“Rootweaver is right,” Mavin had said. “Let be, Beedie. I’ve met Roges. He’s strong, sensible, and seemingly devoted to you, though why he should be, I cannot tell you.” At which Beedie had flushed bright red and shut up.
In the night, at the darkest time, a small group of people left Birders House unobserved, carrying something fairly heavy. They placed it in a cart with muffled wheels and took it along the main avenue. The avenue was much darker than usual, for all the lanterns had gone out simultaneously. This happened rarely, but it did happen. If anyone lay wakeful at that time to hear the muffled squeak of a wheel, no one remarked upon it at the time or later. At Bridgers House the cart was unloaded and those who had accompanied it dispersed into the dark. When morning came, there was no evidence of the trip. The cart was back behind Harvesters House from which it had been borrowed. The visiting Harvester, Mavin, who had enquired about the cart, had departed the evening before. There were those in the house sorry to see her go. She had been interested in everything, a good listener to all their tales, all their woes and dissatisfactions, and she had been remarkably good with the slow-girules, almost as though she understood their strange language. Two of the Harvesters, meeting over breakfast tea, remarked that it was sad she would miss the beginning of the quest which was to start at midday.
“Though she’s probably on the stairs to Nextdown by now, and from there she’ll probably see as much as we will. Likely more. With the crowd there’ll be, likely we’ll see nothing or less.” Mavin, p reparing herself in the back room at Birders House, would have been amused.
Time moved toward noonglow. Mercald came out of the Birders House, together with Brightfeather and half a dozen others of the Birders, all in their robes and stoles, tall hats on their heads with feather plumes nodding at the tips. In their midst walked a bird-woman in her green dress, silver and blue ribbons flowing as she walked, calm and easy, humming her song in a quiet voice.
The woman who had once worn that dress now sat in a high, comfortable room at Bridgers House, guarded both day and night. She wore clothes of quite a different kind. Her hair had been cut and dyed. She did not resemble the birdwoman at all.
Anyone who went to the Birders House would find it empty; anyone who looked at the birdwoman in the procession saw that she was lean as a sideroot. There was murmuring, consternation in some quarters. How could one accuse the Birders of having interfered with a messenger of the Boundless when the messenger did not seem to have been interfered with? Byle Bander, watching from a convenient doorway, slipped inside the house to report to his dad.
“No sign at all, Dah. None. She was swole like a water-belly three days ago. I swear. Saw it myself. Not now, though.”
“There’s some can use herbs,” said the old man in a dire voice. “We can give it out that they used herbs on her, made her lose it.”
“Ah, but Dah, those herbs come nigh to killing anyone who takes ‘em. Everybody knows that. This one is healthy as anything. No sign she was ever sick, and there are those know she was swole three days ago. They’re saying it’s a miracle already on the street.”
The man heaved himself up, face dark with fury. “What are they up to, those Beeds, those Chafers? I ask you. What do they know?”
“Nothing, Dah. How could they?”
“Well it’s strange, I tell you. All suddenly now, after doing nothing for days and days, the whole Bridger bunch is talking quest. Talking miracle. Talking to the Birders as though they was cousins. And you noticed how they go around? There’s never a time they don’t have a Maintainer within reach, knife in his belt, looking, looking. What are they suspecting?”
“Well ... a lot of ‘em have died, Dah. You can’t expect they shouldn’t notice.”
“Accidents,” said the old man, sneering. “All accidents. It’s that Beeds daughter girl. She’s come up from rootburn all full of fury, spreading stories.”
“I haven’t heard any, Dah. Swear I haven’t.”
“Well, hear it or not, it’s her, I’ll tell you. Come up on the roof, boy. We’ll see what they’re about.”
Outside, the procession moved into the commons. The birdwoman moved toward the railing to stand framed by two verticals, posed, all soft as feathers in dress and demeanor, gazing around her with mild eyes. Some of those who had been busy assaulting the Birder only days before had the sense to look ashamed of themselves, and more than one wife whispered angry words to her husband. “You see! You can tell she’s holy. You men, putting your filthy mouths on everything wonderful ...” “Pregnant, is she? Well, she’s about as pregnant as my broom handle, husband. If you’d spend more time making nets and less rime in chatter, we’d be better off and the Boundless would be gratified, I’m sure.” Mavin, looking at them out of Handbright’s face, read their lips, their expressions, and smiled inwardly.
The Birders moved toward her, setting up poles, banners, making a screen around her on all sides except outward toward the chasm. They roofed it with scarves, and Mavin was hidden from their view. The call for prayer sounded, a narrow cry, a climbing sound which rose, rose, upward into the green sky. Floppers honked in the root wall. Birds sang. High above them a breeze shook the leaves of the flattrees and the sweet dew fell. Noonglow came. The Birders drew the screen away.
All the assembled people gasped at the white bird which perched at the edge of the chasm, unbelievably huge and pure, more a symbol than a living thing, hierarchic and marvelous.
Mercald moved forward, a traveler’s pack on his back, Beedie coming to stand beside him, then Roges.
“Show us the way,” Mercald called to the bird in his high, priest’s voice. “Show us the way, messenger.”
Mavin spread her wings, dived from the edge of the bridge, caught the air beneath her and whirled out into the hot, uprising draft. She circled upward, twice, three times, gaining height with which to circle above the bridge, crying in a trumpet voice as she did so, then outward once more and down, down into the depths a nd out of sight. Mercald struck the bridge floor with his staff, cried, “We follow, messenger. We follow.” The three of them moved resolutely toward the stair to Nextdown as the crowds pushed back in religious awe. A group of ordinary people Messengers assembled at the chasm side, strapping on their flopperskin wings, leaping one by one out into the same warm updraft to circle away up-chasm and down-chasm, carrying word of what had happened.
Behind the questers on the roof of his house, Slysaw Bander pounded the parapet with his fists. “They know something, Byle, I tell you they know something. They’ve got something in their teeth. Something big. Something wonderful. The lost bridge went down in the long ago, so they say, with treasure on it. Treasure we can’t even think of, boy, because we’ve lost the secrets of it. Can you imagine? Well, I’ve need of treasure right now. I need to put it in many pockets, boy, and the Banders are running shy of enough of it. So I’m not going to let them get it all by theirselfs. Pack us some gear, boy, and go tell your cousins. There’ll be two expeditions going down, one to lead and one to follow—one to find, and one to take it away from them.”
“But, Dah! It makes me fearful to hear you talk so. Fearful to think what they may be up to. There’s only a few of the old Beeds and Chafers to have done with and you’ll be eldest. Why go away now? We’re close, Dah. Real close.”
“Because they’re onto something, boy. And whatever it is, we’ve got to know. The other’ll wait. None of ‘em’ll get younger while we’re away. Come on now, hop.” And Byle Bander hopped, unaware that when the group left the house and headed for the stairs down which Mercald had gone, they were observed with considerable satisfaction by Rootweaver herself.
“You see, cousin,” she said to the eldest, who sat well wrapped in an invalid chair at the teashop table. “While it won’t do as proof, still it goes far to establish that Mavin was right.
“But who is she?” the old man said wonderingly. ‘What is she?”
“A wonder, a Demon, a messenger of the Boundless,” repl
ied Rootweaver. “Mavin Manyshaped. One who can see farther than we have had to learn to do, cousin.”
“Well then,” he said, “what is to happen now?”
“According to Mavin, the announcement of a quest, particularly one rumored to have treasure as a part of it, will draw the villains o ut where they may be seen and proof assembled against them. Mercald goes with the questers to witness such proof and to remove him as a subject of rumor. Beedie goes because Mavin asked for her, and because the girl has an adventurous spirit. Roges goes where Beedie goes.” Rootweaver refilled their cups, meditatively, gazing at the stair head, now almost vacant. She remembered her own youth, her own adventurous spirit. With her, too, there had been a certain Maintainer ...
“Actually, Eldest, they go to find out what is killing the roots of the bridges. We do not say that, for to say it would mean panic, but that is why they go—that is the bargain we have made with Mavin. ‘Find out’, we said, ‘and put a stop to it.’
“Privately, I believe Mavin would have gone into the chasm to explore it whether we asked her to do so or not,” she said. “She is an adventurer first, and whatever else she may be second. This is in her eyes, in the very smell of her skin. Well, as for us, we will wait and see. Guard the pregnant birdgirl, guard ourselves against assassination, warn our fellows on the other bridges, and wait and see.”
The old man shook his head. Despite his fragility, his concern for the people he had so long cared for, he found himself in a curious mood. After thinking about it for a very long time, he decided the feeling was one of envy. Wait and see was not what he really wanted to do, and he thought of Beedie and Roges as he had seen them marching off to the stairs with a longing so sharp that he gasped, and Rootweaver had to put his head between his knees until he recovered.
Chapter Five
There was no one else on the stairs when the small group began the descent. They looked back to see the whole rim of the bridge edged with white disks of faces, mouths open in the middle so that it looked like hundreds of small, pale O’s along the railing and at every window. “We are already a legend,” said Beedie, not without some satisfaction.
“I pray there will be more to the legend than a last sight of us disappearing into the depths,” commented Roges. He was staying politely behind her, and Beedie was surprised to find that the thought of him so close rather pleased her. Well, it was a new thing she was doing, unused to travel as she was. It was always good to have familiar things about, rugs, bits of furniture, ones own ‘Tainer. With uncustomary tact, she did not mention this to him, knowing that he would not like being compared to cooking pots and sleeping mats. Then, too, perhaps the comparison was not quite fair. Roges was a good deal more useful than a sleeping mat. She flushed, and began to think of something else.
“Do I understand that the white bird was not actually the ... the messenger which we had received before?” Roges asked. “Actually, Bridger, Rootweaver told me very little.”
“Maintainer, the white bird we are following into the depths is named Mavin. She, whatever she is, is sister to that white bird Mercald had in Birders House—the one all the fuss was about. However, everyone thinks it is the same white bird, so if they are intent on doing it harm, they’ll have to follow us into the depth to do it.”
“And we are not actually upon a quest to find the lost bridge? I gathered that much.”
“Roges,” Beedie sighed, calling him by name for the first time in her life without noticing she was doing it, “We’re going to find w hat’s eating the roots. Because Rootweaver and all the elders are frightened half out of their wits. And they’re afraid to talk about it or go down into the depths themselves for fear it will cause an uproar. So they’ve maneuvered Mavin into doing it for them. Now that’s the whole truth of it.”
“Ah,” said Roges, turning pale, though Beedie did not see it, for which he was grateful. “There’s been talk about something eating the roots. Whispers, mostly. No one seems to know anything about it, except that some of them are dying. Well. How ... interesting to be going on such a mission.”
Then he fell silent and said nothing more for quite some time while he tried to decide how he was going to act now that he knew what the mission was about. Eventually he reached the conclusion that he would still have volunteered to come even if he had known the whole truth; that being part of the group selected for such a mission was gratifying; and that while the journey had suddenly gained certain frightening aspects, he did not regret that aspect of it. Besides, nothing could have kept him from going wherever Beedie went, though he carefully did not explain this to himself. After a little time he felt better about it, and actually smiled as he followed Beedie on down the seemingly endless stair.
“What was it you said about not stopping at Nextdown?” Mercald asked her. “I didn’t understand that part.”
“Mavin said she would meet us on the stairs before we get to Nextdown, and she doesn’t want us to go to Nextdown at all if we can help it. She thinks old Slysaw has been building strength there, and likely we’d be set upon. It’s important that they not lay hands upon you.”
“How would they know we are coming? Are the Banders set to assault any Birder who shows up?” Mercald was edgy with uncertainty, fearful and made touchy by his fear.
“Mavin thought old Slysaw had probably hired a Messenger or two. We know Slysaw is up on Topbridge. One of the Chafers from Bridgers House saw him. So he might have sent word ahead of us to Nextdown. She says she’ll be very surprised if he didn’t.”
“I didn’t know there was a way around Nextdown,” commented Roges, hearing this for the first time.
“Neither does she. But Mavin says if there is a way, she will have found it by the time we get there. She thinks there may be some c onstruction stairs used by the Bridgers in times past that will duck down this side and join the stairs to Midwall farther on.”
“If so,” said Mercald, “I’ll wager they’ve rotted away by now. Nextdown is the second oldest of all the bridges, and it hasn’t been renewed at all. Any construction stairs would be lair for crawly-claws by now.”
“I thought Topbridge was the second bridgetown built,”said Roges. “Before the fell of Firstbridge.”
Mercald shook his head. “Nextdown had been started before Firstbridge was destroyed. There were already stairs down to it, which is how a few Firstbridgers escaped. Then, it was from Nextdown they moved up to build Topbridge. It’s all in the records we have left at the Birders House. Not that they’re complete in any sense. Mostly they’re things that were rewritten from memory after Firstbridge was broken.”
“Do they say where we came from, Mercald?” Beedie had been curious about this ever since Mavin had spoken of the wide world above the chasm.
“Only that we came from somewhere else, long ago. We lived on the surface under the trees until the beasts drove us out. And why that happened is a mystery. Some say it’s because we sinned, disobeyed the Boundless. Others say the Demon Daudir brought it upon us out of wickedness.”
“I haven’t ever heard of the Demon Daudir!” Beedie was indignant. “If it’s an old story, why haven’t I heard it?”
“Because it’s accounted heresy,” replied Mercald. He had stopped for a moment at a place the stair root they were on switched to another one, heading back along the root wall. Stairs were made by pulling a sideroot diagonally along the root wall as far as it would go, then cutting steps into it and building rails where necessary. Except for the short stretch between Potter’s bridge and Miner’s bridge, one root was not sufficient for the whole distance and crossovers were needed. At these crossover points, small platforms gave space to rest. Travelers caught between bridges by nightfall sometimes slept there, too. Mercald stopped to take off his high feathered hat, folding it up with some care and slowing it away in his pack wrapped in a handkerchief. His robes were next, and when he had finished all the regalia was hidden away and he appeared to be merely another traveler. “Daudir was suppose
d to be a Demon w ho arrived out of the Boundless in the time of our many-times-great forefathers. She brought disaster upon our world, so it is said, and our own troubles were the result. However, this is not in accordance with the Birders’ teaching, so we don’t talk of it.”
Beedie wondered if Mavin knew the legend, and if so what she thought of it. “Why isn’t it in accordance, Mercald? Is it a story?”
“Everything is a story,” muttered Roges, unheard.
“It isn’t a story,” Mercald said. “But it is doctrine. Do you want to hear it?”
“If it isn’t too much trouble.”
“As a Birder, I have no choice. Trouble or no, I must tell what is to be told. That’s what Birders are for. So. Let me follow you and Roges, and that way you can hear me as I talk...
“The Story of the Creation of All. Ahem. Time was the Boundless lived alone, without edge or limit, lost in contemplation of itself. Time was the Boundless said, ‘I will divide me into parts and compare one part against the next to see if I am the same in all parts of me, for if there is difference in anything, in this way may I discover it.’
“So the Boundless divided itself, one part against another part, and examined all the parts to see if difference dwelt among them, and lo, there was difference among the parts for what one part contained was not always what another part contained.
“So the Boundless was lost in contemplation, until the Boundless said, ‘Lo, I will divide me smaller, in order to see where the difference lies.’ And the Boundless divided itself smaller yet, finding more difference the smaller it was divided ...”
“I don’t understand that at all,” murmured Beedie to Roges.
“It would be hard to tell the difference between Beedie and Beedie,” Roges whispered. “But if you divided yourself in pieces, I suppose it would be easy enough to tell your left foot from your elbow.” He smiled behind his hand.