They flew north across County Bight and County Odil, turning the corner of the mountains to go west along the foothills. At last Sarbytown lay beneath them, on the long slope to the sea beside the running river. Pye turned a little upslope from the town and set the flier down in a meadow.
The mists had risen to hang just above their heads. Meadow grass stretched away like carpet upslope to the line of trees where Jep was standing among a few Gharm. The Gharm turned and vanished into the woods, but Jep did not move away or toward them.
“You’ll have to go to him,” Pye sneered. “He got one of my collars on him will blow his head off if he comes to you.”
They picked up their packs and went slowly, in what they both hoped was a dignified manner. It still seemed important that they not let their fear show. Beasts chased creatures when they ran. It was better not to run. When they reached Jep, Sam took him by the hand and Saturday patted his arm, gently. There were tears in Jep’s eyes, but he spoke calmly, as though aware he might be overheard.
“I knew you would come,” he said. “I knew a One Who had to come.”
On the meadow, Pye stared at them for a time, the habitual sneer coming and going across his mouth. Strangely, he was trying to remember if he had ever seen any woman looking at him the way Saturday was looking at Jep. Soft, these farmers. Phaed’s own son, but soft. Phaed’s own grandson, soft. It was the Cause that tempered men, that turned them into steel. Phaed had other sons and grandsons, not born in wedlock, true, but better tools than these. In his heart Mugal Pye weighed the Hobbs Landians, rejected them, and planned what counsel concerning them he would give Phaed Girat. Phaed Girat was behaving like a fool, angry at them all for not having told him what was happening. He had to be brought to his senses. If it was true that Maire Girat could not sing, as Jep had said, then she could serve as a symbol of another kind. She could symbolize what would happen, inevitably, to any other woman who left.
Finally he turned to walk down the hill, toward the town. Sam and Saturday watched him go, then followed Jep through the trees to the farm, through the half-wrecked dwelling into the room where Jep lived, where they hovered beside the smoldering fire as Jep added fuel and blew it into a blaze. He sat between them as he told them about his captivity, about Tchenka and Gharm and of his building a temple. When he had done, they went out to see that building for themselves.
Nils was just outside the door.
“Not him,” he whispered to Jep, pointing to Sam.
“Why not?” asked Saturday. “He helped me in Selmouth.”
“Not him,” insisted Nils. “It is said he is the son of Phaed Girat, and the Gharm do not trust his intentions.”
“It’s all right,” said Sam, repressing his annoyance. “I’ll wait for you nearby.” He had been more distressed than angered by the little man’s words, but he still needed to think about them.
Nils and Pirva and a great many Gharm had come to meet She-Goes-On-Creating. They had brought lanterns and cushions into the temple. They bowed when they met Saturday. She bowed in return. When they were all seated cross-legged, Saturday and Jep at the center of the warm puddle of light, Saturday told them she had been sent to them with the stuff they needed to summon their Tchenka to them.
“It is stuff of holiness,” Saturday told them. “It is the stuff of creation from which Tchenka come. It is the substance from which your Tchenka will come again, and the way of it is this.”
She described burials. She told them about cutting sections of the web around the first Tchenka raised and keeping those sections to use at other burials. She said there must be many burials, here, there, everywhere. She thought the telling unnecessary, no one had told the people of Settlement One in advance what they were to do, but these people were being persecuted and perhaps they needed to know in advance in order to have hope.
“Meantime,” she told them, “I have already done the ritual in Selmouth. Here there are three pieces more brought from my own God Birribat Shum, and these three are destined to be used here and in Scaery and in Cloud.”
“She-Goes-On-Creating had intended to do this herself,” said Jep. “However, there is much evil assembled against her in Voorstod, so she asks that you do this thing for her. You walk invisibly in Voorstod, and the prophets do not see you. Also you work invisibly in Voorstod. No one notices if you dig or build. From Gharm-hand to Gharm-hand this stuff can be passed. From mouth to mouth the instructions can be given. Burials must be done in Cloud and Scaery, and when the Tchenka in Selmouth and Sarby are raised, someone must be there to take the stuff of creation, for many more must be started.”
“How many more?” Nils wanted to know.
“As many as there are places
