Until the Celebration (3 page)

Stepping back to a respectful distance, he gestured to Raamo. “And it was the Spirit-gifts of the novice Ol-zhaan, D’ol Raamo, that helped to verify D’ol Neric’s suspicions.”

There was pride in Hiro’s voice as he finally gestured towards his beautiful daughter. “And it was my daughter, Genaa—D’ol Genaa—who joined them when she learned that my disappearance had been the work, not of the Pash-shan, but of the Geets-kel.”

How much to tell the Kindar on that first day of truth had been carefully considered, and it had been decided that it would be best to say as little as possible about the role played by D’ol Regle—about his incredible threat, and how near he had come to making use of the tool-of-violence. There would be time enough later for the Kindar to learn of such great evil so narrowly escaped. So Hiro finished his story simply by saying that the three young Ol-zhaan had been joined by D’ol Falla, and together they had finally been able to convince the Ol-zhaan that the truth must be told, and thus they had all come today, to stand before the Kindar and share in the telling.

It seemed to Raamo that Hiro’s words were falling into a great emptiness. There was no response at all. The Kindar leaders sat before him, their eyes on his face, but there were no comments of understanding and approval, nor any of doubt and denial. There was only a distance that seemed to grow constantly greater and more dense.

D’ol Falla turned to Raamo, but he only shook his head, and she knew that he pensed nothing more than she—a kind of retreat, a pulling back and turning away that grew stronger and more desperate with every moment that passed.

Hiro was still speaking, telling the Kindar of the decision that had been made to form a council, a Joined Council, made up of leaders from the Erdling community as well as from the Kindar. This council would consider the problems involved in uniting the two societies, and the best possible solutions.

“All of you who were asked to be present today are leaders, men and women of high honor and proven ability,” Hiro told the silent Kindar. “And we will need your help in the days that lie ahead. Who among you will come forward now to serve on the Joined Council and lend your strength and wisdom to the building of a new Green-sky—a Green-sky of freedom and truth?”

There was movement then, among those who listened, as the Kindar let their eyes fall and turned their faces away from Hiro’s entreaty. Stepping to the edge of the platform, Hiro spoke directly to some who had been well known to him, a few of them even since his youth hall days.

“Guraa, Savaan, Ruulba,” he said, “will you not join us? Will you not offer your services to the Council and to all Green-sky? We will need such talents as yours desperately in the days ahead.”

There followed a long and painful waiting, and at last D’ol Falla came to stand beside Hiro and speak again to the assembly.

“Honored leaders and scholars,” she said. “Perhaps we ask too much, too suddenly. It is understandable that there must be time to consider so great a commitment. But in the meantime there is another matter—a smaller commitment, but one that must be undertaken without delay. I am speaking of providing food for the Erdlings. We will need help from those of you who are experienced in organizing and directing projects that require the efforts of large numbers of Kindar. We will need guild-masters and grund-leaders, who can provide teams of workers to carry large quantities of food from the public warehouses down to the forest floor where they can be transferred to the tunnel openings that lie near the underground city of Erda.”

The result of D’ol Falla’s request was near panic. It had seemed to her that the Kindar’s obvious reluctance to assume the awful responsibility of leadership at a time of such crisis might be lessened if the task to be accomplished was simpler and more limited. But she had not taken into account the great power of old fears—of fears implanted in infancy and carefully nurtured. The faces that turned upwards towards D’ol Falla as she spoke were stiff with shock, and everywhere eyes gleamed with unreasoned fear.

D’ol Falla knew what she had done even before Raamo stood beside her and whispered in her ear. “They are frightened, D’ol Falla,” he said. ‘They fear the forest floor, and the dark tunnels and those who dwell below the Root.”

“They don’t believe what we have told them?” D’ol Falla asked.

“I think they believe,” Raamo said. “They think ‘Erdling,’ but they still feel ‘Pash-shan.’ ”

An old woman, a guild-master, struggled to her feet and rushed blindly out of the assembly hall, and others began to stir furtively, as if gathering themselves for a quick retreat. It was only too clear that something had to be done and quickly. It was D’ol Falla who made the decision.

“Wait,” she cried. “Stop and listen. There is more. You have heard many strange and terrible things, and you are fearful and confused. But there is more, and if you will listen, you will be greatly comforted.”

So, on impulse and in desperation, D’ol Falla changed the decision to say nothing, on that first day, of the children and D’ol Regle. Turning to the others on the high stage, she said urgently, “I am afraid that all is lost, unless—the miracle—uniforce ...?” and the others nodded in agreement, except for Raamo, who held out his hands to D’ol Falla and cried, “Wait, wait!”

But D’ol Falla did not hear him, or if she did, she felt she could not wait. So she turned back to the Kindar and began to tell them the story of the two children—who they were and how they had come to live and play together—and of how D’ol Regle, the novice-master, had stolen them to hold them hostage in order to force the rebels to give up their plans to take the truth to the people.

She told the story well, and it soon became apparent that the Kindar were listening. They continued to listen as she described the tool-of-violence, the ancient artifact brought to Green-sky from the ancestral planet, and the terrible use that D’ol Regle had threatened to make of it if his orders were not obeyed.

She told of her own plea to Raamo for a foretelling that would show them how to meet D’ol Regle’s threat, and how the prophecy had come to him in the form of a song—a song that they had all known as children. Then, as Raamo had sung the song, the bound and helpless children had stretched forth their hands and released a great power—a power that raised the ancient weapon from the table and sent it drifting lightly as a mist-borne petal, surrounding it with a flowing force, which seemed to blur and soften its deadly form and meaning.

Finally D’ol Falla spoke of faith—of the faith that had returned to the Geets-kel and caused them to forget their fears and to pledge themselves to the cause of the Rejoyning. And of Nesh-om’s faith, which had proclaimed the possibility of a world where no hand would be lifted except to offer Love and Joy.

The silence returned when D’ol Falla ceased to speak, but it was not the same silence as before. The fear was still there and the confusion, but now there was also an openness, a seeking. After a long time, someone spoke. A woman, an instructor at the academy, rose to her feet and asked to see the children, and immediately many others repeated her request.

“The children,” the Kindar were saying. “Show us the children.”

So Herd Eld left the hall and went hastily to fetch his daughter, Teera, and Pomma D’ok. While he was gone, those who remained behind in the assembly hall waited in a breathless hush, so delicately balanced on the edge of hysteria that no one on the platform dared to speak for fear the sound of his voice might be the trigger to chaos. But the stillness held and, at last, Herd returned with the children.

Raamo waited for their arrival in a state of great anxiety. He could not understand his apprehension. Clearly, the story of the children had brought about a good change in the people. But when, at last, the children arrived and were led out onto the stage, it seemed to him that his fears were justified, although he could not have said why.

As Herd Eld led them out onto the great platform, the children clung to his hands, their heads drooping. Raamo could see that Pomma’s blue-green eyes were wide with fear, and her fragile paleness made her seem almost a ghost child, formed of mist and shadow. Even Teera’s rich, warm beauty seemed dulled and faded, and she ducked her head so that her long dark hair shielded her face from the staring eyes of the Kindar leaders.

Slowly Herd led the children forward to the edge of the platform and, pushing them gently ahead of him, he stepped back, leaving them standing alone. For a moment they stood stiffly, their eyes downcast. Then Pomma’s hand groped for Teera’s, and suddenly they were clinging together, as children will, for strength and comfort.

And that was all. There was no return of uniforce. No miraculous reversal of the laws of nature. Nothing at all happened—except that suddenly everything had changed. The great warm wave that swept through the assembly hall carried fear and doubt before it and brought many of the Kindar leaders forward to pledge their support and to volunteer their services as members of the Joined Council. There were even two or three who, wild-eyed with terror at their own daring, offered to take part in the carrying of food to the forest floor.

For the moment Raamo, too, was caught up in that great warm wave, so that, for a time, he forgot the inner voice that warned him to protect Pomma and Teera from something that he did not understand.

W
HEN THE STORY OF
the children and the miraculous reappearance of uniforce had turned the Kindar leaders back from the edge of despair, it had seemed to the Rejoyners that a great danger had been safely passed. But they were soon to discover that the days that followed would bring one dangerous crisis after another in a seemingly endless procession. It was on the second day that the truth was taken to the Ol-zhaan, and another crisis arose—one of perhaps even greater peril.

This time the meeting was held in the Temple Hall in the grove of the Ol-zhaan. Messengers had been sent to the outlying cities, and all the Ol-zhaan in Green-sky were present—more than one hundred white-clad figures, men and women who varied greatly in age and appearance, but who were strangely alike in subtle ways that spoke of long familiarity with honor, privilege, and power. But by then, by that second morning, rumors had already started to fly, and this time the meeting began in an atmosphere that was heavy with apprehension.

Once again most of the speaking was done by Hiro and D’ol Falla, but since the true history of the ancestral planet was known to all Ol-zhaan, the telling began with the secrets of the Geets-kel—those that concerned the true nature of the Pash-shan, the meaning of the name Erdling, and the need to bring justice and freedom to those who bore that name.

Just as there had been with the Kindar, there was at the beginning a shocked disbelief, but the reaction that followed was not at all the same. Instead of fearful retreat, there was anger and a kind of bitter outrage. It was unthinkable to Ol-zhaan that they had been kept in ignorance, betrayed by their own kind—that a select few among their fellows had taken it on themselves to keep the truth from all the rest as if they were ignorant and untrustworthy children. There were many who spoke out in righteous anger, and a few who spoke not only of the pain of their betrayal, but of their horror at the greater betrayal—the generations of Kindar unjustly imprisoned.

The fear did not come until later when the first shock was over and the Ol-zhaan had turned their minds to solutions—and had begun to realize their own dilemma. If the Erdlings were freed, the Kindar would, of course, learn the truth—and not only the truth concerning the Pash-shan but other truths as well. They would learn the facts concerning their tragic heritage, and perhaps, most disillusioning of all, they would soon discover that for many generations the skills of the Spirit had been as rare among the Ol-zhaan as among the Kindar themselves. The Ol-zhaan saw that not only the deceits of the Geets-kel, but their own deceits as well, must be exposed. And it was then that D’ol Falla’s wisdom became apparent, when she had insisted that the truth be taken first to the Kindar, so that there could be no turning back.

It was D’ol Ruuro, an orchard protector, who spoke first of waiting. “I would not have it thought,” he told the assembly, “that I condone what these—these Geets-kel, as they call themselves—have done. Nor that I would not wish to undo the evil done to the exiles. But we must think of the welfare of the Kindar. We must think what it will do to our own Kindar to be stripped so suddenly of all that they revere and honor. Surely we must take great pains to move slowly and carefully. ...

Before D’ol Ruuro’s voice had died away, there were others who began to echo him, and many were eager to agree. But then D’ol Falla told them of what had already been done, of the assembling of the Kindar leaders on the day before.

The Ol-zhaan saw at once that there could be no turning back, and the great hall was swept with such fear and anger that Raamo closed his mind against the dark waves, which threatened to drown his reason. Still standing with the other Rejoyners before the altar, he retreated into himself, so that he did not realize at once that the story of the rebirth of uniforce was being used again to bring about acceptance and reconciliation. It was not until much later that he sensed a change and knew it resulted from a great surge of faith.

On the third day the newly appointed Kindar members of what would be the Joined Council met and many changes were begun. A series of public meetings were arranged to take the truth, little by little, to all the members of Kindar society. The first transport crew was formed to begin the distribution of food to the Erdlings. And a delegation was appointed to visit Erda and confer with the Erdling leaders.

Hiro D’anhk, along with the Erdling, Herd Eld, was chosen to lead the delegation to Erda. Hiro accepted the task with great reluctance. He had, after all, been reunited with his family for only a few days. But even more important, he saw the dangers threatening all the people of Green-sky, and the need for confident leadership. When so much had occurred in three short days, who could say what might take place in three more, and Hiro could not help feeling extremely anxious about leaving Orbora at such a time of crisis.