Until the Celebration (19 page)

Then came Kanna and Herd Eld, pale and silent in their grief for their lost child, and the Council was complete. When all were seated at their places around the table, Hiro greeted them, forcing his lips to smile, although Raamo at least, and perhaps others, would know that his smile was without substance.

“My greetings, Councilors,” Hiro had said, and suddenly he ceased speaking, his attention diverted by a lone figure that was slowly approaching the council table. Moving hesitantly and uncertainly down the long aisle, the woman stopped once and half turned, as if almost deciding to retreat back the way she had come. She came on again slowly, then, her head bent low over what seemed to be a grundleaf bundle that she carried clutched against her chest. Her thick graying hair hung in long uncombed strands, and her shuba was torn and stained. She had almost reached the table when someone whispered, “Maala. Maala D’ach.”

Her head flew up, and Hiro could see that it was, indeed, Maala D’ach, the woman who had served at the Vine Palace, while secretly following the orders of Regle, until she, too, had vanished.

“Yes, it is I, Maala D’ach,” the woman said. “I have decided to come back and tell you what I have done.”

As she spoke, the woman’s head sank lower, her eyes darting fearfully away from the staring eyes of the Councilors. Her voice faltered, and she swayed on her feet as if about to fall.

“Be seated,” Hiro said. “You seem to be ill or very tired.”

A Councilor sprang to his feet and brought forward a chair, but Maala shook her head fiercely. “No,” she said. “I will stand. I will stand until I have finished with what I have to tell.” For a few moments she stood breathing deeply as if gathering her strength and courage, and then she began to speak.

“I am Maala D’ach,” she said again, her voice becoming stiff and monotonous as if she had determined what she would say at an earlier time and was now quoting from memory. “I served D’ol Falla at the Vine Palace. But when the Rejoyning came, and all the changes, I was fearful and often wished for things to be as they had been before. Then one day an old friend approached me, a man who had long served in the palace of the novice-master, D’ol Regle. This man, who is called Wuul, told me that D’ol Regle had started a new city in the forest, where there were no Erdlings and everything was just as it had been in the old days. My friend asked if I would like to go there, and I said that I didn’t know. I feared the Rejoyning, but I feared D’ol Regle also, because he had stolen the children and threatened their lives with a tool-of-violence. The children had come to live in the Vine Palace, and I knew and loved them, as did all who knew them. But Wuul told me that it was not true that D’ol Regle had threatened the children. He said that it was a lie told by the Rejoyners to hide their own evil intentions. So I believed Wuul, and I said that I would like to go to live in D’ol Regle’s city.

“Then, one day, I was taken by Wuul to a secret meeting place in the forest where I spoke with an Ol-zhaan. Not D’ol Regle, but a young Ol-zhaan called D’ol Salaat. And D’ol Salaat told me about the city of Wissen-wald, how beautiful it was and how safe, and how I would soon be allowed to go there to live. But not at once. He said that I could not go at once because first there was a task that I must perform.”

Maala’s head dropped lower, and her voice faltered and died away. When she began to speak again, it was so faint that some of the Councilors who were farthest away had to move closer in order to hear.

“I did not want to do the task,” she said. “But D’ol Salaat assured me that the evil things said of D’ol Regle were not true, and that it was D’ol Falla who planned to use the tool-of-violence against the Kindar unless they would become as Erdlings—fire worshippers and eaters of flesh. And so I believed D’ol Salaat, and I began to search through the entire palace. I even stole the key from D’ol Falla while she slept and searched through the room called the Forgotten, but it was not there. Then, one night while D’ol Falla was at the evening food-taking, I searched again in her nid-chamber and I found it in a secret place beneath a cage of joysingers.

“I would have taken it that night to D’ol Regle, but I had not yet been to Wissen-wald and I did not know the way. So I hid it, to wait for the time when I was next to meet with D’ol Salaat in the secret meeting place. But then, before the time came for the meeting, the children were taken from the palace and I heard D’ol Falla weeping.”

Maala paused again, and when she continued her voice was choked and thick. “I loved the children. All who served in the palace loved them. And when they were gone and I saw that D’ol Falla wept, I feared that D’ol Salaat had lied to me and it was true that it was D’ol Regle who had threatened the children. And I thought that perhaps he had stolen them again, that he might try again to harm them. So I wanted to return the terrible thing that I had taken—but then, I was not sure. I was not sure who had been lying and what would be done to me if it was known that I was the one who had taken it.

“Late at night, I decided to return it, and I took the thing from its hiding place and ran to D’ol Falla’s chamber, but when I got there she was not alone. I could hear voices through the doorhangings, and they were speaking of the tool-of-violence and how it had been taken. Suddenly I was terribly afraid, and I ran back to my own chamber and gathered a few things together, and then I ran away into the open forest. I have been alone in the forest ever since.”

“In the open forest?” Hiro asked. “How is it that you were not found by the searchers?”

“I ran before them,” Maala said. “It is possible to stay ahead of the searchers if you stay constantly alert. You wait and listen and when you hear them coming, you run before them.”

“But what did you do with the tool-of-violence while you were hiding in the forest?”

“I will tell you. I have come to tell you. But first I must tell you why. You see, I didn’t know until two days ago about the Nekom leader—that he had sent a messenger to say that he had taken the children. I had spoken to no one, and so I didn’t know. But then two days ago I met someone. I found myself suddenly face-to-face with one who had been traveling as fast and quietly as I, so that I had no time to hear his approach and flee. And the man was Wuul, the same friend who had asked me to serve D’ol Regle. And so I spoke with Wuul, and I learned many things.

“I learned that Wuul had gone to live in Wissen-wald many weeks before, but that now he had ceased to serve D’ol Regle and was on his way back to Orbora. He said that D’ol Regle had become a Berry-dreamer—that he had become addicted to the pavo-berry and had become ill and demented—and that all his followers had left him. It had happened, Wuul said, when D’ol Regle’s informers brought word that the Nekom had taken the children and that the tool-of-violence, also, was missing. D’ol Regle was certain that Axon Befal had the tool-of-violence, and the thought was more than he could bear. For days he ranted and trembled, and then he began to eat pavo-berries. He refused to see anyone except D’ol Salaat and one or two of his old serving men. So one by one everyone left Wissen-wald. Most of them went to Paz or Farvald, where they would not be known, but Wuul, himself had decided to return to Orbora.

“When Wuul had gone, I could not decide what to do. I wanted most of all to help the children—to help to save them from the Nekom. At times I was sorry that I had not taken the tool-of-violence to D’ol Regle, and that I had unjustly suspected him of taking the children. But now it was too late, since according to Wuul, he was demented and addicted to the berry of death. So, at last I began to see that I must come here. I began to see that, whatever happened to me, I had to return to Orbora so that the tool-of-violence could be used against the Nekom to make them return the children.”

As she spoke, Maala D’ach placed the grundleaf bundle that she had been carrying on the table-board and began to untie its bindings. As the bindings fell away, one by one, the shaking hands of the woman folded back the layers of leaf, and the Councilors leaned forward, staring. The silence deepened until the surrounding air seemed drained, even of heartbeat and breath-flow.

Except for the seven who had stood before that blunt snout on the day of the Rejoyning, no one in the hall had ever seen the ancient weapon before or anything even remotely like it. All around the table the Councilors stared in horrified fascination at the incredible artifact—a tool devised and designed, shaped and charged, for the sole purpose of destroying human lives. The thought, like the strange shape before them, was utterly obscene.

“Look! Look to Maala!” It was D’ol Falla who spoke, rousing the Councilors from their horror; and those nearest the serving woman turned to see her reeling backwards, her hands pressed against her mouth, her face as white as tendril.

A chair was hastily placed, and supporting hands guided the half-fainting woman into it. Her hands and feet were massaged, and after a few minutes she seemed somewhat recovered.

“What is it, Maala?” D’ol Falla asked. “Are you ill? Have you gone without eating?”

“I—I—have eaten little,” Maala said. “But it is not that. It is that—the tool. I have carried it bound to my back since I ran away into the forest. I was afraid to leave it anywhere, for fear it would be found. So I bound it to my back. It has been there night and day like a curse. I could feel it constantly, through the pack and grundleaves—cold and heavy and evil. I can still feel it there—like a wound.”

Someone brought a goblet of honeyed water, and Maala drank; and after a time she seemed calmer and not quite as pale. Genaa had come to sit beside her, putting her arm around the woman’s trembling shoulders.

“Councilors.” It was Raamo who was speaking, and the Councilors turned to look at him in some surprise. The boy seldom spoke in Council unless he was questioned, and never without recognition by the Chief Mediator. But now he had sprung to his feet, and his voice trembled with intensity.

“I have thought about this thing—this tool-of-violence—for many, many days. I have thought about what could be done if it should be found. I know that it is impossible to take away its power, but it seemed to me that there must be a way to rid ourselves of it—to free Green-sky from its power.

“And a thought came to me, a thing that could be done. I have heard that, in Erda, there is a distant cavern that ends in a deep crevice, and far below the crevice there is a lake. A lake so deep that there is no way to measure its depth. It is called the Bottomless Lake, and nothing that falls into it will ever be recovered.” Turning to the Erdling Councilors, Raamo asked, “Is it true that such a place exists?”

“It is true,” Kir Oblan said. “Many generations ago a workman fell into the lake, and it was probed and sounded for many days in an effort to recover his body. But neither the body nor the bottom of the lake was ever found. Since that time a metal barricade has been erected to prevent others from falling.”

“But the barricade could be removed?”

“Yes, it is possible.”

“Then—”

But Neric was on his feet. “Raamo,” he said, “I can see the wisdom of what you are suggesting, and I fully agree with you. I can think of no better answer—no better final resting place for this thing, which has already caused so much evil. But it does seem to me that we would be foolish to be too hasty. It seems to me that we would be foolish to destroy the weapon while Axon Befal and his followers are still unaccounted for and still equipped with tools-of-violence of their own making. Do you agree with me, fellow Councilors?”

Around the table-board, most of the Councilors seemed uncertain, their eyes moving nervously from Raamo to Neric and back to the thing that lay gleaming in its nest of withered grundleaves. At last someone spoke.

“I agree with Neric,” an Erdling Councilor said. “Now that this great power has fallen into our hands, why should we give it up until we have found Axon and removed the threat under which we have been living?”

“Until we have removed the threat?” Raamo asked. “Do you mean that you would use the tool-of-violence?”

“No, no, of course not,” the man said. “I would not use it. But it seems to me that its existence might be enough to prevent the Nekom from using their sharpened staves and levers.”

“The Councilor speaks wisely, Raamo,” Neric said. “And don’t forget, Axon may still be holding the children prisoner, even though the time has passed for their ransom. If the children are still alive, it seems to me that Axon would be much less inclined to harm them if he knew we had the tool-of-violence.”

Eyes turned to look with sympathy at Kanna and Herd and then back at Raamo and again to Neric. Neric was standing tensely erect, his eyes gleaming with the strength of his conviction, while Raamo only stared at Neric dazedly, as if confused or bewildered.

“Speak, Raamo. Make them understand,” D’ol Falla was thinking when the boy turned suddenly and looked directly into her eyes, and she found that she was pensing his answering thought.

“It is no use,” he told her silently. “It has won. They will not deny its right to be. And it will always win until it is denied.”

Torn between a wild rush of Joy that the Spirit-gift had returned to her after so many years, and the bitter despair of Raamo’s message, D’ol Falla sat as if stunned, immersed in inner turmoil; but all around her the Councilors were beginning to nod and gesture towards Neric to signal their approval.

Kir Oblan was the first to be recognized. “I find myself agreeing with Neric,” he said. “It will be time enough to rid ourselves of the tool-of-violence when—”

But Kir’s speech was interrupted by a sound so strange that all other thought was wiped from the minds of those who heard it. As one, they turned in its direction.

The sound, halfway between a scream and a strangled sob, had come from Genaa, who was still supporting the sagging figure of the serving woman. Genaa was standing now, her face bleached and contorted. Gently lifting Maala from her chair, she turned her around so that her back was towards the council-table. In the center of the serving woman’s back, something darkly wet was oozing through the silk of her shuba.