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IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume V: Sharing Insanity
Chapter 46
Tuesday,
December 1, 2708, continued Having found Lufti where Kiril's message said
I would, I only carry the child a little ways before he insists that I let him
down to crawl under a bush. "I couldn't
bury it before," he says. "What you bury
at a crossroads won't stay put." I hear
him scratch out a little hole down there, and I hear the crackle of xylophane. "They taught me to dance, you know. I can dance better than Kanarik herself,
better than the Lady of the Mast," says the boy who can't even walk. A shiver runs down my spine
at the smile he gives me when he crawls back out. He must have passed through withdrawal by
now, to smile as often as he does; this isn't something that the body can purge
out anymore. Greenfire only lit the fuse
to whatever already waited in his head, ready to explode. I pick up my burden again
and he nestles against my shoulder with a sigh of contentment; I wince at the
weight against my bandages, but it really doesn't amount to much. "After the war," he confides, "Kiril and I will
live where the stars don't shine and the ghosts don't dance, in a little house
of chocolate-plastered coconut, with hollyhocks and oxen and no horses
anywhere. And she will smell like
baby-milk in a cozy tent but maybe we shouldn't accept the gifts of the Good
People, should we?" * * * ("…And she will
smell like baby-milk in a cozy tent, but maybe we shouldn't accept the gifts of
the Good People, should we?" Jake? Jake!
I hear the words clear out in the hall, shouting in that
higher-than-usual voice that he falls into sometimes when he's totally lost
it. "A robe. It turned into a robe, easily divided and as
easily brought together, and all the sacrificial goats bleated their approval,
even as they cowered." I run into the library, and glimpse him through the many gaps in
the bookcases, yet Jake runs right behind me, so who's that up ahead? "George," Jake murmurs as though in answer to my thoughts. "The boy's lost his mind." We run past the bookshelves and find him
standing on a table, batting away something invisible above him, and his eyes
look dark, so dark. Aaron runs up, grabs my arm and cries, "Tell me what to do! I can't get through to him, tell me what to
do!" "Stars, stars everywhere," says the boy on the table. "Do you think the ghosts have sent them? But I only did what he wanted." He looks Jake in the eye and asks, "Tell me,
is he my enemy or my friend?" Not
waiting for an answer, he leaps from table to table, snatching at the air. "Come down right now!" Aaron pleads. "The teachers will hear you!" "Mothers—it's all about the mothers, but we mustn't say the
word." George presses a finger to his
lips and smiles slyly. "Shhhhhh!" he hisses.
"He thought himself such a good boy, but she learned that she didn't
want pleased after all, so she danced up, up, into the sky, courting the stars
to answer the fire that burned inside her.
We must all learn to dance with the dead!" And with that he leaps to the windowsill but
Jake lunges for him before he can jump out. George struggles, but Aaron and I run up and help Jake, pinning
him between us. I can see the boy's
dilated eyes, and smell the herb-laced kusmet on his breath. Suddenly he goes limp against Jake's
breast. "Save me," he whispers. "I just can't do it anymore!" I step back and let Jake embrace him, confining the restless
limbs. He kisses the top of George's
head and murmurs, "Of course. You
shouldn't have to do it anymore." Aaron
starts, staring up at Jake. "We're here
to help you escape." And with that he picks
up the lanky boy like a babe, carrying him out of the library. "Where are you taking him?" Aaron demands. "The infirmary," Jake says. "But they might expel him!" Jake heads up the steps, shoving past him. "He'll die if he doesn't get medical attention
now." "It's okay," I tell Aaron, taking his arm this time. "Don's doing a detention, there, and the
Nurse usually takes a nap this time of day."
Don sawed halfway through one leg of a teacher's chair, resulting in
classroom hilarity and one angry teacher with a sprained wrist—which Don of
course bound personally under a barrage of castigation. "He'll cover for us." "Does he know how to...you know, with something like this?" I give him a wink. "You'd
be amazed at some of the things we've concocted on Lumne Island." Don greets us at the door, takes one look at George and asks me,
"Overdose?" "I think so," I reply, as Jake hands the boy over to Aaron to put
to bed in one of the private rooms. "More than that," Jake rumbles, as soon as the door closes behind
Aaron. "Oracular crisis. He doesn't have
the training and it's driving him mad.
He's been trying to medicate himself while looking for mystical answers
to explain what's happening to him."
Jake looks around at the perfectly squared stone blocks all around
us. "And since this school has demonized
all mysticism, he looked for it in demonic places." "Are you sure? Him
too? Not just…" and Jake claps a hand
over my mouth right before Aaron opens the door again. "Don't assume he won't remember anything we say," he hisses in my
ear. Don quickly goes about compounding an antidote before the regular
nurse gets back. "George'll be exhausted
when he comes down," he says. "He'll
need to sleep for days." Aaron nods. "We'll say he
has the flu.") * * * I feel the fever rise in me
again, but I do what I must to compensate.
And so we leave the barn behind, to rendezvous with the rest of my band
at the next agreed-upon point, all of the woods rippling in heatwaves in my
sight, a mirage. Some of those missing
before now rejoin us, looking bedraggled and haunted, but still able to march. And some have gone ahead to set up camp
before us near our landmark: A great broken stump of a dead tree, with a gaping
hole up high, forever silently screaming over a swampy spring. Uphill from there, under
the canopy of forest and undergrowth, in yet another lacework of makeshift
shelters and tunnels in the brush, I get my first good look at the damage
done. Lufti's sores look bad enough now,
but the ruddy zone of fresh-healed flesh tells me just how horribly my errand
tore up the messenger I sent. "She burned the words of
the stars onto pure white coconut sleeves and Sarge stashed the booty in his
chest. I only caught a glimpse of the
words before they blinded me; I only pretend to see. But I can catch the gleam of rubies and
diamonds anywhere." Lufti chuckles with
a knowing glance over his shoulder at me as I clean his sores. "The starlight's pure gold, Deirdre—you'd
better loot it or you won't live happily ever after. The Good People didn't loot and her skirt
went clear up over her head; I had a hard time finding all her fingerbones, but
one of them wore his ring. Cyran will
want to know." I pour more disinfectant
from the kettle onto a soft pad of rag, breathing in its aromatic steam, and
then shuddering at a cold drop hitting my shoulder. The cursed rain gets through even in this
sorry drizzle—what will it be like when it really starts to pour again? Lufti twists and grabs my
shirt. "Pay attention! Cyran will want to know!" He ignores how the sores on one buttock grinds
into the ground to do this. I unclench his fingers from
the cloth. "You're really trying to tell
me something, aren't you?" "Yes!" His eyes burn as he tries to sit up. "Okay, I'm listening." I
say, pushing him back down and re-cleaning the wounds. "What are you trying to say?" "Words! Words!
Words!" He pounds the ground in
frustration, then bursts into giggles.
"It's that simple, really." I sigh; it's never
simple. My back hurts, and rubbing it
won't help so long as I have to work crouching under these boughs. Then something occurs to me. "Your words, Lufti? Or someone else's?" "Else's. Elsie's?
No no no, el, ah, Al, you know!
Yes. Sarge keeps them close
within his chest. Words of the dangerous
stars. It's all on her shoulders." "Her shoulders—stars on her
shoulders?" "Yes yes yes! The General's shoulders! I taught her the name before her very
own. A mountain peak to start it, and a snake-hissing
in there, and it ends with a round mouth moaning, ohhhhhhh." "General Aliso." "Yes! You got it.
You're very smart, Deirdre. You
must read stars." "General Aliso gave words
to Sarge?" "Yes." "The officer in Kiril's
troop?" "Yes, that's the one—the
Lord of Abundance and the Chocolate King." "And General Aliso gave him
words to memorize—to keep safe within his breast?" "No, no! You're not listening! In his chest!
Along with the coconut and chocolates!
Written on sheets as white as blazing starlight sleeves!" "Documents? You mean documents! Oh, thank heavens! We can steal those." I won't have to interrogate the man who fed
and cared for Kiril. "Yes, steal the blazing
words and free Kiril from the Chocolate King!" "Lufti...free Kiril?" He doesn't smile anymore
when he says in a quieter voice, "Yes.
Rescue." He sounds almost lucid
when he says, "She cries all the time, Deirdre.
And her tummy hurts all the time but he won't stop feeding her. Where do you think all the jewels came from?" |
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