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IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume V: Sharing Insanity
Chapter 34
Tuesday,
November 24, 2708 (Jake looks gaunt already.
It takes a lot of calories to maintain a man his size, especially in
cold weather, and he has only now begun to eat, and that in small portions:
clear broth, a few crackers, and some rosehip tea. But our bit of early snow has mostly thawed
already, and we seem to have a warmer spell ahead of us. We finally got some quality sleep last night, going straight from
the cafeteria to our dorms instead of the student lounge. We don't need to study anything that they
have in a Toulin textbook. So we woke in
the darkness before dawn, quietly bundled up, and slipped out into the frosty
night, our noses smarting with the cold, our breath in clouds before us. Now we walk in step together, crunching
across the frozen grass. "We have to do it outside," Jake says. He carries the stinking, blood-stained rug
rolled up under his arm, while all the school still slumbers. The Changewright will miss it, but we're past
worrying about that. "Okay, we're out," says Don, gazing up at a sky with pools of
stars between the clouds. "I mean outside the school.
Past the walls. I know a
servant's gate." I squelch the
irrational dread that I feel. Looking at
how Don pales, I know that he does the same. And just like that, a little nervous squeal from the hinge, and
we're out, and suddenly I feel so free, so horribly free that I sink down to my
knees in the frosted fallen leaves, and I sob my heart out. Don slumps against the wall, tears running
down his face, sighing, "Lisa! Ohhhh
Lisa! How could I forget you?" And Jake leans on his cane, hand pressed to
his breast, feeling loops of the thread that I hold for him settling back into
place.) Maybe it's just the
mother-warmth of the quilts, the softness of the pillow, the gentle breathing
of the girls beside me, but suddenly I feel reassured that everything's going
to be all right. ("Come on," Jake finally murmurs.
"Dry your eyes before they freeze."
And he leads us on, out into the fragrant woods. I long so achingly hard to see those leaves
still fluttering above, these fallen ones about our feet between the last few drifts
of snow, in the golden glory of daylight, but even at night they send up a
sweetness, the scent of a graceful surrender to the balance of all things. And I feel the goodness out here, so much
goodness walled off and demonized. Jake takes us downslope, up again over a little hill, and into a
frozen, marshy space. "We must do it
here, upon their graves." I shiver
harder than before "We must set free the spirits of the sacrificed." And he unfurls the rug, flapping like a flag
in the wind before he turns it and spreads it out across the ground. Outside I can see how big it is: a great
square covering all of the odd lumps here and there that Jake has identified as
the burial-places of everyone slain to tear open the rift. "Randy, did you bring the compass that I
asked for?" "Of course," I say. "Due
north is thataway." I point, and he
aligns a carpet-corner to match. "Don, you shall take the north, for you were born far north of
where you grew up. For the same reason I
shall take the East, for though I came into being in a Western Continent, it
lies east of Til." Really? So he's finally ready to reveal that much, is
he? But I've suspected for awhile. "Randy, you were born in Til, but conceived west
of it, so that's your direction." Too
much information, Jake! "And the south?" I ask. "It should have been Lisa's.
But since she is not here, that shall have to go to Deirdre, due south
of us." Don says, "You talk like Deirdre is here." "Yes," I say, before Jake, even.
"Yes, Don, she is here.") "Yes," I murmur. "I am here."
Then I wonder, feverishly, what'n'erth I'm talking about. I lapse back into dreams of riding a magic
carpet across the skies, majestically over the hills and mountains of the
clouds. But the carpet smells of
death. I look down and see the
bloodstains on it—so many
stains. And I feel the ghosts that buoy
me along, chained to its fabric. "I must burn the
Charadocian flag, every chance I get," I say.
And I sense that the ghosts agree. I feel the vertigo of the
carpet spiraling down, down to the ground.
"Soon you must take your position," Jake whispers in my ear. But he's not a ghost yet, is he? Is
he? (We take our positions.
Jake lights up a cigarette, takes a deep pull, and blows it to the
West. "We start with the West," he says,
"the direction of the setting sun, the death direction, autumnal here, for the
sake of those whose sun set too soon.
All our relations, we respect you, and invite you to help us undo the
harm done." He nods and hands the
cigarette to Don. Don nods back. He
hesitates, then inhales smoke, holds back a cough, and blows it out to the
north. "To the north, in this continent
the winter-direction, of education and reason taught by cold, hard objectivity." Good—he's done his homework. "All our relations, we respect you, and
invite you to help us undo the harm done." My turn. Let's see if I can
handle this oracle-warped fragment of an ancient rite, from the oldest part of
the book that George and others marred.
I accept the cigarette from Don, inhale, and exhale to the East, feeling
like I exhale my equilibrium with the smoke.
"To the East, the direction of the rising sun, of birth and rebirth—the
direction honored, on the Old Planet, with the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ. All our relations, fellow creatures of the
same Creator, we respect you and invite you to help us undo the harm done. In Jesus' name." Who knows what the original might have said,
before these troubled children messed with it? Jake moves to the south.
"Come here, Randy, and send with me."
I don't "send", but he holds out his hand and I take it anyway. "Don, come behind us, and put your ringed
hand on ours to lend us power.") The carpet reaches the
ground. I wake. It's still dark outside, but I absolutely
have to have a smoke. Zofia has not allowed
me any. I worm under the blankets to
ease myself out at the foot of the bed, careful not to disturb the patients
sharing it with me. Then I rummage as
quietly as I can in my pack, and tiptoe between the mats full of sleeping,
wounded youths and maidens, out to the front porch. But instead of lighting it, I just hold a
cigarette in front of me, and face south. (We are not telepaths. But
oracles engulf all gifts, and broken oracles can sometimes separate them out
and use them. I understand now. Jake didn't quite break, but he tore, and
Deirdre filled that rift with the substance of her soul. Jake can still link to her through that bond
between them. And now, for the duration
of this mission, so can I. Instead of
psychic contact, though, I do what I do best, nudged somehow by Jake. I send a tiny spark her way.) The cigarette lights
without a match of mine. Of course. I must still dream. I inhale deeply, lovingly, and exhale to the
south. In the dream what I say next
makes perfect sense. "To the South, right now
the place of battle and struggle, and way too many ghosts who won't lay down
their arms, I offer a breath of hope for peace to come. All our relations, we respect you and invite
you to help us heal the harm." Then a
deep peace settles over me as I finish the cigarette, snub it out, and go back
to continue this new dream in bed. (Jake leads us to the center.
He positions Don to the north of the middle, and facing him from the
south, lifts Don's arms forward, to meet them with his own, touching fingertips
to fingertips. Now I stand in the middle
between them. "Pray, Randy." Huh? Me? Holy Spirit guide me! "Uh...Heavenly Father, I ask, I mean...Oh
this seems a really weird place to pray!"
But Jake nods me on. I hang
my head, staring down at the bloodstained rug, shuddering at all that has
happened on it, glad I'm not a barefoot psychometrist. "D-dear God, you know what sinners we are,
every one of us, and what stinking sins have happened here in Toulin. But you have it in your power to heal all
sins, soothe back all temptations, and medicine the wounds that we have caused
ourselves, if we but ask." My healing
wounds itch on my back and shoulder.
"None of us stand out as better or worse—you know us all, and all our
hearts. I…I don't even know if I want to
repent, and I don't always know what is or is not a sin, but never mind that, I
want to want whatever you want, if that is any
help." More strongly, I find myself
saying, "Even if we can only open the door to you a crack, we count on your
greater strength to open it the rest of the way! Well, something has cracked, that's for sure, and it's letting in the wrong stuff
altogether, so I'm saying right here that we invite You in through a little
fissure of our own, so that you can fix it—for the sake of everybody, man and
beast and whatever, in all the worlds, and past and future all at once. Heck, you can understand stuff like that
better than I can, anyway. So Thy will
be done!" I take a deep breath. "Amen."
And Jake and Don drop their arms.
I notice that the sky has begun to lighten, and the birds begun to sing. Jake smiles and says, "We have one more thing to do. I'm sure none of you will miss this." And he pulls out the last bottle of that
hideous moonshine brewed in the lab's back room—about as close to pure alcohol
as kids can render. He pungently douses
every bit of the rug that he can with it, as we step off. "All our relations," he says as he does so,
"witness this purification. Hold back
anything foul that might try to escape, till the flames consume them and make
them naught. But let the souls pinned
here go free. And then, when the fire
dies, feel free, yourselves, to go about your business. Randy, will you do the honors?" "Gladly," I say, and ignite the rug. Blue flames swirl and ripple up and down the fabric. Wool's hard to burn, but I keep giving the
fire a nudge wherever it threatens to go out.
The light grows and grows, so that every so often I can look up and take
in the increasing glory of the last incredible fiery colors left among the
trees. Thank you Jesus. When nothing remains but ash, we turn back towards the
school. "We shall all be tardy," Don
remarks. Jake smiles. "Good. That's good for our reputations." I say, "I can hardly wait to see what detentions we get this time." But Jake soon frowns. "Are you okay?" I ask him. "Close enough," he says.
Then, after a few steps, he adds, "Yet reality is not." Suddenly
I remember that a child died under mysterious circumstances, buried within the
walls. "Corey," I breathe. "We forgot Corey." Jake shakes his head. "I'm
not even sure we could free him. I'm not
sure he wants freed." His brows knit,
straining to put together what his vision wants to tell him. "We patched things together a bit, but the
stitches already begin to pull apart again.
We haven't gotten to the root cause."
Then he turns to Don. "If
anything happens to me, if I can't do it, try to find out what ol' Weatherbent
is hiding.") Mmmmm—morning. I don't think I'll take any classes today;
I'm going to tell Archives to cancel all my plans and then I'll take a hike,
maybe around Twin Springs Hill—I like the country up there, where the Sweet
Memory River chuckles down a dozen merry waterfalls, and birds fly through the
rainbows for the cleansing feel of the spray.
I wonder if Jesse will want to join me? No, Jesse's dead—long dead
and he can't join me. I remember now,
how I'd sponged the sweat from his brow while he fought to survive the neural
change that would make us all like gods, we thought. But all it made him was dead. I remember his raving towards the end, all
day and all night long, as he got thinner and thinner, more like a skeleton
than a boy, before my own turn came. Still hazy with sleep, I
watch some insect buzzing in the air above me.
My hand darts out and snatches it from the air faster than a snake could
strike. Yep—that much was no dream. I really do have "superhuman" reflexes—for
whatever that's worth. I look at what I
caught before releasing the bug. A
flying beetle with metallic green wings, marked with eyelike spots in black and
gold—didn't I dream something about watching eyes, too? I remember seeing this beetle in a book. Native to the Charadoc, it produces a kind of
honey useful for... Native to the Charadoc. I sit up in bed. That's it—the bed threw me off. It's been so long since I last slept a whole
night in one that I thought myself back at Til for a moment. Real sheets, real pillows, mattress soft
beneath me, yielding to my every move. I
used to sleep like this at home. Snap out of it,
Deirdre. You're an agent. You have no home. I look around me at all the
young people curled up on whatever bedding Zofia could improvise, bandaged and
pale. Someone whimpers in her sleep;
another murmurs "Mama!" while he tosses blindly on a mat. God.
What happened last night? The smell of coffee sends
an invitation on the air. I wriggle out
of the bed by an under-blanket route between two wounded girls, with a weird
feeling that I've done this before, then I step gingerly around my fellow
patients to find the outhouse and the wash-house, grab a quick smoke, then stumble
nearly awake to breakfast. Is that
porridge that I smell cooking? (Gotta hurry back and tend
to breakfast—is that the smell of porridge burning?) (Sitting for breakfast, I
smile to hear the clap of Kimba playing patty-cake with Raif. I wish I did have a patted-out cake, perhaps
of oats, but on another level I'm glad that we now have what we do. "Cold cabbage makes a poor
breakfast, but the last of the almond-butter makes it almost palatable," Cybil
says as she serves us leaves spread with the rich brown stuff, rolled up into
little bluegreen wraps. When she bends to me I
murmur, "You're doing Kimba a world of good, you know." "Really?" She dimples and blushes. "I was afraid that the cabbage would harm
her, but we had nothing else." "It concentrates arsenic in
the soil, but when grown in arsenic-free ground it can also leach it out of the
body.") Thin porridge, but Zofia
has stirred in the last of her nut-butter to make it taste like more. Around a crowd of mostly improvised tables sit
the survivors of my newly blended
crew. Raggedy lot. I sit back and sip coffee while they tell me
of yesterday's debacle, and I explain how to wear down a stone caltrop to look
like nobody chipped it into shape. After
inquiries I distribute guns to the best shots among them, saving none for
myself. I then sit to educate the rest
on the ugly art of improvising weaponry.
They're troopers—they'll pull it together. But we have to get more equipment,
soon—if a business as big as I think is brewing should come down on us. (Lufti's a real
trooper. Sick as he is, crazy and all,
he pulled himself together enough to drill me on the reading of one name—Aliso. I stir the popping, bubbling mess before me;
only the bottom scorched a little; it'll be all right, with nuts thrown in to
balance off that burnt taste—do we have almonds? Burnt almond's a treat in itself.) I'll have to risk whistling
to Kiril for supplies, since Nayal at least succeeded in delaying her
troop. The soldiers still travel alone;
I don't think any Purple Mantles have moved near enough yet to overhear us in
short range. No...don't take the chance,
not this close. Maybe I should steal in
for a personal visit, if I can swing it—that'll be hard, though, with Kiril in
the sergeant's tent. I'll have to slide
in as silent as a snake. (Aliso. A-L-something-something-O. "S" was in there somewhere—that's the one
that looks and sounds like a snake.
Sssssss. Lufti'll go over it all
again later, next chance we get. In the
meanwhile, I'd better get this chow out for that bunch of hungry men.) No, I'd better not risk
that. I wish she could read—I could slip
a note into her cooking-pots and slither out again with no one else the
wiser. Tomorrow they'll hit the road
again and so should we. I sigh; I'm
going to miss the refuge of Zofia's farm.
But I need more than supplies—I need intelligence. (Lufti wants me to steal
any papers with that name on it, so he can read them, and then, if possible,
get the word out to Deirdre. He says
that Cyran wants to hear anything we learn about Aliso.) I know that General Aliso's
on the move, but where? By what
route? On what schedule? With what strength? I need to know! Zofia has plans of her own,
leading out her plowhorse. "You can ride
Steddy, Deirdre, while the others march, but don't do anything more than that
till the aching stops. Otherwise you'll
have a relapse nastier than before. Just
pace the enemy for now, okay? "Who am I to argue? You're the boss." She glances back through
the kitchen door, at all the wounded who can't rise to table, while their
comrades carry in bowls of porridge to spoon into those who at least can
eat. "Can you try not to send anyone
else into battle either, at least for a day or two? I've got all the patients I can handle." "I'll see what I can
do. But that goes beyond your authority,
Zofia." I sigh and say, "Tell me what
you know of this bug I picked up—what can I expect?" "We call it Draggin'
Fever..." "Dragon Fever?" "It drags you down, makes
life wearisome." Oh yeah. Now I remember. "You can expect plenty of good days, mind
you, but some days every move'll feel like wading through mud up to your neck. Don't worry—people get used to feeling tired
all the time. You learn to push on. Some days, though, when the fever spikes,
you'll do best to stay in bed." Fun. "Any cure, Zofia?" Every so often herbalists come up with stuff
not in the books—I can hope. "Heard of one. Not for our kind, though. Expensive."
I feel relief—Til Institute can afford any treatment available for their
agents, eventually, when I hook back up with them again. Then I feel guilty for my good fortune—had I
really, truly merged with this people, Zofia would've just announced my life
sentence. She picks up a weathered
herbal, unaware that she holds it upside down.
"Katya brought this over. I can
study the pictures, and she'll tell me what they mean, just like her mother did
for her. They say that her grandmother
could read." She lays the book down with
reverence, caressing the water-warped ridges of the cover. "Katya has no children of her own, and she's
past the age of bearing, so she might as well teach me." (You know the shame of it?
I'm going to memorize how to read this enemy lady's name, and I can't
even read my own.) |
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