Responsible began by making it very clear to the Mule what she was prepared to tolerate.
“Sterling,” she said, leaning over the front gate of the stall, “you give me one of those headaches you’re so good at passing around, I’ll give you one with a two-by-four. I hope that’s clear?”
The Mule rolled her eyes and flattened her ears, but it was no more than a ritual response, the same way the two-by-four was a ritual challenge. Sterling was breathing as easy as stirring thin soup-an angry Mule huffed and went on till you could hear it a hundred feet off.
“I won’t have it,” Responsible warned. “I mean that. I’ll potion your oats and do an Insertion Transformation that’ll mean things you never dreamed of in your tail; you hear me?”
The ears came up, and Sterling made a gentle whuffing noise
“All right, then,” said Responsible, and unlatched the stall. She went inside and went over to the Mule, and laid her face for a second-all any Mule would tolerate of such stuff-against its neck. And then she leaned back against the stable wall, noting it needed a new coat of whitewash, and waited.
THE OUT-CABAL CALLS YOU.
“Drat you, Sterling!” Responsible clapped her hands to her head. “What did I tell you? Gently, you ornery creature, gentlyl Human minds are not suited for that blasting away you do--mindspeech, we use! Not mindbraying!”
The Mule whuffled again, and thrashed its tail.
MY APOLOGIES, DAUGHTER OF BRIGHTWATER.
That was better, though not yet exactly pleasant. Responsible nodded her approval, and dropped her hands.
“Go on, then,” she said. “And mind you don’t forget.”
THE OUT-CABAL HAS ASKED ME TO PASS ALONG A MESSAGE TO YOU, AND WHILE I DON’T LIKE THEM, NEVER HAVE AND NEVER WILL, I HAVE A CERTAIN REGARD FOR YOU, DAUGHTER OF BRIGHTWATER. THEREFORE I WILL TELL YOU WHAT THEY SAY.
“And tell them what I say in return,” Responsible reminded her.
IT WOULD BE A WASTE OF MY TIME, OTHERWISE.
“All right, then . . . What do they want this time?”
The first time, she had been only ten years old, and she’d been scared half out of her wits. Like the Grannys and the Magicians, she had known the Mules were telepathic, but along with that knowledge went a stomach-twisting familiarity with the stories of what had happened to various foolish humans that had tried to take advantage of that fact. The Mules out-Ozarked the Ozarkers; they kept themselves to themselves, and they intended that everybody else should do likewise. When Sterling first mindspoke her, Responsible had waited, holding her breath, for her brain to be battered at and bounced around her bead like a child’s play ball. It hadn’t been that bad, but it hadn’t been any fun, either; the only good thing about that first time had been that it hadn’t taken very long.
They were the Out-Cabal, they wanted her to know; they represented a group of planets called the Garnet Ring; their resources of magic were sufficient to simply remove Ozark from the sky like blowing out a candle, if they so chose-under certain conditions established by their laws, which it happened had not yet been met, lucky Ozark-and they were merely setting up relations.
The second time, three years ago, they’d directed her to call all the Magicians of Rank together at the Castle and put them through their paces. They’d wanted an idea of what, precisely, the abilities of “the current crop” were. And Responsible had gone outraged to Granny Hazelbide, and been told in no uncertain terms how to proceed. “You get those men here,” the Granny’d said, “and you lose no time. No time!” She’d done it; and she’d lain near dying for eleven days afterward from the effects of their hatred. The Magicians of Rank didn’t take kindly to a twelveyear-old girl in pigtails being able to call them in and set them to doing Formalisms & Transformations like you’d show off a fancy Mule team at a fair-and they took even less kindly to not knowing why they were unable to refuse her, or why they were unable to speak of it afterward. Nine Magicians of Rank, all concentrating their hatred on her over the course of the long day the OutCabal had requested . . . Remembering, Responsible shivered. She wanted no repetition of that pain, beside which the pain of deathdance fever was no more than a needleprick to a careless finger.
THEY PUT YOU ON NOTICE, said Sterling, THAT THIS PLANET IS NOW UNDER THEIR FULL SURVEILLANCE.
“It has always been under their surveillance, so far as I know.”
FROM TIME TO TIME, SINCE YOUR PEOPLE CAME TO THIS LAND, THEY HAVE CHOSEN TO WATCH YOUR BEHAVIOR AND YOUR DEVELOPMENT. NOW, IT WILL NOT BE FROM TIME TO TIME. IT WILL BE AT ALL TIMES.
“Why? What makes us so much more interesting all of a sudden?”
YOU ARE A PLANET RULED BY THE LAWS OF MAGIC, NOT THE LAWS OF SCIENCE; THUS, YOU FALL WITHIN THEIR INFLUENCE.
“That has always been so,” said Responsible stubbornly.
BUT OTHER THINGS HAVE CHANGED. UNDER ONLY TWO CONDITIONS DO THE LAWS OF THE GARNET RING ALLOW THE OUT-CABAL TO INTERFERE IN THE AFFAIRS OF A MAGIC-BOUND PLANET: WHEN THERE IS A PLANETARY CATASTROPHE, SUCH AS FAMINE OR PLAGUE OR WAR, THAT THREATENS TO DESTROY ALL THE POPULATION
“I know the laws!”
DO NOT INTERRUPT ME, DAUGHTER OF BRIGHTWATER!
Stars danced before her eyes, but she knew she deserved it. “Sorry,” she said. “Beg your pardon, Sterling.”
AND THE OTHER IS: WHEN THE PLANET IS IN A STATE OF ANARCHY. THAT IS TO SAY, WHEN HUMANS HAVE THE GOOD SENSE TO RUN THEIR AFFAIRS AS MULES DO. I FIND THIS SECOND CONDITION FOOLISH. Responsible didn’t doubt that for a moment.
“There are differences between humans and Mules,” she said.
Sterling’s silence was both eloquent and insolent, and Responsible longed to pull her braided tail.
PLEASE TELL THEM, she said instead, switching to mindspeech herself for discretion’s sake, though she’d set wards before she came in, PLEASE TELL THEM THAT WE FACE NO PLANETARY CATASTROPHE. WE ARE WELL FED, WE ARE IN FULL HEALTH, AND WE ARE NOT AT WAR NOR HAVE WE EVER BEEN.
There was a moment’s silence; then, I HAVE TOLD THEM, said Sterling.
AND TELL THEM, STERLING, ESTIMABLE MULE, THAT WE ARE NOT IN A STATE OF ANARCHY.
After the pause, the Mule stamped a front foot for emphasis.
THEY SAY THAT DOES NOT APPEAR TO THEM TO BE FULLY ACCURATE.
IT IS, said Responsible, A MATTER OF DEFINITION.
THEY DEFINE ANARCHY, the Mule responded, AS AN ABSENCE OF GOVERNMENT. YOUR GOVERNMENT WAS THE CONFEDERATION OF CONTINENTS, WHICH HAS NOW FALLEN. THEREFORE, THEY SAY, YOU ARE WITHOUT A GOVERNMENT.
THEY ARE IN ERROR, said Responsible. WE ARE NOT WITHOUT GOVERNMENT ... UNFORTUNATELY, WE HAVE AN EXCESS OF GOVERNMENT.
The pause was longer than usual.
THEY WOULD LIKE AN EXPLANATION, said the Mule finally.
PLEASE TELL THEM: WE HAD ONE GOVERNMENT, THE CONFEDERATION OF CONTINENTS. THAT HAS BEEN DISSOLVED, LEGALLY AND BY DUE PROCESS. AND NOW THAT IT NO LONGER EXISTS, WE HAVE TWELVE GOVERNMENTS, EACH SEPARATE AND SOVEREIGN. WE ARE TWELVE TIMES AS GOVERNED A5 WE WERE BEFORE THE CONFEDERATION FELL. PLEASE TELL THEM THAT, STERLING, EXACTLY AS I HAVE STATED IT.
She waited, then. A Mule in the next stall brayed in what she would have taken for sympathy in any creature except a Mule. Mules did not sympathize.
THE OUT-CABAL SAYS THAT THAT IS ONE POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION OF THE PRESENT SITUATION.
IT IS THE ONLY POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION!
THEY DISAGREE, DAUGHTER OF BRIGHTWATER. I TOLD YOU ... I WILL TELL YOU AGAIN: THEY SAY IT IS ONE POSSIBLE WAY OF LOOKING AT THE MATTER.
AND?
AND WHAT?
AND WHAT ELSE? WHAT ELSE DO THEY SAY, STERLING? ARE THEY MOVING AGAINST US IN THE MORNING, DO WE HAVE THREE DAYS TO PREPARE, ARE WE ABOUT TO BE TURNED INTO A SMALL DENSE CUBE? WHAT WILL THEY DO NOW-WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN?
PLEASE BE STILL. I AM LISTENING.
BEG YOUR PARDON, said Responsible again.
DAUGHTER OF BRIGHTWATER, THEY SAY THAT YOU ARE NOW UNDER THEIR CONSTANT OBSERVATION. THAT IS HOW THIS BEGAN; I AM NOT IMPRESSED.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN? WILL THEY TELL YOU?
IT MEANS THAT THEY ARE WILLING TO CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY YOU SUGGEST, BUT THAT ONLY BY WATCHING ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT, EVERY DAY AND EVERY NIGHT, CAN THEY DETERMINE WHETHER YOU ARE RIGHT OR WRONG. THEY HAVE NO RESPECT FOR PRIVACY, THAT IS OBVIOUS.
THEY WILL SEE TWELVE ORDERLY GOVERNMENTS, GOING ABOUT THEIR AFFAIRS. TELL THEM THAT. TELL THEM THEY CAN WATCH TILL THEY FALL OUT OF THE SKY, BUT THEY WILL SEE NO FAMINE, NO PLAGUE, NO WAR, AND NO ANARCHY. TELL THEM THEY HAVE MY WORD ON THAT.
DAUGHTER OR BRIGHTWATER, I APOLOGIZE ... THEY ONLY REPEAT THEMSELVES. THEY SAY THEY WILL BE WATCHING. AND THAT IS ALL THEY SAY. THEY HAVE NOTHING TO ADD.
Responsible braced herself; the Out-Cabal liked to end their conversations with a little exhibition of the potency of their arcane skills, and there was no predicting what form it might take.
ALTHOUGH THEY HAVE SAID THEY HAVE NOTHING TO ADD, Sterling said disgustedly, THEY HAVE ADDED SOMETHING.
YES?
THEY SAY NOT TO WAIT-NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN. THEY SAY THAT THEY ARE NEITHER CRUEL NOR UNREASONABLE AND THAT YOU ALREADY HAVE TROUBLE ENOUGH ON YOUR HANDS. THEY SAY THEY FEEL NO NEED TO ADD TO THAT.
She refused to thank them; she closed her mind firmly so to indicate. But she was nevertheless grateful. Once it had been a whirling column of lightning that had chased her all around the stable; the second time it had been towers of flame ringing her in, burning up just to the distance where the heat began to be torture, burning just long enough to cause her genuine fear, and then flickering out and leaving no mark behind. Not a charred spot, not a singed stalk of grain. Only the stinging of her skin and the heat of her clothing. If they felt obliged to be more spectacular each time, she couldn’t bring herself to look forward to it. Not that either of their displays so far had been anything she couldn’t of done herself. It was the things she’d heard they could do, and not knowing what to expect, nor how far they’d go, that made it uncomfortable.
She marched back to the Castle, getting angrier with every step she took-she was halfway there before she remembered the wards, and had to go back and take them off-and went to find Granny Hazelbide.
Who had, she discovered, acquired a partner.
“Hello there, Granny Gableframe!” she said, almost surprised out of her mad. It wasn’t like Grannys to go visiting; they didn’t have time.
“Evening, Responsible,” said the Granny.
“Granny Gableframe,” explained Granny Hazelbide, “is asking for our hospitality.”
“Only for a little while, mind,” put in the other. “I’ve been Granny-in-Residence at Castle Smith now over thirty-law! over forty-years, and it’s been nothing but outlandish misery the wholetime. What I fancy now is a little house in a near village, if you can spare one, where I can granny for decent folk for a change, instead of that pack of . . . unspeakables . . . at Castle Smith. Seems to me Granny Hazelbide needs no help here.”
“You’re welcome ten times over, Granny Gableframe,” said Responsible. “And as for your settling, that’ll be no problem. There’s no such thing as too many Grannys in a Kingdom. I’ll send the word around, and we’ll have the Magician take you to see the towns that apply for your services, and let you choose at your leisure.
“In the meantime,” said Granny Hazelbide, “I’ve told her we can use her here-if she can abide our plain ways, that is. We’re a tad short on scepters and crowns and suchlike.”
“You’ve a wicked tongue and a cold heart, Hazelbide,” said Granny Gableframe, “and you’ll live to regret it.”
Granny Hazelbide chuckled, and patted her friend’s knee, and then turned serious.
“They’ll quiz you to a nub, come breakfast time,” she warned. “Thorn of Guthrie will want every last smidgen, every last detail, and those two boys of Ruth’s are more curious than’s healthy . . . and Jonathan Cardwell Brightwater is worse for gossip than seven old ladies not fit to granny. You want to keep to your room and put all that off awhile?”
Granny Gableframe hummphed; and then did it louder.
“No-sir,” she said, tart enough to pucker metal. “I have no intentions whatsoever, just no intentions, of furnishing that lot with the tale they’re after. Here I am, and that’s the end of it, and if they won’t have me on that basis they can throw me a pallet in the stables with my Mule. I’ll not discuss it, I put you on notice here and now. And you needn’t go to any effort to prepare them for it, ladies, for I’m fully capable of telling them where to take their nosy questions when the time comes. Just leave it to this old Granny, thank you kindly.”
“You sure?”
“Sure as sure, Responsible,” declared the old lady. “It’ll be a day to remember when I can’t manage a few Brightwaters with their mouths flapping.”
“Fair enough,” said Responsible, “and I’ll enjoy the spectacle. Now has anybody seen to your rooms?”
“Sent a servingmaid to do that, it’ll be half an hour ago now,” said Granny Hazelbide. “There’s an empty room two doors down from me, looking out over the meadow and the creek, and has its own bath and a nice little old fireplace in a corner. Just the thing. It’ll be ready whenever Gableframe cares to go up there.”
“All taken care of, are you?”
“That I am,” said the Granny, “or do seem to be. Depends of course on how clear Hazelbide’s instructions were, and whether she fancied a mudtoad or two under my pillow as a welcoming gesture.”
Responsible smiled; they were going to enjoy themselves, those two, and perhaps with a little time to recover from whatever outrage Lincoln Parradyne Smith had perpetrated on her, Granny Gableframe could be cozened into staying at the Castle permanently. She’d be company for Granny Hazelbide, and the idea of two Grannys on call at all times appealed to Responsible in the strongest terms just now.
“Want to give me a bit of advice, you two?” she asked suddenly.
Granny Hazelbide jerked her chin toward the other Granny. “Already told her about it,” she said. “We’ve just been waiting on you to ask.”
“What do they want, blast and blister them?” asked Granny Gableframe. “I do believe they are the most . . . Hmmmph. I wish they’d mind their own business.”
“Almost said a broad word, did you, Granny?”
“Never you mind. What’d they want?”
“Well,” said Responsible, “we had a little talk, by way of my Mule. It does rankle, you know-having to use a Mule for interpreter. Lacks a certain dignity.”
“You be glad the Mule is willing,” cautioned Granny Gableframe. “You thank your lucky stars and comets for that small favor in a cold world! Cause there is no way that the human being could pass mindspeech directly with the members of the OutCabal and stay sane! It’s been tried, and what was left over afterwards was not pretty to look upon.”
“Died in a locked room, she did,” said Granny Hazelbide, nodding her support, “and nothing any level of magic could do for her. Crawled around in her own filth and howled, day and night, and just plain luck that the next Responsible was already nine years old at the time and able to get through the muck that was left of her mind when it was needful. You appreciate the Mule filtering that down for you, hear? You want your brains burned right out of your head?”
“The point,” said Responsible, “is that it makes it look as if the Mules are more stable of mind than we are. I don’t fancy that.”
“Faugh!” said Hazelbide. “It’s not that atall. The Mule’s just closer in its perceptions to the Out-Cabal than humans are, and the sharing seems to be no strain for the creature. Might could be they’re Mules themselves, in which case we’ve no call to be embarrassed. Now what did they want, or you plan to sit there going on about your dignity all this night?”
Responsible told them, and they put in the necessary Granny noises at all the proper places, and approved of the stand she’d taken.
“Handled it right well, I’d say,” said one; and the other allowed as how that was accurate.
“Got ‘em on a neat point, didn’t you, missy? I’m proud of you.”
Responsible thanked Granny Hazelbide for the compliment, pulled up a rocker, and began to rock. She was still mad, and the distraction provided by Granny Gableframe’s sudden arrival was beginning to wear off. The chair started to creak in protest at her speed, but she didn’t care; if it fell to pieces, it might relieve her feelings some.
“Responsible,” observed Granny Hazelbide, “why don’t you just take an ax to that rocker? It’d be quieter and quicker.”
“Why’ve you got your dander up, anyway?” asked Gableframe. “Seems to me you bested them; aren’t you satisfied?”
“No, I am not!”
She rocked harder, which wasn’t easy.
“Law, she’ll take off any minute and fly chair and all out through that window!” said Granny Gableframe. “Girl, what is your complaint? The Mule give you a headache?”
Responsible stopped rocking so suddenly that she nearly fell out of the chair. “I just don’t understand it,” she announced. “And what I don’t understand, I purely despise!”
“Well, you’re not the first,” said Gableframe. “Nor will you be the last. The time comes the Out-Cabal lets four five years go by and no message sent, then I’ll begin to fret-we’ll know then they’re up to some devilment.”
“We don’t know, and we wouldn’t know,” Responsible said, flat out, and struck the rocker arm with her fist. “We just assume!”
Granny Hazelbide sighed, and shook her head.
“There she goes again, Gableframe,” she said. “Been through this with her I don’t know how many times now, and her only ten years old the first time, and her pigtails pulled back so tight they made her ears stick out-and she’s not changed since. My, but she’s stubborn!”
“I say,” said Responsible, “and there’s nobody to say me nay, either, that we have no proof the Out-Cabal can do anything they claim. No proof there’s any such group of planets as the Garnet Ring. No proof that there is any such thing as the Out-Cabal, far as I can see, and I’m not exactly shortsighted!”
“Now, Responsible-”
“Never mind your `now-Responsibles’! You give me one bit of evidence, one solid piece of anything to show me I should believe in all this stuff; I’ll back down. So far, you’ve had nothing to say that sounded any more sensible than Emmalyn of Clark prattling about umbrellas inside the house and spitting when you see three white Mules, and I’m purely sick of it.”
“You recall that other young woman, Responsible, if you want proof-she had the same problem you have, and bad cess to the Grannys advising her that they couldn’t keep her from pushing it to where she did! Her mind didn’t leave her on account of fairy tales, Responsible of Brightwater, and she did no more than insist that they speak directly to her and not through the Mules. She didn’t defy them, nor question their existence!”
“And what about that lightning they chased you with, and the fire all round your pretty little feet last time? Not to mention they know everything as happens here on this planet, when and as it happens! You forget that?”
Responsible drew a deep breath, and began to rock again, careful to keep it slow and sensible.
“Look here,” she said to them. “Let’s just look at what you say, and no more of this carryon, fair enough? I don’t know about that other Responsible, though I’m for sure sorry about her; that’s been two hundred years ago or more, and the circumstances that went with it wrapped up in more mysteries than an onion has layers-I don’t consider that evidence. Being that nobody but the Grannys and one lone woman in every generation knows about the Out-Cabal, it’s understandable that we don’t have much in the way of details on the subject . . . but for all we really know she just had too hard a row to hoe and wasn’t strong enough to bear it. As for their fancy effects-I’ve got Magicians as could do everything I’ve seen them do, and Magicians of Rank that make their magic look like baby fooling. Knowing what goes on on Ozark’d be cursed easy if you just happened to be on Ozark, let me point that out! And if they’re so all-fired omnipotent and powerful, if their magic’s as far superior to ours as a spaceship’s superior to a river raft, like they claim, then why haven’t they shown us some of it? Why haven’t they rattled things around a bit? Moved some mountains? Canceled some of our weather? Ruined some of our magic, at least? Shoot!”
The two Grannys traded glances and allowed as how that was quite a speech, fit to try the patience somewhat more than somewhat, and added a half dozen more platitudes to the broth, until Responsible got disgusted with them, too.
“I made you a speech,” she said wearily, “you could at least make me an answer. Two of you-you ought to be able to work up something.”
Granny I-Iazelbide rocked and knitted, and rocked and knitted some more, and they all waited, and then she said: “Let me ask you a question, Responsible of Brightwater.”
“At your service.”
“Say there’s no Out-Cabal. Say there’s no Garnet Ring, no group of planets all bound by a single system of magic and out to add to their numbers. Say that long-ago Responsible did scare her own self insane. Say all the things you propose are true. But then answer me this: if it’s not them, if it’s no Out-Cabal, then who or what is it?”
“Someone on this planet,” Responsible muttered. “Somebody right here on Ozark.”
“For hundreds of years? Child!”
“For just as many hundreds of years,” insisted Responsible, “ we’ve managed to keep all this secret not just from the people of Ozark but even from the Magicians and the Magicians of Rank. That’s every bit as hard to believe, but we’ve done it.”
“Well, who do you suspect, then?” Granny Hazelbide demanded. “Speak right up, there’s nobody here but us!”
Responsible said nothing. She’d run it through the computers on run-and-destroys till she was blue, and it kept coming out with a whole passel of choices. Might could be it was a Magician of Rank-or two or three of them-passing it along to new ones carefully chosen as they grew old, and enjoying themselves tremendously at what they put the women through. Might could be it was the Skerrys-nobody knew anything about the Skerrys, what they could or would do, hidden away in Marktwain’s small desert and not seen once in a hundred years-could certainly be the Skerrys. Could be the Mules themselves, and wouldn’t that be a fine howdydo! She’d had some experience with what a Mule could do if it took a fancy to, and might could be they were not all that happy having their tails braided and their backs saddled and bridled and behaving in general like the Mules of Earth; might could be they’d been getting their own back, in their own way. It wasn’t unreasonable; it was so far from unreasonable that she shivered.
“Look at the child! She’s all aquiver!”
“I’m all right, Granny Hazelbide.”
“All right, are you? Take a closer look at yourself, missy-you that has no trouble whatsoever facing down the whole crew of Magicians of Rank assembled, and knows more than all nine of them put together. You that knows more than all twenty-nine of us Grannys and sees the web of the universe laid out clear and clean before you like a tadling does a fishing net-you, Responsible of Brightwater! And you’ve done no more this night than send six seven sentences back and forth between you and the OutCabal, filtered through the mind of a Mule to keep it easy for you, and I do believe you’ll have to be carried up to your bed! What’s that, Responsible, if not proof the Out-Cabal’s real?”
“You speak mighty plain,” said Responsible. “Guard your tongue!”
“There are times,” answered the old woman, “only plain speaking will do the job. Think I want to see you with your mind destroyed? Just because I failed to speak up plain when my turn came? I’m not such a shirkall as that, nor yet such a fool. You can’t walk, can you? Now can you?”
Many things were not clear to Responsible at that moment. It seemed to her, for example, that even the Grannys should realize that all that power and wondrous knowledge they claimed she had was being carried around in a head that had seen only fifteen summers go by, and half the time didn’t know what to do with what it knew. It seemed to her they’d realize that her loneliness was a torment, an awful and awesome burden like the whole sky down upon her two shoulders, with no living soul to ask any question of. It seemed to her they’d know so many things; and it seemed to them-that at least was clear-that she knew so much more than she did.
And she could not afford to have them think any differently. Not the Grannys. Not and keep this planet stable, and all the Magicians of Rank in order, while she waited for what she knew to come to mean more to her. She had to make a show of strength for these two.
“If there’s anything wrong with me,” she said to them crisply, drawing on a source of energy she’d have to pay back in a painful coin later, “it’s the potion I was given twenty-four hours ago. Wonder you didn’t kill me with it, Granny Hazelbide!”
And she stood up and walked straight out of the room, steady as the stones of the Castle walls, and left them looking after her in comfortable silence.