I got up and sat beside her, putting my arm around the queen. “You will not be left here alone again,” I said, staring directly at the Gardener as I said so.
“Quite true,” said the Gardener. “If the two of you will give me just a day or to so I can make sure everything is…”
“No,” said Wilvia. “Enough, Gardener. Years in the first place I was taken, years in the second and third. Almost a year, maybe more, in this place. I am beginning to think I have died and am only imagining being alive! I’ll go where you go, or I’ll go through the way-gate to Tercis.”
The Gardener sighed. “No doubt that will do as well, though by this time the way-gates may be swarming with K’Famir.”
“We can be sure there’s no one in the gate-room,” said Wilvia. “You put a sensor in there.”
“And you left Lady Badness behind on Chottem,” I said. “I doubt she’s let anyone come through.”
“Lady Badness?” asked Wilvia.
“Lady Nepenthe, Mistress of Forgetfulness,” said the Gardener, with a twisted smile. “A talent we share. Mankind gave us that talent, they wanted us to have it because they needed it themselves. I have used it regularly on the villagers in Swylet. Lady Badness will have used it on the men in the cellar who saw all that treasure and forgot it even while they were looking at it. But it’s a human thing, and it’s not likely to work on K’Famir, though…who knows? Very well, we’ll go to Tercis, and you two will wait for me there while I go to B’yurngrad by other ways.”
Wilvia stood, shaking her long garments down around her. She stood proudly erect as though stretching herself upward.
“Don’t you need belongings of some kind?” I asked.
“I need nothing,” she said, with a smile that trembled into tears, “save to leave this dreadful place.”
She followed us back the way we had come. The door opened on an empty room. The door slid open. We moved quickly to the shining gate and went away.
We Margarets Assemble/ on B’yurngrad
I, Naumi, was at the academy when Jaker commed me from the office of Poul-Jaker’s import-export company, to say their sales rep Stipps had returned with the bondslave they wanted. Her name, he said, was Ongamar. She did speak several languages, and sewing had indeed been her livelihood. Though he had been directed only to find her, matters on Cantardene were extremely volatile, and since her life was at risk, he had taken the liberty, which he hoped would be forgiven, of rescuing the poor woman.
“Where is she?” I demanded, after a moment’s awed appreciation of this folderol.
“He brought her here,” said Jaker. “But we can be with you shortly. It seems appropriate to let her rejoin her…other family members.”
I set out to report this development to everyone else, wherever they were, just getting out of bed or bathing or having breakfast, and in a very short time they commed from the gate to tell me we had visitors. When I arrived there, so-called Stipps bowed, saying:
“You’re looking well, Naumi.”
“Thank you, sir,” I replied. “I rather expected to see you. Just at the moment we’re very busy. Is this the lady?”
“Ongamar. She has important information about the ghyrm. I know you’re very busy, but do you feel it would be worth your while for the two of you to find out pre-cisely what our enemies are up to just now? I know the Gardener and Lady Badness have been otherwise occupied. It would only take us a moment.”
I laughed, not from amusement. “If the lady is willing, I am willing, Mr. Weathereye. Flek, Jaker, will you be host for me? See that everyone has breakfast, and we’ll be back shortly.”
“You know him,” said Jaker. “What did you call him?”
“A nickname. From my youth. I’ll tell you all about it when we return…”
Ongamar was small and somewhat bent, as though by habit, but her eyes snapped as she looked at me. I hustled the other two past the gate guards and returned. Mr. Weathereye took us each by the hand and we…traveled somewhere.
We very gradually coalesced not far from a trio of towering…what? Smoke. Fire. Sullen darkness lit with livid flame. Dweller, Mr. Weathereye told us without words. Drinker. Darkness. They were immense, and we were nothing, a huddled, small, muttering form. Ongamar and I knew that humans spoke many languages: dead ones, live ones, artificial ones, extraterrestrial ones. Mr. Weathereye had a wide variety of mutters to pick from, and esoteric nonsense in several tongues slipped from his mouth.
“What is it saying?” demanded Drinker of Blood.
“Just babble,” replied Dweller in Pain. “Some prelinguistic source has been carried into space by a more advanced race, and their Members have ended up here. Ignore it. You were telling us about Cantardene…”
Darkness replied, “We found the copy! The one to be killed. It got away through a trade duct! I howled for the source to come, but the copy got away and took our machine with it!”
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” said Dweller.
“What do you mean, it doesn’t?”
“You don’t need the machine because you don’t need the duct. You’re getting the raw material directly from Earth through Chottem, aren’t you? That supplier, what’s his label?”
Darkness snarled, “D’Lornschilde. And he overcharges us.”
Dweller continued. “That doesn’t matter either. When our people conquer Chottem, as we will, we’ll get it all back.”
After a pause, Darkness muttered, “I suppose you’ll say it doesn’t matter that the copies are named Mar Gar Et. A ghyrm told us about the Mar Gar Et on Cantardene, one coded On Ga Mar. The ghyrm said there was another Mar Gar Et on B’yurngrad, one coded Mar a
