“Shut up, boy—!”
“Shut your mouth—and be quiet!”
“What’s going to happen to us? What’s going to happen—”
There was a grunt in the
darkness. “You want to know what’s going to happen? You’re going to have a red hot fever by tonight. And in three days that gash in your leg is going to be filled with little white worms. And you’re going to have flies crawling all over you. And your mouth’s gonna dry up, and you’re going to cry for water, only if somebody brings it to you, you won’t be able to drink it; and if somebody pours it in your mouth it isn’t going to make no difference, and you’re gonna hang around like that for seven, eight, nine days, with your tongue cracking and bleeding, turned all black—then you’re going to die. That’s what’s going to happen. An’ I just hope I’m dead already when it does—probably will be. Cause what I got’s a lot worse than what you do.”
“Don’t tell him
that,
Uk. You don’t have to tell him—”
“Hey, Uk? That’s not what’s going to happen—is it, Uk? That’s not what’s gonna happen… ? Oh, no—don’t tell me that!”
“The boy don’t need to know that kind of thing—”
“Then why’d he ask, if he didn’t want to know? They pulled their damned blades—when they had us under that net, hacking at us. They didn’t cut to kill—you can’t fight a war like that! You can’t do it like that! That’s not the way to do it!”
“They’re not going to let that happen to us, are they? You don’t think that’s what they’re going to do? Oh, don’t tell me that—”
“You can’t pull back when you’re fighting like that. If I had my blade, boy, I’d kill you now. Put you out of your misery—and if you don’t shut up in here, I may just try it anyway with my bare hands. Only I’m too weak—too bad for you. But keep quiet, I say!”
On the council
building’s cellar floor, at first making figures like red feathers, blood leaked out to mix with the urine still there from the village prisoners released that morning.
“Oh, don’t say that—I’m bleeding, Uk. I’m bleeding so bad—”
“Will you shut up, boy? Are you a man or are you a howling dog? There’re men dying in here. And there’re going to be more men dying. So will you have some respect and shut up… ?”
But after minutes, all form to the red shapes spreading the wet floor was gone.
F
ROM
high in the
mountains a stream drops in
feathery falls, to bubble along beside the grassy fold through the quarry at Çiron.
When Rahm threw a last handful of sand and grit back to pock the water and, elbows high and winging, waded up the bank, his hair was a black sheet bright on his back and his dripping skin was raw—but both were free of blood.
Vortcir perched on a log jutting above the rocks, wings waving like a great moth’s.
A leg still in the foamy rush, Rahm looked down to finger up the chain around his neck.
“They were planning to come through the mountains—to Hi-Vator. Hi-Vator was right in their line.” Vortcir cocked his head to the side, above his own Handsman’s chain. “We heard what they’d done to you and your village. Certainly we couldn’t let that happen to us. No sense of weapons,
god, or money—you’re not far enough along toward civilization for anyone to take you seriously. Still, I did not like these Myetrans—and my aunt said attack. Then, my friend, I heard your name through their accursed speakers—and after that your own call. Well—these are all things to put out of your mind. You are free. Your village is free. A third of the Myetran soldiers run wildly even now, away in the woods. My scouts say most are heading southeast, in the direction of Myetra Himself. More than a third are dead—and the few captured are penned in the basement of your council building. It could be a lot worse.”
Along the path to the bank, dappled light spilling bits of even brighter copper down his braids, Abrid ran half a dozen steps, stopped; and, copper spilling hers even faster, Rimgia overtook him. Behind, wings waving in their own rose dapple, the female Winged One who’d once told Rahm about money came after them. “These are the ones you wanted, the two with the red hair—yes, Handsman Rahm? These are the ones, no? Certainly they must be!” Her voice was between a piping and a whine.
“Rahm!” Rimgia declared, Abrid right behind. “The Winged Ones—they drove off the soldiers…!” and she began to tell him, excitedly, many things he already knew; and, while Abrid looked excited and kept silent, they started back to the village.
The path crossed the bristle of a burnt field. Halfway over, Rahm stopped. “I’ll see thee back in town in a little, Rimgia, at the common,” and he turned across the field toward the remains of the shack.
As he came around where half a wall still stood, he stopped.
*
On her knees, Naä looked
up from where she had been pulling earth from under a charred log. “Rahm . . ?” she smiled up briefly, then dug some more.
Three double handfuls of black, cinder-filled dirt, and she leaned to reach in under with one arm. Sitting back, she lifted free the harp and unwrapped the charred cloth. Two dead leaves were caught in its strings. Fingering them loose, she pulled the base back into her lap, laid her hand against the strings, but did not pluck.
Rather, she reached down to her hip and loosed the knife from her sash. “This is …this was Ienbar’s.” Clearly unsure what to do with it, she held it out to him. “Rahm …?”
He didn’t take it; so she put it on the log.
“The children—” Rahm nodded across the field. “Rimgia and Abrid. They’re all right. A Winged One found them—”
“Oh!” Suddenly she stood. “They found them—” She smiled at him, looked across the field, at Rahm again—then called: “Rimgia, Abrid… !” Pushing her arm through the strap, shrugging the instrument to her back, with Rahm following Naä began to run across the charred grass.
Elbows forward on his knees and gazing at nothing, Lieutenant Kire sat on the blackened block, where he’d been sitting, silent on the common, forty minutes now. The villagers moving about sometimes glanced at him, then—a few and a few more—moved about him without looking at all.
On foot or in air, passing Winged Ones ignored him.
Mantice was chattering away at Rahm as they came across
the grass: “Four of them we bandaged up and sent south on their way—though, phew!—they’d only been down there six hours, and already it was halfway between a cesspit and a shambles. One of them—a young fellow—was cut bad in the leg and already down with a fever. But Hara took him into her hut and says she can nurse him back to his feet—although, I allow, he’ll limp the rest of his life. But that woman’s as wise with medicinal weeds as she is at weaving. If anyone can save him, it’ll be she. Three, now, I’m sorry to say it, were too far gone. Two of those were already dead when we went in there. And one died even as we were carrying him up the steps and out into the clear air. Thou wouldst have thought the ones alive and turned loose would have had some gratitude—or at least a smile for the favor. But all of them were sullen fellows. Well, they’d been through it too,
I
suppose.
I
had them put the dead ones back over in my water wagon—”
Here the lieutenant looked around, got to his feet heavily, and turned. “Rahm, he says there are more dead about. Myetran dead. In his wagon. May I see them? I…” His rough voice snagged on itself. “I’ve been trying to get an idea whom we lost—among the men I knew, I mean.”
“Of course,” Rahm said; though, from report, the lieutenant had not done much of anything in the past hour. “Mantice, canst thou take me and friend Kire to see?”
“But only come thou along,” said the stocky water cart driver. “My cart is this way.”
Five minutes later, off on a side street, with one hand on the wagon’s edge, the lieutenant peered within. The puma’s head, beside his, save for its sealed eyes, might have been peering too. Standing at Kire’s shoulder, Rahm looked in. The
lieutenant’s next breath was a little louder than the one before it. But the one after was quiet again.
On his back at the cart’s far side by three other bodies, the big soldier had a gaping slash along his flank through which, beneath a carapace of flies, you could see both meat and bone. Rahm recognized him more from his size. The full features, unshaven, held a slight grimace in death.
“Friend Kire . . ?”
“Yes?” The lieutenant looked over, across the lion’s muzzle.
“That one there,” Rahm said. “Didst thou know him? Was he a bad man… ?” though, even as he asked it, the idea of this dead soldier with his annoyed expression, as the evil figure he remembered, seemed ludicrous.
“A bad man?” The lieutenant gave a kind of snort. “Uk, there? Uk was the best—he was a
very
good man. Or at least a good soldier.”
“Ah,” Rahm said. “I see.”
The lieutenant took another, louder breath, dropped his hand, and turned from the cart. “Rahm, I want to thank you, for… for my life. Though I guess there’s no proper way to give such thanks formally, now, is there …”
Rahm grinned. Then he said: “Friend Kire…” but nothing else.
So finally Kire said: “I must go and look about among the other men, to see whom I can recognize …”
“Certainly.”
As the two men turned again toward the common, a young man with his hair tied back hurried up toward them. “Art thou the one they call Lieutenant Kire . . ?” He was a lean flanked youth, with big ears and big hands. (Rahm grinned at Qualt.) “I was just
back at Hara’s and Jallet told me—thy prince, he wishes to see thee. Then Hara asked me if I would…” While Kire looked uncomfortable, Qualt glanced at Rahm.
“Yes, of course—”
“Thou knowest the house—it’s the one they kept thee in, earlier… ?”
“Of course,” the lieutenant repeated in his unnaturally rough voice, then started back along the street.
When the lieutenant was gone, Qualt resumed his quiet smile: “Hey, Rahm—I heard about him and thee, what thou didst together at the common this morning!”
“And what are we supposed to have done that anyone wouldn’t do who had to save himself and a friend?”
“Oh,
I
heard!” Qualt nodded. “It was a terrifying battle—so says everyone who saw it; and so do a good many more who’ve only heard of it. Thou gavest the Myetrans a show and a fight, ’ey?”
And Rahm, who had heard nothing at all of what Qualt had done (for even the Winged Ones he’d talked to had not mentioned Qualt by name), put his tree trunk of an arm about Qualt’s lean shoulders and, leaning toward the garbage collector, said: “Well, if thou wouldst talk about it to gossipy old men and women from the back of thy cart when thou makest thy next dawn rounds, let me tell thee a little of what it was
really
like. Here’s how it was, for mayhap thou dost not know; but I have even been to Hi-Vator . . !” and the two youths, Rahm leaning his head down to Qualt’s, with Qualt listening and Rahm explicating and gesturing, walked back toward the common.
*
Minutes later on
the same side street, Rimgia and Naä passed Mantice’s wagon. Rimgia stood on tip toes, looked in, then turned away with a sour face. “Guess who’s in
that
one—” But there was a quick grin, impossible to squelch at the sourness’s end. After all, it was not another villager.
“Who—?” Naä asked. She looked too. “Oh… him! Well, good riddance, I suppose.”
“Naä?” Rimgia walked again as again Naä fell in beside her. “Isn’t it odd? Yesterday, the idea of what happens when we die seemed just the most fascinating thing in the world to think about. And now, with so many dead about us—our people, theirs—it just seems silly. What, today, dost
thou
think?”
Naä shrugged. “Well, I’ve always thought thinking about how to live was more important than thinking about after we die. One likes to assume death will take care of itself. It’s just a bit disconcerting to see so many other people putting so much energy into taking care of it for you. Life has always been such a surprise, death, I expect—even if it’s nothing—will be one too.”
Which, to Rimgia, sounded very wise. The two women walked on through the late afternoon, looking up in the air again and again.
The shack was dark and hot. At one side of the room, blinking about sullenly, a young soldier lay, his leg in a wad of bloody bandage. At the fire, the old weaver glanced up, then went back to stirring her pot over crackling flames. The smell of wintergreen and something vinegary escaped in the steam whipping from the rim.
Some rural remedy, that—however bitter on the tongue, however
turgid in the belly—would return the moribund to life?
Or perhaps a country potion, that—if one was lucky, did nothing or, if one was not—hastened the end?
The pallet on the near side was
much
bloodier; and when, from where he lay, the prince began to speak, the young soldier turned away, in disinterest or exhaustion.
“Ah, you’ve come—it is you, isn’t it? I can’t see very well. How odd…excuse me; this terrible lack of breath, panting—it’s all I can do. How odd it is that we have come so near to changing places, you and I. What a very little time ago it was, when, here in this shack in which we were keeping you, you knew that you’d be dead in hours… then in minutes… then, when you were led across the grass, in moments—and I looked down on it all. Now I’m the one who knows I have only hours left—perhaps not even that. And there you stand, watching, with not much to say. Come here…come closer. We share a mission, you and I—Ah, when that boy’s blade went into my chest, I could actually feel—beyond the pain, as I fell, not quite unconscious—I could
feel
the metal inside, against my heart, feel my heart beating against the blade, pushing against the edge that actually touched it, with each pulse, doubtless cutting itself to ribbons, even as he wrested it free of my ribs—if I could only get in a real breath! This panting, like a woman in labor, just to bring forth my death! But I wonder if you’ll ever know how cursedly annoying it is to
feel
the inside of your body. It’s quite the strangest thing there is. That poor, mad Çironian, with his ax—I liked him, you know? Is it so strange to say? He rather reminded me of myself—myself a long, long time ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if, years from now,
he
doesn’t begin to
remind a few people of me! Give me your hand there—no, take mine. Take it…did you take it? By Kirke, I can’t even feel it! Really, it’s probably him I should be talking to, not you. Though in all likelihood he can make the transition—I
trust
he can make the transition, without my help. I can’t see him staying on here in this town much longer—any more than I can see it for you! They will be happy to have him, certainly—for a day, a week, a month even. But he will not be able to stay here long. Soon he will have to go—of his own accord, if the town is lucky. Else they will have to drive him out—or kill him: an outlaw in this grotty village with no laws to speak of. For soon they will realize they are harboring that most dangerous creature, a young man who has defied the highest, most rigorous, most rigid law, defied it with mayhem and destruction and most wanton murders—ten, eleven, twelve murders I have heard; thirteen, when I die—and gotten away scot free! No, he must go—even if it takes him a month, a year, five years to be on his way. Really, I would like to be around to observe what happens… Come closer, closer. We must be closer, you and I. I can’t even see the color of your eyes. Please, you must come closer… excuse me for whispering. But I have to conserve my strength—though, for what, I cannot guess. But still—I still feel something separates us, like…like what? Like a blood drop run down a…Oh, I cannot
tell
you how the notion of eternity bores me—not to mention all the silly stories we’re always making up to render the idea palatable! A universe where one has to die is
so
uninteresting—you can understand how we’re always flirting with the idea of letting in a bit more evil, then just a bit more—to liven things up. No, come closer. Closer—no… this place, in its stinking particularity, doesn’t have much
of the eternal about it. We’re probably in one of those benighted little cultures where every three, five, or seven years, the locals go off on a journey in the wilds, in hopes of becoming a little less local after all. Well, I think that’s what
you
probably need, just about now. You were
not
a good officer. But you might still make a good man. I think you would like to be a certain
sort
of man—even, yes, I dare to say it, a good one. But, no, you aren’t now. At least not yet. Just ask that boy staring at the thatch, across the room. Or any one of them down in the council-house cellar. Still, to be the man you want to be, you have merely to pursue yourself—passionately, brutally, blindly, looking for no thanks! It means, yes, doing what you feel is right—I have always tried to do what was right. But long ago I learned that being right was a brutal, cruel, and thankless position. Ah—I wish I could see you more clearly! If you pursue yourself in that manner, your friends will criticize you for it, call you a fool—as I have called you. But then, with only a few unhappy moments, I’ve always considered myself your friend. The things that made you hate me, I only did to shock you, to wake you up, to make you become yourself… and you are chuckling bitterly now, saying:
Yes, that’s why he condemned me to death!
Well, what we criticize in you, cultivate. That’s you. And promise me—promise me, that you will, indeed . . you will go on to pursue the person you are so close to becoming yet are so far away from. It isn’t a very big promise; but I want that promise to fall, like a severing blade, between you and your ever taking the notion for granted that, finally, you have achieved it. For then, my friend, you
will
be in my position—I promise you. So, we have promises to exchange, you and I. Oh, I would love to be able to promise you
more than that—more than what is simply inevitable. Come closer, please… hold my hand tighter. Don’t let anything hold us apart—not now. Let me do this. Let me…I can’t feel you at all. Tighter! A little tighter? Oh…!” The prince made a sudden attempt to pull air into his ruined ribs that would not respond. And another. Then, he whispered: “It’s going to
happen!
It’s going to—” For choking moments behind the beard, his face took on a look of pained surprise, that, slowly, subsided—till the head dropped to the side. Bubbles in the red froth at his mouth’s corner burst against beard hair. Breath was gone.