IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume
III: Responsibility
Chapter 10 Change is Life, Change is Death
Wednesday, June 10, 2708,
continued "I've killed for
you," I whisper to Aron's grave.
"I didn't feel bad at all. In fact, I think I liked it." I hush when I hear voices
nearby. The lady of the roadside tavern
speaks to the soldiers who increasingly sneak away to her establishment on any
day of the week. "You boys never pay me
enough, anymore," she whines in a voice that begs for slapping. "How'm I supposed to make a living if
you keep on making me lower the price?" "Stop your lip, woman,
and be glad we don't take it all for free!" "But it's the finest
chaummin in all the Charadoc, and I ought to charge you double what you're
offering me." Oh, she’s good, all
right. "That does it--I'm
sick of listening to you. Men, take the
barrels—every last one of them. I'll
teach you to pinch pennies with the Charadocian army. Jeez, when I think of what we brave for
ingrates like you! And when we're done with
those, you'd better have a fresh batch brewed, if you feel like living." Oh, she will, have no fear
of that. I already smell the stills
working overtime. And we have as many
taps in place as every Chaummin tree can bear, with the season’s chill just right
for what we want. How carefully we guard
the sugary fluid from the hungry children as we cook it down to glue. Best friend a rebel ever has is liquor in the
enemy ranks--we'll make sure that they run out of anything else before that. As the taverness continues
to argue, making them more determined than ever to rob her dry, I move towards
one of the many brooks that lace the forest around here. I slip on gloves and listen for the
particular croak of the poison-toad--that bright scarlet and yellow creature
that can kill you from a dart dipped into the essence of its skin, or make you
want to die if you but brush that skin with yours. I must catch some before they estivate,
hidden deeply in the drying autumn mud.
Most of them I will bring back up to camp, but I want to slip at least
one into a sleeping soldier's boot. * * * (“I’m scared,
Changewright.” He looks up at me with
enormous eyes. I almost see the colors
shift across his face, a faint pearlescence.
I couldn’t press the juice out without absorbing some of it through the
skin. He shimmers—I can feel him shimmering! “Don’t be afraid,
my Corey, my special one.” I lift the
chalice that fills the room with its sweet parsnip scent. “You were born for just this hour.” Gently I cup the back of his head with one
hand (the hair so soft, so soft!) and with the other I bring the vessel to his
lips. “Trust me and drink deep—it is
good!”) * * * (“It may seem good,”
Jake says out of the clear blue, “but
it’s not what it seems.” Don and I look
up from flipping through books. “He’s
changing all the rules!” Suddenly Jake
throws a book flapping across the room.
“What good does it do to study anything,” he cries, standing up, “when
he’s changing all the rules?” “Jake,” I say
sternly, standing up myself, “We’ve talked about this before. You can
control these visionary outbursts.” He freezes, and
suddenly looks very young—the same look he used to have as a child, staring at
nothing, suddenly afraid that he’s crossed a line, that bad things will
happen. Don also sits quite still, his
eyes going back and forth between Jake and me. Jake asks, hesitantly, “Did I do something,
uh, violent, again?” “You threw a
book.” I go and fetch it for him. “Funerary Customs and Inheritance Laws of the
Kinnitch/Borta/Toulin/Vanikke Region and Related Islands.” I smile, trying not to ratchet up the
drama. “I hope we never have to use that
information!” Still smiling as I hand it
to him, I say, “You can tell us whatever you need to, Jake, without throwing
things around.” He looks on me with
sudden focus, but I still see panic in his face, barely held in check. “I, I learned that from my father, I
think. He used to throw things.” Slowly he gets a grip on himself. “I mustn’t follow his example.” He takes back the book and puts it carefully
on the stack, as if he fears that it could break. I pat him on the
shoulder. “Don’t worry,” I say. “You’re not your father. Now, what did you want to tell us?” He takes a deep
breath, trying to capture it. “He…but
there may be more than one. All tangled
together, you know? But somebody…it’s
not just the school rules, not just custom.”
He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and says in Toulinian, “We have
to watch for a chap called Changewright.
All currents lead back to him.”) I blink, shaking my head,
momentarily dizzy. The rainforest blurs
before me and my pulse whooshes in my ears.
I catch myself against a tree before anybody notices, clinging to its
roughness anchored to the here and now.
Haven’t I felt odd ever since last night? Of course you have, Deirdre. Low blood sugar. Everybody in the whole danged camp feels
odd. Go back to sleep You’ve got night work anyway. In fact we all should get some rest; didn’t
Kief give orders to that effect, that we should all go nocturnal? I blink a moment, and then remember where my
hammock lies. (I blink, and
suddenly it’s not night anymore. And
Corey...not here. Up ahead. I walk under the afternoon sun, classes cut
short for the day’s sad business, surrounded by my fellow students, all
marching towards the school cemetery. I
almost fall into the sound of the wind rustling in the trees just beyond the
walls, miles and miles of trees... Aaron grabs my
elbow and pinches hard. I give him a
thank-you nod. My mind must have
slipped backwards in time—well, of course, one must expect such things when
playing with the Rift. What happened...last
night, many hours ago, but the effects still linger. I’d absorbed too much through the skin, when
I’d crushed the root. I should have worn
gloves. And I probably shouldn’t have
kissed the cold lips, later, when he fell. “Keep it together,
Changewright,” Aaron growls at me, below the hearing of our half-deaf
teachers. I nod again, wishing that the
gesture didn’t make the world wobble. “If I should pass
out,” I murmur back, “tell them that I fainted from grief.”) (I keep hearing, in
the halls, a word, or name, or state: “Change right”? And the students hush as soon as they realize
that I listen, dead silent as I pass, all the young eyes staring at me. Chanis write? It means something. I catch it, just
now, at the funeral, a murmur behind my back, then I turn and all falls still. Changewright. A student has
died. It happens. Not all can handle the harsh conditions,
but we tell their parents that it’s worth the risk, we will make men of their
boys. Enough agree to keep us afloat. I wonder if that’s right? Write? Wright? What's wrong with my mind that it plays with words at a time like this? Plays as desperately as a broke gambler. Heart failure, the nurse said. Anything could have caused
it. Some get dehydrated or exhausted,
trying to keep up with older boys at sports.
Some succumb to variations in the weather, used to more insulation than
we provide. Some just get homesick and
die of a broken heart. So now we must act
swiftly, in the heat of June. It feels
indecent, to let the season rush us so, but we can’t control everything,
unfortunately. I sweat in my black coat;
I never like funerals in hot weather.
But really, do I like them better in the cold? We have, as
tradition dictates, tied the body to a wide plank of wood that has no other
use. In this case termites riddle it,
torn out from a door that needs replaced.
We have used rags for the binding.
More decadent cultures might spend extravagantly on their dead, but we
do not indulge in superstition. We make
up for it, though, in our hymns and tributes...except when hot weather hastens
us, and when the deceased has not lived long enough for me to know of much to
say. The moment comes
when the Headmaster must cut a lock from the dead boy’s head, to send home to
the family, before we lower the body into the grave. Per school rules, the only hair long enough is one graceful curl in front. I tie the black ribbon, and then I do the
deed (soft, young hair—not what a corpse should have at all) and down he
goes. He looks so small in his grave
below, and growing smaller, pallid in the shadows, a sick child that I want to
make well. Oh, if only! Now we drop on the
shroud, and arrange it by long rods as custom decrees in its wisdom, so that we
don’t have to see the clods of dirt fall upon that pale, sweet face. They say that the ancients used to make
elaborate boxes in which to bury their dead, but Toulinians would not put up
with so much waste. Cloth woven of
mill-ends, knotted, rough, and not meant to last, will suffice. Still, I envy the
Ancients, at least their sense of propriety about such things. For does that not make us civilized? I have heard some students refer to this
cemetery as Loser Alley. I punish those
who say such things, but I imagine it still goes on behind my back. Along with
muttering about Changewright. Their very
secrecy tells me that whoever or whatever Changewright might be, it cannot be
anything good. As the first clods
fall one of the older boys faints. George
Winsall, isn’t it? Yes, I’ve seen that
one sitting or walking with the deceased, mentoring the poor lad, apparently;
good that Corey knew some kindness before the end. I call for somebody to fetch water, as I
loosen the youth’s collar. It relieves
me to see that I teach more than callous brutes, here, after all. Winsall. Shouldn't I remember that name? He breaks out in a
sudden wail, and the tears start up. I
jolt back in shock. Quietly I
say, “Take him to the infirmary,” and
climb to my feet. I can see him
quivering, quite overwhelmed, as several boys help him up. “Corey was so special!” George sobs. Embarrassing.
Unmanly. Yet, under the circumstances,
forgivable.) * * * A heartrending wail wakes
me from my sleep--I sit up so fast that the hammock jolts and swings. In the late afternoon’s shadows, under the
trees, my vision still blurred, I can just make out Ambrette running over to
Lucinda's hammock. The day settles down
again to the usual rustles and shivers of leaves. I bury my face in my pillow. Lucinda is not getting any better. |
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