Until the Celebration (16 page)

So it was decided that Jurra D’arsh, with several other Kindar hall-dwellers, would go to speak to Ruulba D’arsh; and Sard and Mawno would be sent to Kir Oblan.

“I am not Kir’s son,” Sard said. “But I have met him, and I think I might be able to convince him. At least let me try first, Neric, before you bring the official summons. Then, if he agrees, Mawno and I can help in taking the message to the other Erdling Councilors.”

Thus it was agreed, and the three—Neric, Genaa and Raamo—were soon left alone in Neric’s chamber.

“What is it, Raamo?” Genaa asked. “What problem will D’ol Falla lay before the Council?”

So Raamo told them of the disappearance of the tool-of-violence from the secret hiding place in which it had lain since the day of the Rejoyning. And of the reasons why it had not been deactivated and why D’ol Falla had kept secret, until now, the fact that it still existed.

“Does she think it is Axon Befal who now has the weapon?” Neric asked.

“Perhaps, but perhaps not. The hiding place was skillfully made, so that there seemed to be no space for a hidden compartment. D’ol Falla thinks that it would not have been found except by someone who was searching—and knew that there was something for which to search. And there was only one other who knew that the tool-of-violence could never be destroyed.”

“Regle,” Neric said suddenly.

“Yes,” Raamo said. “She thinks that Regle must have had something to do with it.”

“But Regle hasn’t been seen or heard from since the day of the Rejoyning,” Genaa said. “Surely if he had entered the Temple Grove at any time, he would have been seen and recognized.”

“But he might not have come himself. It is possible that he has allied himself with others.”

“It hardly seems possible that he has joined with the Nekom. Axon Befal has sworn to destroy all who were once Geets-kel.”

“True,” Neric said, “but there are others who might have joined forces with the novice-master. There have been several Ol-zhaan who have disappeared since the Rejoyning, and not a few Kindar as well.”

“Then it might well be that it was not Axon at all who took the children, but the followers of Regle. They might have searched for the weapon and found it at the same time that the children were taken. If you remember, D’ol Falla was with us at the Council meeting at the time, and her chambers would have been empty.”

“Yes,” Raamo said. “That is what D’ol Falla thinks may have happened. She is very troubled.”

In a short time messengers arrived at the youth with the news that the efforts of Jurra D’arsh and the young Erdlings had been successful, and that most of the Councilors were prepared to meet at the great hall on the sixth hour. A messenger was sent on to the Vine Palace to inform D’ol Falla and the Eld bond-partners of the hour set for the meeting. For Raamo and Neric and Genaa, there was only time enough for a quick food-taking in the youth hall pantry before setting out for the assembly hall.

A short time later, just as they were leaving the youth hall, the young Kindar woman Jurra D’arsh appeared running towards them along the branchway. Her face was pale and her eyes were wide and strange.

“Come,” she cried. “Come. The newsinger—near Startrunk.”

Turning, she hurried back the way she had come; and when they tried to question her, she only shook her head and hurried faster.

“The newsinger,” was all she would say.

As they approached Startrunk, they could see that a crowd had gathered on the broad branchway near the platform of the newsinger. The newsinger, a young man with a round childish face, seemed to have just finished his message. He was standing silently staring at the crowd, and just as silently the crowd returned his stare.

“Again. Again please, newsinger,” Neric called.

For a moment the young man only looked blankly at Neric, as if unable to understand the meaning of his request. Then collecting himself with an obvious effort, he began to sing.

“A short time ago I was approached on this platform by a messenger who handed me this scroll.” He was chanting rapidly, making no effort to employ the skills of melody, rhythm, and rhyme for which the newsingers of Orbora were so much admired. “The messenger was not known to me, but by his appearance it would seem that he was Erdling. The scroll was tightly bound, and by the time I had opened it, the messenger had disappeared. The message of the scroll is as follows:”

Unfurling a wide grundleaf scroll he began to chant—his voice high and harsh with emotion.

“ ‘From the Great Leader Axon Befal, to all the people of Orbora. Be it known that I, Axon Befal, with the help of many, both Erdling and Kindar, who are secret members of the Nekom, have taken into custody the children Pomma D’ok and Teera Eld. The children are being held in the forest community of the Nekom, which is well hidden and guarded by many loyal Nekom who are equipped with sharp-edged wands-of-Befal. The children will not be returned to their parents and to the people of Orbora until all the members of the Joined Council have sworn allegiance to me, Axon Befal, and all who were once Geets-kel have been seized and imprisoned, including the woman known as D’ol Falla and the traitorous Verban, Hiro D’anhk. When this has been done, I will enter Orbora with a great multitude of my followers. The children will be restored to you and a new era will begin in Green-sky. An era of justice and order and peace and plenty for all who pledge loyalty to the leadership of the Nekom. If these things are not done in ten days time, the children will die.’ ”

“The children. The holy children,” a voice cried, an Erdling voice lifted in the wild wailing chant of the Ceremony of Weeping. One by one other voices took up the cry, Kindar voices as well as Erdling. On the platform the young newsinger joined in the wailing, his round face wet and contorted.

Too stunned by what she had heard to think clearly, Genaa did not at once think of Raamo, who had been standing just beside her. And when she did, he was no longer there. Already some distance away, Raamo was on his way to the Vine Palace. As soon as he realized what the newsinger was saying, one thought possessed his mind— that he must reach the palace before word of Axon Befal’s message arrived there. Although he knew there would be little he could say to comfort his parents, he felt that he must reach them before they heard of Axon’s threat.

Running and climbing feverishly, he reached the rampway that led to the Temple Grove in a state of near exhaustion. At the end of the rampway he stopped suddenly to ease his breathing and, as he did so, he became aware of the sound of footsteps behind him. The footsteps paused when he did, and then came on more slowly. Whirling, Raamo found himself face-to-face with an old man.

Raamo backed away fearfully, trying to center his mind enough to pense the man’s intentions. He was only partially successful but, as the man’s eyes met his, he momentarily sensed fear and a wild desperation—yet it was not the senseless ragings that had reached him that day in the midheights when he had almost been waylaid by the Nekom. As his own fear subsided, he suddenly realized that the thin pale-eyed face was vaguely familiar.

“I have seen you before,” he said. “Somewhere—not long ago.”

The old man opened his mouth as if to speak, but his lips trembled violently and for a moment no sound emerged.

“Yes, Honored One,” he breathed finally in a voice so tremorous that Raamo had to lean forward in order to hear. “You saw me in the entryway of the Erdling nid-place—three days hence. I am Quon.”

“Greetings Quon,” Raamo said, offering his palms.

But the old man cringed away from him. “No, no,” he said. “I am undeserving. I wish only to speak to you. I have been following you for three days—trying to find you alone so that I could speak to you in secret. I must speak to you, D’ol Raamo.”

Raamo hesitated. “I am on my way to the Vine Palace. I must hurry.”

“I must speak to you. I must. You must tell me what I should do.”

“Would you come with me then? To the Vine Palace?”

Again the old man cringed away fearfully. “No, no. I can’t. There is one there who must not see me. I will wait for you here. I have a hiding place, there, just off the rampway. There among the grundleaves. Will you return, D’ol Raamo, as soon as possible?”

“I will,” Raamo promised. “Watch for me. I will return very soon.”

“Please. Please do, D’ol Raamo. It is of great importance. It concerns—” Quon paused, glancing around fearfully, and then continued in a quavering voice. “It concerns the tool-of-violence.”

Raamo halted, torn with indecision, but there was really no choice. “I must go on, now,” he said. “But I promise that I will return within the hour. Do you promise to wait for me?”

“I promise,” Quon said. “I will wait. You won’t tell anyone will you? You won’t tell anyone about seeing me?”

“I will tell no one,” Raamo said.

W
HEN RAAMO REACHED THE
Vine Palace, he found his parents together with Kanna and Herd Eld in the common room of D’ol Falla’s chambers. The moment Eudic ushered him into the room, grief and fear closed in around him like a dark shroud. D’ol Falla, seated in a high-backed tendril chair, looked as faded and fragile as a dried flower, and the others seemed also to be strangely changed, shriveled and closed by grief and mind-pain. D’ol Falla had been speaking, but as Raamo entered she turned to him, offering her palms.

“Greetings Raamo,” D’ol Falla said, but there was no Joy in the greeting. Eudic hovered, obviously concerned for D’ol Falla’s welfare. “You may go now, Eudic,” she said; and when he had disappeared, she turned to Raamo. “We have just been speaking of the disappearance of the tool-of-violence. Were Neric and Genaa able to convince the Council that there must be a meeting?”

“A meeting?” For a brief moment Raamo had almost forgotten. “Yes, yes. The meeting. They were successful. The meeting will begin soon, at the sixth hour. A messenger was sent to tell you. She will arrive soon. But there is something that I must speak of first.”

He paused. The messenger had, no doubt, stopped, too, to hear the announcement of the newsinger—and she would be arriving soon with more news than she had been told to bring. Yet it was he who must tell of the new disaster, and not she. Steeling himself to bear the sharing of pain, Raamo spoke as calmly as he could of Axon Befal’s message. He told of the demands made and the promises, but he did not repeat, in exact words, the direct threat against the children’s lives.

“Axon Befal said that the Nekom have taken Pomma and Teera and that they will be returned when his demands are met,” he said.

There was a long silence broken only by the aching sounds of Kanna’s sobs. It was Hearba who spoke first.

“I cannot believe they would harm them,” she said in a thin, childish voice. “The Erdlings joy in children as much, or more, than do the Kindar. I will not believe that they could harm them.”

Raamo took his mother’s hands. “You are right,” he said. “We must not believe all that Axon Befal has said. I do not believe him.”

“What is it that you don’t believe?” D’ol Falla asked, but Raamo did not answer immediately. At last he started and turned toward D’ol Falla. “I—I don’t know,” he said. “But I know that we must not believe him.”

“Did Axon Befal make any mention of the tool-of-violence in his message?” Herd Eld asked.

“No,” Raamo said. “He said nothing about it. Nothing at all.” The mention of the weapon caused Raamo’s mind to return to the old man Quon, but at that moment an interruption occurred. Eudic appeared again in the doorway, and with him the messenger who had been sent to announce the meeting of the Joined Council. She was pale and shaken.

“I have told them,” Raamo said quickly. “I have already told them about the message from Axon Befal.”

Clearly relieved that she did not have to be the bearer of such news, the young woman gave D’ol Falla a scroll on which was written the announcement of the meeting of the Council, and then departed. When she was gone, D’ol Falla spoke to Herd Eld.

“It is obvious that Kanna cannot be expected to attend the meeting, and I think it would be best if you stayed here with her. And since I have already told you what I have to impart to the Council, there is no need for you to be present. Raamo, will you go to the meeting or stay here with your parents?”

“I will come to the Council,” Raamo said, “but not at once. Will it be all right if I arrive later? Will you tell the members that I will be there very soon?”

D’ol Falla looked at him searchingly for a moment, but she did not question him. It seemed to Raamo that she knew, perhaps pensed, something of his purpose.

“Yes,” she said. “I will tell the Council. Will you call Eudic back? I will ask him to escort me to the assembly hall.”

A few minutes later Raamo was again on the rampway between Stargrund and the Temple Grove. He walked slowly waiting for Quon to show himself, and was perhaps halfway down when he pensed, and then heard, a summons. Climbing over the tendril network that bordered the rampway, he scrambled through grundtwigs toward a thick clump of leaf and Vine. A moment later he was again face-to-face with the old man, Quon.

The telling did not go swiftly. Having determined to tell his story to the Spirit-gifted young Ol-zhaan, Quon was equally determined that it should be told well, with no detail forgotten that might help to explain his behavior.

“I have always been a good and loyal Kindar, Honored One,” he began. “I am a craftsman, a humble worker in wood and tendril. Almost a year ago, on the day that is now called the Rejoyning, I had been assigned to work on the rebuilding of a broken tendril screen in the palace of the novice-master, D’ol Regle. There, I had come to know well a Kindar serving man called Tam D’ald. On that day, while I was working, Tarn came to me suddenly, greatly excited, and said that I was to receive a great honor. I had been among those chosen to accompany the novice-master into the forest on a mission of great importance. I was told to wait in a storage room—other Kindar serving people arrived, four in all—and then the two Ol-zhaan, D’ol Regle and a young novice, D’ol Salaat. We, all the Kindar, that is, were given many portage baskets to carry, and we began a long journey into the depths of the forest. When the journey was over, we had come to Wissen-wald.”