When he rose in the morning, he went directly to the information stage and demanded, “Find Howdabeen Churry. Tell him I need to see him at once.”
• Sam left the farm near Sarby after working on it for about a hundred twenty days. He was almost sorry to leave. The farm owner was a kindly man, one who had recently cut off his long hair, so he told Sam, because it seemed to get in his way. His wife and children were also good people, in the way that Hobbs Land people were good, in that they worked efficiently, enjoyed life, and were considerate of one another’s feelings.
“I want to go to Cloud,” Sam told the farmer. Sam thought his best chance of getting information about Maire would probably be in Cloud, though he had asked questions of the Gharm in Sarby, to no avail. Nils and Pirva were away, probably creating more Tchenka, so he couldn’t ask them. “What’s the best route to Cloud?”
“I’d stay out of the mountains just now,” he replied. “I keep hearing of bad things up there. Men leaving the towns and going up there, rampaging about. Fighting. Killing each other. I’d stick to the roads if I were you. East from here to Panchy, then take the southwest road out of Panchy around the mountains’ feet down into Bight. Will you want to stop at Scaery?”
Sam thought about it. “Yes. I’d like to stop at Scaery.”
“Well then, you turn east at a place called Bilsville, and that takes you into Scaery. From there, the road runs straight down the coast to Cloudport, and there’s public transport between those two towns. Lots happening in Cloud, I hear.”
“What do you hear?”
“Oh, lots of fulminations. The prophets are unhappy with things, so I’m told. They’re thinking of going back into the mountains, too, and setting up a new county there.”
“What’s made them unhappy?” Sam asked, wanting to know how the farmer saw things.
“No one knows.” The farmer shook his head, a confused, slightly angry expression on his face. “Everybody tells me about it who comes through, but nobody knows why.”
As Sam went east into Panchy, he saw only a few men wearing the big caps of the Cause, and they seemed, by and large, to be either drunk or bewildered. Most of them were headed for the hills, and Sam was grateful the farmer had told him to avoid that route. Panchytown was on the coast, out of his way, so he did not go there, but he heard of Panchytown’s temples from a traveling merchant who gave him a ride into County Odil. “Funny little round buildings,” said the man, shaking his head. “Never seen anything like them.”
There was little traffic on the back road along the mountains, but Sam was lucky enough to get rides to take him through Bight County into Scaery. “Watch yourself,”
said the last driver, as he let Sam out in front of an inn.
“Things are in a mess here in Scaery”
“What kind of mess?” Sam asked.
“The Gharmgods,” said the man. “They’ve invaded the town. They’re marching every night. With the prophets countermarching. On the edge, the prophets. Very vehement, they are. They could do anything. Just watch yourself, that’s all.”
Tchenka? What else could it be? Sam took himself into the inn and got a room facing the street. If there were to be parades, he wanted to see them.
They came after midnight, when the lights of the city were out, down the dark streets in undulant processions. A snake the length of several houses, green as emeralds, with Gharm capering after it, making a happy noise on bells and cymbals and tiny drums. A roof-high bird stalking behind the snake, brooding violet veils of feather sprouting from its wings. And again, Gharm behind, singing.
A gong banged, a trumpet blatted, the snake and bird vanished. Into the street surged a crowd of men with robed prophets leading them. Carrying the symbols of their Cause, whips and banners, they paraded down the street, blowing their trumpets, banging their gongs, screaming in unison, “Ire, Iron, and Voorstod.” When they had gone, the green snake came out of an alley and coiled itself before the inn, looking up with glowing turquoise eyes into Sam’s face. Bird and snake moved away to be succeeded by other creatures, who were driven away by the prophets, only to return again. All throughout the night, the Gharm danced, and laughed, and sang, and tum-te-tummed on their tiny drums, making a noise like rain in a dry and thirsty land.
“Coribee,” they cried when they saw Sam watching. “Coribee.”
Sam had breakfast in the inn tavern, meal cakes and cheese and lorsfowl eggs, which he had never eaten before.
“D’ja see the parade?” asked the cook, a bulky woman of uncertain age. “D’ja see that big serpent. Wan’t he somethin’.”
Inspiration struck Sam between one bite of egg and another. “They’ve come as a sign from the Almighty to the prophets,” he said. “That the prophets are to leave this land and go to a new place.”
“I din’ know that,” she said, amazed. “Whafor?”
“Ah, because their work will be accomplished sooner from the new land,” said Sam. “So says Almighty God.”
“I’ll be,” said the cook, shaking her head in amazement. For some time she went on with her work, interrupting herself every now and then to say, “I’ll be.”
“Do you remember Maire Manone?” Sam asked after a time.
“I do,” she said. “I’uz on’y a wee brat when she left, but I ’member those songs of hers. ‘Scaery in the Mist.’ ‘Little Boat.’ ‘Crows Among the Corn.’ We still sing em.”
“Do you know where she lived, when she was here in Scaery?”
The cook didn’t, but she told him who would know. Later, as Sam was going out to find that person, he heard the cook telling a group of workers from nearby buildings that the Almighty was sending a message to the prophets.
“Where’d you hear that?” someone asked.
“It’s
