The Ozark trilogy

by Suzette Haden Elgin

  “I know what it is,” I said to them, not bothering to dawdle and back and fill.

  “But neither of the Grannys had any idea, nor the Magician either!” objected a thin boy by the name of Thomas Lincoln Wommack the 9th.

  “Well, I do,” I said, “whoever does or doesn’t, and the Grannys would of known, too, if they hadn’t been taken themselves before they could run it down. What you have upstairs, by my count, is fifty-one cases of something called Andersen’s Disease. Or, if you prefer less formality, some call it deathdance fever—which does describe it. And looking at youall, I see a few more cases to add to the count—you’d better every one of you get to your beds.”

  “And those upstairs?” asked Gilead.

  “You need capable people up there, taking care of your sick,” I said. “Not townswomen wandering around wondering where to fling water next. It’s no trifle, this disease, people can die of it! Why haven’t you sent for help?”

  They looked at me, and I looked back, and I said a broad word, not caring particularly if I did shock their sensibilities. They hadn’t sent for help because, being the Wommacks, they figured it would be no use anyway. Bad luck was bad luck, and those as were marked for death would die, and a lot of similarly superstitious nonsense. And I was very grateful that none of them knew something I wasn’t going to take time to think about right now, which was that Andersen’s Disease was not contagious. If they’d known that, and it running through their castle like wildfire, I daresay they’d of just given up and died on me on the spot; I had no plans of telling them.

  “Shame on you’” I said. It was uppity of me, and not kind, especially toward Jacob Donahue, who was a good fifty years my senior; But I was thoroughly disgusted. The idea of half a hundred people stretched on the rack for the last three days while helpless hands were wrung and mournful moans were made about the Wommack curse ... it turned my stomach. Eventually I would have to face the problem of just who among the Magicians of Rank was behind this monstrous cruelty, but not now. Now what mattered was putting an end to that cruelty, and without delay.

  “You need a Magician of Rank here,” I said, “and you need him at once. There’s two good ones on Arkansaw—”

  “We’ll have nobody from Arkansaw,” said Jacob Donahue Wommack.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I say, we’ll have nobody. Magician of Rank or anybody else, from Arkansaw. Not in this Castle.”

  “In the name of the Twelve Gates and the Twelve Corners, Jacob Donahue Wommack, why ever not?” I shouted at him. “Have you seen those people upstairs?”

  “I’ve seen them- I live here.”

  “Then—”

  “They’re feuding on Arkansaw,” he said doggedly, “and have been these past six months. No talking them out of it, either—we’ve had good men trying. And we want no part of it.”

  “At a time like this, you—”

  I was so furious it’s likely just as well that Gilead cut me off.

  “Responsible of Brightwater,” she said, “since distance makes no difference to a Magician of Rank, then it also makes no difference where he comes from. Do think of that.”

  True enough. Since a Magician of Rank was not only allowed, but expected to take his Mule by SNAPS instead of trundling along at sixty miles an hour, and since there was, strictly speaking, no time taken up by that process except leaving and landing, she was quite right.

  “What will you accept, then?” I asked them, trying to sound a tad less arrogant.

  “Anywhere but Arkansaw,” said the Master of Wommack. “ Anywhere atall.”

  “From Castle Motley, then.” I said. “I don’t know the man well, I’ve only seen him once or twice, but they say he’s highly skilled. To go on with, he’s a Lewis by birth, and that means he cuts no corners—everything done strictly by rule, and strictly by the book. And we’ll have Diamond of Motley send a Granny along as well, to give him a hand.”

  “You think it’s worth a try?” asked Gilead.

  “I do.” Worth a try ... I had no stomach left for arguing with these people. If and when I ever got back home, and the Jubilee over and done with, and could put my mind to something new in the way of planning, I would tackle the problem of superstition gotten out of hand in far comers. We for sure wanted the people accepting the system of magic by which this planet functioned; to lose that would be roughly comparable to losing photosynthesis, or gravity, or two and two coming up five. But this was 3012, not 1400 of Old Earth, Some balancing needed doing, clearly, or this crew would be throwing entrails and dunking for witches.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind a kind of icy voice spoke up to point out that the list of things to be seen to in some vaporous unspecified “later” was getting longer and longer; and I told it to shut up. Now was not the moment for either accounting or reform.

  “Jacob Donahue,” I said, “will you show me where your comset room is, so that I can send for help? Or do you plan to stand there like that till everybody upstairs is dead in their beds?”

  That brought him out of it, as I had expected it would. “I’m not helpless, young woman,” he said, “nor yet crippled. I’ll send the message myself.” And he spun on his heel—staggering only a little at the turn with his fever—and left us, with his children staring at me accusingly. I’d made their daddy unhappy, and they didn’t care for that.

  There was a low bench against the wall beside the Castle door at the foot of the stairs; I went on down and sat there, leaning my head gratefully back against the chilly stone. I was trembling all over And young Thomas Lincoln came over to stand in front of me.

  “Will the Magician of Rank be able to fix everybody?” he wanted to know.

  “Well,” I said wearily, “those as aren’t too far gone, yes— he’ll be able to fix them about as fast as you can say ‘Magician of Rank.’ He won’t be able to help anyone that’s really near to death—that’s interfering with the laws of things, Thomas Lincoln. I’m sorry, but that’s the straight of it.”

  “We should of sent for him sooner,” said me boy.

  “That you should.”

  “Wommacks don’t care to be beholden,” he told me stiffly.

  “Then Wommacks must live with the consequences of their doings,” I said right back.

  “Responsible of Brightwater, don’t be hard on the boy,” one of the daughters pleaded, but I wasn’t interested. If they’d called for a Magician of Rank the instant their Grannys had said they didn’t know what sickness they were dealing with, nobody would have been in any danger. Not one person. Now ... a lot of time had passed, and a lot of suffering endured. Now, they’d be losing some of their own, to their own stupidity.

  The time had come for another judicious lie, and I mustered up the strength to provide it.

  “It will spread to the town unless it’s seen to,” I said, “and on beyond—it’s stuff that spreads like wildfire. Only two things have kept that from happening before this, you hear me there? One is the size of this place, with you able to keep everybody in a room of their own; that’s helped. But primarily, my good Wommacks, what’s kept your illness inside this Castle is nothing but good luck. Plain old miraculous twelve-square common garden variety good luck. Now you think on that.”

  A drop in the bucket, but mine own drop. “And if your father should happen to forget, because he’s got the stuff himself and I’d judge his fever’s headed for this roof, the name of it is Anderson’s Disease, and the access code’ for the computers is somewhere in the 441’s. If—”

  And there sat a Magician of Rank, in full regalia, with Granny Scrabble of Castle Motley seated before him on his Mule, right in the front hall on the clean-scrubbed flagstone floor.

  “Mercy!” I said, and decided to stay where I was. They could get down off that animal’s back, and call for an Attendant to take it away, all by themselves. I was duly impressed.

  “Shawn Menyweather Lewis the 7th,” said the man, “and Granny Scrabble. Both of Castle Motley,
at your service.”

  “It’s all upstairs,” I told him, “and there’s enough of it to last you. Fifty-odd sick of Anderson’s Disease. And two of them Grannys—you might see to those two first, so they can help.”

  I watched them up the stairs with a feeling of relief as wide as the Castle front; it was a pure pleasure to put some of this in other hands and know they were capable. I could tell by the set of his shoulders, and the way he wasted not one second—not to mention the fact that the Granny had not opened her mouth either to fuss or to oppose him—that Shawn Merryweather Lewis the 7th could handle all of this without any further attention from me.

  “Responsible of Brightwater;” Gilead’s voice came softly, then, “let me see you to your room. We’re not completely without breeding here, though it may look some like it at this moment.”

  “No,” I said, “you’ve shown breeding and to spare, Gilead of Wommack. I give you my word—nowhere on Ozark, in no Kingdom of the Twelve Families, have I been treated with the ceremony I was treated with here. And I can’t really say as I expect Castle Traveller to top you. It just wasn’t the best way to handle things ... us down here celebrating while your people were in that pitiful state upstairs.”

  “We weren’t thinking clearly ... or maybe we don’t know how to think clearly,” she said in a voice both dull and bitter.

  “Gilead,” I said, “it’s not lack of breeding you’ve shown this day, but lack of proportion. Lack of balance, Gilead. And I lay it to just one place—you are sick yourself; of course you can’t think clearly. Now I’ll take you up on the offer of the room, because I’m worn out, and I intend to sleep the rest of the day, unless I’m needed. But you’ll take me nowhere—I want every one of you to your own beds, and that right smartly—and I’ll see to myself. Just give me instructions. So many flights of stairs, so many halls, so many doors—I’ll find it, you just number them off.”

  Gilead ofWommack stood there, rubbing the end of her nose with one finger and frowning, all of them looking like they’d drop around her, and me doing my best to be patient. And then she said, “I know!” and put her arm around Thomas Lincoln. “Thomas Lincoln? You go holler at your uncle to see Miss Responsible to her room! Move, now!”

  His uncle. I thought a bit; who would that be? I kept good enough reckoning of the Families near Marktwain, and could give you the names of all direct lines on Ozark, but I hadn’t every aunt, uncle, and cousin at the tip of my tongue.

  And I had forgotten this one. I had forgotten all about him, or I would have run like a baby that’s pulled a Mule’s tail by mistake. I’d heard about him, more than enough to warn me off and make me careful, especially since my experience with Michael Stepforth Guthrie’d provided me with some new data on my current state of vulnerability to manly charms ... but I had purely forgotten all about him.

  When he stood before me, 1 looked into his eyes, and him smiling, and knowing: and I saw that I could fall forever into those eyes, and drown for all of time, and still not get to the bottom of what lay behind them. I was not ready for that yet, not by any number of long shots.

  CHAPTER 11

  I HAD BEEN warned about him, most certainly—I’d been properly raised—but I had only been five years and one month old. Me and fourteen other little girls, all at Granny School together All listening to the Teaching Stories and getting them by heart, like any other little girls. And my own beloved Granny Hazelbide, holding me tight between her bony knees, and pinching my chin between her first finger and her thumb until it hurt, so I couldn’t look away.

  “Pay heed, now,” she had said, scaring me as well as the others sitting in a circle on the floor of the schoolroom watching. “This has come to Responsible of Brightwater; as it happens, but it might of been any of you, any one of you! Might could be it still will ... you pay heed.”

  He had been there in my five-year-old palm, which was already hard from climbing trees and weeding with an Oldtime Hoe, and already quick with every kind of needle (some of them not very nice). And in the leaves at the bottom of seven cups of tea, made seven times on seven consecutive days. And in the swing of the golden ring on its long chain. They’d tried again and again to read a fartime that hadn’t him in it, but all in vain; he was always there.

  It was called a Timecorner.

  “I can’t see round it,” said Granny Hazelbide. “Nor can any Magician, or even Magician of Rank. Can’t anybody see round it, for it’s purely and wholly sealed off from this time.”

  You see I had not exactly forgotten it. More accurately, I had just shut it away in that corner of my head where things that didn’t bear thinking about were stored. But I couldn’t recall it coming to my mind the past five years at least, which was doing a pretty good job of keeping it at the bottom of the heap. I had no trouble getting to it, when the time came. It had these parts:

  FIRST;

  For a Destroyer shall come out of the West; and he will know you, and you will know him, and we cannot see how that knowledge passes between you, but it is not of the body.

  SECOND:

  And if you stand against him, there will be great Trouble. And if you cannot stand against him, there will be great Trouble. But the two Troubles will be of different kinds. And we cannot see what either Trouble is, nor which course you should or will take, but only that both will be terrible and perhaps more than you can bear

  THIRD:

  And if you fail. Responsible of Brightwater; the penalty for your failure falls on the Twelve Families; and if you stand, it is the Twelve Families that you spare.

  FOURTH:

  And no matter what happens, it will be a long, hard time.

  Well, you talk of your curses. I recall suggesting to Granny Hazelbide that the whole thing would be more suitable for my sister, Troublesome, and no doubt that was true. And I remember being told that things were far more often unsuitable, and for sure that was true. And then I had put it away, and I believe I had expected it to be something I had to face along around the age of forty-nine or so. That would of seemed like giving me at least a running start.

  Since it was thirty years and more before I had planned for it, and since I was certainly not ready either to stand or fall, and since I was in the middle of a Quest at the time, not to mention a Grand Jubilee dangling just ahead of me, I chose the most prudent course I saw before me. This was no time for theatrics. This was no time for flinging myself in the teeth of me winds to see what was at the very bottom of that teacup. I was busy!

  I knew him all right, and he knew me, and when I fled him like a squawker hen flees a carrion bird he was laughing fit to kill. I did not spend the night at Castle Wommack, nor so much as go to the room where they’d put my belongings. My weariness melted away like snow in the sun, a servingmaid brought me my packed bags right there where I sat on that bench against the wall, tapping my foot, and a stablemaid brought round my Mule; and I flung the saddlebags over Sterling’s back and took off from the middle of the fair still going on in the Castle court, while he stood on the steps with his hands on his hips, laughing. What Gilead of Wommack or any of the others thought, I had no idea, and I didn’t wait to see.

  It was ten days’ travel, regulation speed, from Castle Wommack to Castle Traveller, most of it over Wilderness that had never even been walked through, from the far northwest tip of Kintucky to the far southern coast of Tinaseeh. And if there was one person any ten flown miles I’d be mighty surprised, which meant that I didn’t have to be careful. There’d be nobody around to appreciate it, and in my state just then that was a blessing.

  I SNAPPED straight from the edge of Kintucky’s farming country to the exact center of the Tinaseeh Wilderness—a five-day journey in right on seven seconds—and headed Sterling down toward the treetops I saw below me. I camped in a cave that would have satisfied a human-size Gentle, and rested the full five days. I needed the rest. Then I waited two more days for good measure, putting them to sensible use gathering herbs ‘growing all around my camp;
and I SNAPPED to the coast of Tinaseeh’s Midland Sea. I flew in to Castle Traveller in the ordinary way, right on time.

  By then I’d acquired a certain new respect for the Family Traveller and a feeling that their name was a fitting one and well earned. Tinaseeh made Kintucky look like a kitchen garden.

  “There it is, Sterling,” I said as we came in. “Castle Traveller, just as described.” First, an outer keep of upright Tinaseeh ironwood logs, standing side by side with their wicked points an exact twelve feet tall—not an inch deviation allowed anywhere. Then two inner keeps, made exactly the same way, one within the other. At the heart of the third keep, the Castle itself, not much bigger than Castle Lewis. And there was no town, though it had the name of one and one was planned—Roebuck. The buildings of “Roebuck” hugged in orderly rows to the walls of the Castle keeps. There’d been no time yet on Tinaseeh for such a thing as a separate town.

  According to the computers, there were exactly eleven hundred and thirteen people on this continent, and all but a half-dozen were Travellers, Farsons, Guthries, and a stray Wommack or two. And every structure here was built of Tinaseeh ironwood, which would not bum, and could only be cut with a lasersaw, and which could—with sufficient patience—be tooled by laser to an edge that a person could shave with. I had seen friendlier-looking places.

  I was met at the gates of the outer keep by an Attendant, who sent me under escort to the gate of the next keep beyond, where they passed me on to a third to take me up to the Castle gates, and not a word said the whole time beyond regulations.