“Memories?”
“She did not explain. We did not ask, for at that time we were greatly concerned with another thing. The Maze, we then felt, was not the greatest mystery of Lom. There are many things about Lom we do not understand.”
“Lom, Cernaby? Is that what this district is called?”
“Lom. The world. This world. We took it from the language of the Shadowpeople, whose word for the soil is “lom”.”
I realized suddenly it was so. What had the little people called to me when I’d released them in Fangel?
“Lolly duro balta lus lorn.” Walk well upon the lovely land. I turned to examine the leafy walls of the Maze behind me. “You say the band marched through that? How could they?”
“They hired a guide. The only guide. They put on blindfolds and marched to the music. They didn’t turn. At night, the guide would stop them in some relatively safe place until the morning, when they were blindfolded again. It’s the only way.”
“But you …”
“But I know a few short ways in and out. Not to the center. No one does, except the guide. Perhaps not even the guide. No, I know only a few short ways.”
“How did you learn them?”
“Oh, step on step. One step in, turn and take one step, take that step back. Turn and take another. Take that step back. And again. Each time returning to the same place, building the chain longer with each try. In that first short chain you walked, there are many other ways out to other places.” Cernaby made the amused sound once again. “I don’t know what good it does to know that. Except to show a Dervish daughter what to be wary of.”
“Who is the guide?” I already knew but wanted it verified. Who else could it be?
“Bartelmy tells me you have met it. It calls itself the Oracle.”
“The Oracle!” I spat. “It has probably had no time for guiding recently. It is too busy giving comfort to giants and distributing death crystals to the unwary!”
“We know of the death crystals. One more reason why we are gathered in the pervasion now, to talk of this.” We went up the last little way to the ridge. At either side the great stones peered down at us, an electric tingle between them. Had I been alone, I don’t think they would have let me pass. Cernaby stopped, looking downward. “And we have arrived at the pervasion.” We looked down on a long clearing through which the road ran, bulging at the center into a wide oval, then narrowing once more to continue over the next rise. To either side were small houses. No, I thought after a moment, not really large enough to be houses.
Small, one-room places perhaps two manheights square, neatly made, but little more than sheds. They reminded me of the small outbuildings in which domestic zeller are shut at night to protect them from prowlers.
Outside each of these stood a Dervish, still as a tree.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“Thinking. Practicing. Becoming.”
“How long will they stand like that?”
“Some days, perhaps. Some for a season. Or until the next obligatory takes place in which they must join. There is an obligatory going on now in the next node.” The Dervish led on, between the rows of silent figures.
I sensed that the very air around her was under tension. It vibrated like the string of an instrument, full of silent harmonics. I could hear them, could have sung them had I the voice for it, and it seemed that the soil sang in this same way. Soil. Trees. Air. We moved over the next small rise.
Again the road bulged into an oval, paved space, this time occupied with silent ranks of Dervishes, all moving together like a wind-waved field of grain.
“An obligatory,” whispered Cernaby.
Below us the Dervishes spun and stilled, advanced, retreated, twisted with outstretched arms, then fell into pillar quiet. From somewhere music came, at times insistent, at others almost lost among the sounds of the trees. It was the previous music made manifest, and it was some time before I realized it came from the Dervishes themselves.
“They dance their dedication,” whispered Cernaby.
She laid her hands over my eyes, revealing the pure blue flames in which the Dervishes moved. It reminded me of something, an elusive thought that came and slipped away.
“Shhh,” whispered Cernaby. “They are almost at an end. We will wait until they finish.” The dance went on for some time, making me wonder when it had begun that so long a time was considered “almost at an end”. Still, my impatience faded as I watched. The surging movement was hypnotic, relaxing, like watching waves move around rocks on a quiet shore. This relaxation troubled me.
Deep inside, I chafed against it.
At last the music faded into silence, the dance into immobility. This, too, was part of the obligatory, for they stood still in silence for some time before the Dervishes moved away toward their huts.
“It is likely Bartelmy has arrived,” said Cernaby. “We will go to her cell. We have arranged it so that you may stay there as well, though this is never done once a child is past babyhood.” That sound of amusement. “We are a solitary people. Perhaps we have carried our reclusion too far.”
Bartelmy was waiting for us beside one of the whitepainted huts, a silver pillar beside the weathered gray of the door. She said, “I said I would come to you, and you to me. So we have come. Welcome, Jinian Footseer.”
“Call her rather Dervish daughter,” said Cernaby, a note of admonition in her voice. “She calmed herself into the green, Bartelmy, and stood for half a day of the obligatory.”
“Would we have expected less?”
“Yes, considering how she was reared. I was doubtful, Bartelmy.”
“I was not.” The pillar turned a little, as though to examine me more closely. I heated a bit at
