“Yes.” he said. “yes. Uasti. But how can I do it? One day they call for me. the next for Oroll or another. I have my men but so have Oroll and the rest.”
“I will do it for you.” I said. “I have the ear of Sibbos, and it is the god’s mind that I speak.”
He looked crafty suddenly, knowing, amused, and not at all in awe.
“But.” I said, “remember, if vou are the temporal power, I am the spiritual. The fire of the god be upon you if you disobey me once you lead.”
His face drained yellowish.
“Yes, healer,” he said quickly, “I’ll remember, I swear it”.
In a way. this should have been more difficult than it was. However, there were certain things in favor of Geret. He was not a particularlv strong character for all his pomposity, vet he had cunning. Oroll, who should have carried more weight of authority, was too indecisive when it came to the point of action. Geret. on the other hand would act, even if wrongly. The wagoners were split into six sections, the people and servants of Geret’s caravan, and the people and servants of the other five. Originally each group owed allegiance to its own
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merchant-lord, but, as there were substantially more men and women in Geret’s portion than in any other of the single units, their voice tended to be loudest. In addition to this Geret’s henchmen wore his own blue and brown uniform. All the merchants had a guard, but Geret’s, dressed up for the occasion, tended to act in a more soldierly fashion, given this psychological impetus. The last factor in Geret’s favor was his cargo-wheat and corn and the ready-made flour. It was his work to provide bread for the journey, and, while they could have lived on their stores of salt meat, dry cheese, and fruits, the warm fresh bread was a comfort to them. This seemed perhaps the best explanation as to why the whole caravan had styled itself “Geret’s people” from time to time. But, like the god, they had only turned to him when they were hungry.
In the matter of the god, I had already altered their habits. His power was important to me for it was the cloak of mine. Therefore I offered a prayer to him, morning and evening, and they had fallen into the way of praying with me. When I helped the sick, I invoked his name. When we made camp, the robed statue was set up in shelter, and I would give him thanks for our safety. No one was commanded to these worshipings, but most came. So belief had become an everpresent thing, more important than before. Now it was very useful to me, for it was through Sibbos that I made Geret leader.
When I went to pray before him, the morning after I had visited Geret’s wagon, I stood rather longer than usual, then turned and looked back at the crowd. It was one of the endless iron-gray days, bitterly cold, and they were huddled close.
“I must read the auguries,” I said to them, “for there is danger.”
I cast out the grains and stood over them for a long time, as if I saw something, then turned again and said: “There is an animal walking on six legs, but the head is severed, and I cannot find it in the pattern. Before the animal is a pit, into which it will fall, because it has no head to guide it.” They murmured, and I spread out my hands and cried: “It is the wagon people. Six parts without a leader.”
They broke into shouts and yells then of alarm and surprise, calling out the names of their own particular merchant lord.
I held up my hand for silence, and when I had it, I said,
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“We must choose one leader for us all. It must be done. This is Sibbos’ warning. Let us pray to him to direct us.”
Then I began the prayer which I had used to him before, in the mornings and evenings.
“Great god, guide us through the dark places, and let no harm come to us. Protect us from danger and distress. Let us judge well in what we do. Give us our bread and our drink, our quiet and our rest. And when we call upon you, do not turn aside from us.”
It was a simple thing, but their minds were open and naive. The phrase, “give us our bread,” so innocently placed in the prayer, unconsciously recalled Geret, the wheat merchant. When it was finished, I looked at them and asked: “Who will you elect for your leader?”
I had told Geret that when I said this, some of his men and women must shout his name. This they did, and, all at once, the whole crowd had caught up the cry. They swirled around and made for his wagon, and soon Geret came out in apparent amazement, and reluctantly agreed to become their master.
As for Oroll and the others, they grumbled a little, but agreed at last that the leadership was nothing in point of fact, and might be useful as a spur and comfort. As I had guessed, Oroll was too indecisive, and the others followed him and accepted the situation.
Things were easy after that. Geret was their lord, but I ruled Geret. For once I felt the strength of command, and freedom, and a sense of identity. I had pored long hours over the old yellow maps of the land we were going to, beyond the Ring and the Water. And now. when I dreamed. I sensed ahead of me the green cool beckoning of the Jade. Incredibly, it seemed, I had guided myself, without knowing, toward my goal Not once had I deviated, only slowed myself in my time with the village, with Darak, and now with the waeons. Never had the awareness of an imminent fulfillment been so intense. I would wake, burning with joy, trembling and alight with expectation. Soon, soon.
On the second dav from Geret’s election, we came to a high place, a treacherous climb among the white-crusted rocks, to a black round hole: the Tunnel through the Ring.
Part II: The Water
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It was a black journey, and lasted ten days.
The Tunnel was perhaps some twenty-five feet wide and about twenty feet high, though in places it varied, the walls and ceiling drawing out or in. At all times there was space enough to get through, and at intervals we found wide caverooms where we could halt and make a camp. The worst of it was the dripping damp, the hollow soundlessness which would pick up a thought and seem to speak it at you, and the darkness that fluttered at the torches like gigantic bats. And there was, too, the nameless fear.
Many of the children fell sick in the Tunnel, but the fear was always the cause of it. The adults, too, became prey to sudden aches and faintings-which they put down to bad air creeping through from other parts of the mountains. Fear was a natural thing; I had expected it-the unconscious terror of the miles of mountain rock balanced over our heads, the primeval terror of dark underground, common to all creatures who are mortal and bury their dead in the earth. Yet this fear was more than these things. I knew, long before I found the key to it. The ghost of the Lost was very strong in this place.
I began to dream of them again, yet the dreams did not appall me as they had. My edge was blunted. I had glimpses of the building of this place-the human overseers, turned against their own people through fear of the Higher Race. I saw the sweating gangs heaving at stone, their flesh deadwhite as the flesh of slugs from years underground. The whips flicked and cracked. Men fell dead. When they came, they were beautiful in the horror and degradation. They had had greater plans for this tunnel than there had been time to achieve-pillars, carving, frescoes. It should not have been a mere worm’s hole through rock, this passage, but yet another
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of their unsurpassable works of art built by the toil and misery of underlings. Later, I found the scratch marks on the wall-faded, unreadable to any except eyes as accurate as mine. These were not in the Old Tongue, but an ancient form of the language I had heard in the village, the hills, Ankurum, and among the wagons. And they were all cursescurses against the Great Ones-the curses of men.
Once, at one of the five camps we made, I found a back cave, very wet, hung with stalactites like stiff curtain fringes of glass. There was a black pool, and, at the bottom, bones gleamed dully. Just at the lip of the pool, this one had chipped in the ancient slang of humanity: