Shadow's End (36 page)

“Well, by people who might have specialized insights, at least. Some other Fastigats than myself should see this. Also some linguists who specialize in sight languages.”

“Sight language?” Jiacare Lostre cocked his head curiously.

“There are, or were historically, several sight languages for people who couldn't hear. Now, of course, such languages aren't necessary, but we still have records of them. The girl mutters to herself a lot, so we can pick up clues as to what she's thinking. She said ‘telling stories'; she said ‘ritual'; both in connection with that pictorial thing they do. I'd be interested in knowing what others think.”

“What do you think?” demanded the ex-king.

The Procurator considered. “The episode with the running woman had the feel of a story, didn't it?”

“Was the woman actually her mother?” Poracious asked.

“Each time the woman appeared, she, Snark, subvocal-ized the word,” said the Procurator. “She said the word
mother
, and her throat and mouth sensed the shaping of the word. Whether she actually believes so, we don't know. Her thoughts can't be recorded. Only what she senses.”

Poracious mused. “If the woman was her mother, then
the girl was a child there, on Perdur Alas. A survivor from the former Ularian crisis?”

The Procurator shook his head. “It seems impossible. She'd have to have been third or fourth generation.”

“We've found great-grandchildren of colonists before.”

“True.” He stared at his hands, surprised to find them trembling. “I've just thought, Lutha Tallstaff is a linguist. One of the best, according to my sources. I don't know if she knows anything about sight languages, but it's worth bringing her from wherever she was sent. What was the name of the place?”

“Cochim-Mahn,” said Poracious.

“We should be fetching her anyhow. She's at danger if those two assassins are on the loose. And meantime, we should be bringing in some other experts to experience what this girl is going through.” The Procurator stared blindly at his companions. “Think of it. The first human contact with a life-form that speaks, and it speaks a nonverbal language.”

The ex-king remarked, “My Minister of Agriculture would say we don't know that it's speaking. It could be merely replaying things it has seen. My Minister of Agriculture would deny it thinks. He says the universe was made for man.”

Poracious stared at the wall, remembering. She didn't believe it was a mere replay. There had been too much relish in the retelling. Reshowing. She went to the door and beckoned to the tassel-bearded rememberer waiting outside. He rose, bowing attentively as she said:

“Will you please send word to Cochim-Mahn that we need to get Lutha Tallstaff here, as quickly as possible.”

“And Trompe,” called the Procurator. “Bring him as well!”

The rememberer stared at the ceiling, shifted his feet, cleared his throat.

“Well?” demanded Poracious, suspiciously. “What?”

“Inasmuch as we had determined the assassins were no
longer where they belonged, I took the liberty of communicating with Cochim-Mahn. While you were…occupied.”

“And? Come on, man. Spit it out. All this havering merely makes us itch.”

“They're gone,” he blurted. “She, the boy, her companion. As well as Leelson Famber. Also a shadow woman. An eaten one.” He curled his lips around the word, whether in disapproval or disgust, she couldn't tell.

“Gone?” she cried.

“Leelson Famber!” exclaimed the Procurator as he joined her in the doorway. “When did Leelson Famber come here?”

The rememberer shrugged, looking from face to face as though trying to decide which question to answer first. “He came, sir, some time ago. And it is believed by those at Cochim-Mahn that they may all have gone to Tahsuppi.”

Jiacare Lostre joined the others in the doorway. “Gone where?”

“Gone to what,” corrected the rememberer. “A ceremony. Held once every sixty years or so. At the omphalos. At the sipapu. At Dinadh's birthplace, the site of our emergence. The songfather of Cochim-Mahn believes they have gone there, and he is pursuing them. The assassins asked questions about the ceremony, so we believe they're headed there also.”

“Can we intercept them on the way?” Poracious demanded.

The rememberer turned up his palms helplessly. “Who knows which way they've gone. If they intended to avoid other travelers, they would have tried less-traveled ways, of which there are thousands! The canyons ramify, netlike. They go off into pockets and branches. We'd never find them.”

“Well then,” the Procurator said. “How long for us to get where they're going?”

“Not long, great sir. I can arrange it for tomorrow. We can fly.”

The three shared helpless glances, equally at a loss. Poracious Luv broke the silence, attempting encouragement. “We'll meet them when they arrive,” she said, patting the Procurator upon the shoulder.

“If they arrive,” corrected the rememberer. “I would be remiss if I did not tell you that their arrival is far from certain.”

T
he first of us to catch sight of the Nodders was Trompe. He was driving the hitch; Leely was asleep inside the wain; and the rest of us were trudging some way behind, cursing every step we made across the curved pebbles that often twisted treacherously beneath our feet. Trompe's
whoof
of surprise brought us stumbling forward to find him gaping, the reins lax in his hands. Gaufers are incapable of astonishment. They simply lay down, snapping and grumbling at one another as they did at every halt. We made no effort to get them moving. There seemed to be nowhere they could go.

It was another place like the Burning Springs, that is, one I'd heard described without getting any idea what it was really like. Songfather had said there were many Nodders, that they were tall, thin pillars of stone, topped with stone heads.

What he'd said wasn't inaccurate; it was simply a ridiculous understatement. Trompe climbed down from the wagon seat to join Lutha, Leelson, and me as we went slowly forward. The first Nodder was like a sentinel,
standing a little forward from the rest. As we neared it our eyes were drawn upward, seeing the tower narrowed to a pinpoint against the massive bulk of the balanced stone head. Perspective, I told myself. It wasn't really that slender. It couldn't be. It couldn't be frigidly cold in the vicinity of the stone, either, but we thrust our shivering arms into our sleeves as we backed slowly away. Beyond the first pillar stood two more, side by side, and behind them, hundreds.

Songfather had said they were many, tall, and thin. I also recalled—as we fled in howling panic!—he had said the stone heads moved.

It was impossible to run over that treacherous footing and we collapsed in a confused heap not far away.

“I thought it was coming down on us!” Lutha cried as she scrabbled backwards on all fours, never taking her eyes from the ponderous, impossible nodding of that great stone head.

I still thought it would come down. When it did, it would roll purposefully over us. Behind the three menacing outliers, the great forest of them seemed to whisper to one another in sinister agreement.
Yes, yes, let's roll over on that wagon and squish all the people. Wouldn't that be fun?

I couldn't keep from saying this, a mere whisper to Lutha, and she laughed, a wild peal of amusement. The two men turned disapproving looks on her, which only increased her hilarity. All the tension she'd bottled up during the journey poured out in hysterical torrents. She put her hands over her mouth and smothered the sound, head on knees, shoulders shaking.

Leelson, with his usual casual disapproval, pointed to the sharp-edged fragments of curved stone that littered the ground, fragments not unlike those that had been troubling our footsteps for some miles. He said pointedly, “It really isn't funny, Lutha. They do come down.”

Not the least sobered, she spared a glance for the surfaces
around us, then took a quick look at the conspiratorial heads. My eyes followed hers, and the same odd idea possessed us both at once, for we said, as in one slightly echoed voice:

“From where?”

“Why, from …” said Leelson, his words trailing into silence.

“If some tops fell down, then there should be some pillars without tops.” Lutha giggled. Her voice sounded foolish, like that of a petulant little girl. She heard herself, cleared her throat, and said in a more normal tone, “But there aren't any pillars without tops. So where did they fall from?”

“Strange,” mused Trompe. “Very strange. The shape of the heads, I mean. They shouldn't be quite that spherical, should they? Or would erosion tend to round them off?”

When one focused on the shape and not on the streaked and blotched surfaces, the roundness was obvious. Lines and smudges of mineral colors—ocher, brown, red—made them appear more irregular and rugged than they actually were. Except for the horns on top, they were ball-shaped.

“The mass can't be uniform,” Leelson remarked in a troubled tone. “The center of gravity has to be … where?”

“Doesn't matter,” mumbled Trompe. “It'd have to be below the point of the pillar to keep the thing balanced that way. The way they are, the damn things can't exist.”

“But they do,” I said.

“It would work if there were a gyroscope inside.” Leelson strode away in a long arc to examine the nearest Nodder from the side. “Or a central support. Or a gravitic drive.”

“Or if they weren't really stone,” said Trompe, joining his colleague. The two of them stood there with their mouths open, wearing identical expressions of annoyance. Fastigats, so I had already learned, do not like things
they do not understand. Their irritated silence made me uncomfortably aware that I understood no more than they.

Lutha had regained control of herself. “You're not thinking that they're unnatural, are you?”

Leelson took his time before answering. “You've seen Dinadhi children playing ball games. You've seen Dinadhi herdsmen spinning wool. Imagine yourself trying to balance one of the balls on the tip of a spindle and tell me how much luck you'd have.”

She gave me a quick look, and I shook my head. As described, it would be impossible. Unless the ball were spinning. We have jugglers skilled in such tricks, but these heads weren't spinning. So. It couldn't be done.

The two men came strolling back, foreheads wrinkled with concentration.

I said, “But if they aren't natural, wouldn't someone have noticed before now?”

Leelson shook his head. “According to you, Saluez, people come this way only once every sixty Dinadhi years, which is about once a century, standard. Since that's a generous lifetime, it's unlikely anyone makes the trip twice. Suppose a traveler
had
noticed. Suppose he'd gone back to his hive and told someone. Would there have been any consequence?”

His superior tone implied there would have been none, and he was probably right. On Dinadh, whenever someone raises a “difficult” question, someone else can be depended upon to mutter, in that particular tone of hushed apprehension people always use on such occasions, “Perhaps it's part of the choice.” Once the choice is mentioned, all conversation ends. Only songfathers are allowed to discuss the choice, along with the rest of their arcane lore.

I suppose my thoughts showed on my face, for Leelson said:

“As I thought. No one would have done anything at all
about it.” Then he shared one of his infuriatingly smug looks with Trompe.

Lutha glanced at me from beneath her lashes, and I blinked slowly in sympathy. We were both thinking that Fastigats were impossible. She took my hand and we walked back to the wagon behind the men. I was wondering if our being here was blasphemous, but Lutha had a different concern.

“From here, they look like a herd of great horned beasts, don't they? If they're artificial, why are they here?”

Leelson stood for a moment in thought, then fetched Bernesohn Famber's map from the wagon, unrolled it on the ground, and put a stone on each corner to hold it down. Kneeling beside it, he pointed with an extended forefinger.

“The important geographical features are all shown on this map, canyons, tablelands, hives, and so forth—even the omphalos, beside this winding river on what seems to be a flat plain. The Nodders, however, are not shown.”

“That is, they're not printed on the map,” said Trompe, underlining the obvious.

Leelson continued. “No. The word
Nodders
has been written in, probably by Bernesohn himself. He learned about them a century ago. Either someone told him about the Nodders or he himself came this way.”

I said, “But Bernesohn Famber wouldn't have been allowed to go to the omphalos. He was an outlander.”

“We're not allowed either, but we're going,” Trompe snorted. “What would they have done to him if they'd caught him?”