IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume
II: Tests of Fire and Blood
Chapter 30 Out on the Town
Thursday, May 21, 2708, continued. “That’s the road, up there.” I see it first as light, sunlight pouring
through the trees, unobstructed by any other trees competing for the sun. In a few steps we push through and reach it—a
long expanse of normalcy, the route by which non-guerillas get from town to town—easy,
clear, and exposed. And it frightens me. (Merrill just has to
join in the competition. Two idiots face
each other, against nicked-up sheets of plywood, and each takes turns throwing
knives at the other. Whoever plays the
target must spread his arms and legs, to the satisfaction of a barmaid. Whichever moron hits closest to the other, in
ten throws, without drawing blood, wins.
A direct hit forfeits the game, if you threw it. So does moving, if you’re the target. I have no
reservations about betting on Merrill.
But I wouldn’t play. I see the stains
on the wood.) Before we leave the shelter of the trees, we give each
other one last check for bloodstains on our clothes; it wouldn’t do to go in
looking like revolutionaries. And Chulan
insists that I rebraid my hair before we take one step further. As I do so army jeeps roll by, and we pretend not to
care. It seems to take forever, with so
many of them. It gives me time to admire
the patchwork of old and new paving, in just about every material that might
come to hand, from tamped-down earth with a whey binder (still smelling cheesey)
to cobbles, concrete, keepcrete, gravel, and patches of what might have been
actual asphalt from Earth, formed from the sap of premammalian vegetation,
transmuted by eons on another planet—to think that people walk on this, that their
beasts of burden dump on it, without a speck of awe! (Sighs of awe fill
the room after Merrill’s fourth win; I turn from the spectacle of a customer
mooning Ms. Merc-Medic to receive an injection, to pay attention to the
competition. Some folks, I notice, eye
our winnings with suspicion. I finish
what turns out to be Randy’s drink, choke, then quickly gulp down my own beer
to wash Lizzie’s Gizzard Grater from my throat.
Horseradish does not belong in
beverages!) It takes no time at all, on the open road, to reach
Chicamoq. The bright buildings all wear
paint in different colors, the flowerboxes overflow, and pretty clothes flutter
like banners on the lines overhead, drying in this precious sunny-spell. Soon we enter the marketplace: a maze of fruit-heaped carts,
street-food smells and flashy stalls, thronging with dickering shoppers, hollering
children, singing buskers, bellowing livestock, sizzling skillets, hucksters
who advertise at the top of their lungs...and soldiers on leave. With a few expert shrugs, Chulan’s blouse
sinks down her shoulders as if by accident, and she struts like a tail-swishing
cat. I don’t know if she does this on purpose
or not; sometimes the streets you’ve walked remember your old habits, and they
seep back up into your soles. (By habit I reach
for my mug, not taking my eyes off the knives.
Contestant number five steps up, and he has not been drinking cocoa. The first two throws hit hilt-first and drop
to the floor. The third goes wide. On the fourth he nicks Merrill’s arm. Merrill grimaces so fast that the others
might have missed it, and then he grins.
“Automatic lose,” he says with a nod, and the crowd cheers his panache. Don steps up to bandage Merrill, from his own
pocket-kit, before Merc-Medic can arrive with gauze of doubtful provenance. A hand grips my
shoulder. “Oh, sorry!” I say. I must have grabbed my neighbor’s beer by
mistake; Merc-Medic took my empty away while I had my back turned. She replaces them, though, and I pay for
both, face burning. The man seems
mollified.) “Hey, Chulan!” a man calls out. Oh monkeydung! “We haven’t seen you for ages—where’ve you
been, girl?” And others sitting around
an outdoor bar concur. She saunters over
and I want to die, following reluctantly behind, feeling my face heat in the
tropic steam. Chulan murmurs, “And the
game goes on...” (The game goes
on. Number six steps up, doesn’t hit
anywhere near close, and so on the last throw, just to show off, Merrill pins
his pantsleg to the wood. Inside, high
up, close to the goods. I recall what I
thought before about Merrill’s mood, and my scalp prickles. People laugh, but uneasily.) “Allow me to introduce my sister-in-law” says Chulan, changing our plan on the spot. “Deirdre Keller.” I giggle faintly, making a nervous
finger-wave. They frown. “What
kind of a name is Deirdre Keller?” She winks, and bends over salaciously to whisper (yet I can
hear her) “A rich foreign daddy who
doesn’t know better than to marry Mountainfolk can name his daughter anything
he wants. I told you I could make good at the harbor.” (The umpire makes a
show of bending to examine the throw, wiggling her rump a bit. I think she feels the tension, too, and wants
to distract the patrons. “Not a scratch,”
she declares, and the crowd goes wild.
Not just for Merrill. When the
loser bows, the applause drowns out the
music. Randy leans over and murmurs in
my ear, “Too drunk to flinch, but they’re calling it courage.” I nod.) “Rich, ha!” A man
smacks her hindquarters. “That’s why you
dress like that, is it?” She pouts, saying, “Maybe I’m just slumming.” “Nawww. I know you,
Chulan. You’d come back in truesilk if
you had it, with sleeves a mile wide, just to show us all.” He puts an arm around her, and she lets
him. Only I notice her hand slipping
into his pocket. She giggles suddenly.
“Alright! So he’s not rich, but
he’s doing okay. And just to show you all,” she says with a nod and a
wink, “I’m going to buy drinks for the lot of you.” Which she proceeds to do, with his money. (Before number
seven can step forward I grab Merrill by the arm and pull him out of
there. I notice men gathering to
grumble. “Have one on me!” I say in a
loud, cheery voice, and then mutter for his ears alone, “You are drawing way
too much attention!” Merrill glares, but
then nods. “One Cocoa Diablo
and one Scotch Hop coming up.” Says Ms. Merc-Medic. I hadn’t meant another for me, too, but why
argue?) I hang back shyly while they laugh over old times. I don’t have to feign embarrassment over some
of the things said! But while they do,
and as Chulan keeps the drinks coming (while keeping her own portion modest
with the discretion of a pro) I pick a few pockets out of her reach—thank you
Don, for teaching me how! (Thugs surround us,
while we finish our drinks. I see Don
pick the pocket of the handsome little ringleader, as the man growls, “Sooner
or later you boys have to leave the bar, you know.” Shortest but toughest, and all defer to
him—nice. Blonde, too. I nod and smile like I don’t have a clue, saying,
“Sure—as soon as you pay off your debt.” He gives me a dark
smirk back, “Oh, I’ll pay up all right—for now.” And he reaches for his pocket. Surprise and outrage fill his face. “Hey—where’d my money get off to?” And he
glares suspiciously at us. Don drawls, “You
left your wallet on the bar. I’ve been
keeping an eye on it for you.” And hands
it to him. Chief Thug blushes;
I like that. “Oh. Uh...thanks.”) Chulan says, “It’s been fun, boys, but we’ve got shopping
to do.” And we slip out of there before
they notice anything missing besides their wits, melting into the crowd. Chulan slides her blouse back up her
shoulders and suppresses her habitual sway, as painfully aware as I of how much
of the crowd wears olive green with purple piping. Now we have enough cash not only for eyeliner, but also
bean cakes, salt-paste, onions, dates, tangerines, a few small squashes, and a
jar of pickled sososka. And we listen to
the soldiers talk. (The boyishly
handsome rascal-in-chief takes the wallet and leafs through it. Outlaw scrip, still surviving the Outlaw
Cult. Still handy to keep transactions
off the books. “It’s all here,” he
murmurs. I throw my arms
wide, grinning. “You know what? You can keep my winnings—I don’t need the
money.” Good—now he’s beholden. “It’s a lovely night, and you’re just too
damn cute to deprive.” Did I just say
that out loud? In the stunned
silence, Randy asks, “Jake, how many beers did you have?” Cutie shouts, “We’re
taking this outside!” And two thugs
apiece grab our shirts and haul us out the nearest exit.) While Chulan haggles for stapleseed flour, I eavesdrop on
some soldiers standing nearby. General
Aliso wants to mobilize them for a major action not too far from here. With my eyes downcast, I drop an onion and
get down on hands and knees to find out where it rolled. Down there where nobody will notice, I do a
quick scan of the crowd, sizing up the army-boots among the sandals and bare
feet. Way too many. I retrieve my onion and stand. “Thieves!
Thieves!” The outcry ripples
through the crowd towards us. Chulan
throws the last of our money at the vendor, tosses the flour into her backpack
and takes off. I run right behind her. A glance back shows how the flour-vendor
“accidentally” rolls a barrel in the way of our pursuers. “Rebels?” several
soldiers shout, scrambling for their guns.
Dung! “No, whores! Poxy
pickpocket whores!” Amid the laughter we dive through a perfume stand, roll
under the tables and come out tangled up in a weaver’s stall on the other side. We barely claw our way free of ikats before
we hear an officer shout, “After them, men!
It’s our duty to protect the law-abiding citizens!” Double
dung! Soldiers come straight at us down one corner, so we
hairpin-turn right into another bunch. “Follow me!” Chulan cries.
We scramble up a cart mounded with melons, sending rolling chaos behind
us to bounce and smash fragrantly all over everything, but by then we’ve leaped
to a pole that we shinny up as fast as monkeys, bullets whizzing past us. “Cease fire!” the
officer shrills as we leap for a balcony.
“You idiots! Do you want the
ricochets to hit bystanders?” Meanwhile
we dart past an indignant man in a bathtub and the woman soaping his back, shoot
through to the room on the other side, past a couple staring children, and leap
from that window to the next, catching the windowsill just in time. I so wish
I had a flit! “No bystanders down here, Sarge!” comes the shout from the
street below. I never saw two women
tumble into a window so fast! Bullets
pound the wall behind us as we sprawl on the floor, gasping. “Surround the building!” someone shouts outside. We fell, it turns out, smack dab into an opium den—just as
Chulan planned. I shout through the smoke, “Get out! It’s a raid!
Get out!”, while unbraiding and teasing my hair as fast as my fingers
can fly, same as Chulan. On the run we
grab handfuls of dust to smear on our faces as we join the stampede, looking
like we’ve forgotten personal hygiene for days on end. It also gives us that druggie grayish pallor. We burst into the light and gulp the fresh air. The Charadocian army has its hands full
trying to sort through a mob of hysterical dope fiends for the entrepeneurs. Behind us we hear the officer proudly declaring
arrests; pushers trump pickpockets in the local law, but they don’t really care
if some of the addicts escape. Thank you, patron saint of thieves, whoever you are! (“Listen, lads, no
hard feelings, all right?” Don says politely to the wreckage in the alley. A man groans and spits out a bloody tooth. “I’m sure Jake meant no disrespect to your
leader for his height—our own short friends have saved our lives a number of
times—isn’t that right, Merrill? Randy? “A few times,”
Merrill says, feigning modesty, and Randy nods. Don makes sure that
none of them need urgent medical attention, that each can stagger to the
nearest clinic without much trouble. He does break off a piece of rotten fence
and splints Cutie’s arm, so fast that none of them have time to climb to their
feet before he finishes. I didn’t mean
to do that, but his grip on my throat might have made me overreact a little. “Self-defense,
lads,” Don says as he stands up. “If it
came to a trial, I for one would be happy to submit to telepathic
interrogation—would you?” And with that
bluff, we head out in search of public transportation. “Now that,” Merrill
declares, “Is what I call a splendid Boy’s Night Out!” And I just roll my eyes.) * * * Deep into the night we go. On hearing our report, Lucinda declares an all-night
march, to scramble out of there before the coming clash sweeps us up; we have a
different mission, she says, and we’re not outfitted for full-on battle. I never did get a clear shot at nicking a
pistol, but Lucinda’s too glad of the food to care. All in all a splendid outing, even if we do
have to pay for it now. Kief carries Aichi, but the others soldier on, even little
Lufti trying his best to look hard and brave.
I’ve had twenty-fours in my training, so I manage okay, though my feet
feel a bit battered and my shoulders weigh a ton. I just keep focused on following Lucinda’s
broad back, pushing through the dew-drenched ferns, faint sparkles in the dark,
chewing on my crumbly-dry bean-cake and wishing I had some butter for it. But it could be worse. I find myself smiling as I chew. Then worse happens, but not to us. We hear the artillery in the
distance—artillery! Somebody’s getting a
pounding tonight. Fatima crosses
herself, saying, “They only pull out the big guns when they’re wiping out a
village. A whole village. They must have decided it’s a rebel enclave.” “Was it?” I ask.
She shrugs. “How the
hell should I know?” And we march on.
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