by neetha Napew
‘And if Lorn felt better, maybe it would stop making those yellow crystals that are killing everyone,’ I finished, knowing I had not been particularly persuasive. Ah, well, it was mostly hunch, intuition, not reason. Still, to do that would be better than doing nothing.
‘How?’ asked Ganver, much to the point.
‘I’m not sure whether it would work or not, but I’d start by getting some flood-chucks in, and we’d cut all the hedge away from the outside until we got to the place the memory is, then we’d tunnel underneath and collapse it and dig it all out and carry it away. I mean, Ganver, I don’t know how Lom’s mind works, but I do know that part of it is material. Real. Lom-flesh, so to speak. So if we take the real flesh part away, then the memory will have to go with it, won’t it?’
Ganver did not indicate comprehension. I decided to try again. ‘Look, sometimes a Gamesman will get whacked on the head. After which, at least once in a while, that Gamesman forgets things because part of its brain has been injured or destroyed. So if Lom’s memory is at all like other creatures’ memories, and if we’re very careful about it, why couldn’t we remove just this one memory?’
Ganver breathed a word that I could only translate as ‘Sacrilege’ though what it said was, ‘Corruption of the holy reality greatly to the discomfiture of those whose job it is to maintain the status quo.’
Really, this old Eesty did make me peevish. ‘Well, the real sacrilege was when young Oracle and his friends brought the Bell down, Ganver. After that, anything else that is done can’t be called anything but helpful. If we could find Mind Healer Talley, she might have a better idea, but short of that, I don’t know what else to do.’
‘We could go to that place, to that time,’ it said with a certain chill reserve. ‘The Oracle would not expect to find us there soon again.’
‘Yes, let’s go there. Let’s go outside the Maze, onto the road. I’d like to have my own shape back and eat humanish food.’
It took me to the road below the Dervishes’ Pervasion, standing silent at the edge of the trees while I in my Jinian shape built a fire and made myself tea. I was fully clothed, as though I had never changed, with my pack still on my back. While I drank, it stood. While I toasted bread, it stood. Finally, it said, ‘This thought of yours. This destroying of memory. It could do great damage.’
‘It could. Yes. But quite frankly, I can’t think of anything which would make things much worse. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s shadow all over the hillside behind us.’
‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed,’ it replied, ‘but the forest on the mountain to the east is dead. It would have been alive when you entered the Maze.’
Ganver was right, and so was I. I wondered how much time we had actually spent in the Maze. I remembered there had been widow’s bush in bloom back at the little lake when I called up its dweller. If I wanted to hike back there, I could see how far it had come toward setting seed, which would give a measure of the time. If it hadn’t merely died. Hardly worth it. It didn’t matter how much time; the fact was sufficient unto itself. There had been enough time for a forest to die. Enough time for shadow to come flowing along in a gray carpet.
‘I can’t think of any good reason not to,’ Ganver said at last, sounding almost personlike.
I got out my things. A summons. An easy, any-first-year-Wize-ard-can-do-it summons. I couldn’t. It took me three tries before I could even remember the words. ‘Gamelords,’ I whispered. ‘Something terrible is happening.’
‘Of course,’ Ganver said gently. ‘As Lom dies, so all our senses and skills die. Both yours and ours. Remember.’
Well, of course then I remembered. Remembered, gritted my teeth, and did the summons. Did it right, too, even though it was like wading through deep mud. Every word was an effort. This close to the bad memories, this close to the shadow, the life-force had to be at an absolute minimum.
In a few minutes, however, I heard a chirruping call from the top of the hill and saw three worried-looking chucks threading their way down the path, staying well clear of the shadow. We bowed halfheartedly. I began talking. They were the ones who had been given the blue crystal before, so they understood at once what I was talking about. Still, they conferred for a long time before agreeing. One of them went back up the trail, even more carefully, for the shadows were thicker than ever, and returned after a long while with six or seven more of them. Meantime, I’d gone back into the Maze and found the edge of the memory place.
The chucks and I decided to clear all the growth between the road and the path so we could get at the edge of the memory place. I explained carefully that they must not get onto the path itself, and if that accidentally happened, they were to stay very still in one place and I would come in after them.
They set to work. I would have liked to help, but I had brought no tools at all, and my teeth were not up to the job. By nightfall, they had all the brush cleared along the edge of the path, cleared and carried away. I asked if they could bring gobblemoles on the morrow, and they said yes. After which they went carefully away while Ganver took me somewhere else for the night. I don’t know where, and it didn’t matter. I was asleep by the time we got there.
The next day we dug out the memory. That is, I think we dug it out. The gobblemoles went under the path from the cleared space, tunneled it all out underneath, then let it collapse. After which Ganver and I went in at the other end of the path, watched the ship arrive, watched the moon fall, and then ducked into the crevasse, which should have brought us out into the Temple of the Bell just in time for the destruction. Instead, we came out in the bottom of the gobblemoles’ pit. No destruction of the Bell.
Which might have meant it was gone. Which might have meant it had moved. Which might have meant nothing except that we had no access to it any more. I thanked the creatures, explaining as much as I could, and they departed.
Coincident with their departure, we heard a threatening sound, rumbling, like a mutter of thunder. ‘The Oracle knows we’re here,’ breathed Ganver, scooping me up. I heard the sound again. A fluttering roar. Above Ganver’s shoulder I could see the slope behind it. The shadows rose from it like a flock of monstrous birds. It was their fluttering we heard. ‘They are controlling the shadow,’ Ganver said, horrified. ‘No one has controlled the shadow before.
They were around us before Ganver could move. It did something, a kind of shifting of space. The gray, formless place was all around us, but some of the shadows had come through as well. Ganver dropped me, spun, roared, picked me up, and did the thing -whatever it was - again. We were somewhere else, only a few shadows now, fluttering madly. One of them brushed by me, so closely I felt it and shuddered, remembering being shadow bit from that time in Chimmerdong.
‘Pfowgrowl,’ snarled Ganver. ‘Would that I had a dozen of the Gardener’s shadow-eaters and I would teach these shades to leave Eesties alone.’ We fled once more, Ganver muttering as we went. ‘I’m going to leave you, Jinian, Dervish Daughter. Stay until I come for you. If you would know the meaning of the star-eye, watch and learn.’
The Eesty dropped me again; I felt it go, the shadows in close pursuit. Anger burned behind them like a lightning track through the gray. I was alone in a place, making a great crackle of broken shrubbery as I picked myself up.
A quiet glade. No sign of anything dying, not here. Dark stone buildings half-sheltered by the trees. Zell-ers grazing on the sward. Evening? Dawn? Lamplight in the windows of the place. A door opened and someone, evidently attracted by the noise I was making, called into the half-light, ‘Hello? Hello? Can we help you?’
I stepped out onto the meadow, adjusting my pack and keeping a pleasantly neutral expression on my face as I approached. ‘Hello. Yes. I seem to have lost my way.’ It was a young woman in a smock, hair drawn back in a sensible braid. Something about her reminded me of Silkhands.
I said, ‘My name is Jinian.’
‘Jinny. Do come in. I was just about to put the ke
ttles on for the children’s wash-up, and for our tea, of course. Come into the kitchen.’ She bustled off ahead of me, down a stone-floored corridor. The ceilings of the place were low, no more than a foot or so over her head. A tall man would have had to stoop. Perhaps there were no tall men here. The place looked clean enough, and yet there was a smell . . . like a latrine. A urine smell. I twitched my nose and tried to ignore it.
She opened a heavy door, closed it behind me, and gestured me to a chair as she began rilling heavy kettles with water and hanging them on hooks above the fire. There were dozens of them, great iron things that looked heavy. She grunted when she heaved them, and I went to help her, curious. ‘Are you doing this all alone?’
She smiled at me, a tired smile. ‘Well, it’s all part of the dedication, isn’t it. Part of the saintly work. Thank you for your help, though. Since I’ve had this flux, it’s been hard to lift them.’ Her hands on the kettle handle were raw, with chapped, bleeding places.
There was a smaller kettle hung closer to the flames. I laid more wood upon the fire as she filled it, wondering who it was who cut all that wood. If she heated so much water every morning, it would take a forest full of trees to provide the heat. Before long the small kettle began to steam, and she poured water into a teapot, setting a cup before me. ‘We’ve time for a cup before wash-up.’ She sighed. ‘Now, what brings you to the Sanctuary?’
‘That’s what this place is called? The Sanctuary?’
‘Oh, yes. The Sanctuary and Church of St. Phallus. The monastery of those in service to the Sacred Seed.’ She smiled as though these words had some particular meaning to her, face glowing briefly as in firelight. ‘I’m Sister Servant Rejoice.’
‘Rejoice,’ I murmured.
‘Just call me Sister Servant,’ she corrected me. ‘We don’t use individual designations much. Father says we don’t need them.’
‘Father says that, does he,’ I murmured again, sipping at my tea. I was all adrift. I understood the words she had said, but the sense of them escaped me. ‘Ah, Sister Servant, can you tell me how long the . . . Sanctuary and church have been here? Historically speaking?’
She was confused by this. ‘Always, Jinny. Always, since arrival. Since our Holy Founders broke with the evil under the mountain and brought away St. Phallus.’
‘Evil under the mountain?’
‘The monster makers. The triflers with the holy fruit. Some called them ...” She looked at the closed door before whispering, ‘Magicians.’
Well. That placed it somewhat. This was evidently some offshoot from early times. ‘How long ago was that, do you know?’
She shook her head. The count of years evidently didn’t concern her, though the kettles did. She was watching them intently, waiting for steam to emerge from each one. As soon as the first was hot, she took it down from its hook and substituted another before tugging on a bell rope beside the door. Far off I could hear the jangle, insistent in the silence. Then voices. Approaching footsteps.
Those who came in were much like Sister Servant -were Sister Servants. Smocks, braids, tired-looking faces, chapped and bleeding hands. They took the steaming kettles and went out, leaving the last to boil for Rejoice. ‘You can come with me,’ she whispered. ‘To see the work.’
I was too curious not to. We went down the echoing hallway to one of the rooms. In the room were half a dozen beds. On the beds were children.
So I thought. Well. An orphanage. A foundling home. I had seen such before. There was one in Xammer. We students of Vorbold’s House had borrowed babies from it from time to time in order to learn child care. I knew about babies, and my heart cheered. ‘I’ll help you,’ I said, turning to the first bed. ‘I’ve bathed babies before.’
I started by trying to tickle it awake. It lay there, drool streaming in a gelatinous rope from the corner of its mouth, eyes open. It did not seem to see me. I turned its head toward me, and the body rolled, stiffly. This wasn’t a baby. It was a child, seven or eight years old, perhaps.
I smelled it then. Dirty diapers. Making a face, I drew the covers back. ‘What’s the matter with . . . her? Is she sick?’
Rejoice shook her head, an expression of disapproval on her face. ‘Of course not. She’s perfectly all right.’
‘If she isn’t sick, she seems a little old to be dirtying her pants.’
‘A little slow to be toilet-trained. That’s all. Otherwise, perfectly fine. See, she’s smiling at you.’
I looked at the child. Its mouth was twisted in a grimace of pain. I started to say something, then stopped. The source of the pain was all too evident. Sores. Sores on its buttocks and between its legs. ‘It has sores,’ I said, carefully neutral. ‘Do you have medicine or a Healer for those?’
She shuddered, whispered, ‘Do not say “Healer.” Father would not have a Healer here. As bad as midwives, Healers. There’s powder on the shelf. Clean linen on the shelf. Washcloths on the shelf.’ She herself was busy with another, even older. It seemed to be a boy - man, really a man, with hair on his face. Lying in his own excrement, on a soaked bed, his face turned upward without expression.
I went back to my work. I had done worse. Not often, but on occasion. Burying was cleaner. Corpses were cleaner, even those half-decayed. When we were through, the six bodies in the beds were clean, too, and the filthy linens were piled high in a basket by the door. I leaned against a sill and thrust a window wide.
‘What are you doing!’
‘Airing out, Sister Servant. Getting rid of a little of the smell.’
‘It’s the smell of service. Nothing to repudiate. Revel in it, Jinny, for it is a holy smell.’
Holy shit, I thought to myself, wondering what madhouse Ganver had brought me to. Holy pee? - ‘How old is he?’ I asked, pointing at the man she had worked on first.
‘Bobby? Why, Bobby’s just a wee baby.’
‘He’s large for a baby.’
‘Oh, in years perhaps he is. Thirty or forty, I suppose. But he’s just a wee baby nonetheless. Slow. A tiny bit slow.’
‘When will he grow up, this Bobby?’
‘Oh, every day and every day. The therapist says he’s growing up all the time.’
‘The therapist says that?’
‘Oh, yes. You’ll have to meet Sister Servant Therapist. Well see her over breakfast. Now that the babies are all clean, we’ll feed them, then we can have our own breakfast.’
We could have our breakfast. When we had carried out the dirty linens, rinsed them in a stream, put them in kettles to be boiled over the fire, and spent an endless time spooning gruel into mouths or into gaping tubes that led into stomachs, we could have our breakfast. We assembled in the kitchen, all the Sister Servants and me. The smell of the dirty linens in the kettles was overwhelming. I could not eat. They did. I was introduced. I nodded at them over my teacup, pretending I had eaten earlier. Well, I had, sometime earlier.
‘Sister Servant says you’re interested in Bobby.’ This Sister was a little older, deep lines graven from nose to the corners of her lips, lips curved in a constant, meaningless smile. Habit held her face in that expression. She did not know how her face looked.
I nodded, noncommittal. She took it for assent. ‘He’s making such progress.’ She made enthusiastic noises. ‘We’re working on toilet training.’
‘Ah,’ I said.
‘Teaching him to make a noise when he needs to. I sit by him, and then when he does, I make a noise. Eventually, he will learn to mimic the noise, then he’ll associate it with doing it, don’t you know, and that will be a help. If we have a little warning, we can get a pan under him.’
‘How long have you been working at this?’
‘On, only about ten years - isn’t it about ten, Sister Servant Rejoice? Ten years. Bobby hasn’t quite got the hang of it, but he will.’
‘Do you really feel there is sufficient intelligence there? To ... ah, get the hang of it?’ I had seen only a shell, a body without a mind. I wondered if my eyes had tr
icked me.
‘He makes progress,’ she said stiffly. ‘Every day. It doesn’t matter that he’s a little slow. He’s a unique, valuable fruit of St. Phallus. Father says it doesn’t matter whether it takes one year or a hundred. Every fruit of St. Phallus is sacred.’
I smiled, nodded. They were all looking at me intently, too intently. Sister Servant Rejoice was holding a bread knife, turning it and turning it in her hands as she looked at me, something deep and violent in her eyes. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘That’s very true.’ Sister Servant Rejoice laid down the knife. I breathed a silent sigh. ‘I’d love to hear Father talk. He sounds very eloquent.’
This was the right thing to have said. They told me about Father, about the several Fathers. A few of whom were present in the priory. The rest of whom were out in the world, seeking out special fruits of St. Phallus to bring them to the Sanctuary. ‘And more Sister Servants,’ sighed Rejoice. ‘We need more of us.’
‘Don’t presume,’ said Sister Therapist. ‘Father says don’t presume. We don’t need any more of us than there are, Father says. “Sufficient unto the duty are the Sisters thereof.” That’s what Father says.’
‘I suppose the Fathers could always help,’ I said innocently.
‘That would not be fitting,’ said Sister Therapist. ‘They have higher duties than ours.’
I went again with Sister Rejoice, from room to room, place to place. I talked with Sister Therapist.
‘It is my duty to structure the children’s day,’ she said, her voice wavering between pride and exhaustion. ‘Each of the holy fruits of St. Phallus has his own program. The children in this building are being toilet-trained.’
‘Can any of them walk? Crawl?’
She shook her head, making a sour mouth at me. ‘Each thing in its time. After they learn one thing, then we will teach another. Those in the next building are learning to crawl.’
