Below the Root

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  “She can tell us nothing when she is so frightened. I think we must begin slowly.”

  “But why is she so afraid? What is it that she fears?”

  “I don’t know,” Raamo said. “Us, partly, I think. I think she fears Ol-zhaan.”

  “And the Pash-shan? Is it her memories of the Pash-shan that frightens her so when they are mentioned?”

  “Perhaps,” Raamo said. “There is something very strange there. But if we are to find out anything, we must go very slowly. I have tried to question her before, and Neric has several times, and we have learned that we must be very slow and gentle and speak first of other things.”

  Genaa nodded, and approaching the child again she began to talk to her concerning the games she played with Pomma. But Teera continued to sob, refusing even to remove her hands from her tear-wet face. The crying went on and on, and Genaa’s questions were again betraying her impatience, when Pomma suddenly appeared in the doorway. Frowning, she went to Teera and put her arms around her.

  “Go away, Raamo,” she said, forgetting the deference that was now due her brother. “Go away and take her with you.” She pointed to Genaa.

  “Come, Genaa,” Raamo said. “Pomma will be able to quiet her. We can try again later.”

  Surprisingly, Genaa followed without protest as Raamo returned to the common room. Neric was alone in the large room, pacing up and down the floor, his thin face twitching with emotion.

  “Where are my parents?” Raamo asked.

  “I asked them to leave us for a time,” Neric said. “It seems we have things to speak of, the three of us.” Turning to Genaa he asked, “Why are you here? You know you are not permitted to leave the grove unless directed to do so by an elder.”

  Genaa’s smile was sharply edged. “That is true,” she said, “and true also of Raamo, I think. I am here because I followed you. And I followed you today because several days ago I followed Raamo when he went to meet you near Temple Hall. I waited nearby and heard you speak of the slave child and what you were learning from her concerning the Pash-shan. And so I decided that I would also question this child who has lived with the monsters, as it is of great importance to me to learn all I can of them.”

  “And what, then, did you learn from Teera, with your superior methods of questioning?” Neric’s voice bit like the edge of a trencher’s beak.

  Genaa shrugged, her color rising. “Nothing. She would not stop crying long enough to talk.”

  Neric threw up his arms in exasperation. “See. What did I tell you?” he said to Raamo. “This one will bring us nothing but trouble. The child was beginning to speak quite freely to me, and I’m sure she would willingly have told you almost anything, had you been alone, Raamo. But now the day is probably wasted.”

  “It will not be wasted for me,” Genaa said, “if you and Raamo will tell me what it is that you are doing—and how it concerns the Pash-shan. And who are the Geets-kel, of whom you spoke?”

  Raamo looked at Neric. Remembering Neric’s reaction when he had suggested that they tell Genaa of their plans and ask her to join them, Raamo was surprised to see him shrug.

  “You agree, then?” he asked. “You agree to sharing what we have learned with Genaa and asking her to help us?”

  Neric sighed loudly. “I agree to telling her what she wants to know, since she seems to have learned much of it already. And I agree that we must then ask her cooperation, at least to the extent of not betraying us to the Geets-kel. As for asking her to help us—you see how she has helped us today, with her skillful interrogation of the slave child.”

  Inexplicably, Genaa responded to the biting tone of Neric’s words with a smile that was open and conciliatory. The smile changed Genaa, softening grandeur into charm, and it seemed to change Neric, too, transforming his bitter opposition into a very uncharacteristic state of uncertainty. “I’m sorry,” Genaa said, “about frightening the child. I see now that I acted too hastily. It is a fault of mine. It would have been much better to let Raamo speak to her alone. If you will tell me what you have learned, I promise that—that I will not act hastily on what I learn. And as for betraying you—I do not know you well, D’ol Neric, but I know Raamo well enough to be certain that he would not be involved in anything evil. I will not betray a cause that Raamo believes in.”

  So Genaa was told everything. Neric began by describing his early disillusionment and the accident that had placed him in the secret chamber where the Geets-kel were meeting. Genaa listened carefully, and when Neric spoke of what he had overheard concerning the Pash-shan—that the Geets-kel seemed to know of some terrible secret concerning the Pash-shan, which in some mysterious way threatened all life on Green-sky, she leaned forward sharply, her long dark eyes fixed and staring.

  Then Raamo explained how Neric had contacted him and asked his assistance in discovering the secret, and how they had together planned the trip to the forest floor, and what had occurred there.

  When at last the telling was finished, Neric, smiling his crooked smile, turned to Genaa. “And now, D’ol Genaa,” he said, “we shall see if I was right when I once told Raamo that you would not sacrifice pride and power for any cause, and that you were at heart, if not yet in reality, among the Geets-kel. Now that you know our secrets—and the full extent of our transgressions—will you join us, or the Geets-kel?”

  “You do not know me as well as you think, D’ol Neric,” Genaa said. “There is a cause for which I would sacrifice pride and power and much else besides. And that is—to free Green-sky from the curse of the Pash-shan. If you are correct in thinking that the Geets-kel are in some way in league with the Pash-shan, it seems to me that my cause and yours are one. I will gladly work with you to uncover the secret for which you are searching.”

  At that moment, Pomma reentered the room from the hallway that led to her chamber.

  “Where is Teera?” Raamo asked. “How is she?”

  “She is sleeping,” Pomma said. “She cried for a long time and then she went to sleep, so I came back to see you.” Carrying her sima on her shoulder, Pomma crossed the room and climbed into Raamo’s lap where she snuggled sleepily.

  Neric returned to his conversation with Genaa. “I’m sure the secret lies with the Pash-shan,” he said. “Raamo and I have discussed several methods of finding out more about them. We have tried to make use of Raamo’s skills. He has let it be known that his Spirit-skills are failing, in order to put them off their guard, and he has attempted pensing whenever he is near any whom we suspect to be of the Geets-kel.”

  “I understand now,” Genaa said to Raamo. “about your telling D’ol Regie you could no longer pense. Have you learned anything of importance?”

  “Very little.” Raamo said. “All of the Ol-zhaan seem to be very careful to mind-block at all times. There have been times with D’ol Falla when I thought I could almost hear—but it was not certain. And I was once able to pense quite clearly that D’ol Regle opposed my choosing and was almost afraid of me.”

  “There must be more that can be done,” Genaa said.

  “There is,” Neric said, “and we have tried it once and will go again. We plan to—” he broke off, looking at Pomma.

  Raamo glanced down. Curled in his lap, Pomma’s eyes were closed and she was breathing regularly. “She is sleeping,” he sent to Neric, and Neric nodded. Lowering his voice he continued, “We plan other trips to the forest floor. I feel certain there is much to be learned there. We were not able to explore very much on our first attempt, because of finding Teera.”

  “I will go with you when you go again,” Genaa said. “And there may be other things that I can do. There are clues, I am certain, in even the little you have learned so far. Little things, little facts that could be strung together into meaning. I am very good at such things.” She glanced from Raamo to Neric and back again. “I think,” she said, smiling, “that, working together, we will be invincible. We seem to complement each other’s talents. Together I am certain we will soo
n learn everything about the Pash-shan. Not only their relationship to the Geets-kel, but also the source of their power, what they really look like and—”

  “What the Pash-shan look like?” It was Pomma, still curled in Raamo’s lap but with eyes wide open and suspiciously unclouded by sleep. “I already know what the Pash-shan look like. They look just like Teera. I know they look like Teera, because Teera is a Pash-shan.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  IF THE TALLEST GRUNDTREE in the forest had crashed to the earth, the sound of its falling could have produced no greater reaction. For several seconds after Pomma’s sweet thin voice had died away into silence, her three listeners stared at her in stunned silence. It was Neric who found his voice first.

  “She is speaking untruthfully,”’ he said, “or else she is only game playing, as children do.”

  “No,” Raamo said. “She at least believes it to be true.” Lifting Pomma off his lap so that he could look into her face, he asked, “Who told you this? Who told you that Teera is a Pash-shan?”

  But now Pomma would only hang her head without answering. Raamo had to repeat his question several times before she whispered, “I promised I wouldn’t tell, and I forgot.” She began to sob. “I really did forget. I forgot I promised Teera I wouldn’t tell. She made me promise because she said you and D’ol Neric would dead her if you knew—only she calls it kill. Teera says you and D’ol Neric would kill her because you are Ol-zhaan, and the Ol-zhaan want to kill all the Pash-shan. She said you would have killed her before except you thought she was a fallen Kindar and not a Pash-shan. I told her and told her that you wouldn’t, but she wouldn’t believe me. Maybe if you told her that you wouldn’t dead her, she’ll believe me and she won’t be unjoyful at me for forgetting my promise.”

  Genaa interrupted Pomma’s sobbing entreaty, speaking deliberately in clipped controlled syllables. “Then it was Teera, herself, who told you that she was a Pash-shan?”

  Leaning shyly against her brother, Pomma answered: “Not at first. At first she said that there weren’t any Pash-shan. That there were just people who live below the Root who look almost the same as Kindar, only they call themselves Erdlings. But then she said that the Erdlings are the same as the Pash-shan. She said the Pash-shan is the name the Ol-zhaan gave them, and the Ol-zhaan keep them shut up below the Root because they want them to die, and all the Erdlings are very very afraid of the Ol-zhaan.”

  “Surely Teera does not believe that I would harm her,” Raamo said. “I have told her in mind-touch of my feelings toward her.”

  “Yes,” Pomma said. “She says she thinks you do not want to hurt her, but she thinks the others might make you do it anyway. She is still afraid of D’ol Neric. And—” Looking toward Genaa, Pomma blushed, and then whispered into Raamo’s ear. “And, just now, when she was crying, she said that she was sure that D’ol Genaa would kill her. She said she could pense it.”

  Pomma’s whisper carried well, and Genaa easily overheard. “That’s ridiculous,” she said, “I had no ill feelings toward her. This proves that she is capable of telling untruths.”

  “Perhaps not,” Raamo said. “I have discovered that Teera can pense quite well, but only emotions and states of mind. She does not receive words or any fine distinctions. If there was ill will in your mind toward anyone, she might well have felt it as a threat.”

  It was then that Neric jumped suddenly to his feet. “This explains it,” he cried. “This explains everything. This is the secret of the Geets-kel. It must have been the Geets-kel who imprisoned the Pash-shan and who are now desperately afraid of their escape. Of course they would be. If all the Kindar knew that the Pash-shan, the monsters whom they have been taught to fear for so many generations, were only Kindar like themselves whose ancestors were imprisoned by the Ol-zhaan—if the Kindar were to find out that the gentle justice of the Ol-zhaan included a dungeon full of innocent descendants of those who somehow incurred the displeasure of the great and godlike Ol-zhaan—what would happen then?”

  “Can it be true?” Raamo asked. “But why? Why should they do such a thing?”

  “Who knows,” Neric said. “It must have been accomplished before the final spreading of the Root. Perhaps the first prisoners were those who disagreed with the policies of the early Ol-zhaan.”

  “D’ol Regle said there was a disagreement among the early Ol-zhaan,” Raamo said. “He called it a debate. It concerned who should be told the full history of our ancestors and who should be kept in innocence.”

  “A debate,” Neric laughed scornfully. “A debate in which the losers were doomed to imprisonment below the earth.”

  “How do you know that the first Pash-shan were undeserving of their fate?” Genaa asked. “Perhaps they were not just those who disagreed. Perhaps they were those who could not be freed from the evil seeds of violence—perhaps they were those who—” Genaa paused, blushing, “—who killed.”

  Neric had returned to pacing up and down the floor. Now he whirled to face Genaa. “What if they were? You forget they lived hundreds of years ago, my dear Genaa. Why should their descendants suffer for the deeds of their long-forgotten ancestors? They cannot all be evil.”

  Neric paused dramatically, and in the pause Pomma said, “Teera isn’t evil.”

  “Exactly,” Neric shouted, piercing the air with his finger. “Teera is not evil and there must be hundreds of Teeras below the Root, doomed to live out their days in the dark cramped tunnels of the—”

  Opening her eyes wide in a mockery of admiring awe, Genaa said, “Your eloquence, D’ol Neric, rivals that of the master, D’ol Regle.”

  Neric glared, and then turned his back on her.

  “There is another thing that puzzles me,” Raamo said. “If it is true that there are no Pash-shan, and only Erdlings whose ancestors were Kindar, and if it is true that Teera is such a one, then why did she run away from her own people? And why did she agree to come with us to the upper levels?”

  “Yes,” Genaa said. “Unless she is indeed a fallen Kindar child. There can be no doubt that the Pash-shan steal Kindar infants who fall to the forest floor. Whether they are monsters in shape and form or only in deed, they do indeed steal Kindar infants. There is hardly a Kindar in all Green-sky who does not know of at least one family who has lost a child in this way. Undoubtedly the family who cared for her were cruel to her, or she would not have run from their care.”

  “Did Teera speak to you of this?” Raamo asked Pomma. “Did she say why it was that she ran away?”

  “Yes,” Pomma said. “She said why. But it was not because she was a fallen. She says she was born below the Root, and she lived there with her father and mother. She said she ran away because her father was going to kill Haba, to eat,” Pomma’s face twisted in disgust. “She said that all the Erdlings eat lapans. She even has herself, only not pet ones. Teera said she has had Haba for a long time, and her father did not want to eat him, except that they were all very hungry. Teera says that everyone is hungry now below the Root, because too many babies have been born and there is not enough food anymore. But she would never eat Haba even if she were starving, so she took him and ran away. She says she was angry—that’s like unjoyful, only worse—with her father when she ran away, only she isn’t anymore, and she cries at night because she can’t ever go home. And one night she tried to run away from here and go back, but she was afraid of falling so she came back.”

  “So it is true that they are flesheaters,” Genaa said. “And did Teera speak to you of the Kindar infants whom they have taken?”

  “Yes,” Pomma said. “I asked her about it, and she said that some times the babies who fall die, unless the Erdlings take them below the Root, because the Ol-zhaan who come to look for fallen babies come too late or can’t find them. So the Erdlings call to the babies, and if they come near the tunnels, and if they are small enough, they take them down to live with them. Teera says her grandmother was a fallen.”

  “But the Pash—the Erdlings,
do they eat other flesh besides lapan?” Neric asked.

  “Birds, I think,” Pomma said. “Some kind of birds that live on the forest floor and don’t fly. Sometimes they set traps for the birds at the mouths of the tunnels, but they don’t catch very many. And they eat mushrooms, too, big black ones that grow under the ground, and roots of plants, and whatever falls down from the trees in the orchards to where they can reach it. But Teera says there are too many Erdlings now, and there is never enough food and she’s been hungry lots and lots of times. She says she’d like to stay here forever and ever because we have so much to eat, and because of me, only she feels so unjoyful about not seeing her own family again.”

  “What is it like to live below the Root?” Raamo asked. “What can it be like to sleep and wake and live out your days in deep dark holes?”

  “Teera says there are big open places called caverns as big as—as big as a grund,” Pomma said, “with great high roofs that are covered with sparkles like raindrops, and there are big places of water, and it isn’t dark because of a thing called fire that is like little pieces of the sun, and sometimes there is light from tunnel openings. And every family has small caverns all around the big ones that are like nid-places, only their nids are made from the skins of animals. And every day, Teera says, everyone spends some time in the orchard tunnels, where they can feel the sunlight on their skin while they watch for fallen fruits and nuts.” Pomma’s eyes were shining with excitement and her small hands gestured wildly as she spoke, as if painting on the air the scenes she was describing. “I know just what it looks like,” she said, “because Teera has shown me by imaging, but I’d like to really see it, wouldn’t you, Raamo? Wouldn’t you like to go there to see it?”

  “Pomma,” Neric interrupted, “would you go back to your chamber now and stay with Teera for a while. We will speak to you again before we go.”

  When Pomma had obediently left the common room, Neric turned to Raamo in great agitation. “Do you understand,” he said, “the significance of what we have just heard? Do you realize the danger we have put your sister in by exposing her to the knowledge she now has? Has it occurred to you what a threat Pomma is now to the Geets-kel, and how necessary it would be to them to silence her if they knew? Only think. A Kindar child, a talkative intelligent Kindar child, knows the secret they have protected so well for hundreds of years. If they feel justified in keeping hundreds of people imprisoned, and thousands more in ignorance, in order to protect their evil secret, how much do you think Pomma’s welfare would mean to them?”