“Did the plan have anything to do with me?” asked Ongamar, tears gathering in her eyes. “If it did, they’ve found out from the ghyrm. I saw the ghyrm being created, and one of them has been feeding on me for years, using me to spy out horrors. I tried to keep some things to myself, but it knew me. It knew all about me…” She looked imploringly at the Gardener. “I know it doesn’t keep information to itself, I know it doesn’t. That…that stone probably knows everything the ghyrm does, everything every ghyrm does…”
“But what does it know?” the Gardener asked. “That you are Ear-thian? Everyone knew that. That you are female, sick of the place? Obviously.”
“I saw them being created. I don’t think the ghyrm learned that from me, but I can’t be sure.”
“Ah,” said the Gardener. “Well. Would it know there are more than one of you? You didn’t know that yourself…unless…”
“Of course,” said Mr. Weathereye, scowling. “Unless another one of the seven is also in contact with a ghyrm! Well, I was sent to Cantardene to find someone who had been Margaret. Aha. Yes. And why was I sent? Because there were already three Margarets on Thairy and another one on B’yurngrad who was in danger, and the one on B’yurngrad is a member of your Siblinghood, Ella May, and she’s a ghyrm-hunter, like you, who usually carries and feeds a finder. Which is, as we all know, simply another ghyrm.
“So, if we have one Margaret on Cantardene, known to a ghyrm, and another Margaret on B’yurngrad, also known to a ghyrm, and if those devils in The Gathering know everything the ghyrm know, then it would not take them long to figure out there was at least one more Margaret than there should be…”
“They identify us?” Ongamar asked. “Individually?”
“Oh, I imagine they can,” said Lady Badness. “At least the ones they don’t kill.”
“There are such things as identical twins, or even triplets,” I said indignantly. “Don’t they know that?”
“Of course there are,” said the Gardener. “But if a monster is several million years old and has survived enough extinction episodes to become completely paranoid, one is not averse to killing a few twins to eliminate a possible threat.”
“Several million years old!” whispered Ongamar. “Who?”
“This is not the place nor the time,” said the Gardener. “We must move very quickly before they know we’ve been warned…”
“Where are we?” asked Ongamar
“On Chottem. Weathereye, you say there are three already assembled on Thairy? What are they doing?”
“Going to B’yurngrad to pick up a fourth one,” he replied, with satisfaction.
“Two here, four there, leaving only one, and we know where she is. So, Weathereye will take Ongamar to B’yurngrad, where she’ll tell them about ghyrm. Then they find transport…Not a way-gate. No! The way-gate’s reversed. We can’t leave it that way!”
Weathereye frowned, eyes suddenly widening. “Of course! We need to change the gate so it goes from Chottem to Cantardene, the way it was, then we have to hide the machine.”
“There will be guards posted at the far end, on Cantardene,” said Ella May. “If you turn it around, they’ll come through.”
“Do you have charbic?” asked Ongamar. “They grow it on Cantardene for export to Chottem. Charbic is lethal to the K’Famir, so they use slaves to work the fields.”
“Charbic?” mused the Gardener.
“Sometimes called mothbane,” I said. “The carpets here were adrift with it when we arrived.”
“So they were,” cried Sophia. “There are still sacks of the stuff filling up one of the stables.”
“Ah, very well,” said Mr. Weathereye. “Do you have stout retainers, Sophia? Stout enough to lug the stuff down below.”
“I don’t want them to see…” Sophia said.
“They won’t see,” said the Gardener. “Lady Badness can arrange that your men see nothing but floors and walls.” She stood, beckoning to me. “Gretamara and I will go just before the way is locked. Weathereye will precede us, with Ongamar and Ella May, continuing through the way-gates to Thairy, then on to B’yurngrad if that is where the others have gone.”
“You’re leaving me here alone?” asked Sophia in panic.
“I’ll stay with you,” said Lady Badness. “I’m really quite useful. Don’t worry.”
The Gardener stayed above while the rest of us returned below, and into the right-hand branch of the tunnel.
“If the K’Famir get through the grille, they’ll go through this gate, too,” whispered Sophia.
“It will do them no good,” said Lady Badness with a peculiar, almost anticipatory smile.
“We’re off, then,” said Weathereye, patting Sophia’s shoulder.
“There are four gates between us and Thairy, but it will take us very little time.” He bowed the women through, then followed.
Sophia took a deep, shuddering breath.
“You feel adrift,” said Lady Badness, patting her hand.
“Gardener has been…my mother, my family,” said Sophia. “I know all about my real mother. I know what kind of family she had. I think the Gardener is a lot harder to live up to.”
“She is only what our source is, and you’re part of that.”
Sophia was not cheered by this, as it seemed only to deepen her responsibility, but she resolutely sent for men to fetch sack after sack of powdered charbic root, then led them below to dump them just inside the gate.
“All kinds of vermin come through here,” Sophia said loudly, with a convincing shudder. “The charbic root will kill them, and we’ll shut this entry down.”
“Entry, ma’am?” asked the most forward of the men.
“A way my grandfather used to get down to the harbor,” she said. “He bought it from the Omnionts, but it lets rats in.”
When everything was prepared, the four strongest were told to stay by the machine while she pushed the button. Then they pulled the bulky thing back through the grille door, the sound of shrieking wheels covering the faint, distant howls that Sophia heard. She locked the
