IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume VI: The Rift
Chapter 28 Savagery and Civility
Friday, January 8, 2709 Dawn brings color back into
the world. Both sides have run out of
ammunition, and in this kind of terrain neither of us have any way to
restock. Food runs low, too, but it
takes an effort to eat, anyway. At least
we have plenty of leaf. I never give any to Lufti;
he has slept bobbing on my back all night long.
Now he wakes, looks around himself with sleep-puffy eyes, then suddenly
wrestles violently off of me, screaming and kicking me so hard that I sprawl
into the dirt. Lefty and Kassim grab him
before he can escape, though he fights them desperately. "The dead!
The dead!" he cries. "Where are
you taking me?" I push myself back up off
the ground, and I do indeed feel like a corpse trying to force a decaying body
upright; I hate the way I smell. He stops struggling at the
sight of me, but topples to his knees, weeping, horror naked in his face. "Oh Deirdre!" he cries. "When did you die?" "I am very much alive," I
tell him, and take him into my arms, where he holds me, trembling, like he
fears the Reaper will wrench me from him if he dares let go. Finally he lets me hoist him back up onto my
back, and we continue our march. Maybe
we can sleep tonight, if we light no fires, attracting no soldiers to rain down
rocks on us. But not yet–everyone's too
wired. Daba'oth reminds Lufti, "We
travel to Abojan Pass, by way of lovely Koboros." With surprising venom Lufti
hisses back, "You will poison
Koboros!" "Don't mind him," I
say. "He doesn't know half of what he's
saying." But Lufti insists, "I know
more of what I say than anyone in the Charadoc," and after that he falls into a
sullen silence. "Anyway," I say, "we're not
going to Koboros this time. We're taking
the direct—Gunfire! Evasive maneuvers NOW!" We scatter and run,
zigzagging from cover to cover amid the pops and pings. Sparing, though—a few cautious
shots. They'll ration out the bullets,
now, trying to herd us all day and all night.
But tomorrow–surely tomorrow we will sleep. (In the morning I reach for
my shirt–and stare in horror at the blood stains on the back. How did that happen? I have taken so much care! Did anybody see? Suddenly I feel dirty,
beyond all filth. I haven't done
anything holy whatsoever! Stained,
stained–nothing can wash me clean. I
will not stoop to borrow the blood of God–how can that be any cleaner than my
own? The old stories that once
enthralled me now fill me with disgust. And yet...and yet I know
that all these feelings will go away the next time that I flagellate. But not yet. I have a whole day's march ahead
of me, riding or no. And not tonight,
either; I must give myself some time to heal.
I must take care, must never need the attention of a medic. I shall have to schedule these things
carefully. Fortunately, none can crack
the code in my daybook. I must remain in
complete control. Of course nobody saw. I wore a coat the entire time. In any case, it's not like I've never washed
blood from my shirt before. I hear the splash of the
water from the pitcher distinctly–my hearing recovers already. I surprise myself with a slight sense of
disappointment. I do not hesitate to
plunge my forearms into the chill water–its bite feels a little bit like
penance. I knead and knead the shirt,
watching the white suds discolor as I go.) Sunday, January 10, 2709 We fight with rocks, now,
the enemy and us. Some among us have
slings, and the rest turn our socks into something close enough, past caring
about blisters or cold toes. It takes a
learning curve to use them, but before long we hear cries behind the opposing
boulders, and we cheer the impact of our missiles. Then tall Kassim falls like Goliath, tumbling
down the scree amid a spill of rattling rocks.
I hide Lufti's eyes from the impact at the bottom, but Daba'oth looks
on. "Like Granny Shtara," he
breathes. "At least the head–just like a
jar." (The army chaplain holds
confessions before Mass. I get in line,
my back burning under the hidden bandages.
I feel queer there, pretending not to notice the looks that soldiers
give me. I get close enough to hear the
unintelligible mumbles within the snapping tent that quivers in the wind, but
then I turn around and leave before my own turn comes. What could I say to him? What could I promise? Does anyone, any soul on
this entire planet, understand how much this moral wrestling has exhausted me? Maybe one. But she fights for the other side.) Monday, January 11, 2709 We have run low on
leaf. I have stinted my own ration to
try and make it last for the others, so that a weariness suffuses me like the
gravity of all my sins drag back my every step, my every move. Oh God, oh God, will you not end this
war? Will you not cause each and every
mountain in this Range of Fire to erupt and bury us all in lava, entombing
rebel and soldier alike, so that none of us may ever lift a finger to the
trigger again? Cold rocks hit us, not the
hot ones of volcanoes. I hear a
sickening crack behind me, turn, and find that another child died, mercifully
too fast to even cry out. We can't slow
down to honor him properly. We just keep
running, running, as I hear Lufti whispering his incoherent prayers with his
head against my ear. (I hate the scourge. In a lifetime peppered with dubious
decisions, that has to be one of my worst.
I shall toss it into the nearest available crevasse. I wish its maker had fashioned it of some
frangible matter, not sturdy wood and metal, something that could shatter
against the stony slope. But not yet. I might need it yet.) Tuesday, January 12, 2709 I call a halt. We all sit down on a broad, flat-topped stone,
warmed by the summer sun and jutting out over a dell, its land-edge softened by
wild grass and the dappled shade of a nearby tree rooted in a crack between the
rocks. And here we eat the last of our
food together. It doesn't take long
before rocks hurl nearby, hitting wide of the mark. "Come on up!" I call out.
"We're both out of ammo, and we're both too fried to aim with any
accuracy anyway–we might as well pool our resources and share a meal
together. Let's call a truce." They come up, out from
between the rocks: gaunt, stubbly men, as filthy as ourselves, as bleary-eyed,
as shaky and stumble-footed. "Truce," a
man rasps, who owns three purple chevrons on his shoulder. Then they sit down with us, and we pass them
the salt-paste and some handfuls of dried fruit, and they pass us some of that
mush that soldiers on hard commons make of dried bean flakes, but it tastes
much better with our pepper-flakes added, and their crackers taste fantastic
with the last of our cheese. Both sides fear to
talk. We both recognize our own frayed
nerves, how easily the truce could combust into hand-to-hand violence at one
wrong word. And we both feel how
desperately we need this truce. But
"Thank you," and "Hey, this tastes good!" go a long way for conversation. And the beauty and the
tragedy of that moment is that we do speak the same language, unlike most
combatants the world over. Not only the
same language, but even the same dialects.
We have everything in common, these men that we must kill, who stand
honor-bound to kill us...later. But for
now all we have to do is marvel at how rebel scavengings and army rations blend
so well together. At twilight, their officer
and I agree. We take off in different
directions. We will not try to spy out
where the other ultimately camps. Not
tonight. As I lead my band off to a
good night's sleep, a skinny kid runs panting up to me out of the middle of
nowhere. I see a bead of magentine on a
dirty string upon her heaving breast.
She must have tracked us by telepathy–Cyran has gotten a clue from me,
to figure out who among us might have enough psi talent to use magentine with
minimal training. "Cyran needs...you to...fly
again...caches of...supplies...ammo...food...drop ‘em...where needed." I stare at her, thinking
the most unutterable of swear words.
"Tomorrow," I finally tell her.
"It will have to wait till tomorrow."
She glares, all her haste–and all it cost her–betrayed. (We stop at a mountain
village. I forbid my men to follow me,
and none dare question me. I go into the local tavern,
a drafty rock structure with barely enough room for the regulars. It's not like I make a habit of this, after
all. For one night I just want to be an
ordinary citizen. I even leave behind my
white shirts and don a borrowed plaid one, narrow in the sleeve, appropriate
for working-men who eke out a living here between the rocks and
precipices. The men probably think that
I've gone to play the spy. The beer tastes flat, too
sweet, and kind of thickish–probably chock full of nutrients and calories,
though. Not too strong, which suits me
fine–I didn't come here for that. I flex my shoulders; they
sting when I do, but I have to try and roll a kink out of my neck. Let people think that I came by sore muscles
through honest labor. Murmured conversation
washes around me. Somebody's goat has
gone lame, and somebody else recommends a poultice that his grandad used to
use. Somebody's cheating on his wife and
having second thoughts about it. Someone
saved up for and mail-ordered a genuine, solar-powered, automatic washing
machine, all the way from Sargeddohl, for his daughter on her wedding–won't she
be thrilled? Somebody's got one son in
the army and another in the revolution, and can't say which he thinks is right,
he just loves them both. I
finish my beer, toss its price and a small tip on the bar, and leave without a
word.) The mine-cart races under
me, its wheels squealing madly on the tracks, faster and faster, around hairpin
turns, whipping me about, threatening to spill me into the pit below! My eyes fly open. Awake, I hear squeals and hisses and
high-pitched snarls over the rattle of tiny claws on gravel. Children cheer and jeer and laugh in bursts,
now clapping, now cursing. I hear a couple
of men's voices in there with them. I lay on a thin blanket on
the ground. Someone has rigged up a tent
over me (oh, rare privacy! I didn't even
know we'd packed one.) Another blanket
lies nearby, but I feel too weary to move, no matter how cold the night, to tug
it over me. I can barely shift my head
to see the tent-flap between my feet, and a cold slice of the dry, star-frosted
night. My head feels dense. It takes awhile to dawn on me that some of
the children have captured rats and now pitch them against each other. I suppose they bet their rations on the
rat-fight. Everything in my upbringing
revolts against such abuse. I know I
ought to get up and make them stop. But
I feel welded to the ground, an aching bolt in every joint. I wonder how they find the strength to play,
then realize that they're still too wound up on leaf to sleep. They didn't start out as tired as me. (They aren't as
acclimatized as me.) I can't just switch them
off at fall of night. Soon, though,
nature will take over, and they will all fold suddenly. And maybe the poor rats will escape. The blanket feels thicker
every minute. I do manage to hook the
other one, and drag it over me, but that takes the last energy I have. The softness beneath me pulls me down into
the stony earth. Why bother stopping
them? They couldn't possibly understand,
any more than the rats do. How arrogant,
how patronizing Tilián morality seems right now, how far away. Why should rats get any better treatment than
people? Either way I think, I
disgust myself. |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
||
![]() |