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IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume V: Sharing Insanity
Chapter 40
Sunday,
November 29, 2708 I didn’t go to mass
today. Why should I? What could any priest say that could possibly
save me now? (It’s been three days and
Reno hasn’t said a word—not to me and not to Sarge. He slumps with his arm bound up, curling in
on himself. Sometimes he glances over at
me and Lufti riding beside him with fear big in his eyes, like we’re
supernatural creatures or something, but that’s Reno all over—for as long as I’ve known him he gets scareder
and scareder every day, and never does anything about it. But it hurts in my heart that now I’m part of
what frightens him and he has no refuge anywhere.) Nightmares
don’t mean anything. They always happen
in a greenfire crash. I’m sure there’s
just some chemical explanation. It’ll
all get better soon. (It’s got to get
better. It’s got to get better. I lie here on the rough, jolting boards with
my head in Kiril’s lap and that is the only kindness in this world, her soft
and cuddly lap against my cheek, but all the rest has turned to a splintery,
hard cart jolting underneath me and prickly stars inside my skin. Oh Kiril, Kiril, Kiril!) Depression doesn’t mean
anything, either. You go on. I ride my horse slowly down the road like an
ordinary citizen, the woods full of my hidden soldiers, the living and the
dead, and we all go on. There’s a minor
kind of salvation in taking action, any action, or at least it passes for the
nearest thing available. (Oh, I want so, so bad to,
I just ache
to jump up and shout at him, “For God’s sake, Reno—turn me in or join me, but
DO something!”) (We go on. But not by horse anymore, all praise be to
the saints and angels! At least I find
that much mercy in the world. God bless
the ox that takes the burden off me for a little while.) Someone else wouldn’t catch
all the little rustles meaningful to me, or sniff the air for whiffs of war on a
sweet spring day. Someone else would
step out of church right about now, ready for a day of rest. But I have no hope in saints and angels
anymore, only in ghosts, and I finally understand the real meaning of Hell: the
inability to move on to Heaven because we’ve all gotten so tangled up in the
business of Hell that we can’t imagine anything else. So we go on.
For all eternity we go on, and this damnable war will never end. (Lufti opens his eyes and
gazes sleepily ahead. “I like oxen
better than horses,” he says. Just then
one lifts up his tail and drops a big, stinky cow-pie right in front of us and
all three of us burst out laughing. Reno says, “Is that a
comment on your opinions, Lufti, or what?” I jump to hear him speak at all. “Stars never shit,” Lufti
says philosophically. “I’m better off
around things that do. I don’t want to
be a god anymore.” “Oh stars do, all right,”
Reno says. “Big, smelly planets, and
we’re on one right now.” Lufti sinks
back into his gloom. “Did you have to say that?”
I ask, stroking my lover’s hair. “I
almost thought Lufti was gonna cheer up for a moment, there.” “He can’t,” Reno
grates. “Not till his system clears and
nature runs its course.” And he glowers
over the reins again. What a happy crew
I ride with!) Steddy kicks through the
cow-pies left by the army oxen that went ahead of us, unconcerned with human
thoughts like dignity. Not that fresh;
we’re miles behind where I’d want to be, thanks to the delays I’ve caused. Placidly the horse clops on, indifferent to
my timeline, over the footsteps of marching rows of men, all blurred together,
you couldn’t tell one from another anymore.
Do the rebels look like that to them, all of us alike, no personhood to
feel ashamed of shooting? With the wind in my face I catch
the scent of something that has nothing to do with steer manure or spring
blooms in the sunshine: jojoba oil, like
I used to smell when fixing tractors on the farm. I glance down and see dark spots, oil and
dirt mixed together—a lot more than one might expect from one farmer who got
his hands on a tractor. And doesn’t it
look, come to think of it, like the boots of marching soldiers—more than just
our troop alone—tramped over ruts wider than a cart would make? Lots and lots of them? I raise my arms like
stretching, then, casual-seeming, I make the gesture for “Halt!” But I ride on farther at a trot, and soon I
hear a horrible, grinding sound, growing louder and louder: a noise that I’d
prayed I’d never hear again. Before I
crest a hill I tether my mount and take to the trees, gliding from bough to
bough in absolute silence, past Kiril’s plodding troop (there she is, in the
cart with Lufti’s head in her lap and that handsome man with his arm in a sling
beside her) and beyond. Soon my stealth
doesn’t matter, for the roar mounts to a pain-inflicting thunder and I can make
no mistake about what I see beyond the leaves: Tanks! A whole fleet of tanks pour into the main
road from one side where they’ve churned up their own highway like a gash in
the countryside, to join the ranks of others gone ahead. And men, hundreds upon hundreds of men trudge
through the mud in their wake, spattered and humbled behind their machines,
rows upon rows of arms upon their shoulders, flags flying everywhere, as far as
fear can see. I turn back, flinging
through the trees, now reckless of noise beneath that deafening metal
grind. I leap from the tree to my
horse, levitation-lightened, flick the tether off and ride, ride, ride! We’ll have to go to ground
till nightfall, I know that much. And
what of the next day? Shall I share the
long-hoarded leaf to catch up? Or save
it for still worse trials ahead, husbanding the strength of my troop? (Just when I thought he’d
never speak again, Reno asks, “Tell me one thing, Lufti, and tell the
truth.” Ohhh no. “Yeah?” “Did somebody tell you to
chew leaf and drink chaummin like that?” Lufti’s brows wrinkle as he
tries to remember and I sweat fear. “Somebody
told me not to,” he says at last. Thank you, all good ghosts! “But I did what I had to do.” Oh cow-pies!
He straightens up like he’s trying to sit, but then he hits a sore and
sinks back down. “Yes,” he says
firmly. “I had to find Kiril. I knew that everything would be all right if I
could only find Kiril. She’d shut the
eyes of all the stars and make the death-dance stop.” I breathe.
“And slowly they close, one at a
time, they close.” Reno nods, gazing out
over the oxen.) Then I look beneath me, at
the underbrush. I don’t need to ration
anything—greenfire grows rampant in this country. Maybe not as strong as what the arid-lands
grow, but so plentiful it doesn’t matter.
Why didn’t I notice it before?
Why didn’t I look for something of such strategic value? Ah, the things you learn when you stop going
to church! I push hair out of my eyes;
sometimes I forget all day to braid it, anymore. I’ve let a lot of things slip. Time I paid more attention. (Lufti’s hair has grown so
long he could braid it like a girl’s. I
stroke his curls in my lap, but that uncovers the vein that pulses in his
brow. And his poor cheekbones still jut
way too far beyond his jaw. The silence just grinds on
and on, like old cartwheels. I need to get some kind of conversation
going—anything. It just seems like
something would give, maybe get better if we talk, it doesn’t matter what we
say. I ask Reno, “Why didn’t the
chaplain hold mass this morning?” “Because there’s a chapel
at the end of the road tonight; he’ll hold services there.” He looks straight at me for the first time in
days. “Why? Do you want to go to confession first? Father’s marching right over there if you
want to.” It hurts to look into his
eyes. I just sigh. “How can I?” I say. “Everything’s so topsy turvy I don’t know
what’s a sin and what’s a virtue anymore.”) (But the death-dance never
really stops, not with more and more dancers joining in every day, bright red
blood corsages on their breasts, bright red wreaths burst from their broken
brows, and all the other colors gone, gone far away. Not even Kiril can change that. The dance drags on and on, the dancers
stumble through the steps like bones bouncing on a dragging blanket, as the
bright red flames of Hell lick up the color of the world and leave the rest
gray ash. Ash, ash, Man is ash, he said
so himself and so am I so surely are we all.) No. No.
Whatever my sins, I can’t make these children march doubletime whipped
on by leaf, not so soon after seeing Lufti and what it’s done to him. If we’re late, we’re late. |
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