I don’t know how long this went on. Long enough to learn about it, see it, understand it. Ganver left us in no doubt as to the purpose of the exercise. “This is how things were,” he said to us over and over. “Before man came.”
We left the world of the Daylight Bell. I couldn’t tell how we got out. At one moment we were spinning along the road, the next we were in the flickering travel that told us we were traveling among the memories. Forests, oceans, other cities. Something that looked like a huge stadium full of peculiarly shaped revelers. When we moved among the memories, time slowed. I knew we were traversing actual distance. The Maze was very large, and we were moving across it, from side to side, end to end.
Then we stopped again. Peter recognized the place.
“The Blot,” he said. We were looking down on it from a height. It lay beneath us like a clot of filth, full of noise and stinks. Iron railways with cars that ran upon them. On every side the forest had been cleared; the stumps protruded from the earth like severed fingers. We spun down the road, down—onto nothing.
The road had been broken. Torn up. Great chunks of it lay here and there. I could see no purpose to the destruction at first. Then I saw the stone of the road had been quarried to build a squat, ugly building against the mountain side. People went in and out of it, hurrying, bumping into one another. At one side a group of men screamed at another group. A dispute over some detail of the construction. The sound was ugly. The emotion was ugly.
“Come,” said Ganver.
We went away from there, into memory again. In and out. Always to scenes of destruction. Roads torn up. Forests leveled. River plains ignored while slopes were cleared. Cliffs of easily quarried stone neglected while roads were torn up to build ugliness.
And then we saw scenes of rebellion. Those great creatures, the spirits of the places, creatures like the Flitchhawk and the D’bor Wife, rose up. Ganver let us watch while they rose in wrath and fought against the intruder.
And we watched the intruder, man, fight back. With chemicals and fire; with sonic beams and huge machines. The Magicians from the Base fought back. Far to the west, over the sea, the people of the Chasm were driven down into the depths by that rebellion. Here in the east the people were scattered, fleeing the wrath of the facets of Lom.
But in the end the Magicians conquered. Those who had risen up were made captive in their own places. Chimmerdong was ringed with gray fire. Boughbound was dead. The spirits of Ramberlon dammed up and driven away. Only a few of the great ones roamed free still, and they roamed a saddened world.
“Would you blame me, human?” asked Ganver. “Boughbound Forest was my friend. So was River Ramberlon. Great beings, those. Lost, now, for a thousand years. Would you blame me?”
Peter answered. “I would not blame you if you had killed us, Ganver. We were stupid, heedless beasts, and Lom would have been better without humans. But you didn’t kill the humans. It’s Lom who’s dying.”
“And with Lom dies the Flitchhawk,” I said. “Isn’t Flitchhawk your friend, too? D’bor Wife will die as well. And all the Shadowpeople. And likely you, too, Ganver, unless your scarlet egg can protect you, like some eternal womb. I agree with Peter. I could have forgiven you for killing all us humans, but why are you killing the world?” At that time it seemed the only thing to say. At that time in my Eesty shape I cared more about the world and all its glories than I cared about myself, the human, Jinian. I knew then why the Eesties made judges out of their accusers. Having seen what we had, I hated us, even myself, though I had never cut a tree and had done more to restore the roads than anyone else I knew.
“Let us go back to the city of the Bell,” it said. So we returned.
A shadow lay upon the city. There was pain in the city. The Eesties moved jerkily, there was an uncoordinated feel to things. Sound was not always pleasant. We ached with the feeling of the place.
“Do not go to the pool,” someone called. “We are not going to the pool.”
Ganver stopped. “What is this? What Eesty rejects the pool of bao?”
“We,” said the voice. “We of the Brotherhood.”
It came into view then. One star tip painted in the mockery of a human face. Ribbon-decked. One of those who had abused Queynt. One of the Oracle’s followers.
“And how many of you are there, Riddler?” Ganver’s tone was indulgent, even fond, the voice of age to the silliness of youth. The Eesty that confronted us was not large, not old. Scarcely larger than Peter and I. “How many? A few fives? You children? Who have only carried the will of Lom for a season or two? And now you are a Brotherhood?”
“We are those who protect Lom from the interlopers,” it asserted in a proud, impatient voice. “Seemingly, we are the only ones. The rest of you go on as though nothing were happening. Look around you, old star! Look what these filthies are doing to our world!” At the sound of its voice, several others had gathered around it, all with that painted caricature of a face, all with the fluttering ribbons. Suddenly I understood these painted faces, these ribbons. The faces were a symbol; a symbol of’
