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round cottony pads.
Lyra examined the pair he handed to her. "What are these for?"
Tyl pointed to the small shapes atop his head, then pushed one of the pads
inside.
"Oh!" Lyra hadn't noticed that they now had to shout in order to be heard over
the nearing roar, but she was made aware of it as soon as she inserted the
pads and silence returned.
Despite these precautions they were quite unprepared for the sight that
greeted them when they turned a sharp bend in the canyon.
Several kilometers ahead, sheer rock walls met to form a vertical defile no
more than four kilometers wide. For the first time since they'd left the Skar,
Etienne forgot his irri-tation with Lyra. He was enveloped by wonder.
"How high?" she shouted at him, leaning close so that he could hear her
through his earplugs. He'd already taken a sighting with the instrumentation
on his wrist.
"Twenty-five hundred meters!" Only the fact that the spray did not rise half
as high as the falls themselves enabled them to see the cliff where the Aurang
River flowed over the edge of the Guntali Plateau. It was a frightening,
magnificent drop and the result was a cascade of unmatched proportions,
fit-tingly located on a world of geological superlatives.
It seemed impossible that the stone at the base of that torrent could
withstand the impact of so much water falling from such a height without
turning to powder. Just as it seemed impossible for the ancient multistorey
edifice that clung to the cliff face just to the right of the waterfall to
remain in place without having been shaken to pieces hundreds of years ago.
Tyl pointed. "Moraung Motau."
"How old?" Lyra shouted as they raced toward it.
"A thousand years, two thousand, who can say?" Tyl spurred his lekka on.
Hundreds of windows threw back the sun from the ram-bling, rock-climbing
structure, which appeared more than large enough to shelter the whole
population of Turput. Huge bas-reliefs covered the facade with writhing
figures and dec-orative motifs. Only the fact that the building had been hewn
from the raw stone of the cliff face enabled it to withstand the steady
vibration produced by the immense waterfall nearby.
Several thousand years, Tyl had said, and Etienne had no reason to doubt the
Tsla's veracity. He had shown himself to be truthful in everything else.
As they drew near he saw that the thick green lines that covered the lower
part of the cliff on both sides of the Cuparaggai were not sculpted and
painted decorations but enor-mous vines, unlike anything they had observed
growing on
Tslamaina before. Tsla toiled among them, tending to roots and leaves. They
wore longer capes of some shiny material which kept them from being soaked by
the omnipresent spray.
Tyl reined in his lekka and the two humans slowed ac-cordingly.
"Aren't we going any farther?" Lyra asked, shouting to make herself heard over
the Cuparaggai's thunder. "Aren't we going inside the temple?"
Tyl gestured negatively and looked apologetic. "I am sorry, but it is not
permitted. Thee are not initiates. Nor could thee stand it for very long. The
monks who live and work at Moraung Motau are attuned to the old books and
ancient ways. They are also quite deaf. It has always been so."
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He led them through the gate of a nearby farm. Etienne could not tell if the
stop had been prearranged, but the farmer and his two mates were as cordial
and relaxed as if they'd known their guests for years.
There they stayed and spent the remainder of the day talking, or rather,
everyone listened politely and attempted to answer Lyra's unending questions.
She inquired about division of labor in the valley, family structure, monkish
ritual, about trading procedure and education and what the Tsla expected of an
afterlife until the poor farmer and his mates were exhausted. Eventually Tyl
intervened.
"Much of what thee request of this family they can not provide for reasons of
ignorance, inhibition, custom, or uncertainty. Nor can I. There is one who
might sate thy endless curiosity."
"Then that's who I want to meet."
"Mii-an is Chief Consoler and First Scholar of Turput. His time he gives of
but sparingly, for he is old and tired. But I believe he will consent to share
himself with thee."
"That would be wonderful." Lyra put a hand on her hus-band's arm. "Wouldn't
that be wonderful, Etienne?"
"Wonderful. You won't mind if I don't tag along?"
She looked shocked. "Etienne, this is a special oppor-tunity. How can you?..."
She caught herself, coughed. "You'd rather look at the rocks, wouldn't you?"
"That's right. I'd rather look at the rocks. You go ahead and sit at the feet
of this Consoler." He glanced past her, to Tyl. "Provided it's no imposition."
"Friend Etienne, the sharing of knowledge is never an imposition, just like
the sharing of self. It gives pleasure."
On their way back down to Turput, Etienne let his lekka fall behind Tyl's so
that he could talk to his wife without shouting.
"Lyra, don't you think you're starting to view these peo-ple with something
less than scientific detachment? Of all people, you ought to know better than
to idealize a primitive race, no matter how superficially attractive their
philosophy may seem."
"It's not superficial. You put too high a premium on tech-nology, Etienne.
There are other definitions of advancement, other kinds of higher knowledge."
He found himself growing angry. "Come on now, Lyra. The Tsla are nice enough,
and they seem content within themselves, but that's hardly reason enough to go
overboard about them. I never thought I'd see you romanticizing a bunch of
elephant-nosed aborigines."
"I would not use the word `aborigine' to describe them," she replied coldly.
"They have advanced far beyond that stage. As for `romanticizing' them, I
don't consider you qualified to use the word."
Her whole attitude struck him as so absurd that the put-down missed its
intended effect. "This is supposed to be a scientific expedition," he told
her, "and we've been more than a little occupied with business. I'm sorry if I
haven't found much time for romance, but I'm not used to strumming guitars
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