“No Birders, then,” he said. “I wonder what religion the people had to come uncomplaining into this depth.”
“Follow the leader, I should think,” said Roges. “The man who built Waterlight was named Mirtylon. From the tone of the stories we read, the people followed him and him alone.”
“Always a mistake,” said Mercald. “To follow men instead of the Boundless.”
“On the other hand,” remarked Beedie, “if you’re following a man, he can at least tell you what he really expects you to do. Sometimes it seems to me the Boundless is a little vague.”
Mavin was examining the end of the severed mainroots, noticing that they did not appear to have been chopped through or sawn. The ends were blunted, as though melted.
She shivered. “Down,” she said. “We’re spending too much time in chitchat. This was the level of the qty; now we’ll find out where it went.”
Though Beedie had expected the stair to end at the site of the ancient bridgetown, it went on down, doubling back on itself onto a new root system. They clambered around the turn, carrying the lantern fish which seemed to attract other, living ones, so that they continued to walk with a growing tail of lighted globes.
“Electron transport,” said the Thinker suddenly, almost yelling. “Hydrogen segregation through cytochromes.”
“What are you saying now?” asked Mercald in a kindly tone. “What is it, Thinker?”
“That’s how they float. Hydrogen. They crack it out of water, using heme or hemelike proteins ... remarkable.” He did a little jig on the stairs, scratching himself as he sought his little notebook among his rags. “We could test it, of course. Try lighting one of them. It should go up in a puff of flame.”
“Difficulty to light a flame down here, Thinker. Have you noticed how damp you are? How damp everything is?”
He had tried to separate the pages of his notebook which sogged into a kind of pulp in his hands, and he merely looked at her with an annoyed expression. Beedie felt the increasing weight of her hair, the knot on her neck as waterlogged as it was possible to be. Also, the air had grown warmer during the past hours so that they seemed to move through a thin soup, almost as much liquid as gas. “I’ve been in fogs as thick as this before,” said Mavin, as though talking to herself. “But not many. I hope we’re nearly down, for if it gets any thicker, we’ll be swimming.”
She stopped, amazed, for the light of the fishes showed a net reaching out from the stair in every direction, as far as she could see on every side. Fish swam up and down through the meshes, some large, some small, and below the net they gathered by the thousands. The stair burrowed through the net, and they followed it down, silent, wondering, one man height, two, three, four. Then Mavin stepped off the root onto stone, the others crowding after. “Shhh,” she said. “Listen. Water running.”
The sound seemed to come from all around them, a light splashing, babbling sound, an occasional whoosh of air, a chuckle as of streams over stone. “The fish are all above us now,” said Beedie. “None below us. We must be at the Bottom.” At that moment her feet struck solid stone.
“Look up,” said Roges. “Noonglow.” There, so far above them that it did not seem they could have come from that height, was the narrow ribbon of green, light which meant noonglow, a mere finger’s width shining through the fish-spangled gloom. “Bottommost is only a day and a half from the Bottom. I thought it was much farther than that.”
“No one has tried to find out for a very long time,” said Beedie. “Because everyone believes it is dangerous. I told you that, Mavin.”
“Indeed you did, root dangler. I haven’t forgotten. But I r emember also that you did not tell me why it is dangerous, or for w hom. So—let us go carefully, watchfully.”
“And well prepared,” said Roges, taking his knife from his belt. “I thank the Boundless we have sure footing beneath us if danger comes.”
“I, too,” murmured Mercald. “I thank the Boundless for having seen such wonders. What must we do next?”
“The promise I made to Rootweaver, priest, was that we would put an end to whatever it is that eats the roots of the towns. So much; no less, no more. In return for which she keeps Handbright safe, awaiting our return, Well, we know it is the gray oozers which eat the roots. I have seen none of them on the root wall below Bottommost. So—I presume we must search.” She had been speaking moderately loudly, loudly enough to attract a circle of curious fish, loudly enough that they were not really surprised to hear a voice answering her from outside their circle ...
It was a breathy voice, the kind of voice a forge bellows might have, full of puffing and excess wind. “You need ... not search ... far ... travelers.” The word was stretched and breathed, “traaahvehlehhhrs.”
They turned as one, peering into the shadowy light, seeing n othing at first, locating the speaker only when it spoke again.
“What are ... you looking ... for ... travelers? Is it... only ... the bad beasts ... of the ... Bottomlands?” Bhaaahtahmlahhhnd.
Even Mavin, more experienced than the others in the variety o f which the world was capable, shivered a little at this voice. There w as something ominous in it, though the robed figure which stood i n the shadows of the root wall did not menace them in any way.
It merely stood, occasionally illuminated by a passing fish, its hood hiding its face. Mavin shivered again. “We do indeed, stranger. We seek certain beasts, if they are gray, and huge, and eat the roots on which the bridgetowns depend. And we are greatly surprised to find any ... any person here in the Bottomlands, for we believed them occupied only by creatures ...”
“Ahhhh. But ... you knew ... of Watertight.”Whaaaahtehr laihhht. “Is it believed ...” —puff, puff—“that ... those on ... Watertight ... perished?”
Beedie started to say something, but Mavin clutched her tightly by the shoulder, bidding her be silent. “Nothing is known of Watertight, stranger. Nothing save old stories.”
“Do the ... stories ... speak of ... Mirtylon?”
“They do, yes,” said Roges.
“I am ... Mirtylon,” Aihh ahhm Muhhhrtihlohhn... said the figure, moving a little out of the shadow toward them, stopping as they took an involuntary step back, away from it. It was robed from head to toe in loose folds of flattree leaf; a veil of the same material covered its face; its hands were hidden in the full sleeves. It regarded them now through mere slits in the face covering, a vaguely manhigh thing, but with only a line of shoulder and head gleaming in the fish light to say that it had anything resembling manshape.
“Ah,” said Mavin. “Watertight has not been heard of for some hundreds of years. If you are indeed Mirtylon, then you have lived a long time, stranger.”
“The ... Bottomlands are ... healthful. Things ... live very ... long here.”
“Enzymes,” murmured the theoretician, patting his pockets in search of the notebook which had turned to moist pulp. “Cell regeneration ...”
“We desire ... to welcome ... you ... properly,” the form went on. “Our ... village is ... only a ... little distance ... toward the wind ...”
“One moment,” said Mavin. “Let us confer for a time.” She drew them into a huddle, watching the robed thing over Roges’ shoulder. “There is something here I do not like,” she muttered. “And I do not want all of us in one heap, like jacks to be picked up on the bounce—Aha, you play that game, do you? Well, I am not about to have it played upon us.
“Beedie, I want you and Roges to go back up the stairs, quick and hard. Keep going until you’re above where Watertight used to be. Keep going until the air is dry enough to get a fire going, then build a deadroot fire on the hearth and keep it burning until you hear from me. Don’t let it go out. If anyone comes from above, it will be Slysaw. Hide yourself and the fire as best you can and let him come down. If anything comes at you from below, use torches. Do not seem surprised at anything I say, and do ... not ... argue with me!” This last was at the rebellious expression on Beedie’s face. “I would send Mercald if I thought he could make the climb fast enough. He can’t. The Thinker would forget what he was told to do in theorizing about something else. I have no choice. Our lives may depend upon having someone up there who can go for help if we need it, so get going.”
Still resentful, Beedie turned toward the stairs, Roges close behind.
“Surely ... you will not... go so soon,” puffed the stranger. “We would ... show ... our ... hospital ... ity.”
“We have others waiting for us a little way up the stairs,” called Mavin, urging Beedie and Roges upward. “I’m sending the young ones to bring them down. Can you have someone meet the party here when they return?”
There was a doubtful pause, almost as though the figure engaged itself in conversation, for the figure poised, bent, poised again in a way that had a questioning, answering feeling about it. Then at last the breathy voice answered, “We will ... meet them. Now ... we will ... go to our ... village.”
Without looking back, the figure moved along the chasm floor, winding its way between rocks and huge, buttress roots which emerged from the root wall like partitions, ponderous in their height, thickly furred with hair. Mavin looked up at the net spread above them, seemingly stretching from wall to wall of the chasm, from which more root hairs dropped into the rocky soil to make fringed walls along the path on either side.
“Protection,” the Thinker muttered. “To protect them from stuff falling off the rim and from the bridgetowns. I would imagine the nets cover the entire area they occupy. And the net is living, of course, because of all these root hairs hanging down, which must mean that they cut these paths through it. No. No. Ah. Look,” and he pulled one of the fringing root hairs up before Mavin’s face.
“Not cut. Rounded. As though it just stopped growing. Hmm. Now, what would make it do that ...”
Mavin did not answer. She was too busy considering that Mirtylon, seemingly so eager to offer hospitality, had not turned to see whether they followed. She looked behind her, seeking Mercald’s face, pale as a fish belly. “Are you all right?”
“No,” he whispered. “My heart is pounding. I smell something strange. It makes me sweat and shiver.”
“Pheromones,” said the Thinker.”Something exuded by a living thing to attract mates or warn predators away. Perhaps exuded voluntarily by some kind of water dweller ...”
“Perhaps involuntarily,” murmured Mavin. “By something that calls itself Mirtylon.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
As they walked through the fibrous hallways of the Bottom following the robed stranger, Mavin felt all her senses begin to quiver and extend. Unseen by Mercald or the Thinker, she sharpened her eyes, enlarging them and moving them outward so that she could have a wider range of vision to the sides. What light there was was not much diminished by the netted roof they walked beneath for lantern fish swarmed through the whiskery jungle, casting pale circles of cold light.
Just above and slightly to her left, Mavin saw a hardedged diamond shape upon the net, a thing of some weight, making the net sag beneath it. One of the rare amber fish nosed at the shape from above, and in that sunny glow she caught a glimpse of bright colour, knowing it at once for what it was—the bright feather upon the cap of the young man whose body she had seen two days before, slowly circling upon its kite into the depths. The hallway led beneath it, and when she was almost below, she looked upward, quickly, to see the cap, the kite, the wrappings of white. There was no sign of the body which had been wrapped and decked in the clothes. She made no comment, merely trudged on, keeping close watch on the figure before her.
The sound of water grew louder, a bubbling and boiling with plopping heavings in it as of seething mud. They set foot upon a wooden bridge which led across this noise, through rising clouds of hot mist and the hiss of escaping steam. The bridge was made of short lengths of root, tied with bits of root hair to long, horizontal beams. The robes of the person before her moved in the rising steam without flapping loose, evidently being fastened at the ankle so that no surface of the body could be exposed. Mavin thinned her lips and marched on. Behind her the Thinker muttered once more about tectonics, rift valleys, plate separation. She had no idea what he w as talking about, but naive intuition told her that the chasm Bottom burrowed near the great, hot heart of the world and was heated thereby. She needed no theorist’s language to tell her that. Her own nose told her, full as it was of sulphurous, ashy stenches and the acrid smell of hot metal.
“We must ... come to ... shelter before the ... winds begin,” puffed their guide. “Else we ... will be crushed.”
“Crushed?” wondered Mavin. Certainly the winds were strong, but they had not been of crushing strength. What kind of creature might be crushed by such winds? She checked the two who followed, seeing them trudging along behind her, the one with his eyes fixed firmly upon his boots, the other staring placidly at everything he could see, muttering the while as though he stored away a million facts for later consideration. They had been walking for some time in a winding path that would have confused anyone other than Mavin. She had opened an additional eye in the top of her head and kept it fixed upon the green sky at the chasm top. Though they had walked a considerable distance, they had not come far from the stair. She estimated the distance Beedie and Roges might have climbed. They should be halfway back to the broken roots of Watertight by now. Keeping her eye fixed on their direction, she went on.
At a conjunction of the hairy hallways they found two other robed strangers waiting. One was silent. The other spoke in a manner no less breathy than the first, but with an unmistakably feminine voice, “We greet you ... travelers. My name … is Lovewings.”
Something tugged at Mavin’s memory, an insistent, nagging thought which she could not take hold of. “It seems our arrival is not a surprise.”
“You were ... seen on the ... Shattered Stair. No one has ... climbed that ... stair for ... a long time. The one who ... saw you was ... surprised. When we thought ... about it ... we knew it ... must happen sometime. Sometime ... bridge people must ... come down.” This short speech took an interminable, windy time. It appeared to have exhausted the speaker, and Mavin wondered if they ever spoke to one another in this watery depth or whether they communicated in some other fashion. Certainly their voices seemed unaccustomed to regular use.