Ширли Мерфи - The Shattered Stone [calibre]

“But why?” she said aloud. “Why, if you knew . . . ?”

He did not respond with a voice in her mind now, but with a surge of direct knowledge that nearly overpowered her, with a feeling that lifted her, made her see the life of Ere, all of Ere as the Luff’Eresi saw it: a slow, ordered—though there were times that seemed without order—rising and growing of the generations that came one after another. A slow laying on of knowledge and then in places the breaking down of that knowledge, and the destruction of it by falsehood, by deceit, so that people for many generations afterward foundered, led by falsehood and avarice and laziness, led by warped emotions where they should have seen clearly. Until, here and there, a few broke away, and knowledge was built again slowly, and stronger.

She could see those who understood come, over the centuries, to stand at the gates of Eresu. Like a tableau, Ere’s history flowed past and around her, a tapestry woven of the warp of truth, but laid over with the weft of human frailty and fear, with the human need for security even at the expense of truth; then with the brightness of the human spirit rising like flashing colors here and there against the easy dullness of human sloth and greed.

They must come at their own times, at their own terms, Child of Ynell. If we were to go into Ere and change the way men live, change willfully what they believe, we would destroy something in those men. Once we told men we were mortal, for generations uncounted we spoke to them of this and tried to give them truth. But they would not drink of it. The suffering men do to themselves in believing their myths can only winnow out the strong and the loving and make them stronger still. They who search for truth will come seeking. And they are welcome here.

“But the death stone—why . . . ?”

The death stone, Zephy Eskar—yes, we have influenced man sometimes. We have taken our liberties—to save those rare few who are the true wealth and hope of Ere. Before the death stone, they were killed in temple ritual with the populace looking on. Now they are brought here and they stay in Eresu or go elsewhere as they choose. Your Cloffi landmasters are not sure enough in their minds of any truth to resist us in this. And they may truly believe that the Children die here. At least they are conveniently rid of them. . . .

And she was suddenly awake, standing by the fogbound river shivering, longing for the Luff’Eresi, for the words she had lost.

She had wanted to ask more, so much more, to ask help. But she had been given all she had a right to ask. The saving of the Children through the use of the death stone had been all the help the Luff’Eresi found it fit to give. Any more would have weakened the very strength of the human condition that the Luff’Eresi, by their reticence to interfere, had nurtured over the generations.

Her feet were wet. She could hear the river churling. There were tears on her cheeks. She heard a stirring and saw the campfire come to life as if the ashes had been uncovered and tinder added. Thorn came through the fog and stood looking down at her, and she knew he had seen what she saw, for it was with him still.

“Yes,” Thorn said huskily. “I saw it. I was there with you.”

And then she was in his arms as if he could give her rest from that terrible longing for the almost known, rest from that terrible awe.

*

When they gathered before the fire with the others, Thorn was able to tell, more lucidly than Zephy, the sense of what the Luff’Eresi had said, the sense of wonder they both had known as they faced him.

He was able to describe better the sensation of cold dark that had pressed around them, too, with the last vision of Meatha. He watched Tra. Hoppa’s increasing excitement and eagerness, watched Toca’s pallor and Elodia’s serious, pale silence as the children tried to deal with the word pictures and the strong, direct thought sensations.

It was Toca, grasping at the vision and words as another child would grasp at a magical tale, who spoke a few words of the Luff’Eresi haltingly, taking them from Zephy’s mind, “. . . can only winnow out the strong and the loving and—and make them stronger still. They who search for truth will come seeking. And they are welcome here.” It seemed strange to hear the words from the little boy’s mouth. How had they come this close to each other in such a short time? Was it partly the fear they shared, fear of the Kubalese, of being captured? Fear of the darkness that lay ahead of them?

When they discussed Meatha, surely fear was there. And later as Zephy and Elodia tried more skillfully than Thorn to reach out for Meatha, a sickness came around the children, too. But there also came a sense of direction quite apart from that, a sense of something pulling from the low hills to the south, a taut insistence, heavy with urgency, as if the darkness wanted them, would swallow them.

Thorn grew increasingly uneasy. Tra. Hoppa and Bibb and Toca should go safely into Carriol now, and find shelter. But he felt Tra. Hoppa’s stubbornness. And Toca could be stubborn too. Even the baby seemed awash with the emotions of the others, for when their thoughts and talk were frightening, he cried. Much of his crossness could be the lack of milk, though. Dried mawzee mixed with water was meager food. “He needs milk,” Thorn said, “We can’t take him into Kubal.” He stared down the hills where the fog was lifting at last. “We can’t take a baby there.”

“We must stay together,” Tra. Hoppa said. “There are farms in Kubal. We can steal milk.”

“Get caught stealing milk, our throats cut, and never find the Children,” Thorn scoffed.

But Tra. Hoppa’s blue eyes flashed. “We must be together. We need each other now.”

“If something happens to me and Thorn,” Zephy said evenly, “why should it happen to all of you?” But Tra. Hoppa’s stare defeated her. The old lady, at least four times their years, had perhaps four times their stubbornness, too.

Elodia simply remained quiet, with no intention of being diverted.

*

There had been no trees on the mountain, only stone and grass. Now as they followed the downward trail beside the River Urobb, they left the stone boulders and outcroppings and came into a forest of zantha trees whose silk hung long and pale like a woman’s hair. They could not see the valley for trees and hills, but the river rushed beside them. The zantha branches cut off the sky, and the trail looked as if it was seldom used, tangled with dead branches and thick vines that would have tripped human and donkey if Thorn had not cut them away. They made slow progress, Thorn slashing at the heavy growth. Then late on the eve of the second day, the zantha trees disappeared and the hills became bare and rocky once more, dropping quickly to the valley of Kubal. Here the river left them in a sudden waterfall that tumbled to the valley floor.

They stayed hidden as best they could among the stony hills and dry grass. When they came to a place where two flat boulders met overhead, they made camp in their shallow wedge, setting the donkeys on the most sheltered grazing and rolling out their blankets under the stones.

They made no fire, but ate cold mawzee soaked in water. Then Thorn took Toca and set out, as darkness dropped down, to scout the country below for a farm.

As they started off down the rocky slope, they could hear the falls, then the river running, below them. Their progress was hesitant. Thorn, slowing to keep pace with the little boy, fingered the length of rope wound around his waist, felt for his knife and hoped he wouldn’t need it. It seemed, as they moved downward and darkness increased, that a strange unease reached up to touch them, though he thought it might only be his apprehension at going into the hostile land. Toca was very quiet. They came at last to a widening of the river and saw it curve off sharply to their left. It would meet the Voda-Cul farther on. The rich Kubalese pasture and farm land lay in this curve of the river.