On the first night, with only two small rivers between them and the Teeth and the terrible fires of Holy Town staining the sky, the fugitives halted briefly to forage for jellymelons in an abandoned field, and as they squatted there, gorging on ripe succulent fruit, Leaf said to Crown, “Where will you go, once you’re safe from the Teeth on the far side of the Middle River?”
“I have distant kinsmen who live in the Flatlands,” he replied. “I’ll go to them and tell them what has happened to the Dark Lake folk in the east, and I’ll persuade them to take up arms and drive the Teeth back into the icy wilderness where they belong. An army of liberation, Leaf, and I’ll lead it.” Crown’s dark face glistened with juice. He wiped at it. “What are your plans?”
“Not nearly so grand. I’ll seek kinsmen, too, but not to organize an army. I wish simply to go to the Inland Sea, to my own people, and live quietly among them once again. I’ve been away from home too many years. What better time to return?” Leaf glanced at Shadow. “And you?” he asked her. “What do you want out of this journey?”
“I want only to go wherever you go,” she said.
Leaf smiled. “You, Sting?”
“To survive,” Sting said. “Just to survive.”
Mankind had changed the world, and the changed world had worked changes in mankind. Each day the wagon brought the travelers to some new and strange folk who claimed descent from the old ancestral stock, though they might be water-breathers or have skins like tanned leather or grow several pairs of arms. Human, all of them, human, human, human. Or so they insisted. If you call yourself human, Leaf thought, then I will call you human too. Still, there were gradations of humanity. Leaf, as a Pure Stream, thought of himself as more nearly human than any of the peoples along their route, more nearly human even than his three companions; indeed, he sometimes tended to look upon Crown, Sting, and Shadow as very much other than human, though he did not consider that a fault in them. Whatever dwelled in the world was without fault, so long as it did no harm to others. Leaf had been taught to respect every breed of mankind, even the underbreeds. His companions were certainly no underbreeds: they were solidly mid-caste, all of them, and ranked not far below Leaf himself. Crown, the biggest and strongest and most violent of them, was of the Dark Lake line. Shadow’s race was Dancing Stars, and she was the most elegant, the most supple of the group. She was the only female aboard the wagon. Sting, who sprang from the White Crystal stock, was the quickest of body and spirit, mercurial, volatile. An odd assortment, Leaf thought. But in extreme times one takes one’s traveling companions as they come. He had no complaints. He found it possible to get along with all of them, even Crown. Even Crown.
The wagon came to a jouncing halt. There was the clamor of hooves stamping the sodden soil; then shrill high-pitched cries from Sting and angry booming bellowings from Crown; and finally a series of muffled hissing explosions. Leaf shook his head sadly. “To waste our ammunition on no-leg spiders—”
“Perhaps they’re harming the horses,” Shadow said. “Crown is rough, but he isn’t stupid.”
Tenderly Leaf stroked her smooth haunches. Shadow tried always to be kind. He had never loved a Dancing Star before, though the sight of them had long given him pleasure: they were slender beings, bird-boned and shallow-breasted, covered from their ankles to their crested skulls by fine dense fur the color of the twilight sky in winter. Shadow’s voice was musical and her motions were graceful; she was the antithesis of Crown.
Crown now appeared, a hulking figure thrusting bluntly through the glistening beaded curtains that enclosed the passenger castle. He glared malevolently at Leaf. Even in his pleasant moments Crown seemed angry, an effect perhaps caused by his eyes, which were bright red where those of Leaf and most other kinds of human were white. Crown’s body was a block of meat, twice as broad as Leaf and half again as tall, though Leaf did not come from a small-statured race. Crown’s skin was glossy, greenish purple in color, much like burnished bronze; he was entirely without hair and seemed more like a massive statue of an oiled gladiator than a living being. His arms hung well below his knees; equipped with extra joints and terminating in hands the size of great baskets, they were superb instruments of slaughter. Leaf offered him the most agreeable smile he could find. Crown said, without smiling in return, “You better get back on the reins, Leaf. The road’s turning into one big swamp. The horses are uneasy. It’s a purple rain.”
Leaf had grown accustomed, in these nine days, to obeying Crown’s brusque orders. He started to obey now, letting go of Shadow and starting to rise. But then, abruptly, he arrived at the limits of his acceptance.
“My shift just ended,” he said.
Crown stared. “I know that. But Sting can’t handle the wagon in this mess. And I just killed a bunch of mean-looking spiders. There’ll be more if we stay around here much longer.”
“So?”
“What are you trying to do, Leaf?”
“I guess I don’t feel like going up front again so soon.”
“You think Shadow here can hold the reins in this storm?” Crown asked coldly.
Leaf stiffened. He saw the wrath gathering in Crown’s face. The big man was holding his natural violence in check with an effort; there would be trouble soon if Leaf remained defiant. This rebelliousness went against all of Leaf’s principles, yet he found himself persisting in it and even taking a wicked pleasure in it. He chose to risk the confrontation and discover how firm Crown intended to be. Boldly he said, “You might try holding the reins yourself, friend.”
“Leaf!” Shadow whispered, appalled.
Crown’s face became murderous. His dark shining cheeks puffed and went taut; his eyes blazed like molten nuggets; his hands closed and opened, closed and opened, furiously grasping air. “What kind of crazy stuff are you trying to give me? We have a contract, Leaf. Unless you’ve suddenly decided that a Pure Stream doesn’t need to abide by—”
“Spare me the class prejudice, Crown. I’m not pleading Pure Stream as an excuse to get out of working. I’m tired and I’ve earned my rest.”
Shadow said softly, “Nobody’s denying you your rest, Leaf. But Crown’s right that I can’t drive in a purple rain. I would if I could. And Sting can’t do it either. That leaves only you.”
“And Crown,” Leaf said obstinately.
“There’s only you,” Shadow murmured. It was like her to take no sides, to serve ever as a mediator. “Go on, Leaf. Before there’s real trouble. Making trouble like this isn’t your usual way.”
Leaf felt bound to pursue his present course, however perilous. He shook his head. “You, Crown. You drive.”
In a throttled voice Crown said, “You’re pushing me too far. We have a contract.”
All Leaf’s Pure Stream temperance was gone now. “Contract? I agreed to do my fair share of the driving, not to let myself be yanked up from my rest at a time when—”
Crown kicked at a low wickerwork stool, splitting it. His rage was boiling close to the surface. Swollen veins throbbed in his throat. He said, still controlling himself, “Get out there right now, Leaf, or by the Soul I’ll send you into the All-Is-One!”
“Beautiful, Crown. Kill me, if you feel you have to. Who’ll drive your damned wagon for you then?”
“I’ll worry about that then.”
Crown started forward, swallowing air, clenching fists.
Shadow sharply nudged Leaf’s ribs. “This is going beyond the point of reason,” she told him. He agreed. He had tested Crown and he had his answer, which was that Crown was unlikely to back down; now enough was enough, for Crown was capable of killing. The huge Dark Laker loomed over him, lifting his tremendous arms as though to bring them crashing against Leaf’s head. Leaf held up his hands, more a gesture of submission than of self-defense.
“Wait,” he said. “Stop it, Crown. I’ll drive.”
Crown’s arms descended anyway. Crown managed to halt the killing blow midway, losing his balance and lurching heavily against the
side of the wagon. Clumsily he straightened. Slowly he shook his head. In a low, menacing voice he said, “Don’t ever try something like this again, Leaf.”
“It’s the rain,” Shadow said. “The purple rain. Everybody does strange things in a purple rain.”
“Even so,” Crown said, dropping onto the pile of furs as Leaf got up. “The next time, Leaf, there’ll be bad trouble. Now go ahead. Get up front.”
Nodding to him, Leaf said, “Come up front with me, Shadow.”
She did not answer. A look of fear flickered across her face.
Crown said, “The driver drives alone. You know that, Leaf. Are you still testing me? If you’re testing me, say so and I’ll know how to deal with you.”
“I just want some company, as long as I have to do an extra shift.”
“Shadow stays here.”
There was a moment of silence. Shadow was trembling. “All right,” Leaf said finally. “Shadow stays here.”
“I’ll walk a little way toward the front with you,” Shadow said, glancing timidly at Crown. Crown scowled but said nothing. Leaf stepped out of the passenger castle; Shadow followed. Outside, in the narrow passageway leading to the midcabin, Leaf halted, shaken, shaking, and seized her. She pressed her slight body against him and they embraced, roughly, intensely. When he released her, she said, “Why did you try to cross him like that? It was such a strange thing for you to do, Leaf.”
“I just didn’t feel like taking the reins again so soon.”
“I know that.”
“I want to be with you.”
“You’ll be with me a little later,” she said. “It didn’t make sense for you to talk back to Crown. There wasn’t any choice. You had to drive.”
“Why?”
“You know. Sting couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it.”
“And Crown?”
She looked at him oddly. “Crown? How would Crown have taken the reins?”
From the passenger castle came Crown’s angry growl: “You going to stand there all day, Leaf? Go on! Get in here, Shadow!”
“I’m coming,” she called.
Leaf held her a moment. “Why not? Why couldn’t he have driven? He may be proud, but not so proud that—”
“Ask me another time,” Shadow said, pushing him away. “Go. Go. You have to drive. If we don’t move along we’ll have the spiders upon us.”
On the third day westward they had arrived at a village of Shapechangers. Much of the countryside through which they had been passing was deserted, although the Teeth had not yet visited it, but these Shapechangers went about their usual routines as if nothing had happened in the neighboring provinces. These were angular, long-legged people, sallow of skin, nearly green in hue, who were classed generally somewhere below the mid-castes, but above the underbreeds. Their gift was metamorphosis, a slow softening of the bones under voluntary control that could, in the course of a week, drastically alter the form of their bodies, but Leaf saw them doing none of that, except for a few children who seemed midway through strange transformations, one with ropy, seemingly boneless arms, one with grotesquely distended shoulders, one with stiltlike legs. The adults came close to the wagon, admiring its beauty with soft cooing sounds, and Crown went out to talk with them. “I’m on my way to raise an army,” he said. “I’ll be back in a month or two, leading my kinsmen out of the Flatlands. Will you fight in our ranks? Together we’ll drive out the Teeth and make the eastern provinces safe again.”
The Shapechangers laughed heartily. “How can anyone drive out the Teeth?” asked an old one with a greasy mop of blue-white hair. “It was the will of the Soul that they burst forth as conquerors, and no one can quarrel with the Soul. The Teeth will stay in these lands for a thousand thousand years.”
“They can be defeated!” Crown cried.
“They will destroy all that lies in their path, and no one can stop them.”
“If you feel that way, why don’t you flee?” Leaf asked.
“Oh, we have time. But we’ll be gone long before your return with your army.” There were giggles. “We’ll keep ourselves clear of the Teeth. We have our ways. We make our changes and we slip away.”
Crown persisted. “We can use you in our war against them. You have valuable gifts. If you won’t serve as soldiers, at least serve us as spies. We’ll send you into the camps of the Teeth, disguised as—”
“We will not be here,” the old Shapechanger said, “and no one will be able to find us,” and that was the end of it.
As the airwagon departed from the Shapechanger village, Shadow at the reins, Leaf said to Crown, “Do you really think you can defeat the Teeth?”
“I have to.”
“You heard the old Shapechanger. The coming of the Teeth was the will of the Soul. Can you hope to thwart that will?”
“A rainstorm is the will of the Soul also,” Crown said quietly. “All the same, I do what I can to keep myself dry. I’ve never known the Soul to be displeased by that.”
“It’s not the same. A rainstorm is a transaction between the sky and the land. We aren’t involved in it; if we want to cover our heads, it doesn’t alter what’s really taking place. But the invasion of the Teeth is a transaction between tribe and tribe, a reordering of social patterns. In the great scheme of things, Crown, it may be a necessary process, preordained to achieve certain ends beyond our understanding. All events are part of some larger whole, and everything balances out, everything compensates for something else. Now we have peace, and now it’s the time for invaders, do you see? If that’s so, it’s futile to resist.”
“The Teeth broke into the eastlands,” said Crown, “and they massacred thousands of Dark Lake people. My concern with necessary processes begins and ends with that fact. My tribe has nearly been wiped out. Yours is still safe, up by its ferny shores. I will seek help and gain revenge.”
“The Shapechangers laughed at you. Others will also. No one will want to fight the Teeth.”
“I have cousins in the Flatlands. If no one else will, they’ll mobilize themselves. They’ll want to repay the Teeth for their crime against the Dark Lakers.”
“Your western cousins may tell you, Crown, that they prefer to remain where they are safe. Why should they go east to die in the name of vengeance? Will vengeance, no matter how bloody, bring any of your kinsmen back to life?”
“They will fight,” Crown said.
“Prepare yourself for the possibility that they won’t.”
“If they refuse,” said Crown, “then I’ll go back east myself, and wage my war alone until I’m overwhelmed. But don’t fear for me, Leaf. I’m sure I’ll find plenty of willing recruits.”
“How stubborn you are, Crown. You have good reason to hate the Teeth, as do we all. But why let that hatred cost you your only life? Why not accept the disaster that has befallen us, and make a new life for yourself beyond the Middle River, and forget this dream of reversing the irreversible?”
“I have my task,” said Crown.
Forward through the wagon Leaf moved, going slowly, head down, shoulders hunched, feet atickle with the urge to kick things. He felt sour of spirit, curdled with dull resentment. He had let himself become angry at Crown, which was bad enough; but worse, he had let that anger possess and poison him. Not even the beauty of the wagon could lift him: ordinarily its superb construction and elegant furnishings gave him joy, the swirl-patterned fur hangings, the banners of gossamer textiles, the intricate carved inlays, the graceful strings of dried seeds and tassels that dangled from the vaulted ceilings, but these wonders meant nothing to him now. That was no way to be, he knew.
The airwagon was longer than ten men of the Pure Stream lying head to toe, and so wide that it spanned nearly the whole roadway. The finest workmanship had gone into its making: Flower Giver artisans, no doubt of it, only Flower Givers could build so well. Leaf imagined dozens of the fragile little folk toiling earnestly for months, all smiles and silence, long slender fingers and quick gleaming ey
es, shaping the great wagon as one might shape a poem. The main frame was of lengthy pale spars of light, resilient wingwood, elegantly laminated into broad curving strips with a colorless fragrant mucilage and bound with springy withes brought from the southern marshes. Over this elaborate armature tanned sheets of stickskin had been stretched and stitched into place with thick yellow fibers drawn from the stick-creatures’ own gristly bodies. The floor was of dark shining nightflower-wood planks, buffed to a high finish and pegged together with great skill. No metal had been employed in the construction of the wagon, nor any artificial substances: nature had supplied everything. Huge and majestic though the wagon was, it was airy and light, light enough to float on a vertical column of warm air generated by magnetic rotors whirling in its belly; so long as the earth turned, so would the rotors, and when the rotors were spinning, the wagon drifted cat-high above the ground, and could be tugged easily along by the team of nightmares.
It was more a mobile palace than a wagon, and wherever it went it stirred excitement: Crown’s love, Crown’s joy, Crown’s estate, a wondrous toy. To pay for the making of it Crown must have sent many souls into the All-Is-One, for that was how Crown had earned his livelihood in the old days, as a hired warrior, a surrogate killer, fighting one-on-one duels for rich eastern princelings too weak or too lazy to defend their own honor. He had never been scratched, and his fees had been high; but all that was ended now that the Teeth were loose in the eastlands.
Leaf could not bear to endure being so irritable any longer. He paused to adjust himself, closing his eyes and listening for the clear tone that sounded always at the center of his being. After a few minutes he found it, tuned himself to it, let it purify him. Crown’s unfairness ceased to matter. Leaf became once more his usual self, alert and outgoing, aware and responsive.