IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume VII: The Burning
Chapter 15 Getting the Lay of the Land
Saturday, April 10, 2709 (Cybil and I need to get a lay of the land, on
foot, before deciding our next move.
While I make arrangements with Luzita to hold onto the wheelbarrow with
my stuff on it (she really appreciates getting an entire ristra and the last of
my smoked ham) I overhear Cybil talking to Kara. “She seemed to feel this urgent need to burn
blank sheets of paper,” Kara says in a low voice, but my telepathy fills in the
gaps. “I think she thought she could
read something in them. And she carries
a box around with her that she talks to sometimes. Frankly, I’m a bit worried about her.” Ohhh Gates of Knowledge! Cybil seems a little too cheerfully
matter-of-fact when she joins me I
shoulder a pack with a few essentials like lunch and water in them, take Tshura
in one hand and a branch I found for a walking-stick in the other, and join
her. She looks at the box with a nervous
smile and asks, a little too jocularly, “So how’s Tshura, Zanne?” “Sassy as ever.” “You, uh, talk with her now? In words?” “Of course I do, silly. You know how this works.” Plainly she doesn’t, but she just smiles with
wide eyes and we start walking north. “There’s
boundaries,” Cybil tells me. “Enclaves
where enough people have access to the antidote and clean food to create pockets
of sanity, and other areas where people reinforce each other’s madness.” She gazes down at the toes of her boots. “I’ve been afraid, Zanne, to explore outside
the German enclave, after, you know, what happened with...” “I know.” She looks up again, hopefully, at me. “But we’re on a mission again, right? Isn’t that what you agents call it—a
mission?” “I...I guess so.” I guess I’m still Zanne, even after the
biggest blunder in my entire life. So far the morning seems quiet enough, the city
looking much like any other city, with the mist steaming off of brick and fence
with evaporating dew. Weeds grow where
they hadn’t before, but I kind of like their bravado, getting their footholds,
widening their cracks. Nuvelle Parie
stinks from so many people unused to how to improvise without plumbing, but I
expect they’ll figure it out, once they realize that snow can no longer take
care of matters for them. And in the
meantime some young, high voice sings in the morning light, filling every heart
with hope.) They learn quickly. "We, the lush, ungoverned wood, Shall thrive where no one thought we could, Shall strangle harm and shelter good, And overgrow our own again!" Braulio’s voice keeps cracking as he marches, but he sings with
more passion in every repetition, until belief flares hot in him and shines out
in his glare. He has to. He has either become a warrior on the side of
all that’s just and true, or else a murderer. And the march goes on. (A band of marching men come down the street
towards us, some in various uniforms, others in rags, and some in ragged
uniforms, occasionally bursting into hysterical laughter for no reason that I
can see. I realize that I picked up
“marching” from their minds, because actually they stroll in no particular
order, though they make loud, stomping steps in time to each other. Cybil tenses beside me, but I lay a hand on her
shoulder and tell her, “It’s all right.
They’re harmless.” They pass us, mostly oblivious, the beat of
their boots reverberating down the alley.
One turns a grinning, unshaven face to me and says, “We’re
deserting!” He laughs and they all
bellow with laughter with him, all turning to face us at once, eerily in synch. “We’re deserting from the Forces of Evil!” “Lovely, boys—carry on!” I give them a wave and go on my way.) And so the song comes ‘round again... "We, the seed trod underfoot Shall send a secret, deepening root, Shall rise a green, unnoticed shoot, Abandoned to sun and rain..." Kuchi belts it out with childish fervor, still young and
malleable. I can see the seeds taking
root in him, spreading all through him. In days to come, if he should live to
see them, he might not remember ever being anything but a rebel. (A little white
dog comes running out to bark at our heels, though he never dares to get
close enough to bite, dancing about our feet with tiny pride and fury. More alarming is the naked child on all fours
barking with him, golden curls in his brown face, bright green eyes shining
through. But he seems healthy and fed,
if dirty, so we move on.) When Chaska first began to sing along (the first one of the
three) her voice sounded tentative, so quiet and halting that we almost couldn’t
hear her. But she has grown more
confident each time around, and has reached the point where she has added
something unexpected, something saucy and sensual, to the tune. "We, the wanton, wild vine, Shall thicken, strengthen, intertwine, Shall tangle path and sharpen spine, Made tougher by want and pain... The hip-bones move to catch the beat, the ribcage sways in memory
of breasts that budded before she starved.
Nishka smiles knowingly and ventures a little harmony, looking sideways
at her. Of course–Chaska has reached
that age, and however ladylike her upbringing, she has ached for some rebellion
long before we ever came along. We have
given her license to go past any limit that she might have previously
imagined. I will have to watch out for
her, if I can. (I hear the unmistakable growl of a prop-plane
overhead. “Oh no,” Cybil sighs. “Not
again.,” She turns to me and says,
“Sometimes they try to fly out of Vanikke.”
The streets light up with the flash as the explosion pounds our
eardrums. I can hear, though, the
screams of people falling from the sky, but as I look up they all crackle and
fizzle, still high up in the atmosphere, like meteors, into puffs of ash. How...? I turn in horror to Cybil’s tear-streaked
face. “They always make the same
mistake. They always find the packets of
preserved snacks on board. And it seems they
always carry at least one combustor.”) Palm Sunday, April 11, 2709 Today...ah today. How can I
make plans for war in this of all seasons?
And why does the sacred calendar mean more and more to me as I myself
become more profane? (Today we shall check out the neighborhoods
south of here. Cybil wakes up beside me
in the shell of my old car—there’s quite a bit of room, once you pull out the
seat frames and the bit left of the steering wheel. Padding the interior with
old straw underneath a blanket makes it cozier than many a place I’ve slept in this
past year. But no matter how hard we
scrubbed away at the ash last night, it still smells burnt in here. “What day is it?” Cybil asks muzzily. “I have no idea.” “I feel like I’m supposed to know,” she says,
and yawns. “I’ll assume it’s your birthday and put honey in
your porridge. How’s that?” “Sounds wunnnerful,” she murmurs as she settles
back onto her pillow. I give her a sharp
spank and say wryly, “You still have to haul and filter the water for it—I’m
not about to do all the work, darling.” What did I just glimpse, fleetingly, from her
mind?) They no longer seem surprised at our fervor when we pray today, on
Palm Sunday, far from any church, no blessed fronds in reach, only each other's
hands. Intently they chime in, their knees
in the damp, soft ground along with us, voices joining the chorus in the hymns
that Damien strums. The trees arch
overhead cathedral-high, the sun twinkling through the autumn leaves in
stained-glass brightness. And then we
rise, and cross ourselves, and resume our march through the illuminated
landscape. (Randy and Wallace sing together: I can hear
them as I cook up sausage and gull’s eggs while they’re still good. It’s a slow hymn, carried on the rhythm of
the waves: a fisherman’s hymn about a fisherman’s Friend. I gather from the words that it must be Palm
Sunday. So I dig up the last bit of date
bread and toast it for them, heavy on the butter because it won’t last long
either. I believe, but I’m not a church-going man. I never know how a church will take me. Some don’t like that I’m an oracle. Some don’t like that I’m a stranger. Some feel nervous that I’m big. And some wouldn’t like that I’m gay, if they
knew. So I pray mostly in my heart, and
don’t keep much track of the holidays. Randy doesn’t care what people think of him,
bless him, so long as he gets to worship.
Not defiantly, though; he never disputes an unfavorable view, though
sometimes I think he should. For him a
stare or a sour expression just humbles him and makes him all the more fit to
commune with those fallen enough to despise him. What good’s praise, anyway? The crowd praised Jesus with palms and hymns,
then crucified Him the next day. Ah, Palm
Sunday brings out the curmudgeon in me. Yet in my own way, I still believe.) I don’t know for sure what I believe in anymore, only what I
hope. And I must pray for my enemies,
even as I stalk them, or I have no hope left.
Pray at least that they find light before they die, whether from my hand
or another, perhaps a light that I myself might miss. Hypocrite call me, monster and malefactor,
but I don’t know what else to do. (The Southern neighborhoods seem sane enough, so
far. I can feel a weight lift from me
here, and a freshness, as if breathing unpolluted air for the first time in
ages. It takes me a moment to recognize
the sensation as complete psychic autonomy—nobody’s drenching me with their
thoughts. This neighborhood borders on
rustic, the houses spaced farther apart, with back yard chickens and front yard
raised-bed gardens Children run and giggle
between the beds, playing as fiercely as children do, their heads full of
heroics in their games of pretend. Thin children.
Not as many as you’d expect of such a neighborhood. And I
see the graves, neat rows in the yards of abandoned houses. People used to supermarkets didn’t raise
enough for everybody. I wondered how many died of triage? I see no old people and no disabled. More than one kind of weight can settle on
the soul. They all knew it was wrong—they
must have. Yet they didn’t know what
else to do.) We hear a crackle and a snapping twig–others walk these
woods! We take cover once again, guns
slippery in our sweating hands. We
listen to the crunch of feet in autumn leaves, and our breath aches held within
our chests. Then Kuchi slips noisily,
and gasps on top of all–and then the feet run, crashing through the forest...running
away. After a long time we set free deep breaths and crawl out from
under our bushes once again. We brush
the dried leaf fragments off our clothes and resume our march through the
living halls of autumn gold. Soldiers? Refugees? Fellow rebels? Those who could aid us or kill us? We will never know. (Today Cybil and I set forth to check out the
West quadrant—if we can ever make it there.
We have wedged our sweating bodies in with all the others into one long,
warm, patient human traffic jam, shuffling inches for each minute on a high,
swerving ramp to a pedestrian bridge over the wreck-specked freeway I have secured Tshura in my pack; the crowd
could easily jostle her handle out of my hand without even trying. Currently few cars travel on the lanes below. Apparently the heavy traffic down there only
comes whenever too many linked minds randomly
decide to hit the road all at once, but who knows when that will happen
next? Few will brave the breadth of the
freeway on foot, for the rush can happen in a blink My stomach growls, but I won’t be able to
comfortably unpack the lunch on my back till we make it to the other side, an
hour or so hence. At least I have not
yet had to perform the indignity that others have, of worming sideways through
the crowd in order to push their bared rump or penis between the guard rails to
relieve nature; fortunately the horizontal rails run too close together for a
bent adult body to pass all the way through, and nobody brings their
children. I have occasionally heard the
cries of stuck individuals, mortified to have to ask to be pulled back out. No, I am not that desperate yet. To the west lies the industrial district,
between the city and the river. Many push or pull carts, wheelbarrows, wheeled
luggage, baby carriages, whatever they can scrounge to make the future burden
easier. Those on the side of the bridge
for returnees shows exhausted people hauling tools, scrap metal, industrial
chemicals, half-assembled products, anything valuable enough to justify the
trip. The ones I can see over there
smile faintly; they’re almost done. But I
also note some confused souls on both sides—the gaunt and most unkempt ones—who
just habitually try to get back to jobs
that no longer exist. Some know that the
jobs don’t exist but simply want a touchstone of their former lives and
routines. Some have to see the
nonexistence for themselves. And some
see visions driving them to the other side. “This was a mistake,” Cybil says. “I doubt if anybody actually lives over there
full-time. Do you think we can push
through to the return side?” “I had no idea that it was this bad!” “Excellent!” I say with a laugh. “Excellent?” “We have learned something new. That’s always the purpose of exploration,
isn’t it, darling?” “I...I guess you’re right,” she says with a
tentative grin as we continue to shove through to change course. She clasps my hand so as not to let the crowd
separate us. I look up and see a white bird flying high
above. I miss Deirdre. Right this minute, aside from anything I
might say to cheer up Cybil, I wish I was Deirdre. Oh, to fly so high above in the fresh, clean
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