I suppose that also explained the groan. One of anticipation: weight-lifter style.
Dusk found me crouched behind a coil of rope astern, having second thoughts about this escapade. The drop from afterdeck rail to jetty looked a long way down.
But then flames flared beside the marquee. A voice cried, "Fire!"
Figures rushed towards the bows. And the figure of Peli loomed below. I scrambled. I threw myself.
"Oof." Peli staggered back with me clutched tight, but she didn't fall over. Still clutching me, she trotted off through shadows, only setting me down—crushed breathless—when we gained the wooden walkway of Treegold Mall (which might better have been named Muck Street). Gazing back, we saw flames writhing high.
"Some bonfire," I gasped.
"Um, maybe I piled stuff too close to the canvas. Good cover there, though."
"Looks like you've torched the whole tent."
The leaping flames soon died and the orange glow faded. Well, any idiot could quench a blaze with a whole river on tap. We went on our way through the darkling dirty thoroughfares.
The Bugle office on Bluecloud Boulevard was nothing grand. It was a low clapboard building with a few poky windows fronting the messy roadway. By the time we arrived there, stars were brightening in the gloom. I couldn't imagine that daylight would have improved the looks of the place, though Peli had described the office as running back a way, with good skylights.
I didn't get to enter. Waiting for us outside in deep shadow were two hooded and scarved shapes. One of them was burly, the other slight. The burly shape uncovered a lantern, producing a pool of light. The slight figure stepped forward.
"What was that fire?" The voice was hushed and soft, though far from diffident.
"Our little trick," I said, "to get away unnoticed. Are you Peera- pa?"
"Yes." Peera-pa gestured at her henchmate. "I believe you know my friend."
The big person threw back her hood and loosened her scarf. Chopped-off pigtails, framing a large girlish face ... it was Credence. The same Credence who had been boatswain of the Spry Goose! Who had tried to steal samples of the black current for the cult women. Who had marooned Marcialla up a tree, drugged and in danger of her life. Credence who had deserted in Jangali, after I foiled her scheme.
None of which inspired much confidence, even granted that she'd been manipulated by the Worm.
"Hullo, little one," said Credence. "I forgive you, on account of all you have become."
"That's nice of you. Forgive me for what?"
"For ruining my life as a riverwoman."
"There might be two ways of looking at that! Marcialla's career wouldn't have been improved much by falling out of a tree and breaking her neck."
"Ah, that was unfortunate. If only she'd seen sense."
"Let's hope I don't have to be persuaded to see sense likewise."
Peli drew me aside. "Something wrong?" she murmured.
Peera-pa, used to conversing in murmurs, heard her clearly. "Nothing is wrong. Just old history. Yaleen is safe with us."
"She's safe with me, you mean," asserted Peli. Peera-pa's eyes looked amused.
I said to Credence, "I suppose you don't have as much trouble laying your hands on doses of black current these days?"
The former boatswain began wrapping up again. "Hmm, it isn't as easy as all that. The guild make people drink it on the spot. They register names." She didn't, mark you, say that it was impossible.
"Shall we go?" enquired Peera-pa.
"Go? Where? I thought we met here to discuss my book and Stamno's whereabouts."
"We know where he is, Yaleen. He's with friends in Gangee. Your manuscript is safely in our hands. It will be printed."
"Soon, I hope! You do realize that the Godmind is getting ready to zap everybody in the known universe?"
"For the sake of awful knowledge. Yes, so I understand. If that is what must be done to acquire such knowledge—"
"Then we're better off without it," Peli said bluntly.
"I was going to say that, in that case, we are a mere span—to the Godmind's league. But still!"
"Still what?" growled Peli.
Peera-pa's voice was silky. "Still, we have a priestess with us now. We can contact the black current directly. We can set foot upon the true path of time and being. In return, we shall publish a certain book right speedily."
"So that's the deal?" I said. "Stamno never mentioned any deal."
Beyond the yellow pool of Credence's lantern it was black by now. Only a few distant windows down Bluecloud Boulevard showed smudges of illumination, while the stars above twinkled to themselves alone. I felt disadvantaged.
Peera-pa spoke gently. "If anything effective can be done to save our cousins in the sky, you must know in your heart that the lever to achieve this cannot simply be some spontaneous outcry by your readers. Most people aren't interested in great truths."
"They've been interested enough so far," said Peli. "In their tens of thousands! That's what Yaleen's first book achieved."
"So her second book will have a similar effect? Pah! If you think that, you're a fool. People wish to save their own souls. Once that ambition is achieved, why strive further?"
"We've had some guarantees," Peli said. "Though I'm not naming names."
Peera-pa chuckled. "Political promises? Perhaps they'll be fulfilled—if it suits those involved. Really, what difference can that make? I'll speak more plainly. What possible difference—other than to salve your own conscience? Other than to exonerate Yaleen from any personal guilt in the cosmic massacre?"
Peli said, "I don't see how she's to blame. Any more than me!"
"Quite. But anyone is to blame for something awful if they know about it and don't exert themselves to the utmost to stop it. Or if they adopt the wrong strategy—a strategy which appears to be bold, but which is really a lesser strategy—likewise they are blameworthy. So let's consider strategies, greater and lesser. To defeat the Godmind means to lock it up everywhere, not just to check it on one piddling little planet. The only way to do that is to discover the key which the Godmind searches for; before the Godmind finds it. You must search for the key to the Real—the truth-key. That's why you really sought me out; or else if not, it ought to be. If Yaleen hadn't sought me out, we should have sought her out soon."
"You certainly fancy yourself!" said Peli. "What do you know about any of this, compared with her?"
"We know how to look for the key, and where." Peera-pa slid two fingers under her scarf and whistled into the night. Hand-lanterns appeared ahead of us, and behind. Hooded shapes approached. Peli flinched, but since there were at least half a dozen newcomers she subsided.
"We shall go into the hinterland," Peera-pa told us. "We will go to our private place."
"What, by night?" I tried to keep a light tone to my voice. "Isn't that carrying discretion a bit far?"
"We know our way, Yaleen. And at our private place there's a person you should meet. As to carrying, why, Credence will carry you. You can sleep in her arms. She's tireless."
"What if I prefer being carried by Peli?" I said this, not so as to burden Peli, but simply to check that Peera-pa's plans included her.
Apparently they did. "Peli might stumble on a root. We don't want you hurt. Or tired out by a bumpy journey."
"I guess riding Credence is a change from her telling me to swab the decks. . . . Say, how long is this journey going to take?"
"We shall arrive by dawn."
"And get back when?" demanded Peli. "Donnah's guards are going to take this town apart."
"With teeth and claws. What a delightful notion. Alas, they won't learn much. That's why we need to go inland—and quickly. Your silly bonfire may already have alerted them. Come!"
"There doesn't seem a lot of choice," I said. There wasn't, either. And maybe, maybe, Peera-pa's plan was the right one.
Credence scooped me up in her arms. She arranged me so that my head rested on her shoulder.
At quite an early stage during our subsequent journey—down some winding track through pitch-dark forests—lulled by her surprisingly smooth motion, I nodded off.
What woke me hours later was the noise of Peli falling asleep. The ingredients were a thump, a crash, and loud confused moans.
A black army of tree-masts and a dark crowded canvas of foliage sailed overhead against a livid sky. Dawn was almost upon us. Where was I? What was going on? Moans were going on.
"Whazzit?" I groaned, blinking and stiff. "Peli!" I cried.
Black figures milled around the source of the noise—which became ripe, weary curses. A shape was hauled out of coaly shadows.
"S'nothing." Credence yawned in my face. "No crisis."
"Peli!"
The shape blundered in our direction, shaking off the arms which tried to guide it, or restrain it.
"Where are you, Yaleen? You cried—" Peli stopped short, just near me, and clutched at her nose. "Oof!" It was too dark to see if she was bleeding.
"I'm here, Peli. I'm okay. What happened?"
Peera-pa's voice: "She fell asleep on her feet, that's what."
Peli mumbled, "We must have tramped a hundred leagues this night."
"Hardly!"
"I was dreaming. Then: wham."
"She walked into a tree."
"I feel half-dead."
"That's a pessimist's view. Try to feel half-alive, instead. We'll arrive soon. Once we're there, we can all get some shut-eye."
As full dawn crept closer, progressively more light soaked down through the trees. In consequence the contrast between brightening sky overhead and the dark forest of our journey diminished. Soon the sky was no longer obvious. The visible canopy of foliage now hid it.
The track which we were following led through a medley of coarsewoods interspersed with occasional ashen groves of ivory- bone. The path hugged a meandering stream. In places where undergrowth was dense and scratchy, the path was the stream. We quit the guidance of this brook at a bend where a fallen jacktree sprawled rotting across the water.
Soon we came upon a huge boulder splotched with lichen. Behind, as if emerging from an invisible door in the rock, a pavement commenced: an actual pathway of flagstones. Our party fairly trotted along this pavement for a third of a league, winding between the trees. Then ahead the forest parted, opened up.
The pavement led into a long glade. Close at hand, a low stone bridge crossed the narrowest point of a marshy mere; above the sedges the air was fuzzy with gnats. Beyond stretched a great sward of voluptuous velvety moss, purple and violet as eggplant skin. That dark moss defied the light blue of the open sky above. It seemed to blot up the shafts of low sunshine lancing through the treetops—so that it still might have been night throughout the glade, except that you could see everything plain as day. Here was midnight magically made visible, as some nocturnal rodent might see it.
The sward rose up towards ... a little palace! A palace which stood out against the moss like a precious Aladalia ornament upon a pad of velvet.
The palace had two storeys and looked to be octagonal. Hat-like, it wore a superimposed tile roof with eaves upswooping. Long leaden beaks jutted far out to spill rainwater clear of the curtain walls of gildenwood, polished and gleaming. Orange marble columns divided each wall from the next. Numerous tiny windows, set at random, were outlined by frames of bloodthread rubyvein. Each little window appeared to be of opaque wax-paper rather them glass.
What a splendid, enchanting, rich palace this was! That it should be found out here deep in the forests was an astonishment to me— though such an edifice, in tatty Port Barbra, might have been even more amazing.
"Our private place," said Peera-pa.
Credence set me down at last.
I was too stunned to comment. Peli likewise. Or maybe she was still stunned from her encounter with that tree.
The stone pavement cut through the moss to the palace, which it encircled. As we were drawing close, I found my voice.
"But why? Why such a building?"
"All the usual reasons," said Peera-pa. "Keeps the rain out. Wildlife too."
"No, but why so beautiful?"
"The path of truth is beautiful, Yaleen. If an answer isn't beautiful, how can it be right?"
"Oh. Is this the path of truth we're walking now?"
She chuckled. "Commencing in the midst of nowhere; yet arriving at a marvellous destination? Perhaps!" She tossed back her hood. She lowered her black gauze scarf. For the first time I could scrutinize her features.
She was at once old, and young. By which I mean that her face was the face of a young woman, yet at the same time it was wizened. Her hazel eyes were lively, youthful—yet webbed around with wrinkles. Her hair was part auburn, part ashen grey. Her teeth were white and untarnished; the mouth which held them was puckered.
Here was somebody who had over-used the fungus drug. Were her limbs lithe and smooth, I wondered, or shrivelled?
Obviously she read my thoughts. She smiled enigmatically. "It doesn't matter, this. You see, I have lived as long as anybody else has lived; namely, the whole of my life." She slid a door aside on runners and called, "We're here!"
The entry was hung about with muslin drapes, one behind another. A strong smell of herbs and spices drew my attention to little bags of popery dangling on strings; or is the word "peppery"? Peera-pa held the first veil aside. Peli and I slipped through the various layers—she sneezing thunderously mid-way.
Within, the lower floor of the palace seemed to be all one huge room; with eight, yes eight, sides to it. Various lacquered cabinets, red and black, hugged the walls. The floor mostly consisted of springy straw matting of the tight sort, pack-woven inside large cloth-edged frames which fitted neatly side by side. However, there were also several sunken pits containing piles of cushions, in all shades of red. In the pastel light diffusing through the paper windows, these pits looked like storm-tossed pools of blood. A broad brass stairway circled around upon itself, to gain the upper storey. Descending those stairs, carefully, came a bald fat man.
The man wasn't just fat. He was a pyramid of flesh. He wore a pink silk blouse of considerable volume, embroidered with flut- terbyes, and matching trousers of even greater girth with a mauve sash tied around his equator. The blouse and trousers clung sweatily to breasts and paunch; though it was still early in the morning. When finally he achieved the floor, he waddled beaming towards us. His smile was a twisting mass of blubber
"Peepy!" he panted.
"Papa," said Peera-pa affectionately.
"Uh?" said I. "Is this your dad?" ‘
"No, Mardoluc is an honoured friend. And a wise one. That's why I call him Papa."
The man squinted at me from amidst pouches of fat.
"Blessings, Yaleen!" he wheezed. "I cannot easily kneel or bow. Blessings, none the less! Oh no 1 cannot easily bend myself to you. As soon fold a world in half." A snorting noise commenced deep within him. This increased in volume as it penetrated through the layers to the outside. He wobbled violently as if massaged by hidden hands. Tears squeezed from his eyes. I decided that he was laughing.
Presently the convulsion subsided. Clutching his belly with both hands—as if otherwise he might burst apart—the gross figure headed for the floor-pit closest by. He entered this like a boat launched down a slipway, displacing a wave; in this case, of cushions. Somehow he managed to rotate as he sank so that he came to rest upon his back, facing us.
He thumped cushions. "Bless us, that you're here! Yaleen: come and talk to Papa Mardoluc!"
At this point Peli yawned; none too quietly. That yawn gave Peera-pa her excuse.
"Sleepy time," she announced, "for all but those who have slept already." Linking with Peli, Peera-pa started to hustle her off in the direction of the stairway. Peli blundered along, confused. The rest of our troupe crowded in behind. So did I. Credence promptly picked me up and turned me around, while my legs were still busy walking. I felt like a wind-up to
y automaton such as I'd seen kids playing with in Venezia. Pointing me back towards the pit, Credence gave me a push.
Unlike a toy, I turned again.
"No, no," said Credence. "You heard the lady. You've had your snooze. Stay and amuse Papa. Play with him. You might learn a few new tricks."
"Hey! I'm not some fat ogre's plaything!"
Looming over me, she smiled nastily. "He isn't going to bother you, dearie. What a grotesque notion. Whatever put such a fancy in your head?"
"You just did," I muttered. Her smile became a smirk. "Oh I get it!" I hissed. "You've nobly forgiven me for ruining your life—but you don't mind a spot of venom on the side."
"Dear me, and after I carried you all this way! I'm sure I don't know what you're on about, little priestess."
"Don't you just."
"Yaleen!" bleated recumbent Mardoluc.
"Is something amiss?" Peera-pa called from the stairway.
"No!" I bawled back. "Everything's lovely!" So as not to afford Credence further cause for petty satisfaction, I headed for the fat man's pit under my own sails.
"Amiss!" cried Mardoluc. "Amiss, is food. We'll need food, Peepy. Food for our guest, food for me. In proportion! The pot's on the hob upstairs." He licked blubbery lips and flexed podgy fingers: a display which I decided wasn't aimed at me personally. Even so, I perched on the edge of the pit well out of reach.
So he'd been cooking; hence the sweat. . . . As he wallowed expectantly, I found to my surprise that his gross conduct was actually whetting my appetite. There was a kind of, yes, blatant innocence about it, which I almost found endearing. Almost.
Cancel that "almost". Before long I found myself really regretting that I'd ever called him a fat ogre. (Put it down to nerves!) We got on like a house on fire.
The catalyst, the spark, was the meal.
Mardoluc wasn't any old cook. He was a master chef. What came down on trays to our pit was a dream: bowls of thick peppery bean and potato soup, vine leaves packed with minced lamb, broiled land-snails, sour curd with pollfish fritters (eccentric but yummy), sweetbread buns spread with lime jelly. Confronted with such foods one could only become the Complete Gourmand: both glutton and gourmet at once! Which Mardoluc certainly was, gluttony-wise; for this was just breakfast time. Yet he managed to combine the gutsiest exuberance with appreciative finesse in an infectiously persuasive blend.
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