The sawline resisted her for a moment, then bit deep, cutting its own groove deeper, dust puffing at either side. At first she thought the amount of sawdust ridiculously large, then saw that it was mixed with smoke, smoke rising in little clouds from the cut, making her eyes stream, her throat burn. It was deadly. Deadly. Everything in her urged her to get away, to climb outward, away from that hideous smoke, but instead she moved around the root to find an updraft of clean air and went on heaving at the saw. It was well used, supple, only recently reglued with jeweled teeth for which she had paid a pretty price, the supply of gems being so short. Aunt Six had always said that good tools repaid their keeper, and she chanted this to herself as she went on heaving, feeling the root beneath her spurs begin to grow warm. The fire was eating its way up, toward the mark.
“Bite teeth, cut deep, saw line chew, job to do, pull, Bridger, pull ...” then six deep breaths and chant again, over and over. This was not a job for one Bridger! She should have had a full crew, spelling one another as they tired, encouraging one another. “Bite teeth ...” It was getting a little easier as the groove bit deeper, there was less surface to pull against. “Bite teeth, cut deep, saw line chew ...” In older days, there had been plenty of gems, plenty of saw gravel. Maybe she should have paid for another dipping. Pull. Pull. The root quivered.
Quickly she shifted her feet upward, bracing out above the groove, lying almost horizontally from the root as she heaved the line, heaved, heaved, feeling her shoulders start to burn and bind, beginning to choke in the smoke once more, unable to move from t his stance, unable to shift her position, trying to hold her breath against that one too many which would bring the poison full strength deep into her lungs.
A quiver again, this time a mighty one, a shaking, a groaning sound, a rending as the world began to drop from beneath her. The root below her fell away—but only a finger’s width, whipping the entire root to one side as it did so, throwing her to the end of her lines, breaking two of them with lashing side roots. She hung, nose dripping blood, suspended between her remaining two lines, turning like a hooked flopper, gagging at the smoke. One incredibly strong cable of fiber held the root, kept it from falling away, one bundle no thicker than her leg, groaning as though it had human voice, toward which the fire crept, upward, upward—taking what seemed an eternity to burn it through.
She feinted, came to herself, began to go in and out of blackness as though it were a garment put on and took off. Through a veil of swimming gray she saw the mass of the mainroot dropped away down the endless depth of the chasm, lashing side roots as it went so that they twitched and recoiled, knocking Beedie against their rough sides. She swung still at the end of her lines, thrashed into semiconsciousness, eyes staring upward at the rim.
Far above the noonglow came, through emerald light, a kind of singing. Was it the Birder on Topbridge or the singing of her own blood? High in the light she saw wings, white wings, circling down and down, huge and mysterious, wonderful as a myth, beautiful a s a song.
“It will stop at Topbridge,” she told herself in her dream, “like the other one.” But it did not. It came down and down until it perched on a side root spur just beside her and turned into something else. Something with a woman’s face, but with hands and arms like a slow-girule, arms to hold fast, and legs to reach out and pick Beedie from her lines as though she had been no heavier than a baby. Then the bird person wiped the blood from her fece and cradled her, cradled her there on the root and whispered t o her.
“My name is Mavin, little root climber. It seems to me you need some help here, whatever strange wonderful thing it is you are so determined to do.”
Chapter Two
After a time Beedie came to herself lying on a horizontal shelf of side root, carefully fastened to it with her own belt and pitons, having the blood washed from her fece and neck with something that looked suspiciously like a furry, wet paw. The paw owner went away. There was a sound of water near by, splashing and trickling, then Beedie’s head was lifted and a cup thrust at her lip. She drank, trying not to look at the cup, for it had appeared magically where the paw had been. When the paw/cup/person retreated from her side again, she turned her head to follow the creature/woman/bird as it went to the water-belly and burrowed into it through a sizeable hole in the tough shell which had not been there when Beedie had passed it earlier in the day.
“How did you cut it?” she asked, her voice a mere croak in the sound-deadening mat of the rootwall. “It takes a drill, and a blade saw ...”
“Or a sharp beak and determination,” said the bird/person/creature. “You reached toward this place when I carried you past, mumbling something or other about being thirsty, so I figured there was water inside this what you call it ...”
“It’s a water-belly,” Beedie murmured. “It stores the water the root brings up from the bottom, down there. ...”
“Down there, eh? A very long way, root climber. Do you go down there often?”
“Never.” She shook her head and was frozen into immobility by the resultant pain. “Never. No. Too far. Too dark. The Boundless punished the Lostbridgers by sending them down there, so they say. Maybe for greed, because of the gemstones. We’re running out, you know. All the ones left from that time have been used up. Dangerous. Dangerous creatures on the Bottom, they say. As dangerous as the plain, up top, where you come from.”
“Plenty of creatures up there, all right. Gnarlibars. Bambis bigger than any I’ve seen elsewhere. There’s a kind of giant bunwit with horns on its rear feet, did you know that? Strangest-looking thing I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen wonders, oh, root dangler, but I’ve seen wonders. Oceans and lands, lakes and forests, all and everything in a wide world full of wonders. Among which, may I say, is this place of yours, what you call it?”
“The chasm? We just call it the chasm, that’s all.” If Beedie lay perfectly still, she could speak without really feeling discomfort. So she assured herself, at least.
“Do you know what it looks like from up there?” the bird/woman/person asked. “Let me tell you, it’s a remarkable sight. To start with, the roots from those trees extend out onto the plain like great cables, bare as pipes. I saw them from up there, my soaring place, and had to come down just to see my eyes didn’t lie to me. Leagues and leagues of these great roots laid out side by side, like the warp threads of some giant loom all ready for the weaving. Then, after leagues of nothing but bare root, a few little stalks pop up; short, stubby things, with one leaf, maybe, or two, gossamer leaves, spread to the sun like the wings of something bigger than you can imagine. Then the stalks grow higher, higher yet, bigger and bigger, until all you can see is the leaves, overlapping each other like scales on a fish, thin as tissue, and green—Gamelords, girl, but it’s a lovely green.”
“I know,” murmured Beedie, entranced by the rough music of that voice. “We see it every day, at noonglow.”
“And then a shadow in the green, slightly darker, with a mist rising up through it. At first I thought it was only a river under there, but then I saw how wide the shadow was, a long, dark stripe on the forest, going away north to tall, white-iced mountains; bending away to the south west into a desert hot and hard as brass, and that mist coming up full of food smells and people smells.
“Well, I came down, girl, working my way down through those gossamer leaves, eyes all sharpened to see what I could see far down, and what should I see but this great root thrashing about and a small girl person hung on it being smoked like a sausage, the smoke roiling nasty to my nose.”
“I saw you coming down,” said Beedie. “At first I thought I was dreaming it, that you were the other one.”
There was a long silence, then the bird/creature/person said, in a voice even Beedie recognized as carefully noncommittal, “What other one is that?”
“The white bird. The great white bird who came down, oh, a long time ago. A year, almost. It came down in the noonglow, and it perched on the railing of Topbridge commons. Mer
cald was there, Mercald the Birder?” She started to make an inquiring gesture, to move her head questioningly, but desisted at the swimming nausea she felt. The expression on the bird/person’s face had already told her it did not know what Birders were. “White birds are the messengers of the Boundless, you know?” Beedie tried again. The bird/person nodded helpfully, indicating this was not impossible. “And the Birders are the servants of the Boundless. They do our judging, and our rituals, and dedicate the festivals, things like that. So, birds being sacred, and Mercald being a Birder, naturally, he took the white bird to the Birders House. Only later on it changed into a person, a woman. Like you did.”
“Ah,” said the bird/person in a flat, incurious voice. “Tell me your name, will you girl? And call me by mine. It will make it easier on us both. I’m Mavin.”
“Mavin,” said Beedie. “I’m Beedie. Beed’s daughter, really, but they call me Beedie. I’ll get some other kind of name after I’ve worked at Bridging a while—something like, oh ...”
“Smoked sausage? Root dangler?”
“Probably.” She raised one trembling hand to feet along her ribs. They were bruised, terribly tender, and it hurt when she took a deep breath or moved her head. She put the hand down, carefully, and was still once more. “More likely something like “Rulie-chaser’ or ‘Strap-weaver.’ We like to be named after big things we’ve done, but some of us never do anything that big.”
“Well, Beedie, what did this other bird have to say for itself? When it changed into a woman, I mean?”
“It never said anything, not that I heard of.” The question made her a little uncomfortable, as though there were a right answel to it, one she didn’t know. “It sings. Mercald used to bring it out in the noonglow and it flew. It circled around and around in the light, singing. Lately, though, it hasn’t changed into a bird at all. It’s stayed a woman.”
“What does the woman do?”
“Sits. She sits in the window of the Birders House and brushes her hair. They feed her fruit and moss cakes, and bits of toasted flopper. They give her nodule beer to drink, and water. They dress her in soft dresses with ribbons woven by the Weavers’ caste, especially for her. At festival times she watches the processions, and the jugglers, and the root walkers. And she sings.”
“And never speaks? Never at all?”
“Never at all,” said Beedie, in a definite voice. “Now, best you tell me what she is to you, for the people up there”—she moved her eyes to indicate the woven bottom of the great bridge above which threw an enormous shadow across them—“those people think she’s sacred. You go asking too many questions, like you have with me, and they won’t be contented just wondering where you came from, like I do. They’ll wonder if maybe you’re a devil from the Bottom. Or another messenger from the Boundless, in which case they’ll lock you up, jusr to keep you safe, until they decide you’ve delivered the message, whatever it’s supposed to be.” She fell into a gray fog, exhausted by this speech.
“Dangerous, then, to be a messenger! Well, who else could I be? Who could visit you without stirring any curiosity at all?”
Beedie’s head was swimming, but she tried to consider the question carefully. “You could be someone from Harvester’s bridge. We hardly ever see anyone from Harvester’s, because it’s such a long way down-chasm. There’s a Harvesters House on Topbridge, so you’d have someplace to stay.” She sighed, the pain pulsing insistently.
“Ah. Well now. Tell me, Beedie, do you owe me for saving your life?”
She had not thought about it until that moment, and it was an odd question, all things taken into account, but still it was a question she could answer. “Yes,” she said. “I owe you.”
“Good. I want you to tell me all about this place, the chasm, the—what did you call them?—the bridgetowns. About Harvesters and Bridgers and whatever else there are about. Then, when you’ve done that, you won’t owe me anymore and we can talk about some other arrangement.”
“You’re ... strange,” Beedie commented. “If you hadn’t pulled me off that root and got me out of the smoke, I’d be dead by now, though, so I guess strange doesn’t matter.”
“A remarkable conclusion for one so young. So, sausage girl, tell m e about this place. I am a stranger. I know nothing. You must tell me everything, even the things you know so well you never think of them.”
It was an odd session, one Beedie was always to remember. Later in her life, the memory was evoked by smoke smell, always, or by sudden jolts of pain. Even after, she was to recall this time whenever she was ill or injured. Now she lay as quietly as she could on a furry root, soft as her own bed, cushioned somehow in the arms or person of whoever it was called herself Mavin, and talked through her pain about the chasm, sometimes as though she were present, sometimes as though she were dreaming, in both cases as she had never talked or heard anyone talk before.
“Our people came here generations ago,” she said. “Down from the plain above. I didn’t know about the trees and the roots up there, because all the records of that time were lost when Firstbridge was destroyed. All we know is that the people were getting eaten up by the beasts, so the Firstbridgers came down into the chasm and built a bridge. Firstbridge. It wasn’t far enough down, and the beasts got at it, so the survivors came down further to Nextdown while they built Topbridge. You can see Firstbridge if you look, way up against the light. We call it Brokenbridge sometimes. There isn’t much left of it but the mainroots and a few dangling verticals. When my cousin Highclimb went to the rim, she saw it. She says the mainroots are still alive.”
“Ah. Humm. Are there any—ah—Gamesmen, among you?”
“Gamesmen? You mean people who play games? Children do, of course. There are gambling games, too. Is that what you mean?”
“Are there any among you who can change shape? Who can fly? Who can lift things without using their hands?”
“Demons, you mean. No. There’s a story from before we came down into the chasm, there were Demons or something like that over the sea. We used to trade with them in the story, but it’s only a story. According to the story, we came to this world before they did. When we came, the animals weren’t so bad, so we lived on top. Then, later, the animals got bad. That’s when we moved down.”
“All of you? All the persons this side of the sea?”
Beedie shook her head and winced. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows. We keep hearing stories about lost bridges or lost castes . People who survived some other way. Aunt Six says it’s all m yths, but I don’t really know. Do you still want to hear more about the chasm?”
“I didn’t mean lo interrupt. It was just a thought. Yes, go on.”
“Well, let’s see. After Topbridge was built, they finished Nextdown. Then the Potters built their bridge down-chasm, because there were clay deposits in the wall along there, and coal. They use that for the firing. Then came Miner’s bridge, further down-chasm, because that’s where the mines were. Metal, you know. And gems for the saws, though they don’t seem to find many of those ...
“Then Midwall, up-chasm, the other side of Nextdown, then Harvester’s bridge, away down-chasm where it bends, and last of all came Bottommost. Aunt Six says Bottommost is rebels and anarchists, but then she talks like that about a lot of things. I think it’s Fishers, mostly, and Hunters, and some Grafters, and Banders and casteless types.” She stopped to take a deep breath before continuing, gasping. Her ribs cut into her like knives.
The arms around her tightened, then pillowed her more deeply. “Tell me about castes. What are they?”
“Top caste is Bridgers. They’re the ones who build the bridgetowns and maintain them and build the stairs and locate the water-bellies and all that. Then there are Grafters, who make things out of wood, mostly, though they use some metal, too. And Potters, and Barters, and Miners, and Teachers. And Harvesters. They train the slow-girules to harvest the nodules from the roots, and they harvest the wall moss, and fruits from the vines and a
ll like that. And the Messengers. They have two jobs to do. We don’t talk about one of them. The other—well, they fly. Not how you meant it when you asked. They put on wings, and then they jump out into the air when it rises, and they fly between the bridgetowns with messages or little things they can carry. Medicine, maybe. Or plans, to show the Bridger in the other city what’s going on. Maintainers. They’re the ones who take care of the Bridgers, feed them, clean their houses and all. Birders I already told you about. Then there are the Fishers, two kinds of those, one that fishes for floppers from the Fishers’ roosts and those who drop their lines from Bottommost into the river down there, so far they can’t even see it, and bring up fishes. And the Hunters who track game through the root mat ...” She stopped, exhausted.
“And you said something about casteless ones?”
Beedie sighed, weary beyond belief. “There are always some who don’t fit in. Weavers—did I mention Weavers before?—who can’t weave. Or Potters who can’t do a pot. Or even Bridger children who get the down-dizzies when they look down. They may get adopted into some other caste, or they may ask to become Maintainers—some say Maintainers will take anybody, though I don’t know if that’s true—or they may just stay casteless. It’s all right. No one hates them for it or anything. It’s just that they don’t have any caste house to live in or any special group to help them or take them in if they’re sick or old or have a baby.”
“Do people marry?”
“Oh, yes. In caste, usually, though not always. They say if you marry in caste, your kids will have the right aptitudes. That isn’t true, by the way. Aunt Six says it never was true. She says having a child is like betting on a flopper’s flight. They always go off in some direction you don’t count on.”
“What are caste houses?”