The Visitor (46 page)

“Like the sentries in the maze at Caigo Faience,” said Dismé.

“Let's see,” said the doctor, firmly. “It can't be more than an hour away.”

They rode for an hour, but the wall was no nearer. Another hour, and the wall seemed some taller, but was still a great distance. The doctor cursed; Arnole sat up straight on the wagon seat; Bobly and Bab fixed their eyes on the goal ahead, and they went on. When the sun was straight up in the sky, they had crossed the last ridge and could see that the wall was not a low wall but very high indeed.

They let the horses rest, then began again. When evening arrived, they pulled up between the open gates. On either side the walls loomed like precipices. The two gigantic figures that stood inside were white-robed angels lifting their great stone hands to the sky and between
them, in the space between the walls, was a wide, level-floored canyon, the wall tops so high above that a mere slit of sky showed between them. It took some time even to drive past the thickness of the walls, and when they came to the end of them, they were confronted with another such wall, perhaps a hundred yards away, stretching endlessly to either side, with other statues set in huge recesses, the flat land between the walls carpeted with grass. Dismé laughed.

“This is funny?” whispered Michael.

“This is the maze of Caigo Faience,” she said. “More or less. Though, seeing the size of it, I suppose one would have to say more. Either way will get us there, but decisions can come later. Night draws on, the army will move in it, but if we work our way inside a little, they won't find us.”

“Dezmai says that?”

“No. I say that. I'm speaking from experience.”

They turned to the right and rode to the nearest opening in the wall. Dismé spent some time consulting the huge figure beside this gate, then remounted and gestured them forward.

“They'll be able to follow our tracks,” complained Bobly.

“No tracks,” said Dismé. “We have a following wind. The maze at Caigo Faience had a following wind too.”

They turned to look behind them, seeing the little whirlwind that came after them, stirring the dust, straightening the grasses, erasing their passing.

“This one,” Dismé said, when they came to the second gate. “Inside and to the left.”

“Listen,” said the doctor.

They stopped. From a great distance came the sound of howling, like an enormous beast.

Arnole said, “The ogre. Will it be able to scent us?”

Dismé shook her head. “Actually, it's nowhere near here. The maze tunnels sound from outside. If it should come inside, the following wind will carry our scent past each turning and on to another gate.”

“How do you know that?” asked Nell.

“I just know,” she replied.

By the time they had made two more turns, it was getting too dark to see their way.

“Here,” said Dismé, indicating the nearest statue, set in a half-domed recess the size of an apse in some mighty, pre-Happening cathedral. “Let's park the wagon here and get behind and under the statue. We'll be out of the weather, if any. The horses can graze in the open. The grass is low, but plentiful.”

“And Gowl's creature can't find us here?”

“I think not,” said Dismé. “We were told to come here. Something here is awaiting our arrival. Seeing the place, I don't think Gowl or the thing that runs him can do anything at all to prevent our meeting it.”

They went behind the giant statue and made camp between its heels and under the hem of its long robe, a cave into which they settled with sighs of exhaustion.

“Fire?” asked Arnole.

Dismé shrugged. “If we put it well under the statue, I doubt it can be seen. I, for one, would relish something hot.”

The others felt the same, and the fire was lit, the smoke rising up inside the stone robes of the mighty figure and seeping upward through invisible channels to emerge far above them. They brought their blankets from the wagon and huddled near the blaze. From far, far away they heard a great cacophony of roaring, yelling, and screaming. Dismé turned, listening to the dobsi.

“That's Gowl,” she murmured. “One of the demon spies is lying hidden in one of the army's supply wagons, and he's sending information my dobsi can pick up. The ogre's there, along with some new horror. Whatever the new thing is, it's eating soldiers. That's what the yelling is about. Gowl's given up trying to find victims, so he's letting it eat his army.”

“He's still far away,” said Nell, in a voice of chilly certainty. “They haven't even seen this place yet.”

“Given the size of these walls, how long will it take us to get…where? To the center?” Bab asked, shaking his head.

“It's not far,” said Dismé. “Not if you know the way.”

“And you do?”

“The statues point the way. You just have to read them. The Great Maze at Faience was the same.”

When the fire burned down, they curled into their blankets and slept. They were in an east-west aisle, which let the morning light in to wake them. They heated water for tea and to wash sleep from their faces. During the night, a copse of trees had grown up in front of the statue, surrounding the horses. There were no horse droppings on the ground.

“It's meant as a latrine,” said the doctor. “Whoever lives here doesn't want us fouling up the place.”

When they left, shortly thereafter, they looked back to see the trees disappearing into the earth, leaving only the grassy expanse that had been there before, utterly unmarred.

Dismé guided them throughout the morning. The walls grew shorter as they went, admitting the slanting rays of the sun. By noon, she said they were only a turn from the center of the maze, so they kept on, coming at last into a square enclosure. The floor was paved in marble set in eye-bending patterns. It was centered upon a staircase leading down. There was also a black figure upon a plinth. Dismé went to it at once, for it was much like the figure in the maze at Caigo Faience. This one pointed inexorably downward.

“Let's have lunch,” she said. “We have to go down. The horses and wagon will have to stay here.”

“There's nothing for them to eat here,” Michael objected.

“We can leave them in the grassy aisle,” Dismé said. “Water them well before we go.”

“What about the stone?” asked Arnole, again.

Dismé shook her head. “We can't take it with us, Arnole. We leave it here. Either someone will come along and find it, or we'll find someone and bring them here.”

“I brought three stones,” he said stubbornly. “Evidently so much was intended. I don't want to leave one of them here for any part of that army to capture while we are elsewhere. Let's at least get it out of the wagon and hide it.”

“We can try,” said Michael. “The statues in these lanes
aren't as huge as the one we slept under last night, but there's still room behind them to hide the stone.”

Dismé waited for objections but heard none. She shrugged. “Drive the wagon to the nearest niche, and we'll see if we can move it, then.”

They did so, retracing their way, though not far. The statue in the nearest recess was leaning on a sword looking rather pensive, which meant, Dismé said, that the goal had been achieved. When they explored behind it, they found a sufficient space.

“It's heavy,” said Arnole. “But all of us should be able to lift it.”

They got into the wagon bed to do so. The wrapped stone was neither as wide nor as tall as the others they had seen. They were able to lift it and move it toward the rear of the wagon, where both Dismé and the doctor lost their grip at once, and the thing slid from their hands, landing right side up, with the sacking torn from one side of it.

“Why was this one wrapped up?” Bab asked. “None of the others were.”

“Probably to make it easier to handle,” said the doctor, examining his abraded hands with annoyance as he climbed down from the wagon. “It's the same as the others, except for that.”

Bobly and Bab lifted the torn edge away from the stone and looked at it. “It got dirty,” said Bab, as he and his sister reached out to dust off the splinters from the wagon bed.

The aisle erupted in two great fountains of fire, and giants stood at either side of the stone, growing taller with each spark. One great fur-clad figure carried an anvil on her shoulder. The other wore a leather apron and carried a hammer in his hand. The anvil was set down, the hammer fell upon it, the sound fled away, in one direction only, and in that direction, far from the place they stood, something happened. All of them perceived that a consequence had occurred. Their presence had been announced. Something had wakened to greet them.

When they blinked, the giants were gone. Only Bobly and
Bab stood where the stone had been, their faces blank with wonder.

Arnole heaved a deep breath. “Ialond and Aarond. I told you we shouldn't leave it here.”

“Yes, Arnole,” said Dismé. “And you were right, as always.”

“My,” said Bobly. “Oh, gracious, goodness me.”

“One does hope so,” said the doctor, thoughtfully. “Goodness being the operative word.”

“I'm still the same size,” said Bab, looking down at himself. “You'd think I could have kept a little of it.”

Nell laid her hand on his shoulder. “Though I've known you only a little time, I think you've always been sizeable. It just doesn't show all the time.”

The group returned to the center, each of them casting wondering glances at the little people until Bobly said, “Don't look at me like that. I don't feel any different. Except I know a lot of things I didn't know before, but even that is…”

“Remote,” suggested Dismé. “It comes and goes.”

“And is often unhelpful,” said the doctor.

The little people nodded. Arnole cleared his throat and said, “We have somewhere to go, don't we?”

“How far?” asked the doctor.

Dismé shook her head. “From here on it's uncharted country. I know what's under the maze at Faience, but I don't know what underlies this one. We'll have to go down there and see.”

Leaving the wagon and horses behind, they went down into darkness, lit only by the two wagon lanterns they had carried with them. Here and there, patches of fungus gleamed with phosphorescence that led them sometimes in narrow ways, sometimes in caverns that reverberated distantly like the footsteps of passing armies. Hours seemed to pass before Dismé stopped.

“Are we lost?” breathed Arnole.

“No,” she said in a perplexed voice. “Just confused.”

They had come to a hub from which tunnels radiated to
all sides. In addition, there was a hole before them into which a stair descended and another in the ceiling through which another stair rose. Dismé concentrated on the half dozen statues that were within sight. The way to the left was signalled, as well as the way to the right. The other ways were frowned upon with tight lips and closed eyes.

“Two ways,” she murmured.

“Which?” asked Arnole.

“Either,” said Dismé. “As you used to tell me, Arnole, there are more ways than one to reach the truth. We will go right.”

They went to the right, past abysses and through more caverns, past tunnels that seemed to lead upward toward faint light, in every case forbidden by the tutelary images that stood at their entrances, coming at last to a circular tunnel that turned and turned leftward, always leftward, always downward, like a corkscrew descending, with no way out until they came to a flat dead end.

“Well, that was interesting,” said Michael. “Now what?”

“Shhh,” said Dismé, raising the lantern and making a circuit of the space they were in. At one side a figure was carved into the dark stone of the wall, a figure with its arms flung up, eyes wide open, mouth either singing or laughing. At its feet lay a fragment of color, and Dismé knelt to pick it up. She showed it to them: the wing feather of a mountain bluebird.

“Here,” she said. “I gave one of these to the image in the maze at Faience. This is the place.”

“There's no way,” said Michael, taking the lantern and shining it on the sides of the statue. Nell ran her hands across it, as did Dismé.

“Put the lantern closer,” said Dismé, looking into the stone. “There are lights in this stone. Like the other stones…”

They looked at one another, then at Michael, who shook his head. “I don't think so.” Then, directly to Dismé. “I don't want to be…”

“Nor did any of us,” said Dismé in a sorrowful voice. Oh, she had not wanted Michael to be her brother. “If it isn't meant for you…” She shut her eyes, not wanting to see.

He took a deep breath and laid his hands upon it. The stone did not emit light, but Michael did. He shone like a faceted gem, brilliance darting away from him to light the space in which they stood. He looked at Dismé's sorrowing face and smiled, then he laughed, and laughed again, every gust of laughter thinning the stone before him, light shining through, then brighter and more until brilliance gleamed through the pane of thin ice that stood between them and what lay beyond.

“I am Jiralk,” said Michael. “Jiralk the Joyous,” and he struck the remaining ice into shards.

The scent of a garden flowed around them.

“Sandalwood and roses,” Nell murmured, as though entranced. “A coral-pink smell…”

They stepped through into a garden beneath a sky of shifting color, as though they looked upward through an opal sea. The land was cupped; the horizon hung above them. Exotic trees surrounded them, strange flowers and stretches of green led their eyes to a vision of upturned oceans and far mountains that bowed toward them. Behind them was the door they had come through, an upright plane of darkness, and upon a pedestal before them sat a being, multi-armed, multi-winged, shape-shifting, light-reflecting, dark as space is dark, glistening with galaxies.