Until the Celebration (4 page)

However, the mission of the delegation to Erda was one of great delicacy and its outcome would be of fateful importance. Since he had lived in Erda and had already earned the respect and trust of the Erdlings, he was well suited to the task. Under his guidance the Kindar leaders would have to be led from the secret opening in the Root to the Center. The members of the Erdling Council would have to be contacted and a number of them chosen to serve on the Joined Council and persuaded to accompany the delegation on its return to Orbora. But most difficult and delicate of all, the Erdling Council would have to be persuaded that the secret of the opening in the Root would have to be kept a little longer—that the Erdling people should remain below the Root until the Joined Council could meet, and a safe and orderly process of resettlement could be worked out. So Hiro D’anhk returned to Erda, accompanied by Herd Eld and six Kindar Councilmen, while in the city of Orbora, great changes continued to take place with every day that passed.

It was Neric and Genaa who organized and led the first of the public meetings to which the common people of Orbora were summoned. On the first day of the meetings, the people listened in silence, their faces rigid with fear and denial, but during later assemblies the fear seemed to grow less. Many of the Kindar seemed to be responding to the shocking revelations with a calm acceptance. The young leaders were heartened until they realized what was happening—after the first day, the summoned Kindar were forewarned by rumor and they came prepared, fortified against terror by large quantities of the Sacred Berry.

Both Neric and Genaa were greatly disturbed. “Who knows,” Neric demanded, “what they understood of all that they were told. Who knows how much they ever heard. Words fall like birdsong on the ears of Berry-dreamers—a soothing sound but without meaning. I doubt if our assemblies have served any purpose at all.”

But Genaa was more hopeful. “I’m not sure,” she told Neric, “but I think that most of them have heard. Remember how they reacted to the story of the children.”

It was true, Neric conceded. No matter how terror-stricken or how far gone in Berry-dreaming, the story of the children seemed to bring hope and life to the faces of the Kindar.

“I for one,” he told Genaa, “can see nothing but good in the people’s faith in the children. I might almost be tempted to think that our saintly Raamo was human enough to be jealous, except that he is just as much opposed to our using the people’s faith in him, as seer and prophet.”

“I know,” Genaa said. “I can’t understand it. I have asked him many times to explain it to me, but he seems unable to give me a logical answer.”

Neric nodded. “Only yesterday I said to him, ‘It is the truth, Raamo. What we tell the people about the children is the truth. And are we not committed to the giving of truth?’ And he answered, ‘Yes, we must give them the truth, but not great truths. Great truths are dangerous gifts.’ ”

“What does that mean?” Genaa asked.

“I don’t know. When I asked him to explain, he only frowned thoughtfully and admitted that he didn’t know.” Frowning thoughtfully, Neric made his voice soft and slow and said, “ ‘I—I don’t know, I don’t know what it means—but I think it is true.’ ”

They laughed together, and Genaa said, “Dear Raamo. What is to be done with him?”

And so they continued to talk to the people about the children, and, in truth, they no longer had a choice in the matter. Rumor had already spread the story to every part of Green-sky, so that there were always those, in even the most silent group of Kindar, who asked to have it told. The telling was done either by Neric or Genaa, or even at times by D’ol Birta, who as an Ol-zhaan had been chief counselor to the Gardens of Orbora, and who was now an ardent supporter of the Rejoyning.

Whoever did the telling, the results were much the same. The Kindar listened eagerly to the story of the delicate, ailing Kindar child and how she began to share her life with the darkly beautiful daughter of Erdlings, of how together the two relearned the Spirit-skills of infancy and then, when great evil threatened, brought back to Green-sky the almost forgotten power of united Spirit-force. Each time, when the telling was over, where there had been fear and apathy, there was faith and hope.

While Neric and Genaa went daily to the Kindar assemblies, Raamo and D’ol Falla remained in the Temple Grove. It was their task to form the first transport crews that would carry food to the Erdling tunnels from the orchards and public warehouses. The decision to use Ol-zhaan volunteers to man the first food caravans had been partly politic and partly a matter of necessity. It was to be a gesture of humility and concern on the part of the Ol-zhaan that might begin to erase prejudices born of generations of fear and hatred. But still, it was also a necessity, because very few of the Kindar were as yet able to face a journey to the forbidden forest floor.

In other gatherings the Ol-zhaan met to discuss the changes that lay ahead: the role they would play in those changes, and the ways their own lives would be affected. Torn from positions of honor and power, they were soon to be reduced to common humanity—or perhaps much worse. They felt themselves to be victims: victims of the Geet-kel’s deceit, of the Kindar’s disenchantment, and, most frightening of all, of the Erdling’s pent-up hatred. There were some who saw flight as the only answer. Among those was D’ol Povaal, a high-ranked guild-priest.

“We will be forced to flee, in the end,” D’ol Povaal repeatedly told his fellow Ol-zhaan, “one by one, and in terror. Unless we follow the example of D’ol Regle and go quickly at a time of our own choosing. Let us go now, all of us together, into the open forest where, banded together we can establish a new city. A city of Ol-zhaan, separate and apart, and therefore free from the unjust persecution that will be our lot now in all the seven cities.”

There were some who agreed with the guild-priest, but many others who did not. Some disagreed for practical reasons. There were none among the Ol-zhaan who were practiced in the skills necessary to daily life. None who could weave shubas or carve furniture, prepare food or shape walls and roofs of frond and tendril. There were many who, from lack of practice, had even forgotten how to weave a nid.

Others resisted flight for reasons of conscience, whatever their personal fate might be. A few were too despairing to plan any action at all, and there were some who were fully committed to goals of the Rejoyning, and who wished to stay that they might serve those goals in whatever way possible. Calling themselves the Ny-zhaan, this latter group listened earnestly to the advice of D’ol Falla, regarded Raamo with reverent awe, and spoke constantly of the miracle of the sacred children. Within the space of ten days’ time, many of these Ny-zhaan had discarded their white shubas and, leaving the Temple Grove, had begun to move into the guild homes and youth halls of the city.

D’ol Falla heartily approved of the actions of the Ny-zhaan. It was right and fair, she said, that the Temple Grove should belong to all the Kindar—its temples open to all and its palaces transformed into youth halls or residences. But for the time, only one Kindar family came to live within the sacred grove, and they came for special and urgent reasons. They were Raamo’s family, Hearba and Valdo D’ok and his sister Pomma, who had found it impossible to stay in the D’ok nid-place. With them came the Erdling family of Teera Eld.

The two families had been sharing the D’ok nid-place, but as the story of the miraculous reappearance of uniforce spread over Green-sky, they found that they were living in a shrine, a place of pilgrimage. Daily the wide branchpath on each side of their nid-place was packed with people waiting to get a glimpse of the inhabitants, and in particular, of Teera and Pomma. With each day the wild enthusiasm of the crowd at the slightest glimpse of the children became more and more uncontrollable. All of the immense faith and trust, which had for so long been placed in the Ol-zhaan, seemed to have been turned towards the children. And the faith was made all the more intense by the frightening uncertainties of the future. The children were a symbol of hope and of Spirit-power. And the Kindar daily demonstrated their faith in the traditional ways—by the singing and shouting and ritual gesturing, which had, for generations, greeted the objects of their devotion.

At last, under cover of rain and darkness, the two families were smuggled out of the D’ok nid-place and taken to the Vine Palace; and there they remained.

W
HEN THE FIRST DELEGATION
returned to Orbora after four days below the Root, they brought with them four Erdling Councilors. Among them was the old man, Kir Oblan, who had long been a respected leader in Erda, and three others of similar ability and renown. They brought with them, also, a certain amount of optimism and enthusiasm. The Kindar delegates, who had started out upon their mission with grave doubts and fears, had been delighted, and greatly relieved, at the humanity of the Erdlings. They had found the Erdling Council to be friendly and cooperative.

An agreement had quickly been made. If the transfer of food supplies to Erda could begin quickly, the Erdling Councilors would agree to keep the secret of the opening in the Root until after the Joined Council had had time to make careful and thorough preparations for the reunion of the two societies. Yet only a few days after their return to Orbora, during the second meeting of the Joined Council, a breathless messenger appeared suddenly in the assembly hall and announced that large numbers of Erdlings had been seen above the Root—walking freely on the forest floor.

The Kindar egg-gatherer who first saw the Erdlings was too frightened to approach them, but if he had he would have noticed that one was a child of no more than nine years, a boy with wide-set gray eyes and broad sturdy shoulders. The boy was Charn Arnd, a cavern-kin and onetime playmate of Teera Eld. Except for Teera, herself, Charn had become the first Erdling child to stand above the Root.

Charn had been amazed and delighted and a little chagrined when he first learned the facts about Teera’s whereabouts.

“She did it,” he had told Raula Sarp, who with Charn had been a favorite playmate of Teera. “She was always saying she was going to live in the forest someday. And she really did it. She went up there and turned into a Kindar. I still don’t believe it.”

Quite suddenly, there had come to be a large number of things in Charn’s world that were very hard to believe. When Teera had disappeared, he had grieved for her truly and deeply for many days. But then, just as he was beginning to forget his grief, he was told that Teera was alive. The fact that Teera was alive, however, was a secret he must not tell, and where she was and why, was a secret that he could not yet be told. Charn was not fond of secrets of either kind.

From that time on, unbelievable things began to happen, one after another, and it became obvious to Charn that people he knew well, members of his clan, were very much involved in these strange new things that were happening in Erda. And it was also very obvious to him that it was quite unfair that he, himself, was so little involved, with nothing more to do than to wait.

Therefore, when the Kindar visitors left the Center, Charn followed along, with hundreds of other curious Erdlings. He followed the procession to a large outlying cavern where, after the Kindar and Erdling Councilors and their escorts had entered a tunnel, guards had been posted and no one was allowed to go farther. But Charn did not give up easily.

As the crowd gradually thinned, Charn worked his way over to the tunnel entrance. There he sat down against a rock formation to rest, and after a while he heard one of the guards talking to a small group of people. The guard was saying that he had overheard the Kindar speaking of a passageway through the Root, and that he was going to try to find it—the next time he was on duty, in two days’ time.

So Charn had come back two days later, to find that the guard had told his secret to quite a few more people. So many that when they all started out on their search, they scarcely seemed to notice or care that a small extra person had joined the party. Trailing behind the group for fear that he would be noticed and sent back, he had been in a state of near-exhaustion by the time the opening was finally found. And then he had come very close to being left behind in the tunnel. Lifting and boosting each other, most of the members of the party had scrambled out, completely ignoring Charn and his polite requests for assistance. Finally, when the last man was being lifted out, Charn stopped being polite and began to yell as if he were being killed. And then the guard had seen him. Kneeling at the edge of the hole, he peered down at Charn with frowning impatience.

“Should just leave you down there,” he muttered as he reached down for Charn’s hands. “No business being here at all. Don’t suppose you have a token or two about you?”

“No,” Charn sniffed as he scrambled to his feet on the forest floor. “I don’t have any tokens.”

The guard shrugged. “Thought not. The fee was ten tokens. That’s what all the others paid me. Sure you don’t have even one token?”

When Charn shook his head, the guard frowned so fiercely that for a moment Charn thought that he was about to be thrown back down the hole. But then the guard went off, still muttering, and Charn was left alone—above the Root.

It was green and high and bright. Later that was all he could think to say when Raula questioned him.

“Green and high and bright,” she shouted at him finally. “I know it’s green and high and bright. What else was it like. Tell me.”

There was more, of course, to tell. But Charn had been so dazzled—so excited and more than a little frightened—that it had all swirled together in his mind like a great, shining confusion. There was bigness; space that went up and up and up without end, enormous pillars that were the start of grundtrees, and shining, shimmering things of all colors that sprang up around him from the earth. He was just beginning to sort it all out in his mind when the brightness went away and darkness began. Darkness like an unlit tunnel, except that the darkness above the Root was wet and full of sound and movement.