by Rob Summers
Chapter 39 Tsawb Again
Vult scouts flew ahead to find Tsawb and sound him out about a conference with Clay and Simone. They returned to say that the monster was still very angry but had been persuaded. After all, the scouts had reasoned with him, he could never hope to catch the Lila-mes while the Vults protected them. Furthermore, Clay and Simone were on their way out of the Fold through Tsawb’s own unguarded Door. If he did not treat with them now, he would have no other chance. It was time to reach an accord.
On the afternoon of December seventh the Vults set down Clay and Simone in a stubbly field on the north of the ruin of Hazot Tower, the same tower to which they had brought Simone to spend a night when on her way to the coast. Bremset led them into the tower by a side door and up to the top of the ruin, still a considerable height. Waiting for them in the courtyard on the opposite side was Tsawb, big as a hill, red-eyed, and foul tempered. The Vults had chosen the tower because its remaining walls were very thick. If Tsawb attempted treachery, he would be a little time breaking through. In the meantime, the Vults might whisk Simone and Clay out the other side.
Unlike Simone, Clay had not yet seen Tsawb except in the form of a vision. The Turtle’s reality was overpowering. His shell like a vast, overturned ship’s hull was caked and be-crudded with tons of soil—leftover from the earth that had covered him until recently. In places grass and bushes were still growing on him. His mouth could have swallowed the teens in one very small bite.
In Meschor, Clay had had no time or thought for his camera, but now he quickly used up the last of his film roll.
When Tsawb saw Clay and Simone looking down at him, he erupted, “The law breakers! Two of my great enemies! Come down to me and face my judgement.”
Clay was glad to let Simone answer.
“Listen,” she said, “we haven’t broken any law except one you made up. And you don’t have the right to invent laws. Take a slide down the humility scale, Shellshock. You were supposed to guard the Door in Crow Wood according to the guidance of the Guardian, right?” (Clay knew Simone was guessing.) “Well, how do you know what he would have said about us?”
Simone gave Tsawb time to answer, but surprisingly, he did not.
“So we’ve got two ways to go,” she continued. “You’ve either got to call this Guardian back, or we’ve got to work it out ourselves. But either way, we have to reach agreement. You know I got through your Door last time against your will, by the strength of the Light of Karasis. He overruled you. From now on He won’t let you keep us from passing the Door. So it’s time for you to get back to your post and start cooperating with us. If not, your doorkeepership may just be taken away from you. Now are you ready to listen to what the Emperor wants from you?”
“Because of you I have been traveling for days,” groaned Tsawb, “without my temple, my priesthood, my sacrifices; all alone; constantly fearful that others might pass my Door while I’m gone. How cold I was in the mountains!”
“Yeah, blah, blah, tell it to someone who cares,” was Simone’s compassionate reply.
At this, the Turtle lurched forward and lifted himself against the tower’s side. His forelegs burst through the stones of the curved wall, and his head was raised halfway up the wall to them. Hazot Tower shook as in an earthquake.
Bremset and other Vults tugged at Simone and Clay. “Quickly, out the other side.”
“No!” said Simone. “I don’t think he’s trying to eat us. It’s just a big temper fit. Look, he’s lowering himself already.”
Tsawb was sliding back down with great blocks tumbling around him. When the noise subsided, he said, “I can’t submit to tiny and inferior things such as you.”
Clay had a thought. “Tsawb, I could send Vults ahead to the Door and have them pass through by the thousands. I could order Ulrigs through, too, and Lusettas. Perhaps humans from the Old World would come through the other way. All this could happen long before you get back.”
“That’s right,” said Simone, her eyebrows arched. “But if you’ll reach an agreement with us, we’ll make sure that the Door is very little used.”
Tsawb was silent.
“And all we want from you,” Clay said, “is that you go on guarding the Door as our private entrance to the Fold, just for Simone and me and any friends we give permission to pass.”
“You’ll still have your perfect record,” added Simone, “because the Lila-mes and their friends and servants are valid exceptions. I’m thinking particularly of the Fijata Razatella, who will be coming through to bring us news.”
“You would change the law!” Tsawb said.
“No, no change,” said Clay. “Be logical about it. The Door is for someone to pass through, or otherwise, why have a Door to begin with? The law says you can’t allow anyone through except the ones it was made for.”
“That’s us,” said Simone. “And if you hadn’t rebelled against the Guardian, he would have told you that.”
“Anyway, we’re going back to our own country,” said Clay, “so even we won’t want to use the Door again for a long time.”
Tsawb turned a huge, calculating eye toward them. “And the witch woman, will you go to her there? Will she be with you?”
“I know you want her back on this side,” Simone answered, “and she will come back to the Fold eventually, but it’ll be when we please and no sooner. For now, the Queen Mother has adopted her, so she’s not only under our protection, she’s our sister. I tell you Tsawb, if we say someone can pass the Door, it doesn’t affect your clean record.”
“Just the opposite,” said Clay. “If you don’t do what we say, that’s the real blot on your record.”
Tsawb considered. “But she must live with you. You won’t live apart from your sister?”
“I don’t see what difference it makes, but yes, she’ll be in our house with us. Now do we have a deal?”
The Turtle began to turn himself in the courtyard, knocking down low walls and spraying rubble about. “It is agreed,” he said. “And now only the Vulture holds his Door according to the purity of our first charge. The Seal long ago allowed in the pollution of the Sarrs, and also you humans.”
Simone looked at Clay. “The Seal?”
He shrugged. “Don’t ask me.”
The moving hill that was Tsawb walked away in the direction of Crow Wood.
The Vults thought it best to remain at Hazot Tower that night. This left Simone and Clay a free hour of daylight, so they took a walk on the plain to the west, where Simone had walked on a cold night a week earlier. At nearly a mile from the tower, they ascended a bare knoll under a clear blue sky. Looking in every direction, they saw a few humble buildings but no one stirring. The locals had been scared into hiding by Tsawb and the Vults. Sister and brother began to share more memories of the Fold, but gradually their conversation turned to home: to what they had missed and were missing.
After a few minutes, Simone said, “Are you sorry you came?”
Clay had no quick answer. He was sure that Raspberry was glad somewhere that the Dragons had been warned away from Anatolia, and in a manner that might last. Then he thought of the teenage girl with the haunted eyes whom he had seen among the refugees from the village of Igthuz. It appeared that Zeeba would drive out no more refugees. If that was so, then what did it matter if he was personally satisfied with having come?
He was about to say this, but suddenly lifted an arm and pointed to the south. “What in the world is that?” he said sharply.
“A snowstorm!” Simone was obviously unsure.
A mile-high cloud of white was coming straight at them.
“Lebu was scouting that way,” Clay said. “She should have reported about anything strange.”
“But that’s what it is!” said Simone, jumping up and down. “It’s Lusettas!”
Clay smiled. “Either that or ‘a band of angels comin’ after me.’”
“Comin’ for to carry me home!” Simone yelled.
Soon the forerunners of the flock drew near, and Lebu landed joyously at their feet.
“Your Eminence! Princess! My people have come from the Forest. King Lugel couldn’t restrain them anymore. One of us Ten flew back to them after the Battle of the Field of Parting and gave them the news that you, Emperor Clay, would probably be found soon. Their enthusiasm reached such a pitch that, when Lugel forbade anyone to pursue the rumor, many thousands defied him. I think that we Lighters will not now be punished when we return. The situation has gotten beyond Lugel’s control.”
“You tell Lugel,” Simone said, “that the Emperor demands that the Lighters be honored and that your titles and property be returned to you. Also, that no one else who flew to see us be punished in any way.”
By this time, scores of Lusettas had landed. One of the newcomers said, “Thank you, Princess. But Your Eminence, we are stricken to hear from Lebu that you and your sister are returning to the Old World. We’re inconsolable, desperate. We beg you to stay.”
“Don’t,” Simone said. “We can’t break our promise either to the Dragons or to our Queen Mother. And Lebu? Spread the word that I absolutely forbid any suicides, especially mass suicides.”
“But Princess, we’ve already made plans to drown ourselves in the Frear River.”
“Sorry, overruled.”
Lebu flew back to the bulk of the flock, which by now filled the southern sky, thousands of white wings flashing against the blue. In a few minutes, Clay and Simone were enveloped by them: thousands at their feet, thousands more circling over and around them and creating an artificial darkness. They were singing, an enormous choir of child-like voices. When all had landed and the fields around them were covered with white, the teens could make out the words.
Tem ba mulje, tem ba seelkir,
Drebu mijem setta mijub,
Del nabva zal ba nashka,
Ba brug brelanva lijena;
Balalkel, sankel mijen.
(In the midst of summer forests
My love came flying to me,
Came gliding under branches
With dangers all around her.
She heard my call and answered.)
Simone had heard this while visiting the Palace of Reflections. It told of the feelings of a noble Lusetta whose mate had died. She thought it an odd tribute to the Lila-mes, but perhaps nothing else could properly express the Lusettas’ sorrow.
They said she would not come,
But in summer drought she came,
In a secret grove she came.
Then the curled leaves spread again
And the rivers swelled with rain.
If I could hold you, dear,
By talon or by tooth...
But the days cannot be captured
By thinking or by heart-pang.
They escape and wander backward;
So in piercing cool of autumn
My love went flying from me,
Went flying over seashore
With dangers all around her.
In the groves I do not meet her.
When love draws out each spear tip
And the withered reed of autumn
Is healed and blows in sunshine,
When the dead twig lifts in glory,
I will find her in the springtime.
Before it was over, Simone was crying.
“You’re a sucker for this kind of thing, aren’t you?” Clay said to her.
“Stuff it, weasel. I hear you sniffling.”
“Not me, I’m just tearing up from snow blindness.”
“Not thinking of anyone special, are you?” she asked.
“Nobody I’d recognize. But I know who you’re thinking about.”
Simone nodded as she dabbed her eyes. “I have Razatella watching for him at Mount Rinna. If Tsawb keeps his word, he’ll let her through the Door to tell me when he comes.”
“And then you’ll come back?”
“Then I’ll come back.”
“Not me,” said Clay, but his tone was tentative, for he remembered things the red-haired man had told him in the palace at Agnesia.
Now the Lusettas wanted some parting words. Simone and Clay did their best to console them but did not go so far as to promise to return. They learned that the Ulrigs were still keeping close guard in Crow Wood at the ruin of Tsawb’s temple and had cleared away rubble down to the Door. So, since the Lila-mes would arrive well ahead of Tsawb, it would be easy to go home.
When Simone began to walk back to Hazot Tower, Clay hung back to speak with some of the Lusettas.
“Does anyone here know Princess Bekah of Kulismos?” he asked.
A Lusetta presented himself. “I’ve met her, Your Eminence.”
“All right! Finally. So what does she look like? Pretty, right?”
“I—I think so, Your Eminence.”
“Think so? But you said you’ve met her.”
“Yes, indeed. However, the message I once brought her parents from King Lugel was delivered at night, and so you see....” The Lusetta trailed off, reading the sour expression on Clay’s face.
“Fine, great! So did anyone else ever meet her?” Clay waited. “Nobody?”
“We’re sorry, Your Eminence,” said another Lusetta. “If you wish to know what she looks like, we’ll have our best artists fly there to paint her portrait. Then we’ll send the picture through the Door to you.”
“No, no, she’s not there anymore,” Clay said.
“Tell us where she is, and we’ll go there.”
“I don’t know. Somewhere between Kulismos and the Land of Unknown Kings, I guess. Look, never mind, it’s not important.”
“Yes, Your Eminence.”
“Quit looking at me like that. I said it’s not important.”
