I smiled nonetheless. “Is this to be another game without a name, Bartelmy? Like the one in Chimmerdong?”
The pillar shook itself, a negation. “No, Jinian. Except that you are one always eager for answers, and there are not always answers. If we have an answer, we will give it to you. If we do not give it, you will know we do not have it to give.”
They did not know I had come to give them answers. Not yet, though. “You expected me!” It was half a challenge.
“Murzemire Homloss told me long since you would come here at this time. Yes. We expected you.”
“But you do not know why I came?”
“No. Murzemire saw you. She saw Storm Grower. She saw Dream Miner. She saw shadow. She saw the Daylight Bell, broken. And when she had seen all this, she told us it might mean nothing much.” Cernaby laughed. “Nothing much.”
I realized the laughter had grief in it. Perhaps they had seen something of the truth. “Nothing much.” The words spun among us in the quiet clearing, without reverberation, without echo, and yet without end. “Nothing much.” Said humorously. Said without consequence. Said without anger. Said in the blue, my heart said; said in the blue they so much cultivated. In me fury bloomed like red flowers. “Nothing much.” This calm interchange had the very flavor of Dervishes in it. I shook away the spell the dance had put me under, demanding concentration from myself. It would not do to fall under their sway, their patience, their strangeness. There was too much patience among Dervishes. The time for patience had passed.
I had not planned what I did next. I had never done it before. It came out of my belly, out of my lungs, my heart, all at once full blown. Before I knew what I was doing, my hands were out and I was making that gesture which the seven called “Eye of the Star”. It was an Imperative. It allowed no choice. Though I did not know its meaning—might never, so the seven had said—I put all my fury behind it, all my red flame. I felt it going out of me like a shout, a summons, a demand.
They stared at me from behind their fringes. Had anyone ever evoked the Eye of the Star upon them before? There was only one spell stronger than this; one I would probably never know enough to use.
“Nothing much?” I said. “A little more than that, I think. Storm Grower sat in a cavern making moonlets fall upon this world, destroying cities. Dream Miner sat there as well, corrupting the messages of the world into filthy intent and evil consequence. Hell’s Maw was his doing, and the corruption of Pfarb Durim, and they only a few among many. Even now his will speeds south to be spread among our kindred there. The giants are dead, but their evil lives.
“Knowing nothing of this, I came north. I came, to be with Peter. Nothing seemed as important as that. As we traveled, we began to find dead people, men, women, children, even babies, all along the roads, all with yellow crystals hung upon them or sucked away to shards. Peter saw it, but it did not seem to tell him anything. Queynt saw it. Him, it troubled, but he did not see in it what I did.
“We came to Bloome, and Bloome led us to Fangel, where the Dream Merchant was—with guests. Huldra. Valearn. Dedrina Dreadeye. And with captives. Sylbie, a girl Peter had known in Betand, and Sylbie’s baby, Peter’s baby. And two people from far over the Western Sea, people Mavin Manyshaped had known years ago. Beedie. Roges. And with them a creature so strange I can scarcely believe it...”
“Come inside,” said Bartelmy with enormous effort. It took much for her to break the Eye, but she did it. “Cernaby also. We will forget the eremitic laws. We will sit together, drink together, talk together...”
The pillar that was Bartelmy was shivering in the effort of control. I knew why. Dervishes were not constrained by others. I had evoked the star-eye upon her. I was being allowed this presumption only because I was Bartelmy’s daughter, but if we went inside, all urgency would be set aside. Oh, I longed to be patient, quiet, to put decision aside, to take time ...
I made the gesture again, even stronger. “There is no time,” I said in my Dervish voice, cold and demanding.
From the edges of my eyes I saw a multitude gathering about us, a thousand silver pillars upon the hillside, turned toward me. There was fury there, barely withheld. They had felt my summons. Their resentment was a palpable menace. Bartelmy wanted to save me.
Too late. I could not be saved.
I said, “All the time we might have spent talking has been wasted away. Listen to me, Dervishes! The pissyellow crystals come out of this world—this Lom, as you call it. A kind of milk secreted in pockets of stone, and out of this milk a crystal grows. Little tubes run from the crystal pockets down into the earth, deep into the rock. The giants beneath the earth sent their messengers out to find who made these things. We have traveled league upon league wondering who made these things. You nave gathered here to discuss who it is who makes these things.
“They are not made!
“They are not made by man or by any other creature. They come from the world itself. The woman from over the sea calls them message crystals. The little old man at the crystal mine says there are no more blue ones, no more green ones, only these yellow ones, only these death ones.”
“We know.” Bartelmy’s voice, hushed hesitant, plaintive, beating my will away. Was she begging for my life from her kin? “We would talk of this matter, Jinian. Consider it.”
“There is no time to consider it!
