And All Between (5 page)

The Ol-zhaan stepped closer and reaching out he grasped Teera’s wrist; turning her hand palm upward, he pressed it to the palm of his own hand. At the touch of the Ol-zhaan’s palm, the pensing became stronger and more unmistakable, and its message was surely of compassion and reassurance.

Then the other Ol-zhaan spoke. His voice was sharp and sudden as were the voices of Verban, but entirely intelligible. “Can you pense her?” he said.

The first Ol-zhaan, the one who still held Teera’s hand pressed to his own, and whose huge eyes seemed dark and deep as a bottomless cavern spring, nodded slowly without taking his eyes from Teera’s.

“She can speak then?” the taller one asked.

“I don’t know. I pensed feeling only—no words.”

“You know what she is, don’t you? She must be a slave child. A kidnapped Kindar. She must have been captive since she was a very young infant, poor thing.”

Teera’s fear, which had begun to subside, flared anew. That explained the goodwill of the Ol-zhaan with the deep eyes. He did not know what she was. He somehow did not know that she was an Erdling, to him a Pash-shan. He took her to be a Fallen, a child born to the Kindar, and that misconception undoubtedly caused his pity and goodwill. He surely would have killed her immediately if he had known the truth.

“But how is it that she is free now?” the smaller Ol-zhaan said, still holding Teera’s eyes with his own. “How is it that she is above the Root?”

“I don’t know. Unless it is true that the Root is withering, and there is someplace an opening large enough for a child of her size to pass through. What was it that you pensed?”

“Only that she fears us and begs not to be harmed.”

Stepping closer, the tall Ol-zhaan said, “We must be very strange and frightening to her. She does not know what we are.”

In spite of her fear, Teera felt almost indignant. Of course, she knew what they were. Did they think she was stupid? Swallowing the sobs that still swelled in her throat she managed to say, “Are you not Ol-zhaan?”

The two Ol-zhaan stared as if in great surprise.

“Yes, we are Ol-zhaan,” the taller one said. “And are you not a Kindar child who has been held captive by the Pash-shan?” He put his hand on Teera’s head, and she tried not to cringe beneath his touch as he went on. “You must not fear us. We are of your kind, and we would not harm you.” Then speaking to the other Ol-zhaan he said, “How do you suppose she learned to speak? Unless some of the Fallen have been old enough to have learned speech and they have taught the others.”

“Or else the Pash-shan speak as we do.”

“I suppose that is possible. I can’t remember being taught anything concerning their manner of speech. But I had always thought of them as being incapable of speaking as humans do.”

This time Teera’s indignation was almost great enough to make her forget her fear entirely. Her chin jutted, and she was on the verge of saying something terribly foolish, when she forgot fear and anger alike in a sudden rush of joy. Bounding across the clearing a small furry creature launched itself into her outstretched arms.

“Haba, Haba, Haba,” she was whispering with passionate joy into the warm fur, when she realized that the younger Ol-zhaan was asking her a question.

“Is it yours?” he was asking. “What is it?”

“It’s my lapan,” she said. “His name is Haba. I lost him. I was looking for him.”

“Haba.” The Ol-zhaan stroked Haba’s head gently. “And what is your name?” he asked.

“Teera. My name is Teera.”

She would tell them her name, but nothing else, she thought. She had always heard that Ol-zhaan could see into your mind and Spirit as into a pool of clear water, and that nothing could be hidden from them. But these Ol-zhaan seemed to still believe that she was a Kindar and therefore not to be hated and killed. She could not imagine how she had been able to deceive them, but it seemed that she had. It occurred to her suddenly that they seemed to be very young, hardly more than boys. Perhaps it was only the old Ol-zhaan who could steal your thoughts and words from the most secret parts of your mind. Whatever the reason, if they wanted to love and pity her as a Kindar instead of killing her as a Pash-shan, she was not going to be the one to tell them that they were mistaken. Glancing up, over Haba’s head, through the screen of her eyelashes, she felt one corner of her mouth tip upward in a stealthy smile. But the Ol-zhaan were busy talking and did not seem to notice. They were discussing what to do with her.

“No,” the younger one was saying. “And it would be wrong to take her with us into danger. I think we must take her to safety as quickly as we can and come back again later to search further.”

“But it will be many days before there is another free time when we can get away and not be missed. And we have learned nothing yet.”

“Perhaps we have.” The youngest Ol-zhaan put his hand up before his mouth and spoke softly so that Teera heard only something about “telling”—about her telling them something.

A pang of fear thudded against her ribs as the older one answered. “That is true. You’re right, Raamo. We will take her back with us, and when she is more accustomed to us we will question—” At that point he, also, put his hand before his mouth and lowered his voice to a whisper; and although Teera tried, she was not able to hear enough to understand his meaning.

“No,” the one called Raamo said then. “She would be lonely and afraid. She must be with others who will treat her kindly and—I have it. I know where she can be taken.”

She did not want to go with them. Even though she knew that they meant her no harm now, they might in the future. The little she had overheard of their whispered conversation seemed to indicate that they intended to take her somewhere where she could be more carefully and thoroughly questioned—perhaps by other older Ol-zhaan who could see everything in her mind. As the two Ol-zhaan took turns trying to lead her away from where she stood against the grundtrunk, she only shook her head, clutching her lapan and bracing her feet in the soft forest earth.

Then the younger Ol-zhaan, the one who was called Raamo sat down beside her and began to tell her about the place where she would be taken if she would go with them. It was, he told her, the home of his own family—his father and mother and a sister who was very close to Teera’s age, and whom she would like very much.

“Are they Ol-zhaan, too, your family?” Teera asked.

“Oh no,” Raamo said. “They are Kindar.”

“Then how is it—” Teera paused pointing to the seal on Raamo’s chest.

“One is not born an Ol-zhaan,” he explained. “The Ol-zhaan are chosen—two each year from among the Kindar who have reached the age of thirteen years.”

“And your family,” Teera asked, “do they have all the pan-fruit they want to eat every day?”

Raamo nodded, smiling.

Shyly, Teera extended her hand palm upward. “Tell me,” she said. “Like this.”

“All the people of Green-sky have all the pan-fruit they want to eat,” Raamo repeated, and with the bond of hand and eye Teera was able to pense clearly and strongly that no deceit lay silently beneath the spoken words.

“All right,” she said, “I’ll go with you,” but before they had moved forward more than a few steps another thought occurred to her and she stopped again. “Can I take Haba?” she asked.

“Haba?” the taller Ol-zhaan said. “Oh, the little animal? Yes, of course, you can take him.”

“They won’t eat him, will they?” she asked.

“Eat him?” the tall Ol-zhaan stared at her strangely. “Eat an animal? Of course not.”

But the mind of the tall Ol-zhaan was closed and dark, and Teera was not going to allow herself to be tricked. Turning to the other, she again asked for a pensed reassurance, and when it had been given to her satisfaction, she at last consented to accompany the two Ol-zhaan to wherever it was they intended to take her. It did not immediately occur to her that she would be asked to do what she had already attempted and failed—climb up into the heights of the forest by means of a makeshift ladder of Wissenvine.

It was not until much later, after a long trek down twisting forest pathways, that they came to a stop near a heavy stand of Vine and the two Ol-zhaan set about shaping the short green overgarment that Raamo wore into a carrying pouch for Haba. But when the pouch had been finished and Haba placed inside it, and when Raamo then turned to the Vine and began to lightly and rapidly ascend it, realization dawned.

“No, no,” Teera cried. “I cannot. I’m afraid. I will fall.”

It was much later after many pleas and arguments on the part of the Ol-zhaan and many tears on Teera’s part, that she at last consented to try. And it was much much later, after what seemed to be hours and hours of sheer panic, that Teera found herself, if not on solid ground, at least on a wide and solid surface. They had reached the first level of grundbranches and had somehow managed the perilous transfer from swaying Vine ladder, to the comparative safety of the branchpath. Once there, Teera, weak and shaky from the long ordeal, collapsed face downward. A few moments later she sat up and looked around with great interest.

The limb on which she was resting was quite level and wide enough to permit several people to walk along it side by side. To her right the branch gradually dwindled in breadth, and then divided into many clusters of smaller limbs. In places, these clusters joined with end clusters from another nearby grund to form dense thickets of twig and huge succulent grundleaves. In the other direction the branch grew even wider, dropped slightly, and at last, far in the distance disappeared into the huge solid wall of a grundtrunk. All around, rising up from the earth far below in thickly twisted tangles, or draped gracefully over limbs and branches grew Wissenvine, the enchanted Vine that sprang upward from the barrier Root. Like all Erdlings, Teera was only too familiar with the cold hard strength of the Root, but it was only through the testimony of the Verban that the many uses of the Vine were known to the people of Erda. Teera had heard of the tendrils, which were supple and elastic when alive and growing, but hardened quickly to almost metallic strength when severed. She knew something of the many uses the Kindar made of the tendril, and she had heard too, of the Berry, whose sharp corroding sweetness brought to those who ate it a dreamy forgetful pleasure. Looking around her, Teera saw these things of which she had long heard for the first time. She saw everywhere long white fingers of tendril, and here and there, blood-red clusters of Berry. And directly above her head, a heavy strand of Vine bore a Wissenflower, its thick translucent petals pulsing and flaming with strange, deep shades of color.

Teera was on her feet turning slowly in a circle, staring avidly at the strange beauty of the high forest, when the sound of her own name brought her back to the reality of the present. Near her, the two young Ol-zhaan were seated on the branch in postures of total exhaustion. The older one, who was called Neric, was talking about the difficulty of the climb they had just completed—and the trouble Teera had caused them.

“Great Sorrow!” he was saying. “I almost wish we’d left her to the mercy of the Pash-shan. I’m exhausted.”

“And I also,” Raamo said. “But her fear is to be expected, I suppose. Openness and heights are as frightening to her as dark, airless tunnels would be to us. And perhaps, in the depth of her mind there is some memory of her fall to the forest floor. She was probably injured by the fall—and then to have been seized and pulled down into the earth by such fearful creatures—it is no wonder that the fear of falling causes her such great mind-pain.”

“True,” the other agreed. “There can be no doubt that fear can cause great mind-pain, and other pains as well.” As he spoke he touched his upper lip gingerly, and Teera noticed that it seemed to be swollen. “On the Vine,” he said, “during one of her spasms of mind-pain, she kicked me full in the mouth.”

They rose then, and taking Teera’s hands they led her down the grundbranch, through the thicket of end branches and up the branch of the next grund. In a few moments, crouching in a thicket of branch ends the two Ol-zhaan peered out warily. Pushing her way in front of them, Teera, too, looked out from behind a curtain of grundleaf and saw a sight that filled her with intense excitement and a strange bittersweet longing that was almost like remembrance. Only a few yards away down a broad carefully cleared branchpath, a large airy structure seemed almost to hang in space beside the branchpath. Woven of frond and tendril, light and clean and spacious, Teera knew it to be a nid-place, the dwelling of a Kindar family.

T
EERA ELD SAT ON
a balcony of the D’ok nid-place, singing softly and nibbling on a large slice of honey-dipped pan-fruit. The song went well with fruit and honey. Pomma had said that it was called the “Answer Song” and that it was very old, but it was new to Teera. She mouthed the words softly and sweetly, coating them with honey.

“What is the answer?

When will it come?

When the day is danced and sung,

And night is sweet and softly swung,

And all between becomes among,

And they are we and old is young,

And earth is sky,

And all is one.

Then will the answer come,

Then will it come to be,

Then it will be.”

Placing the plate of pan-fruit carefully to one side, Teera rose to her feet and began to dance in time to the rhythm of the song. She had only begun to learn the dance, but its intricate, irregular motions seemed to blend so perfectly with the rhythms of the song that it was very easy to remember. Teera danced softly and smoothly, enjoying the motion, and the swirl of the silken wing-panels of her shuba.

Teera was now dressed like a Kindar. Instead of tunic and leggings of lapan fur, she was wearing a shimmering silken sheath, with wide flowing side panels, attached by strong cuffs at wrists and ankles. It was a real shuba—the beautiful garment that made it possible to glide downward from limb to limb, and even to float briefly upwards on rising currents of air. But even with a shuba, a Kindar could not really fly—as Teera had once thought possible. Upward travel was accomplished by means of ramp and ladder—and high up, amid thick growths of small branches, by climbing from branch to branch.