and in the dim light it was not possible to distinguish their features, but the third’s large and ponderous shape was unmistakably that of the novice-master. As he came closer it was possible to see the familiar face, full and hearty and unchanged in shape and line, but somehow strangely altered—as if a hardening had set in, turning the living tissues into a stony mask. And before him, grasped in both his hands, there was a heavy triangular object with a wide blunt snout.

“The Geets-kel are waiting,” D’ol Regle said.

D
EEP IN THE LEAF-GROWN
far-heights of the Temple Grove, the secret meeting chamber of the Geets-kel hung suspended amid clustering grundleaf and heavy screens of Vine. A long narrow table ran down its length to end at a raised platform, on which stood another smaller table. Seated around the long, lower table, the Geets-kel were, as D’ol Regle had said, waiting.

Mounting the platform with his seven prisoners, D’ol Regle directed them to stand to his left, against the wall, while he seated himself at the small table. Placing the tool of violence carefully on the table before him, he clapped his hands sharply. A large hooded figure entered from a door at the rear of the platform, leading two others, much smaller but also shrouded from view. The hoods that covered the faces of the two small figures made it impossible for them to see, so they were forced to walk slowly, shuffling their feet. When they had been led to the opposite side of the platform, they were bound in place by silken cords, which were passed around their waists and then secured to the grillwork of the wall behind them. The large figure then removed their hoods and retired through the door by which he had come.

Disheveled and tearful, Pomma and Teera blinked and squinted in the sudden light. At the sight of them, a sudden hush fell over the chamber. At the long lower table the men and women of the Geets-kel sat like carved statues, while on the platform the utter silence was broken only by Kanna’s soft sobbing gasp. Then Teera turned, and looking past D’ol Regle, she saw for the first time the group of people standing against the opposite wall. Suddenly her tear-stained face was transformed, and holding out both arms she struggled against the bonds that encircled her waist.

At Teera’s cry of “Mother,” Kanna started forward, but D’ol Regle motioned her back with one hand while the other reached, out to touch the weapon that lay on the table before him. She paused only for a moment and would have again moved forward, had not Herd and Neric reached out to hold her back.

Silence again descended, but to Raamo it was a silence that screamed of fear and confusion. The pain of it quickly became unbearable, and for a moment he shut his eyes, trying to shut it out, but it was useless. The turmoil came through to him as if distilled from every breath of air. He struggled against it, fighting to keep his composure, until a sudden harsh grating noise reached through the silent voices of pain, and his eyes flew open.

D’ol Regle had risen suddenly, and it had been the scrape of chair legs that had echoed so harshly in the silent chamber. As all eyes turned to the novice-master, he began to speak.

“Honored members of the Geets-kel,” he said. “We are met today to confront the greatest danger, the greatest threat to Peace and Joy, in all the history of Green-sky. And because of this danger we must make a decision, the most difficult and painful decision ever demanded of us, or of any others among the Ol-zhaan in our long history. There are, of course, only two possible alternatives.

“We may decide to release these persons who stand before you on this platform and concede to their demands. If this should be our decision, we must then share the responsibility for the release of the Pash-shan into Green-sky, and for the final and unalterable loss of the innocence and faith that have for so long protected the Kindar from the evils that destroyed our ancestors. Therefore we must consider carefully just what the risks of such a course of action would be.

“We must consider the difficulties and dangers that might arise when the power of the sacred Root of D’ol Wissen has lost its meaning, and the dark hordes of the Pash-shan are free to pour forth into the cities of the Kindar. Consider that, while these Erdlings, as they have named themselves, are in truth not inhuman monsters, they are in fact, far, far removed from the Kindar in many important ways. Consider the fact that they are, and undoubtedly will remain, flesh-eaters—in a land where the taking of life for any reason has always been unthinkable. Consider the fact that the Erdlings are, for the most part, descendants of those who were banished from Green-sky because of their inability to control the force of their emotions and channel them into expressions of Love and Joy. Consider well this meeting. This meeting of these children of earth and fire—accustomed to the uncontrolled expression of every instinct and emotion—with the Kindar—whose heritage is light and air, innocence and faith, mind and Spirit. What would come of such a meeting, fellow Geets-kel? What
could
come of it?”

As the rich, full voice of D’ol Regle rolled forth, the men and women of the Geets-kel sat in utter silence, their faces blank and impassive. The turmoil of thought and feeling that Raamo had pensed so strongly at the first sight of the captive children was now gone, or carefully hidden by mind-blocking. Staring at the masklike faces, Raamo found it impossible to read the thoughts and feelings that lay behind them.

“And there is yet more to consider,” D’ol Regle went on. “We must not forget that if the Kindar learn the true nature of the Pash-shan, they must also learn how and why they were first imprisoned below the Root. And thus they must be told the full truth concerning their own terrible history and the awful fate of their ancestral planet. They will therefore be burdened not only with the knowledge of their own heritage of violence and destruction, but also with the sudden realization that we, the Ol-zhaan, have withheld the truth and led them to believe in things that were not true. Thus, along with their innocence they will lose their faith; and the invasion of the Pash-shan will find them in a state of complete chaos and demoralization.”

D’ol Regle paused, and turning away from the Geets-kel, he looked from side to side. First at the two children who now sagged limply in their bonds, clinging together for comfort, their faces crumpled with fear and confusion. He turned next to stare for a long time at his adult captives, at Raamo and Genaa and Neric, at the two Erdlings, at Hiro D’anhk, and at D’ol Falla. And as he stared, the Geets-kel stared also.

Blank-faced and shallow-eyed, the Geets-kel looked at the three youthful Ol-zhaan, two of whom were still in the first year of their novitiate, wondering, perhaps, what youthful arrogance had driven these three to challenge the customs and traditions of their elders. They stared at the fur-clad figures, the two Erdlings, tawny-skinned, smeared with earth and tears, inhumanly alien in their tight, soft furs and gleaming metal baubles. And at the Verban, the banished one, the brilliant Kindar leader whose compulsive curiosity and un-Kindarlike suspicions had necessitated his banishment to a life of exile. And perhaps they stared longest of all at D’ol Falla—their own D’ol Falla, who for so many years had been revered and honored above all others, and who now stood with this handful of rebels whose very existence threatened everything tried and tested, comfortable and secure. To their eyes D’ol Falla, herself, would seem changed, perhaps. Stripped of her familiar regal dignity, which had always given her a stature that had nothing to do with her actual size, she would seem shrunken, reduced to childlike dimensions. But at the same time, the unique quality of her presence would, perhaps, seem more pronounced than ever—her green eyes alight with a strange new fire. So the Geets-kel stared blank-eyed from behind careful barriers of mind-force, and it was impossible to tell what they might be thinking.