Ozark Trilogy 2: The Grand Jubilee (21 page)

IT IS THE
ONLY
POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION!

THEY DISAGREE, DAUGHTER OF BRIGHTWATER. I TOLD YOU ... I WILL TELL YOU AGAIN: THEY SAY IT IS ONE POSSIBLE WAY OF LOOKING AT THE MATTER.

AND?

AND WHAT?

AND WHAT ELSE? WHAT ELSE DO THEY SAY, STERLING? ARE THEY MOVING AGAINST US IN THE MORNING, DO WE HAVE THREE DAYS TO PREPARE, ARE WE ABOUT TO BE TURNED INTO A SMALL DENSE CUBE? WHAT WILL THEY DO NOW-WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?

PLEASE BE STILL. I AM LISTENING.

BEG YOUR PARDON, said Responsible again.

DAUGHTER OF BRIGHTWATER, THEY SAY THAT YOU ARE NOW UNDER THEIR CONSTANT OBSERVATION. THAT IS HOW THIS BEGAN; I AM NOT IMPRESSED.

WHAT DOES IT
MEAN?
WILL THEY TELL YOU?

IT MEANS THAT THEY ARE WILLING TO CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY YOU SUGGEST, BUT THAT ONLY BY WATCHING ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT, EVERY DAY AND EVERY NIGHT, CAN THEY DETERMINE WHETHER YOU ARE RIGHT OR WRONG. THEY HAVE NO RESPECT FOR PRIVACY, THAT IS OBVIOUS.

THEY WILL SEE TWELVE ORDERLY GOVERNMENTS, GOING ABOUT THEIR AFFAIRS. TELL THEM THAT. TELL THEM THEY CAN WATCH TILL THEY FALL OUT OF THE SKY, BUT THEY WILL SEE NO FAMINE, NO PLAGUE, NO WAR, AND NO ANARCHY. TELL THEM THEY HAVE MY WORD ON THAT.

DAUGHTER OR BRIGHTWATER, I APOLOGIZE ... THEY ONLY REPEAT THEMSELVES. THEY SAY THEY WILL BE WATCHING. AND THAT IS ALL THEY SAY. THEY HAVE NOTHING TO ADD.

Responsible braced herself; the Out-Cabal liked to end their conversations with a little exhibition of the potency of their arcane skills, and there was no predicting what form it might take.

ALTHOUGH THEY HAVE SAID THEY HAVE NOTHING TO ADD, Sterling said disgustedly, THEY HAVE ADDED SOMETHING.

YES?

THEY SAY NOT TO WAIT-NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN. THEY SAY THAT THEY ARE NEITHER CRUEL NOR UNREASONABLE AND THAT YOU ALREADY HAVE TROUBLE ENOUGH ON YOUR HANDS. THEY SAY THEY FEEL NO NEED TO ADD TO THAT.

She refused to thank them; she closed her mind firmly so to indicate. But she was nevertheless grateful. Once it had been a whirling column of lightning that had chased her all around the stable; the second time it had been towers of flame ringing her in, burning up just to the distance where the heat began to be torture, burning just long enough to cause her genuine fear, and then flickering out and leaving no mark behind. Not a charred spot, not a singed stalk of grain. Only the stinging of her skin and the heat of her clothing. If they felt obliged to be more spectacular each time, she couldn’t bring herself to look forward to it. Not that either of their displays so far had been anything she couldn’t of done herself. It was the things she’d heard they could do, and not knowing what to expect, nor how far they’d go, that made it uncomfortable.

She marched back to the Castle, getting angrier with every step she took-she was halfway there before she remembered the wards, and had to go back and take
them
off-and went to find Granny Hazelbide.

Who had, she discovered, acquired a partner.

“Hello there, Granny Gableframe!” she said, almost surprised out of her mad. It wasn’t like Grannys to go visiting; they didn’t have time.

“Evening, Responsible,” said the Granny.

“Granny Gableframe,” explained Granny Hazelbide, “is asking for our hospitality.”

“Only for a little while, mind,” put in the other. “I’ve been Granny-in-Residence at Castle Smith now over thirty-law! over forty-years, and it’s been nothing but outlandish misery the wholetime. What I fancy now is a little house in a near village, if you can spare one, where I can granny for decent folk for a change, instead of that pack of . . . unspeakables . . . at Castle Smith. Seems to me Granny Hazelbide needs no help here.”

“You’re welcome ten times over, Granny Gableframe,” said Responsible. “And as for your settling, that’ll be no problem. There’s no such thing as too many Grannys in a Kingdom. I’ll send the word around, and we’ll have the Magician take you to see the towns that apply for your services, and let you choose at your leisure.

“In the meantime,” said Granny Hazelbide, “I’ve told her we can use her here-if she can abide our plain ways, that is. We’re a tad short on scepters and crowns and suchlike.”

“You’ve a wicked tongue and a cold heart, Hazelbide,” said Granny Gableframe, “and you’ll live to regret it.”

Granny Hazelbide chuckled, and patted her friend’s knee, and then turned serious.

“They’ll quiz you to a nub, come breakfast time,” she warned. “Thorn of Guthrie will want every last smidgen, every last
detail,
and those two boys of Ruth’s are more curious than’s healthy . . . and Jonathan Cardwell Brightwater is worse for gossip than seven old ladies not fit to granny. You want to keep to your room and put all that off awhile?”

Granny Gableframe hummphed; and then did it louder.

“
No-
sir,” she said, tart enough to pucker metal. “I have no intentions whatsoever, just
no
intentions, of furnishing that lot with the tale they’re after. Here I am, and that’s the end of it, and if they won’t have me on that basis they can throw me a pallet in the stables with my Mule. I’ll not discuss it, I put you on notice here and now. And you needn’t go to any effort to prepare them for it, ladies, for I’m fully capable of telling them where to take their nosy questions when the time comes. Just leave it to this old Granny, thank you kindly.”

“You sure?”

“Sure as sure, Responsible,” declared the old lady. “It’ll be a day to remember when I can’t manage a few Brightwaters with their mouths flapping.”

“Fair enough,” said Responsible, “and I’ll enjoy the spectacle. Now has anybody seen to your rooms?”

“Sent a servingmaid to do that, it’ll be half an hour ago now,” said Granny Hazelbide. “There’s an empty room two doors down from me, looking out over the meadow and the creek, and has its own bath and a nice little old fireplace in a corner. Just the thing. It’ll be ready whenever Gableframe cares to go up there.”

“All taken care of, are you?”

“That I am,” said the Granny, “or do seem to be. Depends of course on how clear Hazelbide’s instructions were, and whether she fancied a mudtoad or two under my pillow as a welcoming gesture.”

Responsible smiled; they were going to enjoy themselves, those two, and perhaps with a little time to recover from whatever outrage Lincoln Parradyne Smith had perpetrated on her, Granny Gableframe could be cozened into staying at the Castle permanently. She’d be company for Granny Hazelbide, and the idea of two Grannys on call at all times appealed to Responsible in the strongest terms just now.

“Want to give me a bit of advice, you two?” she asked suddenly.

Granny Hazelbide jerked her chin toward the other Granny. “Already told her about it,” she said. “We’ve just been waiting on you to ask.”

“What do they want, blast and blister them?” asked Granny Gableframe. “I do believe they are the most . . . Hmmmph. I wish they’d mind their own business.”

“Almost said a broad word, did you, Granny?”

“Never you mind. What’d they want?”

“Well,” said Responsible, “we had a little talk, by way of my Mule. It does
rankle,
you know-having to use a Mule for interpreter. Lacks a certain dignity.”

“You be glad the Mule is willing,” cautioned Granny Gableframe. “You thank your lucky stars and comets for that small favor in a cold world! Cause there is
no
way that the human being could pass mindspeech directly with the members of the OutCabal and stay sane! It’s been tried, and what was left over afterwards was not pretty to look upon.”

“Died in a locked room, she did,” said Granny Hazelbide, nodding her support, “and nothing any level of magic could do for her. Crawled around in her own filth and howled, day and night, and just plain luck that the next Responsible was already nine years old at the time and able to get through the muck that was left of her mind when it was needful. You
appreciate
the Mule filtering that down for you, hear? You want your brains burned right out of your head?”

“The
point,”
said Responsible, “is that it makes it look as if the Mules are more stable of mind than we are. I don’t fancy that.”

“Faugh!” said Hazelbide. “It’s not that atall. The Mule’s just closer in its perceptions to the Out-Cabal than humans are, and the sharing seems to be no strain for the creature. Might could be they’re Mules themselves, in which case we’ve no call to be embarrassed. Now what did they want, or you plan to sit there going on about your dignity all this night?”

Responsible told them, and they put in the necessary Granny noises at all the proper places, and approved of the stand she’d taken.

“Handled it right well, I’d say,” said one; and the other allowed as how that was accurate.

“Got ‘em on a
neat
point, didn’t you, missy? I’m proud of you.”

Responsible thanked Granny Hazelbide for the compliment, pulled up a rocker, and began to rock. She was still mad, and the distraction provided by Granny Gableframe’s sudden arrival was beginning to wear off. The chair started to creak in protest at her speed, but she didn’t care; if it fell to pieces, it might relieve her feelings some.

“Responsible,” observed Granny Hazelbide, “why don’t you just take an ax to that rocker? It’d be quieter and quicker.”

“Why’ve you got your dander up, anyway?” asked Gableframe. “Seems to me you bested them; aren’t you satisfied?”

“No, I am not!”

She rocked harder, which wasn’t easy.

“Law, she’ll take off any minute and fly chair and all out through that window!” said Granny Gableframe. “Girl, what is your complaint? The Mule give you a headache?”

Responsible stopped rocking so suddenly that she nearly fell out of the chair. “I just don’t understand it,” she announced. “And what I don’t understand, I purely
despise!”

“Well, you’re not the first,” said Gableframe. “Nor will you be the last. The time comes the Out-Cabal lets four five years go by and no message sent, then I’ll begin to fret-we’ll know then they’re up to some devilment.”

“We don’t know, and we wouldn’t know,” Responsible said, flat out, and struck the rocker arm with her fist. “We just
assume!
”

Granny Hazelbide sighed, and shook her head.

“There she goes again, Gableframe,” she said. “Been through this with her I don’t know how many times now, and her only ten years old the first time, and her pigtails pulled back so tight they made her ears stick out-and she’s not changed since. My, but she’s stubborn!”

“I say,” said Responsible, “and there’s nobody to say me nay, either, that we have no proof the Out-Cabal can do anything they claim. No proof there’s any such group of planets as the Garnet Ring. No proof that there is any such thing as the
Out
-Cabal, far as
I
can see, and I’m not exactly shortsighted!”

“Now, Responsible-”

“Never mind your `now-Responsibles’! You give me one bit of evidence, one solid piece of anything to show me I should believe in all this stuff; I’ll back down. So far, you’ve had nothing to say that sounded any more sensible than Emmalyn of Clark prattling about umbrellas inside the house and spitting when you see three white Mules, and I’m purely sick of it.”

“You recall that other young woman, Responsible, if you want proof-she had the same problem you have, and bad cess to the Grannys advising her that they couldn’t keep her from pushing it to where she did! Her mind didn’t leave her on account of fairy tales, Responsible of Brightwater, and she did no more than insist that they speak directly to her and not through the Mules. She didn’t defy them, nor question their existence!”

“And what about that lightning they chased you with, and the fire all round your pretty little feet last time?
Not
to mention they know
everything
as happens here on this planet, when and as it happens! You forget that?”

Responsible drew a deep breath, and began to rock again, careful to keep it slow and sensible.

“Look here,” she said to them. “Let’s just look at what you say, and no more of this carryon, fair enough? I don’t know about that other Responsible, though I’m for sure sorry about her; that’s been two hundred years ago or more, and the circumstances that went with it wrapped up in more mysteries than an onion has layers-I don’t consider that evidence. Being that nobody but the Grannys and one lone woman in every generation
knows
about the Out-Cabal, it’s understandable that we don’t have much in the way of details on the subject . . . but for all we really know she just had too hard a row to hoe and wasn’t strong enough to bear it. As for their fancy effects-I’ve got
Magicians
as could do everything I’ve seen them do, and Magicians of Rank that make their magic look like baby fooling. Knowing what goes on on Ozark’d be cursed easy if you just happened to
be
on Ozark, let me point
that
out! And if they’re so all-fired omnipotent and powerful, if their magic’s as far superior to ours as a spaceship’s superior to a river raft, like they claim, then why haven’t they shown us some of it? Why haven’t they rattled things around a bit? Moved some mountains? Canceled some of our weather? Ruined some of
our
magic, at least?
Shoot!
”

The two Grannys traded glances and allowed as how that was quite a speech, fit to try the patience somewhat more than somewhat, and added a half dozen more platitudes to the broth, until Responsible got disgusted with them, too.