“Gardener,” Gretamara said at last. “Something’s wrong?”
“Something’s happened, but I can’t locate it. I knew something was going to happen, but I don’t know what!”
Gretamara looked up, suddenly alert. “It’s the cellars, Gardener. Sophia and I had the same oppressive feelings about the house, and they came from the cellars. This morning I had the feeling that a wind had swept through them…”
“But it was not something dreadful,” the Gardener remarked. “Perhaps that’s why I’m confused about it. If it had been dreadful, I would have thought of the cellars, but this…”
“Let’s go look,” I said, rising from my chair. “We’ll stay behind the iron grilles, just in case.”
We made our way down the many stairs, beyond the first, second and third doors, coming at last to that final door, triple-locked, triple-bolted, triple-barred. As we approached it, the Gardener held up her hand, tilting her head. “I hear a voice!”
We laid our ears against the crack where the door met the jamb to hear a voice murmuring, or perhaps reciting something, for it went on and on, uninterrupted.
“It sounds like you, Gretamara,” said Sophia.
The Gardener stood tall, eyes gleaming, her teeth showing between her lips in what I thought could be either a grim smile or a snarl. “Of course!” she said. “Unlock it!”
Sophia did as she was bade. The first bolt drawn silenced the voice beyond the gate. Moving the second bolt caused an eruption of noise, as if something on wheels were being moved. The third bolt and bar met only silence, as did the rusty squeal as the door was cracked open.
The Gardener spoke through the crack. “Is there someone there who has a name and a number?”
After a long moment, a male voice responded, “Is that you, Gardener?”
“What name and number have you, Weathereye?”
“I have Ongamar, and she is number four. What number have you?”
“I have Gretamara, and she is number three,” said the Gardener, pulling the door wide open. Inside, facing us, were an old man with an eye patch and three women: one quite old; one middling young, stocky and healthy looking; the other smaller, thinner, more sallow and bent, but bearing a definite resemblance to me.
“Lady Badness!” cried the Gardener. “Weathereye! What brings you by this route?”
“We accompanied those for whom it was the only route,” said the old woman. “You know Ella May, of the Siblinghood, and this is Miss Ongamar. You must hear what she’s been telling us!”
“Who are they?” asked Sophia in wonderment.
“Old friends and a new one!” said the Gardener, as she signaled Sophia to unlock the iron grille. “One devoutly wished for! What is that machine you’ve brought?”
“A device for changing the direction of the way-gates,” said Ella May, bowing to the Gardener and receiving in return a kiss on her cheek. “We believe there was a thriving trade going on through this gate, with goods passing in both directions. The machine made it possible.”
The other woman was standing very still, her feet apart as though to brace against shock, as she stared into my face. “Who are you?” she asked at last.
“I…was Margaret,” I said. “Now I’m Gretamara. And you?”
“I was Margaret. On Cantardene they called me Ongamar.”
“When did you…when did you become someone else?”
“I was twelve.”
“So was I, twelve.”
“You’re little more than that now?”
“I’m a lot older, really. I just haven’t…aged much. We were split when the proctor came, weren’t we?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” we both said at once. “Why?”
“Because,” said the Gardener. “It was necessary, for a very good reason, and it actually happened some time before that.” She turned to Weathereye. “Was she in some kind of danger?”
“Oh, a very definite kind,” he said. “Someone has found out too much and is trying to kill any or all of them.”
“How?” the Gardener whispered. “How could anyone have possibly…?”
“How could anyone have possibly what?” cried Sophia. “Gardener, what’s going on?”
“Shhh,” she replied. “Not here.” She unlocked the grille, beckoned the others through it, relocked first it, then the heavy doors, and led us out the cellars, locking each of the doors behind us.
As we reached the ground level, Lady Badness said, “For all we know, there may be listeners down there. After all, the other end’s in Cantardene.”
“Which is a pesthole,” remarked the Gardener. “If anything found out, I’d guess it was something from there…”
Miss Ongamar said, “The stone. The standing stone. They call it Whirling Cloud of Darkness-Eater of the Dead.”
Sophia and I exchanged a horrified look. I murmured, “We saw it, didn’t we, Gardener?”
Gardener said, “I took them to the Gathering, Weathereye.”
Ongamar said, “The stone called out, ‘It’s here.’ It meant me, didn’t it?”
“Probably,” said Mr. Weathereye. “As I said, the order to kill you came from the very top levels of Cantardene.”
“The very top levels were present when they made the ghyrm,” Ongamar said. “Anything any of them knew, that stone knew. What is that stone?”
“Ah,” Lady Badness murmured. “What a good question. What would you say, Weathereye? Not merely K’Famirish, is it? Something of the slaughterhouse added? The torture chamber? The mass grave? One, or more, of the ancients in the Gathering?”
“Quite possibly,” said Mr. Weathereye crisply.
“Quite possibly what?” cried Sophia, stamping her foot.
“Quite possibly an amalgamation of K’Famir and Frossian gods along with something a good deal older,” the Gardener answered crisply. “You and Gretamara were there, Sophia. You saw the Quaatar.”
“You said they couldn’t do anything…by themselves,” I cried.
“They can’t,” said Lady Badness. “Just as a battery can’t do anything by itself. Attach a wire to it, however, and current flows. We gods are like that. We accumulate energy, feelings, emotions, needs, wants, hopes, dreams, hatreds, everything. Normally, most of it cancels out: Love balances hate, hope balances despair, joy balances sorrow. If you get a god that’s only one thing, however, only pain, only hate, only death, with nothing to balance it, then it accumulates. Attach a mortal to it, and you’ve got a lynching, a crusade, a clinic bombing, a jihad, an inquisition,
