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IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume V: Sharing Insanity
Chapter 21
Monday,
November 9, 2708 (I finally get Sarge back
to sleep, but now I can’t sleep myself, arms wrapped around my tummy-ache,
staring at a spider dainty-footing it across a canvas wall. Fudge-taste lingers in my mouth and one of my
teeth hurts. I could happily spend the
rest of my life without chocolate, I think.) (Sometime past midnight my
horse leaps a fence and stumbles into a farm.
About time; I shake all over, and ache like I could die. How I wish I could be back already with Kiril
and Deirdre and all!) Did I hear a groan? I wake in the middle of the night, on Zofia’s
couch. In another time and place I might
have called it lumpy and musty, the padding thin, the upholstery prickly with
tips of hairs poking through. But right
now it just feels heavenly. No, silence spreads a
blanket of peace across the countryside.
The crickets don’t groan, but chirp in a pleasantly hypnotic
rhythm. Everyone sleeps except for
Zofia, sitting in the dark by Kurmal’s bed.
I let myself sink into slumber again, myself. (Nurse thinks I
sleep, because I’ve closed my eyes. Yet
I can see through other eyes, strange, exciting ones. I don’t even need the
herb-laced kusmet anymore. I can escape
the pain of my raw skin into another form entirely! Colors fade to
cool gray tones, bluish, greenish, purplish...and something else, a color found
only in visions. The view flattens and
blurs around me, yet I can see so far, and in all directions! And my eyes can catch every least flicker of
light so bright, so sparkling bright!) (Midnight at the
shopping-park and nary a light a-glow. I
put my hand on the magentine sewn into my belt and scan for security
guards. I sense one far away,
fantasizing about three women of impossible proportions, each of a different
race, and all of them begging for him to join in their cavorting. I suppress a smirk at Vanikke’s idea of
forbidden fruit. “This way,” I tell the others, turning at the confectionary to
head in the opposite direction. Even
outside the place smells so heavenly, full of cocoa-dusted goodness...and
doubtless teeming with poisons.
Sigh. Pass it by.) No
wait...that is definitely Kurmal groaning.
I ought to get up. I can’t. Zofia will take care of it. I turn over on my pillow and dream of candy. (I’d trade all the
chocolate in the world to walk with my friends again, to hear their laughter,
feel bony hugs from people who aren’t all weird about how they love me. Especially Lufti. I keep thinking about him, his cocky strut,
his pockets full of pretty rocks, his big and earnest eyes, the way his hand
used to feel in mine.) (My horse goes directly
under a window and neighs loudly, in a way so distinct that I’d almost swear he
hints at words. A light strikes up, and
soon an old woman hurries out the door in her night-clothes, lantern in hand. “Who’re you?” she demands,
holding up the light in my face. “A friend of Yan and
Yaimis, God rest their souls.” She
starts at that, then quickly covers it up.)
(The postures of
the faceless manikins seem arrogant to me, posing their disapproval, since the
plaster heads can’t glare. We wouldn’t
dare come here by daylight, seen as we are now, our clothing dulled by
scrubbing in the muddy river, with bits of straw and leaf clinging to our
wrinkled rags, no matter how we try to brush them off. I think wistfully of the fabulous wardrobe
that I’d acquired in my early days here in Vanikke.) (I topple from the saddle
and tell the story of how the twins died at the Bridge of Curses, as we brush
down the steaming horse and settle him into a stall. I could sleep for weeks and weeks, but the
woman won’t let me in the house. “I
don’t know any business of yours,” she says, going into her door and locking it
behind her. I sigh. At least it looks like
she’ll let me rest in her barn. I take a
blanket from my saddlebag and curl up next to the barn-cat who soon nestles
against me after a yawning stretch. The
striped gray fur reminds me of an old pet of mine.) (I remember how Lufti and I
would whisper to each other after we were supposed to go to sleep, how we
learned everything about each other’s lives.
If you landed me at his parent’s home today, I could walk right over to
the place where he buried his cat when she died, right next to the vegetable
garden, under a stripey gray rock so big he could barely lift it, with a vein
of green quartz run through it. “Rocky”
had been the cat’s name, on account of her fur looking like that stone, and her
eyes the same as that green quartz.) I open my eye a slit.
I see through the bedroom door how Zofia sits by Kurmal’s side, still in
the undyed dress that she wore for the ceremony earlier, the tablecloth-veil
draped over the back of her chair. She
insisted that I not take a shift, that she keep watch till dawn. Their wedding-night. (I stand on
tiptoes, holding onto the top of a brick; until then I hadn’t realized that I
ran on all fours. My whiskers encounter
glass, but I look beyond it to a manikin many stories high...wearing a long,
unsplit garment, radiant in the unnamed color...a dress. I remember now; it’s called a dress. A wedding dress. Have I come to
witness a wedding?) (Kimba admires
the fancy dresses in a shop that we pass and asks, with a weird smile, “Have we
come to rob a store?” I pat her
shoulder, then pull my hand away when she tries to bite it, but her brother
reins her in. “We’ve come to get what we
need, and then I will leave money at the register,” I say. “What we need for
what?” Good question. “To stay alive,
little one, on our way to stop the sick puppies fouling up the nation.” Cybil
laughs. “You say that so confidently!” I smile. “I’ve done it before, darling.” She surprises me by reaching over and giving
my hand a quick squeeze. I glance at her
and see her eyes watering, but I sense her wish for privacy and look away
again.) I sense Zofia’s need for privacy and close my eyes. Or maybe I just close them because I can’t
keep them open. (I have barely sprawled
three minutes on the straw before I hear the door slam open again. The woman comes out with a sausage and apple
sandwich, a skin of water, and a pouch of greenfire leaf. She hands them to me before I can even sit
up. “Here. I don’t know any Yan or Yaimis,” she says, cold-eyed,
“nor any business of theirs, but if you’ve got urgent need of speed, as you
say, you’d best be going now—the sooner the better.” Then she saddles up a
horse of many colors. “ And I didn’t hear you right as to what that business
might be—I’m getting deaf, you know—but don’t try to explain it again. Take the paint,” she says with a nod to the
horse she just saddled. “He’s been
trained by a someone or two who knew more than I do.”) I find my mouth watering, thinking of how nice it would
be to have a sandwich right now, the ban on dinner notwithstanding. Maybe a sausage and apple sandwich. Or even better some greenf...no. I don’t need that. Sleep is what I need. (I sense
goodies. I...smell. I can smell fantastically well! A swirling landscape of odors, going on for
miles, in a spectrum all its own. Never
mind the wedding-dress; I didn’t come to witness that. Head towards the goodies! And this feels
right. I came precisely to run in this
direction, to witness... ...to witness
somebody entangled in my tale?) (The whole tent smells like
chocolate, even here in my little nook, blanketed off from Sarge’s space, and
it makes me feel sick to smell it. How
can anyone prosper the way I do, loved and pampered and given more than I want
of everything in the world, and still feel so lonely miserable?) (Oh come on, Layne! You have no excuse to feel lonely and
miserable! Haven’t you attained a rank
that men kill for, literally, yet almost always fail to attain? Haven’t you an entire army around you, who’d
follow your every command at a glance, a word, a snap of the fingers? You get away with smoking and drinking with
the boys and wearing pants and doing all manner of things that once seemed out
of reach. You can kill—you’re supposed
to. If you wanted to lick the blood
off a knife nobody would dare call you unladylike.) I slide into one of those dreams that tangle up
many viewpoints so chaotically that even as I do become lucid in it, I know
that I won’t remember any of this in the morning, I won’t have words. And so, wordless, it will slip away. So I just relax and go along for the ride. (But they don’t love me,
the men who follow my orders. They watch
every day to see the least hint of a pending fall. (More pretty
mannikins, posturing aggressively. They
remind me of some of my peers back among the True Tilián—envious of my beauty,
my status as the Shaman’s daughter, and dare I say my impudence which I do not
regret one bit, so they’d try to flaunt themselves and intimidate me,
especially the older girls, but I’d just smile in a way that infuriated them. Oh, how they
would gloat now, to see me in this disheveled state! No, don’t think like that, Zanne. I am on a mission in a posh, exotic land, and
they are not. They’d envy me even my
proximity to the rich colored gowns on the other side of that glass. I just hope these boutiques give way soon to
something practical. Ah, now, that’s better! This
pet emporium looks promising. We’ve
noticed that pet food doesn’t come from any company that slips in magentine
compounds. “Sick puppies,”
Kimba chants under her breath. “Sick,
sick puppies.” I pull my hairpin
out and start to work on the lock.) (The tantalizing
odors waft out from under this mile-high door.
But I can’t go any closer. Feet,
lots of giant feet as big as me, fidget between it and myself—one step could
crush my spine! I cower in the
shadows. They can’t see me here. They don’t have eyes that magnify the light. Yet I, on the
other hand...I gaze up and up and up...and I see HER! Enormous face halo’d in a cloud of luminous
curls. The one beloved of Jake, though
not in the carnal way, and not the one intertwined...no not quite intertwined,
anymore: that other has mostly frayed away.) I try to wake up again.
What if Zofia needs...but
no. Can’t. I feel so, I just feel so...frayed? ( I barely get
the lock picked when I hear feet stealing up behind us; my scan crashes into
thick telepathic shielding—no mere security guard, here. “In quickly!” I hiss. We hurry through displays of doggie chews and
kitty toys, in towers of wire baskets that Kimba in passing, humming to
herself. “Siiiiick puppies,” she coos.) (The Great Door
opens! I scamper in before the giants
notice.) (I hear the
pitter-patter of little claws. “Oh no!”
Minerva hisses. “That rat followed us
in.” “Not to
worry,” I say, reaching into the feed
aisle. I rip open a bag of hamster-food
and sprinkle it behind us. “Maybe
that’ll distract him.”) (GOODIES!) (“Let’s head for
the fish and reptile section first,” Delmar says, tugging us away from the
edibles. “I need more activated
charcoal. I have some ideas.” “And we can’t
stay put long enough anywhere to make it,” I agree. He turns to look at me as I steer us towards the banks of
water-shimmering glass, bright with fish that glow like neon in their ever-lit
aquariums. “You know how to make
activated charcoal?” I smile brightly
back. “Doesn’t everybody?”) (Goodiesgoodiesgoodiesgoodiesgobblemumfgulp!)
(“Ew!” Tshura
points at a huge tank swimming with meter-long aquatic sauroids. “Who in their right mind would want to own a
morgo? I can smell them from here.” Cybil says, ”Some
of the wealthier people have taken to digging moats and stocking them with
morgos.” “Nasty
things. I hear they’d eat their own
mothers.” I tell them,
“Morgos hatch from eggs buried in manure and abandoned. They never meet their mothers.” “Charming,” Tshura
drawls. I just toss a bag
of charcoal to Delmar. “Happy? Now let’s go back to the feed.) (Umumumumumf? I hear steps returning. I didn’t come here to gorge my
dreambody. I back away from the seeds. I came here to spy on...herrrrrrrrr.) (We return to
that aisle packed with bags of kibble and nibbles for carnivores and
vegetarians alike. I catch a shadow slinking away, but no time for that, now. (The Shadowman
says to. The Shadowman knows her of
old.) (Shon directs us
to the healthiest brands; he’d practically had his own menagerie before he hit
the road, but had to give his pets away to friends before word got out that
he’d secretly converted to Shinto, despite his race. We stuff as much as we can grab into our
backpacks. Again the
footsteps. “Hurry, my dears; we have
company.” Maury, Jacques,
Apollo, Guaril, Toni and Pauline unsheathe their knives. Courtney grabs a supersized can of dogfood in
her good hand. Jameel takes a deep
breath and then looks calmer than ever, but I know that he has poised himself
for some martial arts moves, if that’s what it takes to get out of here. I do likewise. We form a guard around the less combat-ready
and head for the nearest exit. Kimba
giggles. “You didn’t leave any money at
the cash register.” I stuff a random
wad of bills between two bags of kitty litter.
“Plans change, darling, according to circumstances.” Skirnir cries,
“He’s right in front of us!” The twitchy man
looks gaunt, fanatical. The trembling
hand that raises the gun won’t need much accuracy in such short range. “Down!” I cry before I notice what my throat
has done, as I plow into Cybil and knock her off her feet. A gun barks and a bullet rips through a bag
of wood-shavings that she stood before seconds ago.) (Oooh,
excitement! I skitter to the gap between
the bags to get a closer look, darting my head from side to side to gain
perspective; these borrowed eyes see everything so flat!) (More bullets
fly, smashing through boxes and jars all around us, but the man’s arm keeps
spasming when he tries to aim.
“Run! Run!” I cry—we could still
get hit by chance! We head back through
the cold-blooded section. An aquarium
explodes in glass and water close enough to cut Courtney and Apollo with the
flying shards! But that doesn’t stop
Courtney from shot-putting Merry Mutts Pork Flavor Chunky into the man’s
shooting arm. We race out into the toy
section before he can pick up his gun.) (But wait,
they’re getting away! They double back
through the place of fishy-smells, and I follow fast, but I keep losing sight
of them, so I leap up some boxes, then up higher than that to the edge of
something, but it’s wet and slippery and I fall in with a squeak.) (I hear a splash behind
us, but keep on running, pushing Cybil in front of me. More shots, and then the click of an empty
gun, but I don’t stick around to find out if he’s got more.) (I dogpaddle just
fine, though, so no worries...except that walls of glass go straight up
everywhere I look and I can’t climb out!
Oh wait, I see an island right in the middle. I swim towards it, but not till something
dark and monstrous swims towards me...) (I hear the
splashing increase, frantic squeaking and a morgo’s growl.) (SCREEEEEEEEEEAM!) (“This way,
loves,” I urge, hustling my charges out the door while the twitchy man stops,
distracted by an explosion of red...) (I open my eyes,
thrashing madly in my blankets, in the infirmary. My body seems intact around me, but I still
hurt all over. I stare up suddenly into
the eyes of the nurse, who sponges my brow with one hand while he jots down
notes with the other. I feel the sting
of his gentle touch, and remember the blood sweat that brought me here in the
first place. I can’t seem to escape pain
sleeping or waking. “You are not going to class in the
morning,” he murmurs over me. “You might
not go to class all week. In fact,” he
says, “we might need to send you home for an extended vacation. Would you like that, George?” “Please God no!”
I cry, gripping his hand till we both wince.
“I’ll be good, I’ll study harder than ever! Just don’t send me home!” “Poor lad,” he
says, extricating his fingers. “You
don’t know you’re own best interest.” “I’ll catch up
again. I’ll do better than catch up.” I gasp for breath, shaking, trying to grasp
that I really haven’t just felt my body ripped apart. “Well, that’s
just the problem, isn’t it?” He lays his
clipboard aside. “You have too
high-strung a nature for this school.
You ask too much of yourself.”
The nurse rearranges my blankets and pillows for me, but he doesn’t make
me comfortable. “Please, please,
don’t send me home. You don’t know my
parents.” He straightens
up. “I used to.” His face looks troubled, almost recalling
something. “I saw your Dad...start to
drink a lot.” He frowns at the distance,
and then looks back at me. “Did he lose
control?” I take hope from
the pity in his face. “You could say
that.” “And...someone
else. I advised someone
else...something. It was all so long
ago.” Can he? I take his hand. “You advised my mother not to drink with him
while pregnant.” He looks
horror-stricken, the lines on his brow and jaw stark in the lamplight. “She listened. She waited till my birth to become a drunk.” “That...we
needn’t dwell on the past, George.” And
the lines smooth out again. I almost had
him. “ Try to get some rest, lad. We won’t decide anything till morning, but I
can at least advise your teachers not to expect so much of you. Potential encompasses more than
intelligence.” He turns away. “Maybe we’d better keep you here after all.” He leaves, snuffing the light as he goes. I lie there shaking
in the dark.) Don’t
ask me how, but I can feel Zofia smile down on me, saying, “It does my heart
good to see at least one dear soul not having a rough night of it.” And then I hear her pour water into a kettle,
and the crackle of the fire that she sets it on, and I know she makes a hot
poultice for her husband’s pain. (I slip out of the tent,
going as fast as I can to the latrines to throw up. “Kiril, is that you in
there?” Oh damn! It just had to be Reno on guard duty. “Are you okay?” “I’m fine!” I moan. Oh why do you have to notice so much, Reno?) (I hurt, but I’m fine. The leaf sees to that. I can ride, I can endure, and even with just
starlight I can see and see and see!) (“You don’t sound
fine. Do you want me to wake up Doc?” “No, no, no!” Shame fills me. “Please no!
I just...I, I just need privacy Reno.”
Can’t anybody understand that? I
want nobody to see me, fat and sick in the stinking dark...nobody except maybe
Lufti. He would never judge me.) (A shadow slips into the
tent. I reach for my gun—who would dare invade the privacy of an officer? Oh, it’s just Ruby, the
laundress, taking her name from the rocks around her neck, which she believes
to really be rubies. I sit up but don’t
rebuke her. “I was working late,” she
says. “I saw the light through the
canvas. You’re having a rough night,
aren’t you?” I can relax with this
little peasant. “Maybe,” I concede. “Would you like some more
sleepy tea? It won’t take long to brew
up.” “Ah, but I know more herblore than that! I can find a little something better than
coffee, that would see you wide awake again in no time.” And she smiles at me—the first person to
actually smile at me in months.) |
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