Ganver did not indicate comprehension. I decided to try again. “Look, sometimes a Gamesman will get whacked on the head. After which, at least once in a while, that Gamesman forgets things because part of its brain has been injured or destroyed. So if Lom’s memory is at all like other creatures’ memories, and if we’re very careful about it, why couldn’t we remove just this one memory?”
Ganver breathed a word that I could only translate as “Sacrilege,” though what it said was, “Corruption of the holy reality greatly to the discomfiture of those whose job it is to maintain the status quo.”
Really, this old Eesty did make me peevish. “Well, the real sacrilege was when young Oracle and his friends brought the Bell down, Ganver. After that, anything else that is done can’t be called anything but helpful. If we could find Mind Healer Talley, she might have a better idea, but short of that, I don’t know what else to do.”
“We could go to that place, to that time,” it said with a certain chill reserve. “The Oracle would not expect to find us there soon again.”
“Yes, let’s go there. Let’s go outside the Maze, onto the road. I’d like to have my own shape back and eat humanish food.”
It took me to the road below the Dervishes’ Pervasion, standing silent at the edge of the trees while I in my Jinian shape built a fire and made myself tea. I was fully clothed, as though I had never changed, with my pack still on my back. While I drank, it stood. While I toasted bread, it stood. Finally, it said, “This thought of yours. This destroying of memory. It could do great damage.”
“It could. Yes. But quite frankly, I can’t think of anything which would make things much worse. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s shadow all over the hillside behind us.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” it replied, “but the forest on the mountain to the east is dead. It would have been alive when you entered the Maze.”
Ganver was right, and so was I. I wondered how much time we had actually spent in the Maze. I remembered there had been widow’s bush in bloom back at the little lake when I called up its dweller. If I wanted to hike back there, I could see how far it had come toward setting seed, which would give a measure of the time. If it hadn’t merely died. Hardly worth it. It didn’t matter how much time; the fact was sufficient unto itself. There had been enough time for a forest to die. Enough time for shadow to come flowing along in a gray carpet.
“I can’t think of any good reason not to,” Ganver said at last, sounding almost personlike.
I got out my things. A summons. An easy, any-first-year-Wize-ard-can-do-it summons. I couldn’t. It took me three tries before I could even remember the words. “Gamelords,” I whispered. “Something terrible is happening.”
“Of course,” Ganver said gently. “As Lom dies, so all our senses and skills die. Both yours and ours. Remember.”
Well, of course then I remembered. Remembered, gritted my teeth, and did the summons. Did it right, too, even though it was like wading through deep mud. Every word was an effort. This close to the bad memories, this close to the shadow, the life-force had to be at an absolute minimum.
In a few minutes, however, I heard a chirruping call from the top of the hill and saw three worried-looking chucks threading their way down the path, staying well clear of the shadow. We bowed halfheartedly. I began talking. They were the ones who had been given the blue crystal before, so they understood at once what I was talking about. Still, they conferred for a long time before agreeing. One of them went back up the trail, even more carefully, for the shadows were thicker than ever, and returned after a long while with six or seven more of them. Meantime, I’d gone back into the Maze and found the edge of the memory place.
The chucks and I decided to clear all the growth between the road and the path so we could get at the edge of the memory place. I explained carefully that they must not get onto the path itself, and if that accidentally happened, they were to stay very still in one place and I would come in after them.
They set to work. I would have liked to help, but I had brought no tools at all, and my teeth were not up to the job. By nightfall, they had all the brush cleared along the edge of the path, cleared and carried away. I asked if they could bring gobblemoles on the morrow, and they said yes, After which they went carefully away while Ganver took me somewhere else for the night. I don’t know where, and it didn’t matter. I was asleep by the time we got there.
The next day we dug out the memory. That is, I think we dug it out. The gobblemoles went under the path from the cleared space, tunneled it all out underneath, then let it collapse. After which Ganver and I went in at the other end of the path, watched the ship arrive, watched the moon fall, and then ducked into the crevasse, which should have brought us out into the Temple of the Bell just in time for the destruction. Instead, we came out in the bottom of the gobblemoles’ pit. No destruction of the Bell.
Which might have meant it was gone. Which might have meant it had moved. Which might have meant nothing except that we had no access to it anymore. I thanked the creatures, explaining as much as I could, and they departed.
Coincident with their departure, we heard a threatening sound, rumbling, like a mutter of thunder. “The Oracle knows we’re here,” breathed Ganver, scooping me up. I heard the sound again. A fluttering roar.
