|
IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume V: Sharing Insanity
Chapter 11
Thursday,
November 5, 2708, continued (I'm glad I bought this coat before going on the run, however
frivolous it seemed at the time.
Fleece-lined lambskin—perfect thing for a chilly night in an abandoned
factory. Ominous, though, how often we find these derelict
establishments. If so many failed
businessfolk left their facilities behind, why haven't other, more clever
entrepeneurs bought them and taken over? I walk softly around my sleeping-bag mummified fellow refugees, to
toss more wood on the fire. The smoke
has no problem finding its way out of the broken windows high above. It could be worse. I should catch some sleep, too, but I feel restless. No need to post a guard anymore; we have gone
far beyond the ruts of the bigots who attacked us, into what now appears to be uninhabited
lands. And yet...a clever girl like me
knows when to trust her instincts. I stand in the doorless doorway, staring out at a whole landscape
of empty buildings much like this one. I
wonder what they made here? I suppose if
I took the time to analyze the rusting heaps of machinery here and there I
could figure it out. I find the prospect
boring. I raise a couple fingers to my
lips and... ...and what? That's the
third time since I stood here that I've raised an imaginary cigarette to my
lips. I've only smoked once in my life,
yet it feels so habitual, so that even as I think about it my hand moves
again. I shiver, wondering why. Never mind; I have a more pressing conundrum. Like who comes through the field of weeds out
there, flashlight bobbing back and forth across the way we came, obviously
tracking us. Silently I turn around, to rouse the others, one by one. Shon finds a cartload of crushed ore
(refinery! I knew it!) so he and Jameel
push it over and bury our fire in it as the others dress and pack up as swiftly
as they might. . Tracked! That puts a
different light on things. It doesn't take me as long as the others to get ready, since I
hadn't gone to bed. I turn my back, so
that I can raise two fingers to my lips, inhale, and blow, thinking, "I'm still
here, Jake. They can't get rid of me
that easily. We lefties stick
together." Even as the words play out,
they both comfort and confuse me. I
shoulder my backpack and join the others, headed for the doors on the far end
of the factory.) (I watch from my hiding-place, straining my eyes to stare out into
the night, beyond my cigarette-tip's glow, till
I can make sure, beyond doubt, that nobody else still walks the
campus. Then I stub out my smoke, turn
my collar up against the wind, and stride out towards the Married Teacher's
Quarters. In a haven of order and respectability, it only dawns on me now just
how strangely unkempt this corner of the campus has become. Soon grass starts to overflow the sides of
the pavement, or bursts up through cracks here and there. Ahead of me, the raggedness of untrimmed
hedges nearly blocks from view the old, Greek-style architecture. I find George by his eyes glinting in the shadow of the
portico. I expect him to produce a key
or pick a lock, but he pushes the door open without any trouble at all. "Nobody comes here," he says.
"Nobody even sees it. They know
the name, but forget it seconds after I mention it. You're the first person I've ever told to
meet me here who actually came." His big
teeth flash a grin in the dark. "Yet
somehow I knew you would." It gets even darker inside.
I wish we'd brought Randy, to light up a glow for us. But George doesn't seem to need a light. His feet know the way, stirring up clouds of
dust that sparkle faintly wherever the windows streak the shadows in almost
undiscernible rays of starlight. Cobwebs
brush my face whenever we pass through an archway or step near tall
furniture. We go up stairs, and then to
one door in a whole hallway full of doors.
I can't even make out a number anymore. George pauses there, his forehead against the wood. "My parents lived here, many years ago. They were both teachers. First Headmaster Weatherbent fired all of the
female teachers, and then found cause to fire all of the married teachers. He accused…" George swallowed, then went on
in a harsh voice. "The things he said ruined
their lives. Alcoholics, both of
them—now. I couldn't wait to get out of
their house. I wouldn't mind if ol'
Weatherbent met an ugly death." I try to reconcile this with the gentle old man that I know, as
George shoves in the door with a sudden, angry bang. We step into a sitting-room, bumping in the
dark into the dust-thick furnishings of a comfortable life. The air smells stale, almost giving up on
being air at all, heavy with the scent of leather, cedar-oil, mildew, mice, and
a whiff of old corruption. "In here," he says, lighting a candle at the bedroom door. "I was conceived in here. But not born in this school, oh
no—Weatherbent couldn't stand the sight of a pregnant belly." I follow the yellow glow into a bedroom and stop, gasping. Waves of horror push at me so hard that
everything goes black—no light of candle or star or blazing torch of
retribution could ever light that room!
Then I catch myself against the lintel and find that it's not so. I can open my eyes. I can see where the horror comes from. She lies in state on the marital bed, on a pillow, shriveled and
surrounded by the equally withered masses of old flowers, now as dry and brown
as the little corpse with the bone deformity dominating her poor face. But my eyes quickly adjust even to the
psychic darkness. I see also
magentine—lots of it, masses of crystals in a pattern around the small figure,
with faint glints in their hearts of mostly rose, plus some green and blue. As I watch, as if in response to our coming,
a rosy glow seems to well up from inside the dead child herself. "Isn't she beautiful?" George sighs. "She will bring our revenge on that sorry old
toad! She'll bring revenge on everyone!" It takes sheer will not to faint.
It takes more to make myself go up to the bed, to confirm the
unthinkable. I had...I had blanked all
memory of this from my mind. Why did I
do that? "Do you have any idea how old this is?" I ask. Oh yes, I recognize it, and though I school
my muscles against it, my mind still shudders. "Oh, I don't know." George
Winsall shrugs. "She's always been
around. Sort of." I say nothing, just force myself to lift an earth-browned bit of
rag away from the corpse, the tiny baby skeleton with her tusklike bone-growth
jutting from the skull like a muzzle.
She still shows the traces of the designs burnt into her flesh, dark on
the bone, adding a faint touch of grotesque ornateness. From a dry throat I say, "Then I don't suppose you know where it
came from." In fact, I know precisely
the circumstances that had destroyed this dreadful relic—years ago. "Nope." By candlelight
George could've been handsome, very handsome indeed, with his dark hair, lean
flesh, and incredibly fiery eyes, if not for the predatory thrust of buck teeth
like some gnawing creature, something perpetually hungry. A
dashing rat, I can't help think, exciting
vermin.
He takes up the tortured
remains and holds it like he'd fathered it.
"They say that she comes and goes.
They say that she's the only thing around here not always of the
school." His brow knits, and then he
laughs suddenly. "I'm not sure who
says. I can't remember. Maybe I dreamed it." The implications burn in my stomach. How could the body of a baby tortured to
death centuries ago in Altraus sometimes
materialize in a boy's school a hemisphere away? Yet I knew this! I have
already thought about it. I already
encountered this relic. How could I have
forgotten thinking these things? I trace the evidence of a spiral fracture along one exposed tibia. Tangible.
"How does one come by it at any given time?" "Oh, she sort of calls to you."
I don't like Winsall's grin when he says that. Not only does it feel conspiratorial, but it
seems to invite–no, to already include
me in the conspiracy. I have to remind
myself that, as an agent, this confidence should please me. "Why?" he asks. "You seem rather taken by her, yourself." "Not exactly." I turn to
look out, to compose myself, only to see the window shuttered. When had George closed it? "It's just that I've known something very
like this, years ago." Or at any rate I heard
Deirdre describe it–what if every break and burn really did match that
other? How many babies could have
cropped up with that specific bony growth? My scalp crawls when I notice Winsall stroking the corpse, with
just a couple fingers, almost unconsciously–though he smiles as though he finds
it pretty. He says, "Sometimes I call
her Gita–my little sister's name, don't you know." Something about the words give me a hollow sort of feeling,
like...they make me feel slightly skeletal, myself. I analyze the feeling, startled to realize just
how profoundly I miss the presence of females. I feel scraped off from all feminine contact. ("I'm still here, Jake," someone says within
my soul, but not whom I'd expect, or...what?)
The school has even amputated the female part within myself, within all
men, like some vital organ regarded as of no importance to a primitive
surgeon. I know that this has dangerous
implications not only for me but for someone else, but I can't for now remember
who. Again. I have thought of this
before. Why does it surprise me now,
like a brand new revelation? Shouldn't this feel clearer in this of all places? But oracles often stumble onto unexpected
paths. For right now George must know
what I do not, that I might ask the questions.
And the thought restores my confidence. I ask him, "When did you last see Gita?" "When she died. Mother was
quite put out, but accidents will happen." I only know that I clench my teeth when my jaws begin to
ache. The boy had continued to smile
when he made his statement. "Mothers are such fools.
Daughters aren't that big a deal."
Only then do I see how his eyes water, gleaming in the candlelight. "That's what my father said. And then he packed me off to school." "George, this shouldn't be here.
An evil man, a, a very evil man, destroyed this relic years ago, as part
of a spell to…" "…transcend time and space."
I stare at him. He smiles back,
fallen-angelically. "Surrender to the
rift, Jake. We can become Princes of
Chaos, you and I." Chaos. The wild, feminine
answer to masculine order and control.
The…I feel the temptation. And he
feels me feeling it. And…and he strokes
my arm. No. Just...no. I have enough information. I turn and leave.) "They always forget the
ghosts," I hear somebody say. And I hear
laughter. Kief—is it Kief? "Oh Kief, forgive me!" I
try to cry, but my mouth won't work, my throat won't make a sound. Something has cut me off from…my body? My inconveniently female body, with its
fluxes and fatty bulges and its…but no, starvation cures all that. Or at least greenfire can. Or… …no. Something else, still deeper than the body,
feels cut off. All except for a glimmer-thin
thread, in the hand of somebody other than who I…what? Can't think. Brain amputated. Thoughts bounce around randomly, like I jolt
about in a wagon on a rut-rough road.
But I really don't…what? Sudden horror fills me as a
realization grows, though I don't know where it comes from. That's
not Kief! (That's not Jordan, opening my blouse, caressing my skin. No, not caressing, for the pain…the PAIN! Don't scream. "Glancing wound, deflected by the rib. Just a graze, fortunately. It must've hit right when she raised her arm
to signal the charge." In the background
I hear someone muttering, "The Dead want blood." Don't scream. Don't even
weep. The men watch for that in a woman,
though they holler enough themselves, when shot. "No bone damage, no nerve damage, no artery or major vein
involved. Some muscle damage, but not a
significant amount. She should recover
nicely." I make myself say, "Good.
Then I won't have to go to the field hospital." "General Aliso, in my professional opinion, with sepsis what it is
in these parts…" "Have we no antiseptics in camp?"
Of course we do—I can smell the sharp stink. "Yes, but…" "Of course, but…" "The rebels make do with boiled rags and salt. Do you think me less than them?" "I would never say such…" I open my eyes to glare at him in the medical tent's harsh
lamplight. "My bloodline did not reach
its exalted position by fragility. This
is nothing more than a cut, really—isn't it?" He doubts himself.
Good. "I suppose you could say
that." "Then we need not talk about sending me off from the front, when
the men need me right here." "If you're willing to forego standard medical treatment..." "I am." The men will never
respect me if I turn back for a graze.
"The men need me." The men are
such idiots! They long to see me
falter. I force myself to smile. "Call it maternal instinct. I won't abandon them." "As you wish, then." And I feel his clean fingers wash and bandage my wound, while I hear somebody, almost out of earshot, mutter, "Maternal instinct! Tell that to the men at Cumenci." Oh God I hurt.) |
| |
|
|
|
|
||
|