Peace Symbol, presumably, was one of the bowmen. "You'd better do what the Dancer says," I told Franny. I felt it was tactful of me to refer to him as "the Dancer" rather than "the man".
Franny frowned, but complied. I may say here that, while she had acquired a measure of control over the fetch, it wasn't enough for her to destroy the odious thing or even make it stay away from her permanently. Sometimes it was almost autonomous, sometimes it clung to her closer than a twin sister; and it was always perfectly brainless. She could always get it to go away temporarily, which was fortunate for our sex life. We both detested the idea of having the fetch as a spectator.
Anyhow, on this occasion she made the fetch levitate, walk through rocks, float horizontally, pick up leaves, and so on. It was hard work for her; when she stopped she was white-faced and trembling. But the Jenner tribesmen were wide-eyed and mute with pleasure. They had scarcely breathed tire whole time.
"What is it?" the fake Dancer asked as Franny sank down exhausted on the ground. "And where'd she get it, anyhow?"
"It's called a fetch," I said. "I can't tell you where she got it." I thought of the house in Point Arena, and the web I had seen Franny lying in. Franny was convinced that she had been subjected to some sort of matter-duplicating process while she had been in the web, and I felt she was probably right. But I didn't think it would do any good to try to tell the Jenner pseudo-Dancer about all of that.
"Um." The women of the tribe were staring at Franny curiously. The Dancer rubbed his nose, and a flake of red paint fell off. "We'll let you go," he said after a minute, "if you'll either give us your fetch, or show us how we can get one of our own."
Franny and I looked at each other. We could hardly believe he was serious. That anybody could really covet the piece of brainless, self-willed ectoplasm that was the fetch seemed to us impossible. Its behavior was always uncannily upsetting, and its eyes were really horrible. It wasn't so much that there was "no speculation" in them, as that they were full of glassy, idiotic, haywire curiosity. Its eyes seemed to be holes punched into a demented world. I hated to have it look at me. I used to think that if O'Hare had really succeeded in duplicating his lost Kate Wimbold, he might have been less than pleased with the result.
"You don't want it," I said to the Dancer finally.
"Why not?"
I thought for a moment. "It's semi-parasitic," I said.
This was true. The fetch's attachment to Franny, though only occasionally palpable, meant that it was drawing sustenance from her. The drain on her was not very much, but it was continuing. This was one of the reasons why we were so desperately anxious to get rid of the fetch.
"Eh? Semi-parasitic?"
I opened my mouth to explain, but the Dancer cut me short. "I want that fetch," he said. "That one, or another one. It's up to you to figure out how to get one for me."
"What if we can't?" Franny asked warily.
"Then we'll keep you shut up until you think of a way of doing it." For a pleasant-faced man, the fake Dancer looked awfully determined as he said it.
There was a murmur of approbation from the tribesmen. The tribe might be gentle and backward, but they obviously agreed with what their pseudo-Dancer said.
Franny and I looked at each other again. As a punishment, being shut up wasn't especially severe, but the trouble with it was the Avengers, whom we had managed to avoid since Anchor Bay by a series of miracles, were certain to pick up our trail sooner or later. And I didn't think the Jenner tribe would put up much of a resistance to them.
"But—but it isn't easy to think of a way to get you a fetch," I said inanely.
The Dancer shrugged. I was aware of the roar of the surf coming from behind me, and it brought into my mind a brief speculation -as to what had really happened to the tribe at Navarro.
"Peace Symbol, and you, Glorious, and Aum, take them to that room in the hotel that has the lock on the door," the Dancer ordered. And then, to Franny and me, "I'm sorry, but I really want that fetch."
We were marched across the highway and up to the hotel, with several small boys following. Peace Symbol and Glorious had bows; Aum had a bow and a spear. Our hands were still tied.
The hotel was thoroughly ruinous. The quakes, exceptionally severe at Jenner (they had been so massive they had changed the course of the Russian River), had reduced it to not much more than a heap of rubble. We clambered over heaps of debris, Aum poking me occasionally with his spear, until we came to a room on the second floor that was substantially intact. It wasn't much bigger than a closet. Peace Symbol pushed us into it and shut the door. I heard the click of a lock. "We'll be out in the hall," he said through the wood, "so don't try anything."
I went to the window and looked out. The window had been nailed shut, and several bowmen were watching it from the street.
"If we could get you loose from the fetch," I said to Franny, "we might be able to attach it to him."
"Uh-huh. But how are we to do that? We've already done everything we could think of." This was true. We had hacked at the cable with a knife, tied a ligature around it, and shot arrows at it. The fetch hadn't even been inconvenienced.
Franny sat down on the floor. She gave a deep sigh. "I wish my hands were untied," she said. "There's an itch on my left shoulder I'd like to scratch."
I was thinking. "Maybe we haven't tried the right kind of metal on the cable," I said finally.
"What would be the right kind of metal?" Franny asked. "A blade forged by a druid from a fallen asteroid? Something on the order of La Joyeuse?" She closed her eyes wearily.
I didn't think she was showing a properly appreciative spirit. But the reference to a magical blade had reminded me of something I had read once, a reference to a kind of magic different from that taught me by Pomo Joe. I stood considering.
Then I went to the door. "I want you to untie my hands," I said in a semi-shout.
After an instant the door opened and Peace Symbol stood glowering at me. "What do you want your hands untied for?" he said.
"I think maybe I've found a way to get loose from the fetch," I answered.
"Unh? Loose from the fetch? That's not what the Dancer wants."
"Well, it's the first step to attaching it to him," I said.
He rubbed his face. Glorious—a little younger than I; somehow I felt he hadn't been able to get next to any of the local girls, and that his failure was bothering him—and Aum were looking over his shoulder. "If I untie your hands," he said finally, "what'll you do?"
"Well, I'll untie her hands." I indicated Franny, who was looking up at me quizzically. "Then she and I will prepare a knife so—at least I hope we will—so it'll be able to cut through the cable that connects her and the fetch."
Peace Symbol seemed to have a mind that worked pretty slowly. At last he said, "I can't do it. You might try to escape."
"Oh, go on, Peace Symbol," Glorious objected. "What could one man and a girl do even if he has got a knife? We took his bow away, and there are three of us. And the whole tribe is out in the street, watching."
"Yeah, maybe. But I'd be responsible."
All the same, he grudgingly untied me, and watched while I released Francesca. I noticed that she lost no time in starting to scratch her itching shoulderblade.
"Well, you're loose." He was keeping a wary hand on his bow. "What comes next?"
"You'll have to leave us alone," I said.
"... Let's see the knife you're going to prepare."
I showed him. It was one of the paring knives from the kitchen in Franny's father's laboratory. The short blade seemed to reassure Peace Symbol, and he closed the door on us without any more argument. I thought Glorious, who was watching us with frank interest, looked disappointed.
This is not the place to describe the rite that Francesca and I performed. It is a way of making a blade sacred. It is quite different in method—though not, I think, in basic philosophy; all schemes of magic celebrate the same mystery—from the things I had learne
d from Pomo Joe.
When the rite was over, we put on our clothes again. The fetch drifted into the room, through the front of the hotel, and then floated out again. I went to the door. "Open up," I said. "I want you to take us to your Dancer."
"It took you quite a while," Peace Symbol observed. "Hey, you can't carry that knife in your hand. I guess we'd better tie you up again."
"Oh, dreeze," I said. "You'll just have to untie us when we get to the Dancer. I can't try to cut through the cable with my hands behind my back."
Peace Symbol listened to reason grudgingly—he did everything grudgingly—and we were marched across the street and down to the dance circle where the fake Dancer, whip in hand, was standing. Eight or ten listless striplings were stamping around in the usual circle; I couldn't help thinking that our Noyo boys would have come down considerably harder and raised a lot more dust. It's odd what things a person can find to be proud of.
"So you've thought of a way to transfer the fetch?" the Dancer greeted us. He had reapplied some of his body paint while we'd been in the hotel. He looked quite a lot smoother and glossier.
"I hope so," I said. "Anyhow, the first step is to detach it from her."
The tribesmen were beginning to gather. They obviously expected something pretty spectacular. And the fetch had come up and was looking at Franny with its usual idiotic expression of curiosity. It was dreadful to see how exactly it looked like her.
Knife in hand, I looked carefully along the ground to locate the ectoplasmic cable that linked Franny and the fetch. I hoped the cable would be in one of its material phases. It always materialized in time, but I didn't think the Jenner people would like having to wait.
I found it eventually. At the moment it was somewhat elongated, and about an inch in diameter. I knelt down by it. Franny was standing. The fetch had turned its back on us, and appeared to be looking at Aum.
I raised the knife. For a moment I seemed to look into a gulf, vertiginous and glassy-sided, of the future, where the years lay in colored terraces before me—an abysm of time that changed to a roaring funnel to a cataract. I said, in a voice I hardly recognized as my own, "I invoke the covenants." They were the same words I had used in Point Arena, when Franny had lain in the net.
The ectoplasmic cable rolled a little under the force of the blow. Then the point of the knife went home.
There was a cry from Franny and then a noise like the soft gush of liquid. I made a sawing motion with the paring knife. I had taken hold of the cable; it felt smooth and cool and rubbery, like a thick piece of seaweed, but the little paring knife cut through it easily. In a moment the knife had gone completely through. I felt the cable; it was completely severed. To the Dancer I said, "I've cut the cord. Take the fetch: It's yours."
"OK," he answered. "How do I make it work?"
I hadn't looked mentally much beyond the severing of the cable. I suppose I had had some notion of trying to hitch its end to the Jenner Dancer's solar plexus, which was where the cable had been attached to Franny when it was in its material state. But when I hunted for its end, I found the cable was getting shorter and shorter. It was deliquescing—dissolving—under my hand. There wasn't any question of the cable going into its immaterial phase; it was material enough, but it was melting into blackish drops while I held it. Meantime the fetch, looking considerably more translucent than it had, was standing near us, still regarding us with that idiotic expression of curiosity.
"Go on, make it work," said the fake Dancer, "and then show me."
The tribe moved restlessly. I began to sweat. I didn't know what to do next. I felt like a fool. The cable was now about eighteen inches long, and getting shorter every moment.
"Go on," said the pseudo-Dancer. -
"... I can't."
"He didn't waste any time in argument. "Peace Symbol, you and Aum and Jeb take him and the girl back to the hotel. Take that knife away from him. Give them some lunch and let them go to the latrine first."
We were soon back in the small room. We hadn't been out of it much more than three-quarters of an hour.
Jeb was a lot older than Glorious had been, and a lot grumpier. I couldn't get any of our jailors to talk to me through the door. Finally I gave up. I looked at Franny. "Let's sit down," she said.
The hotel room must have been used as a jail for recalcitrant tribesmen; I found a square of folded-up matting in one corner, and spread it out on the floor. Franny and I sat down on it. I couldn't think of anything to do, fetch-wise, but I put my arm around her and began kissing her.
Imprisoned as we were, it was still an enormous relief to have the tie between Fran and the fetch severed. Its. presence had weighed on us constantly, though we had tried to ignore it. The constraint imposed by the presence of three guards on the other side of the door was nothing compared to the constraint of having the fetch with us, and as Franny had said recently, once the cats had found the way to the creamery, they went there as often as they could. So we managed to do very well and were both grateful to the basket-maker who had made the matting so springy and thick.
It was getting dark when I woke. Franny opened her eyes, smiled, and then made a motion with her hand toward the door. I heard Glorious's voice.
"He told me to replace Peace Symbol," he was saying. "How should I know why he did it? And Aum can go to supper. The door's locked, and they can't possibly escape."
I sat up. Glorious, I thought, was far more sympathetic than Peace Symbol, and I began to wonder whether talking to him would help. Peace Symbol seemed to have left. Glorious and Jeb discussed dancing, fishing, deer hunting, the severing of the tie with the fetch, and girls. Glorious kept bringing the conversation around to girls.
"Hello," I said through the door at last.
"Hello," Glorious answered. I thought he sounded really pleased. "You got anything worked out about the fetch yet?"
"No, not a thing."
"That's too bad." His regret sounded genuine, too. "Our Dancer's a stubborn man. If he said he wouldn't let you out until you got him a fetch, he won't ... Say, why is it called a fetch?"
"I don't know. That's what my girl calls it."
"You oughtn't talk to him," Jeb said, disapproving.
"What's the harm in it?" Glorious answered. "I might find out something useful."
"Well, don't say I didn't warn you," Jeb answered.
"How did you get the fetch?" Glorious said to me.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Um. That was a pretty rite you and your girl did with the knife."
I raised my eyebrows. So he'd been looking! The Jenner people seemed to have a talent for watching unobserved. I wondered where he'd been watching from. Well, neither Franny nor I was especially modest physically. "Yeah," I answered evenly.
"Real pretty. A lot better than all that stuff with the fetch. I can't think why our Dancer wants it so much. The thing makes me uncomfortable. Jeb feels the same way about it, don't you, Jeb?"
"You talk too much," said Jeb. "I'm not afraid of it."
"Oh, dry up, Jeb. All you do is tell me not to talk. What was that stuff you said about 'covenants' when you cut the cord with the paring knife?"
I considered. "I'm not quite sure myself," I said after a moment. "The words just seemed to come into my mind. When I said it, I had the feeling that it referred to the future."
"Interesting," said Glorious judicially. "Very interesting." He was trying to sound older than he was. "It sounds like some sort of magic, doesn't it?"
"I suppose so," I answered.
"Covenants," Glorious repeated thoughtfully. "Maybe we need something like that. Are you a medicine man?"
"Uh-huh."
"I've often wondered whether I have any talent in that direction." He gave a modest cough.
People say this kind of thing to me rather frequently, and it always embarrasses me. "It's perfectly possible you have," I said. "There's nothing very exotic about it."
Thus encouraged, Glori
ous told me quite a lot about himself. He'd always wanted to see visions, thought it would be wonderful to help people and work for the good of the tribe, etc. etc. I listened fairly sympathetically, though I couldn't help thinking that a lot of his interest in medicine-manning stemmed from his frustrations with the girls. Jeb had left off trying to shut us up.
It was now quite dark. Franny had got up and gone to the window. "What's that light?" she said suddenly.
I saw the fetch, quite diaphanous but outlined in pale blue light, floating eight or ten feet above the ground and rising slowly toward our window.
The Dancers of Noyo Page 16
