‘Back side of Silver-seam,’ Bondri reported. ‘Just east of the Tineea Singers, Those-Who-Welcome-Without-Meaning-It, named by the Loudsingers, the False Eagers. An easy transit, your perceptiveness.’
‘Perhaps by tomorrow, an easy transit. At the moment, an impossible one. I cannot move farther. Have we food?’
‘Wet food and dry. Comfort yourself while we prepare.’
Preparation took little time. There were edible stalks to peel, grain heads to thresh, a few seed pods to open with a sharpened bone. It was not viggy bone. The bones of the viggies were fragile and light, and in any case the ritual of disposal made viggy bone inaccessible for any useful purpose. On the other hand, the hard strong bones of the Loudsingers and their animals were often found at the roots of the Great Ones and were much sought after. Viggies had been anatomizing human and mule corpses for generations, and there was little they did not know about human anatomy. The giligees, particularly, were interested in this knowledge. Sometimes among the wreckage of Loudsingers, animals, and wagons, there were bits of metal, also. Sharp or toothed edges made from this material were even more treasured. Bondri carried several bits of metal in his vestigial pouch just below his song-sack, gifts from his people, mostly salvaged at the foot of Highmost Darkness, Lord of the Gyre-Birds, Smoke Master, the one the humans called Black Tower.
The Prime Priest munched on peeled stalks of settler’s brush and made polite conversation, as befit a time of food sharing. ‘One could almost forgive the humans (outlanders, weird strangers who say unmentionable and disgusting things with words that are not true, thereby incurring the taboo) for coming to Our-Land-of-the-Gods,’ he sang. ‘They have brought good food.’
‘Some of it,’ admitted Bondri, whose troupe had only recently acquired the habit of raiding human fields and gardens. ‘The little seeds at the top of the long stems are good, even though they are only ripe one time of the year. And the various thick roots and sweet leaves are good, and those juicy bulbs that grow on their trees. The big seeds aren’t good. Brou they call them.’
‘I don’t think they use the big seeds for food.’
‘I’ve heard that sung,’ Bondri conceded. ‘I’ve heard they mash the big seeds at a place near the sea, mash them, and put them in containers, and send them away in boats. Our fisher-kin-who-run-from-the-sea-bringing-fish say the mashed seeds go off-world.’
‘That is true,’ the Prime Priest acknowledged in a minor key. ‘During my captivity, I saw it with my own eyes. The Loudsingers eat brou to make them cheerful.’
‘They do not make us cheerful. The big seeds are very dangerous.’
‘Arum,’ the Prime Priest nodded, his throat sack swelling and collapsing in sadness. ‘I lost all of one pouch to them. The pouch boss went down into the Loudsinger fields. She was at that age where they taste everything, and her pouchmates followed her. One taste and fff. Hopeless. Nothing could be done.’ He sat silently, mourning. When a mated pair and the giligee could produce a pouchful only every six or seven years, the loss of an entire set of pouchmates was difficult to bear. Next time the chosen giligee would go well back into the country to incubate, well away from deepsoil. And the giligee would stay there until his daughters were of reasonable age, beyond that curious, mouthing stage when everything went between the back teeth. It was difficult to live away from deepsoil, but one or more of the older children could go with the giligee, as helper. There was always etaromimi-bush, called by the Loudsingers settler’s brush, if there was nothing else.
‘Your perceptiveness?’
‘Yes, Bondri.’
‘You haven’t told me where you wish to go.’
‘The gods are distressed. You see it for yourself, Bondri, First Singer, Troupe Leader. Just as the North Watcher – Silver-seam and so forth – just as it quivers and blows its fingers, so do other of the Great Ones. High-most Darkness, Lord of the Gyre-Birds, Smoke Master, the one the humans call Black Tower has been particularly disturbed. And now this questioning? This complaint of tumult! Who can it be who makes this tumult? Who are the sensible creatures? There are only three possibilities. The gods themselves. Or the Loudsingers. Or us. Only we three are sensible creatures to make causes of things. Can there be any other answer?’
Bondri admitted there could be no other.
The Priest chewed thoughtfully, rubbing at his legs with his bony fingers. ‘I go toward a place of meeting. Prime Priests will be there from south and north. We will talk of this. It is very disturbing. One does not know what truth is.’
Bondri shuffled his feet back and forth in the dust. ‘Is it possible, perceptiveness, that it is the gods themselves?’
The Prime Priest waved his ears in negation. ‘Nothing is certain. It could be that this confusion emanates from the Mad One. Song has come that the Mad One spoke to a Loudsinger.’
There was a sharply indrawn breath from the viggies, who had been eavesdropping politely, trilling an occasional phrase antiphonally to indicate attention. A Presence had broken the ban! Spoken to a Loudsinger! Done what every viggy was forbidden to do!
‘How? If the Loudsinger had not the words of calm for the skin and the words of greeting for the inner one?’
‘There is rumor,’ Favel sang, ‘that the Loudsinger, a female Loudsinger, had the words.’
‘How did she come by them?’ The entire troupe held its breath, waiting for the answer to this.
The old viggy sighed. ‘Do not ask what you already know must be true. If she had them, she had them from us. Are we not etaromimi, Goers Between the Gods? Have the trees suddenly taken up singing?’
The old priest had used the humorous mode, which called for appreciative laughter, though with the intonation requiring slight shame, and this evoked an embarrassed cadenza from the troupe. Now he waved his ears at them, a cautionary gesture. ‘We had
