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IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume V: Sharing Insanity
Chapter 28
Wednesday,
November 18, 2708 Tanjin wanted to break in
the new recruits, and I wanted to let him, to get him out of sight so that I
could just stop worrying about him every time the bullets fly...stop falling
into what suspiciously begins to look like love. But he still needs my attempts at physical
therapy to get the most use out of his hampered arm. Therapy—as if I know what I’m doing! So instead, after first
contact, I bring Turin along to the meeting in the barn, to become their
officer. Quiet lad, Turin: he listens
and thinks and then acts with deliberation and resolve. He has good mechanical aptitude, has a handy
future if he lives to see it—and that sums up everything I know about the
boy. Oh, and I know that he’s veteran
enough to lead a cell of baby rebels. (I can do it I can do it I can do it I
repeat to the rhythm of the hooves.) The barnwood looks tired,
all of the soft-grain worn out of it along with the color. It creaks in the wind and the lantern-light
flutters, barely up to the task of holding the darkness at bay. Not much fends off the chill, either. Draft notwithstanding, a faint miasma of oxen
still hangs in the air, though the army had recently emptied it of bovine life
and the owner spread clean straw for us.
The occasional gusts of freshness feel too cold to enjoy. (A chill wind tries to battle me as I charge right through it, rushing headlong into another night, riding
a nightmare nag. Ghosts of all the
horses ever slain in battle in our war run right behind us, so that I sweat
with fear even in this blast, but I keep on, dragged forward by my duty. Nobody ever said that the life of a
rebel would be fun. But nobody ever told
me it would hurt so much! Yet I can do it. The last stable-hand refilled the greenfire
pouch and gave me another flask, so nothing to worry about there. I hold back on those,
though. I don’t know why, it makes no
sense, but something hates that bitterness and sweetness—my entire body revolts
at the thought. I can do it I can do it I
can do it I can oh hell, this is madness to go on without help! Madness to continue, too, but which insanity blazes
up as most gloriously? I know the answer. I know what can light the sky up higher than
the stars. I reach into the pouch.) Foremost among our recruits
stand Melli and her children, a son and daughter old enough to shoot a gun
without the backfire knocking them down; I’m not supposed to ask if they’re old
enough to make sane moral choices. When
I see them, waiting eagerly in the room, I feel like I could faint if I gave
myself the slightest permission. Instead I clasp Melli’s
hand and praise the children, as though I hadn’t personally ruined their
lives. What if their father’s ghost
shows them where to find his bones someday, behind the waterfall? Well what if?
They already think that they know who killed him! (I
flicker in and out, in and out, in and out, half a ghost myself, but I stay in
the saddle remembering all the souls who depend on the God of Freedom to come
through for them.) So, in glowing terms, I
pitch the requisite spiels for an occasion such as this, all the high
egalitarian ideals and the recriminations against our oppressors—one of the
best acting-jobs that I have ever done—forcing myself not to rush to the
longed-for hour when the liquor flows and the guilt all numbs away. (And
then I chew the leaves of the Tree of Life.
I put the pouch back, galloping, galloping, draw out the flask, pull the
cork off with my teeth, and wash down the bitterness of Life in sweet, choking
ambrosia. I become divine again!) Finally I can drink deep
the sweet reward for my hypocrisy, liking the hellish way that it scalds the
throat, as if it can burn up sins like fuel.
(Putting the bottle away, I suddenly remember Deirdre saying
something about keeping a level head—and I don’t care. Who is she to order me around anyway? I’ve got to get through this any way I can. Because the time, the time, the time, it
beats like a speeding horse’s hooves—I can hear it race behind me, I can feel
the heat of Time’s breath!) Soon all distinctions fade,
when liquor hits a stomach as empty as mine, as the room begins to blur and I
laugh with the son of the man I murdered, while he boasts of the great
vengeance that he shall wreak in his father’s name. So why do I suddenly feel wired instead of
sleepy, like I can’t sit still? (Has
Deirdre ever ridden a horse for days and nights on end? Well, has she? I’ve heard a lot of her tales, and they all
talk about walking or sailing or even flying; she never said a word about
horses.) Flutes shrill and
tambourines jangle. I call for the
bailebelde and we all get up and stamp and sing, a travesty of art, everything’s
a travesty anyway, so why not enjoy whatever we can? But soon the pounding feet begin to sound
like hooves thundering on some desperate mission; it disturbs me—I want to get
away. (Sometimes when I dismount it’s
like I’ve almost forgotten how to walk.
And then the ghosts crowd close around me, the human ghosts, the ones
that I can see like shades against the night, so I have to leap back into the
saddle to try and outrun them. Drag
myself up, whatever, but my heart leaps!)
So I let Turin take over center stage and force myself to smile on the
sidelines with a little liquid help. But
my eyes keep straying to the windows and the blackness of the night
outside. (My eyes burn so much that I
wonder if they glow in the dark, or if the darkness means I’m going blind, or
maybe I’ve got stars for eyes, now, and all else dims.) The dead could walk in such a night. I didn’t simply murder that
man; tonight I have stolen his children.
(But I mustn’t let it slow me from my duty; I’m not a little boy
anymore.) Blood stains my hands—I
literally see some of that God-damned blood in the corner of a fingernail,
where I didn’t quite scrub them enough, when I raise a bottle to Melli’s lips
and she, laughing with the abandon of one with nothing left to lose, raises a
bottle to mine. (I wonder, out of the
blue, if I’ll ever get a chance to bathe and change my clothes; I stink even to
me. Do gods stink?) When you feel this unclean, the only thing to
do is drink enough to get filthy, nasty sick, because that’s what people like
me deserve. (I fear that if I ever
stop long enough to really, truly feel my body that I will be very, very sick. Do gods get sick?) But I keep up my cursed image, no fear of
that! (What is my duty?) With bravado I toss the bottle into the fireplace—ah,
the bright, sharp, tinkling smash!—and swagger out with a laugh and a wave to
Turin before retching out of earshot. And there, crouching in the
bushes, holding onto a branch for dear life, I feel so miserable, so alone, so
despicable that maybe even God can’t stand me.
My friendclan has scattered across the globe on cleaner missions than
mine, but even if I could talk to them, could they ever, ever understand what
I’ve done in the name of Lovequest, what I have become? (Maybe it’ll all get better once I find
Kiril. Maybe she can make it all right.) But then, suddenly out of the blue, I
remember Kiril and Lufti. Tanjin. Rashid.
Malcolm. Alysha. Even Cyran, in hir way. People do exist who love me, who understand;
my head clears a little of self-loathing and self-pity, so that I can climb
back to my feet. (Maybe she’s my duty.) Clouds break and some stars
blur overhead. (Stars overhead wheel
into patterns that I can't read. Some
do have the art, they say. Some know
things that the rest of us don’t, and they read it all up there in the midnight
sky.) If only I could see straight I
could read something in the stars. (I
stare up at them, illuminating Heaven way up there, sparkling out of reach,
wondering what they’re saying about me, what truths might kill me for lack of
knowing them.) No, I couldn’t. That’s just superstition. I know
it’s superstition; this whole bloody mission is one big fright-fest of
superstition and the Day of the Dead lasts all year round. (Those very stars shone
down on me when I danced with the Dead and drank their wine—they know things
about me, I’m sure of it!) My legs feel stiff —has it
been so long since last I danced? No, it
couldn’t be—and all my marching should keep me fit for it, even if I hadn’t
danced for years. (They know and
record it all, in mysterious words of light.) I stagger against a tree, sink down to rest
upon the cold, damp moss, nestled among the roots. My heart pounds like a racing horse and
nothing makes sense, not my mission, not Lovequest, not this crazy war, not the
status quo we’d have without the war, it just all does not make sense. (Oh, if only it were enough to read the
things that people write!) I push up again and head
back to camp. Who says we need sense,
anyway? Sometimes it just gets in the
way. Thursday, November 20, 2708 (Oooo my head! What a
p...no, no party. I just dreamed that,
silly. Some sort of drink-fest where the
more I laughed the more miserable I felt, and when I looked in the mirror I
looked so ruinously old. With age-spots
glowing in flecks of light. Or not old,
exactly—aged. Not the same thing. Poisoned. I sit up, yawn, and run my fingers through my hair before anyone
can see it disheveled. My fingers
tangle. I dislodge them and notice how
my hand shakes. Stop that. But it doesn’t
stop. And it’s not just the cold, the
light snow upon the tarps around us—that kind of shivering starts in my
shoulders, not my hands. I must be
picking up on Elmer’s neural disorder.
Ah, the joys of telepathy! I am Zanne, Zanne, Zanne!
Now it dwindles, then stops, then so does my headache. I look with pity over at Elmer, still tossing
in his sleep. He must take headaches for
normal by now. I dress, wash and do the usual, grateful that my hair curls all by
itself and looks “done” even without the means to style it much. I bless Cybil, too, for putting two pans on
the coals before the rest awaken, so that while one of us pours hot water into
a basin of snow in which to scrub up, another pan heats up for the next person. A tenderfoot like her, and she still carries
cooking-gear! After breakfast I tell Elmer to lead the way, with Jameel and
Maury to keep an eye on him, through a landscape that looks sugar-dusted before
the last brown leaves have fallen. I drop back with Dalmar and Pauline. “In case I haven’t mentioned it, I have certification in field
pharmacology.” Time to live up to the
role I trained for. “What do we know
about this neurotoxin?” “Well,” says Pauline, “it seems to cause paranoia, irritability,
delusions, and ultimately murderous rage.
But any number of poisons could do the same.” Dalmar says, “Arsenic could, in the right combination with other
things. And I know from my own studies
that Montoya-processed foods do contain arsenic.” “Explain,” I urge. “By combining rice-flour with fish-oil, sweetened by sugars from
cruciferous vegetables...” “Hold on,” I interrupt.
“You mean to tell me they made cookies out of rice, fish, and broccoli?”
I make a face; I can’t help it.” “Frost sweetens cruciferous vegetables. Montoya labs discovered a way to increase
this effect and concentrate it, to make local produce into a cheaper sugar-source
than an import.” “And thereby concentrating whatever arsenic they pick up from the
soil, as well. But fish oil?” “They also learned how to filter out the fishy flavor. It was supposed to increase the health
factor. In fact, the entire recipe
looked on paper like a miracle of health food in cookie form. That is, until I realized that each of the
ingredients held traces of arsenic, and I saw how that added up.” I nod. “And magentine also
combines readily with arsenic, and often does, especially in the red
variety. Most people don’t know that.” Pauline nods. “It could
bond with the food, then, without mitigating the toxicity.” My mind reels with other implications of what
the combination could do. Dalmer sighs. “Activated
charcoal doesn’t actually do much good against arsenic. We need a lab.” I put on more of a smile than I feel. “Oh, don’t dismiss the possibilities for a
Til-trained field pharmacologist so easily.
I specialize in turning any kitchen that comes to hand into a
laboratory.” Pauline grumbles, “It would help if we had a kitchen.”) |
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