“Sorry,” Simon murmured. “But I’m with Calvy. I intend to see what goes on.”
“Corojum,” cried Madame. “Was that Timmy the one who … who Mouche was much interested in?”
“Flowing Green,” said Corojum. “Tim is … it is a new kind of Timmy, made of Mouche’s blood and Kaorugi’s mind. Flowing Green has watched Mouchidi forever from the walls. And when he came to House Genevois, the Timmys opened the way into the walls, and they tempted him in, and he watched Flowing Green from there. Both, watching one another. All these last years of his life, his own tim has been setting tim’s voice into him, setting tim’s own dance into him, and he has some of tim’s substance in him, too. Some of Kaorugi, inside Mouche.
“Together we have thought, perhaps Mouchidi will be the one. Now tim has lured him or taught him to do this thing, and he has convinced Ellin, and Bao has convinced Ornery … “
“What is this thing?” demanded Questioner, almost angrily.
“ … to do this thing as Bofusdiaga did it,” whispered the Corojum. “For they,” he indicated the Hags with a jerk of his head, “no, they cannot.”
Onsofruct burst into tears.
“We probably cannot,” said D’Jevier, shuddering. “The Hagions know I’m not fit for martyrdom! I’m not pure enough, not resolute enough, not inspired enough. I haven’t been pure since childhood, nor resolute except in duty, nor inspired recently at all. Except now and then by hope, I suppose. We are only weary old women, trying to do the best we can. Hush now, Onsy. Come, Madame, Calvy, Simon. Let us get out of the way of this great work and wait to see what happens.”
60—Many Moons
Five moons were in the sky, two west of the sun, seeming to linger in place, and three coming from other directions, moving swiftly, ever closer. The world shook and shook again. Stones fell. Distant peaks shivered and danced. The sixth moon, said Questioner, was actually hidden in the sun’s radiance and would shortly begin to obscure it. While the people held on, trying to anchor themselves on the high ledge, the tunnelers continued their frantic digging between the south end of the Fauxi-dizalonz and the opening into the Quaggima’s crater. Soon it was apparent they were cutting a trench to join caldera to chasm, leaving only a narrow wall of soil and rock to hold the Fauxi-dizalonz in place.
Meantime, Timmys ran here and there, carrying, fetching, coming, going. As the moons crept closer to one another, Timmys poured by the hundreds down onto the track that led into Quaggima’s crater, massing to either side of the space where the new trench would breach the wall.
“What is Bofusdiaga going to do?” asked Calvy. “Drain the pond into the other crater?”
“It looks very much like it,” said Questioner. “Furthermore, it seems to be putting every resource it has into the job.”
“Look,” cried D’Jevier, pointing upward with a hand that shuddered with each pulse of the world. “Two moons across the sun!”
There were two, one on the leading side, the other on the following. From below the sun, a third moon climbed toward it.
“I saw those moons when this world was young,” said Questioner to Calvy, in a didactic tone. “I obtained a recording of the birth of this system. All these moons make it a very complex and interesting system.”
“At the moment,” said Calvy, “I refuse to be interested. I would trade all of them gladly for a moonless night with no tides.”
“Don’t you think Mouche and his friends will be successful?”
Calvy contorted his face into a mocking grimace. “If you want the truth, Questioner, I don’t know what success amounts to. My idea of success would be to be home, with Carezza and my children. Mouche seems to intend a great deal more than that, though I’m damned if I know what.”
Beneath them, the thudding of the world built in volume and force. This was nothing like the tremors they had felt in the past. This was purposeful, powerful, a recurrent jar that allowed only a moment for the previous blow to reverberate into silence before striking again. As though stirred by the sound, the Fauxi-dizalonz began to boil, sending up fogs and fumes, spirals of mist, whirlwinds of foam, at first in random fashion, then gathering into one shadow that darkened beneath the waters. A being was growing there. Only one. And they could not see what it was like.