IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume VII: The Burning
Chapter 22 Feelings
Monday, April 19, 2709, continued I watch a
puppet contest. Each contestant sits at
tables skirted with bunting, like the seating usually associated with judges–do
they perhaps act both as judges and judged?
I smile as I study their offerings; most of them display hand-puppets of
various sorts, bright bits of felt and buttons, goggle-eyes and feathers and
bits of gimp. One
woman, however, dangles a puppet upon strings, draped down below the tabletop,
up in front where her blue bunting acts as a backdrop curtain for her
manipulations of the spindly wooden limbs.
I come closer, compelled. I see a
crude rendition of my own face, framed by long hanks of silver-streaked black
hair. I wake with a start, and the start jolts my
hammock, swaying with a creak of branches in an unsettling way. I feel chilly, up in the air like this. I have gotten too used to sleeping on the
ground. I peer over the edge, straight into Lufti’s
eyes; he reclines at an angle from me, dangling from another tree so close that
the branches intertwine. He presses
fingers to his lips, glowering. I listen, hearing what he hears, and I zoom from
drowsiness to heart-hammering alertness.
Footsteps in the woods–many of them.
And...oh lord, panting and snuffling!
They have put dogs on our trail! I whistle the new bird-call for “Incoming!” and
watch the sleepy heads stir all through the trees, not making a sound, turning
very carefully in their hammocks to make no more rustle in the boughs than the
wind might cause, to point their guns downward.
Even the new kids know by now the importance of silent motion, even half
asleep. And now I fully appreciate the deadly gamble in
my choice to take to the trees–the gamble that I might have lost. All depends on invisibility, of our presence
going right over their heads. But dogs
don’t need to see us, only smell us. And
once found out, we can’t run, we can’t leap from our hammocks even for cover;
the risky clamber back to a bough must go much slower than a sniper could point
and shoot, and the thin fabric of our hammocks has no power whatsoever to stop
their bullets. All eyes turn towards me. I hold up my hand and cross both pairs of
fingers: hold fire till they see us. Did
I teach this one to the new kids? I
don’t remember! Foliage rustles, boots fall, dogs sniff and whine
excitedly. Fallen leaves crunch, and
suddenly I realize just how sparse the gold and coral crown that screens us has
become. Now I see them directly beneath
us; from up here they look like hats with arms.
I see the dogs wagging their tails, whining, running up to trees and
pawing, I hear the first bark... Crrrack! The bullet pierces a
searcher and all the dogs bark at once, the hot blood smell drowning out all
other scents. Who shot? Who! I scan all the hammocks but the others seem as
baffled as I do. The searchers return
fire–but not at us! Whoever shot at them
aimed from ground level. We watch, fascinated, terrified. They shoot, and some bleed as shots come back
at them. I see those with dogs trying to
hold back the barking, frothing beagles who try to charge in their masters’
defense. I see a young man throw his
body in front of his dog just in time to take the bullet instead. I watch, in
the midst of the battle, the beagle lick the dying face, and when the
inevitable happens, lift his muzzle up to us and howl. I see a couple other dogs, less lucky, lying
in red pools. Now I see the newcomers–not in uniform! We cheer and shout, we can’t help it, taking
potshots of our own from the trees. Then
one of them aims quite deliberately, coldly, upward. Chaska screams!
I whip towards her, but she’s not shot yet, the bullet took out the back
rope of her hammock and now she dangles from the cloth, screaming and kicking,
and more bullets come her way but she bucks and sways in the air and makes
herself a tough target by accident. Enough! I
spill out of my hammock and dive on down, hollering bloody murder while I shoot
and shoot, directing my glide straight at anybody aiming from either side,
every time the recoil jolts me back. The
farmers haven’t heard of me and can’t believe their eyes. The army’s heard too much. Some of each drop their guns and run, and
their dogs go with them. And some of each keep on shooting and I don't
care! I have gained my feelings back as
a gift of horror. I drop into the
bloodstained leaves and run at anyone and everyone, still shooting, clubbing
when the bullets run out. Several grab
my hair and spin me about, but I just lash out, hand and foot, with the
momentum that they give me, jabbing with the barrel at vital organs, knocking
out teeth with the stock, I leap out of all their grasps at once with a skyward
jolt that only reaches their chin-level before I fall again—on top of
them. No one has any time to look upward
at a writhing girl as I roll down bodies and hit the ground with my side.. I grab at them anyway, digging in my nails, I
kick their feet out from under them, I drag them down, down to my level to roll
in the dirt with me, tangling in my own skirts but not letting them get a
chance to get up either. More come to
the aid of their own and I shove bodies into them, pop up again, leaping over
those who grab my ankles and crash down again, but pulling on clothes, pulling
on skin or hair, leaping anew to start it all over again, making a great,
bloody wallow while my children shoot everyone who manages to crawl to the
periphery. Pain rip! Shoulder's dislocated, but
I've fought one-armed before. One set of
fingers hooks into my waistband while the other grabs a branch and flails,
flails, driving them back enough to where my own can shoot them. I trip on my own skirt and fall back into the
blood-muck and the shoulder just throbs but I keep on whipping that branch
around. At last none remain to boil up from the center
of my chaos, save myself. I sprawl there,
panting for air, hearing the rustle of young folk climbing down the trees. I hear soft murmurs, but I really don't want
to understand the words. I totter to my feet, shaking like I’d run on
greenfire for days, staring at the dead on all sides, and on no side. Soldiers doing what their job required,
farmers grown too sick of war, dogs who understood nothing but loyalty, even
the trampled, noncombatant plants. Death
and death and death. I feel the
blood-soaked fabric cling to me, turning cold already. I can’t distinguish the ache in my shoulder
from the one in my heart. It doesn’t
make sense. Nothing about this war makes
any sense anymore. The country has gone
mad, and cultural immersion has dragged me into the madness, too, and I can’t
pull out of it, and even flying doesn’t help. I jump when I hear one more shot. But it’s only Hekut, a scowl upon his face,
his eyes glittering wet. “It was
suffering,” he says of the dead dog at his feet. “It was suffering.” I sink back to the ground. Too many emotions return, all of them at
once. All of the fear, the anger, the
dread joy, the devotion, the rush, the shame and excitement and disgust. And horror.
Horror and love. And I realize
what a tattered thing I have become, that I can’t quite contain them anymore, I
can’t hold up under all their weight. “Here, Deirdre!”
Lufti, still up in the rainforest canopy, has somehow managed to shinny
from his hammock to mine, and tosses down my pack. “Ride the Bad Horse one more time–she’s not a
star, you know.” And I remember
Chaska. I look up and see her, not
kicking anymore, just holding on with increasing desperation. So I try to strap on my flit with shaking
fingers, but I can't quite do it with one hand, so Kiril helps me. Then I fly up to Chaska and hold her
trembling in my arm looped 'round her too-thin waist, and bring her gently to
the earth. Chaska stares at me with eyes too wide for her
face, until not breathing makes her faint.
As her brothers come to collect her from me, they look close to
fainting, too, their eyes on me as they drag her back as though I menaced her
in the very act of rescuing her. I
forgot. They didn’t know about the flit.
They must have seen me wear it, but never asked me why. It chills me to think of how this march has
exhausted all their questions—healthy children always ask questions. How quickly have they become something other
than children, other, even, than normal human beings who try to make some sense
of their experience. Like the rest of us. I tell Kiril how to manipulate my arm to reset
the shoulder. I gasp when the bone pops
back into the socket. As she binds my arm to my chest, I remember the first
time that I ever fought with it dislocated.
The mind-change had come onto Lisa and I wrestled her to the ground so
that my friends could bind her up. And I
remember thinking that surely, once we got through that nightmare, everything
would get better, all troubles would become simple after that. We'd have minds and reflexes up to every
challenge, we could snap our fingers at woe, solve everything. “Let's go,” I say, once we finish looting the
bodies of arms and ammunition. “It's not
safe to stay here.” And as I march my
blood-drenched skirt slaps my legs, left, right, left, right, left... * * * (I feel
lulled by the roll of the deck, slowly to the left, slowly to the right,
downright peaceful till George rockets past and projectile vomits over the
side. “So much blood!” he moans. “Oh God!” Jake
brings him a mug of water and a kerchief.
To us he says, “Next one’s a murder victim. On the run.
Didn’t run far enough. Messy
crime scene ahead” And we take this in, only
the waves and the creaking wood capable of reply. “I never
wanted to see,” George finally gasps. “I
did it in the dark, or stoned, or both.
I thought I was mysterious, but I just never wanted to see.” Jake
corrects him. “You never wanted to
feel. If you saw you risked feeling what
you did.” George
looks up at him with bloodshot eyes. “I
could smell it,” he said. “I didn’t know
you could smell visions.” Gruffly
Jake says, “Welcome to the Wonderful World of Oraclism.” George’s
face works up and he starts to cry. “I
could smell my own guilt!” I fill a
basin with sea-water and use my Gift to heat it for George. The cold wind bites, but he will want to
wash.) * * * God bless Master
Barrahab's maid for thoughtfully including a jar of meat tenderizer in the
swag! She knows full well that we don't
care if our meat gets tough enough to fight back, but she's also woman enough
to know how it can drag us down to wear bloodstained clothes. I get mine into cold water at the earliest
opportunity, and my fellow females crowd in beside me, shivering and relieved
to pass the orangey-brown powder back and forth, to rub into the fabric before
tossing it over to the boys on the other side of a yakuthansa. Then we savage our shirts and skirts against
the stones till the sweat runs down our flanks, so next we plunge ourselves
into the stream, squealing and giggling against the chill, splashing and
paddling about. (Hear that? Oh God, it's them, isn't it? Over in the creek?) “What's this?” I
ask, as Kiril hands me a bottle. “Special shampoo,”
she says, “For making your hair grow long again. Barrahab's maid recommended it when I asked for
something to help you.” “You angel!” I suds it up with my good hand, breathing
deeply its scent of coconut, cassia, holy basil, hibiscus, and less-definable
botanicals, feel its silkiness on my scalp.
I feel more pampered than ever I did in Soskia's manor, there in the
cold, cold water. (How many? Do they have guns? Darts?
Scalps upon their belts still dripping blood from the tangled locks?) “We should have
pre-oiled your hair before you got it wet,” she tells me, scrubbing her own
vigorously. “But you jumped in too
soon. We should have pre-oiled it and
let the sun warm the oil into your hair—that's what the maids told me. Just a little cooking-oil on the palms, rubbed
thoroughly through the locks; we could spare a few drops for that. One of them has hair as long as yours used to
be.” I laugh, saying,
“I'll try to remember that, Kiril.” Of
course Zanne told me all this years ago, but I have not had time to put it into
action. (But no—it couldn't
be them. They sound too glad, too
carefree. Maidens washing laundry, and
then bathing while they're at it, nothing more.) “No, no, here—don't
just pile it all up on top of your head!
Wash it section by section. They
told me all about it.” “I've forgotten all
that,” I say. “They've heard
about you,” Kiril says, as I wash her back.
“It made them sad to think of your hair getting brittle—they liked to
picture you flying about as a great, dark cloud, raining bullets down on
oppressors.” “I don't like to
shoot from the air. You can't brace
against recoil up there.” “I know,” she
says. “I didn't tell them that.” (So we will not
search in that direction. No need to
disturb the ladies. The peasant girls
often do their laundry in the nude; it wouldm’t be nice to barge in on
them. Nope, no need to go over that way
at all.) Once we've scrubbed
up, from our scalps down to our pink and tingling toes, Kiril rebinds my
arm. Now we and our clothing lie on the
broad, low stones, drying in the waning sun, staring up at the autumn tree-framed
sky, while the water rushes past our heads. First, though, Kiril
spreads my hair out on the stone behind me.
“Cold rinses are best for it, you know,” she says. “Good, because it's
the only kind it'll get for awhile.” I
smile up at her. “You sound like my
friendclan-sister, Zanne. You know, I
never could get my hair past my shoulder-blades till she nagged me into
treating it right.” “Good for her. You need a keeper, you know.” “So I've been
told.” Fire-brilliant
leaves flutter against the blue. So
lovely. Isn't it worth all the fear, all
the pain, for sights like this? Does
Chaska think such things, lying over there, shivering but gazing upwards all
the same? Does she feel it in her blood, how very much alive? Does her skin tingle in its coherence,
unpierced by this morning's bullets, and the graze on her cheek no more now
than a memory in pink? As I turn my head
that way, I see Nishka lay down beside her, brown hip pressed to the creamy
one, scarred breasts next to the fresh and barely-formed ones. Kiril blushes. “Do, uh, do you know about Nishka and
Chaska?” “Uh huh.” Then she eyes me
all up and down my naked body, and I tense.
“Do you ever think about, you know...like them?” “Nope.” Then I take her hand and say, “And even if I
did, dearheart, it would never be with you.
Kiril, I think you're the closest thing to a daughter that I will ever
have in my life. I won't mess that up,
not for anything. Life's confusing
enough.” She nods, emotions
troubling her face. Then, “Good,” she
says, and lies down beside me, still holding my hand. “Who needs the complications?” “Indeed.” I feel her grip
tighten, just for an instant. “Someday
you'll have to go. I know that. You told me that you don't usually stay as
long in one country as you already have with us.” “Oh? When did I say that?” “In Merchant
Caverns. In a fever. You wept and said you missed your home.” And then my heart
breaks in two. Half my broken heart
yearns for the Altraus Coast, for the playmates of my youth, the carefree hikes
and the sailing expeditions, beach parties and summer daydreams on the
lawn...oh Lord, we used to daydream about becoming agents! In moments very much like this, only without
anywhere in the back of our minds the thought that guns might shoot at us at
any minute. The other half of
my heart roots firmly here, in the Charadoc which has cost me so much, and has
given me so much, which has laid a claim on me in Kiril. “I will write,” I say faintly. “Mail fails.” “Sometimes. And sometimes it gets through. Always something gets through.” “You'll go on
undercover missions.” “And then you will
get letters, seemingly from a stranger, but when you open them, a word here and
there will let you know that it's me.
And we know each other so well that you will have it in you to decipher
every coded reference that I give you, and learn all about my life as I live
it. And you will write back to the same
address, wherever the strange post might have come from.” “I don't even know
how to read, Deirdre!” “Well, we're
working on that, aren't we?” And I put
an arm around her, and she nestles her wet hair into my good shoulder. After awhile we sit up and I show her how to
write her name in the nearby sand. And
then she brushes out my hair, very gently, little by little, careful not to
force the tangles, fussing over how she should really let it dry the rest of
the way first. And by then our clothes
have dried, and so I choose the black outfit, rolling up the blue and white one
for when next I'll need to fly, and we get dressed, pick up our packs and guns,
and the march goes on. (They sounded so
innocent, those washer-women, laughing and splashing. Oh Lord, I'm glad that somebody in this
godforsaken country still sounds like that!) |
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