Big Planet

16 The Search

The air was full of lazy sounds: the far bird-like trill, a hum of small insects, the rustle of warm wind. They passed a clump of gardenia trees; here stood a girl playing with a diabolo. She had a triangle face, big dark eyes; she wore green satin trousers and red slippers. Wordlessly she watched them pass, mouth a little parted, her toy forgotten, and contemplating her shining cleanliness Glystra became warmly aware of his own bristling filth.

They rode out of range of the girl’s curious eyes, past a low wall topped with spheres of polished stone overgrown with colored lichen. Behind came the sound of soft singing. The wall merged into the side of the main dome; skirting the building they rode down a neat lane. A ditch with clean water flowed to the left; to the right was a line of small shops. It was a bazaar like hundreds of others Glystra had passed through while travelling among the stars.

Rugs, shawls, quilts hung over rods; fruits and melons lay heaped in neat pyramids; pottery crocks and vessels lay stacked, their glaze misted by a film of dust; baskets hung from ropes. No one heeded them as they rode past on the moaning zipangotes. In the shadows a few heads were turned and Glystra saw the flash of eyes, but there were no voices raised to greet or sell.

One shop, slightly larger than the others, displayed a wooden sword as a guild-mark. Glystra pulled up his mount. “I’ve got an idea.” He slid free a pair of the swords they had taken from the Rebbirs, carried them into the dimness of the shop.

A short fat man leaning against a heavy table looked up. He had a big pale head, black hair shingled with gray, a sharp nose and chin, the face of a Rebbir changed and rendered devious by civilization.

Glystra flung the swords down on the table. “What are these worth to you?”

The fat man looked at them and his face changed. He did not try to conceal his interest. “Where did you get these?” He reached out, gingerly felt the metal. “These are the finest steel… None but the South Rebbir hetman carry steel like this.”

“I’ll part with them cheap,” said Glystra.

The armourer looked up with quick light in his eye. “What is your wish? A sack of peraldines? A four-tier helmet, mother-of-pearl perhaps, crowned by a Magic Mountain opal?”

“No,” said Glystra. “It’s easier than that. An hour ago my woman was taken into the big dome, or temple, whatever you call it. I want her back.”

“Two steel swords for a woman?” demanded the merchant incredulously. “Do you joke? I’ll furnish you fourteen virgins beautiful as the morning sun for the two swords.”

“No,” said Glystra. “I want this particular woman.”

The merchant absent-mindedly felt of his neck, stared into the shadow of his shop. “In truth, I covet the swords… And yet I own but one head.” He stroked the shiny metal with a reverent hand. “Still—each of these blades represents a thousand heads—a thousand bits of iron, melted and annealed, cleared of dross, heated and quenched, honed for half a year.” He picked up one of the swords. “The Dongmen are unpredictable; at times they seem foolish and old, and then one hears of their craft and cruelty, so that an honest man never knows what to believe”

Glystra fidgeted. Time was passing; minutes kneaded dull fingers into his mind. Nancy—his mind wavered sidewise into the possibilities. Thenfa floor of hardness seemed to rise up under his misgivings. Suppose she were bedded, raped; if that were the worst, there was no irreparable harm done… Possibly she might be allowed a respite. One hour, two hours? Perhaps bathed, perfumed, clothed? It all depended upon the fastidiousness of her captor.

He became aware of the merchant’s calculation. “Well?”

“Just exactly what do you want of me?”

“I want this woman. She is young and beautiful. I imagine she has been taken to someone’s private chamber.”

With an expression of surprise at his ignorance, the merchant shook his head. “The priests are celibate. Only the hierarchs allowed themselves the use of women. More likely she has been taken to the pens.”

“I know nothing of the temple,” said Glystra. “I want the help of someone who does.”

The merchant nodded. “I see. You want help. You’ll risk your own head then?”

“Yes,” said Glystra angrily, “but drop the idea that you won’t be risking yours along with me.”

“I won’t,” said the merchant coolly. “But there is one who will.” He pushed with his foot under the counter. A moment later a chunky young man with a face harder and bonier than his father’s entered the room. His eyes fell on the swords; he uttered a sharp exclamation, took a step forward, halted, looked at Glystra.

“My son Nymaster,” said the merchant. He turned to the young man. “One of the blades is yours. First you must take this man through Nello’s crevice into the temple. Wear robes, take an extra robe with you. This man will point out a woman he wants; no doubt she’ll be in the pens. You will bribe Koromutin. Promise him a porphyry dagger. Bring the woman back outside.”

“Is that the all of it?”

“That’s everything.”

“Then the blade is mine?”

“The blade is yours.”

Nymaster turned, motioned to Glystra with an air of calm execution. “Come.”

“One moment,” said Glystra. He went to the door. “Corbus.”

Corbus slouched into the room, looked around expressionlessly.

Glystra pointed to the two blades. “If I return with Nancy, this man receives the two swords. If neither of us returns—kill him.”

The merchant voiced an inarticulate protest. Glystra glared at him, “Do you think I trust you?”

“Trust?” said the merchant with a puzzled expression. “Trust? What word is that?” And he tested it several times more.

Glystra gave Corbus a wolfish grin. “If I don’t see you again—good luck. Set yourself up as an emperor somewhere.”

The merchant conferred earnestly with his son, gesticulating with the palm of one hand. The son wore a subdued expression.

Nymaster beckoned to Glystra; they left the shop, walked around the building, entered an alley between two fences over which fern fronds fell. Nymaster stopped at a little shed. He pressed heavily on one foot, the door swung open. He reached in, tossed a bundle to Glystra. “Wear this.”

It was a white gown with a tall peaked hood. Glystra pulled it over his head. “Now this,” said Nymaster—a maroon sleeveless smock an inch shorter than the first garment. “And this”—a loose gown of black still shorter, with a second hood.

Nymaster dressed himself similarly. “It’s the wear of a Dongman Ordinary—a lay priest. Once inside the temple no one will look at us.” He tied a third set of robes into a neat bundle, looked up and down the alley. “This way— quickly,”

They ran a hundred feet to a portal in the fence, passed through into a rank garden of fern. The ground was marshy and quivered underfoot. The ferns crackled and snapped in the wind.

Nymaster halted, then stole forward carefully, stopped once more, held out a hand admonishing silence. Looking past him, through a screen of wire vine, Glystra saw a tall spindly man with a gray concave face and a crooked nose standing idly in the sunlight. He carried a quirt in a long gnarled hand, which he slapped idly against his black boots. A little distance away six children of varying ages squatted in a truck garden, grubbing weeds with sharp sticks. Their ankles were knotted together with greasy twine, their only garment was a loose smock of coarse cloth.

Nymaster leaned back, whispered, “To reach the wall we’ve got to pass Nello; we can’t let him see us, he will raise an outcry.”

He bent, picked up a clod, flung it hard at the little boy at the end of the line. The boy cried out, then quickly silenced himself, bent furtively to his work.

Nello uncoiled like a lazy python, sauntered yawning across the sunny garden to the quivering boy and raising his whip, carefully and without haste striped the child’s buttocks. Once—twice—three times—

Nymaster pulled at Glystra’s arms. “Now while he’s absorbed in his enjoyment…”

Glystra let himself be pulled across the patch of open space, behind a wall of crumbling stone. Nymaster scurried now at top speed, the skirts of his garment flapping in three-colored flashes.

By a thick cycad with a trunk like the skin of a pineapple he paused, looked in all directions, and finally peered through the fronds at the top of Myrtlesee dome.

“Sometimes a priest stands in the turret watching across the desert. This is when they expect important guests, and wish to ready the oracle.” He peered, squinted. “Hah, there he is, scanning the wide world.”

Glystra saw the dark shape in a cage atop the dome, standing stiff as a gargoyle.

“No matter,” said Nymaster. “He will never notice us; his gaze is out in the air-layers.” He climbed the wall, using chinks and crevices in the rock for foot and hand holds. Halfway up he disappeared from view, and Glystra, following him up the wall, came upon a narrow gap invisible from below.

Nymaster’s voice came from below. “The wall was built for show, and hollow. There is an avenue within.”

Glystra heard a clink, a click and sparks flew through the darkness. A line of hot smoulder pulsed as Nymaster blew, burst into a tongue of flame, from which he lit a torch.

Nymaster strode ahead confidently, a lord in his own realm. They walked a hundred yards, two hundred yards, across damp well-packed clay. Then the wall ended against blank stone. At their feet was a pit into which Nymaster lowered himself.

“Careful,” he muttered. “The footholds are only cut into clay. Get a good toe-grip.”

Glystra descended eight feet, ducked under the foundations of a heavy wall, crawled up a slanting passage.

“Now,” said Nymaster, “we’re under the floor of the Main College. Over there”—he pointed—“is the Veridicarium, where the oracle sits.”

Footfalls sounded above—hasty yet light, with an odd hesitancy. Nymaster cocked his head. “That’s the Sacristy, old Caper. When he was young a malicious slave poisoned her teeth, and when he made demands on her, she bit his thigh. The wound never healed and his leg is no thicker than a wand.”

A second mass of rock barred their way. Nymaster said, “This is the oracle’s pedestal. Now we must be careful. Hold your head away from the light, say nothing. If we are halted and recognized—”

“What then?”

“It depends on who the villain is, and his rank. The most dangerous are the novices in black fringes, who are over-zealous, and the Hierarchs, with gold baubles on their hoods. The ordinaries are less conscientious.”

“What do you plan?”

“This passage leads to the pens where prisoners, slaves and exchanges are pent before processing.”

“Processing? Do you mean serving as an oracle?”

Nymaster shook his head. “By no means. The oracle needs the wisdom of four men to guide his thoughts, and for every dissertation of an oracle three men besides himself must be processed. He himself serves as fourth man, for the next oracle.”

Glystra, gripped by a sudden impatience, waved his hand. “Let’s hurry.”

“Now—absolute quiet,” warned Nymaster. He led around the rock, up a rude wooden ladder, from which he rolled off on to a shelf. He fixed the torch in a rope socket, and crawled off on his stomach through the darkness. Glystra came after. Overhead a stone floor pressed into his back.

Nymaster stopped and Glystra ran into his feet. Nymaster listened, then jerked forward.

“Follow me, swiftly.”

He disappeared. Glystra almost fell into a dim hole. He swung himself down, stood on a stone floor at Nymaster’s back. Vile-smelling water gurgled past his feet. Nymaster strode toward the light, a shaft of feeble yellow shining down a flight of steps. He climbed the steps and without hesitation stepped out into the light.

Glystra followed.

The air was hot and reeked with an oily stench that knotted his stomach. From a wide archway came sounds of industry.

Nymaster marched past without pause. Glystra followed on his heels. He turned his head, looked into a bin—into the blank dead eyes of Bishop.

Glystra made a moaning coughing sound, stopped short. He felt Nymaster’s hard arm, heard his petulant voice.

“What’s the trouble?”

“That is the head of my friend.”

“Ah.” Nymaster was uninterested. “Beyond is the extraction room where the head is tapped of its wisdom… It is a precise art, so I am given to understand, and not easily mastered.” He looked sardonically at Glystra. “Well—?”

Glystra pushed himself away from the wall. “Yes. Let’s get it over with.”

By a heroic effort he restrained his gorge. Nymaster impatiently hurried off down the corridor.

Men in robes passed—two, three, four—without paying them heed. Then Nymaster stopped short. “There, behind this wall are the pens. Look in through the chinks and pick out your woman.”

Glystra pressed close to the stone wall, peered through an irregular hole at about eye-level. A dozen men and women, completely naked, stood in the middle of the room, or sat limply on stone benches. Their hair had been shaved, and their pates daubed with paint of either blue, green or yellow.

“Well—which one is she?” snapped Nymaster. “That one at the far end?” This was a long-headed creature with pendant breasts and a yellow wrinkled belly.

“No,” said Glystra. “She’s not here.”

“Ha,” muttered Nymaster. “Hm, this poses a problem… Very difficult—and I fear past the scope of our agreement.”

“Nonsense!” said Glystra in a deadly voice. “The agreement was to find the woman and bring her out, wherever she was… So now take me to her, or I’ll kill you here and now.”

“I don’t know where to look for her,” explained Nymas-ter in a patient voice.

“Find out then!”

Nymaster frowned. “I’ll ask Koromutin. Wait here—”

“No. I’ll come with you.”

Nymaster growled under his breath, and turned off down the passage. He thrust his head into a little chamber. The man within was fat and middle-aged. He wore a spotless white tunic and an immaculate collar of ruffled lace. He appeared soft, pompous, petulant, effeminate, capable of irresponsible spite. He was not surprised to see Nymaster and resentful only to the extent that as an important official, his time was valuable.

Nymaster spoke to him in a low voice, which Glystra bent forward to hear. Koromutin’s eyes rested on him, probed under his hood.

“—he says she’s not in the pen; he won’t leave till he finds her. She must own the key to his life; she must be a witch. No woman is worth such effort and expense. But in any event we must have her.”

Koromutin frowned judiciously. “This woman evidently must be pent upstairs for personal use. If so—well, how much does your father put forward? Now I mind me of a certain dagger of good Philemon porphyry…”

Nymaster nodded. “It shall be yours.”

Koromutin rubbed his hands, bounded to his feet, examined Glystra with a new speculation. “The woman is evidently a rich queen. My dear sir,” he bowed, “I salute your loyalty. Allow me to assist your search.” He turned, not waiting for Glystra’s answer, flounced down the hall.

They climbed a flight of curving stairs. From above came the sound of footsteps descending. Koromutin bowed with vast obsequiousness.

“Bow!” hissed Nymaster. “The Prefect Superior!”

Glystra bowed low. He saw the hem of priestly robes, exceedingly rich. The white was a silky floss; the red, a fur soft as the pelt of a mole; the black, a heavier fur. A peevish voice said, “Where are you, Koromutin? An oraculation will shortly be in progress, and where is the wisdom? You are remiss.”

Koromutin spoke resonant apologies. The Prefect Superior returned upstairs. Koromutin trotted back to his cubicle, where he donned a high-collared garment of stiff white brocade embroidered with scarlet spiders and a tall white conical hat with ear flaps and cheek guards which almost hid his face.

“Why the delay?” hissed Glystra.

Nymaster shrugged. “Old Koromutin holds the post of Inculcator, and that is his ceremonial regalia. We will be delayed.”

Glystra said fretfully, “We have no time for it; let’s get about our business.”

Nymaster shook his head. “Not possible. Koromutin is bound to the oraculation. In any event, I wish to witness the rite; never have I watched an oracle at his revelations.”

Glystra growled threats but Nymaster could not be moved. “Wait till Koromutin leads us to the woman. She is not in the pens, you saw as much yourself.”

Glystra, fuming and disquieted, was forced to be content.