IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume I: Welcome to The Charadoc!
Chapter 11 FAR FROM CIVILIZATION
Ash
Wednesday, February 19, 2708 We
leave before the dawn. I get just a
glimpse, as they bind my hands again, of tile roofs and trees, silhouetted
against a blue-violet sky, before they cinch the blindfold back on tight
against my bruises. In renewed darkness
the crowing of roosters sounds loud, almost frightened, like today's the day of
the axe. "Here,"
Cyran says. I feel something crumbly
shoved towards my mouth.
"Breakfast." I try to
eat it without choking, as e pushes it into my mouth because they have bound my
hands again. It doesn't taste bad, some
kind of tangy berry pie, spices and sugar in the flaky crust, but it's still so
hot from the oven that the filling burns my tongue. I beg for water and a metal cup hits my
teeth. I try to drink it tidily, but
some spills down my front, cold in the morning chill. "You
get the last of that fabric sold, Alysha?" "Yeah,
but some of the shopkeepers wondered where I got it." "Give
me their names later. We won't protect
them." And
then the vertigo hits, all over again.
Of course e drugged the food. At
least this time e wrapped the marijuana in carbohydrates, though, so the hunger
won't pinch so badly. Children's hands
spin me around a couple times just to make sure I can't tell north or south
from Heaven or Hell, then they drag me stumbling over vegetation, branches
slapping me in the face, leaves cold and wet all over me, and hard roots hidden
in the soil hurt my feet. Yet minute by
minute I feel it less and less, the bruises on me fade from sensation, the fear
and uncertainty become negligible. (It hurt to say goodbye to Aunt Jee--she
hugged me so tight that I felt the bones of her arms nearly cut me. Rich as she is and she had to go and get the
Wasting Disease.) Cyran
says to Alysha, "I'm glad we shed those rags--time we got back into the
forest." "As
much as you spent drugging the doxie, we barely made a profit at all." "They
raise the Tilián in a playground for illusionists. You can't mess up their sense of direction
any other way." Hands
shove me out of the path of a tree trunk, probably. A child's voice says, "Watch out for the
branch," and I dodge, but go way off balance and would've fallen if they
hadn't pushed me back again. (She laughed, though, when she told me. She said that by now every rich bastard and
their sons, all those who run the mine and factory, and the cheating company
store, must have the Wasting Disease from her.
Because of that Uncle Tangley will forgive her when they meet again.) "Fortunately,
we won't need the weed anymore after today," says Cyran. "We're taking our guest so far from
civilization she'll think we dropped her on another planet." Don't
bother, Cyran. I'm there already. Wednesday, February 19, 2708 I waited till Soskia and her household left for
their Ash Wednesday services, then I went out to the alley to the right of her
mansion, the one down which they must have taken Deirdre, and there I met
him. The Purple Mantle. He didn't look so dreadful, quite young in fact,
the mustache still soft, as though he’d only started to shave a couple years
ago. An overbite gave his face a
disarming look, sensitive, almost apologetic or imploring, and he had large,
chocolate eyes. A smudge of ashes
centered his brow like any other good believer here, shriven of his sins for
one more year. He wore street clothes,
the "mantle" being only a small serapelike oval that in summertime
stops mid-chest; he could have doffed it in a minute if he hadn't wanted
known. He wore his sleeves full enough
to show some authority, but the long cuffs kept the fabric out of the way, the
shirt as clean and white as a choirboy's.
Good; he seemed to know his business. We met each other's eyes. I made the gesture which Magar had taught to
me: first fan out the fingers of the left hand, like stretching, and close them
again, then the same with the right, then clasp my hands together loosely in
front of me, hanging below the waist. I
felt supplication in this posture, standing there, waiting for acknowledgement. He nodded, then turned to walk down the alley as I
followed. Humidity pressure-cooked the
odor of garbage around us, and the sky looks iron-hard--the monsoons seemed
ready to resume at any minute. And that
pleased me; I felt in the mood for thunder and lightning and hot, angry rain—I
pictured it blowing Soskia and all her prayerful household skyward on their way
home, whisking her up flailing into her heavens, stripping off every petal of
her gown, leaving her to clutch her wizened arms around her nakedness. But fantasies, even fantasies of revenge, fell flat
when I saw what my companion nudged with his toe. I knelt to take up the crimson satin slipper,
made narrow at the heel but broad at the toe on a combination-last, for a
slightly uncommon kind of foot. I cradled
it against my breast, and my own hot tears darkened the dusty fabric even as
the first drops fell from the sky. "We start here," said my companion,
unperturbed by the increasing rain.
"My name is Sanzio D’Arco." * * * They
rest me more often now, allowing me some leniency as I recover from my
beating. I think they spare me far too
much, in fact, perhaps not knowing my mettle.
Far be it from me to argue! Lent
begins today, if I remember my count of days correctly. Doesn't matter; fasting has become the
norm. And chains beat ashes any day as a
sign of humbling. They
no longer bother with the blindfold, this deep into the uncharted forest; I
squint at my surroundings through the swellings of two black eyes, against the
dripping rain. Trees tower above trees,
leaves veil leaves from sight, tangles of underbrush block me from further
tangles--half the rain doesn't even get through to our level. Miles and miles of beauty imprison me, and my
heart nearly tears in two between the glory of the sight and its implications
for my isolation. Birds sing strange
songs that I have never heard before, and my feet crush scents from herbs that
smell nothing like the hiking-paths of home.
Even the rocks look strange to me, the deep-colored outcroppings with
their paler veins. But
hiking I know, wherever I go in this world.
I know that the halt ends when they haul me to my feet, but they don't
have to drag me behind them, I feel the hiking-rhythm possess my legs, I feel
the gladness of muscles doing as God meant for them to do, I feel the
heightened circulation and the opening pores.
Left, right, left, nature scenes change with every bend like I turn pages
with each stride. Each twist of branch,
each sway of greenery, each sparkle of the rain renews me. I may not know the ways this forest grows, but
at least I know how to take it in. Thursday,
February 20, 2708 My bare feet hurt. By
now no trace of the drug remains to cushion the pain, but I've felt worse; I
can keep up. The forest abounds in
twigs, rocks, roots, biting insects, and sometimes grass so thin and fine that
it slashes skin. And the march goes
on. I work to distract myself, on deep breaths
of the woodland scent, on admiration for the curving shapes of branch and
bough, on scanning for some possibility of escape. But every so often a step reminds me just how
much my feet do hurt, without possibility of tending them. And then I shove the awareness back again. To Cyran beside me I say, “You're not the first person to
field child soldiers, you know. A great
criminal on Earth, in a land called Uganda...” “I know all about Kony!” e snaps. “I can read a book.” “Yes, I suppose anyone who can read knows about the worst
child-predator in the history of the worlds.” “But I'm nothing like him,” e insists, his voice
softer. “He couldn't get anybody to
support his cause unless he took them prisoner in childhood and brainwashed
them. Lots of people support me, but
they can't get away, so they send their kids, nothing but kids, the little ones
who can escape.” Desperately e says, “I want adults. I really do.” “So you never kidnap minors to raise them in your cause?” “Never!” “You never force girls to have sex with your soldiers?” “Are you kidding
me? If any of mine forced himself on
anyone else I'd shoot him, myself.” “You never make children slay their parents to bind them to
you with guilt?” “Of course not! I
wouldn't have them kill anyone but a legitimate military target.” “Still, for a child that must feel...” “...just. After all
they've been through, it feels just. Ask
them. I didn't do the traumatizing.” “And you've never thrown them into battle hopped up on
drugs?” E answers nothing.
Not a word. |
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