“You can’t go with them,” he muttered desperately. “You mustn’t!”
“I haven’t decided. I don’t want to decide right now. That’s one reason I’m here. So I don’t have to decide. So I don’t have to think about it.”
His arms tightened about her. His lips found hers, wet with salt tears. He licked them away with the tip of his tongue, put his mouth to her closed eyes, to the lobe of her ear, covered her jaw with kisses, bringing them to her mouth once more. “Olly,” he whispered.
“Shhh. Oh, Abasio, I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to think of words, reasons, arguments why, why not I see why women sometimes don’t want to think I see why they want to be mindless, like the hens with their proud rooster. Oh, if they had to think, if they always had to think, they wouldn’t—they wouldn’t love anyone. They wouldn’t take a chance. They never could. It—they … too monstrous …”
“What is?” he asked, his arms tightening.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t talk No words. Make me not think of words, Abasio.”
The clothing she wore was loose, only a robe of some filmy stuff His. arms slipped inside it and drew her against his skin, herself soft and sleek, smooth as polished wood, soft as a bird’s feathers. He felt her heart beating against his own, bent his head to her breasts, soft little breasts, no nipples, the nipples turned inward like a little girl’s.
He nuzzled, and a nipple came thrusting against his lips, erupting against his tongue, at first soft, then hard and impatient. There was a fever in the skin of her breast.
She murmured something, a command that was not a word, pushing her hips against him, throwing one leg over him. He pulled his arm from beneath her and thrust her robe aside, letting the lamplight from the next room fall along her body, breast and belly and thigh, all flushed bright, all in restless movement, quivering, pushing against him.
He whispered her name, not knowing he’d done it.
“No words … Abasio.”
No words, then. He sank into a waiting moisture, a waiting softness, feeling resistance, drawing back in fear of hurting her, only to feel her pushing against him hard, crying out, only partly in pain.
And then no more thoughts. Words that were not words. Movement and all the complicated geometry, Abasio thought, unaccountably, of body A meeting body B, both in motion, needing no guidance. Instinctive. Inside himself, herself, idiot savants who knew without knowing how they knew. The thought fled and was gone in an explosion of light behind his closed eyes.
And a long silence, broken by Olly who breathed one word into his ear: “P’nash.”
He wanted to laugh but had only enough breath to go on living.
After a moment: “So that’s p’nash,” she said again, sighing.
He did laugh then, the laughter rising around him like a warm bath, losing himself and all words and all worries in it, holding her close, never to let her go.
They slept as love left them, still entwined. During the night Abasio moved away, tangled himself among the covers, reached for her, found her, reached for her, found her.
And shortly before dawn he reached for her once more and found her gone.
While Olly lay in Abasio’s arms, certain servants were summoned to Ellel’s quarters, Qualary among them. The door to the locked room was open. Two things lay on the terribly dusty bed; one bundle wrapped in a blanket, long and thin, tied about with cords, the other an open case. In the case were Ellel’s clothes and her personal things, and on top, a crown, a scepter. Qualary pretended not to see as Ellel shut the case and latched it before going into an open closet and seating herself at the console inside.
“Those two things are to go into the shuttle,” said Ellel, over her shoulder. “Dever is waiting. He’ll say where to put them.”
Qualary sent the servants away with the case, with the bundle, meantime hearing Ellel’s voice raised in little urgencies, commands, punctuations as her hands tapped, as her eyes scanned the readouts before her She finished up with a flourish and a crow of laughter, then rose, shut the closet, and locked it, before stalking into the larger room.
“Clean up in there while I’m away,” she said to Qualary, gesturing through the open door at the room behind her.
“Ma’am.”
“Get all that dust out Wash the window. Get the furniture replaced. It’s all filthy.”
“Ma’am.”
“And take this list of those going on the shuttle to Gaddi House immediately. We leave at dawn.”
“Today, ma’am?” Qualary couldn’t keep a squawk of astonishment out of her voice.
“Dever says we can. No reason to wait, so we’ll leave at dawn.” Ellel laughed, a low, chortling laugh, the laugh of a child given a wonderful surprise. “We’re going away, Qualary, but don’t think you mice will play. No such thing. No, no. Everyone in the Place will wait here patiently, no matter how long it takes me. And don’t try to fiddle with my closet, clumsy girl! Any fiddling with my closet sets my creatures off, and then you’ll all regret it!” Qualary could not take in what Ellel was saying She watched wordlessly as Ellel left, standing for a long moment as though paralyzed, then turned as though drawn by invisible wires into the terribly dusty room.
The bedcurtains were still pulled back. The impression of a body still marked the filthy linens. The indentation of a head still hollowed the pillow. The smell of dust and walker and something even worse still permeated both. Shuddering, scarcely aware of what she did, Qualary pulled the bedding away from the bed, feeling it shred beneath her hands, and kicked the pile out into the next room, from there out into the corridor, all the time rubbing her hands down her sides to remove the feel of having touched it, the paper in her hand tattering as she moved.
Then, realizing what she had done, she put the paper flat on the table and pushed the torn edges together to read what was written there. A list. The first name, Ellel’s, followed by the names of two dozen members of the Ellel Family. Then Ander’s name, plus two dozen of his people. Qualary knew the names. The list included most of those with influence. Most of those with power None on it were very old or very young. No Mitty names None of the Berklis. The rest—the rest, almost a hundred walkers, identified by serial number in Ellel’s hand Her own selected companions.
“ ‘We will flit on, flit on over to the moon,’ ” Qualary sang in a mad little voice, quoting Ander, glad that he was going. Glad that Ellel was going. Glad they would both be gone. Knowing they could not be gone long enough.
Shortly thereafter she was at the gate of Gaddi House. “The list,” she announced, handing the paper to a hastily summoned Tom Fuelry. “This is the list of who’s going, Tom!”
“Qualary,” he said softly, caressing her, “come in.”
“I can’t,” she whispered. “Ellel gave me things to do They have to be done before she gets back.”
“There’s time,” he said “Believe me, dear one. The flight cannot be hurried. It takes so much time going, so much time returning You’ve done enough today.”
“Too much!” she cried “Oh, Tom, I’ve done too much!”
She had done too much. Arakny had done too much, and Abasio. There had been much too much already done. Tom knew it was true, but it didn’t keep him from going up to the guest suite occupied by Arakny and Abasio where he believed he would find Olly.
Instead, he found her outside that suite, sitting on a bench that looked out over an enclosed garden, dressed in the bright clothing Qualary had given her.
“The list?” she asked in a quiet voice.
He nodded. “Qualary says they leave at dawn.”
“Who’s on it?”
“Ellels, Anders, walkers.”
“No Mittys? No Berklis?”
He shook his head.
“Don’t worry about it, Tom.”
“I want to help you! What am I to do?” he cried in fear and pity.
She sighed “One very special thing, Tom. I need to talk to Coyote Can you reach him??
??
“I can. Yes.”
“Send for him. I need him here, very quickly. Also, I want you to give a message to Abasio.”
“But Abasio is here! Surely you left him not long ago.”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t the time to say what I want to say. He was too—we were both too … involved with other things.” Her eyes lit up at that memory, wiping all trace of apprehension from her face for an instant Then she looked at the list she held and remembered where she was.
She gave Tom her message for Abasio, repeating it twice, seeing his face grow grim. “One other thing,” she said. “One request of him and you both. Come watch me leave. From the roof. You and Qualary and Abasio and Arakny Wave me good-bye and watch us go. I will take comfort from that, and likely there will not be a sight like it soon again.”
Dawn came on a late fall morning under a lowering sky. Blackness filled the west, cloud and snow mixed with rain, muttering thunder and a turmoil of wind, its breath reaching into the Place of Power, snarling of more and worse to come. Up and down the canyons trees lashed in that wind, bending unwillingly, branches creaking. On the eastern horizon was only a pale green-gray glow, as of a sickened sun crawling reluctantly from a fevered bed.
Only a dozen or so were abroad in the Place of Power. Four of them were there at Olly’s request, braving the wind from the top of Gaddi House, quaking in the cold. The rest stalked the path from the silo to the Gaddi House gate: Ellel and two files of striding walkers.
“Can the Witch see me from down there?” whispered Qualary.
“I think she has eyes only for Olly,” said Arakny, with a curious glance at the other woman. She had not said “Witch” out loud before. Nonetheless, the word had a much-used sound in Qualary’s mouth.
“Where is Olly?” grated Abasio, tears running down the corners of his mouth.
“At the Gaddi House gate,” Tom answered “Below us.”
She was there, dressed in the sunset-colored garb that Qualary had given her the day before, moving steadily out onto the roadway where Ellel and her walkers waited, her angel on her shoulder, its plumes fluttering raggedly in the wind.
The walkers moved toward her.
Olly stopped and held up her hand, forbidding them.
Ellel jittered from foot to foot, dancing with scarcely withheld fury. Even from the roof they heard Olly’s clear voice calling, “I come willingly or not at all, Ellel.”
Ellel shouted an irritated command. The walkers halted Olly moved forward once more, walking swiftly among them and past Ellel to become their leader as they returned to the shuttle silo. It was she who was first at that distant door.
“I should have done something,” gasped Abasio. He could still feel her body, feel the warmth of her breath, smell her skin “I should have done something!” He could not breathe. There was a hardness in his throat, a pain in his chest as though something there had broken.
“You did all you could,” said Tom.
Arakny thought all of them had done all they could, but still there must have been something left undone, or the girl would not be going away, not like this. Why was His Wisdom letting her go? Or was he as impotent as they?
At the door of the distant silo, the rosy little figure turned and lifted a hand in gallant farewell.
Abasio leaned on the parapet, his shoulders heaving. Arakny hugged him, tears running down her own face, un-regarded.
From that distant door, Ellel was watching them through glasses. At length, she made a triumphant gesture and disappeared within.
“It will be safer below,” said Tom, tugging at Qualary.
They did not hear him. He had to repeat himself several times and then insist, almost angrily, pulling at each of them before they would leave the roof.
“Can’t we see it go?” asked Qualary, torn between relief and despair. She did not want Olly lost any more than the others did, but oh, to have Ellel gone, if only for a time! The very thought made her buoyant, as though she had laid down a great weight “Can’t we see it go?” she repeated.
“From inside,” said Tom flatly “His Wisdom says you can watch with him.”
They found His Wisdom in a large room with Nimwes and a few dozen other Gaddirs watching the silo through screens and sensors.
“When?” asked Abasio.
“Soon,” said His Wisdom “The walkers and Domers have been getting into the thing since about midnight.”
It seemed unconscionably long until they saw the domed top of the silo crack and open, like the bud of a flower, its steel petals blooming on the stem of the walls, the last few workmen leaving, carefully shutting and bolting the thick doors behind them.
After that it was only a little while until a great noise battered at them from speakers set high on the walls. Then the screens showed roiling smoke and a belch of orange fire from exhaust vents at the base of the silo and the shuttle itself protruding slowly, reluctantly from the top of the structure. It moved upward, more swiftly, more swiftly yet, lunging toward the sky poised on its cylinder of white light, thrusting, hastening, then soaring at the tip of a long, fiery diagonal.
Even in the midst of Abasio’s grief, something inside him leaped up at the sight of that ship going. He felt again that surge of ownership he had felt as a child, when he had looked from the belt of Orion to the great stars Betelgeuse and Rigel, when Grandpa had told him there were men out there. In that telling, Abasio had taken possession of the stars, and even now something of that wonder and glory trembled in him for a moment before thoughts of Olly returned.
He was still looking up, but the ship had gone beyond his sight.
For some long time after the last trace of the shuttle’s flight had vanished into a cloudless sky, no one moved. They merely sat and watched the smoke clear away from the silo, watched the people of the Place of Power come from under cover, a few here, a few there, little by little, to stand in chattering groups around the empty silo, staring at the equally empty sky.
Oracle came from the Dome, with Farmwife Suttle and Burned Man and Drowned Woman and old Cermit stumping along behind. Berkli came from somewhere, twitching with anger but immaculately dressed. His Wisdom whispered to Nimwes, and shortly after someone approached this group with bows and gestures, inviting them to Gaddi House itself.
“I told my people to bring your friends and kinsmen here,” said His Wisdom to Abasio. “I count Berkli among that number, and possibly we will count Mitty also, if he has brought himself to take sides.”
He motioned to Tom, saying: “Bring them up to my quarters, Tom. Nimwes is preparing tea for us there. I know they’ll all want to talk together. At a time like this, we should not be alone.”
They came, Berkli first, to stare around the room, his brows furrowed. He strode to kneel at old Seoca’s feet and give him his hand. “I would have done anything to prevent this, sir. I kept coming up with ideas, but none of them worked. All these years I’ve been thinking of Ellel as a child, a mere annoyance, too young and silly to be a real threat. But she was. Is. We let her get too strong.”
“I know,” said His Wisdom. “Though history instructs us vividly, people refuse to recognize tyrants until the blade is at their throats Olly herself said it to me just this morning: People believe what they want to believe.” He sighed. “Tell me, where is your friend Mitty?”
“I asked him to come, but he won’t. He feels even worse than I, for he’s just now realized he’s as culpable as the rest of us. We should have stopped her decades ago! Now—now it’s too late If she gets back with the weapons and we don’t do something then, there’ll be no stopping her!” He grimaced. “The only thing I can be grateful for is that all the Mittys and Berklis are still here and maybe we can put our heads together and come up with a plan.”
Tom looked up, alert “A plan?”
“We must be ready when she gets back! We have these few days while she’s gone. When she returns, we can’t let her go on doing what she’s been doing!”
/> His Wisdom was smiling, though wearily Tom took a deep breath “Was that what she meant?” he blurted “Olly?”
“What?” demanded Abasio.
“She gave me a message for you.” “Why didn’t she tell me herself?” cried Abasio, wounded.
“Because—she said you were both—preoccupied with other things. So she gave me the message, to give to you as soon as I might. She said the struggle would begin when she left. She wanted us, you, to be—resolute.”
“With her gone, what does it matter!” Abasio cried. “She said you would say that,” cried Tom. “And I was to say to you, if she gave her life for you and everyone, then you must give some of yours in her memory. She said it would give her great peace of mind if she knew you did not despair, not you, or Arakny or Qualary or me. She said there is a struggle coming, the last great struggle, in which life itself is the prize. And she told me to tell you His Wisdom’s story about cleaning the water tank.”
His Wisdom chuckled and wept at once, while Berkli looked on, askance. Water tank?
“It matters what you do,” the old man murmured. “What will you do to honor her memory, Abasio Cermit?” “Then she’s not coming back.” The old man said, “Suppose she did return, but wounded or maimed. What would you tell her you had done to honor her sacrifice?”
Abasio put his head in his hands, refusing to answer. Arakny put her arms around him, shaking her head at Tom. Let him alone a bit, her stance seemed to say. He’ll be all right, but let him grieve a bit.
“Was it Ander who convinced her not to take any of us?” asked Berkli, returning to his own line of thought “No Berklis? No Mittys?”
“Partly,” said Qualary, offering him a steaming cup. “But I think it was Oracle who decided her at the end.”
“I did?” asked Oracle from the doorway “How very interesting.” She came in, followed by the other hostages, to be introduced to His Wisdom and accept tea from Nimwes.
Drowned Woman took a cup into her hand, but she could not drink it for her tears. The fragrance had brought back the memory of her sitting on Orphan’s rickety stoop, talking about the world.