Below the Root by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Page A

custom that would solve his dilemma, his ever-troubling curiosity took over and made the decision for him. He very much wanted to know what lay behind D’ol Neric’s strange behavior. Quickly, before his resolution could waver, Raamo climbed out his window and launched himself into the rainy darkness.
    Night gliding was dangerous, not only because of lack of visibility, but also because the almost constant night rains quickly soaked through silken shubas, making them uncomfortable and difficult to control. Under ordinary circumstances, anyone who was forced to venture out at night confined himself to walking and climbing. But there was nothing ordinary about any of the circumstances in which Raamo found himself, and a short terrifying drop into almost total darkness seemed, at the moment, only a natural part of a completely unnatural whole. Once airborne, however, Raamo was immediately panic-stricken, and when, a few seconds later, his flight ended abruptly in a tangle of Wissenvines, he vowed to climb down them until he reached a firm footing, if he had to go all the way to the forest floor. Fortunately, however, the tangled network of vines soon passed near a narrow grundbranch, which led down to one of the large connecting branchpaths of the temple grove. In a very short time Raamo arrived at the huge arching doorway of Temple Hall.
    The empty hall, dimly lit by three small honey lamps, seemed to have grown immensely larger than it had been only a few hours before, when it had been filled with the pomp and splendor of the Ceremony of Elevation. Seemingly endless expanses stretched away into deep shadow and then on into caverns of darkness. Except for the muffled whisper of the rain, the silence was wide and soft. And yet there seemed to be in the silence a deep secret meaning, as if the huge recesses of the ancient hall were alive with memories that spoke to Raamo of things too mysterious and important to be captured in any language of tongue or mind.
    Straining to hear and understand, Raamo stood silently for a long moment, before a furtive movement near the central altar caught his eye and brought him back to the present with a shattering jolt. In the darkness, the white shuba of D’ol Neric was dim and shadowy, but his sending was strong and clear.
    “Raamo,” the sending asked. “Is it you?”
    “I have come, D’ol Neric,” Raamo replied.
    Moving slowly forward, he was soon close enough to see the strange eyes, round and dark and restless as a sima’s but at the same time possessed of a force as piercing and irresistible as unfiltered sunlight.
    “I have come,” Raamo repeated, speaking now in voice speech. “But I don’t know why. What is it that you want of me?”
    Grasping Raamo’s arm, D’ol Neric led him to a small cubicle behind the altar screen, apparently a storage place for robes used in the many ceremonies conducted in the Temple Hall. Draping a richly decorated robe over Raamo’s wet shoulders, D’ol Neric motioned him toward a carved panwood settee. Seating himself at the other end, D’ol Neric busied himself for several seconds with the arrangement of the settee’s cushions, positioning them carefully for his greater comfort, apparently unmindful of Raamo’s bewildered stare. At last he looked up grinning.
    “Come, friend,” he said, “relax and make yourself comfortable. What I have to say to you will take some time in the telling.” His smile faded and he added grimly, “—and there will be pain enough for you in the hearing without further paining your tired bones.”
    “Pain?” Raamo asked uneasily. He remembered suddenly that D’ol Neric had twice conducted the Ceremony of Healing when his sister was among the ailing. Fighting a desire to walk away without asking, without having to face the answer, Raamo forced himself to say, “You are speaking, then, of my sister? Did you call me here to tell me that she is ill of the wasting?”
    For a long pain-filled moment Raamo was