“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 eyes, shaping the great wagon as one might shape a poem. The main frame was of lengthy pale spears 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.
Smiling, whistling, he made his way swiftly through the wide, comfortable, brightly lit midcabin, decorated with Crown’s weapons and other grim souvenirs of battle, and went on into the front corridor that led to the driver’s cabin.
Sting sat slumped at the reins. White Crystal folk such as Sting generally seemed to throb and tick with energy; but Sting looked exhausted, emptied, half dead of fatigue. He was a small, sinewy being, narrow of shoulder and hip, with colorless skin of a waxy, horny texture, pocked everywhere with little hairy nodes and whorls. His muscles were long and flat; his face was cavernous, beaked nose and tiny chin, dark mischievous eyes hidden in bony recesses. Leaf touched his shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said. “Crown sent me to relieve you.” Sting nodded feebly but did not move. The little man was quivering like a frog. Leaf had always thought of him as indestructible, but in the grip of this despondency Sting seemed more fragile even than Shadow.
“Come,” Leaf murmured. “You have a few hours for resting. Shadow will look after you.”
Sting shrugged. He was hunched forward, staring dully through the clear curving window, stained now with splashes of muddy tinted water.
“The dirty spiders,” he said. His voice was hoarse and frayed. “The filthy rain. The mud. Look at the horses, Leaf. They’re dying of fright, and so am I. We’ll all perish on this road, Leaf, if not of spiders then of poisoned rain, if not of rain then of the Teeth, if not of the Teeth then of something else. There’s no road for us but this one, do you realize that? This is the road, and we’re bound to it like helpless underbreeds, and we’ll die on it.”
“We’ll die when our turn comes, like everything else, Sting, and not a moment before.”