“Withdraw, Riddle, but only so far as you must, and let a good rank of you camp between the cavern and Lake Yost, where the Bright Demesne is. Let Huldra’s Seers struggle to get a vision through your people. Let them try to get an Elator through. They won’t be able to penetrate the barrier you’ll make. They’ll continue to try, however, so be on your guard. Sooner or later they’ll send a force to try and destroy the place.”
“Why does this Witch want the resurrection stopped?” Mertyn was puzzled by this, as he should have been.
I had thought about this for many hours during the flight from the Maze. “She cares nothing for the resurrection, thalan. But the one who gives her orders, that one cares that the resurrection should not take place. Huldra thinks she is doing this for the giants in the northlands, giants who are dead, though Huldra probably doesn’t know it. Dead or not, I do not think it was ever the giants who decided upon this. They were huge and powerful, but they were not subtle. They were cruel but not amused at their cruelty. No, they were guided by another mind, a mind more subtle and more depraved, though they never knew it.”
I told them about the Oracle.
There were expressions of consternation, vows of retaliation, loud expostulations from Quench, mutterings from Riddle. When all their exclamations and posturing were done, however, the truth was still there before us. Lom was dying, and avenging ourselves against the Oracle had to take second place to that. When that understanding finally came, also came silence.
“You must get the frozen Gamesmen moving,” I said gently. “The Demons and Healers to raise the others. To raise Tragamors to move the stones of the Ancient Roads and set them in place again. To raise Sorcerers to hold power for them. Sentinels to keep watch against the shadows. Armigers and Elators to carry word across the breadth of Lom. Even the Necromancers, Seers, and the Gamesmen of mixed Talents. All who can must go south, to the site of the Old South Road City,” and I told them where it could be located, using Stoneflight Demesne as a guide. “The city must be raised up again. The Tower must be rebuilt. It must be done as soon as possible, and even that may be too late.
“All beneath the mountain were chosen because they were good,” I said. “By which is meant, I suppose, that they were unselfish persons of perception. And the lords of fate know we need those qualities now.”
“I have not heard that oath,” said Mertyn. “What lords are those?”
I laughed, perhaps a little shrilly, for I was very tired. “The lords of fate? Those we pray are larger than Lom. If nothing is larger than Lom, then whom shall we swear by if Lom dies?” They smiled at this, as I had intended, though not much.
“That is all we have to do, then?” asked Riddle.
Mertyn answered, shaking his head. “Yes, that’s all. To undo every wrong man has done. Rebuild every road. Replant every forest. Clean every river. Send the message that is in these crystals to every being who walks, swims, flies upon the world. . . .”
“Stretch the crystals as far as they will go,” I advised them. “Have Healers try laving their hands upon other creatures. The Eesties convey messages in this way, and Healers may be able to do it also.’
I sighed. The sleep that my pombi self had had the night before seemed very long ago. And I was worried about Jinian. I seemed to see her face before me, that troubled, slightly concentrated expression she so often wore. “Danger,” her vision face said. “Danger, Peter.” I took a handful of the blue crystals from the basket and secreted them in a pocket. Something told me I would need them.
“Well, then, we’ll be at it,” said Riddle. “And what about you, boy?” “Why,” I said, “I have no choice, really. Someone must carry this word to the Bright Demesne.”
5
JINIAN’S STORY: THE FIRST LESSON
Time in the gray spaces between memories was not an easy thing to judge. I might have been there for a season, or perhaps for a few breaths. However long it may have been, there seemed to be a good amount of thinking time. About the time I had decided to count my pulse as a way of measuring—realizing with a panicky sense of loss that the Eesty shape had no pulse I could detect—Ganver came back, sliding through the gray walls of the place like a fish into a shallow.
“Is Peter out?” I asked.
“Out of the Maze, yes. It is evening in the world. He will fly in the morning, south to the lands of your people.”
I must have shown some emotion at that, though how it could be perceived in that Eesty shape I don’t know.
“He is in your bao?” Ganver asked. “Your wholeness, your ubiety?” Wholeness and whereness. I had not thought of it in those terms, but it was true.
“Yes,” I said. “Peter is my . . .”
“Bao-lus,” said Ganver, giving me the right Eesty word for it. “I, too, have experienced this. Once. Among our kind, it takes five to become bao-lus. And only from the perfection of bao-lus does a new form come. You have no child as yet? No. There is an oath among the sevens. I had forgotten. Well, we five had a child. Among our people we say `a following of perfection.’ “
It was silent, then, for a very long time. I did not want to interrupt its thoughts. Finally, Ganver shivered and turned to and fro, as though shaking its
