“How did you meet Mavin?”
“Oh, Jinian, that’s a story for a week in the telling. She came flying from far over the sea, down into our chasm in the shape of a great, white bird. Just take it she saved my life, more than once, and did a great good to our part of the world, too. When this came up, well, we couldn’t know what to do about it, could we, down in that great chasm with no contact with the outside? There seemed only one thing to do: bring it to the only outsider we knew well and trusted.”
“This thing?”
Beedie looked at Roges, and he at her. “That man is Mavin’s son,” said Roges, indicating Peter. “And these others are his friends. Some others ought to know, Beed.”
“True. Others ought to know.” She went to the basket, then, taking the cover off and removing some leafy wrappings from within. “It may be,” she said, pointing to the basket, “that this was the reason we were kept captives by the Duke. He may have intended our friend here for his zoo.”
“I aaam huuungry,” puffed a small voice from within. “Pleeeez foood.”
“Do you have any meat?” asked Beedie, her voice concerned. “He hasn’t been fed for several days.” We gathered around the basket to peer within, seeing only a formlessness there, a roiling shininess.
“How much do you want?” asked Chance.
“A chunk, about head-sized.” She spoke into the basket. “Meat coming, Mercald-Mirthylon.” When Chance brought it to her, she lowered it into the basket and put the lid back on. “It will only be a minute.” Roges was busy with needle and thread and an old shirt of Peter’s, jouncing Bryan on one knee the while. “Not a pretty sight, watching them eat, so we don’t. I suppose, from their point of view, watching us eat could be mighty unaesthetic, too. I’d better warn you, don’t touch what’s in the basket. It will eat you as quickly as it will that meat, not intentionally but uncontrollably. That’s how it got the name of Mercald. Mercald was a friend of ours, a priest, and he thoughtlessly laid hands upon it.” Beedie nodded. “We call the race ‘the Stickies’. They are sticky on top and dissolve anything that touches them. In their native chasm land, they live on insects and plants and small fish which brush against them. Or larger things, if such are unwary. And if a Sticky eats something with a mind, then the mind becomes part of it, too. So, we have a creature here in this basket who has eaten two living men—one named Mirtylon many hundreds of years ago. One only twenty years ago or so, named Mercald.” She looked around at the circle of disbelieving faces.
“Well, you shall hear for yourselves.” She removed the lid from the basket and turned it on its side. The moist shininess within rolled out onto the earth, settling itself into a thick disk, rounded upward at the centre, from which an ear and a small trumpet gradually extruded themselves.
“How do you do.” It puffed. “I am gratified to meet you, Peter, Mavin’s son. (Puff.) I knew Mavin. She was very wise. Wiser (puff) than I.” There was then a strange, strangled sound, and after a time we realized the thing was laughing.
“Jinian, you are very brave. (Puff.) I heard the sending screaming. Most frightening. (Puff.) Sylbie and the baby we knew already from the procession. (Puff.)” The trumpet collapsed into the general shininess, which quivered for a time before the vocal apparatus extruded itself once more.
“I feel much stronger, thank you. (Puff.) I am happy to meet Chance and Queynt. (Puff.) Also the birds. I was a birder priest. Birds are (puff) messengers of the Boundless. (Puff, puff.)” Though I didn’t understand this at all, I translated it for the benefit of the krylobos and was rewarded by an incredulous hoot.
“Well, perhaps they have not (puff) been taught of (puff) the Boundless.” The windy voice sounded sad.
“Tell them about the discovery, Mer-Mir,” said Beedie. “You can talk about religion later.”
“Yes. Ummm. While wandering deep in chasm (puff) found tunnel leading deep. (Puff.) Took others and formed expedition. (Puff.) Tunnel went very deep. Fires there. Pools of strange stuff. Silver. Thick. Very poisonous. One of us was dissolved (puff) in it. Near the pool were scattered blue crystals. Many.”
“They brought a lot of them out to us,” said Roges, trying his handiwork on Bryan, who crowed delightedly. “How they got in and out of there, I’ll never know.”
“Very difficult. Took much time. Effort. (Puff.) But we had touched the blue crystal. (Puff.) Once we had touched it, we had to bring it out. (Puff.) Touched it. Knew we had to. (Puff.)”
“They touched it with themselves, absorbed some of it, and it turned out to be message crystal.” Beedie, striding about the clearing, swinging her arms, stretching.
“Message crystal?” These words were like the ringing of an alarm bell. Everything inside me sat up to take notice of the world. “Message crystal?”
“The things you call dream crystals, we call message crystals. In our land we have a necessary tool, the root saw. The teeth of the saw are made from jewel gravel, hard jewel gravel from the bottom lands, glued to a flexible band. The saw makers buy the gravel from traders, so much a weight, and among the real gems are often tiny pieces of message crystal. When we were brats, we would “borrow” the gravel from the saw makers so we could suck through it for message crystals. Unsanitary, as my Aunt Six would say, but you know how disgusting children are.”
“What kind of messages?” I begged, sure that I already knew. “What did they say?”
“Oh, pictures, mostly. Dim, dreamy things. The messages weren’t intended for us, you know. Now that I’ve
