by Dave Duncan
No one spoke. Even the infants seem to have sensed the sudden chill in the air.
"I depend on my premembrance. I depend on the future as you depend on the past. Shoolscaths are often asked if they can foresee their own deaths—but they never can. The end is lost, just as the beginning is lost. None of you can remember your birth. I can't premember my death, because my premembrance grows smaller and smaller, and everything is lost to me. The last few years just disappear. You were helpless babies. Shoolscaths are fated to become helpless imbeciles before they die."
In the squirming hush that followed, Tibal turned and stared across the forest of heads at Gwin. He kept her eyes on her, although even at a distance he seemed to be staring more through her than at her.
"So now do you see? I must do nothing that will change the future. I cannot dodge a punch, I cannot speak any words that will influence anyone else's actions. If I do, then the future changes and all my premembrance disappears. I become nothing! Right away I would be turned into a human pudding."
Gwin nodded to show that she understood. That was what had happened to the Shoolscaths of Daling, then. Seeing the future, they had tried to change it, and at once their minds had been emptied.
"I was fortunate," Tibal said. "I was destined to find counseling in Raragash, so I knew better."
He was still speaking to Gwin. He knew her future. It mattered, he had said, but now he was telling her that he could not say why, or how.
"This loss of knowledge?" Wosion demanded. "Is it permanent, or do you adjust to the new future?"
"Rarely the mind will come back," Tibal said, without looking at him. "If the Shoolscath has not changed very much, he may recover. Not often, because even small changes usually snowball into great ones. I cannot answer questions, even if the answers will be harmless. Think of this: Suppose a man asks me if he will live long. Suppose I know he will and I tell him so. Then another asks and I answer again. Then comes one who will die tomorrow and, knowing this, I refuse to speak. Now he knows what my silence means! He flees, perhaps, and so escapes his fate. The future is changed and I lose all knowledge of the world to be. My only defense is not to answer any of the men at all!"
He smiled sadly at Gwin, ignoring all the others.
"I do what I must do. You know the past, the good and the bad, but for you the past is forever fixed. I see the future, good and evil, but I can neither aid the good nor seek to avert the evil. I must let it all come. This is the Curse of Shool."
30
Wosion was still determined to discover whether Niad or Gwin was the true Ivielscath. That morning he had taken Niad to visit Sojim, who was Thilion's widow and the only survivor of the original settlers other than Bulion himself. She had borne thirteen children in her time, of whom four sons and four daughters were still alive. The old lady was bedridden now, wasting away in terrible pain.
Niad's efforts effected no miracle. By evening, Sojim had slid into a coma. Wosion took Gwin went to see her, but Gwin produced no change at all. The next day it was obvious that Sojim was dying. If she died before the wedding, then the wedding must be postponed.
Had Niad triggered her sudden decline? Ivielscaths could blight as well as heal. On the other hand, unconsciousness was sometimes a blessing. Niad tried again. Gwin tried again. Sojim continued her steady decline.
"Well, perhaps we're both Cursed after all!" Gwin suggested to Bulion. "We may both be Ivielscaths, and we do better together." She rounded up Niad and took her along to Sojim's house. They sat on either side of the bed and held the old woman's hands.
After a while, Sojim seemed to rally. She smiled, spoke a few words, and even took a little nourishment. She claimed that the pain was much reduced.
Gwin found this result rather worrying. She certainly did not like the pastor's smug satisfaction when they met later.
"Now you think I'm a healer too, I suppose?" she demanded, annoyed because she had been the first to suggest such a possibility. "Both of us?"
"Possibly, possibly." Wosion smiled mysteriously. "But there may be another explanation."
"What's that?"
He shook his head with great regret. "Just something I vaguely recall my teachers mentioning when I was a novice at Veriow. I don't feel sure enough of my information to draw any firm conclusions, Gwin Saj."
"If I am an Ivielscath," Gwin warned him, "you are in grave danger of bladder stone, hemorrhoids, and belly worms."
Wosion laughed harshly and limped away without another word.
31
The wedding celebration was well underway and would undoubtedly go on for hours yet. Bonfires threw sparks up into the summer night. Various small groups of Tharns took turns at providing music, while dozens of others leaped around on the threshing floor like performing fleas. Chairs and benches had been set up in the shadows for those who wanted to catch their breath or take on refreshment. Long tables were heaped with food: hams, baskets of fruit, piles of rolls, jars of soft butter, cakes and pies, pickles, carp from the fish pond, and many other things that Wraxal Raddaith had not bothered to investigate.
He had found himself a seat in an inconspicuous, apple-scented corner near the cider barrels and was watching the proceedings with weary contempt. Perhaps there was a little disappointment mixed in with it, although he should have known better than to expect the party to awaken any interest in him. Nothing did anymore. He ought to have known that. His main concern was a mild regret that he had not chosen a more private location, but his dissatisfaction was not strong enough to prompt him to move. He had been experimenting with the cider, to see if it was any more effective than wine at making him drunk. It had merely made his head ache. Intoxication was a form of emotion, and Muolscaths were immune to emotion. If he drank himself into a stupor, he would gain no pleasure from it.
The bands of screaming children were another nuisance, but he could not even raise enough anger to swat at them as they went by.
Adults coming for drinks were constantly stopping to speak with him—flushed, sweaty, out-of-breath people grinning like apes, urging him to come and join in the fun. He consistently refused. If they had any idea how ridiculous they looked out there on the floor, they would not indulge in such antics. The music neither pleased nor irritated him, although once he had enjoyed music. Before he caught the star sickness, he had often felt his soul soar to the heavens while listening to music, or had been wounded to the quick whenever a singer hit a note even slightly off key. He still possessed perfect pitch and knew that most of the notes squawking into the night were only rough approximations of what they were intended to be, but they aroused nothing in him at all. They were just the noise of wood striking taut cowhide and horsehair scraped over catgut.
He had been a good dancer, too. How nonsensical such cavorting seemed now! Women had become equally meaningless. He had been very successful with women. His wife and daughter and mistress had all died in the star sickness. By that time he had been already Cursed, so he had felt no sorrow. The funerals had bored him.
Now buxom country maidens kept asking him to dance. Most Tharn women were shaped like oversize ragbags, but some of the younger ones had the sort of physique that would once have interested him greatly. They had shiny black eyes and soft dark hair. In their present condition—happy, flushed, excited—they would have ignited the old Wraxal like tinder with one smile. He told them to go away and find some other idiot.
They would not have wanted him so much if he had allowed them to get close. He had not shaved for two days, not washed either. His clothes were starting to smell, even to him. Why did it matter? He had been warned that lifelong habits like hygiene would begin to fade, and the process had started. So what?
His uncle expected a report on these people. He would not get one. Perhaps the prophecies were correct, and the long-hoped-for Renewer was going to emerge from this unlikely rustic backwater. Wraxal Raddaith did not care one way or another. The empire had died a hundred years ago. Why waken the dead now?
The only really important question was suicide. Was there any reason at all to go on living? He would die eventually, so why postpone the inevitable? Life seemed like a pointless waste of time. Pain was unpleasant, but perhaps one short, sharp pain would be preferable to extended suffering. He was still trying to decide. One advantage of being a Muolscath was that suicide would be extremely easy. He had confirmed the truth of that the previous evening.
"Hello!" said a familiar voice. "Why aren't you out there, joining in the fun?"
It was the second bridegroom, the boy, clutching a couple of tankards, streaming sweat, and grinning from ear to ear. He was also sufficiently intoxicated to appear slightly blurred in the firelight.
"Because I don't want to."
Polion blinked. He wiped an arm across his forehead. His stand-up hair was wet and lank, his face bright red. "You don't know what you're missing!"
"Yes I do. I also know what you're looking forward to, and it isn't worth the work involved."
The kid scowled with disgust. "That's not real-man talk!"
"It's sensible talk. I take it that you decided not to run away and become a mercenary soldier?"
Polion glanced around uneasily, checking for listeners lurking in the shadows. "You talked me out of it."
"I just gave you the facts. You didn't ask me about the alternative. It's a messy, sweaty, transitory business and you have to give up your whole life to pay for it."
Conflicting expressions flickered across the boy's fuzzy face—doubt, fear, lechery. "I've never found it so." Walking carefully, he went off to fill the tankards.
It was curious that Polion Tharn had gained a reputation as a lady-killer. His rustic relations might be deceived, but Wraxal was not. He had much a wider experience of lechery than they did, and he viewed the world with the stark, objective insight of a Muolscath. He had just seen a boy terrified he might fail to consummate his marriage adequately. The potent cider was certainly not going to improve his chances, and his friends probably knew that, even if he did not. Once upon a time, that incongruity would have struck Wraxal Raddaith as amusing, although he could not for the life of him now imagine why—nor, indeed, recall exactly what amusement felt like.
"You're Wraxal!" proclaimed another voice. "Visitor!"
Wraxal did not know this one's name. He was older than Polion, and much bigger. He had a badly swollen face and a missing tooth. He was even drunker.
"So?"
"Ought to join the fun!" the boy opined solemnly. He weaved away toward the barrels.
"That was your doing, wasn't it?" Tibal Frainith said, sitting down on the end of Wraxal's bench.
Wraxal regarded him warily. He had not yet come to terms with the concept of a man who knew the future and yet continued to function. "What was?"
Tibal took a drink from his tankard and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Balion and Philion went for each other last night like mad dogs. They've never been unfriendly before, and they can't explain why they took such a sudden dislike to each other, but today Balion looks like a meatloaf and Philion can barely walk, even after the Ivielscath did her best for him."
"That was yesterday. How do you know anything about it?"
"Because in a few minutes Gwin Saj is going to ask my opinion about it. Go ahead and answer my question—I won't remember what you said."
"Then why ask?"
Tibal sighed. "Don't ever ask a Shoolscath why he does anything. You provoked those two to hatred, didn't you?"
"Yes."
The thin man glanced curiously at him. "You were experimenting, trying to see if you could induce passion in others, as Muolscaths are supposed to be able to? You inspired them to senseless fury and watched to see what would happen?"
Wraxal shrugged agreement.
"Why? Did you hope you would manage to feel some of it yourself?"
"I didn't, if you're interested."
Tibal took another drink. "Do you want to feel emotion again, or are you happier the way you are, a human icicle?"
"Emotion seems an unnecessary complication, a cause of infinite problems. Why should I want it?"
"But you do. Well, there's a way, you know. At Raragash... There is a way."
Just for a moment, Wraxal felt a strange stirring of interest—just intellectual curiosity, of course. What more could it be? "How?"
"Aha!" Tibal grinned and took another drink. "Wait and see. You're contemplating suicide. That's how Muolscaths kill themselves. They pick out an armed man and rouse him to murderous fury. It's tough on the other guy, who has to live with the memory. Oh, fates!"
"What?"
The Shoolscath shook his head in silence. He had screwed his face up in an expression that Wraxal recalled as implying distaste, or disgust, or pain. He wasn't sure which.
A loud hiccup came out of the shadows, followed by Polion, now bearing two full tankards. "'Lo there, Shoolshkash!"
"Hello, bridegroom."
Cider splashed as Polion came to a halt. He peered uncertainly at Tibal. "You going to tell me how many sons I can breed?"
"No."
"Then how—hic!—long I'll be married?"
"I told you I never make prophecies."
Polion scowled and took a drink. "'Sall fake!" he proclaimed. He wove away into the dark.
Tibal doubled over with his face in his hands.
"Something troubling you?" Wraxal inquired.
Tibal did not reply.
"Been drinking too much?"
"Be quiet!" The thin man's voice cracked.
Which merely confirmed that Shoolscaths truly did go insane. Tibal Frainith was just better at concealing his madness than most, that was all.
After a few minutes Tibal sighed and straightened up.
"Why wouldn't you answer his questions?" Wraxal asked.
"What questions? Whose? Ah!" Tibal sprang to his feet.
"Wraxal Saj!" Out of the darkness floated Gwin Tharn.
Gwin favored him with a smile and then peered more closely.
"Have you been weeping?"
Tibal rubbed his eyes. "Just smoke."
"Oh." In her simple white wedding gown, she bore a striking resemblance to some of the classic frescoes in the Daling palace. Wraxal wondered if the Zarda had stolen the style from the empire just as they had looted everything tangible. If so, they had been misinformed, because white had denoted mourning to Qolians.
She held a small basket dangling from one hand. Her dark hair was set high on her head and decked with white rosebuds. She radiated a glow of contentment that contrasted strongly with the sweaty excitement he had observed on all the other women. She was no skinny maiden, but she had not swelled into pillow plumpness as the Tharn women did. He could recognize beauty just as he could still recognize music, and it moved him as little. Noting Tibal's worshipful expression, he sensed the effect she would have had on him once. Now he felt nothing.
Almost nothing. He noted a certain authority in her that he could not quite place. She was unofficial queen of the valley perhaps? Or was it that this was her night, that this raucous celebration was being held in her honor? Presumably that pleased her and gave her confidence.
She turned her smile on him. "Will you come and dance with me?"
"No."
She pouted. "Are you going dance with me again, Tibal?"
"Indeed I am! Beautifully! I only step on your feet once."
She laughed. "That's a prophecy I won't believe! You are the finest dancer I have ever met. And since we have already danced together, we both have happy memories at the moment, don't we? Wraxal, you are sitting here like a warty toad, souring everyone else's fun. You obviously aren't enjoying yourself, so you may as well run a small errand for me."
Wraxal did not see why that followed. He said nothing.
Gwin held out the basket. "Poor Jojo must be sitting in that tent of hers out in the woods, hearing all this jollity and weeping her heart out. The least we can do is share the feast. That's
all we can do, I'm afraid, but here's some treats for her."
Incredulous, Wraxal gripped the edge of the bench with both hands. "You want me to go and call on the Jaulscath?"
She raised her eyebrows archly, but her eyes glinted. "And why not? You can't be afraid of her, like the rest of us. She can't uncover your secret lusts and throw them back at you, because you haven't got any. If she did, you wouldn't feel shame."
"I don't want to. Why should I?"
"Because, if you don't," Gwin said sweetly, "I shall ask my husband, my nine sons, and my thirty-something grandsons—not to mention nephews uncountable—to run you out of the valley with whips." She regarded him thoughtfully, head on one side, as if planning her next threat. Then she smiled, so she must be using humor. "You don't have to go close. As soon as you draw within range, she'll know who you are and why you've come, and you'll know she knows, and then you can just lay the basket down and run like a rabbit."
Wraxal considered the matter. He did not like it, but he did not know why. Fear of the Jaulscath? Anger at being ordered around? He was immune to such frailties. To reveal one's innermost thoughts was dangerous, though, and his mind was still capable of being logical.
He noticed that Tibal was grinning broadly, but that was probably just a display of masculine hunger provoked by the proximity of a nubile female.
Wraxal did not have to do what that female wanted. He was a Muolscath. Without moving a finger, he could project enough passion into her to make her fly at Tibal Frainith and try to rape him. He could fill her with terror, so she ran screaming into the woods. But why bother? He might as well do as she demanded.
A little exercise might help him sleep. He rarely slept well now. He dreamed a lot—cold, passionless images of his youth and childhood and marriage, of the Tolamin war and people he had known before he was Cursed. The dreams never moved him, and yet he awoke from them lying in puddles of icy sweat. He did not like that.