by K. J. Parker
‘Thanks,’ Halder said. ‘Any more where those came from?’
I should have thought of it for myself, Poldarn told himself, as he dashed from group to group handing out sacks, blankets, rugs, pillows, anything he could find that’d go between hot coals and bare skin. I’ve had long enough to think of it, God only knows. Still, maybe if I’m good they’ll let me have a bucket to play with when they get on to the damping-down, if I promise to play nicely and not bother anybody.
They left covering the forge till last, since half the roof was slated rather than thatched; but in spite of all Poldarn’s most earnest prayers and entreaties, the loathsome place stayed resolutely unignited. If I was to find a nice hot cinder and chuck it up there while nobody was looking, he said to himself as he filled his arms with leather aprons, would anybody know? Yes, of course they would. He abandoned the idea and hurried back outside, just in time to get hit right between the eyes by a scorching hot nugget as big as a child’s fist. He turned back into the forge, rummaged around in the scrap and eventually found what he’d been looking for: an Imperial cavalry helmet, just the one round, jagged hole in the side of the left temple. Compromised, but a damn sight better than a severely burned scalp.
Back outside. The glow from the mountain was getting fainter, undoubtedly a good sign but inconvenient since it was still pitch dark. That didn’t seem to bother the others, needless to say, and he guessed that they had some way of figuring out where they were in relation to each other, navigating by sounds inside their heads, like bats. There were times (and this was definitely one of them) when his fellow countrymen irritated the hell out of Poldarn.
But they couldn’t read him, of course; which accounted for the fact that he walked straight into a ladder, being carried by Eyn and Symond, and ended up on the ground, sitting on a carpet of very hot ash. He didn’t stay there very long; he jumped up, bashed his head against the ladder, and passed out.
Well now, said the mountain, here we are.
He looked up. He was kneeling on the ground, but the ash wasn’t hot any more, and the yard was deserted. He could see the mountain, though. It was glowing orange through a crown of burning cloud, and streams of liquid fire, like molten metal flowing from a crucible, cascaded down its flanks.
Go away, he replied. I can’t hear you; and even if I can, it’s just because I banged my head. Besides, you’ve got me in enough trouble already, I don’t want to talk to you. Not now, not ever.
The mountain laughed; then, like an old man with a weak chest, it spat up three enormous spouts of fire. Don’t be like that, it said. It’s getting so we can’t talk to each other unless something bashes your head in. I don’t mind, but I’m sure it can’t be good for you.
Go away, Poldarn thought. Damn it, I was certain I’d given you the slip when I left the Bohec valley. How dare you come sneaking after me like this?
Somehow, the mountain made the earth shake under his knees. Don’t give me that, it said, you know perfectly well, where you go, I go, just like your shadow. Running away – you’re like a cat with its tail on fire running through a cornfield. Believe me, it’d be far better if we talked it over like sensible people, got it all sorted out here and now. For their sake (a brilliant orange flare illuminated the whole farm), if not for yours and mine.
He shook his head. Get lost, he said. There’s nothing to talk about, you know that perfectly well. I’ve finished with that life. I’m not going back and you can’t make me. If you think torturing these people is going to make me have a change of heart—
Oh, come on, said the mountain impatiently (and one of the streams of liquid fire changed course and rushed down the eastern slope, towards a wooded valley). Where do you get that from, making out it’s all my fault? It takes two, you know. It’s all very well you coming over all pure as the driven snow, but I don’t remember you being all squeamish and ladylike at the time. Quite the opposite. Such enthusiasm.
Shut up, Poldarn screamed. That wasn’t me, that’s what you tried to turn me into. I’m not responsible for what you did through me.
A gust of wind blew a handful of cinders straight into his face, but he didn’t feel anything. Oh, for crying out loud, said the mountain, we’ve been over this again and again and again, can’t you stop hiding behind this moral indignation thing and talk to me straight up, no more pretences? Come on, it’s me you’re talking to; you can’t fool me, I know you too well.
He felt angry, more angry than he could remember having felt before. All right, he said, let’s be straight about it, if that’s what you want. Leave these people alone, they never did you any harm. And leave me alone, because I’m finished with you. It’s over, can’t you understand that?
The wind sighed all around him, hot and full of sparks. I don’t know how you can say that, the mountain replied sadly, when you know, as well as I do, it’ll never be over between you and me. As you proved just a few hours ago, right there, in the smithy.
Oh. He winced. You saw that, did you?
Saw that? The mountain laughed painfully. I didn’t just see it, I felt it.
Served you right, then. You shouldn’t have been hanging around here in the first place.
Do you honestly believe that?
He didn’t reply.
Come on, the mountain said, and its voice was soft and charming, let’s not have another fight, it really isn’t going to solve anything. Like I keep telling you, if we could only talk it through, like rational creatures—
I don’t want to be bloody rational, Poldarn shouted, not where you’re concerned. It’s gone way beyond rational. Look, I can understand why you’re stalking me, but what the hell’s the point of all this? You know it won’t make me change my mind, it’s just spite, viciousness. That’s the whole point, it’s why we’re finished. You do things like this—
So do you, the mountain interrupted gently. That’s how alike we really are. We can read each other’s minds; I know exactly what you’re thinking, under all that synthetic anger.
Oh, right. You can read my mind now. So what can you see there?
Easy, replied the mountain, you know I’m right, and deep down where it matters you want to come back to me, so it can be like the old days. You know, when we used to have fun—
You call that fun? Well, yes, I suppose you would; like you’re probably enjoying this too. Yes, that’s it, that’s where I’ve been going wrong. You’re not just doing this to get at me, you’re doing this because you enjoy it. This is your idea of a thoroughly good time. God, you make me sick, you know that?
The mountain sighed. Here we go again, round and round in circles; it’s like trying to catch one chicken in an empty barn. Do you truly believe that if you can wriggle your way out of talking to me long enough so that I’ll lose my temper and go storming off, that’ll actually solve anything? Well, no, of course you don’t believe it, you know it’s not true. All you’re concerned with is getting me out of your hair for just a little while longer. But you can’t make me go away, because I’m always there, right there inside you. Face it, can’t you? I’ll always be there, till death do us part – and I wouldn’t go banking on that, if the thought had crossed your mind.
Kill myself? I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.
You think I want that? No, you don’t, of course not; you’re just saying that to get me angry. Can’t you get it into your thick skull, I know what’s going through your mind, it’s like reading a public announcement nailed to the customs house door. Stop lying, can’t you, just for a few minutes.
You’re quite right, he said to the mountain, we do know each other too well. You know me, and I sure as hell know you. Why do you think I came here in the first place?
All right, the mountain said, here’s the deal. Stop pushing me away, let me back in, and I’ll leave these people in peace. No more clouds of fire, no more burning hot ash, no more darkness in the middle of the day. They can get on with their lives, we can get on with ours, and everybody’s happy.
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And if I tell you where you can stick your deal?
Then – the whole sky was red for a moment – then I’m going to have to do something to prove to you that it really isn’t over, aren’t I? I’m going to have to give you what you need, whether you want it or not. Not the way I’d have chosen, but I’m not the one being difficult here. If you won’t come back to me, I’ll show these people who you really are. And then I’ll kill them. You see (the mountain went on), I tell it to you straight, like it is. Whatever else you say about me, I never lied to you and I never let you down. I was always there for you, always.
Screw you, he shouted—
Poldarn sat up. His backside was on fire.
‘Are you all right?’ Seymond was asking. ‘That was one hell of a bang on the head you gave yourself there.’
‘No,’ Poldarn yelped, ‘get me up, for pity’s sake.’
They dumped the ladder, grabbed his arms and hauled him to his feet. He was a bit wobbly for a moment or so, but they held him up so he didn’t fall or sit down again.
‘Sorry,’ Eyn said, ‘didn’t see you. Just as well you’ve got that helmet on your head, or you could’ve done yourself a real mischief.’
Blood was dripping into Poldarn’s eyes. He remembered the gash in the helmet, its jagged lips curled inwards. Hence the bleeding, always so melodramatic from a little nick to the scalp. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Looks like it’s getting better,’ Seymond told him. ‘At least, the big puffy fireballs have stopped coming out of the mountain, and I do believe there’s not so much ash falling as there was.’
‘Not so hot, either,’ Eyn put in. ‘And it’s getting lighter, too. You never know, maybe it’s had enough, or it’s run out or something.’
‘Just as well,’ Seymond muttered. ‘We’re keeping pace with it, going flat out, but we can’t keep this game up for ever. How’s the head now? Feeling dizzy? Sick? Spots in front of your eyes?’
Poldarn shook his head. ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘That’s not the end of me that’s hurting, if you must know.’
One of them laughed; too dark to see which. ‘Well,’ said Seymond, ‘if you will go sitting on hot embers, what do you expect? Thought you’d have figured that out for yourself by now, you being a smith and all.’
Poldarn could have denied it, but they’d only have given him that funny look again. ‘Guess it serves me right for not looking where I was going,’ he said.
‘It’s fine. No harm done to the ladder.’
‘That’s all right, then.’
Poldarn found the aprons by feel – a simple process of elimination, they didn’t scorch his fingertips – and carried on with his mission. Fortunately, there was one left over for him to huddle under on his way back to the forge. Inside, he found Asburn, calmly lighting the fire.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he asked.
Asburn looked at him. ‘Getting on with some work,’ he said. ‘They don’t need me out there, I’m just in the way.’ He said that rather self-consciously, as if something was bothering him. ‘Truth is, I sort of came over all clumsy – bumping into people, knocking buckets over, that sort of thing. Halder thought I might prefer to make a start on some hinges for the rat-house. The door’s needed replacing for years – these bloody cinders can find their way in through the cracks.’
Poldarn frowned. He could see, intuitively, what the problem was; for some reason, Asburn was having trouble finding the minds of the rest of the household. He could think of several reasons why that might be, the likeliest being that since he’d been working in the forge, Asburn had had to get used to communicating in words, the old-fashioned way, and that was what had upset his inner eye or third ear, or whatever the proper term for it might be. My fault, like everything else around here, Poldarn told himself, though that was patently untrue.
The fire, he noticed, was drawing just fine on nothing more than dry coal and a handful of wood shavings. Why can’t I get it to do that? he asked himself.
‘Same here,’ he said. ‘All I’ve been doing all day is getting under people’s feet, so I came in here to hide till it’s all over. Need any help?’
Asburn thought for a moment. ‘The hinges are more of a one-man job, really,’ he said. ‘If you felt like it, you could draw down a few dozen nails. They’ll be needing them, God knows, when they come to fix up all this damage.’
He said they, Poldarn noticed; they, not we. He must really be out of touch. ‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘Nails I can just about manage. Have you seen the header?’
‘There, under the bench. And there should be some stock the right size in the scrap if you don’t mind rummaging about for it.’
Poldarn nodded, and knelt down beside the mountain of rusty iron and steel that filled one entire corner of the smithy. Mostly, looking through the scrap just made him feel depressed, because he knew perfectly well that he wouldn’t even know where to start making most of the things that had ended up in there, and that anything he made would probably be inferior in quality and utility to the piece of broken junk he’d made it out of. How did one go about making a kettle, for example, or a door latch or a pair of tongs or a trivet or a candleholder or a pitchfork or an arrowhead or a spoon or a horseshoe or a sconce or a shovel or a ploughshare? He supposed he could figure it out if he absolutely had to, but he’d have burned a whole continent of coal and hammered the anvil bow-backed by the time he produced anything he’d be prepared to admit to being responsible for. And there, on the other hand, was the scrap; a thousand properly made articles, representing tens of thousands of hours of hard, skilled work by men who’d known and appreciated their craft, and they’d ended up here, defenceless prisoners awaiting execution at his hands. It was a tragedy.
(Except, he realised, that iron and steel are immortal. Men die and the damp gets into their bodies and spoils them, but iron and steel are too precious to waste. The broken tyre becomes a hinge, the broken sword becomes a cart-spring, the broken ploughshare becomes a spearhead, the broken pot becomes a ladle, the spindle that was once an axle that was once a beam becomes a handful of nails, and nothing ever dies. All that happens is that the metal is purged by the fire of the memory that had been pounded into it. The heat relaxes the constraints that hold it in one shape and the hammer eases it into some new form, a new life in a new setting – from field to house, yard to barn, war to peace, malignant to benign, lethal to helpful, like a man who wakes up one morning to find that his past has burned away, his identity scrubbed off like firescale. Fire and hammer impose the memory, fire and hammer grant pardon and amnesty; which may go some way to explain why superstitious people worship them as gods. It would, after all, be an easy mistake to make.)
A fat drop of water splashed on Poldarn’s forehead, making the burnt skin sting.
Chapter Seven
The cinderfall stopped quite suddenly; and when the sun broke through they could see the mountain clearly, without any veils of smoke or steam. True, the landscape was an even dull black as far as the eye could see in every direction, but at least they could tell where it ended and the sky began. Things were looking up.
The first consideration, ahead of the house or even the barns and stores, was the livestock. The news wasn’t good; a third of the sheep were dead, a quarter of the heifers, the horses had broken out of the stables in panic and bolted, and there hadn’t been time to get the milch herd in, so God only knew what sort of a state they were in. The poultry and the pigs were all right, singed and distinctly offended at being cooped up for a day and two nights but still alive and productive. The bees had swarmed and cleared off, but that could happen at any time, end of the world or not.
Once the stock had been fed and secured, the next priority was patching up the buildings. When the drifts of cinders had been cleared away, the damage proved to be far less than anybody had any right to expect, in most cases little more than scorch marks and the filthy mess brought about by the has
ty addition of water to piles of ash. Ugliness could wait for another day, however. Next on the list was clearing the yard, so people could get around the place without having to wade. Shovelling cinders into neat heaps wasn’t exactly skilled work, and even Poldarn was allowed to join in (which, since it meant a holiday from the forge, he was delighted to do, until his grandfather spoiled it all by asking for more nails).
A day and a half of intense activity broke the back of that job; and, since the mountain was quiet and the farm now just looked scruffy instead of doomed, Halder convened a general meeting to decide what to do next.
Understandably, full household meetings were extremely rare events at Haldersness. This time, however, nobody knew what was going on or what would happen next or what they were supposed to be doing, so there really wasn’t any option but to talk to each other.
‘It’s obvious what we’ve got to do,’ Halder said. ‘It’s going to be one hell of a job, but I can’t see as we’ve got any choice in the matter. Right now, all the grazing and the plough is a foot deep in this shit; the animals can’t feed, nothing’s going to grow, and the bloody stuff isn’t going to shift itself. It’ll take us months, maybe even years, but it’s got to be done, and the sooner we make a start, the sooner we’ll finish.’
Someone at the back stood up. Poldarn was sitting near the front and couldn’t get his head round far enough to see who it was. ‘That may not be the case,’ this someone said. ‘Remember what Rook here told us, about what happened at Lyatsbridge when it rained.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Raffen interrupted, ‘don’t wish that on us, it’s bad enough as it is.’
‘Let me finish, will you? All I’m saying is, what happened at Lyatsbridge proves one thing. When it rains, this stuff melts, like snow. Sure, it turns into filthy black mud and we really don’t want to be around when that happens; but we can plan for that, we can figure out where these mudslides are going to go just by looking at the contours, and we can get the stock and our stuff well out of harm’s way. What’s the worst that can happen? The buildings could get washed away or buried in shit or whatever. So what? Big deal. We build new ones. So long as we’re alive and safe and we’ve got our tools, we can do that, easy. Anyhow, it’s not as if it’s up to us, the mudslides’ll happen whether we like it or not. All I’m saying is, rather than kill ourselves shovelling the stuff into big heaps and then seeing it turn into mud at the first drop of rain, we’d be better off spending our time getting ready, making sure we don’t cop it like Lyatsbridge did; and when the rain’s come and gone and it’s all over, the grass and the plough’ll still be there and we can get back to normal.’