Below the Root (7 page)

Later in the day during the course of his long slow journey home, Raamo stopped and rested again. This time he lay on his stomach on a springy branch and rocked with the breezes while his mind drifted, too, from place to place. He thought of his friends, girls and boys with whom he had attended the Garden for so many years. Very soon now they would be beginning their apprenticeships, and soon afterward they would be inducted into the appropriate guilds. After a year of successful apprenticeship, they would be free, if they wished, to move out of their family nid-places into one of the Youth Halls, where they would live a joyful carefree existence in the company of other young people.

The life of the Youth Halls was spoken of fondly and with nostalgia by older Kindar, who had long since chosen a permanent nid-mate and the more highly honored but less carefree existence of family life. Garden students looked forward to their Youth Hall years, and many of the songs and stories of the troubadours centered around the ever-changing romances of the Hall residents. It was a time of many and varied relationships, of testing and growing through close communion with many friends and fellow workers. Most Kindar lived for at least ten years in Youth Halls before they chose to form a family and move to private nid-places.

Family life was highly honored in Green-sky and seriously prepared for. and no one was eligible for the ritual of bonding until he or she was in his twenty-fourth year. But there came a time, for most Kindar, when the bustle of group activities and the ever-changing relationships of the Halls seemed less fulfilling than the richly rewarding Joys of family and children.

There were no children born in the Youth Halls. All the residents were required to take part in weekly ceremonies in which Youth Wafers were distributed—large flaky tablets that, when consumed regularly, produced temporary sterility.

Children were greatly loved in Green-sky and admired for their natural gifts of Love and Spirit. Nearly all Kindar wished to become parents, so a time usually came when a permanent nid-mate was chosen, a bonding ritual was performed, a new surname chosen, and the new family moved into its own nid-place.

Such were the probabilities that Raamo’s friends had to look forward to; but his own probabilities were much more uncertain and mysterious. It occurred to Raamo that he did not even know if Ol-zhaan had nid-mates. It was a question that had never before entered his mind. Somehow the Ol-zhaan had always seemed so far above and beyond the life of ordinary mortals that he had never connected them with anything so human and natural.

Suddenly Raamo found himself thinking of Genaa, the other Chosen. It seemed obvious to Raamo that she was, indeed, well chosen. Remembering the graceful strength of her bearing and the startling brilliance of her dark eyes, he could see that she had been set apart from birth—a child born to high destiny.

Perhaps I, too, he thought, have in my features and bearing the marks of grace and wisdom. Perhaps, if I could have seen myself clearly, I would have guessed long ago. It is strange though, that no one has ever told me of it—that I have not even pensed that someone looking at me was wondering at the significance of such great beauty. Of course my mother did say that she had long suspected that I—

He stopped then, laughing. “Paraso!” he said to himself, calling himself by the name of the proudest and stupidest of birds. “All mothers have such suspicions. Doubtless our mother suspects that Pomma, too, is destined to great things. Such is the way with mothers.”

The wonder of it returned then in a great wave, and Raamo floated on it, marveling. He marveled at his choosing, at the grandeur of the inner temple and at the beauty of the faces of the Ol-zhaan. And, remembering, he marveled, too, at the sending he had received as he was leaving the temple grounds.

It was not often that he was able to pense without eye-touch—without seeing the sender, or even knowing who it might be. But someone who hid behind the hangings of a far doorway had called in mind-touch and had said that he was well chosen. And twice chosen—by the speaker himself.

“Chosen for what? Who was the shadow in the doorway, and for what purpose has he chosen me?” Raamo asked himself, as he rocked on the high branches far above Orbora. The question returned again and again to his mind as he made his way home to his nid-place in the midheights of Skygrund. He thought of it often in the days that followed.

Time fled by. Raamo stayed close to his nid-place, avoiding contact with friends and classmates. Not that they would ask him directly concerning the results of his Second Counseling, since it was traditional to wait until the public assembly when, after the presentation of the Chosen, all thirteen-year-olds announced their new professions and were honored at banquets given by the guilds that they would soon join. But Raamo knew it would be difficult to keep his secret from friends with whom he had once played Five-Pense, and with whom he had often practiced rituals of close communion. So he stayed at home busying himself with the construction of carrying bags of woven tendril, which he then carefully packed with household goods, in preparation for the day when he and his family would move to their new nid-place on the lower level of Grandgrund. In the evenings, by the light of the honey lamps, the whole family worked together preparing a new shuba for Valdo, his old one being somewhat worn and shabby and unsuited for such an important occasion as the assembly at which it would be announced that his only son was a Chosen. While Raamo, along with Pomma and Valdo himself, stitched and restitched the seams of the wing-panels, Hearba decorated the front and hood with richly colored embroidery.

A plain man, ungiven to finery, Valdo had never before allowed himself the luxury of so fine a shuba, and even while they worked he spoke scoffingly of such frippery. But when the shuba was finished and he tried it on, running his roughened hands over the rich smoothness of the silk, he looked down admiringly at the gleaming threads stitched into intricate patterns across his chest.

“It makes me feel—different.” he said. “Like a different person.”

“You look as grand as Ruulba D’arsh, the City-master,” Hearba said, and Valdo nodded in agreement.

“I might, at that,” he said. “I wish I could see myself. Pomma, make me a gazing bowl.”

When Pomma returned with a wide bowl lined with dark grundleaf, and full of clear water, Valdo stared into it at his own image for several minutes, with unmistakable satisfaction.

On the morning of the assembly, the whole family rose very early, and long before the appointed hour they left their nid-place and started on their way to the temple. The night rains had not long been over. Gleaming droplets lined the edges of every leaf, and the reservoirs on the roofs of the nid-places they passed were still full to brimming. Their first glide took them through the branches of the first Gardengrund and well into the eastern branches of the second. There they landed and briefly climbed again, until their height was sufficient to enable a second glide to bring them to the lower level of Stargrund. The ladders of Startrunk, usually so heavily traveled, were almost deserted, for few people left their nid-places so early on the morning of a Free-day, when all working places and even the Garden were closed and silent. In only a few minutes the D’ok family had reached the midheights and the beginning of the ramp that led to the temple.

Until that moment Raamo had followed behind his parents. Whether gliding or climbing he had waited, as always, with his sister while his parents led the way. But now, as the outer gate of the temple loomed above them, Valdo stepped aside and motioned for Raamo to precede him. And so with his family following close behind him, Raamo pushed aside the rich hangings and entered the temple of the Ol-zhaan.

As Raamo had expected, since they had arrived so early, the large counseling room was deserted. The D’ok family sat down to wait. They sat stiffly, saying little, avoiding even eye-touch in their efforts to hide their agitation. Now and then Hearba glanced at Raamo and smiled, and then quickly looked away, obviously afraid that he might pense the unpeacefulness of her mind. At last the hangings of the outer doorway stirred and Genaa D’anhk entered accompanied by a woman. The woman, as tall as Genaa and with a suggestion of the same dark brilliance, was clearly her mother. Approaching the D’ok family, the mother gave her name, Jorda D’anhk, and offered her palms in greeting. The greetings were scarcely over when a youthful novice entered and then drew back the hangings to permit the entry of a tall, firm-chinned woman of middle age, the Ol-zhaan D’ol Fanta.

“Greetings Chosen Ones and honored families,” she said. “You are awaited. May I ask you to accompany me.”

The room to which they were led was a robing room where several Kindar men and women, attendants of the outer temple, awaited, bearing every kind of ornamentation—rings and amulets and plumed headdresses as well as a vast array of shubas. The shubas were made of a rare and highly distinctive silk, whose gleaming fibers were produced by an unusually small variety of worm. The resulting cloth was reserved for the use of the Ol-zhaan and for the official robes of Kindar of the highest rank and honor.

As they entered the robing room, Genaa’s mother and each member of Raamo’s family was met by a group of dressers and led away. Raamo watched as his father, too, surrounded by a small mob of dressers, disappeared into one of the cubicles, waving his arms and protesting that the shuba he was wearing had been specially prepared for the occasion and was quite grand enough for him.

“Come, Chosen,” D’ol Fanta said. “Your people will be well cared for, and you will see them later in the assembly hall.”

It was indeed later, much later, when Raamo again saw his family. Clad in gleaming white shubas and crowned with wreaths of golden tree orchids, he and Genaa were led forth onto the high platform in the center of the great assembly hall of Orbora. There below them, on a lower level of the great platform, among the City-masters and Guild-leaders and the directors of the Garden and the Academy, were Valdo and Hearba and Pomma, their familiar faces subtly altered by the strains and tensions of the day. The opening ritual of the long and complicated ceremony had begun and, surrounded by Ol-zhaan and clutching a ceremonial urn and symbol, Raamo joined in the singing of the Spirit Hymn. But as his mouth formed the words of the hymn, he found himself sending in mind-touch a greeting to his family.

“Thus do I pledge with sacred touch—our Peace and Joy as one shall grow.” Looking down at their upturned faces, he sent the words fervently and with all the Spirit-force that he was able to call forth, unmindful for the moment that they could not pense and that the Ol-zhaan who stood around him surely could. It was not until he had completed the greeting to his family, that it occurred to Raamo that a greeting sent elsewhere during the sacred Spirit Hymn might be considered a sacrilege. For several minutes afterward he awaited a sending, reprimanding him for his offense, but none came, and the ceremony continued.

At last it was almost over. Each of the Ol-zhaan had taken part in leading the Kindar in songs and chants. The majestic D’ol Regle had spoken at length concerning the virtues and Spirit-gifts of the new Chosen, and the many signs that had shown the deliberating Ol-zhaan that these two were, indeed, the true Chosen, the Spirit-blessed and Guided, destined from birth for the temple and the leadership of Green-sky.

Overwhelmed by emotion, dazed and blinded by strange sensations, Raamo listened to the cheers and applause of the crowd until at last the cheering ended and a momentary silence fell in the huge hall. And in that moment he found himself pensing a sending that came from someone very near. There was no eye-touch as the sending came from behind him, but Raamo pensed the sent words clearly and distinctly.

“Do you like it, Twice-chosen?” the sending asked. “Are you learning to need the glory as you need air to breathe? It is meant that you should.”

The sending stopped, and cautiously turning his head, Raamo searched the faces of the Ol-zhaan who stood behind him, and that of Genaa who stood at his side. The faces of the Ol-zhaan were alike in their noble calm, and Genaa’s beautiful face glowed with the same dazzled emotion that Raamo had been feeling only a moment before.

“Who was sending?” Raamo sent. “Who was sending? Who was it that sent to me and called me Twice-chosen?” But there was no answer.

T
HE CEREMONY OF THE
Choosing ended with a great procession down the central aisle of the assembly hall and out onto the public branchways of Orbora. Led by the Ol-zhaan and followed by hundreds of singing, shouting Kindar, Raamo and Genaa and their families were led out of the great hall and across the city center to their new nid-places on the third Northeast branchpath of Grandgrund.

Arriving before a new and spacious nid-place, the Ol-zhaan escorted the D’ok family onto the large open dooryard, and there, as two novice Ol-zhaan held back the door hangings, D’ol Regle asked Raamo to turn once more to the crowd and respond to its acclaim. With his family beside him, Raamo raised his hands in a gesture of gratitude and response as the shouts and cheers increased in intensity; they did not fade until at last he and his family were permitted to retire to the privacy of their new home. As the noise of the crowd dwindled, D’ol Regle spoke to them briefly concerning their new privileges and responsibilities; and then he, too, left and they were alone.