IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume
IV: Sharing Insanity
Chapter 4 Overlapping Perspectives
Monday, August 17, 2708,
continued. We
run, we run, shared feet pounding the unyielding stone, shared sweat running
down into many eyes, all seeing the same landscape, but blurred from too many
viewpoints all at once…or maybe I’m just too tired to focus my one set of eyes. So tired that I feel the pain in my body as
everybody’s pain. So tired that…oh dear
God give us some relief! (Let the other schoolboys
slide down the bannisters on their rumps and think themselves daring–I shall
take the curving hurtle on my feet! Simultaneously
minding my balance and arcanely monitoring all the eyes upon me, I crouch down
low, arms outstretched, rear jutting out behind me, as the waxed soles of my
slippers live up to their name, whipping down the stairway’s arch as a wind of
my own making pushes back my dark forelock’s curl over mad, dark eyes. For I have the art to see myself through all
our eyes today: wiry and supple and fine, and it exults me! My teeth look huge in my grin, and today my
receding chin does not look weak at all.
The magic crystal in the pocket of my breast feels warm, feels like it
throbs to match my racing pulse, and that exults me, too. I reach the end and sail
off into air. Heads look up, and some
lads whistle. Several older boys run to
catch me before I can meet my just desserts on the cold stone floor. I thank them formally when they set me to my
feet, with just the right hint of a bow, as my teachers have taught me for more
mundane circumstances.) I
feel like I can’t keep my mind in my own head, like exhaustion wears away the
walls of my skull. Or maybe I just don’t
want to be me anymore. (How I love being me! I turn my back and walk out of Main Hall
towards the corridor with my next class in it, as though nothing the least bit
untoward has happened, ignoring (with delighted aplomb) the clapping that
bursts out behind me. And if my waxed
feet skid a little now and then, a friend always walks close by to catch me
before I fall, or even disturb my dignity by much. I never lack for friends, these days. Oh yes, everybody knows the name of George
Winsall! And some know an even better
name, those initiate to the truth.) Zanne
would tell me to face the truth, whatever it might be (not that she’s so great
at that, herself.) I face the truth that
I reel dizzily from rock to rock, pushing myself on…no, that’s Kiril, not me,
her asthma crushing her chest. I scoop
her up in my arms, throw her against my shoulder, and keep on running. And now the miles grind even heavier upon me. (Oh, I have seen it all, in
the mirror of their eyes! I feel dizzy,
gulping up all their perceptions at once like too much wine, but they blame my
reel on the waxed slippers. Most of them
know nothing of the arcane arts. Some used to mock me,
compare me to a rat in my appearance.
Well, if so, a handsome rat, with big eyes like a gulp of dark caffeine:
liquid eyes but hot, could combust on a whim.
And my sculpted cheekbones suggest something more than human in the mix,
not less, these fine, almost gaunt features that always look hungry, the
buck-teeth that come across as predatory rather than dull of wit, but this
suits my friends just fine, now, for isn’t hunting a gentlemanly art? And of
course nobody else can quite duplicate this jaunty bob to my walk...well,
normally, when I don’t have such slippery footwear to contend with. Or so many viewpoints.) When
I stumble, Kiril whispers, “I can run now” in my ear. “You
sure, dear?” “Yes. I caught my breath.” So I put her down again, all too gladly, trying not to hear her
wheeze. No, that’s me wheezing. “Halt,”
I gasp. And I sit on a stone, watching
over my young as they topple wherever they might land, right there on what
little sand lies between them and rock.
I prop myself up against the boulder behind me, but my eyes close
against my will…no! Open them! Yet…how’d they end up closed again? Open!
And yet… (I sit down at my desk in
mathematics class, wordlessly pull out my protractor, ruler and pen, and draw
the requisite angles on the paper that I find awaiting me, according to the
instructions that the teacher chalks before us, as docilely as if they have
domesticated me. Star pupil. No response to the winks or grinning
side-glances around me. A king need not
remark upon it when others notice his majesty.
And if the teacher knows anything about my shenanigans on the staircase
before, the old man makes no sign of it, either.) Open! No, no, just…no… (And the best thing is, the
story will spread all through the school, just in time for the arrival of this
year’s sophomores. Had I done it right
in front of the newcomers, I’d have looked like the rankest of show-offs. But this way the rumors will point me out,
and I’ll pretend not to notice, but I'll feel them looking, oh yes, without the
indignity of looking back...except a key glance here and there, eyes meeting
eyes to make a person feel almost initiated to something, to make them want to
find out more... Man,
I love this school!) All too soon I feel a
vibration in the stone beneath and behind me, before I even hear the grind of
our enemy’s approach. I force open my
lids, shivering; night has robbed us of light and warmth once more. I rouse the others and we move on. Unfriendly eyes seem to glimmer in every
haunt and hollow of the rock, but it's only mica glinting in the
moonlight. They
say that on Old Earth, the nation of China decided that they didn’t need
sparrows, that the birds stole too much grain to justify their existence. So they, in the wickedness of those days,
commanded everyone in the nation to make noise whenever a sparrow tried to
light anywhere for a rest, till all the birds fell dead from the sky, dropping from
sheer exhaustion. I feel like one of
those sparrows right now. (Ah, here’s a fine place to
light! Not all countries have inns,
though you’d think it rather basic. Port
Iris, however, sports several, and I have it on good authority that The
Compass Rose is the one most frequented by students from the islands, on
their way to the academy: low-budget but clean and comfortable, its dark wood
as watertight as any ship, its wide doors generous enough for groups of friends
to arrive all at a time. Inside, in the
dimness, the lobby swarms with boys and young men in uncomfortable brown
uniforms, and reeks of the last surreptitious cigarettes before they become
forbidden. “They’ll send your transportation
in the morning,” the innkeeper informs us with a glance up from his clipboard,
before we say a word, before we’ve even asked for rooms. Then he goes back to checking names off of a
list against the register—all those whose parents (or Til Institute under a
couple pseudonyms, in our case) have paid in advance by post, per custom, We, too, sign our names on the register, each
in turn. Strange, I know that I write
down something else, in a flourish as if I’ve always signed my name this way,
the pen quite natural in my hand as it smoothly makes its loops and curls, but
it feels to me, it even looks to me, as though I write down Randall Jonah
Kramer.) It
suddenly troubles me that I never did get a chance to take on an alias. The entire countryside now knows the name of
Deirdre Keller, the Witch of the Tilián.
(And yes, I’ve heard them call me that.
Jonathan would not approve.) The
sense of unsafety about this oppresses me as we lope through the curves and
angles of the Canyonlands. But then I
look at my charges all around me, and my heart takes fire at the thought of
protecting them. I can forget my body,
forget my country, forget my faith and even sometimes forget my name. But Lovequest? Never! But
then I remember Shermio, and my heart crumples on my shame. We
zigzag through several new splits in the past.
This seems to puzzle our pursuit, for their noise grows more distant,
and then fades away completely. Our
forced march halts, but not to rest. We should have done this at
the last halt, but no one had the strength.
Even now, no one can dig such stony, frozen ground, so we pile cairns
for the three who died, two whose wounds reopened in the jumble of retreat, and
one shot on the run, by their bullet or ours I cannot say. I cut their names into the soft sandstone,
and pray that I forget them, soon after being told. The evening’s insects buzz around the
bloodstained wool of the skittish beasts who bore them, but we haven’t water
enough to spare for washing out the stink Malcolm carries twice the
stones that others bear; it astounds me that he used to haul the same weight
around just by moving. He comes closer
and closer to normal-size every day. He
seems to have aged years in months, the once-stretched skin sagging into
increasingly deep wrinkles, yet with more life and youth in his eyes. But suddenly he stops, pale and sweating,
dropping all his load. “You okay?” I ask. “Just the hernia. Excuse me...” He lies down and gingerly
pushes at himself. “I think
I...there. I’ve almost got it in.” “You’re off duty till we
finish the job,” I say, and mop my brow.
He doesn’t argue. I shove the last stone in
place, and then straighten. “We’re
settling in for the night,” I tell them, hoping that our ghosts watch over
us, hoping that the army, too, needs rest
and has run out of local reinforcements.
I give Malcolm first watch, since his injury gave him a bit of rest,
then I’ll take the next. With no tree in
sight to hold up our hammocks, we spread our blankets on the cold stone, too
exhausted to care. But I lie there,
achingly awake, my muscles still twitching, fearing that moment when Malcolm
tells me that I have to get back up again. Oh Lord, oh Lord, Lord,
Lord, give us the strength, give us what we need to hold the pace and get the
rest of the wounded safely back to Koboros.
I raise my eyes to the clear and quivering heavens overhead, but soon blink,
daunted by the emptiness. God doesn’t
hear the prayers of war-criminals. Ghosts? Do you hover lower down, within our
reach? Can you intercede for your old
comrades in arms? At least show me a
sign of hope…Please? Then I lower my eyes to see
a straggling bush rooted in a boulder’s crack, not doing too well, itself, its
thin leaves curling in the drought and cold, but richer for that in
concentrated volatile oils, oh burning greenfire bush that I recognize too
well. Not what I had in mind...but
thanks. . |
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