And All Between by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Author:Zilpha Keatley Snyder [Snyder, Zilpha Keatley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Usenet, C429, Kat, Exratorrents
ISBN: 9781453271933
Publisher: Open Road
Published: 2012-10-23T00:44:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE BLESSING OF DOWN-FILLED comforter supported by the living strength of tendril, received her, and sighing deeply, D’ol Falla surrendered her tired body to the solace of her nid. She was exhausted, weak and trembling and giddy with exhaustion. Her nid swayed softly, and the tightly drawn night shades tempered the soft green light of midday to a tender, muted glow. But although her body gave itself up with immense gratitude to repose, her mind refused to surrender itself to sleep. Instead it raced on and on, alternately turning back in wonder to the beginning, and then racing forward into the frightening uncertainties of the future.

It had all begun only the evening before, soon after the first fall of rain, when the pudgy-faced young novice called D’ol Salaat had presented himself before her. And while he recounted his astounding story, it had become clear that the time had come—that she could wait no longer to act upon her faith in the vision of Nesh-om, or else to retreat into the living death of the recent past.

It had been, indeed, a living death. A slow gradual dying—of the Spirit first, and then of Love and Joy—of all the holy gifts proclaimed by D’ol Nesh-om in the early days of Green-sky. She had not even seen them go. Insulated by power and by the great honors that had come to her, she had for many years been unaware, or at least had tried to be. Until at last, only a few years before, she had begun to be tormented by a strange restlessness, a yearning for the gifts of the Spirit that she had once possessed.

It was then that she had begun to try to regain that which had once been hers—by fasting and meditation, by ritual and discipline, by every means she had ever encountered. It was this search that had led her to the careful study of the ancient records of the Forgotten, and it was through that study she began to develop a compelling interest in the great controversy between the two great Ol-zhaan leaders, D’ol Wissen and D’ol Nesh-om. It was they who had brought a shipload of children to Green-sky when their home planet had been on the verge of destruction. Searching carefully through the ancient records, she had confronted the dilemma that had presented itself to the two great leaders when this first generation of Kindar reached maturity. Should these children, the last survivors of a beautiful and complex civilization that had destroyed itself utterly by violence, be made aware of their past and entrusted with their future. Or should they, having learned to live for the Love and Joy of the present, continue in innocence for their own protection.

Haunted by her growing conviction that Nesh-om had been right, and that the imprisonment of his followers below the Root had been a great evil, D’ol Falla had tried cautiously to discover if there were any among her fellow Geets-kel who shared her feelings. But it

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