“Jinian,” whispered Sarah Shadowsox.
“Jinian,” called Margaret Foxmitten from the other side. “Shadow!” He let me go, all at once, knowing he must not detain me. I touched him once more, quickly, then turned to the work. He shouldn’t have been there. He shouldn’t have watched, but it was dark and what difference did it make?
The shadow was piled higher than before. On its fringes the Oracles danced, their mockery less treble, more angry. They tired of the game. Tonight they would come to finish us, if they could. The thought made me tremble. Peter had a sharp dagger. I had made him promise I would not come into the grip of the Oracle.
Enough. The things were laid out before me on a rough stone altar. As the shadows drove nearer, lunging upward into towers of dark across the last of the sunset glow, I wove.
I wove by forest and meadow, branch and leaf. I wove by stream and pool, by river and fall. I wove by cloud and air, by thunder and sunset glow. I wove by depths of the earth, rock and gem, glittering ores and crystals blooming in the dark, old bone and new. Beside me the others wove as well.
“Forest,” I called. “Chimmerdong. Eutras.”
“Eutras,” sang Sarah and Bets Battereye.
“Earthways,” I called. “Gobblemole, Bintomar.”
“Bintomar,” caroled Dodie, swaying.
“Wingways,” I called. “Flitchhawk, Favian.”
“Favian,” intoned Murzy and Cat in antiphony.
“Waterways,” I called. “D’bor Wife. Shielsas.”
“Shielsas,” sang Margaret, her voice soaring, reverberating in the cloud-strewn sky, making rings of color that spread outward from her voice, outward from her call, to the farther horizons.
“And all within sound of my voice or reach of the wind,” I cried, thrusting my voice after hers, like a Sending, like a magic spear, driving it upward. “And all within sound of my voice or lick of the wave, or all within sound of my voice or stretch of the soil, or all within sound of my voice or where green grows and leaf springs up. Named or unnamed, silent or speaking. Let this message be brought,
“By the Eye of the Star,
Where Old Gods Are!”
On the altar stone something blazed up, a quick blue flame, sputtering into silence. Above us our words gathered like a flock of birds, circling, making rings of color on the sky. In the center of that widening gyre something spread great wings.
“Jinian,” it called down from the height. “Jinian.”
“I am here,” I cried.
The earth shuddered beneath us, cracked, opened to admit the gigantic form of the Gobblemole. The fall opened like a curtain and D’bor Wife came forth. Around us the greenery rustled, began to burgeon upward, swallowing us in its depths. Forest. Come again.
And not only that. It would have been enough, those four. Quite enough. But I had called others as well, the named and unnamed. Those, too, came to the final couplet.
A thing of great bones. A thing of rock. A thing of gems. A thing of wind. A thing of cloud.
A quintessence of deserts, hot as molten brass and glowing with sun. A distillation of great groles, monstrous and hungry.
A songster, multivoiced, crying in the language of the Shadowpeople with a silver flute in its hands.
These—all these.
I looked at them, mouth open, forgetting why they had been summoned. Murzy jostled me with her elbow, bringing my attention back to the rough altar before us.
“Those surrounding us are your enemies,” I said. “The shadow. The Oracles. They come to harm us, but they will also kill you all. I beg help from all the old gods. By the Eye of the Star.”
“By the Eye of the Star,” they whispered at me, a torrent of sound, like a river in spate. There was one of them—oh, I don’t remember which one. An immensity. Something so huge my senses could not encompass it. It was simply there, before me, around me, asking a simple question in a voice that could no more have been ignored than a lightning stroke could be ignored.
“Look at me, Star-eye! What do you see?”
“Bao,” I said, holding on to Murzy’s hand for all I was worth.
It was replaced by another thing, asking the same question. I made the same reply out of a dry throat, wondering if this was right, if I had guessed aright, or if we would all be swept away. The threatening shadows, the Oracles, they were out there somewhere. I wondered if they saw, if they knew what was happening, then could not wonder any longer, for a third being was around us.
“What do you see, Star-eye?”
“Bao.” Bao, yes, to them all. I felt Cat at my shoulder, trembling, proud Cat, trembling like a sapling in storm.
Then something new. A being there, before us, and with it a smaller version of itself.
“Look at my child, Star-eye. What do you see?”
Oh, what could I say? What should I say? I knew, knew the answer I had was right, but to say it. To say it . . .
“I see love, Great One. I see a following of perfection.”
“And do you see bao?”
“No, Great One, neither bao nor its lack. Until time shall show. Watch and learn.”
Storm then, a wildness of cloud. Dodie crept close to us. We were all seven gathered tight. Somewhere behind us, I could feel Peter’s presence, firm as stone, holding to the earth and waiting. Before us the sky broke and roiled, a being half-seen vanished in its depths to reappear beside us.
Something green, then. Forest, I think. Chimmerdong. That great being, that old god we had so long invoked under the name of Eutras. It held out its hand—hand. It held out a great promontory of branch and twig and leafy swag, within which rested a flock of silly birds, twittering and hopping about. They did not see me or know me. “What do you see, Star-eye?” it asked.
“I see bao,” I croaked from a dry throat. “Part of your own, Great
