Below the Root

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  “But such books could never be as beautiful as embroidered ones,” his teachers had said—and it was true.

  Books, with their pages of finely woven silk, illustrated and printed in bright colored thread, stitched by the most talented embroiderers, were indeed beautiful—and immensely valuable and rare. Of course, they could only be owned by schools and temples. All other writing was very temporary, since it was done by stylus on grund-leaves, and grundleaves tended to dry and disintegrate in a very short time.

  “But everyone should have books of their own,” Raamo had said, “in their own chambers. Then they could have many stories and histories to read at any time and—”

  “But what need to read history when it is already written in your mind?” his teacher had asked. “And it is written in the minds of all Kindar who have studied carefully and have memorized the ancient songs and stories during their days at the Garden. Study hard, Raamo, and you will have no need of books of your own.” But Raamo had continued to have trouble with his memory, and his reports were not often very high.

  He had usually done somewhat better in the Spirit-skill classes. He had always been given high marks in those classes, although it had seemed to him that many among his classmates pensed more accurately and kiniported with less effort. But that, he remembered suddenly, might have been at least partly, and perhaps almost entirely, due to illusion.

  “I wonder,” he said to his mother, “do you think that the use of illusion is taught also in the classes in grunspreking?”

  “Perhaps,” she said, “although I don’t see how—”

  “I do,” Raamo interrupted suddenly. “Now, I do.”

  Grunspreking, or the influencing of plant life by Spirit-force, was considered one of the most important of the Spirit-skills, since it was the grunspreking of the early Ol-zhaan, D’ol Wissen, that had saved Green-sky from the Pash-shan. In the Garden classes, Kindar children practiced grunspreking by trying to influence the growth of Vine-tendrils, making them divide into a certain number of finger tendrils and twine themselves into given patterns. After many days of ritual, meditation and plant-pensing, the pupil reported to his teacher how his tendril had grown—and exactly what he had asked of it.

  “We were never asked to reveal what we had directed our tendrils to do until the end,” Raamo told Hearba. “And then, if the shoot leaned to the left and sent out three feelers, it would be easy to say—”

  “That you had so intended—” his mother finished. “And if the shoot sickened and withered away, one could even say one had willed it so,” she added, smiling wryly. Then her smile faded, and she continued, “My mind is pained, Raamo, by this matter of the teaching of illusion instead of the true Spirit-skills. I don’t know why exactly, but it is so. I wish—” her smile teased gently, “I wish that you were already an Ol-zhaan, full of wisdom and knowledge, so that I could ask your counsel in this matter.”

  “And I would counsel you,” Raamo teased in return, “to eat five sacred Berries and retire to a private place and chant the Hymn of Peace until your mind-pain had healed itself.”

  “Would you, indeed?” Hearba said. “Such counsel I need not wait for.” She turned and started off along the branchpath toward the silkhouses. “Come, Raamo,” she called. “Walk with me as far as the crossbranch near the silkhouses. It will take no longer if you climb by way of Broadtrunk to the midheights and then cross over into Stargrund.”

  So Raamo accompanied his mother to the part of the city where, in long hallways, silkworms were fed and nurtured and silk was woven into many materials, from the light firm silk used for book pages and shubas, to the heavy weaves necessary for tapestries and door hangings—and then, in other hallways embroidered, not only with colored thread, but also with long iridescent strands from the plumes of paraso birds. They said their parting outside the door to the first embroidery hall, and Raamo continued alone toward the Temple-grove.

  He walked quickly now, until he reached an enormous tree in the very center of the city. Broadgrund, as it was called, supported in its lower branches many shops and business houses, as well as the largest assembly hall in the city of Orbora. The trunk of Broadgrund was so wide that a hundred Kindar with arms outstretched could not have reached around it. Strung with dozens of Vine ladders, Broadtrunk was a central route to the upper reaches of the city, and on this morning, as always, it was crowded with climbers who, like Raamo, were on their way upward. At the moment, the upward flow was somewhat impeded by a group of deliverymen climbing downward carrying on their backs large bundles of produce. Too heavily laden to risk gliding, they were forced to make use of the ladders to reach the shops on the main branchways.

  Struggling around and over the downward traffic, Raamo finally reached a midheight branchpath that led in the direction of Temple-grove. Surefooted and delicately balanced, like all Kindar, he ran lightly along the narrowing branch until he arrived at the spot where it paralleled a corresponding branch from the next grund. This was Stargrund, the first of the towering giants that made up the grove of the Ol-zhaan. From Stargrund a ramp, woven of Vine and branch, led upward to a central platform. Almost at the beginning of the ramp, Raamo stopped suddenly and then hurriedly stepped aside into a small branchfork.

  A procession was approaching, making its way with full pomp and splendor, down the gently swaying rampway. It was. Raamo saw at once, a Vine-procession—a pilgrimage to the Vine, bearing the holy altar and symbol—on its way to the forest floor.

  The procession consisted of nine Ol-zhaan, their pure white shubas glinting beneath the brilliance of feathered hoods and capes. The first two were carrying large lutes, and from their flowing fingers came the familiar strains of the solemn Vine-song. Behind them came bearers of urns and banners, and then four who bore on their shoulders the sacred Wissenaltar, a tendril-woven platform draped in tapestries so richly decorated that they dazzled the eyes of the beholder. Last came one alone, the famed D’ol Falla, the oldest and most honored of Ol-zhaan and high priestess of the Vine. She was dressed in a feathered cape woven entirely of the deep green neck-feathers of the male paraso, and she carried a long staff surmounted with the symbol of her high calling—a Wissenflower shaped of some magical material that gleamed hard and golden in the slanting rays of the sun. As the procession passed, very close to Raamo’s refuge on the branchfork, he saw her face and knew that it had, indeed, been the great D’ol Falla who had spoken to him alone, at the time of his counseling.

  Caught up in wonder at the beauty and magnificence of the procession, Raamo followed beside it, making his way frantically through scratchy twig clusters and enfolding grundlcaves. But when the procession reached Startrunk and started down the ladders there, he was forced to stop. As the last Ol-zhaan disappeared from view, Raamo sighed—and then smiled, realizing that he had been marching with them in imagination, sharing in their splendor and glory. “It will take many years,” he told himself, “many years and who knows what trials and testings before you can hope to be as one of those.” It was a sobering thought—for a new Chosen who a moment before had been scrambling through branchends like an excited sima. Raamo brushed the twigs and tree ants out of his hair and again started up the ramp, walking this time with what he hoped was appropriate dignity. But than an even more sobering thought stopped him in midstride. He stood stiffly, as if stricken by paralysis at a sudden transition from Joy to fear. From his delight and Joy in the splendor of the procession, to his sudden fear for what it might mean.

  “There have been many processions of late—” his father had said. “There are those who say the Root is withering—”

  For long moments Raamo stood in the middle of the temple ramp while his mind troubled him with pictures of the glorious Ol-zhaan winding their way on and on, down ramps and then ladders, down and down to the dark deep undergrowth of the forest floor—the forest floor where no Kindar ever went, and where only the Root protected the brave Ol-zhaan from the monstrous inhabitants of the lower regions. An
d if the Root were truly withering?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AT THE END OF THE Stargrund ramp, an enormous arch hung with ancient tapestries marked the beginning of the temple grounds. Inside the gateway, a large open platform was surrounded on all sides by other ramps and archways leading to many chambers of great size and magnificence, supported by the unusually large and level branches of the temple grunds. Raamo crossed the open platform and entered the first large chamber. This far he had been before, as had all the citizens of Orbora, since this was the central Hall of Counseling. Here he had sat, only the morning before, with many other thirteen-year-olds, all of them waiting to be led to smaller chambers where they would learn what profession had been assigned to them and, therefore, the general course and direction of their future lives. For all of them, it had been a day of momentous importance—a crossroads, an ending and a new beginning. A day to be followed by great rejoicing or, in some cases, by bitter disappointment.

  Of course, any apprentice who was unsatisfied with his assignment was free to request that he be given a new profession. The teachers at the Garden had said so, and many people had heard of such a thing happening somewhere. However, Raamo had never met anyone who had changed his profession from the one given him on his Second Counseling, nor had any one that he knew. So Raamo and his friends had each approached his Counseling knowing that it would be a day of unequaled significance. A day that quite possibly would change his entire life.

  Today the great hall was empty and quiet, whereas yesterday it had been packed with anxious troubling thirteen-year-olds. As often happened in times of high emotion, particularly among the young, there was much imperfect or partial mind-blocking, so Raamo had been able to pense bits and pieces of many interesting, and sometimes surprising, hopes and fears. He had in fact been so caught up in pensing, his energy so channeled into what children called “pense-peeking,” the receiving of unsent thought, that he had not yet begun to trouble about his own future—until a novice Ol-zhaan in a green tabard stepped into the hall and called his name. And Raamo had risen and walked across the room—and into a new existence.

  Reliving it in his mind the next few hours, Raamo found himself shaking, pulsing with the same strange sensations that had troubled him for a time the day before. Sitting down quickly, he closed his eyes and began to mind-speak one of his favorites hymns of Peace. The soothing words were just beginning to have some effect when, from very near, a voice said, “Greetings friend. Are you meditating or Berry-dreaming?”

  Raamo’s eyes flew open. Standing before him was a girl of about his own age. She was tall for a girl but delicately built, and her eyes were dark and had a level steadiness more natural to one of much greater age and honor. Either in the tone of her voice, or by a momentary pensing, Raamo was sure he read an intent to tease behind her question, as if she found it amusing that he had need of soothing.

  “Neither,” he said quickly, and then added, belatedly, the proper salutation for a stranger. “Greetings, friend, and welcome.”

  The girl nodded. She was indeed a stranger. She had certainly never been among the pupils at the Orbora Garden.

  “You are not from Orbora, I think?” Raamo asked.

  “No,” she said. “I am Genaa D’anhk, and my nid-place is in Farvald. I am here to see—to speak with one of the Orbora Ol-zhaan.”

  Raamo tried not to stare in fascination, but it was not easy. He knew that, ordinarily, Garden graduates from the other cities did not come to Orbora for counseling. Then too, the girl was not mind-blocking completely enough to keep him from pensing that under the outward appearance of calm she was at least somewhat excited. It seemed possible, even likely, that she was the other Chosen.

  “Are you—here for counseling?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “I was counseled two days ago, in Farvald. I was—asked to come here to the temple for—further instructions.”

  It was apparent that she did not intend to speak further of the matter. Raamo remembered that he, too, had been asked to say nothing of his choosing except to members of his own family, until after the announcing.

  “I am Raamo D’ok,” Raamo told her. “I live here in Orbora. I too am awaiting a meeting with an Ol-zhaan.”

  The girl, Genaa, looked at him quickly, and it seemed to Raamo that her eyes flared with an intense probing light. “You’re the other one,” she said, suddenly. “You are also a Chosen?”

  Startled by the directness of her question, Raamo momentarily forgot his promise of silence—enough to nod. “But I was told not to speak of it until after the announcing,” he added quickly. “Did you pense me?”

  Genaa shrugged smiling. “Of course not,” she said. “I haven’t been able to pense in years. Except with someone who is sending intentionally—and very strongly. And not always, even then. It was only a logical guess. We are here together—only two of us. And I know why I’m here.”

  “I suppose it’s all right for us to speak of it—since we are both—” Raamo paused, glancing toward the inner doorway.

  “Of course.” Genaa said. “If they had not wanted us to speak together, they would not have allowed us to meet here. What did they tell you—at your counseling?”

  “Very little,” Raamo said. “Only that I was—that I was to be a Chosen. And that I should tell my family and no one else until after the next assembly when the announcing will be made.”

  “And I also,” the girl said. “And that I should travel as far as Ninegrund yesterday and stay the night there in the travelers’ hall, and then come on to Orbora this morning.

  “You must be very tired,” Raamo said. “That is a long journey. To make it in so short a time, you must have—”

  “I am very strong,” Genaa interrupted. “I do not tire easily.”

  She looked strong, Raamo thought. In spite of the narrow grace of her body and the girl-child softness of her features, there was a strength and sureness about her. “Did they tell you why?” he asked. “Did they say why you were chosen?”

  “No,” she said. “Why? Did they tell you?”

  “No,” Raamo said. “It was just that I wondered—that I’ve been wondering about it. About why they picked me.” As he spoke it came flooding back—the shock of it, the disbelief.

  Genaa’s stare was frankly curious, and he realized that he had let his face reflect the reliving of his turmoil. He smiled, shrugging. “It’s only that it was such a surprise. It’s not the kind of thing one imagines happening.”

  “I did,” Genaa said. “I didn’t really expect it, of course. But I did imagine—”

  But it was just then that the hangings of the inner doorway stirred, and then were pushed aside to reveal the figure of a large stately man dressed in a shuba of purest white.

  “Greetings, Chosen Ones,” he said smiling. “I am D’ol Regle, master of novices and your guide and guardian during the next four years.”

  Raamo and Genaa hurried forward to touch D’ol Regle’s hand and join him in the greeting.

  “Come then, children,” he said, when the familiar words were completed, “I am to present you to your new family.”

  The rest of the morning was, for Raamo, an exhilarating confusion, a surfeit of new and strange experiences and emotions. Following D’ol Regle, Raamo and Genaa were first led down a long hallway past many small chambers and then through a large archway where another Ol-zhaan—this one very youthful and wearing the short green tabard of a novice over his shuba—sat at watch. In response to D’ol Regle’s nod, the novice released the doornet of heavy cord and allowed them to pass.

  Inside this inner doorway, D’ol Regle halted. He waited until the heavy hangings and doornet were back in place before he spoke. He was a large man, his body wide and weighty under his flowing shuba, and his voice seemed weighty, too, slow and ponderous with wisdom and dignity.

  “Stop, Chosen Ones,” he said. “Pause here and reflect that with the drawing of these door hangings behind you, you have entered the te
mple itself. Past this point are sacred hallways. Look around you and Joy in what your eyes behold, but—” he paused dramatically, “remember, that you must not speak of what you see—or what you hear or do inside these walls, except among your fellow-Ol-zhaan. All things here are holy and therefore secret.” For a moment he held Raamo and Genaa with his eyes before he turned away and proceeded down the hall, his full body rolling from side to side with the measured solemnity of his stride.

  Greatly affected by D’ol Regle’s imposing presence—even his size and shape seemed wondrously impressive—Raamo hurried after the stately figure, silent and full of wonder. He hardly noticed Genaa’s elbow nudging him until she nudged again, much harder. When Raamo finally glanced at her, she rolled her eyes and smiled, as if to share a joke. Raamo smiled back uncertainly, tried to pense her meaning, failed, and then hurried on after D’ol Regle.

  The hallway, wider here, was hung with beautiful tapestries, intricately embroidered with strange and unfamiliar scenes. Here and there in alcoves and niches, decorative objects sat on pedestals. Some of the objects seemed to be urns and bowls, but they were not fashioned from wood or gourd. Instead they were of a strange transparent material, clear and colorless, like water enchanted into solid form. On other pedestals were statues of human figures and of what seemed to be animals, but animals unlike any that Raamo had ever seen. These figures were, again, fashioned of materials that were entirely unfamiliar. Some were mottled gray and white, but of a cool hardness of surface, and others, reddish brown in color, gleamed with a hard brilliance that caught and reflected light as did the brightest feathers of certain birds. But when Genaa attempted to question D’ol Regle concerning the objects, he would only say that they were works of art and that their origin would be explained at the proper time and in the proper order.