The Ozark trilogy (76 page)

That adversary did not impress Troublesome, nor could it touch Silverweb; they were the two polarities that served to hold this time-space intact. But the Skerrys were mightily impressed, and they gave a great sigh of relief in Troublesome’s mind, all the bells calling out together, as they saw the golden rose crushed and rubbed to a slime in her hands, and they felt the wind fall and saw the desert sky clear once again.

Troublesome bent to rub her arms clean in the sand—she had no least intention of fouling the sacred water with the vile stuff that covered her to the elbows. Scrupulously, she gathered each grain that might have been contaminated by it into a heap before her, and she scrabbled a hole in the sands and shoved those soiled grains into it and laid a flat heavy rock over the spot to mark it. And still she wondered if that would do it ... might could be there were tiny suckers and cells that would leach out through the sand and make the sacred water a new poison in a Universe already copiously overendowed with poisons. She was hesitating, crouched over the flat rock that seemed a puny barrier against such harm, when she felt Silverweb touch her shoulder, and jumped, startled.

“The Skerrys say,” Silverweb told her, “that it is entirely dead, with nothing left that can exist in this world. They say it is not like other deaths, where a substance will recombine as it goes back to its original elements and enter the cycle of life again—it is too alien. You are not to worry, they say; you did what was required, and it is over.”

“Well, it wasn’t
much
,” said Troublesome. “I could do that every day and twice on Sundays.”

“They would be pleased if you were denied any such opportunity,” said Silverweb dryly. “That’s a direct quote.”

“Direct as you can make it, I expect. Bells ... what kind of language might that be?”

“Troublesome?”

Troublesome looked at her, still shaking the sand off her arms.

“Yes, Silverweb?”

“It worked.”

“What?”

“I said—it worked. Look there, behind you.”

Troublesome whirled, and had she not been careful she might well have cried, and spoiled her image forevermore. In the silver of the water, Responsible’s eyes were open, and she was speaking her sister’s name.

Over Castle Airy, the giant crystal was beginning to take on the color of the small mallows that grew wild along Oklahomah’s seacliffs; a tinge redder than the pale color of peachapple cider well made, but not yet the color of strawberry wine. As the crystal’s pulsing grew stronger, its humming more clearly felt somewhere in the marrow of the bones, the point that aimed toward the sky and the point that aimed straight down toward the Castle itself began to look as if they could pierce both targets. They were darker at the points.

The people of Airy had gone inside their houses, and were huddled with their families. If they were to die, they would at least die together, not alone out in a field or a stable, or back of a counter in some store, some workshop. It was better to wait with your children and your kin and whoever you might love close by you. There was no doubt in their minds that they were going to die.

They only wondered how it would be. Would the thing plunge down toward the ground like a missile and explode in rosy flame or rosy poison? A gas, perhaps, spreading out over the Kingdom and taking them all as it coursed the air? And would it be a merciful poison, one that meant no more than a kind of falling asleep? Or would there be convulsions and agonies and desperate clawing at the throat? Or would it stay there in the air and send out its cargo or death in rays, as the lasers did? Or something else, something completely unknown ... and would it be
merciful
... or would it be the stuff of nightmare? They looked at the tadlings, and especially at the babies, and prayed that it would be merciful, and swift.

At the Castle, Charity of Airy and the three Grannys in residence could feel the terror. It took no telepathic powers to sense an emotion like that, coming from every side of you, and they bit their lips and frowned till their heads ached. It wouldn’t do to take the contagion of that terror; might could be they would be needed later, and in their right minds.

Castle Airy had no Magician of Rank for the Mules to contact; and given that there were three Grannys there to be put up with that was not surprising. But the word had come in from Brightwater by comset almost at once, Veritas Truebreed Motley passing it along just as calm as he would have announced a blizzard. The women of the Castle blessed the fortune that had made them part of that system, and wondered what it was like for the Kingdoms that were neither part of the Alliance of Democratic Republics nor supplied by a Magician of Rank ... they would be completely isolated now.

Granny Forthright didn’t like it a bit.

“That thing up there,” she fussed, waving at the ceiling over her head with one knitting needle, “it scares the bejabbers out of me—and
I
know what it is, not to mention knowing that Airy’s not the only Castle so blessed. Now what do you suppose it must be like for the Families that
don’t
know those things?”

“Well, it won’t
do
,” pronounced Granny Flyswift. “And that’s all there is to it.”

“I agree, it won’t,” said Charity of Airy, “but talk is cheap—I suggest we give it some careful thought before we go doing anything. Is there truly anywhere that there’s neither comset transmission, nor Magician of Rank, nor even a friendly neighbor to pass the word along? Count them off, ladies, and carefully!”

“Brightwater, McDaniels, Clark, and Airy,” said Flyswift. “All on the comset, all brought up to date by Veritas Truebreed. That’s four.”

“Mizzurah’s got no comsets,” put in Granny Heatherknit, “but there’s a Magician of Rank at Castle Motley for the Mules to tell direct, and Granny Scrabble there to see to it they don’t kill him in the process. And seeing as Mizzurah’s not much bigger all told than our back garden, there’ll be somebody on the way to Castle Lewis with a message long since. That’s six. And Tinaseeh ... bad cess to it anyway ... Tinaseeh’s got
four
Magicians of Rank at Castle Traveller, no need to worry about
that
crew.
And
Granny Leeward, which is a shame; I’d of been right pleased to see the four at Traveller get their brains scrambled.”

“Granny,” chided Charity of Airy. “How you talk!”

“That’s seven,” said Granny Heatherknit, ignoring her completely. “Seven of twelve.”

“Castle Guthrie on Arkansaw has a Magician of Rank, and so’s Castle Farson—that’s nine ... oh, law!” Granny Flyswift made a soft and sorrowful noise.

“Oh, law,” she said, counting it up on her fingers, “it’ll be Purdy and Wommack as think they’re all alone in this. No comsets, no Magicians of Rank, no way to know whatever in the world is happening and nobody as would care to make the effort to tell them. I can’t say as I’m specially worried about the Wommacks— “

“You should be,” Granny Forthright interrupted. “They’ll be declaring it’s the Wommack Curse again.”

“Forthright, that slipped my mind entirely! You’re right as right! And wouldn’t you know it, wouldn’t you just
know
it, it’d be the fool Purdys, as don’t know enough to come in out of the rain anyhow, and the Wommacks with their fool
curse
, as are left stranded?” Granny Flyswift raised a finger beside her eyeglasses. “It’s near on enough to make a body think they may
have
something with their curses and their poor-mouthing about bad luck following ‘em everywhere and everywhen!”

“They make their own luck,” Charity of Airy scoffed, “and you know it—don’t talk nonsense at a time like this! Anybody wants a curse bad enough can manage to bring one down; you just have to put your back into it. And there’s nothing we can do about either Wommacks or Purdys—they might as well be back on Old Earth for all we can do.”

“And that makes
eleven
,” Granny Heatherknit pointed out. “There’s somebody left out.”

“That’s easy done and easy accounted for,” said Granny Heatherknit. “
Nobody
wants to think about the Smiths. The Purdys now, they just need encouragement and they’d be all right. And the Wommacks, a good clout between the eyes’d break them of blaming everything and its little fingernail on their old curse. But the
Smiths
, I declare there’s no hope for them! Do you know, they caught one of their Attendants
again
—this’ll be what, the ninth time? —trying to tap into the comset transmissions in the dark of the night? I cannot
believe
the—”

“Granny Heatherknit!” Charity of Airy so rarely raised her voice that they all three jumped, and Heatherknit closed her mouth in sheer surprise. “If the whole world came to an end in a thunderclap, you wouldn’t have time to get ready, for it would catch you gossiping!”

“Begging your pardon, Charity,” said Granny Heatherknit. “I got carried away.”

“And I assume,” Charity went on in a more normal tone, “that we’ve no reason to concern ourselves with the Smiths. They’ve got Lincoln Parradyne Smith the 39
^th
over there, and whatever else he may be, he’s a perfectly good Magician of Rank. It’ll be only the Wommacks and the Purdys, poor souls.”

“You don’t suppose the Mules would call on the Grannys in such a hardscrabble?” hazarded Flyswift. “Castle Purdy has one, and there’s two in residence at Castle Wommack.”

All four women shuddered at the very idea, and the other two Grannys gave Flyswift a long hard look.

“If they did,” said Granny Forthright solemnly, “there’s now three less Grannys on Ozark.”

“Pshaw! I’m not so sure,” said Flyswift. “No, I’m
not
so sure as a Granny’s mind is any punier than a Magician of Rank’s. Who’s to say, excepting always the Magicians of Rank theirselves, and why wouldn’t they?”

“You care to try mindspeech with a Mule?” demanded Granny Heatherknit. “
Or
anything else as lives and breathes? Or doesn’t, for that matter?”

Granny Flyswift admitted that she wouldn’t, particularly.

“Well, then.”

Charity of Airy, tucking back a strand of the hair now gone snow white with the long months of hardship and worry, made a sudden hushing sound. That was twice she’d caught them by surprise in one morning—it was not like Charity to be ill mannered—and they thought as they often had lately how she’d gone gaunt and old since pneumonia had taken her daughter Caroline-Ann. She’d doted on Caroline-Ann, had Charity.

“You thought of something. Charity?” asked Granny Heatherknit gently. “
Have
we forgotten somebody? Twelve Families there’s always been, and twelve we’ve counted off—unless a thirteenth’s landed, and a fine time they’ve picked if they have, I must say! We’ve accounted for all, to my mind.”

“It’s not that,” said Charity. “No, it’s something that just struck me. And I may not be right.”

“And you may not be wrong, either. Many a long year now you’ve been solving problems, it stands to reason you’d get good at it,” said Granny Heatherhut. “What’s struck you, m’dear?”

“Those things. Those crystals.”

“Struck us all, I do believe. Charity.”

“Yes, but I’ve been thinking about them ... Veritas Truebreed Motley says they’re devices to gather up energy, focus it—that they’re up there charging, like batteries. And I ask myself, where are they
getting
that energy? It’s happening fast, Grannys. You go look and see how much darker they are, and feel how much louder! What arc they drawing on for a source?”

“Charity, might could be there’s a mothership up there, beaming it down to them; might could be
any
thing!”

The Grannys nodded, all in agreement on that; the unknown was, after all, the unknown. But Charity had something on her mind.

“I have an idea,” she declared, “and I plan to spread it!” And she was running for Castle Airy’s comset speaker, her skirts hitched up in one hand and the cane she’d taken to using lately clutched in the other.

“
If
I can get through!” she called back over her shoulder, and out the door she went, leaving the Grannys staring after her.

“Well,” said Granny Heatherknit to the others, “better one of us turn on the set over there or we’ll miss it ourselves, and wouldn’t
that
be a comedown? Not a one of us as can keep up with Charity, cane or no cane.”

Granny Flyswift moved slowly, belying her name, but she was close by the comset stud, and it flickered and came on about three words into Charity of Airy’s message.

“—to me,” she was saying. “I might could be wrong, but I have a feeling about this. The crystals over the Castles, they’re nothing more than enormous batteries,
storage
cells, and till they’re charged they can’t harm us. It’s perhaps they charge on sunshine, or wind, or feardust, for all we know. But I’ll lay you twelve to three, citizens, seeing as how they come from a planetary alliance that’s founded on magic and not science ... I’ll lay you twelve to three they feed and grow fat on the plain scared-sick terror that’s coming off this planet like a hurricane. I’ll just
bet
you they do!”

The Grannys looked at each other, and back at Charity’s confident face on the comset screen. She could be right; she’d always had an uncanny way of knowing things, made up of three parts common sense, three parts intuition, three parts blind luck, and one part they didn’t care to put a name to.