The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped (32 page)

“Actually, Eldest, they go to find out what is killing the roots of the bridges. We do not say that, for to say it would mean panic, but that is why they go—that is the bargain we have made with Mavin. ‘Find out’, we said, ‘and put a stop to it.’

“Privately, I believe Mavin would have gone into the chasm to explore it whether we asked her to do so or not,” she said. “She is an adventurer first, and whatever else she may be second. This is in her eyes, in the very smell of her skin. Well, as for us, we will wait and see. Guard the pregnant birdgirl, guard ourselves against assassination, warn our fellows on the other bridges, and wait and see.”

The old man shook his head. Despite his fragility, his concern for the people he had so long cared for, he found himself in a curious mood. After thinking about it for a very long time, he decided the feeling was one of envy. Wait and see was not what he really wanted to do, and he thought of Beedie and Roges as he had seen them marching off to the stairs with a longing so sharp that he gasped, and Rootweaver had to put his head between his knees until he recovered.

CHAPTER FIVE

There was no one else on the stairs when the small group began the descent. They looked back to see the whole rim of the bridge edged with white disks of faces, mouths open in the middle so that it looked like hundreds of small, pale O’s along the railing and at every window. “We are already a legend,” said Beedie, not without some satisfaction.

“I pray there will be more to the legend than a last sight of us disappearing into the depths,” commented Roges. He was staying politely behind her, and Beedie was surprised to find that the thought of him so close rather pleased her. Well, it was a new thing she was doing, unused to travel as she was. It was always good to have familiar things about, rugs, bits of furniture, ones own ‘Tainer. With uncustomary tact, she did not mention this to him, knowing that he would not like being compared to cooking pots and sleeping mats. Then, too, perhaps the comparison was not quite fair. Roges was a good deal more useful than a sleeping mat. She flushed, and began to think of something else.

“Do I understand that the white bird was not actually the ... the messenger which we had received before?” Roges asked. “Actually, Bridger, Rootweaver told me very little.”

“Maintainer, the white bird we are following into the depths is named Mavin. She, whatever she is, is sister to that white bird Mercald had in Birders House—the one all the fuss was about. However, everyone thinks it is the same white bird, so if they are intent on doing it harm, they’ll have to follow us into the depth to do it.”

“And we are not actually upon a quest to find the lost bridge? I gathered that much.”

“Roges,” Beedie sighed, calling him by name for the first time in her life without noticing she was doing it, “We’re going to find w hat’s eating the roots. Because Rootweaver and all the elders are frightened half out of their wits. And they’re afraid to talk about it or go down into the depths themselves for fear it will cause an uproar. So they’ve maneuvered Mavin into doing it for them. Now that’s the whole truth of it.”

“Ah,” said Roges, turning pale, though Beedie did not see it, for which he was grateful. “There’s been talk about something eating the roots. Whispers, mostly. No one seems to know anything about it, except that some of them are dying. Well. How ... interesting to be going on such a mission.”

Then he fell silent and said nothing more for quite some time while he tried to decide how he was going to act now that he knew what the mission was about. Eventually he reached the conclusion that he would still have volunteered to come even if he had known the whole truth; that being part of the group selected for such a mission was gratifying; and that while the journey had suddenly gained certain frightening aspects, he did not regret that aspect of it. Besides, nothing could have kept him from going wherever Beedie went, though he carefully did not explain this to himself. After a little time he felt better about it, and actually smiled as he followed Beedie on down the seemingly endless stair.

“What was it you said about not stopping at Nextdown?” Mercald asked her. “I didn’t understand that part.”

“Mavin said she would meet us on the stairs before we get to Nextdown, and she doesn’t want us to go to Nextdown at all if we can help it. She thinks old Slysaw has been building strength there, and likely we’d be set upon. It’s important that they not lay hands upon you.”

“How would they know we are coming? Are the Banders set to assault any Birder who shows up?” Mercald was edgy with uncertainty, fearful and made touchy by his fear.

“Mavin thought old Slysaw had probably hired a Messenger or two. We know Slysaw is up on Topbridge. One of the Chafers from Bridgers House saw him. So he might have sent word ahead of us to Nextdown. She says she’ll be very surprised if he didn’t.”

“I didn’t know there was a way around Nextdown,” commented Roges, hearing this for the first time.

“Neither does she. But Mavin says if there is a way, she will have found it by the time we get there. She thinks there may be some c onstruction stairs used by the Bridgers in times past that will duck down this side and join the stairs to Midwall farther on.”

“If so,” said Mercald, “I’ll wager they’ve rotted away by now. Nextdown is the second oldest of all the bridges, and it hasn’t been renewed at all. Any construction stairs would be lair for crawly-claws by now.”

“I thought Topbridge was the second bridgetown built,”said Roges. “Before the fell of Firstbridge.”

Mercald shook his head. “Nextdown had been started before Firstbridge was destroyed. There were already stairs down to it, which is how a few Firstbridgers escaped. Then, it was from Nextdown they moved up to build Topbridge. It’s all in the records we have left at the Birders House. Not that they’re complete in any sense. Mostly they’re things that were rewritten from memory after Firstbridge was broken.”

“Do they say where we came from, Mercald?” Beedie had been curious about this ever since Mavin had spoken of the wide world above the chasm.

“Only that we came from somewhere else, long ago. We lived on the surface under the trees until the beasts drove us out. And why that happened is a mystery. Some say it’s because we sinned, disobeyed the Boundless. Others say the Demon Daudir brought it upon us out of wickedness.”

“I haven’t ever heard of the Demon Daudir!” Beedie was indignant. “If it’s an old story, why haven’t I heard it?”

“Because it’s accounted heresy,” replied Mercald. He had stopped for a moment at a place the stair root they were on switched to another one, heading back along the root wall. Stairs were made by pulling a sideroot diagonally along the root wall as far as it would go, then cutting steps into it and building rails where necessary. Except for the short stretch between Potter’s bridge and Miner’s bridge, one root was not sufficient for the whole distance and crossovers were needed. At these crossover points, small platforms gave space to rest. Travelers caught between bridges by nightfall sometimes slept there, too. Mercald stopped to take off his high feathered hat, folding it up with some care and slowing it away in his pack wrapped in a handkerchief. His robes were next, and when he had finished all the regalia was hidden away and he appeared to be merely another traveler. “Daudir was supposed to be a Demon w ho arrived out of the Boundless in the time of our many-times-great forefathers. She brought disaster upon our world, so it is said, and our own troubles were the result. However, this is not in accordance with the Birders’ teaching, so we don’t talk of it.”

Beedie wondered if Mavin knew the legend, and if so what she thought of it. “Why isn’t it in accordance, Mercald? Is it a story?”

“Everything is a story,” muttered Roges, unheard.

“It isn’t a story,” Mercald said. “But it is doctrine. Do you want to hear it?”

“If it isn’t too much trouble.”

“As a Birder, I have no choice. Trouble or no, I must tell what is to be told. That’s what Birders are for. So. Let me follow you and Roges, and that way you can hear me as I talk...

“The Story of the Creation of All. Ahem. Time was the Boundless lived alone, without edge or limit, lost in contemplation of itself. Time was the Boundless said, ‘I will divide me into parts and compare one part against the next to see if I am the same in all parts of me, for if there is difference in anything, in this way may I discover it.’

“So the Boundless divided itself, one part against another part, and examined all the parts to see if difference dwelt among them, and lo, there was difference among the parts for what one part contained was not always what another part contained.

“So the Boundless was lost in contemplation, until the Boundless said, ‘Lo, I will divide me smaller, in order to see where the difference lies.’ And the Boundless divided itself smaller yet, finding more difference the smaller it was divided ...”

“I don’t understand that at all,” murmured Beedie to Roges.

“It would be hard to tell the difference between Beedie and Beedie,” Roges whispered. “But if you divided yourself in pieces, I suppose it would be easy enough to tell your left foot from your elbow.” He smiled behind his hand.

“Until at last,” Mercald went on in full flight of quotation, “the Boundless was many, myriad, and the differences were everywhere. Then did the Boundless hear the crying of its parts which were lost in the all and everything. ‘Woe,’ they cried, ‘we are lost’.”

“I should think so,” muttered Beedie. “What a thing to do to oneself.”

“So it was the Boundless created Bounds for its parts and its differences, and places wherein they might exist, that the differences might have familiarities in which to grow toward Boundlessness once m ore ...”

“And a good thing, too,” said Beedie. “Now, what has that to d o with not believing in Daudir the Demon?”

Mercald shook his head at her, provoked. “Obviously, this chasm is a familiarity, a Bounded place which was created for us by the Boundless. We are the differences who live here. If it was created for us by the Boundless, then it can have nothing to do with Demons or devils or anything of the kind. All of that is mere superstition and beneath our dignity as people of the chasm. Doctrine teaches that all differences are merely that—differences. Not necessarily good or evil.” He then fell silent, climbing a little slower so that the other two drew away from him

“Try not to tread on him,” said Roges. “All the really religious Birders are sensitive as mim plants. You touch them crooked, and they curl up and ooze. As judges go, Mercald isn’t bad. He’s true t o the calling.”

“You speak as though some might not be,” she said, surprised.

“Some are not. I come from Potter’s bridge, and we had Birders there as judges I would not have had judge my serving of tea for fear they’d condemn me under chasm rule. It was pay them in advance or suffer the consequences, and those among us too poor to pay suffered indeed.”

“Wasn’t it reported to the chasm council?”

“Oh, eventually. Before that, however, there was much damage done. In the end, it was only three of them were judged by their fellows and tossed over, two brothers and a sister, all corrupt as old iron.” He moved swiftly to one side of the stair, reaching out toward a ropey root that hung an arm’s length away. It was dotted with tender nodules, the green-furred ones called root mice, and he cut them cleanly from the root to place them in the pouch at his belt. “Enough for the three of us,” he said. “And some left over for breakfast .” He knelt, peering through the railings. “Ah. Look there, Bridger. In that little hole in the biggest root along there, see—behind the three little ones in a row.”

She knelt beside him, searching until her eyes found the waving claws, moving out, then in, then out once more. “A crawly-claw,” s he whispered. “Do you suppose we could get him?”

“Do you suppose we should? With a judge following after? We’re not Hunter caste.” He was laughing at her, she knew, but at the moment she didn’t mind.

“I caught one once,” she confessed, blushing at the memory of her illicit behaviour. “A little one. I had to hunt all up and down the root wall for enough deadroot to cook it, but it was worth it. Isn’t it all right if we’re out on the root wall?”

“We’re not on the root wall. We’re on the stairs. And there’s likely t o be a party coming up or coming down past us any time. No. Likely h unting a crawly-claw would take longer than would be prudent.”

“It’s true. They pull back in and disappear, and you have to b urrow for them. Well, all right,” she agreed. “But we’ll keep an eye out for any wireworms. And if we see any, we get them, whether there’s a Hunter around or not.” Beedie had never had enough fried wireworms, and there were never enough in the market to satisfy her appetite, even if she had had enough money to buy them all.

Mercald had caught up with them, evidently restored to good humor by his time alone. He moved ahead of them now, after admiring the crawly-claw and quoting in great details several recipes for preparation of the beasts, and they continued their downward way. Beedie, her legs accustomed to hard climbs by hours each day spent in spurs, did not feel the climb, but she noticed that both the others stopped from time to time, wriggling their legs and feet to restore feeling numbed by the constant down, down, down.

They had not come far enough yet for the quality of light to change much. It was still that watery green light the Topbridgers knew as daylight, full of swimming shadows cast by the leaves as they moved in winds from outside the chasm. Beedie remembered the light on Nextdown as being less watery and more murky, darker. She had heard that on Midwall and Miner’s bridge, lanterns were used except at midday, and of course on Bottommost they were needed at all times. She had heard, also, that the eyes of the people on Bottommost were larger, but this might well not be true. Surely travelers from Bottommost would have come to Topbridge from time to time, but she had never noticed any strangers with very large eyes. They went on. A group of chattering Porters passed them going up, followed not much later by a second group, their legs hard and b ulging with climbing muscle. A Messenger swooped by on flopperskin wings, calling to them as they went, “Luck to the quest, Bridger ...” before fairing away out of sight in the direction of Potter’s bridge. The light began to tail; the stairs became hard to see. Far below them lights began to flicker in a long line, stretching from the root wall out across the chasm in a delicate chain, growing brighter as they descended. They stopped at the railing to look down, hearing the voice behind them without surprise, almost as though they had expected it.