The Glass Mountains (25 page)

“I’ll compromise with you. I have fifteen children at home and my wife herself works day and night as I do. I can’t take such a chance as you ask of me, but I will drive you as far as two villages over, and then you must pay me less than I ask but more than you think the ride was worth. Then I will return home, and you must find a new driver to Clasmata.”
 

“All right,” said Moor tiredly. “Drive us as far as you will.” He turned to me. “Perhaps I’ve made a mistake. We should have just bought a vehicle. It would be less trouble.” He leaned back and closed his eyes, murmuring, “But I was so sleepy I didn’t think I could drive.”
 

In front of us I could see the plains would soon end, replaced by prodigious hills. Night had fallen all around now. The fog had passed. I, too, closed my eyes, and this time dreamt somber dreams of capture and death. Another time I half woke to see Penn had gotten out and was talking on a contactor. I fell asleep again and didn’t wake up until we’d reached the second town over, a town surrounded by dark hills. Moor and I got out with our pack of jewels and the dogs, and Moor paid our driver. Penn took my hands and looked at me with no pretense and an expression of such solemn affection I knew it broke his heart to leave us this way.
 

“Please forgive me, young lady. And believe me when I tell you that what you’ve paid me will do much good in my family. And believe me further when I tell you how fond I am of you and your hotheaded friend. But Lederra and I have a family of twenty-one to support and I can’t put myself in danger. What would she do without me?”
 

“You mustn’t feel guilty,” I said. “My parents would have done the same thing, I’m sure, because of how much they loved us.” The air was crisp now, and the moonless sky black. The lights in this town were the strange lights of the first town we visited, and not the warm lamps of Soom Kali. I knew how to read the word “inn” now, and saw several before us. “At least it won’t be hard to find a place to stay.” I saw shadows moving in the distance.
 

Before I could stop him, Moor had grabbed hold of Penn’s arm and held his knife to the driver’s heavy neck. “Tell me, what do you think you’ve done that we must forgive you for? Who is that ahead of us?”
 

“Well, as I said, just, I, leaving, you, here.” I’d never heard him so inarticulate. Moor glanced furtively around. “Mariska, get the dogs back in, and yourself as well.” He pulled Penn back into the vehicle.
 

“Moor!” I said. “He’s done all he can for us.”
 

“You yourself said to trust no one. I don’t trust him.”
 

“Surely no one does, but does that mean we should abuse his hospitality?”
 

“Where’s your knife?”
 

“Here, but why?”
 

“You must hold it to his neck as you see me doing. I’m going to drive.”
 

“Moor, we mustn’t act like savages. I know you don’t like him but—”
 

Moor switched off the motorsled’s pale lights and turned the vehicle around, back toward where we’d come from.
 

“As time passes you’ll see that a savage is not what you think it is,” he snapped.
 

The path before us sloped downhill, and Moor let the motorsled move quickly by gravity down the slope. There were shouts behind us, and I turned around to see what seemed like an explosion of lights, vehicles, and people. Penn socked me hard in the face, and, yelling “Please forgive me,” hopped out of the motorsled with his jewels and ours as well. He fell with a shout of pain and disappeared immediately in the night. The motorsled moved frighteningly quickly now. In the darkness I could barely see what came before us and could only hope that Moor kept us on course. I rubbed my aching eye socket. Moor turned down a side path, or what I assumed was a side path since I couldn’t see clearly. Gliding down the invisible path this way made me strangely giddy. A white doglike creature sprang through the bushes and turned to watch us. The motorsled itself was so quiet I could hear leaves rustling all around me. Though I’d been taught that one must be ever ready to accept death, as I glided through the fog the only thought in my head was, “I love this life.”
 

4

Down, down, down. I hadn’t realized how high we’d driven. At first I felt I shouldn’t talk, shouldn’t make any noise at all. I could barely make out the fields and bushes rushing silently by in the blackness. Behind us the black hill rose up and expanded as we descended. Above the very top of the hill a group of stars I knew well sparkled as I’d seen them do many times in Bakshami. Usually I hadn’t stayed up this late, so I rarely saw them so high on the horizon as they were tonight.
 

“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked softly.
 

“As is often the case when I’m with you, I know more about where I’m going from than where I’m going to.”
 

“Are you angry with me?”
 

He concentrated on maneuvering the motorsled around a perilous twist and after that didn’t talk at all. I hoped we would never reach the bottom of the hill and stop gliding in this way. At the bottom of the hill we would have to decide which way to turn, and I didn’t think he knew. Logically, we would turn in the direction we’d been going before we got sidetracked. Before we reached bottom Moor stopped the motorsled near a cliff.
 

“We should get out,” he said.
 

“Why not take this thing to Clasmata?”
 

“Too easily traced. No doubt they already know exactly where we are and will be waiting at the bottom.”
 

“How can they know?”
 

“Penn will already have given our pursuers the motorsled’s electronic tracking number. They’ll find us no matter where we go. If we steal this car now, we’ll have Artroran soldiers as well as bounty hunters involved.”
 

“Perhaps Penn won’t tell them.” But even I didn’t believe that. “Why don’t we remove this tracking device and continue on our way down?”
 

“Every device is implanted in a different place. I don’t know where it is.” We all got out of the motorsled, and Moor sent it down the path, where eventually we heard it run into the hillside. We decided to try to get around the side of the hill toward where we’d been going. So we turned and walked awkwardly in the blackness. We walked sideways along the slope of the hill, so it was hard to get a firm foothold. At some point we headed downward, and then we headed up the next hill. We climbed several hills in this way, and after a while I lost all sense of direction. Toward morning when it had begun to drizzle, we hid ourselves in some bushes to sleep. When we woke, fog moved all around over the green hills, and the pale gray sky grew brighter beyond the fog. At times the mist grew so heavy that when I held out my own hand I could see white trails caressing it.
 

Having both lost track of the direction, we didn’t know whether continuing to walk would help or hurt our cause. Moor leaned back, and some of the tension left his face while he enjoyed the magic and changing scenery around us. “Sometimes the fog remains for days. Even with all their tracking devices and soldiers, the fog thwarts the Artrorans. In my country it is said that the fogs of Artroro keep the criminals in business.”
 

“Since I am now a criminal, I approve of this fog. But think, you would have been a soldier chasing such as me in the countryside of Soom Kali.”
 

“It’s too late for me to be a soldier now,” he said.
 

“How can one who aspired to be a soldier now aspire to escape them?”
 

“I would have been a just soldier and believe I am a just criminal as well.”
 

“A soldier must follow orders first and justice second.” The fog had grown heavier still. The dogs, sleeping down the way, passed in and out of my vision. Moor hadn’t answered. “Do you regret that what you assumed would be your future has now escaped your reach?” I asked.
 

“No. No,” he said.
 

“Moor.” I touched his cool face. “I would not have let you come had I known the future. As a Bakshami I’ve no love of soldiers, but I would rather see you a soldier than pursued by one.”
 

“And I would rather lie here beside you than see you pursued alone by soldiers, even just ones. But...” He rolled his eyes skyward, but couldn’t see the sky. “This is so different than my life was. And what of you?”
 

“I was betrothed to the meat-seasoner’s son. My own parents were glassmakers as well as leaders. I hoped to become a dog trainer.”
 

He smiled suddenly. “All in all I like this turn my life has taken. Don’t get me wrong. I would have been a good soldier. I’m not immune to the satisfactions of possessing power over others, nor to the satisfactions of standing strong as part of a group. But now in my life I will find other satisfactions instead.”
 

“That’s as your father wished.” I immediately wished I hadn’t mentioned his father, for his face hardened into a sort of rock, like the faces carved on his door at home. He sat up and studied the haze all around. After a while his face softened. And the softness in his face made me feel sad. I knew that because Moor helped me, his beautiful face would not know peace for a long time. We had killed his friend and had become fugitives.
 

He rose wearily.
 

“Perhaps we should walk now while the fog hides us. This fog is a gift that we should take and use. And then we must find new gifts.”
 

The dogs rose reluctantly, and the four of us began walking. We judged the position of the sun from the way brightness was distributed in the haze. After more than an hour of walking, we were surprised to come upon Penn’s motorsled, sitting like an illusion among the swirls of fog.
 

“We’re lost!” I said.
 

“We were lost,” he said wearily. “Now we’re not.”
 

“We should take this vehicle as a gift.”
 

“Or a trap,” Moor said. “But you’re lucky.”
 

Lucky or not, the motorsled refused to start. But looking out over the hills, it was hard to feel disappointed. The fog rose from the earth like silver evaporating. We walked all day without eating, and at night we slept in some bushes, huddled together to keep warm. When we woke up the fog still covered the area, and this time we walked straight down a hill until we reached flat ground. There was a village here, and Moor reached his friend on a contactor. I walked a bit with the dogs and returned to hear part of Moor’s end of the conversation.
 

“Yes, yes, she knows that. After all, it’s her parents ... She has great talents in the area of walking, very strong legs, and in general she possesses excellent coordination ... We would need to leave this area quickly ... I’m not sure of our town. Wait, I see a sign saying Plima. Yes, there’s another sign. The town is called Plima ... All right, then, I’ll meet your friend there and see you within five sunrises.”
 

He disconnected. “What scheme have you committed us to?” I said.
 

“My friend has a standing offer to do business in Forma. He will take us there.”
 

“What kind of standing offer? Legal?”
 

“We’re in no position to ask such questions. Nothing is legal in Forma. You must walk on the left some days, and on the right others, depending on the law. My friend will send a driver here.”
 

Once more I turned away in shame, for in truth I was afraid to search for my parents. The hate I thought I’d felt for Forma, as well as the courage I possessed in my dreams, now deteriorated into fear. “This reliance on drivers has already grown tiresome,” I snapped.
 

He laughed. “You may walk.” And then his face took on that responsive look again. “What would you have me do? Romance you as a Bakshami man would do? That falseness in romance offends me.”
 

The fog began to lift while we walked to the next town. The walk seemed long, even to me. I was so sleepy and hungry that the fog seemed like part of a dream. When it lifted I saw everything was all too real. The town might have seemed quaint to me just a few days earlier, but now I saw betrayal in every face I saw. According to Moor, immigrants outnumbered native Artrorans in these outlying towns, and most of them struggled to make a living.
 

My eye still throbbed where Penn had punched me. Moor had not mentioned my bruise, even as I saw him studying it. Bruises were a part of battle, nothing more, nothing less. The fog had lifted and I looked around for soldiers. But we’d walked a fair distance from where Penn had betrayed us, and there was no sign here of our pursuers.
 

The friend of Moor’s friend hadn’t arrived yet, and we passed another night in the bushes. As I lay in the cold bushes, huddled up against Moor, I knew it was inevitable that I should go to Forma now that the opportunity had come to me. And yet I was scared. At every step of this new life I felt fear, just as in every step of my old life I had known no fear.