Chapter 9 — Benjamin and Hector
A Tale of Two Times: Volume 5 ~ The Wild Way
~ 1 ~ Decades earlier, Benjamin and Hector had been apprentices together in the Garth Delvers’ Thing of Home Ranch’s Buttercup Gardenland.
”Hector, by my calculations, we’ll be alive when the Watch is set for Thiuderieks’s Garth! What an honor it would be to be chosen!" Benjamin had laughed about his own beginner’s calculations, and had repeated the Makers' proverb, "Maybe, but only God and Thiuderieks know.” He had wadded his scribbled papers into a ball, and, tossing the ball into the waste bin of their common room, he had said, "My calculations may well be far from accurate, Hector.” In truth, Benjamin had not at all doubted his work’s accuracy.
Hector had secretly retrieved the crumpled papers later that day. He had studied them intently. Such a clever reckoning had been beyond the level of his own technical ability, but it had been food for his budding political ambition: He had fancied that, if chosen for the Watch, he would become its head, and heading the Watch, he would come to rule the Clan. From that moment, his heart had been set on it.
Hector had indeed, over the decades, schemed his way to the position of Chief of the Garth Delvers’ Thing. Coming to believe that the time of the Garth Watch’s onset was known only through his own craft, he had made this his morning mantra: "I am the destined one, the Great Maker to head the Watch.”
~ 2 ~ By proposing that Kansas be the operational center of her Knox Aviation project, Rhoda had secured the Makers’ Thing’s rapid approval of, and support for, the Knox Aviation project. Several Maker families in Kansas had been eyeing Rhoda as a possible match for their scions, and their political influence had been responsible for the easy approval of her first and technologically daring project to develop the experimental aircraft which she called the Greased Lightening.
Her project plan’s first step was to set up a small hangar Workshop in the remote region of Bishop, California, where she would procure certain rare materials which were necessary for fabricating the aircraft.
In order to set up this first of three Workshops, she had enlisted the services of Home Construction, a Guild enterprise which the Garth Delver's Thing had managed since the Ban of Swords had been reinstated over two centuries earlier, at the conclusion of Frederick Knox’s War Thing. At that time, Home Construction had been under the executive control of Hector, although its many projects had been managed by Benjamin. Although Benjamin had personally attended to the major projects, like the Keep project in Southern California, Rhoda's Bishop hangar had been a minor project handled by Benjamin’s assistant, Howard.
During the Bishop hangar’s construction, Rhoda had scouted out the physical and social landscape in her chosen fabrication sites in Kansas. She had found among their young men, none more appealing than Ricardo.
I’ve tried to let you go, Ricardo. What am I to do?
Rhoda knew little about Home Construction's years-long Keep project in California. She did know that fabrication of the subterranean Keep for the Institute of Ancient Art and Relics was near completion, and therefore Home Construction would soon need the services of a nearby Workshop for mellowing the subterranean structure. Home Construction had indemnified the Keep against all seismic events up to an 8.5 earthquake on the San Andreas fault, so proper mellowing was crucial to the fulfillment of their contract. Rhoda knew that the modest, but significant, cost of constructing the needed mellowing Workshop was already covered in her Knox Aviation budget, so she arranged a lunch meeting with Benjamin in a Bishop restaurant.
Although Rhoda’s hanger project in Bishop was scarcely on his radar, Benjamin, the Secretary of the Garth Delvers’ Thing and Chief of the Keep project in California, agreed to meet with her. He reasoned that Rhoda was, after all, the Head's daughter—a political point—and Benjamin regarded her as an extraordinary Keen Maker. He knew, however, that she was not the warm and friendly sort of young woman whom an older man could easily regard with familiar fondness.
Benjamin’s wife had asked him on the day before, at Home Ranch, "Benny, you've accepted an invitation from Miss Knox to meet her in Bishop?"
"She wants to show me the hangar and Workshop that Home Construction helped her to set up. Bishop's an easy air stop on the way to New City."
"Dear, had you even known about her project?"
"Well, I did have to check. We do have an agreement, and Howard has been taking care of it. It's convenient."
"Convenient for whom?"
Benjamin was now eating lunch with Rhoda in one of the two restaurants in Bishop, chatting with her about Home Ranch society. He had not seen Rhoda in over a year, and he found her to be a warmer person than he had recalled. He was discovering in her a more sensitive understanding of people and recent events at Home Ranch, than his wife had displayed.
Rhoda shifted subjects. “Benjamin, it has occurred to me that if I were to locate my project in Southern California, rather than in Kansas, I could have my main Workshop in Barstow or Ontario, and you would be able to use it for the Keep project's mellowing work. Howard suggested the idea to me. As he and his crew have been very helpful to me, I’d like to reciprocate."
"I thought you were locating your project in Kansas."
"Benjamin, I‘m not committed to a location in Kansas.” Rhoda carelessly swept her hand back through her long hair, as though she were clearing the air.
Benjamin thought about it for a moment. Then suddenly he felt invisible gears around Rhoda moving him to say, "Ontario would be ideal, Rhoda. It’s sufficiently remote from our project site for optimal mellowing, but nearer than Barstow for logistical support."
While the words were yet leaving his mouth, Benjamin knew that Hector would not approve of this change in the Keep project. Hector would object that the Knox Aviation hangar Workshop would not be completely controlled by Home Construction. His objection would be motivated by his great political animosity toward Rhoda’s father, Martin Knox, who was currently the most powerful man in the Clan.
Rhoda smiled warmly at Benjamin. "I'll bet even Hector will find this new arrangement agreeable."
Benjamin was startled, but the gears in his own mind turned…In a flash, he understood why it was that Hector would agree: Neither Rhoda nor Hector desired a liaison between Rhoda and any branch of the Chapman family in Kansas. Howard had explained to Benjamin that in Kansas there were three desirable suitors vying for Rhoda’s hand. Benjamin understood that Hector would fear a political alliance between the Knoxes and the Chapman tribe, and he saw that Rhoda must have found none of her Kansas suitors personally suitable. She might not be the tool of her father that Hector thought her to be.
Benjamin leaned toward Rhoda, extending his hand to her. "I understand," he said. They shook hands on the deal, taking Kansas out of the picture and placing all three of Rhoda's Knox Aviation hangars in California.
Hector reviewed the change in the Keep project which would make “economical use”—as Benjamin had said—of the Knox Aviation Workshop for mellowing. He was pleased by his discovery that Wilson Cintra was Rhoda's crew chief, because he optimistically regarded the Cintra tribe as a Masen ally in Makers' politics. Although he knew little of Wilson personally, knowing only that he was a competent Maker, he imagined that Wilson might spy on the Knox family’s affairs for him. Therefore, he happily signed the agreement, with an extra flourish, next to Rhoda’s signature.
In the 1950’s, Mr. Warren Gundersen, representing the Institute for Ancient Art and Relics, had offered Home Construction the Institute’s Keep project. Because the Keep would be a truly major undertaking, Hector Masen himself had soon begun negotiating with Warren Gundersen for the work. Hector had quickly come to enjoy working with Gundersen, regarding him as a very interesting man.
The two men reached a high-level agreement, and Gundersen paid the large deposit requested by Hector on behalf of Home Construction. (Hector had learned of the Institute’s tens of billions of dollars in liquid assets.) After the staffs of the two organizations had developed detailed plans, Hector turned management of the Keep project over to Benjamin. Hector had not involved Benjamin in either the initial negotiations or the development of the project plans. By operating in this style, Hector ensured that he alone possessed a high-level understanding of the project.
Had Benjamin been involved in the early negotiations and planning, he might have discovered a fact of which Hector, Home Construction, and the Guild, remained ignorant: The Keep project committed Home Construction to a contract with the Circle of the Ancient Foe. Sufficient probing would have revealed that the Institute’s funds for the Keep derived from the Arch company, which was one of the parties who opposed the European Clan's current interest in a complex lawsuit over Greystone Castle. Greystone Castle was known by First Scribe Elise Handke to have been the Keep of the Ancient Foe, in the War Thing of Ottilie Krüger.
To further his secret ambitions, Hector, with a few of his trusted Masen tribe members, secretly delved a footpath within the Garth Delvers’ Pathway to Thiuderieks’s Garth in the Commons. He intended the secret footpath, hidden among the many personal footpaths of Garth Delvers working on the Garth's Bleak Berm, to be his own private access to the Garth. He meant it to enable him, in some way which he felt that he would discover, to exert a direct influence on the exact timing of the dismissal of the Ultimate Shift.
The Garth Delvers’ Pathway through the Commons connects the Garth Delvers’ Hold to the Bleak Berm of Thiuderieks’s Garth. Through the strange Province of the Garth Delvers’ Pathway, each Delver who labors on the Garth must laboriously carve out from his or her Hold a personal footpath to the Garth. Three thousand years of footpaths, in concurrent use by the Delvers of the Ultimate Shift, wound about each other in complete chronological independence.
If Hector had taken care to fully examine the Design of the Garth Delvers’ Pathway, he would have understood that it did not provide for a multiple-use footpath. He would have understood that mischief would come from contravening the Pathway's Design, as he and his loyal crew were doing by delving and using the secret multiple-use footpath.
After they had delved the secret footpath about two-thirds of the chronological distance to the Bleak Berm, as reckoned by Hector, they encountered another, rougher Pathway. It seemed to Hector that this rough Pathway might lead straight to Thiuderieks’s Garth.
He imagined that the new Pathway, which he thought of as his Wild Way, was a natural feature of the Commons. He discovered that in his Wild Way, he was able to advance his footpath much more easily than he had in the Garth Delvers’ Pathway. “This is My Wild Way,” he announced to his crew with satisfaction. “You are to keep its name a secret among you.”
Wondering where the Wild Way originated in the Upper Airs, Hector wisely chose to first delve a footpath along its upward slope. He and his crew delved upslope for many weeks, until his Wild Way came to a blind end beyond which they were unable to delve. There, Hector used the directional Calipers fabricated for him by Benjamin. The Calipers registered faint mellowing activity in the geodesic dimensions!
He knew that it must be a mellowing Home Construction project, the only current one of which was the California project just approved by him. He thought it was too soon for the mellowing to be active, but then he recalled that chronological time can be a poor guide in the Commons.
Hector dismissed his momentary anxiety and reasoned that by following a geodesic line, he would be able to delve a tunnel from this blind end to the mellowing Workshop's Back Gate, giving himself a private entrance to the Commons. That would serve him well! He was certain that Miss Knox would soon be moving on—but at least not to Kansas—leaving the Ontario Workshop completely in his hands.
~ 3 ~ Soon after that, Hector drove to the Ontario Hangar, planning to set a Beacon secretly in Rhoda’s Workshop in order to establish a communication link with the blind end, where he had set the other one of the pair of geodesic Beacons. Wilson Cintra, Rhoda’s crew chief, welcomed him to the hangar.
"Master Hector, Miss Knox is in Bishop, where she will be incommunicado for a week or so.”
In fact, Hector had known this. He had meant to come on a day on which could expect Rhoda to be absent. While Wilson continued with the work on which he had been engaged—reconfiguring a Bush Hopper—Hector explained to him that he did not need an interview with Miss Knox herself. He needed only to access her Inner Sanctum.
“I’m sorry, Master Hector. Although Miss Knox has given Benjamin permission to use her Inner Sanctum, she requires any other who wishes to enter it, to be escorted by her.”
Hector had not expected to encounter such stringent rules. He needed to install the Beacon without anyone knowing of it. Believing Rhoda to be a second-rate Keen Maker, he thought that it was her father, Martin Knox, whose approval was truly needed now. There must be another way…
"Has Benjamin made use of her Inner Sanctum?" he asked.
“Yes. She has partitioned off a small part of it for him, in which to adjust his tunneling Calipers.”
“Then,” said Hector, with a pompous show of authority, "it is within our Makers’ protocol for me to make use of Hector’s part. I cannot wait a week for Miss Knox to return, in order to complete the small but important work which is my part of the Keep's mellowing.”
“I have no authority over that space, but I presume that it can be entered from the Keep’s Mellowing Workspace. Master Hector, you have, of course, my permission to enter the Workshop through my doorway to the Antechamber. It is the second door from the right at the back of the hangar.”
Hector nodded, picked up his work case, and strode toward the Antechamber door.
Wilson quickly returned to his timed test, which had nearly expired while he was speaking with Hector. While he was working, he wondered: Would Hector be able to pass under Rhoda's Lintel? Wilson’s family was close to Hector’s Masen tribe, so they knew him—and his shortcomings—better than did the Master of the Garth Delvers' Thing, himself. Wilson smiled to himself while making some adjustments to his work.
As a natural part of the close friendship forged in their youth, Benjamin had supported Hector, over the years, by compensating for the deficiencies in Hector's Maker skills. Even when Benjamin had begun to suspect that some mischief might come of it, he had been loathe to abandon his subtle support of his friend. Thus he not only caused Hector to appear to others to be a better Maker than he was; Benjamin also was the cause of Hector’s inflated belief in himself. Hector thought that he, himself, was the very foremost of Keen Makers.
On his own, Hector would have been unable to pass under Rhoda's powerful Lintel. But Benjamin’s practice was to attune to Hector every Pathway in any Garth or Home Construction Workshop that Hector might use. So, with his guidance Calipers, Hector picked up Benjamin's Pathway in the Mellowing Workspace, and was enabled to make his way into Benjamin’s portion of Rhoda's Inner Sanctum.
There, in Benjamin's part of the Inner Sanctum, Hector easily found a remote corner in which to set his Beacon. He did not consider the implications of the corner’s unusual dimensionality, eagerly placing the Beacon in a Commons location which was, in fact, a geodesic corner which intersected with the Netherworld.
Hector’s ignorance of this fact was due to his inability to sense the rare skill in Rhoda which enabled her to fabricate unusual Devices. Unlike ordinary Devices such as Hector’s Beacon, these were effective in the Netherworld, and so were used in this intersection which existed because of Benjamin’s work on the Garth, adjacent to the Netherworld.
While retracing his steps out of Benjamin’s part of Rhoda’s Inner Sanctum, Hector was thinking of his suspicion that Martin had set up Rhoda’s Workshop as part of his own plan. Martin stoops to using his own daughter to advance his ambitions, so that he can rule over us.
Finding Wilson still involved in testing, Hector thanked him and then chatted with him for a few minutes before asking, "Wilson, do you know where Miss Knox got her Lintel?"
Wilson, who was lying on his back underneath the Bush Hopper, said, "They say that Martin Knox obtained it through the offices of Fraulein Ottilie Krüger’s estate in Germany." Among Makers, "They say," means, “That is all that I know or am authorized to say, and it is true as far as it goes.”
Hector replied, “I suspected that something like that was the case, Mr. Cintra. It’s a very fine Workshop.
Wilson slid from beneath the Bush Hopper and looked up at Hector. "That's my impression, too, Master Hector.”
Hector flew to the Aeronauticas airfield adjacent to Home Ranch. From there he hurried to Home Ranch’s Buttercup Gardenland, gathered his crew of fellow Masens and passed with them into the Garth Delvers’ Hold. They entered his Workshop, and from his Back Gate he led them with great haste along the secret footpath to the blind end of the Wild Way. Their journey took only one long day, after their decade of delving the footpath. Using his directional Calipers, Hector confirmed the presence of a geodesic link between the Beacon at the blind end of the Wild Way, and the Beacon which he had placed in the Ontario Workshop two days earlier. Once I have gained control of the Ontario Workshop, I will have a second way to the Garth, even if Martin gains control of the Garth Delvers’ Hold.
Striding recklessly along the footpath as he was returning from his Wild Way’s blind end, Hector was wrapped up in thoughts about how best to exploit his newfound tactical advantage. His eagerness had driven him well ahead of his crew, when suddenly he became aware of someone approaching him—a person who appeared to be a Maker. He thought at first that it was a woman…but then it appeared to be a man. It was extremely difficult to identify other travelers in the Commons, because each individual must keep to his or her own footpath.
Apparently the other Maker’s footpath was very near to Hector’s, for he heard the shadowy figure speak to him, its voice coming to him as if through a bad telephone connection: “Oh Maker, what do you call the Pathway which you have discovered?”
“I call it the Wild Way.”
The voice—nearer now, and clearer—said, “That is a good name for it. Your Wild Way was built long ages ago; it is meant to serve Thiuderieks’s Garth after the Ultimate Shift has been completed. Have you learned that it comes near to the Plenum of Earth's Province?”
“I have.”
“You will find that in the down-Air direction, it extends to the very edge of the Grassy Steppes near the Bleak Berm. It wants only to be completed by the Great Maker and Master of the Watch.”
Hector’s head was spinning. He asserted, “I am the destined Master of the Watch.”
“Then, Great Maker, I may tell you that the work of the Ultimate Shift will be completed soon—in exactly one chronological year. I am the Watcher of the Wild Way, who can now return, at last, to my own place, and take my rest. Like you, I have labored long." The figure wavered, and faded away. Hector assumed that the Watcher of the Wild Way—whoever he or she was—must have, in order to communicate with him, closed the Living Distance. Surely, the Watcher was a Maker himself, who had long ago died from Earth’s Province and who had just now passed, having completed his task by communicating with the Great Maker. Hector’s spirit swelled, and he was suddenly filled with new plans. His crew caught up with him without having perceived his conversation with the Watcher of the Wild Way.
~ 4 ~ Over the following year, Hector completed additional preparations. Then he issued a summons to members of the Garth Delvers' Thing, for a closed session in the Delvers' Hold.
A Point Thing at Home Ranch was suddenly announced, scheduled for the same day and time as that of Hector’s closed session. Hector suspected that the Point Thing was a move by Martin Knox to gain equal access for his Chinese Guild allies to all of the Guild Things, including the Garth Delvers’ Thing.
He was annoyed and angered by a formal summons from First Scribe Martha Vogel, addressed to the “Delvers’ Headship”, until he realized that he could send Benjamin to the Point Thing. Benjamin would then be absent from the Delvers' meeting, where Hector would unveil his final plan and bring it swiftly to a vote.
He felt that his one-time friend, Benjamin, was beginning to hamper his efforts to further his ambitions. Benjamin’s absence would clear the way for Hector to openly declare that, in anticipation of the Garth’s completion, which was near, he would assume the mantle of Master of the Watch. He would assign places in the Watch to all of the loyal families of the Garth Delvers, and under him, the Delvers would be prepared to govern the final War Thing. All of them would agree swiftly, because Benjamin would not be there to voice reservations. Benjamin’s likely interference was a problem which had been nagging Hector for the past year—ever since he had spoken with the Watcher of the Wild Way. Now, Martin Knox himself had given him a clear tactical advantage through his tool, Martha, by not naming him personally in his summons to the Point Thing.
By sending Benjamin in his stead, he would, on this very day, solidify his power in the Delvers’ Thing. Relishing the moment, Hector instructed Benjamin to represent him, jovially adding, "Benjamin, feel free to humor Martin, if you like, on whatever scheme he is cooking up."
Benjamin nodded, accepting the full authority of the Delvers' Thing to act in a manner which he knew might not humor Hector. Because opening of the Delvers' Thing to the Chinese Guild was a move that he knew Benjamin favored, Hector felt that he was being liberal to him. Benjamin understood this, but he was feeling growing concern over the reason that Hector might have for calling the Delvers’ meeting. Neither Benjamin nor Hector, however, suspected that the Point Thing was to be a Head Thing for Martin Knox's daughter.
Martha had learned of Hector’s call for a closed session of the Delvers’ Thing, scheduled for a time which caused it to conflict with the Point Thing which Martin had, on the spur of the moment, instructed her to arrange. Knowing that the Point Thing was truly a Head Thing for Rhoda, and that Hector was her biggest political problem, she had dispatched the summons to Hector at the last minute. She had hoped that by the time the summons reached Buttercup, Hector would have left to prepare his meeting, and Benjamin, planning as usual to depart later, would be the one to receive the summons. She had addressed the summons to the Headship, not to the Head, in order for Benjamin to be authorized to respond without consulting Hector. Her device had worked, although not in exactly the way envisioned by her. In fact, the man who certainly would have vetoed Rhoda's Headship, had himself elected not to come.
Arriving at the ranchhouse for the Point Thing, Benjamin sensed a strange tension in the air. He became aware that something was underway which the excited crowd in the room found difficult to comprehend. He saw his old friend Kurt. Knowing that Kurt would surely fill him in on what was going on, Benjamin went to him at once.
Kurt greeted him with, "What, Ben, no Hector?"
Benjamin nodded. As he reached to pull up a chair, he caught a meaningful look passing between Kurt and and his wife, Martha, who was standing across the busy room from them. He knew Martha to be an astute and daring actor behind crucial Clan events, and he saw in that shared look that she was playing that role now. He read in her face a flash of satisfaction over a risk taken by her, on which everything turns, having resulted in success.
After only a few more words with Kurt, Benjamin saw Martin heading purposefully toward him with Rhoda on his arm. Rhoda, smiling, with sparkling eyes and ribbons in her hair, was dressed as a ranchero's daughter enjoying a night of fun. But Benjamin saw that Martin's face was drawn. He glimpsed the bewilderment on the face of Kansas First Scribe Ambrose Chapman, from whom Martin and Rhoda had just then departed. It was not fun, but a matter of life and death, which was coming his way.
In the dark of that night, Benjamin—deep in thought—was riding horseback the several miles between the ranchhouse and the sprawling Home Construction Workshop complex. He was carrying with him the shocking, weighty tidings: The Ban of Swords had been lifted by Rhoda Knox in a personal encounter with the Foe himself, and Rhoda and Ricardo had been elected Co-heads of the Clan and its War Thing. Benjamin knew well that Hector would neither accept nor comprehend these tidings.
After stabling his horse, whose knowledge of the Ranch House path had brought them quickly in the dark, Benjamin passed through the Gate to the Corridor leading to the Buttercup Gardenland. In the Corridor he met no one before turning to take its branch to the Garth Delvers’ Hold. The main Corridor, wide enough for five people to walk abreast, ran on straight to the Delvers’ Gardenland where he lived. Drifting up to him through the main Corridor from the Gardenland Gate, came Buttercup’s comforting glow, its garden smells, and its air of homey comfort. He stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. A sudden feeling had struck him: The Buttercup community, which he had known for all of his life, was soon to be vastly changed. It was like a city which was about to be bombed. In sorrow, Benjamin walked up the Corridor’s narrow branch toward the Garth Delvers’ Hold. His way, which snaked back and forth as the branch rose toward higher Airs, was lit by a soft reddish glow emanating from its rough walls. On the last turn, he saw at last the uneasy light of the Hold glowing through the grating of its wrought iron Gate—warning that the Delvers' Hold was an extreme outpost of Earth’s Province.
The Hold’s light was the intense and searching light of the high Airs, from which nothing can be hidden for long as it flows in from many, ever-changing directions. To Benjamin, who carried with him the message of the Head Thing’s decision, the light revealed his own folly in supporting Hector for so many years. Now, before the hour was up, he must undo the folly of his support in the presence of all of the Garth Delvers who had been deceived by Hector for so long because he, Benjamin, had secretly supported Hector. He had made Hector appear to them to be far more than he ever was or could be.
The Gate to the Hold opened to him before he had even touched it with his key. He passed through uneasily, and it closed by itself, quietly, behind him. Benjamin understood what it was that the Gate was telling him: He was the Messenger of the War Thing. The fate awaiting him was that of a messenger bearing unwanted tidings. He closed his eyes for a few moments, gathering his strength.
During those moments, Hector completed the announcement of his plan for the Watch, and the assembled members of the Garth Delvers Thing began rising to their feet with a roar of approval.
Then the Thing House’s door flew open with a bang, silencing them. All of them turned to see the sturdy, compact form filling the doorway: Benjamin, acting as the lens through which the high Airs' revealing light burst like silent lightening upon the assembled Delvers.
His solid presence filled the room, and the lines in his strong-featured grey-templed face testified to his years of experience, as he gazed around the room. His kind, solemn eyes, keen with wisdom, seemed to look into each individual face.
Then Benjamin’s voice rang out, low-pitched and steady, proclaiming that the Point Thing called at Home Ranch had been, in fact, a Head Thing. The Ban of Swords had been lifted. And, by general acclaim, the Head Thing had made Ricardo Hernandez y Chavez and Rhoda Ortega y Knox co-Heads of the War Thing.
Turbulence ensued among the Garth Delvers, for Hector had solemnly announced, moments before, that the Ban of Swords would not be lifted before the Watch of the Garth was set by the authority of the Garth Delvers.
Stridently Hector retorted, “Benjamin, this is all a fraud fabricated by Martin Knox. Are you resigning from the Garth Delvers' Thing to earn a living tunneling for Home Construction?” (Under the War Thing’s rules, all Guild enterprises, such as Home Construction, fell under the direct control of the War Thing when the Ban of Swords had been lifted.)
Benjamin bore Hector’s long harangue in respectful silence. There was little debate among the assembly before he found himself being escorted by two strong young Makers, out of the Thing Hall of the Garth Delvers’ Hold.
A few years earlier, the Thing had, at Hector's urging, authorized the fabrication a new Thing’s Chair—named the Chair of the Watch—to replace the well-worn Chair of Thiuderieks. Benjamin, without enthusiasm, had drawn up the Design of the new chair in the style desired by Hector, and Hector had seen to its fabrication. Now, being led past Hector, who sat sternly upon that elaborate, gold-filigreed throne, Benjamin felt a great weariness. He had been banished from the Delvers’ Thing by a majority of yea votes, over a minority of abstentions and only one nay vote.
Escorted by Everett and Indigo, who were brother and sister, Benjamin came to the Gate of the Garth Delvers' Hold through which he had so recently passed bearing the weighty tidings from Home Ranch.
"You must surrender to us your key to the Hold," Everett said to him firmly. "We will open the Gate for you."
Handing over the key to Indigo, Benjamin said gently, "Indigo, the key will not open it; the Gate is now, like all other Devices, under the authority of the new War Thing, to which this act is contrary.” Indigo tried, and failed to unlock the Gate. Everett seized the key. He, too, tried and failed. He cast the key to the ground and Indigo picked it up, watching as Everett tried his own key, which also failed.
They looked up as a clamor of angry voices erupted behind them. Indigo and Everett were shocked. Never before had either of them seen or heard an angry mob. Benjamin said quickly, "Indigo, try my key again." He laid his hand on her shoulder, and his key unlocked the Gate. Benjamin opened it and ran through, hearing the angry voices growing nearer. Hector’s voice was shouting, "Don't let that charlatan go!"
Holding the Gate open, Benjamin urged, "Everett! Indigo! Come with me; the Gate will not remain open for Hector."
In fear of the mob, Indigo hurled herself through the opening just as Everett seized her arm, shouting, "Indigo! No! It's a trick!" She spun around and fell backward, Everett being pulled with her and rolling over her, knocking Benjamin to the ground. The Gate closed behind them with a grinding wail. Then it vanished. In its place was sheer rock, part of the wall ringing the Garth Delvers' Hold.
Hector threw up his hands in time to save his face from a violent collision with the suddenly-appeared rock wall. Although his resolve wavered, he refused to admit his folly, crying out as he turned to face his followers, hands on his hips, “He’s a traitor! I’ve tried to save the Clan from Martin Knox's greed. He sells armaments to both sides in this infernal Cold War that his father helped to precipitate! And now that traitor Benjamin has gone over to Knox’s side!”
Lucia was one of the few Makers who had believed in the truth of Benjamin’s news, and she was the only one who had voted against banishment. She countered Hector as loudly. “Hector, our folly in following you has closed to us the Corridor to our Gardenland families. We may never see them again!"
In a rage, Hector struck Lucia in the face, drawing blood and knocking her down. “Traitor!” To the others he shouted, “Who is with me? Who is for the Clan? We must act now before all is lost! Follow me to defend the Garth!" The Masens came forward, those who had assisted him in making his footpath. The others hung back uncertainly.
Regaining his self control, Hector looked into their faces as earnestly as he was able, urging, “Come, my good fellow Makers; come with me to my Workshop. We have things to do there. The Corridor to Buttercup will reopen before we return, when the power of Benjamin's little Device fades away."
Continuing to encourage them, Hector guided some of the group toward his Workshop's Front Gate.
The seventy Garth Delvers’ Workshops were built into the encircling rock wall from which the Hold's Gate had opened. The wall rose up to a great height all around, like the inside of a vast chimney. The far-above eye of the chimney glowed intensely with light from the Commons’ high Airs. Its walls ameliorated the intensity of that light, which came at them from all directions, in a seemingly random manner.
The Workshops' Front Gates opened into a roughly circular clearing, in the center of which stood the Thing House. The sheer rock wall was the boundary between the Hold and the Commons into which each Workshop’s Back Gate opened.
Hector and his crew, and those of the others whom he had persuaded, passed into his Workshop, and its Front Gate closed spontaneously behind them with a sinister snap. Those outside saw through its open ironwork something like a dense fog blocking their view of the Antechamber.
Lucia heard the snap. Taking a kind of comfort from the pain bringing her to her senses, she looked up at the bright light of the chimney and sat up. Feeling the blood on her cheek, she touched it and laughed. “Hector’s blood! He cut his hand on my teeth!”
The Hold Gate’s shocking vanishment had brought more Makers to suspect that Benjamin spoke the truth. They had been following Hector only because of unspecified rewards promised by him, each thinking that he alone had been singled out for Hector’s favor. They feared now that Hector and his crew would return from his Workshop armed.
Free now from the spell of Hector’s personality, Lucia saw clearly that Hector had long been scheming to set himself up as a tyrant, placing his own interest always ahead of the Clan’s. Why had none of them realized it earlier? Lucia raised herself up off the pavement which had been the threshold of the Hold’s Gate.
No one had offered to help her up. All of them seemed yet to fear Hector, or to be mesmerized by him yet, although a few were thinking things over and were becoming better disposed toward her. One of them, seeing her walking around the Thing House toward Hector’s Workshop entrance, called out, "Lucia, be careful! Hector is likely to return, armed and vengeful." A few others gathered their courage and drew close to protect Lucia.
But Lucia resolutely marched up to Hector's Workshop. Her hands still trembling, she grasped the ironwork of Hector’s closed Front Gate. Speaking a solemn Chant, she read it in a Net in the light of the news brought by Benjamin. Hearing her Chant, those nearest to her feared even more for her safety, knowing that unauthorized reading of a leader’s intentions was a seriously forbidden act.
Looking at the anxious faces around her at Hector’s Front Gate, Lucia laughed bitterly. “Hector is no longer our leader," she said. The obscuring fog cleared, revealing the empty Antechamber of Hector’s Workshop. "He has long sought only to gain power, and I have learned just now from my Net that he has inadvertently banished himself and his followers. They have entered into the Commons, from which they can neither get to Thiuderieks’s Garth nor return to this Hold. We should choose someone to lead us in praying for our rescue.”
“Liar! Witch! Traitor!" Several of Hector’s followers rudely thrust her aside, pulled open his Front Gate, and pushed into the Antechamber of Hector’s Workshop. Lucia, regaining her hold on the Gate, saw them dashing recklessly through the Antechamber into the Inner Sanctum. She felt the Gate wanting to close. Quietly she asked, “Does anyone else choose to follow Hector?”
“Witch!" A woman Maker shoved past her, followed by two men. No others came forward. Lucia looked around and her eyes lit on Jason, whom Hector had sent out to see that Benjamin did not break away from Everett and Indigo and escape into his own Workshop.
Jason, she knew, had not followed immediately after Benjamin and his escort. He had slipped into Benjamin’s Workshop to cast an ownership Net around Benjamin's Calipers, which Hector had promised to him. There, the entrance to Benjamin's Inner Sanctum had glowed red hot, driving him from the Antechamber, and Jason had rushed back to the Thing House to report this to Hector. Hector had gone to see for himself, and had found Benjamin’s Antechamber empty, with no trace of a Lintel. Raging about Benjamin's "infernal Devices", Hector had gathered his loyal followers and they had gone in angry pursuit of Benjamin, whom they saw with his escort nearly at the Hold's Gate.
What was happening? Lucia knew that the time that it should have taken for Benjamin and his escort to arrive at the Hold’s Gate was not nearly long enough for Jason and Hector to have done all of those things. She realized that the temporal order of the Hold had become unstable! She understood that the authority of the War Thing was asserting itself over all Devices, including the Gates, altering chronological relationships in the process of repurposing them for the War Thing.
Lucia asked, “Jason, why do you waver? I'm sure that you will find your dear Hector yet within.” She had reasoned that the strangely reckless manner in which Hector’s followers had been throwing themselves into the Inner Sanctum was an effect of the War Thing’s exertion of authority over Devices. For as long as she held the Gate open, those who wished to join Hector were being drawn into that past moment in which he had led his closest followers into his Workshop.
Because the power of the Net cast by Lucia was on Jason, he answered truthfully, “Because Hector had promised me Benjamin’s Calipers. But Benjamin has, by some Device, sealed his Workshop against Hector, so Hector cannot keep his promise. Why should I follow him now?" Realizing what it was that he had said, Jason was both embarrassed by having disclosed his conniving with Hector, and angry with Lucia, whom he had never liked. When he rushed at her with violent intent, Lucia dropped, covering her head. Jason stumbled over her and rolled right into Hector’s Antechamber. Several Makers, warily peering in after him, saw only a darker obscuring fog beginning to flow out of Hector’s Inner Sanctum.
As Lucia was being helped to her feet, a blast of icy cold Airs, their color like that of the obscuring fog, burst from the Workshop’s Front Gate, opening it from the inside. She sensed the Powers of the Foe in the blast of Airs, and struggled to close the Front Gate. With some help, she succeeded, but not before the icy Airs had gathered themselves together and had blown into the Thing House, swirling about Hector’s throne-like chair. They coalesced into the form of a dust-filled whirlwind hovering steadily and hiding the Chair of the Watch.
After watching it for some time, Lucia appointed two Makers to sit on a bench and keep watch over the swirling spectacle while she and the others took counsel outside the Thing House, away from the whirlwind’s malign presence.
Many of them were voicing agreement with someone’s muttered exclamation, “What a pickle we have gotten ourselves into!" while Lucia silently counted those around her.
"About a third of us have gone into wandering exile in the Commons,” she concluded.
The remaining two-thirds were beginning to rue having blindly followed Hector over the years—right into this foreboding situation. Some of them had gone to check their Back Gates, finding that they no longer opened into the churning Brown Fog of the Garth Delvers’ Pathway in the Commons. Instead, each of the Back Gates opened into unstable Provinces which were in constant flux, making it impossible for any of them to find his or her own footpath to the Garth or even to delve a footpath to another Workshop's Back Gate. Anyone who attempted it would, within a few paces, become lost in the Commons.
Maker Francis returned among them announcing, “Now our Workshops’ Front Gates are sealed, too!"
Lucia went with him to confirm his finding. Upon returning, she said, “Francis’s report is true. We are now unable to leave the Hold through the Workshops. I think that a temporal order has been reestablished in the Hold, despite the presence of the Foe’s Powers in ‘Hector’s whirlwind'. But it seems that the Hold is now isolated as a floating bubble of Earth’s Province, drifting away from its normal temporal order.”
