The Luck of Brin's Five (25 page)

“Come along, little string!” I followed the wavering figure along the bright corridor; we passed two omor, in neat gray, effacing themselves in alcoves opposite the sleep-cells. I counted five sleep-cells; they looked every bit as strange outside as they did in, oval gold baskets with the glass doors like bulging eyes. They were strung irregularly on the beams of the skyhouse so that each could move freely; between them one could see daylight, the empty air, yet the winding of the corridor allowed each one a firm entrance. Could Diver possibly lie in one of the other three?

As we passed, I asked in an innocent voice, as loud as I dared, “Highness, where are we going?”

The ancient replied without turning. “Into the sun chamber, child.”

I was seized with a terrible frustration and began to have an inkling of Gordo's plight. This was the time, surely, when I should run away, bang on the sleep-cells to see if Diver were there, climb bravely up or down, elude the omor and the ancient . . . but it was useless and I knew it. There was nowhere to run to; the omor would have me instantly or I would fall to my death. I could only follow as I was bidden.

The sun chamber was as spacious as the one I had seen already but made more homely, less grand, by the use of furled cane blinds and circular tan mats and dwarf redwood trees. It had been turned into something more like three rooms: in the first space we passed were three females, all in filmy vented robes, although they were middle-aged and past the time for carrying children. They were carding and spinning; I had never seen grandees at this work before, but they seemed to know it well enough.

“Time for honey water!” one cried in a shrill voice as we passed.

“He is busy!” said another.

“Playing games . . . playing games . . . playing games. . . .” said the third, in a mad bird voice. Then all three laughed aloud, and the ancient waggled his staff at them.

I examined the sun room carefully, still hoping for a way of escape but it offered even less hope than the corridor. There were two or three servants, tending to the flowers and making refreshments on a tall, wheeled piece of furniture, with racks and drawers and little colored paper sunshades to cover the trays of food and fruit. Another omor, this time in pale gray, and another still, in striped gray and green, lounged in the second room of the sun chamber. The blinds were open and on a beautiful carpet a dwarf was practicing a dance before the omor. A young musician, half-hidden among vines, played for the rehearsal on a pouch-pipe, repeating the phrases as the dwarf practiced turns and somersaults. I felt a sudden chill spreading through my bones as we came to the next room, the most soothing place of all.

The chairs were of wicker, and there was a brazier of wood and metal, unlit for the summer and filled with dried red leaves. A big legged basket was overflowing with skeins and scrolls; in one corner stood a scribe's tall desk, with paper on the platten and skeins half-woven on the hooks. The ancient pointed briskly and cheerfully to a heap of cushions and sank down himself in one of the wicker chairs. In the other sat a middle-aged male in a figured black and tan robe and handsome, curled, gold slippers. His hair was lit by the sun through the blind: a reddish brown, heavily streaked with gray. The face in repose was full of scholarly concentration, the long eyes light and thoughtful under the jutting brow.

“Here is our young guest,” said the Ancient, “and none the worse for a sleep.”

“Then we have something to say to one another,” said Tiath Avran Pentroy.

I was already seated on the cushions for I could not remain standing, from fear perhaps or surprise, or both. Yet where else could I have been? And how would the Great Elder look, at his ease among that family, which had been called “a tangle of the old threads.” But I could only stare at this strong-faced, richly dressed Moruian grandee and see, in my mind, the black barge on a winter's night. I could hear, instead of the chink of glass dishes, the poison cups rolling about in the cabin of the old brown bird-boat. The twirlers drowned, or kicked out their lives on Wellin's trees; the Gulgarvor fought and died, like engines of destruction; a world of cold and death and darkness lived at the behest of this Highness in the scholar's robe and the curled slippers. And now he had his will—the devil from Hingstull was in his grasp.

The Great Elder gazed at me with a trace of curiosity. “Don't stare, mountain child,” he said, “or the wind will blow away your eyelids.”

“It is afraid,” said Old Av Avran. “Perhaps it has lived too long on your land, dear sib.”

“No,” I whispered. “No . . . it is just that I have seen your Highness once before.”

“Where?”

“At Wellin, by night. After you had . . .” I was about to say “held assize” but I choked on the soft words. “After you had hung the twirlers.”

The ancient head of the family chuckled to himself. Not a ripple passed over the Great Elder's face. “You were at Wellin?”

“We sailed past in a boat.”

“And the devil was with you?”

“All our Family was there.”

“Including this foreigner . . . the one called Garl.”

“Garl Brinroyan is our Luck.”

“Why? Is he deformed then? Or mad?”

“His hand was burned when he first came to us. And he has blue eyes, as you have seen, Highness.”

“I have not seen it,” said Tiath softly. “I think it would frighten me.”

I hung my head and let my fear and hopelessness wash over me in a great wave.

“One thing,” said Old Av, knitting his bony fingers together. “Does your devil speak another language?”

“Surely. But he has learned Moruian.”

“How many in its nest in the islands?” snapped Tiath.

“Three.”

“What is their purpose?”

“To find out what can live, what can breathe on Torin.”

“The constellation of the Loom,” murmured the Great Elder. “So far?”

“I do not know,” I mumbled. “Please, Highness . . . speak with Garl Brinroyan. He comes in peace.”

“Speak with the devil? I do not have it,” said Tiath.

“No devil and no air ship . . .” chuckled Old Av. “What do you think of that, little string?” I hung my head again, and the ancient laughed. “I don't think it believes that . . .” he said. “Speak up child, what do you say? Has my sib got the devil or the air ship?”

“He has myself,” I said.

“How does this follow?” asked Old Av.

“I was taken, on the streets of Rintoul, at the same hour as our Luck, by the members of the same Gulgarvor, who admitted to serving the Great Elder.”

“Very reasonable,” said Tiath Gargan. “You are a clever child, and bold. Nevertheless I say I do not have your foreigner, and I begin to think I do not have you, either.”

“Lost! Lost! Lost!” said Old Av, cheerfully. “There are children lost every day, in the city.”

“Quiet!” snapped the Great Elder. “This business is almost complete.”

“Do you have Gordo Beethan?” I asked.

“I am not sure,” he replied absently, reading his scroll again. “Do you think I have him?”

I made no reply but asked again. “Do you have Tsorl-U-Tsorl?”

The Great Elder crumpled the scroll in his hand and turned his gaze right on me. He looked pale now, implacable, just as I had seen him at first.

“Remove it, Av,” he said. “Give it to Urnat for a short time.”

Old Av flicked his fingers twice, and the gray and green omor came through the flower racks from the next room of the sun chamber. She dragged me to my feet and half carried me back between the flowers, then laid me on the figured carpet in the sunshine. The dwarf Urnat had finished dancing and was drinking from a tall glass cup. I could not tell whether the dwarf was male or female or whether it had any sex; it was, as dwarfs go, very handsome, with a noble head. The name Urnat was woven in red on its small green tunic; I remembered that it had been born of a poor mountain Five on Gurth Mountain, not far from Hingstull. It said no word but took up a long cane that stood against a settle and began to thrash me, mainly on my legs, while the omor held me. I buried my face in the carpet and did not cry out although the pain became very bad. The sun chamber seemed to swim and fade when I came up for a breath. Then I felt a hard hand in my hair, and it was Urnat lifting my head.

“Enough!” it said, in a child's voice. “Remove it!” The omor hoisted me into her brawny arms and carried me out past the female sibs, taking their honey cakes and fruit.

“Playing games . . .” piped the mad one.

The omor carried me back to the corridor and slotted me into a sleep-cell, a different one. I was now, I thought, on the other side of Gordo Beethan. I called out feebly, but the cell rocked and no voice replied and finally I slept.

So I remained, in the power of the Great Elder, so helpless, so far removed from any hope or comfort for my Family, for Diver or for myself that my situation made me light-headed, almost carefree. I had stepped right off the edge of the world this time and lived in some other place, without day or night, where the only change was the coming and going of the omor with my food tray. I examined my cell and found that it was indeed an apartment for a grandee. A sliding panel in the plaster wall revealed a washing place and a waste closet; there was scented washing oil and a stack of soft amith leaves for drying or wiping. Gordo Beethan had been removed from his cell, and now I was alone in the row of five sleep cells. I heard the others being put to their proper use by the members of Old Av's family . . . the females came and sang and twittered in their cells until they slept and complained loud enough for me to hear of the fact that one cell was occupied.

The omor who attended me was always the same one, usually dressed in gray and green, who had carried me from the sun chamber. She seldom spoke, and I did not know her name, but she was not an unfriendly jailer. One day, with a solemn face, she asked, “Can you read?”

I told her that I could. She moved her thumb about on the cover of my plate of fish meal and inside, fastened in the lid, was a bright orange message skein. I was giddy with excitement and mistrust, but the skein was not what I expected . . . a message to me, Dorn, from outside. It was some kind of public message, of the kind purveyed at the Friends' Round. The skein read:

A Reward of Cloth or Credits

Will be paid to any person who can tell truth and

relieve sorrow

By showing the way or any part of the way

To these two Bonded Kin, who are lost.

Garl Brinroyan, The Luck of Brin's Five
,

A tall one of strong appearance who comes from a

distant place and whose eyes are blue
.

Dorn Brinroyan, eldest child of Brin's Five
,

A child thirteen years from its showing
,

a male, whose eyes are hazel
.

In the name of Our Great Mother, the North Wind
.

Approach the scribe who stands every day in the

Friends' Round
.

I could hardly eat for reading the skein again and again and wondering what the omor meant by showing it to me. I guessed that Vel Ragan was the scribe, and I felt that this was the sort of brave gesture my family might make. But was it a trap?

Then, when the omor returned, I decided when I looked at her broad face and its unaccustomed furtive look, that it was no trap. The creature had no guile. She was a vassal, serving in a favored place, the very skyhouse of the Great Elder, and she had been tempted by the reward.

“Well?” she whispered. “Answer me one thing—how can a mountain Five have cloth and credits for all comers?”

“We have it!”

“By magic? From your devil?”

“From the Bird Clan,” I replied. “For our Luck flies better than any bird, and we have won that great contest.”

She swiveled her eyes about, her head and shoulders almost blocking the round doorway. “Write something on the skein so they will know I speak truth.”

“No,” I said. “I have something better.”

“Be quick. Guard changes in a few moments.”

I drew out the Bird-Clan token from around my neck, bit off clumsily about half a finger length of the blue silk braid, and tied in the dangling threads one symbol of my name. I gave it to the omor and returned the orange message skein. Then she went off, and I refastened the braid of silk with trembling fingers; I was disturbed and frightened, for she had given me hope again. The rocking of the cell would scarcely make me sleep; I listened and waited for hours and then dreamed of orange message skeins strung all about the streets and gardens and sky-walks of Rintoul. I remained in this anxious state for two more days, then suddenly in Esder light, the omor and another vassal took me from the sleep-cell and led me away between them.

We descended to the next half-level, by steps; the omor left us, and when I looked back, gave a rueful grin and a wave. I never knew her name and her help came too late for the plans of the Great Elder. But I found out that she did in fact take her information to the Friends' Round and was paid for it; I hoped she was able to buy freedom. Now the other vassal turned aside, opposite five different sleep-cells, and led me into a large place for washing and dressing, probably used by the servants and vassals. Two servants stood by a pool of water looking helplessly at a figure crumpled on the ground, weeping and shivering.

“We can hardly make it clean . . .” said one. I saw with horror that this creature with the matted hair and begrimed tunic was Gordo Beethan.

“This one is in better shape,” said my vassal. He pointed to a basin and a pile of fresh clothes, like the ones the servants wore, of fair quality.

I ran to Gordo and knelt by him. “Let me . . .” I said. “I can help him. He is my friend.” The servants shrugged and stood watching while I spoke into Gordo's ear, soothing, coaxing.