Below the Root (21 page)

“It must be D’ol Falla,” Raamo said. “If anyone can still change the Root, it would be she.”

“You are right,” Neric said. “It would seem that our answer lies with—”

“Look!” Genaa gasped, pointing toward the mouth of the tunnel. But when they all crowded around the dark root-bordered crevice, there was nothing to be seen.

“But I know I saw something,” Genaa whispered. “From where I was sitting, I could sec the mouth of the tunnel and suddenly there was a light and movement. I know I saw something move.”

“Greetings Erdling,” Neric called. “We come in peace. Come forward and speak to us.”

“Shh,” Teera said, shaking Neric’s arm. “You will scare him away. He can see you are an Ol-zhaan.” Leaning over the opening, Teera called softly in her singing soft-voweled Erdling manner, “Please come back. It’s Teera. It’s only Teera Eld and some good Ol-zhaan. They won’t hurt you, I promise. Please come back. We need you to help us.”

As Teera’s soft voice coaxed, a dim light began to be visible in the darkness of the tunnel. The light grew stronger, and it became evident that it came from a lantern. A hand held the lantern, a smudged and dirty but entirely human hand. It came closer and, at last, a face appeared out of the shadows. It was the face of a young man, whose eyes were large and white-rimmed, as if with fear.

“I know you,” Teera said. “Greetings Tocar. Don’t you know who I am?”

“You—you are Teera, the daughter of Kanna and Herd, who will be gladdened to hear that you are yet alive. Your father still searches the farthest tunnels for you daily, although the date has already been set for your Ceremony of Weeping. How is it that—” The husky shaky voice with the strange intonations broke off sharply as Neric once again moved into the Erdling’s range of vision. He was, once more, retreating down the tunnel when Teera called.

“Come back, Tocar. They won’t hurt you. Come back, and I will prove it.” Turning to Raamo she motioned for him to come forward, and taking his arm, she pulled at it until he knelt beside the tunnel mouth. “Put your hand down to him, D’ol Raamo,” she pleaded. “Let him feel how you will not hurt him. Please, or he won’t believe me and he’ll run away and not help us.”

Raamo’s heart was pounding and a strange quivering in the backs of his legs was beginning to trouble him, although he did not know why. He knew now, beyond doubting, that the dim figure below the Root was Erdling and human, but something in the deep folds of his memory still whispered “Pash-shan.” He leaned forward, extending both hands, and suddenly he was face to face with the Erdling, their eyes met and then their palms; and Raamo found himself pensing fear, and the recognition of his own fear, and then slowly a kind of bewildered but joyful relief. White teeth gleamed in the dim light as the Erdling’s lips moved in a shaky smile.

“Greetings,” the Erdling said. “What manner of Ol-zhaan are you that you wish no harm to Erdlings?”

“My name is Raamo, and I am one of many who would wish no harm to you if they but knew, as I do now, that the Pash—Erdlings wish no harm to Kindar. We have been wrong to fear each other.”

“I am happy—in fact delighted to hear it,” Tocar, the Erdling, said. He was grinning now, chattering nervously in his relief. “I can’t say how delighted. I have never had such a fright as just now when I saw your white robes and realized that I was standing within a few feet of Ol-zhaan.”

Pressing forward, Genaa interrupted. “Greetings Tocar, I am Genaa. I would ask you a question of great importance. Do you know a man named Hiro D’anhk? He is an instructor at the academy of Erda—and a Verban. Do you know him?”

“Hiro D’anhk?” Tocar said. “Yes, I know him, or of him, at least. He is much respected in Erda as a wise and learned man.”

“Could you go to him,” Genaa asked breathlessly, “and tell him that his daughter Genaa is waiting for him here, at this tunnel mouth? Could you show him the way?”

Tocar stared up into Genaa’s radiant face, and for a moment he seemed to have been stricken speechless. But at last he responded. “Yes, yes,” he said. “I can do that. It is a long way. Will you wait here?”

“I will wait,” Genaa said.

“And the Elds? The parents of Teera. Shall I bring them also? They live farther away, and it would take somewhat longer.”

“No,” Genaa said. “Send a messenger to them with the news that their daughter is alive and well. But don’t bring them here. We have not yet found a way to reunite her with them, but we will. You can tell them that.”

“Yes,” Teera said. “Tell them that the good Ol-zhaan are taking care of me, and that I get lots of food to eat. Tell them I will see them soon.”

When Tocar had disappeared back into the dark depths of the earth, the wait began. As they waited, Neric and Raamo discussed the possibilities that had been opened by the discovery that Genaa’s father was alive and below the Root. Obviously there was a way to pass through the barrier—but how, or where? Either the Root could be made to shrink, to shrivel or to draw back until the passage of a full-grown man was possible, and then to renew itself. Or else there was, somewhere, a hidden passageway through the grillwork of Root. A passageway, the location of which was unknown except to the Geets-kel.

It was Raamo who suggested the second possibility. “It seems unlikely there could be such a place without the Erdlings having discovered it,” he said. “But I have heard enough in D’ol Falla’s classroom to make me think it is also very unlikely that the Root could ever have been made to alter its shape quickly. Even in the days of D’ol Wissen, himself, it seems that the spreading of the Root was very slow.”

“Perhaps,” Neric said. “But if such a place exists, how is it that the exiled Kindar, the Verban, do not return to it, and by it return to Green-sky?”

“Yes,” Genaa said. “And how was my father made to pass through such an entrance. He would not have gone of his own free will.”

“Then—” Raamo said, and stopped appalled at his own thoughts.

“Yes,” Neric said. “Then the Geets-kel must have used—violence.”

Although he had learned, in D’ol Regle’s class, to use such offensive terms with historical calm, Raamo felt the color flooding into his face. That such a thing could have happened was unthinkable. That a Geets-kel, who was, after all, also a holy Ol-zhaan, could have—what? Raamo tried to imagine it. He pictured a group of Ol-zhaan—and a struggling victim. Would their hands be bare or would they contain some tool of violence, such as were used in the days before the flight? Did the Geets-kel possess and use such things? An image arose in Raamo’s mind, an image of revolting obscenity: a human being, looking into the face of another, meeting his eyes, and sending forth pain or even death. In horror, Raamo struggled to close the eyes of his mind against the image.

“Teera,” Raamo’s horrifying vision was cut short by Genaa’s sudden call to Teera, who had wandered to the other side of the clearing. The child returned running and skipping. Taking her hands, Genaa pulled her down to sit with them. “Teera,” she said. “Tell us about the place where you came through the Root. Are you sure it was too small for a man to pass through?”

“I’m sure,” Teera said. “It was almost too small for me. It was very tight, and the cold of the Root hurt me, and for a while I thought I was caught there and would never get free. But then the rain started and the wetness made me more slippery and I squeezed through. I had to get through because Haba was outside, in the forest, and I had to find him.”

“And the opening, where was it?” Genaa asked. “How is it that others have not found it, and perhaps other small children squeezed through?”

“I don’t know where it is,” Teera said. “It was a long way down an old mining tunnel that no one uses anymore—there are lots and lots of them all over Erda—and then up a partly caved-in ventilation tunnel that went up to the Root. I was hiding when I found it, but I was lost, too. I’d been lost in the old tunnels for a long time when I found it.”

“But you are sure that no one larger than yourself could get through it?”

Teera nodded firmly, and Genaa sighed, shaking her head. “I had thought that it might be useful to look again for Teera’s tunnel, but it seems it would not.”

“It seems not,” Neric agreed. “It probably would not even serve as a means of returning Teera to her family, since she has gained so much in size since coming to Green-sky.”

Conversation had died away, and Neric and Raamo had begun to wander around the clearing with Teera, leaving Genaa to watch alone beside the mouth of the tunnel, when a sudden shout brought them running back. They found Genaa, clinging to a pair of hands that were thrust up through the narrow opening and peering down into the darkness. She was laughing and crying and calling, “Father, Father, Father.”

D
RAWING BACK TO THE
edge of the clearing, Neric and Raamo waited, not wanting to intrude on the first great Joy of greeting between Genaa and her father. After what seemed a very long time, she turned and beckoned them forward.

As they approached, Genaa said, “This is my father, Hiro D’anhk, and these are my two friends, Father, of whom we have been speaking.”

Below the tunnel opening a thin, dark-eyed face looked up at them. The face was larger and more angular, but possessed of the same brilliant beauty as Genaa’s.

“Greetings, Neric and Raamo,” he said. “My daughter has been telling me amazing things concerning you both, and of the great goal you have set yourselves.” Stretching his arms through the opening, Hiro D’anhk offered his palms in greeting, but he did not, Raamo noticed, recite the words of the Palm Song, nor did he use the respectful title D’ol.

“I rejoice more than I can say,” Hiro D’anhk went on, “to find there are some among the Ol-zhaan who are truly concerned with the welfare of the Kindar—of all the Kindar, both above the Root and below. And I am even more joyful to find that my daughter is part of such a company. I could not wish her a better task in life.”

“I have told my father of what we have learned,” Genaa said, “and he desires to tell you his story. He says there is much in it that we should know.”

Hiro D’anhk, it seems had, in the course of his studies at the Academy, become interested in the inconsistencies among the facts given about the Pash-shan. Unable to satisfy his curiosity, he had at last appealed to the Council of the Academy, a group of Ol-zhaan who were in charge of management of the institution, and asked for their permission to conduct a new and thorough study of the age-old curse of Green-sky, the dreaded Pash-shan. The Council had listened politely and a few days later had called him back before them to tell him that his request was denied. Firmly and emphatically denied, without reason or explanation. Being a noted scholar, whose studies had greatly increased the production of silk and helped to develop an efficient new system of sanitation in the cities of Green-sky, Hiro was not accustomed to such treatment. It was then that he had decided to continue with his studies on his own and secretly. Before long, however, he began to suspect that his secret was known, or at least suspected. Several times he was called before the Council and examined concerning the course of studies he was pursuing and the methods he was employing. This troubled him, since he had never before been subjected to such an inquisition. And then the blow fell. He was suddenly removed from his position as Director of the Academy of Orbora and transferred to the small city of Farvald, as a seventh term teacher in the local Garden.

In Farvald he had, of course, continued with his studies, as well as he was able. One line of investigation that had proven most fruitful was his attempt to interview the friends and associates of all adult Kindar who had been lost to the Pash-shan in recent years. In these interviews a pattern began to emerge. Nearly all of the Kindar who had disappeared could be classified in one of two groups. Either they had been thinkers and seekers, people whose curiosity might have led them into danger, or they were orchard workers, whose daily labor brought them into closer contact with the Pash-shan than was the case with most Kindar.

In questioning the associates of the lost orchard workers, another pattern grew. Several, it seemed had, shortly before their disappearance, witnessed something concerning the Pash-shan that they had found most disturbing. Most had not disclosed exactly what it was they had witnessed, but a few had mentioned their determination to seek counsel concerning the matter—to go to the Ol-zhaan. Most significant of all, one orchard worker, before his disappearance, had told a fellow worker that he had
spoken
with a Pash-shan. Several years had passed since his disappearance, but the co-worker remembered it well. He had discounted the story, of course, he had assured Hiro D’anhk. Obviously the poor man had indulged in too many Berries, or, perhaps, neglected to wear his head shade in the open orchard and been stricken with sun-fever. But such a wild story was not one that was easily forgotten. Spoken with a Pash-shan, indeed!

Gradually an almost unbelievable but strangely seductive theory had begun to grow in Hiro’s mind. He had begun to believe that there was a deadly secret concerning the Pash-shan, any knowledge of which was enough to doom a Kindar to oblivion. It also seemed to be true that the victim’s disappearance occurred soon after the Ol-zhaan became aware of the individual’s knowledge of the secret.

It was then that Hiro had decided to go, himself, to the forest floor in search of further information. On the day of his expedition, Genaa had witnessed his departure and had begged him to tell her where he was going. Thinking, as he did by then, that the Pash-shan were probably more pitiable than fearful, he had told Genaa where he was going and that he did not believe he would be in great danger.

He had not been long on the forest floor, however, when he heard the sound of footsteps behind him and someone called his name. He turned to see, not a Pash-shan, but the Ol-zhaan D’ol Wassou.

“I was apprehensive, of course,” Hiro said, “but D’ol Wassou is an old man and quite frail, and I could not see how he could offer any immediate danger. His approach was friendly, even enthusiastic, as if he were relieved to see me. He spoke of how he had been sent with a small party of Ol-zhaan to search the forest floor around Farvald for signs of withering of the Root and had become separated from the others. He wondered if I had seen them. He did not question my presence on the forest floor or express the slightest degree of disapproval. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have been warned by that fact alone, and it also should have occurred to me that our meeting—in all the vast and trackless stretches of the forest floor—could not easily be explained as coincidence. But I was not warned, and when he asked me to sit with him while he rested and refreshed himself from his food pouch, I agreed. Sitting together on the moss-covered remains of a fallen tree, we rested, and I accepted a drink of pan-liquor from his drinking gourd. I remember nothing more until I began dimly to return to awareness and found myself groping my way down an endless dark tunnel. I will never forget how slowly and painfully, and with what nameless terror, I began to realize that I was below the Root.”