Here the Root grew in a tangled network, closely spaced. The openings were long and narrow, much too narrow to permit the passage of a human head. But standing with his face near the Root, Neric could see the light and feel the warmth and smell the living, breathing odors of the forest. Careless of the stinging cold of the Root, he thrust his arms out into the sweet forest air.

  Beside him, Genaa, too, longed to breathe the free air, and comfort her skin with light and warmth. It was a fierce angry longing, full of bitterness and loss. Just as she had been overwhelmed by a fear that seemed to come from the terrors of others, she now felt herself to be suffocating—engulfed in a desperate longing, too old and deep to be only her own. Pushing Neric aside, she thrust her arms up into the free air, straining upward, her fingers spread wide as if to grasp and hold the light and warmth of the open forest.

  “Come,” Neric said at last. “We must go on.” He turned to go, and Genaa followed. As they made their way down the steep incline, they moved slowly, stopping often to look back towards the fading light.

  Not long afterwards, moving again through a large, slightly sloping tunnel, Neric struck his foot against something hard and cold and, kneeling, he discovered a length of metal rail. Excitedly, they crept forward following the rail with their hands until it came to an end, seemingly buried in the loose debris of the tunnel floor. But a short way further on, they again encountered a length of rail not yet fully covered by earth and rockfall.

  “Teera spoke of the rail systems that carry the products of the mines to the factories near the city,” Neric said. “We must be getting very near to Erda.”

  “Perhaps. But these rails have plainly been unused for many years,” Genaa said. “Who knows how far they extend. Teera said the deserted mine tunnels extend for many, many miles in all directions.”

  “True. But if we follow these rails we will, at least, be moving in the direction of the city.”

  They went on for some time, following the rail line. Ventilation tunnels became more frequent, some of them mere shafts that led almost straight up from the tunnel roof, allowing faint rays of light to penetrate to the railbed. Others, wider and more gently pitched, led up to small chambers, directly below the grillwork of Root. Most of these Genaa insisted on exploring.

  “Why?” Neric asked. “We have no time to spare, nor energy. We must move on toward Erda.”

  “But Teera said that such places were often used by the Erdlings to set traps for lapan and other forest creatures, and as lookout posts, to watch for fallen Kindar infants. We might find an Erdling lookout posted at the end of one of these ventilation tunnels.” She spoke firmly and with assurance, although she knew that it was her own consuming need to see the light and breathe the sweet warm forest air, more than any real hope of finding an Erdling sentry, that drew her tired body up the narrow passageways.

  Gradually, as the long hours passed, their progress became slower and slower. The lack of food and rest began to take its toll. Not only their energy, but also their supplies of fern fronds were near an end. For some time now, they had been leaving smaller and smaller pieces of fern to mark the pathway, but even so Genaa’s bundle was entirely gone, and Neric’s contained only a few more long strands.

  Neric’s muscles had begun to quiver constantly, and his whole body ached and pained. Beside him, he could feel Genaa stumbling and slipping with almost every step. He had almost decided to suggest that they stop again to try to sleep when suddenly he realized that the darkness around him had given way to dim gray light. Rousing himself from a stupor of exhaustion, he looked around. The light was faint and uncertain but strong enough to reveal that the close surrounding walls of the tunnel seemed to have dissolved in space, and above and before him lay great, dimly lit distances. As they moved forward into what seemed to be an immense cavern, it became apparent that lanterns had been attached to the cavern wall, from which light flared and leaped in a manner quite unlike the cool steady glow of a honey lamp.

  After the close confinement of the tunnels, the cavern seemed enormous. In the dim light it seemed to be peopled by strange and fearful shapes. A long breathless moment passed before it became apparent that the formations that hung down from the cavern ceiling, or reared upward from its floor, were not living things, but only masses of some hard whitish substance. Here and there, where rays of light struck their surfaces, they glittered with small points of reflected light. Farther away near the other end of the cavern, there seemed to be three small pools of darkly shining water.

  Their exhaustion forgotten for the moment, Neric and Genaa moved slowly forward towards the center of the cavern, entranced by the weird beauty that surrounded them on all sides. They touched the smooth hard surfaces of the tapering pillars, and gazed upward in awe at the domed ceiling with its elaborate array of hanging formations.

  They had almost reached the center of the vast chamber when suddenly they stopped, clutching each other in panic. Someone had shouted. The cry, short and sharp and very near, struck them like a blow, and then was gone—only to return in a hundred chattering echoes. A moment later the cavern was alive with motion as human figures emerged from behind every pillar and boulder and moved swiftly towards them.

  They seemed to be everywhere—dozens of swarthy men and women, dressed in tight-fitting fur tunics. And in their hands, thrust forward before them, or brandished threateningly over their heads, were strange shiny objects—lengths of metal, thick and heavy and blunt-ended, or long and slender and sharply edged and tipped.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THAT DAY, THE SECOND day of the seventh moon, had been a time of strange and unprecedented happenings. Early in the morning there had been the departure of two Ol-zhaan on a journey that would take them below the Root, toward midday two children had been abducted from their nid-place, and in the early afternoon a threat had been made—a threat of violence. In the early evening the soft, flower-sweet breeze that breathed constantly through the forest heights died away to nothing, and a strange unaccustomed hush fell over Orbora. A misty haze rose up from fern-choked depths, and the last rays of the sinking sun faded into long pallid fingers of ghostly light. In the last hour of sunlight, Raamo left the palace of D’ol Falla and made his way across the central platform of Temple Grove, through a world turned alien and unfamiliar. He was on his way to the palace of the novice-master.

  Raamo had no wish to see D’ol Regle or to speak to him. The thought of looking into his eyes was painful almost beyond enduring. But D’ol Falla was weak and ill, and there was no one else to carry the message. Waiting for admittance at the entry way to the palace of the novice-master, Raamo’s mind was in such turmoil that he was not sure he would remember all that should be said—or, indeed, if he would be able to speak at all.

  At last a Kindar serving man appeared and let Raamo into the palace. The serving man was tall and stoop shouldered with blunt unlined features and shallow eyes, and he stared at Raamo strangely before he spoke.

  “Greetings, D’ol Raamo,” he said at last. “If you will follow me, I will take you to the reception hall where you can wait while I announce your presence to the novice-master.”

  When Raamo was seated on an ornate settee in the large reception hall, the serving man still lingered, staring. “My name is Pino,” he said. “Pino D’erl.”

  “Greetings, Pino,” Raamo said. “Do I know you? Have we met before?”

  “No,” the man said. He paused again and his smile was so strangely self-conscious that Raamo, for a brief moment, tore his mind away from its painful musings and centered it on pensing. The man was mind-blocking, of course, but carelessly, and Raamo was able to pense an odd, feverish pridefulness. “No,” the man repeated. “You do not know me yet, but I think you may know of me someday soon, and you might want to know that you have met me.”

  Puzzled, and too distracted by thoughts of his mission to lend his mind fully to the meaning of the serving man’s strange demeanor, Raamo only nodded. “I thank you, Pino D’erl,” he said. “May I ask that you announce me to the novice-master? It is important that I speak with him immediately.”

  The serving man left then, and returned shortly to say that D’ol Regle was awaiting D’ol Raamo in his chambers.

  “If you will come with me,” Pino D’erl said, and he led the way through chambers and hallways and up several rampways to the higher levels of the palace.

  When they reached the private suite of the novice-master, a flight of beautifully constructed chambers suspended and cantilevered amid an intricate webbing of Vine and tendril, they found D’ol Regle awaiting them. He was seated in a large hanging chair, among dozens of large down-filled pillows. Dismissing the serving man with a wave of his hand, he leaned back among his billowing pillows, and regarded Raamo intently from beneath half-lowered eyelids.

  Trembling, Raamo stared at the familiar face of the man he had seen almost daily for many months, but who now seemed mysteriously and terribly altered. The differences were intangible, nameless—the face not so much changed in line or expression as in rigidity and tone—as if it had set and hardened and in doing so had been transformed into something grossly sinister. Forgetting for the moment his own fear and anguish, Raamo focused his mind on seeking out what lay behind the flushed face and majestic calm of the novice-master. D’ol Regle was, of course, mind-blocking carefully, but Raamo could sense strain and a fleeting whisper of strong emotions. Centering his entire being and the full power of his Spirit-force on pensing, Raamo reached out—and found himself caught up in a strange current of unknown and unfamiliar power.

  It was unlike anything he had ever before experienced—a wave, a current of immense impelling force in which his own Spirit joined, and for a moment was carried—lifted—soared. There was a great and joyful exhilaration and a feeling of strength and union and freedom, all in one. And then suddenly it was gone, and he was left behind.

  Raamo looked around, frantically searching for the source of the strange power. It had not come from D’ol Regle, of that he was certain. It had seemed to have come, from a place above and beyond—and yet, above this high-hung flight of the novice-master’s palace, there would be nothing but the bare branched far-heights of the grunds, and the spreading fronds of rooftrees.

  “What message have you brought me? Where is D’ol Falla?” The novice-master was staring at Raamo strangely. “What’s the matter with you, D’ol Raamo? Are you ill, or have you, perhaps, gone mad?” D’ol Regle smiled sharply. “Or perhaps I should say, more completely mad than you and your accomplices have already shown yourselves to be.”

  Raamo turned his mind to D’ol Regle and his question with great reluctance.

  “D’ol Falla is ill and very tired,” he said. “She has sent me to tell you of our decision and to make a request.” He paused, looking around him, as his mind turned again to the strange force—the current of power.

  “Yes, yes?” D’ol Regle was saying impatiently. “And what is this decision?”

  “D’ol Falla and I will do as you ask until D’ol Neric and D’ol Genaa return from below the Root. We will speak to no one of the Geets-kel or the true nature of the Pash-shan. And when the others return, we will tell them of your demands and we will then appear before you and the members of the Geets-kel in the secret meeting chamber as you have requested. But we can not promise for the others, for D’ol Neric and D’ol Genaa or for Hiro D’anhk whom they have gone to bring back from Erda. We can only promise that no one will be told until after we meet with you and the Geets-kel.”

  “And what is your request?”

  “We don’t know how long it will be—we think it may be several days before Neric and Genaa return from Erda. We ask that during that time the children, Pomma and Teera, be treated gently—that they not be frightened or—”

  “Your request is granted,” D’ol Regle interrupted. “The two children are being held in a secret place, but they are, and will be treated kindly—unless you forget your promise.”

  Again the threat. Although Raamo had heard of it from D’ol Falla, although he knew beyond the faintest doubt that D’ol Falla had recounted it truly and accurately, he had not, himself, heard the words spoken. He had not heard D’ol Regle, novice-master and Ol-zhaan of great fame and honor, speak words of violence against children. And, thus, there had remained some feeling of unreality—an insulating distance, between Raamo and the full meaning of the threat.

  But hearing it now, he was suddenly sickened. A bitter revulsion made him turn away, and extending his arms as if to ward off an evil dream, he stumbled towards the chamber door. Behind him, D’ol Regle blew sharply on a signal flute, and the serving man, Pino D’erl, appeared in the doorway. Raamo quickly followed him from the room.

  Just outside the doorway, Raamo paused and breathed deeply of the fresh untainted air. And it was then that the feeling came again. More distant and fleeting this time, but just as infinitely engrossing, it caught him up for a brief moment and made him a part of its overwhelming power. And then it was gone, and Raamo was left to follow the still strangely smirking serving man to the palace dooryard.

  The sun was gone, and as Raamo made his way back across the central platform and up the branchway that led to the Novice Hall, the first slow drops of the night rain had begun to fall. Lifting his face to the rain, Raamo wondered why he had never before thought that the soft warm drops of the first rain were very much like tears.

  On the next morning and the one that followed, Raamo followed his regular schedule as a novice Ol-zhaan assigned to future service as a priest of the Vine. Just as before, he spent the morning hours in the palace of the high priest, and as before, much of that time was spent in discourse with D’ol Falla. But now D’ol Falla spoke of many things other than the ancient rituals of the Ceremonies of the Vine. All during the long hours of those mornings while they awaited the return of Neric and Genaa, Raamo and D’ol Falla spoke of many, many things, and Raamo learned much that he had not known before.

  During her many years of study of the books and records of the Forgotten, D’ol Falla had discovered many facts about the past. She knew much about the long centuries before the Flight, about the Flight itself, and of the early years on the planet of Green-sky. She spoke to Raamo of all these things, but in particular she spoke of the man called Nesh-om and of his dreams for the Kindar and for the future of Green-sky.

  “It was in his early youth, long before the Flight that D’ol Nesh-om began his studies,” she told Raamo. “Unlike many thinkers of his time, he did not believe that human beings were instinctively violent. He felt that if violence had at one time been instinctive, it had been unproductive for many centuries and would long since have disappeared if it were not for the human institutions that depended on, and fostered, violent and competitive behavior. D’ol Nesh-om’s early writings were full of observations concerning the philosophies and institutions of that time—institutions that to you, Raamo, or to any citizen of Green-sky, would seem incredibly foolish and evil.

  “There were in those days, for instance, strange taboos that made many forms of behavior that arose from feelings of Love and close human communion inappropriate or even obscene, while expressions of aggression and anger were permitted and even, at times, admired. Children were carefully prevented from experiencing the Joys of many forms of close human contact, while being permitted, even encouraged, to attend events—games and diversions—that glorified violent and aggressive behavior.

  “But then came the Flight, and a chance for D’ol Nesh-om to test his theories by planning and setting up new institutions that would encourage the development of the highest human potentials. Under his guidance all the institutions of Green-sky were planned and organized—from those concerned with the production and distribution of goods to the ones that structured domestic life and the nurturing of future generations. But the first purpose of every institution was to satisfy every natural human drive in such a way that the relationship of those satisfactions to the highest of all human needs was constantly reaffirmed and emphasized. Through ritual and ceremony, every need was related to the holy needs of the Spirit—the yearning for Love and Spirit-oneness. And as the years passed and the first generation of Kindar grew to maturity, D’ol Nesh-om’s hopes were justified, again and again. New forces of Spirit, some even that D’ol Nesh-om himself had not foreseen, were evolving and developing. Life in Green-sky was becoming daily, not only more serene and joyous, but also more full of portents and omens of great new changes yet to come. It was not, in fact, until that last decade of D’ol Nesh-om’s life, that the phenomenon of uniforce began to play a significant part in the lives of the people.”

  “It would have been wonderful to have lived then—in those days,” Raamo mused, “when it was possible to take part in uniforce. I have often thought of it and wondered what it would have been like.”

  “There are accounts in the old records,” D’ol Falla said. “But it was a great mystery, even then. No one learned to teach it—because it was a learning that did not depend on what lay within the power of the individual mind. But when it occurred it seemed infinite, of infinite potential and power.”

  D’ol Falla’s face, which had been enlivened by the enthusiasm she felt for the work of D’ol Nesh-om, grew somber, and the delicate traceries of age once more formed patterns of weariness and anxiety. “But then came the great controversy, between D’ol Nesh-om and D’ol Wissen,” she said.