Gloriana came to stand beside me, gaping, moving about to get a better look. “She’s…she’s younger than you, Grandma.”
“She’s me, the way I looked in the mirror, not all that long ago.” I turned to face Rei, demanding, “Who is she?”
“Mar-agern was a bondslave sent here to Fajnard,” said Rei, glancing back and forth between us. “You’re right. I saw the resemblance when you came in. She came from Earth when she was about twenty-two.”
“I came from Earth, when I was twenty-two.”
“And your father’s name was…?”
“Harry Bain. And her mother’s name was…”
“Louise Bain,” said Rei.
“How did this happen?” I cried, looking from face to face. “How did this happen?”
“Shhh,” said Rei. “We don’t know how. Perhaps we know why…Gibbekot?”
“Her name?” I cried. “What’s her name?”
“As I said, her name is Mar-agern,” said Rei.
“Not quite close enough to be Margy,” I laughed. “Or maybe it is? One of my play people. Margy. First Wilvia, then Margy. Is there to be a Naumi as well?”
“Sit down, Grandma,” Glory urged. “You’re very pale. This is all very weird and strange, and you’re allergic to strange.”
Bamber took one arm, Glory the other, and they sat me down near the fire, where I shook my head silently, slowly, hoping to negate the existence of everything in the neighborhood, perhaps myself included.
“Gibbekot?” asked Rei, again. “Do we know why?”
“Yes,” whispered Falija. “Yes, of course. That is, perhaps, though as yet there are only two of her, and the story would demand at least seven…”
A low, continuous moan came from the sleeping woman. She rolled restlessly to one side, then the other, exposing the back of her head.
“What is that on the back of her head?” I demanded.
“That is a mother-mind,” said Rei.
“Where did you get it?” demanded Falija harshly.
“I didn’t,” Rei replied. “The Gibbekot got it from the same place they got the ones they gave our ancestors. They grew them. With grown-up humans, the network just works its way up inside the bottom of the skull. The one on Mar-agern is almost absorbed. She’ll wake within another few hours.” He sighed deeply, tiredly. Evidently he had been under as much stress as we had.
Falija spoke to Glory and me. “It’s as I told you. Nothing to be afraid of.”
Rei said, “You said there was a story about seven?”
“There is a story about a man who spoke to a fish,” said Falija, beginning the tale.
I lay down, all at once, before I simply collapsed. My eyes flickered. “Excuse me if I don’t listen, Falija, but I’ve heard the story, and I am very tired.”
“Sleep,” said Gloriana. “It’s okay. We’ll keep an eye on things, won’t we, Bamber, Maniacal?”
They spoke together. “Oh, yes.” “We will.”
I heard Falija’s voice going on with the story, saw the light of the fire flickering on the cave wall, saw Maniacal and Mirabel curl up against the wall to sleep, later felt Gloriana and Bamber Joy lie down on either side of me, probably to keep me warm. Then I didn’t see anything or feel anything for quite some time.
I Am M’urgi/on B’yurngrad
I woke to the terror of being blind and speechless, or, as I admonished myself after a moment’s panic, blindfolded and gagged. Nothing wrong with my senses, just my surroundings. I was being carried in some kind of sling or net through grasses that rustled. I had seen tribesmen carrying butchered game this way, all the meat piled into the hide and slung on a pole between two of them. Were these tribesmen? Probably. The danger Ferni had warned me of? Probably not. If the goal had been to kill me, they could have done it at once, while I was sleeping.
So, what did they want?
I took a deep, deep breath and let it out slowly. Then another, and another yet. I was not in pain, which made it easier, though I had learned to do it even when in pain. The jostling didn’t help, but I could overcome that. Stillness. Inside, the stillness. I straightened myself in the sling and brought my head forward, onto my chest. Now, now, now let the spirit find the knowing cloud, the being, the great register, the omnipresence, the all, now, now, now lie forward upon the cloud and look down…
Five of them. Two carrying, two running alongside to spell them when they were tired, one in front to lead them along the back trail through the grasses which led, led, led there, inside the forest, a temporary camp. Small huts covered in hides. A campfire circle with a spit above it. No women. One of the huts new, the scraped hides bright and clean, and a narrow bed and chair inside. They didn’t use chairs, or beds. The furnishings were for me, as were the chains attached to a stout pole that ran up the middle of the hut, buried at the bottom, tied to the framework at the top. So. If I proved unwilling, they intended to keep me by force. For someone? For something?
Back, back to the five runners, skulls painted on their faces, death-and-honor tribesmen. Each face, carefully, carefully, not that one, nor that, nor either of these others. The one in front. Yes. Very possibly. He had changed a good deal in the intervening years. He was no longer a boy. Now he was a man, scarred from battle.
Could I find the time trail that led to him? I drifted, searching, there he was, there the woman who had tried to poison his father. There the woman was, slain, as the old shaman had foretold. There was the father, slain in his turn, and others, over and over, leaving only this one and a scatter of other youngsters. He took them. He wove them. He made them a tribe. They captured women. They fathered children. Here he was, planning this raid. The ghostwoman, he said to them. The ghostwoman who saved the life of
