ON THE SAME EVENING, and during the time that Hiro and Raamo were speaking together in the small reception chamber, in another part of the Vine Palace, D’ol Falla had returned from having spent most of the day with the parents of the missing children. It had been a day full of mind-pain, and she was very tired. There had been no formal food-takings in the palace that day, and she had asked Eudic to bring a small tray of pan and fruit to her nid-chamber. Soon after she reached her chambers, Eudic appeared at the door.
Eudic was an old man, almost as old as D’ol Falla herself, and he had been assigned to service in the Vine Palace for a great many years. Long ago he had taken on himself the responsibility for making a great many decisions that concerned D’ol Falla’s welfare. There was, for instance, a great deal more food than she had requested on the tray that he was carrying.
“You have eaten almost nothing all day,” he scolded as he arranged the food carefully on a small tendril table. “I’ve brought a small dish of mushrooms in egg sauce, and a tiny bit of nut cake, too. I made it myself. That new pantry woman doesn’t chop the nuts fine enough. And I will be very unjoyful if you do not eat every bit of it. Here, I will put the table near the window so you can hear the rain as you eat. There is nothing like rain-song to sooth the mind-pain of—”
His back had been to D’ol Falla as he arranged and rearranged the table, but now he turned, and she saw that there were tears in his eyes and on his wrinkled cheeks.
“The children?” he asked. “Has there been any word?”
Unable to speak, D’ol Falla only shook her head.
The old man sighed deeply. “Surely they are all right,” he said. “Surely no one would harm children—such beautiful children. Everyone—all of us here in the palace who have known them—we are all ... we have been so ... unjoyful. ... His voice quavered, and Kindar-like he turned his face to hide the sight of his unjoyfulness and hurried from the chamber. When he was gone, D’ol Falla went to sit at the tendril table and listen to the soothing sound of the rain. It was a long time before she was able to swallow.
After a time, when the tightness in her throat had subsided, she ate a little. The rich nut cake, however, was more than she could manage. It was a pity, since Eudic had prepared it so carefully, but fortunately, there was a way to put it to good use. Going to the corner near the balcony, she took down a tendril cage and brought it to the table. In the cage a pair of green-backed joysingers, excited by the prospect of food, began to chirp and flutter.
“Hush now,” D’ol Falla told them. “I have some lovely nut cake for you. Some lovely nut cake made by a kind old friend.”
She was just putting the cage down on the table when a sudden realization made her heart stand still. It was much too light. Putting it down on the table, she released a hidden latch and opened a secret compartment under the floor of the cage. She could see immediately that it was gone, but she reached inside and groped frantically at the emptiness in the desperate hope that her eyes might have deceived her, but to no avail. The tool-of-violence had been stolen. Someone had taken the ancient weapon from the place she had hidden it on the day of the Rejoyning.
Hiro D’anhk had just left the Vine Palace and was crossing the central platform when someone passed him running swiftly. Glancing back at him, the runner faltered and then stopped and came back. It was a young man who served in the Vine Palace as porter and messenger. Holding up his honey lantern, he peered into Hiro’s face.
“Hiro D’anhk?” he asked. “Is it Hiro D’anhk? How strange I should find you here. I have just been sent by D’ol Falla to summon you to the palace. I was to tell you it was a matter of the greatest urgency.”
For only a moment Hiro allowed himself to hope that the news might be good—that he might have been summoned back to the palace to hear that the children had been found or, at least, that some clue to their fate had been discovered. Instead the summons concerned something entirely different—another threat to the future of Green-sky.
“Why was it still intact?” he demanded when D’ol Falla had told him of her terrible discovery. “On the day after the Rejoyning I asked you if the tool-of-violence had been disposed of—dismantled—rendered inoperable, and you said it had.”
“No.” The old woman shook her head. “No, I said it had been taken care of. There is a reason why it was not dismantled, why it was not dismantled years ago when all other such artifacts—relics from the ancestral planet—were destroyed. It is indestructible. The source of its destructive power is incapsulated, enclosed in such a way that any attempt to dismantle or deactify it would cause an explosion. A devastating release of power that would destroy everything for miles around.”
“But why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell the Joined Council? Surely the existence of such a terrible threat—”
“Yes, I know. I see now that I did the wrong thing, that I should not have tried to keep its existence a secret. But at the time it seemed to me that it would be best if no one knew of its existence, at least during the troubled days that I was sure would come. I felt that if anyone was told, it should be the entire Council. And if forty-seven people were told, it would not be long before ... D’ol Falla shrugged.
“I see,” Hiro said. “I can see now that there was good reason—but what if you had died suddenly?”
“I had prepared documents telling of its existence and whereabouts, which would have been given to you or to whomever was Chief Mediator. If I had died, the decision would have gone to the Council, but in the meantime I thought that I could bear the burden alone. But I was wrong. Wrong!” D’ol Falla clenched her frail fists and, bowing her head, pressed them against her forehead.
Hiro knew that he should try to console the old woman, but just as he had felt incapable of feeling compassion for Raamo, he now felt that his own hopelessness made him unable to truly pity D’ol Falla’s suffering. “Your motives were good,” he said stiffly and without true feeling. “You thought to protect—”
D’ol Falla moaned harshly. “Protect,” she cried. “Protect! Don’t you see, Hiro? I have repeated the old crime. The same old crime of the Ol-zhaan and the Geets-kel. I tried to protect the people by withholding the truth.”
Again, D’ol Falla covered her face with her hands. After a long silence Hiro said, “But if no one knew of its existence, who could have taken it? Surely no one would have found it in such a hiding place unless he were searching. Unless he knew that there was something to search for.”
D’ol Falla looked up and her eyes were bleak. “There was one other who may have known that the tool-of-violence could not be destroyed. There was one other who, with me, was guardian of the Forgotten and had access to the secrets recorded in the ancient documents. I never discussed it with him, but it is possible that he knew.”
“D’ol Regle,” Hiro said. He did not look at D’ol Falla. He did not have to see her face to know that he was right. It was some time before he spoke again.
“Perhaps it is just as well,” he said. “Perhaps it is for the best that the tool-of-violence still exists. Since yesterday I have been certain that the end is inevitable, and perhaps it is best that it come swiftly. If we have, indeed, inherited our ancestors’ instinct for destruction, it may be just as well that we have also inherited the means to accomplish it with efficiency—that the suffering should be over as quickly as possible.”
“Will you tell the Council?” D’ol Falla asked as Hiro was leaving.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if the Council will meet again.”
“You could call an emergency meeting.”
“No,” Hiro said. “I doubt if anyone would come. And even if some did, it would be useless. There is nothing more that can be done.”
It seemed to D’ol Falla that death looked at her from Hiro’s eyes—the living death of total exhaustion of mind, body, and Spirit.
“Go home,” she said, “and sleep. You are right. There is nothing more that can be done—at least, for now.”
Later, lying in her nid, D’ol Falla wondered how she could have said, “at least for now.” And how it was that she was still awake, thinking and planning. She, too, was exhausted, and burdened by awful responsibilities—as well as by the many years that she had lived. After a while she saw that the reason for her hope was exactly that—the long years and the fact that her life was almost over. Whatever happened, whatever the outcome for Green-sky, she herself would soon be at rest. Her personal involvement was almost over—and despair was a very personal thing. Therefore nothing was left for her except to go on hoping. Thinking of hope she fell asleep at last and dreamed, as she often did, of Raamo.
When D’ol Falla fell asleep, the night was already half spent; but Raamo himself was still awake. He was, in fact, sitting in the common room of a small nid-place in the farheights of Stargrund, listening to the soft song of the rain and the sound of many voices.
A few hours before, after his meeting with Hiro, Raamo had been about to return to his own chamber when Eudic had again appeared in the doorway.
“There is a Kindar woman at the palace gate,” he told Raamo. “She is asking to speak to you. I told her it was very late, but she insisted that I ask if you would see her.”
“I will see her,” Raamo had said, and a moment later Eudic returned and ushered in a large woman with a broad face and a keen and purposeful gaze.
“I am Fanya,” she said. “Fanya D’onne. I am messenger for the fourth fellowship of the Ny-zhaan, and I have been sent to ask if you will attend our meeting. It is a special meeting called to discuss the abduction of the children, and it is, even now, in progress.”
The woman offered her palms in greeting, and with palm- and eye-touch Raamo could pense no blocking, nor any hidden purposes, and so he agreed to go with her. On the way to the farheights, Fanya told him more concerning herself and the group of people that belonged to the fourth fellowship.
“I serve at the academy as a teacher of lute and song-form,” she told him. “And my bond-partner, Terin, serves as a recorder in the hall of public records. Several of the other Kindar members of our fellowship serve at the academy or in one of the Gardens. And many of our Erdling members are also teachers. Some of them serve in the new Erdling Gardens in Orbora, but a few go daily all the way to the old academy in Erda. We also have some members who are craftspeople, and a few are harvesters.”
“Are there many Ny-zhaan?” Raamo asked.
“Not many. There are perhaps a dozen fellowships in Orbora, and most of them are very small. Ours is one of the largest, and our meetings are usually attended by no more than twenty; but there may be a larger number tonight. Our newsinger said that several people approached him today while he was announcing the meeting and asked if they might attend.”
“I know very little about the fellowship,” Raamo said. “What rituals do you follow and what are your purposes?”
“We have no rituals but the Oath of Nesh-om,” Fanya told him, “and our purpose is only to talk and listen.”
“Are your meetings often in the farheights?” Raamo asked. They were, at the time, climbing a narrow swaying ladder. Raamo’s shuba was heavy with rain, and the strands of the ladder were slippery beneath his hands and feet.
“Quite often,” Fanya said. “Since our Erdling members live in the farheights, and our meetings are held in the nid-places of members. Tonight we are meeting in the home of an Erdling member.”
The common room of the nid-place was already full of people when Raamo and Fanya arrived. The air was heavy with body heat and the smell of rain-wet hair and shuba silk. At the appearance of the newcomers, everyone moved even closer together, until enough room was cleared for two more to sit down on the frond-woven floor. There were more than thirty people in the small room.
A man rose and began to speak. His broad shoulders and shaggy hair as well as the slow floating tones of his vowels immediately proclaimed him to be Erdling.
“I think we are all here now,” he said. “Let us sing the oath.”
It seemed strange to Raamo to hear the familiar words sung by Erdling voices. “Let us now swear, by our gratitude for this fair new land, that here, under this green and gentle sky, no man shall lift his hand to any other, except to offer Love and Joy.” Strange, but at the same time compelling, as if the newness was also in the meaning, making the words more than just oft-heard, familiar sounds.
After the oath, cups of juice and mead were passed, and the talking began. People talked to those sitting near them, and now and then someone stood and spoke briefly to the whole group. Tonight much of the talk concerned the disappearance of the children and the strange silence that had settled over the city. Some thought the children had probably been kidnapped by the Nekom, while others felt that it was just as likely that a disgruntled ex-member of the Geets-kel had been responsible. A young man sitting near Raamo told him that he had been asked to attend the meeting because some of the members thought he might be able to help them understand what had happened—the disappearance and the silence. There was great concern among the members, the young man said, about the strange silence.
“Would you speak to us about the silence?” he asked Raamo.
Immediately there was a hush, and all eyes turned towards Raamo. Feeling frightened and uncertain, Raamo knew they were expecting a foretelling or at least great wisdom, and he felt incapable of either.
“I don’t know,” he stammered. “I do not understand the silence either. I have only felt that it is like listening— as if everyone is listening.”
Around the room there were nods and murmurs, and an exchange of whispered comments, as if he had said something of great import. And suddenly he was speaking again, and this time it was as if the words came to him slowly from a great distance.
“The quiet began in fear—because of suddenly losing the hope that there would be another miracle—that a miracle would come to save us. But then when everything had stopped and there was quiet, there began to be listening. I don’t know yet what it means. But I think it is good because one can stand apart and hope for miracles, but to listen one must go out among the others.”
The murmur of comment began again and lasted for some time, and then Fanya D’onne stood and spoke to the people of the fellowship. “It is very late,” she said. “The first rain is over and I think we should all return now to our nid-places while the moons are shining.”
Fanya was standing near the doorway; and when she ceased speaking, she pulled back the doorhangings. As she did so, something moved in the darkness of the entryway. Holding up a honey lamp, Fanya revealed the figure of an old man who had been sitting on the floor of the entryway and was now struggling stiffly to his feet.
“Greetings friend,” Fanya said. “Come forward where you can be seen and welcomed into our fellowship.”
Cringing like a frightened sima, the old man backed away, but Fanya reached out and, taking his arm, she firmly encouraged him to step into the light of the common room. Under the soft light from the honey lamps, the stranger’s pale eyes blinked and his small mouth twisted nervously.
“I heard the newsinger ... he stammered,” ... about your meeting. I—I thought I might want to join. ...
“You should have made your presence known,” someone said, “instead of staying outside in the darkness.”
“I was afraid,” the old man said. “I was afraid I might not be welcome.”
“All are welcome,” Fanya said. “What is your name, that we might have it stitched on our list of members?”
She had released the old man’s arm, and he once again started to back away. “My name is Quon,” he said, just before he disappeared into the darkness.