The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection

  Just above and slightly to her left, Mavin saw a hard-edged diamond shape upon the net, a thing of some weight, making the net sag beneath it. One of the rare amber fish nosed at the shape from above, and in that sunny glow she caught a glimpse of bright color, knowing it at once for what it was – the bright feather upon the cap of the young man whose body she had seen two days before, slowly circling upon its kite into the depths. The hallway led beneath it, and when she was almost below, she looked upward, quickly, to see the cap, the kite, the wrappings of white. There was no sign of the body which had been wrapped and decked in the clothes. She made no comment, merely trudged on, keeping close watch on the figure before her.

  The sound of water grew louder, a bubbling and boiling with plopping heavings in it as of seething mud. They set foot upon a wooden bridge which led across this noise, through rising clouds of hot mist and the hiss of escaping steam. The bridge was made of short lengths of root, tied with bits of root hair to long, horizontal beams. The robes of the person before her moved in the rising steam without flapping loose, evidently being fastened at the ankle so that no surface of the body could be exposed. Mavin thinned her lips and marched on. Behind her the Thinker muttered once more about tectonics, rift valleys, plate separation. She had no idea what he was talking about, but naive intuition told her that the chasm Bottom burrowed near the great, hot heart of the world and was heated thereby. She needed no theorist’s language to tell her that. Her own nose told her, full as it was of sulphurous, ashy stenches and the acrid smell of hot metal.

  “We must … come to … shelter before the … winds begin,” puffed their guide. “Else we … will be crushed.”

  “Crushed?” wondered Mavin. Certainly the winds were strong, but they had not been of crushing strength. What kind of creature might be crushed by such winds? She checked the two who followed, seeing them trudging along behind her, the one with his eyes fixed firmly upon his boots, the other staring placidly at everything he could see, muttering the while as though he stored away a million facts for later consideration. They had been walking for some time in a winding path that would have confused anyone other than Mavin. She had opened an additional eye in the top of her head and kept it fixed upon the green sky at the chasm top. Though they had walked a considerable distance, they had not come far from the stair. She estimated the distance Beedie and Roges might have climbed. They should be halfway back to the broken roots of Waterlight by now. Keeping her eye fixed on their direction, she went on.

  At a conjunction of the hairy hallways they found two other robed strangers waiting. One was silent. The other spoke in a manner no less breathy than the first, but with an unmistakably feminine voice, “We greet you … travelers. My name … is Lovewings.”

  Something tugged at Mavin’s memory, an insistent, nagging thought which she could not take hold of. “It seems our arrival is not a surprise.”

  “You were … seen on the … Shattered Stair. No one has … climbed that … stair for … a long time. The one who … saw you was … surprised. When we thought … about it … we knew it … must happen sometime. Sometime … bridge people must … come down.” This short speech took an interminable, windy time. It appeared to have exhausted the speaker, and Mavin wondered if they ever spoke to one another in this watery depth or whether they communicated in some other fashion. Certainly their voices seemed unaccustomed to regular use.

  “How long has it been since you had commerce with the bridgetowns?” asked Mercald.

  “Since … since Waterlight … fell. Since then. Except … there have … sometimes been … people fall. Into the … nets.” For all its breathiness, the voice was wistful. Why did Mavin distrust that wistfulness? Could it not reflect an honorable desire for company?

  “Why did Waterlight fall?” demanded the Thinker. “Was it conflict? Rebellion? Something eating the roots?”

  “Aaahhh,” breathed the first guide.

  “Aaahhh,” echoed the second. There was silence, then the third figure spoke.

  “It was … was the desire of … those on … Waterlight. To … to go into … the Bottomlands … and live there…”

  “In expiation for those who died on Firstbridge?” demanded Mercald eagerly. “Because of all the deaths that were caused then?”

  “Oh, yes … yes,” all three of the figures sighed, in breathless unanimity. Suspicious unanimity, Mavin thought. They sounded like children caught in some naughtiness who seized upon an offered excuse with relief that they did not need to make up a story of their own. What was going on here? Was it so easy to put words into their mouths?

  She spoke quickly. “You have lived here, then, since your scouts first explored here, before Waterlight was taken down. You took Waterlight down yourselves, of course, after you had moved here.”

  “Of course,” sighed the breathy, male voice of the one who called himself Mirtylon. Ahhhv cohhhhrz.

  “Of course,” said the female voice, almost simultaneously.

  So she calls herself Lovewings, thought Mavin. Lovewings. What was it she could not remember about Lovewings?

  The beard-walled hallway opened into a larger space, a clearing near the morning-light wall through which a quick, cool stream ran down into the steamy lands behind them. Mavin’s eye told her that she was only a few wing beats from the stair, though their pathway had wound back and forth across the chasm a dozen times in the last hours. A few score openings gaped in the chasm wall before them, carefully rounded, some of them decorated by a carved fretwork at the sides and top. Around each opening a cloud of fish lanterns hovered, nibbling at the fungus which grew there.

  “Saprophytic,” murmured the Thinker. “Living upon waste and decay, to be eaten in turn by the fishes, which may be eaten in turn by the occupants. Though I wonder if they would digest at all well? Phosphorous poisoning? I would need to look that up.”

  “Will you … enter?” The robed figures inclined themselves in a mere hint of bow. “Soon the … wind will … blow.”

  “My friends will stay here,” said Mavin in a firm voice, “until I have seen whether these accommodations are suitable. Mercald? Thinker? Thinker! Can you concentrate on simply standing here for a few moments?” She had succeeded in jolting his attention away from the lantern fish, at least for the moment. She walked up the little slope to the cave, giving no appearance of hurry or distress. The cave was shallow and sandy-floored with a hinged screen standing ajar. Not large, she thought. Large enough for the three of them to lie down in, not large enough for anyone else to come in. And not furnished with anything. Not a pot of water, not a rag to wash one’s face, not the semblance of a chair or bed to soften the sandy floor.

  She knelt, taking a handful of that sand in her fingers. It was dotted with bright, smooth stones which gleamed at her in blues and violets and greens. Gems. Some of them huge. They were not faceted, but smooth, as though worn by water. Looking back through the gate, she saw sparks of light thrown from many places in the clearing. Well now, she thought. That is interesting. No furnishings of any kind. But protected places, out of the wind. And gems. Everywhere.

  “Very nice.” She went out. “Very comfortable. Do come up, Mercald. Thinker. We offer our thanks, Mirtylon. And to you, Lovewings.” The robed figures confronted her still, offering no food or drink, no comfort or company.

  “Aaahhh,” murmured the one.

  “Aaahhh,” echoed the others.

  “We will find water when we need it in the stream, of course, and root mice growing upon the wall, and edible mushrooms. You mean us to take food and water as we need … of course.”

  “Of course,” sighed the one.

  “Ahhhv cohhhrz,” echoed the others.

  Mercald and the Thinker came in as Mavin pulled the gate across the opening and peered through it at the figures outside. For a time, they did not move. At last, the three turned away as though joined by invisible strings and moved across the clearing where they halted against the dangling root hairs and
did not move again.

  “You notice,” Mavin asked, “no offer of food, or drink. No beds. No chairs.”

  “Persons living a life of religious expiation would hardly be expected to think of such things,” said Mercald in a sententious voice. “It is likely that they fast for days at a time. Probably they engage in self-mortification as well, flagellation or something such, and robe themselves both to avoid licentiousness and to hide their wounds from one another’s eyes.”

  “I don’t know what they engage in, priest, but I do know that hospitality to strangers is a duty of every religion I have ever encountered with no exceptions. None. I am inclined to believe, therefore, that all your blather about expiation and fasting and what not is just that – blather. I don’t know what’s going on here, but it isn’t religious.”

  “Besides which,” said the Thinker, “it’s unlikely that Lovewings, who committed suicide several hundred years ago, could be still alive. To say nothing of Mirtylon, who would have to have lived for about nine hundred years. Unlikely they would still have any licentiousness to cover.”

  “Of course!” Mavin struck her forehead with one hand, waving the other at the Thinker. “That story Beedie was telling me about the lost bridge. Lovewings was the one who threw herself off the stairs.”

  “The Boundless might extend the life of any worthy…” Mercald began, only to be cut off.

  “The Boundless might, but I’ll bet my socks the Boundless didn’t. No, Mercald. Something other than the Boundless is at work here. Best rest while you can. They say they are concerned about the wind, and yet they stand out there in the clearing, not taking shelter. Something is awry here, so let us be cautious.” She lay on the sandy floor, accommodating herself to it, placing her head where she could see through the woven gate, hearing Mercald burrowing in his pack, smelling the food he unwrapped but refusing a share of it when he offered.

  The sides of the sandy clearing were hung with thick mats of root hairs, like the pelt of some giant beast, and against this shaggy background the robed figures stood out plainly, as silent and unmoving as when they had first arrived there. There were some dozen of the forms around the clearing, all standing with hooded heads slightly down, hands and arms hidden in the sleeves of the flattree-leaf robes. Mavin nagged at herself, wondering what was odd about the grouping, realizing at last that the creatures stood at strange, out-facing angles one to the other, not toward one another as people tended to do in groups. “Thinker,” she whispered. “Look here.”

  When he lay beside her, she said, “Look at them. Are they talking with one another?”

  He stopped breathing for a time, mouth half open around a chunk of cold fried root mice. Then he sighed. “No. Not talking. But something is happening. Look at the shifting, at the far end of the group, then the next one, then the next, as though they are moving slightly, one by one along that line. You don’t think they are people at all, do you? Well. I have my doubts. We should see what’s under those robes. Do you want me to postulate?”

  “No. Better just find out what’s under the robes. I’m going to sneak out, get around through the root wall. I think you’d better stay close to this cave, not wander about, and you’ll probably be safer if you keep the gate shut until I return.”

  “The root hairs out there are impenetrable. The mean density of root hairs per square…”

  “Never mind,” she said. “I’ll manage.” She pulled the gate open, slipped through and sidled along the root wall until her relocated eyes told her she was out of direct line of vision from any of the fretted arches. The group across the clearing still stood, heads down. She Shifted.

  Spidery feet with sharp claws levered long legs up the rootwall. Spidery eyes, multifaceted, searched for any sign of movement. Once she had climbed above the level of the netted roof, she stopped to peer away toward the stairs, seeking upward for a fugitive gleam of light. There was still too much light in the chasm to tell whether it burned or not. She thought she saw a little, golden gleaming upon the wall but could not be sure. Well, that matter would wait. Both Roges and Beedie were sensible; they would not take chances.

  The net bounced beneath her as she moved to the place the kite had rested. Once there she turned it over with angled legs, searching with mandible and claw. Only the wrappings, the clothing. Nothing else. Except – except a smell. A scent. Not unpleasant, but odd. Odd. Making her shiver and sweat. What was the word the Thinker had used. Pheromones? Well, and what was that? Stinks. Emitted by things. So, there were stink bugs and stink lizards and perfume moths. Back in the long ago, she had met an Agirul. It had had a strange, fungus smell, earthy and warm. Himaggery had smelled like autumn woods. Pheromones. So, these wrappings smelled like the creature that called itself Mirtylon. Which meant, so far as Mavin was concerned, that Mirtylon or one of his fellows had been here. And now the body of the youth was gone. Only his bravely feathered cap, his funeral wrappings remained. She shifted uneasily on her many legs, jigging upon the net until it quivered beneath her.

  Then she made her way across the net until she was above the quiet forms where they stood, silent and unmoving.

  The wind had begun to blow by the time she reached the place, moving very slowly. The only light lay high upon the evening-light wall, only the eastern end of Topbridge breaking the line of shadow, a hard, chisel shape against the glow. The other bridgetowns hung in darkness. Beneath the net the lantern fishes swarmed in their thousands, moving now toward the walls where they dwindled, diminished, becoming dark egg shapes fastened tightly to the walls. Beneath the net the robed forms stood as they had first arranged themselves, the robes flapping a little in the wind. Mavin lay upon the net, let her legs dangle through it, appearing to be only another set of skinny roothairs dangling into the clearing, invisible among countless others.

  She took hold of a sleeve, pulled it gently, gently, tugging in time with the wind. It was fastened tight. She sent an exploratory tentacle along it, not believing what she found. The sleeve had no opening. The two sleeves were joined at the ends. If there had been arms and hands in these sleeves, they had never been expected to reach the outside world.

  Her tentacle dropped to the sandy floor, probed up upward at the top of the clumsy shoe shapes. No opening. Shoes and robe were one. The thing was a balloon, all in one piece. On the net, Mavin snarled to herself, a small, spider snarl. Well and well, what was the sense of this?

  The end of the tentacle grew itself a sharp, ivory claw and cut a slit in the robe, moving like a scalpel along one rib of the flattree leaf of which the garment was made. When the slit was large enough, the tentacle probed through.

  After which Mavin lay upon the net in furious thought. Whatever she might have suspected, she would not have suspected this. She slid down a convenient root hair, spent some time exploring the area very carefully, with great attention to the boiling springs, then went back up onto the net, finding her way quickly from there back to the cave.

  She paused before entering, searching the high wall for the gleam of amber light, sighing with relief when she found it unmistakably. So. Beedie and Roges were there, above harm’s reach if Mavin had reasoned correctly. Above one harm’s reach, she corrected herself. Slysaw would have reached Bottommost by now. On the morrow, he would come down the Shattered Stair. Well and well once more. After midnight, when the wind stopped, would be time enough to worry about that. There were other things to think of first.

  She slipped inside the cave, pulling the gate tight behind her and taking time to lash it with a bit of thong. Evidently Mercald had ventured out, for there was a pot of steaming tea upon the sandy floor. She looked around for the fire, before realizing there was no smoke.

  “I ventured just as far as that boiling spring,” said Mercald in an apologetic tone. “The Thinker kept watch. It’s only at one side of this clearing. We both wanted something hot. I thought you would, too.”

  Mavin listened to the wind rising outside and nodded. It had been sensible of h
im, she had to admit. If one set aside the man’s fear of heights, he was brave enough for all ordinary matters. Wishing she could like him more, for Handbright’s sake if for no other reason, she crouched beside the steaming pot and took the cup he offered. If one could not have fire, this would do. There was a long silence. At last she looked up to see both pairs of eyes fastened upon her and realized that they were waiting for her.

  “Can you still see the figures out there?” she asked Mercald who was sitting near the gate.

  He peered into the dusk, nodded. “The wind is fluttering them a little, but they still haven’t moved.”

  “They aren’t likely to,” she said. “They’re anchored to the roots. Besides, they’re empty.” She waited for expostulation, surprise. There was none.

  “When Mercald went out for the water,” said the Thinker, softly, “he said they looked like the cloak room at the Birders House. Hanging there. The minute he said it, I thought that’s why they were left out in the wind – because there was nothing in them.”

  Mavin peered through the gate, head cocked to one side. They did have that look, a kind of limpness even though she knew they were supported from within by a framework of wiry greenroot.

  “They are made like balloons,” she began, going on to describe the framework of flexible strands inside, with the flattree leaves stretched over. “There are two slits in the veil, probably to appear as though the beings have eyes, but I doubt it. Then there are no soles to the shoe parts. There is a smell there, at the bottom of the things, as though something flowed out of them and along the soil, away into the root tangle. There are places along there where the roots don’t reach the ground, places about ankle high and an armspan wide, where the roots look burned off or chewed off. No, the ends are smooth. They look-rounded, somehow.”