Power of Three

  Hafny shivered a little before he shrugged. “If you wrap it up thoroughly.”

  Gair looked at Gerald. “I could ask about those Halls of the Kings, too.”

  But Gerald’s large Giant features showed that he had also come to a decision. “I’m coming, too. I’ll ask. You’ll be safer with me, if they don’t touch Giants, and I’ve got to find out which Downs he means. I can’t ask old Claybury to dig up all Sussex and Berkshire on spec, can I?”

  Then Gair did think of the collar. He remembered that Gerald was an only child, and that he had lived beside the collar all his life and admitted to touching it. “You mustn’t. You won’t be safe.”

  Gerald looked mulish. Hafny said dryly, “He’s likely to be safer than you are.”

  “Stop it, Hafny!” said Halla. “I refuse to take them. It must be a thousand years since Lymen or Giants came down to our kingdom. Everyone will be furious. I won’t help you.”

  “Good for you!” said Ayna.

  Hafny turned to Halla. “Halla, listen. If this went right, you wouldn’t need to be afraid every second you were up on land. You could come up whenever you wanted. Walk in fresh air. Climb trees. You’d like that.”

  To Ayna’s misery, a thoughtful, dreamy look came over Halla’s face. “I do love climbing trees,” she said. “All right.”

  “Good,” said Hafny. “Then the only trouble is how good you are at holding your breath. It’s a fair way down.”

  Gerald said he was all right. Gair, like everyone, had often tried to see how long he could go without breathing. He could do a slow count of a hundred. He had no idea if that was long enough, but he said he was all right, too. At this, Ceri saw that Gair really meant to go. He summoned up all his courage and said he would go, too.

  “Oh, no, you won’t!” said Ayna.

  “You’re the only person who can find father,” Gair reminded him. He was glad when Ceri’s face broke into a broad, relieved smile and he confessed sunnily that he had forgotten. That meant Gair would not need to point out that it was the duty of one of them to stay alive to be Chief after Gest—always supposing there were still people in need of a Chief by then. He knew Gest would prefer Ceri to Ondo any day. By this, Gair knew he did not expect to come back himself. He was annoyed with himself for thinking that way, but he found he could not help it. He watched with a sense of shadows closing round him while Brenda—who had become unusually subdued—went to the kitchen and came back with several paper bags and a bag of thin, strong stuff you could see through.

  This bag much intrigued Halla. She stroked it and stretched it and looked at her fingers through it. “We’ve nothing as fine as this,” she said.

  “It’s only plastic,” said Gerald. He fetched a long pair of tongs and with them he picked the evil collar out of the drawer and put it in the plastic bag. Then he put that in the paper bags and the whole package into a piece of sacking. “There. Shall I carry it, Gair, or you?”

  Gair did not like to touch even the package. But he felt it was his responsibility. After all, it was Gest who had given it to Gerald’s father. “I’ll take it,” he said. As he buttoned it into the front of his jacket, he had a dreary suspicion that he had received his own doom.

  Gerald left a hasty note to Aunt Mary, in which, as Ceri asked him, he promised that the three visitors would come and see her later. Hafny and Halla put on their hoods and gloves, fastened their jackets and became again the silver-headed Dorig most people knew. They all went out on the bridge. The Dorig at once slid down into the moat. They had such an air of it being their natural element that all the others envied them. Halla swirled round and held up her hand to Gerald, and Hafny held up his to Gair.

  “Rather you than me!” Brenda said, with a shudder that shook the bridge.

  Ayna had tears in her eyes. “Good-by, Gair,” she said. “I shall pray to the Sun.”

  Gair was embarrassed. He turned away and attended to the instructions Halla was giving Gerald.

  “Sit down and slide in,” Halla said. “When I say Now take the deepest breath you can and then go limp.”

  Gerald and Gair obediently sat on the edge of the bridge. Gair felt Hafny’s thin, strong hand jerk at his. He had a moment of horrible mistrust. Then he was gasping and splashing in the incredible cold of the water.

  “Now!” said Halla.

  Gair took the biggest breath his gasping lungs would let him. Next second, Hafny had pulled him underwater. The shock was so enormous that Gair let out a huge gollop of air. He saw it go up past his eyes in a big golden bubble. I’m going to need that, he thought, watching the green-gray water against his eyes, and the silver swirl of Hafny beyond, pulling him downward. Gerald was a dark bulk below, almost out of sight.

  Down they went, and down. It was suddenly green-dark, as if they were under the house as well as under the water. Gair’s ears poppled. Quite suddenly, his lungs told him they had come to the end of their air. He told himself it was nonsense: you could go on for a long time after you first wanted to breathe. All the same, it was as much as he could do not to fight loose from Hafny’s tight grip on his wrist and thresh about screaming. He told himself it was Sun day. Hafny was not trying to drown him. Hafny dreamed of walking freely in the open air. It must be terrible being a Dorig, Gair thought frantically, to take his mind off air. The whole earth was dangerous to them.

  But whatever he thought, Gair’s chest ached and his whole body roared at him to breathe—to take a breath even if it was water. Imaginary lights flickered in the roof of his head. Sun! Gair thought. He thought words to the Sun and to the Moon, words to the water not to harm him, words, words, words. He could feel Hafny working harder. The grip on his wrist hurt. Everywhere was dark, as if they were deep under somewhere. And Gair’s chest screamed it must breathe or die.

  Hafny swirled to a stop, and swirled again. Utter darkness fell. Gair knew they were shut in a small space deep down underwater and he was going to die. Hafny did not understand. Dorig were different. Frantically, Gair grabbed for Hafny, but, before his fingers closed on Hafny’s slippery suit, light came and, with it, a rushing and surging of the water. It swept Gair away backward and he felt Hafny seize him. But the rushing was air—surely it was air! Gair took a deep breath, and it was water.

  A short time later, he came to himself coughing and choking, in a clear light, on a slippery stone floor. Beyond him, Gerald was coughing and gasping, too. Above him, Halla said, “Oh do be quiet, Hafny! They’ll both be all right. They ran out of breath, like babies do the first time.”

  Gair did not feel particularly all right, so he lay where he was. He heard Gerald climbing to his feet. “I say,” said Gerald’s voice, booming round a narrow space. “Isn’t this some kind of air lock?”

  “We just call them locks,” said Halla. “I didn’t know Giants had them.”

  “Yes, on submarines and spaceships,” Gerald boomed. “How does it work?”

  “That’s one of our secrets,” Halla said, with dignity. Gair could tell from her voice that she had no idea, any more than he knew himself why the doors of Garholt opened with the right words.

  “And where does the light come from?” Gerald asked.

  “The walls,” said Halla.

  Gair had already seen it was the same light that they used in Garholt. He rolled into sitting position and said, “We make ours with words. Do you?”

  “Yes. Are you all right?” Hafny said, looking very relieved.

  Gair looked up into anxious yellow eyes and realized, with a jump of surprise, that Hafny liked him. Hafny had been scared stiff that he had drowned him. Beyond Halla, Gerald, who seemed much smaller with his hair and clothes soaking, was looking anxiously at Gair, too. And Gair thought that it was just his luck that the only two people who had ever, as far as he knew, spontaneously liked him, should be a Giant and a Dorig.

  Halla, whom Gair did not like so much, said, “You look like two drowned rats. Shall I open the door?” And Gair suddenly wished, ignobly and strongly,
that Ayna had been there, too.

  “Go ahead,” said Hafny.

  Halla reached up and pulled a big lever. The end of the room at once swung inward, like a big thick door. They went out into a well-lit passage with a warm draft in it. Gair looked back before the door shut again, and saw that the far end of the room was another thick door, with dark trickles of water coming in round the edges.

  The passage outside was dry enough. It was so warm that neither Gair nor Gerald felt cold, wet as they were. The air came through it in hot gusts, bringing gluey, fishy smells. It led them into a much broader, higher passage, with arched openings on either side. Halla told them that the openings led to living-quarters. Some seemed to be working-places, too. Clouds of gluey-smelling steam came out of one. Through another, Gair glimpsed hundred upon hundred of fish skins hung or stretched on racks. In a third, there was a smithy, where Gerald wanted to linger and watch.

  There were crowds of people. Halla and Hafny had once more taken off their gloves and hoods and opened their jackets. But it took Gair only a short time to see that theirs were outdoor clothes. The Dorig men, women and children who flitted so busily in and out of the openings all wore garments longer and looser than any Gair had seen before. The main color favored seemed to be a pinkish purple, but there were bright yellows, blues and greens among them, too. Gair began to understand that the peculiar gliding walk of the Dorig was due to the robes they mostly wore. The most outlandish thing about the robes was that they were not woven, but made of cured skin. It was no wonder that the Dorig had not understood the looms in Garholt— nor the windows either—since their life must be passed almost entirely underground.

  Most of the people stared. Many looked outraged.

  “They’re messengers,” Hafny said authoritatively. “For my father.”

  Some people fell back at this, watching and whispering. Others followed, whispering, too. Gair could feel the whisper hissing behind them, and spreading away in front.

  “Take no notice,” Halla said. “Everyone here’s from the West. They’re terrible busybodies.”

  She and Hafny took them by what were evidently side-passages as far as possible. But the whisper was always with them. So was the warm wetness of the air. Gair and Gerald sweated badly, but it did no good at all. Gair became almost grateful for the deadly chill of the collar against his chest. He became really oppressed and longed to get away. The most oppressive parts were when they had to cross a number of large halls which were being used as living-quarters. They edged among the temporary beds and families gathered round eating-squares. People were packed in, making the air hotter than ever. Children teemed in the spaces, adding to the whispers that followed them. Old, old Dorig with wrinkled faces sat on stools and made strange curselike gestures at them.

  “You see,” said Hafny. “We are crowded.”

  “I should just say you are!” Gerald agreed.

  Gair said nothing. He thought of the discomfort when the Otmounders came to Garholt. This was ten times worse. The number of people camping in the last hall they crossed was, alone, more than twice that of Otmound and Garholt together. Gair was sorry about it. He was also scared. He saw that his people had been frightened of the Dorig for the wrong reasons entirely. He had just found out that there were Giants by millions. Now he saw the numbers of the Dorig were second only to Giants. His own race was tiny. Unless something was done, it would vanish altogether, squashed out of existence by the needs of Giants and Dorig. Gair saw, in quite a new way, that his people were going unthinkingly about their lives, just as they always had done, too set in their customs to know how they were threatened. And he knew that what he was trying to do was even more urgent than he had supposed.

  The last part of their way lay entirely through halls, halls narrower and taller, perhaps older, than the earlier ones, though no less crowded. Many of the people in them wore gold collars and seemed important. They pretended not to see the two strangers, whether out of politeness or contempt, neither of them knew. It was here that a gold-eyed woman in a blue robe pushed her way up to Halla.

  “Halla! At last! Your mother’s turning the halls inside out for you. Come along.”

  Halla looked beseechingly at Hafny. “You go,” Hafny said. “I can manage.”

  So Halla was snatched away and they continued with Hafny.

  “Won’t your mother want you, too?” Gerald asked.

  “I shouldn’t think so,” said Hafny. “Mine doesn’t fuss like Halla’s.” Seeing Gair staring at him, and Gerald looking confused, he said, “Why? Do you and Ceri and Ayna all have the same mother?”

  “Of course,” said Gair. “Adara.”

  “I’ve heard of her,” Hafny said. “She’s famous for wisdom and healing. How many husbands has she?”

  “Only my father,” Gair said, rather indignantly.

  “Don’t be offended,” said Hafny. “I was only trying to think of customs as different from ours as I could. What do Giants do?”

  “Giants,” Gerald said, a little stiffly, “only have one wife at a time. Like Gair’s people.”

  “That must be a bit boring,” said Hafny. “Even the poorest man among us has at least two wives. And, being the King, my father has five. And I’m still the only boy. I’ve got seven sisters. I know you don’t think much of Halla, but you should see the other six, then you’d—”

  A tall Dorig, whose face was a thin white wedge of self-importance, interrupted by taking hold of his arm. “See here, boy, I have to see your father this morning.”

  Gair was impressed by the polite way Hafny got rid of him. “I’ll do my best for you,” he said. “But something urgent has come up and I must take these messengers to him first.”

  The tall Dorig looked from Gerald to Gair with unutterable contempt. He turned away and said to someone else behind his hand, “That child’s consorting with Giants and Lymen now. Someone should tell his poor father.”

  Hafny’s face went stiff. “Powers!” he said. “I hate that man! I’d do anything not to have him living here!” Gair found he understood. In his way, the tall Dorig was not unlike Aunt Kasta.

  At the end of this hall they came to an open archway. In front of it stood a line of Dorig in full silver armor— the first they had seen down here. And Gair saw it was true what Brenda had pointed out. Armor was different from the suit Hafny was wearing. It looked thicker and tougher, and it was made deliberately in large fishlike scales. To judge by their shiny faces, the men wearing it were as hot as Gair was.

  “Will you let me in to my father?” Hafny asked them. “It’s important.”

  “You’re to go in,” one of the warriors replied. “He’s already heard.”

  They separated enough to let Hafny, followed by Gair and Gerald, slip through into the room beyond. “Don’t Dorig ever use doors?” Gerald wondered in a rumbling whisper. He stopped suddenly, as he realized he was standing before the King already.

  There were six robed and collared men in the room. Two were white-haired and stately. The rest seemed young. Dorig had a way of looking either quite young or very old, with no stages in between. Three of the young-looking ones were probably Songmen, to judge from their collars and the way they had their heads together over a harp. The harp had curious white strings, just like the one string that never broke on Banot’s harp. The fourth young-looking man was sitting in a low chair with one leg bandaged and propped on a stool. He was dressed in wide blue robes, with a cloud of dark-honey hair loose on his shoulders, and they might not have recognized him but for his bandaged leg and a slight pink swelling round his left eye. He recognized them. His brown-gold eyes widened and his face became as blank as a carving. Gerald went red, and redder, and redder still, and finally as purple as Brenda, as he took in the fact that he had, yesterday afternoon, shot a hole in the leg of the King of the Dorig himself.

  “I’d like an explanation of this, Hafny,” the King said. His soft Dorig voice sounded quiet and reasonable, but they all knew he was ferocious
ly angry. And as soon as he spoke, Gair knew they had been mad to come. Perhaps it was his Gift again, but it hardly needed a Gift to tell him that the King would never forgive Gerald, nor Gair for calling Gerald to the pool. Gerald had made him look ridiculous. He had trodden on the King, and the King had lost his head and turned into a fish three times in quick succession, and Gerald knew he had. Gair needed no Gift to tell him that this was the cause of the King’s fury. If there was one thing Gest could not forgive either, it was being made to look ridiculous.

  Hafny saw, quite as clearly, that he had been mad to bring Gair and Gerald. His assurance went, like water from a pricked blister, though he tried hard to pretend it was still there. “These two are messengers,” he said. “I brought them here because they have something to say.”

  “And how did you meet them?” the King asked.

  “Up on land,” Hafny said, with false airiness.

  “Unfortunately for you, I know exactly where,” said the King. “You’ve been in that moat again, haven’t you?” Hafny could not deny that, and he did not attempt to. “Consorting with creatures like Giants and Lymen,” said the King. “And you have the face to bring them here. What have you to say?”

  Hafny had nothing to say. He looked wretched. Gerald hung his head in embarrassment. Gair looked at the other men in the room, hoping they might defend Hafny, but their faces were serious and shocked, as if they thought Hafny had been very wrong indeed. Gair risked making things worse for Hafny by saying, “We asked Hafny to bring us because we wanted to talk to you.”

  It did make things worse. Gair saw from the expression on the King’s face that he should have pretended not to know Hafny’s name. “Did you?” said the King. “And he doesn’t know a spy when he sees one?”

  “We’re not!” Gerald and Gair said together.

  “Be quiet,” said the King. “Hafny, did you promise them anything?”

  Hafny was alarmed. “I promised to bring them here.”

  “Nothing more?”

  The pale flush filled Hafny’s face. “Listen,” he said. “I unhooded to them.”