Until the Celebration (14 page)

Coming to the end of a long tapering branch that led nowhere, he turned and was starting to go back when he noticed that below him a long, open glidepath led down and down, seemingly unimpeded by branch or Vine. Without even a moment’s hesitation, he leaned forward into space and began to glide. Except for an occasional raindove and once or twice a flock of paraso, the glidepath was deserted, and Hiro drifted down past the mid-heights, and on down towards a wide public branchway. But then, suddenly, he banked, avoiding the branchway, and dropped again, past the lowest branchlevel. Now there was no need to watch for glidepaths, for all around him there was a great openness, broken only by an occasional gigantic grundtrunk, and here and there, a twisted stand of Vine. And below him, drawing nearer and nearer, was the dense fern growth of the forest floor.

Using all the skill of a lifetime of experience, Hiro prolonged his glide by riding currents and catching up-drafts, until at last, just as he was skimming only a few feet above the fern, he saw ahead of him a break in the dense green cover of the forest floor. Grays and browns replaced the green and white of fern and mushroom, and strange unnatural shapes jutted up everywhere, sharp-edged and rectangular. Sharpening the angle of his glide, Hiro came to earth on the outskirts of the surface city of Upper Erda.

And the stillness was there, too. Hiro had been in Upper Erda several times before, generally with a large group of Councilors, and he was familiar with the noisy vigor usually apparent in the crowded muddy streets. But now, just as in Orbora, very few people were to be seen, and those few seemed to be only partially present—blank-faced and distant. Like the people of Orbora, they did not look at Hiro. But Hiro had begun to look at them.

Perhaps it was the physical exertion—the walking and climbing, and then the long, free, mind-cleansing sweep of the glide—but whatever the cause, somewhere along the way Hiro had begun to wonder. It was not that his despair had lessened. There was still the numbness, the lack of pain or Joy or any shred of hope. But just as his need to know had once caused him to risk honor and security and finally freedom, it now tempted him to return from the protection of numb oblivion. He found that he was searching the faces of the passing Erdlings, trying to read what lay behind the empty eyes, asking himself if he was witnessing the stunned silence of shock and fear, or the deadly quiet of hopeless apathy. Then, quite suddenly something made him think of Raamo, perhaps the wide-set eyes of a passing child, and for the first time in many hours Hiro was aware of a purpose and a destination. He wanted to talk to Raamo.

From the heart of Upper Erda, a roadway paved with rooftree trunks led out of the city in the direction of Skygrund, the nearest of the grunds of Orbora. Along this roadway, normally crowded to overflowing but now almost deserted, Hiro hurried. In the deep shade of the forest floor, the light was already dimming, and there was a long climb between him and the Temple Grove.

The climb began at the newly built hanging stairway, which wound around Skytrunk as far as the first branch-level. Crossing through the heart of the silent city, he climbed again at Stargrund by stair and ladder and finally by the temple rampway. The deep green-gold rays of sunset were staining the intricate tendril work of the palace as Hiro approached it across the central platform of the grove. Almost at a run, Hiro crossed the platform and blew weakly on the signal flute at the palace gate.

He could not fully have explained his haste. He could, perhaps, have told himself that it was caused by a concern for Raamo. There could be no doubt that Raamo would be in a state of great mind-pain. He had been anxious and troubled for many weeks and strangely threatened by something related to the children. And now that his foreboding had been vindicated, it was impossible to imagine how he had reacted.

Hiro knew, however, that it was not a desire to comfort and console Raamo that had caused his haste. Without hope there can be no compassion, and Hiro felt himself to be no longer capable of hope. He was sure that the differences and resentments would continue to build between Erdling and Kindar, and sooner or later the terror would begin. Blood would flow, the deadly circle would be joined, and the gentle Oath of Nesh-om would give way to the ancient oaths of hatred and vengeance.

But even without hope, there remained the need to know. What would Raamo see in this strange stillness that had settled over Green-sky? With his great Spirit-gifts for pensing and perhaps for foretelling also, what would have come to him through this silence? Would it be fear and apathy, or perhaps the breathless stifling stillness that comes before the storm? As Hiro waited to be admitted to the palace, he admitted to himself that it was for the answers to such questions that he had come so far and fast.

At last an old serving man appeared at the gateway and led Hiro into a small reception chamber. Only a short time later, Raamo appeared. He smiled when he saw Hiro, offering his palms in greeting and then embracing him.

“I’m glad you are here,” he said. “D’ol Falla sent for you earlier, and Jorda said you had gone out hours before and had not returned. I’m glad to see that you are here.”

“Yes,” Hiro said. “I was walking in the city and in Upper Erda. Is there any news concerning Pomma and Teera?”

Raamo shook his head. “No,” he said. “There has been no word from them, nor concerning them. D’ol Falla thinks that if they were taken away by Axon Befal, or some other, that word will come to us soon. She thinks demands will be made in exchange for their safety. But as yet we have heard nothing.”

The boy was troubled, clearly, but there was a calmness in him that was new and strange. He was not, as Hiro had feared he might be, shattered by grief and fear.

“Do you think that this—this abduction—is what you feared? The danger that might come to the children through the people’s adoration of them?” Hiro asked.

For a moment Raamo looked at Hiro intently, but then his gaze became diffuse and inward and he seemed to retreat into himself. “No,” he said at last. “Or at least, only in part. I felt that harm might come to Pomma and Teera, but there was more. As if there might be harm that could come to all the people—through their love for the children. I did not—I still cannot understand it. But it seems now that there is, everywhere, a difference—a great difference.”

“Yes,” Hiro said. “There is a difference. I have been walking throughout the city and also in Upper Erda, as I told you. The branchways and footpaths—all the public places—are almost deserted. And there is a silence. It is the same everywhere. Everywhere I went there was a strange, unearthly silence. What is it, Raamo? Are they waiting? Are they all waiting for the end?”

For a moment Raamo returned Hiro’s questing stare with his intense deep-focused gaze. Then, lifting his head, as if in answer to a call, he turned away towards the windows. For a time he stood looking out into the soft darkness of first rainfall.

Hiro followed and stood beside him, but for a long time Raamo seemed unaware of his presence. At last Raamo sighed deeply and turned to Hiro.

“Yes,” he said. “It is strange. It is like listening. Like a great listening.”

And although Hiro tried to question him further, he seemed to know nothing more about the meaning of the silence.

O
N THE SAME EVENING
, and during the time that Hiro and Raamo were speaking together in the small reception chamber, in another part of the Vine Palace, D’ol Falla had returned from having spent most of the day with the parents of the missing children. It had been a day full of mind-pain, and she was very tired. There had been no formal food-takings in the palace that day, and she had asked Eudic to bring a small tray of pan and fruit to her nid-chamber. Soon after she reached her chambers, Eudic appeared at the door.

Eudic was an old man, almost as old as D’ol Falla herself, and he had been assigned to service in the Vine Palace for a great many years. Long ago he had taken on himself the responsibility for making a great many decisions that concerned D’ol Falla’s welfare. There was, for instance, a great deal more food than she had requested on the tray that he was carrying.

“You have eaten almost nothing all day,” he scolded as he arranged the food carefully on a small tendril table. “I’ve brought a small dish of mushrooms in egg sauce, and a tiny bit of nut cake, too. I made it myself. That new pantry woman doesn’t chop the nuts fine enough. And I will be very unjoyful if you do not eat every bit of it. Here, I will put the table near the window so you can hear the rain as you eat. There is nothing like rain-song to sooth the mind-pain of—”

His back had been to D’ol Falla as he arranged and rearranged the table, but now he turned, and she saw that there were tears in his eyes and on his wrinkled cheeks.

“The children?” he asked. “Has there been any word?”

Unable to speak, D’ol Falla only shook her head.

The old man sighed deeply. “Surely they are all right,” he said. “Surely no one would harm children—such beautiful children. Everyone—all of us here in the palace who have known them—we are all ... we have been so ... unjoyful. ... His voice quavered, and Kindar-like he turned his face to hide the sight of his unjoyfulness and hurried from the chamber. When he was gone, D’ol Falla went to sit at the tendril table and listen to the soothing sound of the rain. It was a long time before she was able to swallow.

After a time, when the tightness in her throat had subsided, she ate a little. The rich nut cake, however, was more than she could manage. It was a pity, since Eudic had prepared it so carefully, but fortunately, there was a way to put it to good use. Going to the corner near the balcony, she took down a tendril cage and brought it to the table. In the cage a pair of green-backed joysingers, excited by the prospect of food, began to chirp and flutter.

“Hush now,” D’ol Falla told them. “I have some lovely nut cake for you. Some lovely nut cake made by a kind old friend.”

She was just putting the cage down on the table when a sudden realization made her heart stand still. It was much too light. Putting it down on the table, she released a hidden latch and opened a secret compartment under the floor of the cage. She could see immediately that it was gone, but she reached inside and groped frantically at the emptiness in the desperate hope that her eyes might have deceived her, but to no avail. The tool-of-violence had been stolen. Someone had taken the ancient weapon from the place she had hidden it on the day of the Rejoyning.

Hiro D’anhk had just left the Vine Palace and was crossing the central platform when someone passed him running swiftly. Glancing back at him, the runner faltered and then stopped and came back. It was a young man who served in the Vine Palace as porter and messenger. Holding up his honey lantern, he peered into Hiro’s face.

“Hiro D’anhk?” he asked. “Is it Hiro D’anhk? How strange I should find you here. I have just been sent by D’ol Falla to summon you to the palace. I was to tell you it was a matter of the greatest urgency.”

For only a moment Hiro allowed himself to hope that the news might be good—that he might have been summoned back to the palace to hear that the children had been found or, at least, that some clue to their fate had been discovered. Instead the summons concerned something entirely different—another threat to the future of Green-sky.

“Why was it still intact?” he demanded when D’ol Falla had told him of her terrible discovery. “On the day after the Rejoyning I asked you if the tool-of-violence had been disposed of—dismantled—rendered inoperable, and you said it had.”

“No.” The old woman shook her head. “No, I said it had been taken care of. There is a reason why it was not dismantled, why it was not dismantled years ago when all other such artifacts—relics from the ancestral planet—were destroyed. It is indestructible. The source of its destructive power is incapsulated, enclosed in such a way that any attempt to dismantle or deactify it would cause an explosion. A devastating release of power that would destroy everything for miles around.”

“But why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell the Joined Council? Surely the existence of such a terrible threat—”

“Yes, I know. I see now that I did the wrong thing, that I should not have tried to keep its existence a secret. But at the time it seemed to me that it would be best if no one knew of its existence, at least during the troubled days that I was sure would come. I felt that if anyone was told, it should be the entire Council. And if forty-seven people were told, it would not be long before ... D’ol Falla shrugged.

“I see,” Hiro said. “I can see now that there was good reason—but what if you had died suddenly?”

“I had prepared documents telling of its existence and whereabouts, which would have been given to you or to whomever was Chief Mediator. If I had died, the decision would have gone to the Council, but in the meantime I thought that I could bear the burden alone. But I was wrong. Wrong!” D’ol Falla clenched her frail fists and, bowing her head, pressed them against her forehead.

Hiro knew that he should try to console the old woman, but just as he had felt incapable of feeling compassion for Raamo, he now felt that his own hopelessness made him unable to truly pity D’ol Falla’s suffering. “Your motives were good,” he said stiffly and without true feeling. “You thought to protect—”

D’ol Falla moaned harshly. “Protect,” she cried. “Protect! Don’t you see, Hiro? I have repeated the old crime. The same old crime of the Ol-zhaan and the Geets-kel. I tried to protect the people by withholding the truth.”

Again, D’ol Falla covered her face with her hands. After a long silence Hiro said, “But if no one knew of its existence, who could have taken it? Surely no one would have found it in such a hiding place unless he were searching. Unless he knew that there was something to search for.”

D’ol Falla looked up and her eyes were bleak. “There was one other who may have known that the tool-of-violence could not be destroyed. There was one other who, with me, was guardian of the Forgotten and had access to the secrets recorded in the ancient documents. I never discussed it with him, but it is possible that he knew.”