The Buttoned Sky Part 6

At that instant Lady Nirea gave a wrench and freed herself from Revel's grip. He whirled and leaped and s.n.a.t.c.hed down, catching the collar of the silver gown. Her momentum carried her forward, but the dress stayed in his hand ripped completely off. He went after her--she was falling now--and caught her, though the atmosphere seemed to be composed equally of gentry and rearing stallions.

Then he turned, carrying her slung over one arm, and managing to reach Jerran's anxious-looking head by knocking down one squire and kicking another in the groin, he dived into the bushes. The Lady Nirea squalled shrilly as the thorns gashed at her soft skin. But Revel blundered on into the bramble patch.

Jerran led him through what seemed impenetrable thickets, following a route that must have been marked, though Revel could not see how. Behind them, the gentry howled and loosed off their guns, but the brambles defeated them, for Revel caught no sounds of pursuit. A scream that thrilled up and choked off must have been the unfortunate Blue Breeches.

Revel looked up, thinking of the globes; he could see the sky in many places through the tangle, but realized that it was probably a thick green solid floor to a watcher from above. A G.o.d would have to come very low to see anything moving beneath it.

The woman said bitterly, "For Orbs' sake, at least carry me in some fashion that won't expose _quite_ so much of me to the thorns!" She paused and added as an after-thought, "You mudhead!"

He hitched her around and held her curled to his chest, faintly conscious of the smooth body, but concentrating on protecting her from harm; he thought suddenly that he was treating her as if she'd been a ruck woman, instead of one of the gentry, the loathed and feared squirarchy. Was he putting too much importance on the physical attractions that had made him take her?

Jerran was leading him now along a tunnel-like pa.s.sage of twined, arched shrubbery that made them stoop low. "It'd help if you walked, Lady," he said.

"You may not have noticed it, miner, but I have on just one slipper, and it doesn't have a heel." She scowled up at him. "And when I say one slipper, I mean that's _all_."

"You look fine," he grinned. "No silk and satin looks as attractive as your own pelt, my lady."

They traveled for upwards of half an hour, sometimes down forest lanes that allowed free pa.s.sage, other times through thickets that ripped their flesh and slowed them to a swearing, sweating crawl. Always there was a screen above them of natural growth, shielding them from the b.u.t.toned sky.

At last before them there opened a huge amphitheater of the forest, a hollow with gently sloping sides, covered by a gigantic roof of twined willow wands and twigs. Jerran said, gesturing upward, "That's the biggest piece of camouflage we ever did! The top of it is planted with gra.s.s and scrub, rooted in square sods of earth cut from the woods'

floor in many places. From above it looks like a round hill rising out of the trees. Took us a year to perfect it."

"Jerran, who is 'us' and--"

"Why, lad, the rebels."

Revel stared at the little man. Could Jerran, the straw-colored stringy fellow he'd worked beside all these years, the quiet one who'd preached serenity and dragged him out of a hundred brawls, could he be a rebel?

Fantastic....

The rebels were the anonymous elite of the ruck. They were the malcontents of their society, men whose intellects could not swallow the dreary bromides of the priests, who felt savage indignation against the cruel gentry and the bright, all-mighty globes. It was said that they formed an organization in Dolfya and other cities, these rebels, and that to them could be laid the sabotaging of the coal and diamond mines, the gentry slain in accidents that looked too pat, and the constant aura of uneasy discontent that pervaded the shebeens and all such illegal gathering places of the ruck.

The rebels were highly romantic figures, but Revel had always considered them mythical, for who could think of resisting the condition of Things As They Are? Songs were sung about them over the turf fires, in the squat little huts of the people, and by vagabonds who roamed the countryside by night. The rebels went by fanciful names, as rebels of the people always do; and the one most sung of, most whispered about, in Dolfya at least, was the Mink, who seemed to be a kind of promised savior who would come (soon, always soon) with punishments for the gentry and liberation for the ruck.

So Revel stared at Jerran, mouth agape, and repeated stupidly, "The rebels?"

"Aye, lad! Didn't you ever guess?"

"Orbs, no!"

"Why'd you think I kept stopping your fights in the shebeen?"

"Because you were a pacifist."

The small man shook with laughter. "One, there's nothing I love so much as a good brawl. Two, a brawl might bring the orbs or the gentry to our hidden drink-house, and that'd be bad. Three, a man who's a rebel must appear _not_ to be one, even to men he believes he can trust. Four, I've had my eye on you ever since I came from Hakes Town, and didn't want you murdered in a drunken scrimmage. So five, though I hated to do it, I had to preserve you from raging and quarreling until all that brute force and honest fury could be turned to real account for us."

"I can't take it in," Revel said helplessly. "It's as though the heroes of the Ancient Kingdom that we sing about, Rob-'em-Good and Jonenry and Lynka, had met me here. I never believed in rebels, truly, Jerran."

"Why should you? We haven't done anything big yet. We've been searching and waiting for a leader."

Revel snapped his fingers. "The Mink!"

"Yes, the Mink." Jerran looked at him oddly, head c.o.c.ked like a small yellow bird. "He hasn't come yet, but he will."

Revel looked around him. The amphitheater was dim, lit only by the sunlight that managed to creep in from the forest around it; for no illumination fell from the sodded roof. It must be capable of holding hundreds of men. "How many are you?" he asked.

"Some four thousand and three hundred." There was pride in the man's voice. "After today, Revel, we shall be uncountable thousands. Now the G.o.ds have been torn down."

"Not torn down."

"Torn down," repeated Jerran firmly, "from their false 'untouchable'

eminence. You've shown the world that the globes can be slain as easily as hares."

"They can still rise into the b.u.t.toned sky, and rule from there."

"We'll find ways," grunted Jerran impatiently. "False G.o.ds that can die can be lured down by trickery--or we can find a way to go up to the b.u.t.tons."

"That's insane," said Revel, and would have amplified it, but at that moment the girl spoke.

"When you are quite ready, _Squire_ Revel, I wonder if you'd kindly set me down?"

He had forgotten her, slung over his shoulder like a slain doe. Hastily he slipped her off and set her on her feet. She was like a forest nymph, one of those legendary wild women who haunted the trees near towns and lured men to their death; tall and whitely lovely, her stark naked body shone against the greensward with a perfection that made Revel's throat constrict.

Then she doubled up a fist and hit him in the eye.

"You lout!" said the gorgeous creature. "Can't you at least get me something to wear?"

"I can have clothes for you in two minutes, Lady Nirea," said Jerran.

"Man's clothes, I'm afraid. No woman has ever seen the meeting place before you."

"Man's clothes--rucker's clothes," she said caustically. "If I'd known what--"

Then her words were m.u.f.fled by a terrible sound, a noise as of the earth exploding beneath them. Nothing moved, yet they had the sensation of being shaken intolerably by a giant blast of wind. The roar dwindled away, reluctant to cease, and Revel said, "What is it?"

"Come on," said Jerran urgently, "we'll go to the dome and see."

"The dome?"

"The roof of the sanctuary," barked Jerran impatiently. "It holds the weight of a score of men without quivering. We build slowly, but well."

He sprinted away.

"The girl!" yelled Revel.

Jerran called over his shoulder, "If she's fool enough to risk woods lions and the bears, let her go!"

Revel stared at Nirea. Then he chuckled. "No gentrywoman could find her way home from this maze-center. You'll wait." He followed his friend.

They shinned up a tree on the edge of the clearing, and jumped to the rim of the dome, which never even swayed beneath their impact. Revel saw it stretch up before him like a gra.s.sy hill, and marveled at the rebels'