And All Between (13 page)

And so she hesitated, waiting and hoping for some sign or portent, until that very night—and the sudden appearance of the officious D’ol Salaat. She had known then that she could delay no longer and, still tormented by uncertainty and fear, she had reached out desperately in mind-touch, summoning Raamo to come to her. And against all reason and logic, he had heard and come.

But she had still doubted—not D’ol Nesh-om’s vision of a humanity evolved beyond the possibility of violence—but her own, which had led her to the artless, clear-eyed boy who stood before her. So she had tested him—tempting him with a tool of violence—and he had passed the test. And then the others had come, Neric and Genaa, and fulfilled the rest of the vision, and she saw at last that the time had come. The time for an end, and a new beginning.

They had begun by making plans. The morning was advancing and there was great need for haste, but the plans had grown with painful slowness—constructed with difficulty out of widely differing attitudes and convictions. Trembling with eagerness, the intense young Neric had, at first, insisted that the proper course of action would be to go directly and immediately to the Kindar.

“We could go down to the large branchways of Orbora and gather groups of Kindar around us and tell them the truth. Tell them everything. About how their ancestors were brought to this planet to escape the violent destruction of their ancestral home, and how they have been protected from all knowledge of even the possibility of violence, and how the two great leaders, Wissen and Nesh-om, disagreed concerning their right to know the truth, and that that disagreement led to the imprisonment below the Root of all those who felt that, whatever the risk, the truth belonged to all the Kindar. And how the Pash-shan, whom they had been taught to fear, were not really monsters but only the descendents of those first few prisoners. And—”

“Wait, wait a moment, Neric,” Genaa said. “Stop and think. Do you really believe that the Kindar will be able to so quickly accept such shattering revelations? After generations of avoiding any thought or feeling that might lead to conflict or confusion, do you really think they can be asked to give up their faith in the Ol-zhaan as well as their fear of the Pash-shan, simply because we ask them to?”

“But if we had proof—?”

“What proof? What can we offer them as proof?”

“We have—D’ol Falla. With D’ol Falla one of us—”

“No,” D’ol Falla had interrupted. “I’m afraid my word will not be enough. Not if the others—the other Ol-zhaan, led by the Geets-kel—choose to deny what we have said. It would be easy for D’ol Regle to convince not only the Kindar but the Ol-zhaan as well that my mind has been weakened by the weight of years. I’ve heard, in fact, that he has already been hinting that such might be the case, whenever he has an audience that might be sympathetic to his cause.”

“His cause?” Neric asked.

“Yes,” D’ol Falla had said. “The great cause that would elevate the worthy D’ol Regle to his rightful position as high priest of the Vine, and bestow on the aged D’ol Falla the blessing of a long overdue rest from such great responsibility. It is easy to guess what he would do if I were to go to the Kindar with wild accusations. He would simply announce that old age had rendered me mentally incompetent, and that you three, being very young and overly impressed by my prestige and position, had allowed yourselves to be caught up in my delusions.”

“Yes,” Genaa said. “And when we disappeared, as my father did, the Kindar would simply eat a few more Berries and try not to consider the fate of Ol-zhaan who are flawed by age or youth, or other human failings.”

“But what would you have us do then?” Neric said impatiently. “Raamo, what would you suggest?”

“I think you are right in saying that there must be proof,” Raamo said. “We must have living proof—”

“My father,” Genaa cried suddenly. “If we could bring my father back from below the Root. He was well known in Orbora, and the Ol-zhaan pronounced him taken by the Pash-shan more than two years ago. Surely if he reappeared and told his story—”

“Yes,” D’ol Falla said excitedly. “I think you are right, Genaa. If it is living proof that is needed, I can think of none better than a living Hiro D’anhk.”

After only a moment’s hesitation, Neric, too, agreed. “Good,” he said. “Good. Will you go with us, D’ol Falla, to show us the way to the opening in the Root?” Even as he spoke, Neric was on his feet and turning towards the open door; but at D’ol Falla’s restraining gesture, he returned to his chair and addressed himself impatiently to the matter of plans and precautions.

It would be, they had decided, necessary to keep their conspiracy a secret for as long as possible. Therefore it was decided that only Neric and Genaa would be sent to bring Hiro D’anhk back from below the Root. To preserve the appearance of normalcy, D’ol Falla would remain in her palace, and Raamo would return to the Novice Hall. There he would go about his usual schedule of classes and lessons, and D’ol Falla would explain Genaa’s absence by reporting that she had been summoned to a special period of service in the Vine-priest’s palace. Since Neric was no longer a novice, and his comings and goings were less strictly scheduled, his absence would less likely be noted.

“Perhaps you should take Teera with you,” Raamo had said, but Neric quickly disagreed.

“No. We can go much more quickly without her. And besides, she would not know the way from the opening in the Root to the inhabited areas of Erda. It may well be a long and tiring and dangerous journey. There is no need to expose the child to such danger. If we are successful, she will soon enough be reunited with her parents.”

Thus it was agreed that Neric and Genaa should go alone on a journey that never willingly had been taken by any inhabitant of Green-sky since the days of D’ol Wissen and the spreading of the Root. Equipped only with a map that D’ol Falla hastily sketched for them on a small grundleaf, they left the palace of the high priest of the Vine just as the warm rays of the sun began to slant in across the glideways of Orbora.

Watching them go, D’ol Falla had suddenly been overwhelmed by the realization of what she had done. The die was cast, and there was no returning to the peaceful security of the past. What lay ahead was entirely unpredictable, but it was certain to be difficult and dangerous beyond imagining. Suddenly she felt very old and tired and very frightened.

“You are tired, D’ol Falla,” Raamo had said. He was staring at her with his strangely luminous eyes, and she knew that she had not been blocking and that he had been pensing her weakness and uncertainty. “Let me help you to your nid-chamber,” he had offered.

“No,” she had said. “I will rest here a moment first, near the window. I wish to speak to you a few moments longer, before you return to the Novice Hall.”

When she was seated, propped comfortably among many pillows, she had spoken to Raamo of her fears and uncertainty. “I am afraid,” she said, “of failing, and of what might be done by those who will oppose us. And I am, also, fearful of our success.”

“Then you are sorry for what we have done?” Raamo asked. “Do you think we decided wrongly?”

“No,” she said, without hesitation. “I am certain that our decision was right. I feel unsure of many things just now, but I am most certain that the gifts of the Spirit are stunted when knowledge is restricted in any way, and for any reason. D’ol Wissen was right when he said that innocence is a charm that protects against great evils, but what he did not see is that it is a charm whose enchantment is meant to last for a season only. To prolong its use when the season is finished is to transform its power into a force for evil—a great and deadly evil.”

As she spoke, Raamo had sunk slowly to the floor before the divan on which she rested. His eyes had never left her face, and she could feel the force of his Spirit reaching out, not only for her words, but for the deeper meanings that underlay them. When she ceased speaking, he remained as he was for a long time. At last he sighed, and spoke.

“Yes,” he said. “I see. I see that we had no choice but to try—to try to tell the Kindar the truth and free the Erdlings. But why do you say you fear our success?”

“Because I am old and tired; and no matter how great our success, it will not be accomplished without pain and turmoil. There is never great change and growth without pain, even when the change is good and necessary. But it is the pain that I fear—that and the Geets-kel.”

“But what can they do?” Raamo asked. “When the truth has been told, how can they take it away?”

“It is possible that they will learn too soon of our plans, before we can take the truth to the Kindar. There are those among the Geets-kel who would not hesitate to do terrible things to prevent the loss of their honor and power. And even if we are able to reach the Kindar with the truth, it is possible that the Geets-kel might be able to turn the Kindar against us, and against the Erdlings, by the use of methods such as were often used in the days before the Flight, on the ancestral planet. It was common then for leaders to emphasize differences and distances in order to make evil use of the natural instinct to fear the unknown.”

“Do you really think the Kindar could—could lift their hands against the Erdlings?”

D’ol Falla sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t know. It would not have been possible for the Kindar of the early days who were Spirit-blessed by the teachings of D’ol Nesh-om. But the Kindar of today have been corrupted by ignorance, and it is in ignorance that fear grows into hatred.”

There had followed a long silence as D’ol Falla sank into troubled reverie. At last, speaking almost to herself, she had said, “What can be done in the face of evil power?” Then, turning to the boy she had said, “Raamo, when I tested you last night in the Forgotten, by threatening your life with the tool of violence, I felt that in you D’ol Nesh-om’s dream was vindicated—that a time might come, indeed, when all humankind might be free forever from the instinct for violence. But I see now that we may be forced to face the ancient dilemma. What does one do, Raamo, when evil threatens not only your own life but the lives of others?”

“I don’t know,” Raamo said.

“There must be an answer,” D’ol Falla had said. “Long ago, in the days before the Flight, there were those who believed that all violence was evil, and who died quietly for their belief, but there was no answer in their dying. The answer must lie elsewhere. You must seek for the answer, Raamo.”

The boy had nodded earnestly. “I don’t know where to seek for it,” he had said. “But I think—it will be. The answer will be.” And then suddenly he had smiled delightedly, and in answer to D’ol Falla’s questioning look he had explained. “Like the song,” he said. “The nonsense song that children sing. It used to be my favorite,” and he had begun to sing, “Then will the answer be—then it will be.”

His voice was clear and pure and not yet deepened by manhood, and listening, D’ol Falla felt herself burdened by deep, unreasoned shadows, shadows darkened by foreboding, and also by pity. He is a child, she thought, only a child.

He had gone soon afterwards, and it was not until then that D’ol Falla had, at last, risen from the divan and made her way to her own chamber and the comfort of her nid. Midday had already been approaching, and in spite of her exhaustion she had not been able to fall asleep, or to keep her mind from racing restlessly through hopes and fears. But when sleep finally came, like a blessing, it did not last for long.

D’ol Falla had slept for, perhaps, almost an hour when she was aroused by one of the Kindar serving women.

“D’ol Falla,” the voice was saying as, with great difficulty, she struggled back to consciousness from the depths of exhausted slumber. “Forgive me, Honored One, but the novice-master D’ol Regle awaits you in the small reception hall. I told him that you were sleeping, but he would not wait. He insists that he must see you now, on a matter of great urgency.”

And so D’ol Falla rose from her nid and made her way to the reception hall where D’ol Regle waited to tell her that Pomma D’ok, the sister of D’ol Raamo, and the young Pash-shan known as Teera, had been taken prisoner by the Geets-kel.

“We have met,” D’ol Regle said. “The Geets-kel have met in council, and we have agreed that the lives of the two children will be forfeit if any attempt is made to free the Pash-shan or to corrupt the Kindar by burdening them with evil knowledge.”

And so it had come, the moment that she had so feared and for which she was so unprepared, the moment of evil choices when life or death hangs in the balance.

T
HE EARLY MORNING MOVEMENT
of Kindar from nid-place to place of service was at its highest when Neric and Genaa set forth from the palace of the high priest of the Vine. Before them the central platform of the Temple Grove was full of hurrying people, for the most part Kindar workers on their way to the temples or Ol-zhaan palaces. Pausing for a moment under the arched doorway of D’ol Falla’s palace, it occurred to Neric to wonder what they would think if they knew—if the passing Kindar knew that, here, before their very eyes a journey was beginning that had never been made before—a voluntary journey to the dark regions below the Root.

“What would they say if we told them?” he said softly to Genaa. “If we told them we were on our way to the tunnels of the Pash-shan, and that we would return with a Kindar who has been living among the Pash-shan?”

Genaa’s smile was quick and hard. “What would they say if we told them we were on our way to visit the land of the dead? They would find it no less unthinkable. In either case we would be judged mad, or Berry-sotted. Come, let us hurry. It is probably safer now when we can mingle with the Kindar.”

As they started across the bustling platform, they were careful to steer away from the occasional gleam of a white shuba. Thus they reached the outer gateway of the Temple Grove without a face-to-face encounter with any Ol-zhaan. They were then on the wide rampway that led down to the mid-heights of Stargrund. From there a long glide would take them through the center of Orbora to a landing on one of the great lower branchways of Skygrund, the most westerly of the giant grund trees that supported the city.