And All Between (16 page)

Again and again as she felt her way through the darkness, Genaa found herself racked and tortured by terrible imaginings. As the dark hours passed, her fear and dread grew stronger and stronger until it became a silent scream. At last it became unbearable and stopping suddenly, she reached out for Neric and pulled him to a stop.

“What is it?” he asked. “Did you hear something?”

“No.” Genaa gasped. “At least not with my ears. But it’s almost as if I am hearing. It’s almost as if I am pensing the fear of the others. The others who groped their way down these same tunnels.”

“I know,” Neric said. “I too have felt it.” Strangely comforted, Genaa suddenly began to shiver. It was as if she had been, until that moment, too immobilized with fear, too lost in dread, for even that small release of tension. Grasping Neric’s hands, she could feel that they, too, were trembling.

“There is no reason for such fear, I know,” Genaa said. “Not for us. We could be afraid of going in circles, of not reaching the inhabited areas where we might be found by the Erdlings, but that is all. The terror that has been tormenting me is not for that. It is their fear—the Verban’s. It is as if they left it behind them in these tunnels, in the rocks and earth and the cold thick air—as if it is still here, so strong and real that we cannot help feeling it.”

“Yes,” Neric said. “Perhaps it is so. It is like that, like the fear of the Pash-shan—the terrible unknown.”

Genaa moaned softly.

“But think,” Neric said. “Only think what will be done if our mission is successful. There will be no more terrible unknown, no more Pash-shan to haunt the dreams of the Kindar.”

“And no more Verban, lost, blind and alone, in the lair of monsters.”

When they again moved forward, Genaa found that her fear had become, not less, but more bearable. Shuffling, groping and stumbling, they went on and on for many hours until, at last, weak and exhausted, they stopped again to rest. Leaning against a thick, gnarled protrusion of grundroot, they ate a few mouthfuls of Genaa’s pan-fruit and then tried to sleep. But they soon found that in spite of their exhaustion, sleep did not come quickly. It seemed to Genaa that to sleep on the cold, hard earth would be almost impossible for anyone whose body was accustomed to the soft swaying comfort of a nid. A nid—even the thought was somehow soothing. She let her mind drift with the thought, rocking, swaying into forgetfulness, and then suddenly she found herself shaken out of a deep sleep by a short strangled cry.

For a moment it seemed to Genaa that it was she, herself, who had screamed—as if the fear that had tortured her since she entered the tunnels had burst forth from her throat at last. But as full consciousness returned, she became aware that her eyes, which had for so long been blind and useless in the darkness, were no longer so. Wide open and staring, her eyes were registering light and motion. Somewhere in the darkness before her, two small lights bobbed and weaved unevenly, and in their small radius there was rapid movement, flickering and indistinct. The lights grew smaller, the movement more uncertain, and then quite suddenly they disappeared, and once again there was nothing but total darkness.

“Did you see them?” Neric’s voice whispered urgently.

“Them?” Genaa said. “I saw something. I was asleep, then something woke me, a cry, I think, and I saw something—two lights in the distance. What was it?”

“I’m not certain. I saw little more than you did. But I think it might have been people. People carrying lanterns and running. Running away from us.”

“Away from us?” Genaa said, and then she understood. “It is our seals and shubas,” she said. “They fear us as Ol-zhaan. Why didn’t we think of it? We should have found Kindar shubas to wear before we entered the tunnels.”

“Yes,” Neric said, “it occurred to me, but not until we were many hours in the tunnels.”

Genaa bit her lip in frustration. How could she have been so stupid. It was as if her ability to plan and reason had deserted her, now that it really mattered.

“If we had only thought to wear Kindar shubas, we would at this moment be on our way to Erda,” she said. “Those Erdlings who are probably still running in terror would be guiding us, and welcoming us as newly banished Verban.”

“I know,” Neric said. “I know.”

“What shall we do?”

“We could remove our shubas,” Neric said reluctantly. The thought was troublesome and uncomfortable. Uncomfortable because of the deep pervading chill of the tunnels, and troublesome for less rational reasons. Careful training made all Kindar children fearful of venturing beyond the walls of their nid-places without the garment that protected them from the one great danger—the fall to the forest floor.

Genaa shuddered and then shook her head, realizing the instinctive and unreasoned nature of her reaction. “It’s a strange place to fear falling,” she said.

“Yes, but not a strange place to fear the cold,” Neric said. “I am already as cold and stiff as a dead sima. Without my shuba I—”

But Genaa interrupted. “There is no need,” she said. “It would be useless. The Erdlings who have seen us will soon alert all Erda to our presence, and the fact that we are Ol-zhaan. It is unlikely that they will cease to fear us because we have removed our seals and shubas. Since we have already been seen, we might just as well continue as we are. We can only hope that we will be awake when we next meet Erdlings so we can try to convince them that we mean no harm. I almost wish, now, that we had not told the Erdling, Tocar, to be silent concerning his meeting with us. He could have spread the word that there are some Ol-zhaan who are not enemies of Erda.”

“True,” Neric said. “But since we did not, we can only hope that we can induce the next Erdlings we meet to listen to us instead of running. It has occurred to me, however, that the next Erdlings we meet may be looking for us and have no intentions of running away.”

“What do you think their intentions would be then? To accept us as Verban—or something other?”

“I don’t know,” Neric said. “I don’t know. Except that to an Erdling, an Ol-zhaan is not a human. To them we are the curse that has imprisoned them. We are darkness and hunger and the cold barrier of the Root. They fear us because they believe we have great powers, but they have metal and fire, and the truth about the past. I do not think that they will run for long.”

“Yes,” Genaa said. “But if we can get them to listen, to talk to us—”

“We can try,” Neric said.

Once more they began to move forward. But now they stopped more and more often to listen, straining their ears to catch even the faintest and most distant sound. But except for the occasional trickle of a spring, the silence all around them was as deep and complete as the darkness. And still the dark corridors stretched on endlessly. But they seemed larger and wider, and now and then smaller passageways branched off, leading steeply upwards. At the beginning of one of these small tunnels Neric noticed a slight difference in the quality of the air. The darkness was still complete, but he seemed to feel a faint breath of warmth and motion against his upturned face. Pulling Genaa after him, he scrambled up the steeply inclined passageway and, in only a few minutes, the blackness around them began to fade to gray; and a moment later, there appeared above them a bright rectangle of light. When the tunnel ended, they were standing below the opening of a ventilation tunnel, and directly above their heads was the grillwork of Root.

Here the Root grew in a tangled network, closely spaced. The openings were long and narrow, much too narrow to permit the passage of a human head. But standing with his face near the Root, Neric could see the light and feel the warmth and smell the living, breathing odors of the forest. Careless of the stinging cold of the Root, he thrust his arms out into the sweet forest air.

Beside him, Genaa, too, longed to breathe the free air, and comfort her skin with light and warmth. It was a fierce angry longing, full of bitterness and loss. Just as she had been overwhelmed by a fear that seemed to come from the terrors of others, she now felt herself to be suffocating—engulfed in a desperate longing, too old and deep to be only her own. Pushing Neric aside, she thrust her arms up into the free air, straining upward, her fingers spread wide as if to grasp and hold the light and warmth of the open forest.

“Come,” Neric said at last. “We must go on.” He turned to go, and Genaa followed. As they made their way down the steep incline, they moved slowly, stopping often to look back towards the fading light.

Not long afterwards, moving again through a large, slightly sloping tunnel, Neric struck his foot against something hard and cold and, kneeling, he discovered a length of metal rail. Excitedly, they crept forward following the rail with their hands until it came to an end, seemingly buried in the loose debris of the tunnel floor. But a short way further on, they again encountered a length of rail not yet fully covered by earth and rockfall.

“Teera spoke of the rail systems that carry the products of the mines to the factories near the city,” Neric said. “We must be getting very near to Erda.”

“Perhaps. But these rails have plainly been unused for many years,” Genaa said. “Who knows how far they extend. Teera said the deserted mine tunnels extend for many, many miles in all directions.”

“True. But if we follow these rails we will, at least, be moving in the direction of the city.”

They went on for some time, following the rail line. Ventilation tunnels became more frequent, some of them mere shafts that led almost straight up from the tunnel roof, allowing faint rays of light to penetrate to the railbed. Others, wider and more gently pitched, led up to small chambers, directly below the grillwork of Root. Most of these Genaa insisted on exploring.

“Why?” Neric asked. “We have no time to spare, nor energy. We must move on toward Erda.”

“But Teera said that such places were often used by the Erdlings to set traps for lapan and other forest creatures, and as lookout posts, to watch for fallen Kindar infants. We might find an Erdling lookout posted at the end of one of these ventilation tunnels.” She spoke firmly and with assurance, although she knew that it was her own consuming need to see the light and breathe the sweet warm forest air, more than any real hope of finding an Erdling sentry, that drew her tired body up the narrow passageways.

Gradually, as the long hours passed, their progress became slower and slower. The lack of food and rest began to take its toll. Not only their energy, but also their supplies of fern fronds were near an end. For some time now, they had been leaving smaller and smaller pieces of fern to mark the pathway, but even so Genaa’s bundle was entirely gone, and Neric’s contained only a few more long strands.

Neric’s muscles had begun to quiver constantly, and his whole body ached and pained. Beside him, he could feel Genaa stumbling and slipping with almost every step. He had almost decided to suggest that they stop again to try to sleep when suddenly he realized that the darkness around him had given way to dim gray light. Rousing himself from a stupor of exhaustion, he looked around. The light was faint and uncertain but strong enough to reveal that the close surrounding walls of the tunnel seemed to have dissolved in space, and above and before him lay great, dimly lit distances. As they moved forward into what seemed to be an immense cavern, it became apparent that lanterns had been attached to the cavern wall, from which light flared and leaped in a manner quite unlike the cool steady glow of a honey lamp.

After the close confinement of the tunnels, the cavern seemed enormous. In the dim light it seemed to be peopled by strange and fearful shapes. A long breathless moment passed before it became apparent that the formations that hung down from the cavern ceiling, or reared upward from its floor, were not living things, but only masses of some hard whitish substance. Here and there, where rays of light struck their surfaces, they glittered with small points of reflected light. Farther away near the other end of the cavern, there seemed to be three small pools of darkly shining water.

Their exhaustion forgotten for the moment, Neric and Genaa moved slowly forward towards the center of the cavern, entranced by the weird beauty that surrounded them on all sides. They touched the smooth hard surfaces of the tapering pillars, and gazed upward in awe at the domed ceiling with its elaborate array of hanging formations.

They had almost reached the center of the vast chamber when suddenly they stopped, clutching each other in panic. Someone had shouted. The cry, short and sharp and very near, struck them like a blow, and then was gone—only to return in a hundred chattering echoes. A moment later the cavern was alive with motion as human figures emerged from behind every pillar and boulder and moved swiftly towards them.

They seemed to be everywhere—dozens of swarthy men and women, dressed in tight-fitting fur tunics. And in their hands, thrust forward before them, or brandished threateningly over their heads, were strange shiny objects—lengths of metal, thick and heavy and blunt-ended, or long and slender and sharply edged and tipped.

T
HAT DAY, THE SECOND
day of the seventh moon, had been a time of strange and unprecedented happenings. Early in the morning there had been the departure of two Ol-zhaan on a journey that would take them below the Root, toward midday two children had been abducted from their nid-place, and in the early afternoon a threat had been made—a threat of violence. In the early evening the soft, flower-sweet breeze that breathed constantly through the forest heights died away to nothing, and a strange unaccustomed hush fell over Orbora. A misty haze rose up from fern-choked depths, and the last rays of the sinking sun faded into long pallid fingers of ghostly light. In the last hour of sunlight, Raamo left the palace of D’ol Falla and made his way across the central platform of Temple Grove, through a world turned alien and unfamiliar. He was on his way to the palace of the novice-master.

Raamo had no wish to see D’ol Regle or to speak to him. The thought of looking into his eyes was painful almost beyond enduring. But D’ol Falla was weak and ill, and there was no one else to carry the message. Waiting for admittance at the entry way to the palace of the novice-master, Raamo’s mind was in such turmoil that he was not sure he would remember all that should be said—or, indeed, if he would be able to speak at all.