The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Maybe,” he replied, trying to smile. “But pretty in spite of it.”

  “Is this like the hair business?” she asked, growing angry. “You think you’re going to get badly hurt or die, so you want to tell me now? Well let me tell you, Roges, I don’t go throwing my friends over railings if I think they’re going to die. Mavin says she’ll catch any of us who have trouble, so if there is trouble just yell and keep yelling. Get up there over that railing and let me spread this thing out.” She pushed at him, getting behind him so that he couldn’t see the tears on her face. All she seemed to do lately was cry! When he was poised to go, however, shaking so uncontrollably that she could not fail to see it, she could not let him go without a word.

  “Roges. When we’re down. When we’re finished with all this. When we’ve got the proof that the Banders are murderers and Mavin figures out how to kill those things, tell me then that I’m pretty, will you?” And she pushed him. He fell silently, without a sound, and she found her nails cutting small, bloody holes in her palms until the leaf billowed behind him, cupping air, and he floated after the others.

  She spread her own leaf carefully, being sure it would not snag on the railing, then leaped outward – into terror. Her heart thrust upward into her mouth, clogging her breathing. She gasped, sickened, eyes wide with fear, horrified at the weightless, plunging feel of falling, she who had never been afraid of heights before. “You never fell before,” she screamed at herself. “Oh, I’m going to die…”

  Then the leaf opened above her. Warm air rose around her, and the root wall drifted past.

  Silence. It was the first thing she noticed. Stairs drummed and clamored beneath feet. Bridgetowns were full of chatter and whine. On the root there was always the noise of the spurs digging in, the chafe of the straps, the blows of hammers or hatchets. But here, here was silence, only the drum of one’s blood in one’s ears, only the far, falling cry of a bird. Below her, slightly to one side, she could see a movement in the root wall as small creatures burrowed there, then a bare spot where a strange rock … a scabrous, oozing rock – the creature. There it was, piled into a cave in the wall, only part of its horrid hide exposed. It heaved, breathed, lived, and she dropped below it. The peace of the drop had been destroyed and her stomach heaved in sick revulsion.

  She heard Roges calling, twisted herself around to find him. The mound of his leaf was below her, and she called down to him. “Just above you, Roges. Can you see Mercald?”

  “Under … me…” came the call. “Hear … town…”

  She listened, hearing it at last, the far, rattling clamor of a town. What was the word Mavin used? “Gamelords!” More and more lately it seemed like a game, some strange, silly game in which no one knew the rules. Would old Slysaw come down after them? Likely he would, if the stairs were passable. She considered for the first time that the creature, whatever it was, might have cut the stair root, eaten the stairs themselves. In which case, Slysaw couldn’t follow, and where would their proof be then? And Mercald might be permanently out of his head, in which case they didn’t have a judge. So, so, “Gamelords,” she swore fervently.

  The sounds from below grew louder, even as the light around her grew dimmer, more watery. Now it was dusky, shadowy, an evening light. She searched the darkness below her for lights, lanterns, torches, seeing nothing. She looked up at the wall once more, watching it float past, thinking.

  She had to think about Roges. Roges, by the Boundless. A Maintainer. Though she knew some Bridgers who were married to Maintainers. Several of them. Quite happily. Rootweaver herself had been married to a Maintainer, so it was said. He had been killed during a storm, a great storm of rain which had almost drowned Topbridge and all who lived there, but he had saved Rootweaver’s life, so it was said. She recalled what Roges had said. “We are more than servants, much more.” That was true. It wasn’t always remembered, but it was true.

  “Beeeedieeee,” came a call from below. Roges’s voice again. She looked down, seeing the lights now, glowing fish lanterns making green balls of light, yellow and blue balls of light all along the bridgetown mainroots, two glowing necklaces of lights in the depths. She was not quite above the town, and for a moment she felt panic, believing she would fall on past, but then there was a brush of wings and a voice, “Well, sausage girl. You and Mercald are the only ones I’ve had to fish in. Roges and the whatsit fell straight as a line. Hold on, now, I’ll tow you a little…” Her straight line of fall turned into a long, diagonal drop that brought her over the open avenue of Bottommost.

  “I’ll not appear like this,” Mavin called in a whisper from above. “Join you later…”

  The bridge grew larger, larger, more light, more sound, wondering faces looking up, a great tangled pile of flattree leaves below with Roges reaching up from the middle of it, reaching up to grab her – then they stood together as the leaf fell over them, closing them in a green fragrant tent, away from the world. He was holding her tightly. She was not trying to get away. Neither of them were saying anything, though there was much chatter from outside.

  Mercald was saying, “Get them out from under there before they suffocate,” and Beedie was thinking quietly that she would like to suffocate Mercald and to have done it yesterday. Then the leaf was pulled away amid much shouting, and Roges untied the lines from her waist.

  “I’ll save the cord,” he said in a strangely breathless voice. “We’ll need it later, I don’t doubt.”

  She needed to say something personal to him, something real. “The fall – I was scared. When I jumped, all of a sudden, I was really frightened.”

  He looked at her with a kind of joyousness in his eyes that she didn’t understand at all. “Were you really, Bridger? So was I.” Then Mavin in her persona of birdwoman came calmly through the crowds and the moment’s understanding was behind them.

  “Come on,” she whispered. “Though I must pretend to be the birdwoman once more, I have serious need of breakfast, and tea, and a wash. And poor Mercald needs a change of clothing. Unfortunately for him, his unconscious state did not last until he landed. And then we all need to revise some plans, or make some. It seems things are worse then we knew.”

  They had landed just outside the Bridgers House of Bottommost. It was a small house, not as well kept as the one at Topbridge, but with a guest wing, nonetheless, though one barely large enough for all five of them.

  After a quick wash, they went along to the House dining hall, Mercald resplendent in his robes and hat – the only garb he had to wear while his others were being washed. As for the rest of them, they were only cleaner, not otherwise changed except that Mavin was once more playing her silent role of birdwoman. The food was quickly provided and almost as quickly eaten before Roges and Beedie were taken aside into a smaller room where the eldest Bridger of Bottommost awaited them, wringing his hands and compressing his lips in an expression of concern.

  “The Messenger came yesterday, Bridger. We did not expect you for many days still, and yet here you are! I thank the Boundless you have come, for it was only two days ago we first saw the thing. I have sent word to the head of chasm council, but we cannot expect a response from old Quickaxe – or from his junior, Rootweaver – for some days.”

  “By thing,” said Beedie, “I suppose you mean the gray monster with the oozing hide.” At his expressions of awed dismay, she went on, “We encountered it on the downward stair. Eating the stair, I should say. Just the other side of Nextdown.”

  “Is it true what my Bridgers say?” the old man asked, hoping, Beedie knew, that she would say it was all an exaggeration.

  “It is a thing some six or seven man heights long, as big around as this room, Elder. A … man who is with us says he believes it is sick. He believes it has been poisoned, perhaps purposely, by … Roges, what can I say? By what?”

  “By people, Beedie. The … ah, the messenger of the Boundless who is with us says that there may be … people in the depths. That is, if it was not done
by people from this town, Elder.”

  Beedie sighed. “Elder, have you made any attempt to kill this thing? Or have you had any word of any intelligent creatures living below you in the depths?”

  “Never.” He wriggled the thought around in his mouth for a time, trying it between various pairs of teeth, finally spat it back at them. “No, never. As for killing the thing, I would not know where to begin. As for the other, my Bridgers go down the roots as Bridgers do, and up, and out across the root wall. We see the usual things. Crawly-claws. Slow-girules. Wireworm nests, sometimes. Leaves fall from above, and sometimes the nets of Topbridge or Nextdown miss them so we catch them. It is true that the Fishers bring up strange things from time to time, oddities which we cannot explain. But intelligence below … well, I’ve never heard any allegation of it.”

  “The lost bridge?” prompted Beedie. “That would be below you, wouldn’t it?”

  “Oh, but my dear Bridger. What is the lost bridge? Sometimes I wonder if it ever existed! And if it did, is it not surely gone? No one has seen or heard of the lost bridge for what? – hundreds of years.”

  She shook her head. “When there was a lost bridge, before it was lost, Elder, how did people get to it? Was there a stair?”

  He made a face at her, age grimacing at the silly ideas of youth. “There is said to have been a stair. Yes. At the morning-light side. We even have some books with adventure tales for children concerning the stairs and the lost bridge and all the rest of it. Would you like to see them?”

  Beedie started to say no, indignantly, then caught sight of Roges’s face, intent upon the old man’s words. “I would, yes, Elder. If you would be so kind.”

  “I will have them sent to the guest rooms. Have you any other word for me, Bridger? We are very much afraid of these creatures…”

  “They are afraid of fire,” said Beedie firmly. “It is thought they might be afraid of light.”

  “Not of our lanterns, I’m afraid. The one we saw two days ago was on the stair trail which leads to the mines below Miner’s bridge. It is a little used way built for the convenience of the Miners, to bring loads of some materials across to us for processing. It was lit by fish lanterns, and the thing had eaten great pieces of the stair, lanterns and all, when first we saw it. Fire – that’s a different thing. Torches. We do not use torches. It is damp this far down in the chasm. Except during the wind, smoke lies heavy upon Bottommost. Still, if fire will drive the monsters away, we must somehow learn to use fire once more…” And the old man turned away, weary and fearful, yet somehow resolute.

  They walked back toward the guest rooms, Beedie’s hand finding Roges’s as they went, silent, dismayed not a little. They slipped into the room Mavin shared with Beedie and told her what had transpired.

  “So the Thinker was right,” said Mavin. “The things have only recently been seen so far up in the chasm. Well, they must somehow be made to go back where they have been. We will stay here in Bottommost today, perhaps tonight. Read the books when they are brought, sausage girl.” Then, seeing her annoyed expression, “Read them to her, Roges, if you will. I will return after dark. If anyone asks, the messenger of the Boundless is asleep,” and she slipped out of the room, disappearing down the corridor.

  “Do you want to sleep, too?” asked Roges. “Our rest last night was interrupted.”

  “Later perhaps. Not now. Now I want to see Bottommost, the mysterious bridgetown I have heard of since I was a child! Aunt Six says it is all rebels and anarchists here, that there is no custom worthy of the name, that bad children gravitate to Bottommost as slow-girules to root mice. We are here and I must see if she lied to me.”

  They left Mercald curled up on a clean bed, quietly asleep. They left the Thinker sitting in a window, staring at nothing, a small muscle in his left cheek twitching from time to time. Beedie had had the generous intent of asking him if he wanted to go with them. One sight of him changed her mind. The two of them went out together, out of Bridgers House onto the main avenue of Bottommost.

  “It’s narrow!” she exclaimed. “It’s little.” Compared to Topbridge, it was narrow and confined, the lines of lanterns which marked the mainroots only two hundred paces apart, beads of light softly glowing in two arcs that met at the far wall. “And it’s like night-time!” Far above them the light of the chasm could be seen as a wide line of green, slightly shifting, as though they looked upward into a flowing stream, but the light upon the bridge came more from the ubiquitous fish lanterns than from the sky. Every corner carried at least one of the scaled globes; every market stall was lined with them, blue orbs and green, with an occasional amber one here and there. Those which were amber, Beedie noticed, bore horns and warts and protuberances of various shapes and kinds as well as a discouraging set of fangs. “I would not like to be the Fisher who caught one of those,” she remarked to Roges.

  Bottommost was quieter then Topbridge. It buzzed with a muted sound, as though it did not wish to attract attention to itself. The cries of the hawkers were melodious and soft, a kind of repetitive song. “They don’t look like rebels and anarchists,” said Roges. “They look rather sad.”

  “It’s because there’s so little light. It’s an evening sadness, a perpetual dusk. If I lived here, I would cry all the time.” The colors of the place were strange to her high chasm eyes. Soft greens and grays and blues. No white or red, no yellow. “Look how narrow their nets are.” The nets on either side of the railing were mere handkerchiefs, of no extent.

  “Look up and you’ll see why,” murmured Roges. High against the light were the twin bars of Topbridge and Nextdown, bracketing Bottommost on each side. “If the nets were any wider, they’d be catching all the fall-down from up there. Not very pleasant for the net cleaners.”

  “Well, there’s got to be something good about the place. Let’s try a teashop.” And in the teashop they began to appreciate the true flavor of Bottommost as the calls of the hawkers, the bells in the Birder House, and the soft light blended into music. If there were rebels in Bottommost, they were rebels of an odd sort, rebels of silence, of shadow, of gentle movement. “I haven’t seen any Banders,” she said. “None in the House.”

  “There are some here,” he replied. “I asked the Maintainer who brought us blankets whether there had been any unrest on Bottommost concerning the messenger of the Boundless. She said yes, rumor and story telling, a small attempt to whip up frenzy, resulting in nothing much. Still, there are some of them here, enough to do us harm if we are not careful.”

  “Enough to carry the word back to old Slysaw?”

  “I should judge so.” He did not sound as though he cared greatly about it, about anything. He had been sitting, sipping, smiling at her for hours. She blushed. She, too, had been sipping, smiling. Resolutely, she got to her feet. “Roges. We promised Mavin we would read the books about the lost bridge.” She took his hand, dragged him upright.

  They went out onto the avenue, still hand in hand, lost in the gentle music of Bottommost, to remember it always as magical and wonderful, more wonderful than any of the truly wonderful things which were to follow.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lantern-eyed, fluff-winged, she flew along the root wall, soft as down, observant as any owl in the dusk, peering at this, that, the other thing. There were many small creepies, many larger ones as well-claws gently waving, and things that came to the claws thinking they were something else; shelves of fungus in colors of amber and rose, washed into grays by the green light; other fungoid growths hanging upon the roots themselves in pendant fronds, projecting horns and antlers and mushroomy domes, pale as flesh, moist as frogs.

  There was a chorus of smells, rich and fecund stenches, rot and mildew and earthy green slime. There were greens innumerable, bronzy green and amber green and the blue-green of far seas not remembered by the people in the chasm. The air was wet, wetter the lower she went, full of mist wraiths which seemed in any instant almost to have coherent shape. Her wings were wet and he
avy, and she changed the structure of her feathers to shed the damp, bringing a clear set of membranes across her eyes at the same time.

  Those who might have known her in the white bird shape would not have known her in her present form, and she took pleasure in this, in this renewed feeling of anonymity, of remoteness. Beedie was a good girl; Roges a treasure; the theoretician an interesting find; Mercald a necessary burden – and not good enough to be a partner for Handbright as she had been, though perhaps better than one could have expected for Handbright as she was now – but there was much to be said for solitude. There was time for contemplation, time for feeling the fabric of the place, time for memory.

  There had been another place, not unlike the chasm in its watery light, a pool-laced forest, green under leaves, full shadowed in summer warmth and breathless with flowers. Mavin had come there in the guise of a sweet, swift beast, four-legged and lean, graceful as the bending grass. It had been a shape designed for the place, needful for the place, and her body had responded to that need without thinking. So she had unaware she was observed, wandered, unaware until she came one dawn to the shivering silver pool and saw her own image standing there, head regally high, crowned with a single spiraled horn like her own, male as she was female, unquestionably correct for that place, that time, without any requirement for explanation.

  And there had been a summer then, without speech or thought or plan for the morrow; a summer which spun itself beneath the leaves and over the welcoming grass, sparkling with sun shards and bathed in dew. Morning had gone into evening, day into day, as feet raced upon the pleasant pastures and across the mysterious hills. And then a day, a day with him gone.

  She had never named him in her mind, except to believe that whoever he was, he was Shifter like herself, for there was no such supernally graceful beast in the reality of this world, had never been, probably now would never be again. And when a certain number of days had gone without his return, she had Shifted herself and left the place behind her, sorrowing that she would not know him again if she met him in a street of any town or upon the road to anywhere at all. Outside of that place, that stream-netted garden of gold-green light, what they had been together would have no reality.