Ozark Trilogy 3: And Then There'll Be Fireworks (19 page)

“What could it be for?” marveled Feebus Timothy Traveller the 6
^th
, staring around at the others. “What do you suppose?”

“Whatever it is, it comes from the womb of evil,” said Leeward viciously, “for only Brightwater has the means to send out that alarm. And whatever it is, we do not care to hear it!”

“Now, Granny Leeward,” the young Magician of Rank protested, “it may have to do with the crystal! And if it does, we— “

“No doubt it
does
have to do with the crystal,” Granny Leeward threw back at him. “And no doubt you’re still not quite over that fever you came near taking, eh, Feebus Timothy? Of
course
it has to do with the crystal; and nevertheless, we do not choose to hear! Where is your
faith
?”

If the people of Tinaseeh had not been so weak and so sickly, the Family might have been able to bring it off. Some would of been in the half dozen stores of Roebuck; some in the schoolrooms of the Tutors; some outside the walls working in the forests or the fields; some would of been walking in the town on their way to or from any of these things. But far too many of the handful of people remaining were housebound by sickness, and from their pallets laid on cold bare floors they had demanded that the comsets be turned on, and they had heard every word spoken by Responsible of Brightwater.

While the rest of the Family and its deputies were racing through the streets to try to prevent that from happening. Granny Leeward and Jeremiah Thomas Traveller sat alone before the comset at Castle Traveller and heard it all—twice through. And when the others returned to report that they had failed, that they had been too late, the Granny was ready for them.

“Call the people together,” she said. Her voice made them think of the water that ran deep in the Tinaseeh caves in utter blackness, too cold even for blindfish to survive. “Those as cannot walk are to be carried, and those as try to say you nay are to be offered ... promised ... a taste of the Long Whip. Everybody, every last chick and child, is to be brought into the Inner Courtyard to hear Jeremiah Thomas speak against this temptation. Souls are precious things—we’ll not see them lost
this
easily!”

It took time, because the messengers were few and already tired from their first hasty dash through the town, but not so long as might have been expected, given the frail health of the people. The College of Deacons met some of them in the streets, already on their way, carrying sick children in their arms. And in not much more than an hour after the alarm had sounded, they were all assembled. The Family, the Magicians of Rank, the College of Deacons—they sat on a platform used in happier times for the feastday services of the church, meant to give space for the Reverends and the choirs. The people that could stand stood, lined up in a squared-off horseshoe with the platform at its open end. Those that couldn’t manage that leaned against the rough walls or lay on their pallets on the ground, or were cradled in the arms of relatives and friends.

And Jeremiah Thomas Traveller spoke, while Granny Leeward sat at his right hand with the Long Whip coiled and ready in her lap, and a muscle twitching high in her right cheek just along the ridge of the bone.

“My people,” said the Master of Castle Traveller tenderly, raising his arms and spreading them wide in the pastoral embrace, “you know how I love you! More dear to me you are than ever son or daughter was to other man, more tightly bound to me than ever the bonds of blood have been! For you are
the faithful
... out of holy suffering you have come pure and filled with precious, nay, with priceless grace; around you the wicked and the weak in spirit have fallen like grass before the scythe, and yet you have stood.
You
have not fallen. You have not shrunk from the blade, not from its very edge; when it was at your throat you have bent to give it the kiss of fearless love. You have never doubted. How I love you—perhaps I love you more even than is fitting, but the Holy One will forgive me that.

“And how do I know all this? How can I be sure? Oh, my beloved people, only think what has been vouchsafed to you this
glorious
day! Those the Almighty loves, those are chastened; those the Almighty trusts,
those
are tested; those the Holy One counts among the elect, those are sent the blessing of ultimate temptation that they may demonstrate their contempt for
all
temptation! And this has come to you, to
you
, to every last and least and weariest one of you ... for the Almighty knows, knows in confident glory, that there
is no test
your faith is not equal to!

“When I think” —and here Jeremiah Thomas let his hands move in and cross over his heart, and he added a judicious quaver to his voice— “when I think what honor has been done you, my beloved flock, I am struck to that heart. Who am I, that this blessing should pour down on me? Who am I, that I should lead so mighty, so fearless, an army of souls? What an honor has been done
me
, the least of all the servants!

“Fall to your knees,” urged Jeremiah Thomas Traveller the 26
^th
, his words honey and oil spreading around him, “fall to your knees! The trollop has spoken again from the citadel of sin, and you have heard her! And unto you, beloved, has come the opportunity to say to the Daughter of Brightwater a
No!
that will echo throughout the farthest corners of this world!
No!
you will say, we are not afraid of the abomination that pulses and grows each moment more gorged with blood above our heads, for it is only one more of the puny tests sent to try our faith, and we
glory
in that trial!
No!
you will say, we are not afraid of your Garnet Ring, of your Out-Cabal, of your bedtime tales invented for the terrifying of little children—for we are not little children, but
warriors
of the faith! There is no Garnet Ring! There is no Out-Cabal! There are no alien peoples prepared to make of us slaves or victims! There is only the just symbol of the wrath of the Holy One Almighty, set in the skies above us as a sign of the anger we have earned ... and when we cry out
No!
and
No!
and
No!
nine times nine times again to the Whore of Brightwater, that symbol will fade away as do the clouds, that bring the gentle rains, and as the sunlight, that makes way for the healing hours of the night!”

Beside him the Granny sat nodding, her face smooth now with satisfaction, the Long Whip twitching every now and again at a particularly telling phrase from the lips of her son.

The “mighty army” listened in silence, and they heard the man out, as was proper. There were some that had been standing, and as the sentences rolled on slipped to the ground or leaned more heavily against the walls; but not one left, and not one made a sound.

And then, when the last Amen had been shouted out and Jeremiah Thomas Traveller stood soaked with sweat and glowing with his righteous exultation, and ordered them back to their homes to take a day’s holiday for prayer, one man stepped forward. Eustace Laddercane Traveller the 4
^th
, him that had had a wife and ten children, and had seen that wife die in the throes of giving that tenth child birth, and had seen five more of his tadlings harvested by death since the day he had stood and forced them to watch the public whipping of Avalon of Wommack. He stepped out from among the others and walked straight and without so much as a tremble to his lips right up to the platform. The Granny leaned forward, uneasy, though her son had dropped to
his
knees and was holding out his arms to gather in this man he thought overcome with the emotions of that moment; and the Granny was right in her judgment.

Eustace Laddercane Traveller looked them over where they held their places. The Master of Traveller, and his Family assembled, not a one lost to disease or privation. The four Magicians of Rank in their elegant black. The College of Deacons, all trim, to be sure, but all hearty, all with color in their cheeks. And when he’d looked them over one by one he turned his back on them, standing where the Long Whip could wrap him round without the Granny having to do more than raise her arm, and he called out in a voice as strong as Jeremiah Thomas’s had been.

“The citadel of sin is just behind me,” shouted Eustace Laddercane, “and its whore sits there holding the Long Whip and hovering over her loathsome son, him that is a
false
Reverend, and a false guardian, and the liar of all liars! Look at them ... look well, for I’ve no skill at preaching, and I’ve got no words to sway you with—but I’ve got eyes, and so have you.
There
sits evil, and I know it when I see it. And if Granny Leeward does not strike me down, I will go as Delegate to the New Confederation at Brightwater, if I have to swim the Ocean of Storms and the Ocean of Remembrances to get there! And if she
does
, if she does—choose you another Delegate, and then go back to your homes and cast your votes for the only hope you have in this life or me next!” And he waited, then, only the set of his shoulders betraying his awareness of what might fall upon them in the seconds just ahead.

You would not have thought that dragtail pitiful crowd of people could manage to cheer or to shout or to clap their scrawny hands together, but you would of been wrong. Man, woman, and child, they roared their approval of Eustace Laddercane Traveller’s words and of his election as Delegate, and the Inner Courtyard became a forest of fists, raised high and waving their defiance, now and forevermore. On the platform, the rats were abandoning ship: the Family was moving back, as far as they could get from the howling mob; the members of the College of Deacons were leaping from the platform into the crowd to join the revolt; and the Magicians of Rank were squabbling among themselves as to which should be the one to SNAP the Delegate to the meeting at Confederation Hall.

Only the Granny held fast, rocking slowly where she sat, letting the Long Whip fall from her nerveless hands in utter disgust. She knew they would not touch her. Not even the father of little Avalon of Wommack. And she knew it was not because they feared her, one old lady deserted now by everything that had made her powerful. It was because they would sooner have touched the most uncanny creature that ever lurked at the bottom of a fouled sea and dragged itself across the swollen bodies of things long dead to feed upon them. She would have many a long and lonely year to rock, and to remember ... she was the youngest of all the Grannys.

The process of re-forming the central government of Ozark was an orderly one, despite the excitement. The Delegates filled the rows at the front, the Magicians of Rank found a space just behind them, and the Grannys that could get there filled the balcony. Delldon Mallard Smith the 2
^nd
seized the occasion to tear off his purple and ermine robes and his crown and set them afire on the steps of the hall, causing a stink that permeated all the rest of the proceedings before the blaze could be put out; and he had some difficulty explaining the death of
his
Magician of Rank—justified for once, since in fact he did not understand why Lincoln Parradyne had died. But he was there, and though foolish he was willing.

The motion for a New Confederation was put forward, seconded, and carried; and the great roll called by comset, the voices coming in from all over Ozark.

Responsible of Brightwater, up in the balcony where she belonged, could have wept at the pitiful number of votes there were to cast. Ozark had had at least half a million people only two years ago; now, with every Kingdom heard from, and every citizen above twelve years shouting a hearty “Aye!”, she could only fight back the tears ... that number had been reduced to a fraction. It was going to be a long hard pull, rebuilding what had been so wantonly torn down and so casually destroyed, and it would be a very long time indeed before they need concern themselves again with controlling population growth. But she was not going to have any time for tears.

The Teaching Order on Kintucky, that was a good idea; she would be seeing that it spread far and had its branches in every Kingdom that would accept it. Missions of mercy were going to be needed, Magicians and Magicians of Rank, even the Grannys, flying in to feed the hungry and heal the sick and see what must be done to repair the devastation. Other missions, less open, their members very carefully chosen, must go to the Gentles, and to the Skerrys, and to the Mules; debts were owed, and they must be paid. The weather must be brought back under control, and the Magicians sent to hasten the process of regrowth over the wastelands that had been Arkansaw and Mizzurah ... and if it were true, what she had been told, that the Masters of Castles Lewis and Motley were held hostage at Castle Farson, she would take pleasure in settling
that
score personally. Steps must be taken to work against the prejudice still smothering the Purdys, that the long feuds had only made deeper and more irrational. Something must be done to counter the mythology of the Wommack Curse, that had bloomed and fattened into a monstrous burden on the people that now put their faith in it ... and that task she might could trust, with a little discreet assistance, to the Teachers of Wommack.

The three monarchies could put away their raggedy trappings now, and if the King of Castle Smith was any example to judge by, they’d be welcoming the opportunity to do so. She would send ... yes, she would send Silverweb of McDaniels to supervise the long healing process on Tinaseeh, backed by the two Magicians of Rank that were Travellers by birth. High time the Farson brothers spread
their
talents around; with only eight Magicians of Rank left to serve the planet, they’d be needed. And high time Silverweb had something to do that would tie her to this earth a tad.