“Are you teaching rebellion, Riddler?” Oh, but Ganver’s voice was weary and sad, carrying so much pain it made me want to weep. It did not make the Riddler weep. Instead, it posed, making a mockery of humankind of its Eesty shape.
“Oh, my dear, but of course. What could we possibly preach but rebellion? We are the true Eesties! Not witless fools of old rolling stars who should know better!”
I knew him then. Of course. How could I not have known him even among all his fellows dressed as he was? The Riddler. Rebel angel. Not one of the Oracle’s followers, but the Oracle himself.
And he looked aside from Ganver at me, at Peter, seeing us, sneering at us. He knew us. This was not only memory but a time-place in which actuality existed, and the Oracle saw me not as an Eesty shape but as who I was.
3
THE DAYLIGHT BELL
We went out of the time-place, leaving the Oracle behind us. “I have one more time-place to show you,” said Ganver.
I could guess what place that was. Ganver intended to show us the place we had just left, only somewhat later in time.
It had come to me as I stood there confronting the Oracle beside that pool with its low coping, feeling the echoes in the tower that lofted above us and the purposeful activity all around. The Temple of the Bell and the place we had seen at the edge of the Maze—the place with the roaring, angry crowd—were one and the same. I would have realized the connection sooner except that the Temple of the Bell was bright and joyful, full of purpose, while the place we had seen at the edge of the Maze had been colorless, dim, full of horrid shouting.
“You want to show us the Bell being destroyed,” I said. “We have already seen it happen. Several times. We don’t want to see it again.”
“That place where the metal thing fell down?” asked Peter. “The gray place where all the Eesties were yelling?”
“That place. Yes.” Ganver still sounded sad, anguish in its voice. The poor old thing was grieving. I knew why it had retreated to the scarlet egg—what had Mavin called it? “Ganver’s Grave.” It had gone there to bury itself away from the destruction.
“Why did they destroy the Bell, Ganver? I suppose it was the Oracle and his crew. The one you call Riddler.”
“The Oracle, yes. The Brotherhood. The rebellious young Eesties.Only a few of that generation stayed with us, allied with us, with the elders. Come. You have not seen all that I have to show you. It is painful, but you must see it.”
And we were off into the flickering twilight of’ memory travel once more, never a pause, light as blown leaves, until at last we came to the place. This time, however, we did not arrive inside the Temple. This time we were outside, watching the multitude gathered there.
Dim that city. Gray and chill. Walls were dirty and buildings smokestained. There were no Shadowpeople there. While none of the huge old Eesties were there, there was a great mob of the Oracle’s Brotherhood, dancing in their ribbons, chanting and shouting in a zealot’s parody of purpose, a frantic anarchy that could see no farther than the next bit of inflammatory oratory being shouted on every corner. Ganver remained with us where we were, hidden behind a partly fallen wall near the Temple. “Watch,” it said sadly. “Watch and learn.”
A flight of white stone stairs led to the Temple entrance, wide and gentle as the Eesties preferred them, like a shallow fall of frozen water in their polished perfection. The Oracle stood on the broad terrace at the top, speaking to its assembled minions. The painted face was more detailed, and it wore a garment that was more robelike than the mere ribbons it had worn before. Cressets burned beside it, stinking of grease-soaked wood, and I thought of Pfarb Durim. Pfarb Durim must once have been as beautiful as this city once had been; and yet in my lifetime it smelled as this one did now, of smoke and sick violence. The Oracle’s voice and the smoke rose upward, equally oily, equally black.
“These man-animals have the luck of beasts and the weapons of devils. They wage Great Games upon one another, but still they breed faster than death can take them. They survive their own malice, their own stupidity. They do not fall to their own destruction, and they will not fall to those who hunt them. Still they bask in Lom’s favor, but the time of that favor is done. . . .”
The Oracle’s voice rose in a brazen, monstrous shout: “Let loose the shadows!
“Shut out the light. . . .
“Let them die in the darkness. . . .
“And when they are dead, we will build the Tower up again and cast the Bell once more. . . .
“Let loose the shadows!”
The assembled multitude screamed, howled, babbled. I looked around. There were no older Eesties, none like Ganver, none there to speak against what was being done by this mob.
“Where were you?” I cried, horrified. “Why weren’t you here?”
“We had tried,” it said wearily. “We had tried and been rebuffed. We could have destroyed them utterly, but we did not do so. Many of us had grown weary. Some of us . . . felt a kind of sympathy for them, for our pride had been hurt as well. Who can say? I was not here. I had gone away. I had told myself I could not bear it.”
From high in the Tower came that sound of agonized breaking we had heard before. When the Bell came down, it was with a great shattering, as though the heart of the world
