I watched them as they crossed each of the cellars, looking around with great curiosity. Everyone had heard the rumors of Stentor’s great hoard, but all I saw, all they saw was stone, dust, and cobwebs, with not so much as a scatter of coins on the floors. None of them noticed the old woman sitting quietly in a corner. When they had finished, Sophia thanked them for a job well done, paid them exorbitantly, and told them to take the day off.
“Now what are we to do?” Sophia asked Lady Badness.
Lady Badness turned toward me and asked, “Are you and the Gardener ready to go?”
“We are,” said the Gardener, coming down the stairs.
“It will be frightening, just waiting to see what happens,” said Sophia.
“We will stay busy,” said Lady Badness with a somewhat-gloating look. “Since the K’Famir may actually try to come through the way-gate, you and I, Sophia, must be ready with a proper welcome.”
The doors and the grille were unlocked only long enough to let the Gardener and me into the tunnel. We heard them being locked again, behind us.
We emerged from the way-gate into darkness. Light bloomed slowly around us. We were in a cube, a gate in the wall behind us, another in the wall ahead, an uninterrupted wall to either side, a ceiling, a floor.
“Do you have a name and a number?” whispered a mechanical voice.
“The name is Wilvia, the number is two,” said Gardener.
The wall to our left slid open, making a slender opening. We squeezed through and it shut behind us.
“It’s a Gentheran survey ship,” remarked the Gardener. “It’s been buried here for a very long time.”
We moved down the dimly lit passageway and came to a viewscreen that looked across a clearing into a forest. Through the trees we saw a shoreline and an expanse of water. Along the shoreline was a village swarming with very small people, somewhat humanlike in appearance.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“At the far end of nowhere,” replied the Gardener. “A place that interests no one, a place visited only by accident. The Frossians were determined to kill Wilvia, Queen of the Ghoss, so we kept moving her about in order to keep her safe.”
“When we were children,” I said, “we invented Queen Wilvia, and Naumi the Warrior, and all the others. There was a spy, too. I suppose Ongamar was the spy. I wonder if they found a warrior…”
A door opened at our approach to disclose a courtyard garden with flowering trees grouped around a burbling fountain. Cushioned chairs were set around it, one of them holding a slender, careworn woman, who rose, startled by our arrival. She wore a simple white robe and a diadem. The glowing gem at the center of her forehead was her only adornment.
“Gardener,” she said, but she was not looking at the Gardener. Her eyes were fixed on me.
“Wilvia,” the Gardener cried. “You’re pale, tired. Why are you all alone? Where are your companions?”
“They had to go,” she gestured, her eyes still fixed upon Gretamara. “A long, long time ago. Who…how…?”
The Gardener motioned to me to be seated, remaining standing herself to observe the two of us. “You recognize yourselves?”
“Myself?” Wilvia stood. “She’s younger than I.”
I shook my head. “I’ve been living with the Gardener since I was twelve. People who live there don’t age very fast. One named Ongamar has been a bondslave on Cantardene since she was twelve, and bondslaves do age. There are four more of us.”
“As I told you,” the Gardener said to Wilvia.
“I know you told me!” Wilvia took a step away, her cheeks burning with quick, hectic color, her eyes shifting restlessly, her voice shrill. “Being told is one thing. Confronting oneself, after all these years…Oh, Gardener. When I saw you, I thought it might be my children! Or Joziré!”
“You know your children are well, for you and your friends left each of them in a safe place, did you not?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “My friends and I…”
“But where are your companions? They should be here.”
“Gone,” said Wilvia, taking a deep breath. “They had to go to Tercis to take their child. They weren’t supposed to be gone for very long, but when they started back, they realized they were being followed. They sent a message here, to the ship, to let me know why they hadn’t returned.”
“I need to see,” said Gardener, moving through the garden. I rose to follow her, but Wilvia stayed where she was.
“Gardener, there’s something wrong with her,” I said, as we went from the garden into another ship corridor.
“Isolation is wrong with her,” the Gardener said angrily. “Isolation, and grief. Her children were taken away for safekeeping, her husband also, a pair of Gibbekot were her only companions. We didn’t mean for her ever to be left alone!”
A door opened, and we went through into a control room. The Gardener turned to the right, to the communications room. “Access message from Prrr Prrrpm and Mwrrr Lrrrpa.”
“Message accessed.” Two faces appeared on the screen.
The Gardener said. “Prrr Prrrpm and Mwrrr Lrrrpa. Message!”
The larger Gibbekot said, “Wilvia, we can’t come back to you just now. We have placed Falija in foster care, as planned. As we were leaving Tercis, we detected someone following us, which means we have to lead the followers away. We knew it was a risk. Have patience. We will return to you as soon as possible…”
The screen went blank. We returned to Wilvia.
“You’ve been alone since they left?” cried the Gardener.
“Alone, yes. I know it seems longer than it really has been. I still have books to read. There’s plenty of food. Sometimes I spend days just watching them, out there, wondering at them. They’ve been almost wiped out over and over, but they don’t remember a thing…”
“And no one has come here at all?”
“Sometimes in the nights, I’ve wakened, thinking I’ve heard the
