Until the Celebration by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Read Free Book Online Page A

D’anhk, the Chief Mediator of the Council, and soon afterwards he was again on his way to the Youth Hall. There, he would have time to eat and rest briefly, and then, having notified Genaa and Raamo, he would report back to the emergency meeting of the Council.
    When he reached the Stargrund Youth Hall, Neric found that Raamo was not there. Genaa, however was in her chamber. Although it was midday, she was in her nid and apparently sound asleep. She awoke with obvious reluctance. As she listened to Neric’s news, she shook her head violently from time to time, as if to convince herself that she had indeed awakened, and that what she was hearing was not part of some frightful dream.
    “It must have been the Nekom,” Neric told her. “Kir Oblan warned us of them when we were in Erda, and he has also spoken of them before the Council. You remember how their leader, the man called Axon Befal, tried to rouse the people against us and all Ol-zhaan.”
    “Yes,” Genaa said. “I remember.”
    “Oblan told the Council that this Axon preaches anger and ... What is the archaic term that means the desire to do evil because evil has been done to you?”
    “Vengeance,” Genaa said, and her voice was heavy with forboding. “The word was vengeance.”
    “Yes, that was the word Oblan used. He said that vengeance is the first goal of those who call themselves the Nekom.”
    “And Wassou?” Genaa asked. “Was he badly injured?”
    “Yes, badly. But the healers have said that he will live. It seems he was set upon in the midheights of Skygrund. He was on his way to the new Erdling Garden, where he had been working with the prospective teachers. When he was found, he was able to speak enough to say that he had been set upon by three or four men—Erdlings, although they were dressed in shubas. They rushed out at him suddenly from a thicket of endbranches and began to strike him with long sharp pieces of metal. He would surely have died except that when he fell he was near the edge of the branchpath, and he managed to push himself off and into a long free-fall. His attackers followed, but his greater skill at gliding saved him. He was able to prolong his glide long after the Erdlings were forced to land on the forest floor. He was found and carried to the healers by some Erdlings from the surface city of Upper Erda. He was bloody and fainting when they reached the healers.”
    Again Genaa shook her head, and then sat silently for many moments, her hands pressed against her mouth. Her eyes were enormous and bleak with horror. When she spoke again her voice quivered. “Poor Wassou. He is so old and frail. Why would they wish to harm such a one?”
    “Who can say?” Neric answered. “Except that he was of the Geets-kel. Perhaps the Nekom intend to take vengeance against all who were once Geets-kel.”
    “But why Wassou? He was the first among the Geets-kel to oppose Regle and accept our goals. And since the Rejoyning he has set an example, not only to the Geets-kel but to all who were once Ol-zhaan. He was among the first to leave his palace and take a nid-place in a guild home. And no one has done as much to hasten the preparation of the Erdling nid-places and Gardens.”
    “I know. It would seem that vengeance is a weapon that wounds the innocent.”
    “What will be done to them—the Nekom?” Genaa asked. “To those who attacked Wassou?”
    “I’m not sure. There is to be an emergency meeting of the Council in an hour’s time, to discuss what must be done.”
    Genaa sighed. Like Neric, she had spent the morning at a Senate meeting, except that she had met with Kindar, in Orbora. But she, too, had returned exhausted and unjoyful. Throughout the morning each person who had appeared before the Senate had been desperately troubled and fearful. Although the Kindar had been urged repeatedly to bring any problem concerning the Rejoyning to the immediate attention of the Senate, they would not do so. In the face of extreme