"Aha," cried the doctor. "Another one! Or is it two? Who found them? Where were they?"
"Get up in the wagon," she said. "Get a good look at it."
The doctor climbed into the wagon and confronted the stone, examining it with curious eyes. There were lights within it, as there had been with the one he had seen before. He wondered if this one also hummed, and leaned his ear against it, listening. Those watching saw his body grow rigid, his face empty, his hands fall limply to his sides as he leaned against the stone, his face pressed tightly to it as it exploded into light.
"Aah," murmured Dismé.
"It could only be Galenor the Healer," said Arnole at her side. "These things happen at appropriate times, in appropriate places. Who else could it be, with all those bodies laid out?"
"Most of those are beyond Galenor's help," Dezmai said. "They can only be helped by Rankivian, Shadua, or Yun."
"If you're expecting other people, they may be coming up the road," said Bobly, from beside her knee. "We saw lanterns moving this way from up above."
Even when the stone had sparkled away to nothing, the doctor did not move from the place he had slumped. His contact with the stone had created no frantic energy as in Dismé's case. Instead it had plunged the doctor into profound concentration which allowed him no motion or speech, though he showed no sign of distress. After a time, Michael laid him flat in the wagon bed and covered him with a blanket. Then at Bobly's suggestion, he drove the wagon down the road and into a grassy cleft where the horses could be hobbled and left to graze. The doctor's wagon was brought to the same area, where Bobly, Bab, and Dismé laid a fire and began preparing a meal.
They were busy chopping onions when the people from down the road arrived, three of them, far taller than most people, very slender, with long, bony faces, each one clad in a tight bodysuit covered by a loose, metallic, sleeveless ankle-length garment that fell straight from the shoulders, one in white, one in gray, one in black. They stopped at the wagons first, their extreme height allowing them to lean half over the wagon bed to examine the doctor.
"Who is this, Dezmai?" asked the one in gray, glancing at Dismé. "He bears our sign."
"He is Doctor Jens Ladislav," said Dismé. "I think he's unconscious. Perhaps he is Galenor '
"Yes, this is Galenor the Healer, in whose charge is the battle against the ignorance and ills of mankind. His is the accomplishment of intelligence when he shall stand before the living and the dead to answer for the wisdom of his people."
The gray-clad one stood tall. "Forgive me. I am Rankivian who was Jon Todman of Secours. This is Shadua, once Ellin Loubait from Murgia, and Yun, who was Karm Lostig, from the Sierra Isles."
"Elnith has been expecting you," Dismé said. "She has a great many of her people around on the other side of the rock."
"Dead or alive?" asked Shadua, bending from her great height to look intently into Dismé's eyes.
"Dead ones. Live ones. Some who could be either."
The three went around the rock and across the stone to the place Nell stood, among the bodies. They laid their hands on her shoulders. She stiffened, seeming in the instant to grow larger and taller, and for a moment all four stood very still, as people do who are consulting one another on matters of critical importance. They moved down the line of bodies, Rankivian first, the others following.
At this body or that one, Rankivian stopped and touched the face or head, and at his touch a green flame sprang up and ran flickering across the supine forms.
The others had gathered at the edge of the great rock to watch what went on. "Ninety-one," murmured Arnole, who had been counting the ones Rankivian touched. He turned at a sound behind him to find that the doctor had joined them.
Jens stared at the figures moving among the sleeping and the dead, murmuring:
" 'Rankivian the Gray, of the Spirits, in whose charge are the souls of those imprisoned or held by black arts, and the souls of those who cling or delay, for his is the pattern of creation into which all patterns must go..."
When Rankivian had finished and moved to one side, the white-clad Guardian moved among the bodies, touching some of those Rankivian had touched as well as some of those he had ignored. From those touched, a small smoke arose, white as snow, and the bodies fell at once into dust. Body after body went into smoke.
"One hundred twenty," said Arnole.
Again the doctor spoke:
" 'Shadua of the Shroud, in whose keeping is the realm of death to which she may go and from which she may come as she pleases, for its keys are in her hands."
When Rankivian and Shadua had finished, Yun went among the bodies that were left, his black garments disclosing and revealing as he knelt to touch every person who was left upon the stone.
"Yun of the Shadow, by whose hand all those locked from life may be restored or safely kept until the keys may be found."
Where Yun walked, people began to stir, to sit up and move, to stare around themselves, as though in a dream.
"Seventy-six," said the doctor. "Seventy-six of them were alive."
"What was all that?" exclaimed Michael.
The doctor replied in a voice almost his own, "That monster, the one that followed us, is part of something larger, some kind of devil that's responsible for the Terrors. The Terrors have weakened their life force, sucked them into a halfway state between life and death. Rankivian released them from that stasis: some went one way, some the other. Shadua touched only the dead ones, unknitting them, raveling them, letting their patterns depart.
"When Shadua had finished, the remaining ones were alive, though some were lost in dream and refused to come out of it. Yun woke all of them. From the apparent youth of some of them, they may have waked seldom or never in the cavern."
Michael said, "There are more alive than Elnith thought!"
The doctor nodded. "Some of them carry wounds of the spirit, however, and I should see to those."
The doctor did not move, however, and Dismé turned to find him staring at her, into her face, at the sign on her brow. He touched his own forehead, then smiled his familiar smile, took her hand and touched her sign with his lips before moving off. She stared after him, puzzled. He was talking quietly with Nell, who shortly moved away from him to climb the high ridge where Arnole had spent part of the day.
People began to gather at the campfire, for the evening was growing chill. Around them was much coming and going, as wakened sleepers went below to find clothing and blankets, as those already dressed came back up into the world, as food stores were sent up from below for the hungry.
"Has anyone told Elnith about the thing that was following us?" Bobly asked no one in particular. "Seems like she should know, and those new three who just came."
"Elnith knows," said Dismé. "The others may not."
The three were approaching them now, with Raymond trailing behind. Bab and Arnole rolled several lengths of log near the fire, for sitting on.
Bobly demanded, "Someone tell them about the thing."
Arnole stirred the fire with a stick as he told the story of the three stones, his broken wagon, and his own awakening at the crossroads, concluding, "... Michael gave me Bertral's Book, and Dezmai chased off the monster. Not forever, though, according to her."
The doctor had returned to sit beside Dismé, taking her hand very gently in his own.
Shadua asked, "Does anyone know what all this is about?"
Rankivian said, "I feel that some great task awaits, but I know... nothing."
"Nor I," said Dismé. "Yun?"
"The same," said he. "Something momentous needing doing, but no idea what. Perhaps the doctor has a better idea of it."
The doctor nodded, saying very softly, so that they had to lean forward to hear him, "It has something to do with people who should be dead but are not. I thought at first it was just those of the cavern, the sleepers, because the freezing kept them alive, or parts of them alive year after year, century after century. Rankivian r
eleased them, however, and Shadua unknit them, but I still feel the pressure of regret..."
"The bottle walls," cried Dismé.
The doctor's face lighted with sudden comprehension, and he cast a quick glance over his shoulder and put his finger to his lips. "Quietly, Dismé. We may be watched. Or, we may be searched for in order to be watched. Let's speak softly."
"What are bottle walls?" asked Shadua.
The doctor stared at the fire for a long moment, as though he were having some internal discussion of the matter. Then he raised his head and said clearly, "According to the Dicta of Bastion, any cell from a person is equivalent to the person. This doctrine originated some decades before the Happening and was at first applied only to fertilized egg cells. Later, still before the Happening, it became possible to use complete cells to make clones. There were great religious and political arguments about it, all of which came to an end with the Happening.
"However, during and after the Happening, those who had held the belief concerning egg cells decided that the doctrine logically had to include any living cell at all. If a single cell of a person was kept alive, that person was said to be alive. One would have thought that the survivors had more urgent things to think about, particularly inasmuch as the technology necessary for cloning was no longer available. The Spared, however, made the doctrine part of their Dicta.
"At first they froze bits of the dead or dying in glaciers, in ice walls. Then, taking advantage of their beliefs, the demons showed them how to build bottle walls with nutrient pumps and traded them the technology in return for a non-aggression treaty. For centuries, every person in Bastion has been bottled either after he dies or immediately before he is disposed of, unless, that is, he disappears, leaving no living cells behind.
"This allows the Regime to bottle anyone they please and dispose of the actual person. The Dicta say that the person is present in the bottle, and when the world ends, the Rebel Angels will re-embody the person from the cell."
"But the ouphs come," cried Dezmai. "Weeping for their lives that are gone and their rest that has been taken from them!" Her voice was like wind, surging through their senses in a great gust, then gone.
The doctor said, "Dismé! Quietly."
"It wasn't me," she whispered. "I can't control her."
After a moment's silence, Rankivian asked, "What are ouphs?"
After waiting, to be sure Dezmai wasn't coming back, Dismé said, "The unquiet spirits of those in the wall. They come singly or in a mass, like fog or a bank of mist. They slide along the walls where their patterns are kept. I have heard them grieving endlessly for life that is not lived, for a return that is withheld. They can neither live nor rest."
Rankivian nodded. "Yes, they would grieve. Their patterns are being imprisoned rather than released into the great pattern. All life is in the great pattern. Each microbe has its tiny spiral, each sparrow its arc of flight, no matter whether the life is self-aware or not. The pattern is generated by the universe along the time front, emerging ever richer and more ramified. For the aware, to feel oneself part of the pattern is heaven. For the unaware, it is the totality of being. For the unaware, to be withheld from the great pattern is sadness; for the aware, it is hell."
"The ouphs play at being people," said Dismé, softly, looking over her shoulder, as the doctor had.
Shadua whispered, "Can that happen?"
Arnole spoke, also quietly. "As a young man, when I was a menial who cleaned the offices in the fortress at Bastion, I lived in cheap lodging behind the Fortress. I often saw ouphs there, frequenting abandoned neighborhoods where they slid along vacant sidewalks arm-in-arm. There was a dilapidated theater where the ouphs queued up or sat within, as though witnessing performances. They held tea parties in abandoned houses where they sat in ramshackle chairs beside broken tables to pour invisible tea..."
"Why?" Dismé asked. "What were they doing?"
"I don't know, No one saw them but myself. I learned not to speak of them, for doing so drew too much attention to me. I couldn't risk being thought a madman, for crazies are bottled as soon as symptoms present themselves. Instead of reporting them, I followed them and watched them. Their forays always ended in one of two ways. Suddenly, the event would be over and they would slide off in different directions, like leaves scudding on a pond. Or, sometimes, they would be drawn into a kind of vortex, as though sucked up by some unimaginable force."
"I've seen that," cried Dismé. "They scream as they go, thin voices like the blades of knives, as though something were eating them!"
"Ah," said Shadua. "I see! They repeat little plays they were accustomed to. They go here and there. They play at eating or drinking. Their patterns remember that much, and those with similar patterns gather together because it feels companionable."
"Is the memory in the cells?" demanded the doctor in an astonished tone.
"Is the wine in the empty bottle?" asked Yun. "No, but the bottle still smells of the wine. And if Dezmai and Bertral both saw them, then perhaps all of us who were destined to be Guardians could have seen them, if we had looked..."
He fell silent, for Nell had run into their midst, her eyes wild. "Dismé," she cried. "Come with me, now. You were right, doctor. Something dreadful, dreadful..." And seizing Dismé by the hand, she drew her away toward the height.
"What happened?" whispered Yun.
The doctor answered, also in a whisper. "I told Nell about the mutilated people we've been finding in Hold. I told her what I had inferred from the evidence, that pain is what empowers whoever is behind all this butchery. With that to look for, Elnith must have heard something, or sensed something, however she does it. It's a power only she has. Now Nell's going back up on the hill because she can ... receive the information better from up there..."
"Why did she take Dismé?" demanded Michael, who had been listening to all their discussion from among the shadows.
"Dismé has a dobsi," said Arnole. "It is likely Elnith needs her to send a message."
Inside the shieldwall of Hold, near the road that runs northeast to Praise, a room was set aside for demon business, a place where the dead and nearly dead were put to await their bottling. There, on sixday morning, the triage demon came to a particular body which she listed among the recently dead, those who could still have flesh taken for bottling. As she wrote, however, something about the choice troubled her, and she paused, staring at the lax form for some time.
"This one isn't dead," she said.
"It isn't breathing," muttered one of her colleagues.
"Well, it really is breathing, though you can barely detect it. Plus, there's healing going on. See the cut on the face. See there, at the edges. That's new flesh."
The other made a face. "I wouldn't want to be alive, like that. Chasm knows what was done to it."
"You're right. Chasm might know. I think we'll send the body there."
"You're out of your mind. Chasm will have a fit!"
"No they won't. They particularly want to see victims like this. They collect them. There've been many of these cases lately, and Chasm wants to know why. Maybe this person knows."
"Her tongue is gone, she can't speak. Her hands are gone, she can't write."
"Chasm has machines that can read Dantisfan emissions as though they were print. Call for pick up, pack it up, and get it on the road."
Shrugging, the other complied. When they left the room to go out into the air, bottles clinking as they headed for the bottle wall and the forest, the person's body was among some other living persons, hidden beneath straw mats in the wagon. As they approached the bottle wall, none of the demons noticed the fog of ouphs that descended upon them, nor did they feel the presence of a subservient entity who was searching the vicinity for what remained of a sacrifice.
42
the ogre's army
At the pass where the army of Bastion was camped, the supply wagons arrived toward midafternoon. They were met with considerable eagerness by the men, tho
ugh any eagerness the officers might have felt was diluted by their suspicion that either the general's visitation had been fictional or his interpretation of that visitation had been faulty. The bishop's belligerence was coming off the simmer into a full boil when the general came from his tent and summoned them with a gesture.
"They'll come tonight," he said crisply, when the bishop, the commander, and a group of others had arrived. "I should have remembered: the angel of fire always comes in the dark. We marched all night, so of course we couldn't have gone to battle immediately. We should be ready to march at sundown. The Quellers will arrive then. They fight in the dark."
With the pronouncement, he returned to his tent, leaving the others to look at one another with slightly raised eyebrows but without comment. If any part of their current situation made sense, then what the general had just said also made sense. Several of them huddled together to discuss the matter only to be interrupted by an outrider who pulled his horse to a stop nearby, dismounted and came running toward the commander.
"What?" barked Rascan.
"There's a peak up there to the north, sir. Goes up well above timber-line and gives a good view of the country in all directions. There's people leaving Bastion, or at least leaving from the direction of Bastion, though they might have been forest dwellers up in the hills who saw our march and decided to get out of the area."
"How many," demanded the bishop.
"Hard to say, sir. We only see them when they cross open ground, and there's not a lot of open ground up this way. I shouldn't think enough to worry about. As I say, probably just farmers from up there, decided to get out of the way of any battle that might take place."
"Then why didn't they go into Bastion instead of away from it?" demanded the bishop.
Wisely, the outrider offered no interpretation.
Rascan said, "Keep your eyes open. Let us know if anything changes."
The outrider went back to his horse and left the area at a trot, passing a sizeable number of demons and rebels who had been alerted by Jens Ladislav and had been hidden in the forest before the army arrived. Some were mountain people, unencumbered by baggage and able to move very quickly. The demons among them could hear and speak at a distance, and all of them were assigned to follow the army, to overhear its plans, and to carry that information forward while the rebels spread out to inform any farm or hamlet close enough to be in danger.