Pattern

by K. J. Parker

  He sighed. ‘Bofor,’ he shouted, ‘get in here.’

  Bofor, the sergeant, was a piss-poor excuse for a soldier, but he kept his mouth shut. ‘Where are you?’ he called out.

  ‘Here. Watch where you’re going,’ he added, a little too late. He could hear the sergeant swearing softly and fluently in the darkness. ‘Shut up and get a fire lit,’ he hissed, handing over the tinderbox.

  Two turns of the crank later, Bofor was nursing a tidy little blaze in the moss reservoir. ‘Thanks,’ the younger man sighed. ‘All right, stay where you are. Soon as I’ve got this book going, you’ll be able to see what you’re about.’

  He tipped the burning moss between the pages of the opened book, and fairly soon smoke was stinging his eyes. A vague circle of flickering red light seeped out into the shadows, thinning them. ‘There we go,’ he said. ‘Now, give me back my box and go and fetch some books.’

  Bofor grunted and went about his assigned duty. He found the shelf without difficulty; then, having apparently decided to do the thing methodically and start on the top shelf, he reached up and started pulling books down. The shelf fell on him, knocking him off his feet and burying him in literature.

  Well, he wasn’t to know, as the younger man was, that in monastery libraries the top shelves are reserved for restricted books, the ones that ordinary, unprivileged brothers aren’t meant to read, and are locked and chained to the bookcase. Damn, the younger man said to himself, I should’ve remembered and warned him. Still, it seemed unlikely that Bofor would have survived upwards of thirty pitched battles only to be killed by an out-of-date copy of Jorc On Building Disputes.

  He sighed. It’s just not my day today, he thought, everything I touch turns to horse manure, I should’ve stayed in my tent and told them I had a headache. He looked down, and saw the cheerful glow of burning parchment. At least he’d been able to set light to one book, though at this rate torching the whole library would take him the rest of his life.

  Think, he ordered himself, apply your mind, what’s left of it. There was enough light from the burning book to guide him as far as the next bookshelf, which contained manuscripts and rolls rather than bound volumes. That was rather more like it; he gathered an armful and carefully stoked his little fire until it was burning vigorously – so well, in fact, that he felt the hair on his forehead frizzle, and jumped back. He carried on building the fire with supplies from the manuscript shelf, but even that was going to be too slow, if he had to carry every single book in the library over to his bonfire. What he needed to do was rig up torches that he could stuff into the gaps between shelves.

  For someone of his ingenuity and resourcefulness, no problem; all it took was a big scroll, tightly wound so it’d burn steadily instead of flaring up and burning itself out before he could get it in place. Now that he had a viable plan of action, he could deploy his workforce; so he called in the rest of the men and told them what to do. It wasn’t long before every case in the building was wreathed in sheets of billowing yellow fire – a rather attractive effect, he decided, reminding him of a set of very expensive silk wall hangings he’d seen in a government office somewhere. Not long after that, the soaring flames reached the rafters and cross-beams, burning off a couple of centuries of dust before catching on the timbers themselves. He stood for a moment or so with his hands on his hips, admiring the spectacle until the smoke got into his lungs and forced him outside.

  ‘Right,’ he said, once he’d stopped choking. ‘Job done.’

  A black pillar of smoke stood over the library roof, and little flakes of grey ash drifted down all around him, disintegrating as they touched the damp gravel. The heat made his face throb and glow, but it was a pleasant warmth, making him conscious of his achievement.

  ‘Where’s Fat Bofor?’ someone said.

  He felt his heart lurch in his chest. ‘Anybody seen him?’ he asked. ‘He did come out, didn’t he?’

  Nobody said anything.

  He stared at the burning library. Already, shoots of fire were sprouting out of holes in the roof tiles, where rafters and joists had burned through and collapsed. Smoke was pouring out of the windows between the charred stumps of the shutters, while a gaudy display of flames burgeoned out of the doorway like some exotic shrub growing in a ruin. Not a shadow of a doubt about it; if Sergeant Bofor was still in there, he was already dead and reduced to ash, and anybody who tried to go in after him wouldn’t get very far before ending up the same way.

  ‘Shit,’ he said, because (now that he thought of it) it was his first command, and he’d lost ten per cent of his unit through sheer carelessness. ‘Quick,’ he barked, ‘get me a bucket of water. You, give me your coat.’

  The soldiers stared at him as he struggled into a second coat and upended the bucket over his head. ‘Hang on,’ one of them said, ‘you aren’t thinking of going in there, are you?’

  ‘Shut up,’ he replied, dowsing his hat in the dregs of the bucket. ‘Whatever you do, don’t come in after me, understood?’

  ‘Don’t be bloody stupid,’ one of them said, but by then he was already on his way. He heard them yelling, ‘Come back, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ as he scrambled clumsily through a ground-floor window and landed awkwardly on one foot, standing in a pile of glowing ash.

  He had one hoarded lungful of air, no more. Get your bearings, he ordered himself. Door’s on my right, Bofor was by the first bookcase on the left. He dropped down onto his hands and knees – he could feel the skin on his palms scorching, but physical pain was the least of his problems – and scuttled like a hyperactive toddler across the floor in what he hoped was the right direction. Of course he couldn’t see anything but smoke, so thick it was practically solid; but he’d got this far, so it was inconceivable that he’d fail now. Fat Bofor would still be alive, all he had to do was grab his ankles and walk backwards, straight out through the door. It would be simple, easy if he factored out the pain and injury. He wouldn’t be here and still alive if it wasn’t going to work out just fine in the end.

  Something came down thump a foot or so to his left, making him jump so sharply that he almost let go of his breath. It could have been a bookcase collapsing, or a length of rafter; or just a particularly thick and heavy book toppling off a burnt-through shelf; it didn’t matter, there wasn’t enough time. He had to be crawling in the right direction, Fat Bofor had to be here somewhere, already so close that he could stretch out and grab him. He couldn’t fail, because otherwise—

  He felt a stunning blow across his shoulders. It knocked all the air out of him, and when he breathed in, all he got was unbearable smoke. Oh, he thought; and—

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  His friend laughed at him. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘I live here, remember?’

  He frowned. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d got a transfer to Deymeson.’

  ‘I did,’ his friend replied. ‘I was there for years, on and off, when I wasn’t charging about running errands. But then some bloody fool came along and set light to the place, so here I am.’

  This didn’t make any sense. ‘You’ve got to get out of here quick,’ he pointed out. ‘Can’t you see it’s on fire?’

  But his friend shook his head. ‘They rebuilt it,’ he said, as if pointing out the painfully obvious. ‘I ended up here as Father Prior, would you believe? Me, of all people. Truth is, there were so few of us left, anybody with any seniority got made an abbot or a prior. Still, when you think of what old Horse’s-Arse used to say about me when we were novices – The day they make you an abbot, the world will come to an end. Bloody odd to think he got that right.’

  ‘Who are you?’ the younger man asked.

  ‘But here’s me,’ his friend went on, ‘boasting about landing a rotten little priorship. Look at you, though, talk about the novice most likely to succeed. They may have made me a prior; they’ve gone and made you a fucking god.’ His eyebrows pulled together int
o a comic scowl. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I think that was taking it a bit too far. I mean, how can I be expected to fall down and worship someone who still owes me the two quarters I won off you for long spitting?’

  ‘What’s happening?’ he demanded. ‘Are you real, or is this a dream or something?’

  His friend laughed. ‘Is this a dream, he asks,’ he crowed. ‘Oh for pity’s sake, Ciartan, of course it’s a dream, otherwise you’d be dead. What you should be asking yourself is, which dream am I in, now or later? Bet you don’t know.’

  ‘You aren’t real,’ the younger man said accusingly. ‘I’m hallucinating, and you don’t exist.’

  ‘There’s no need to be offensive,’ his friend replied. ‘Anyway, you couldn’t be more wrong if you tried. Of course I’m here. I’m at least twice as much here as you are. I’m just not letting it get to me, that’s all.’

  Suddenly he understood; about time, too. ‘You’re from years ahead in the future,’ he said.

  ‘Took you long enough to figure that one out, didn’t it?’ his friend mocked him. ‘And you still aren’t there yet. When did you get to be so stupid, then? Back when we were novices, everybody said how bright you were.’

  ‘The future and the past,’ he amended. ‘You’re from when we were both students, and you’re from some time in the future where you’ve been made Father Prior. So, where am I, then?’

  His oldest friend clicked his tongue impatiently. ‘Oh, come on,’ he said. ‘Don’t be so bloody feeble. You never used to be like this, you know. I think maybe it was the bash on the head, did more than just make you lose your memory. All right, then, let’s see if we can’t figure this out from first principles. I’m not really here, but you can see me and you can talk to me, back here in this place where we first met when we were novices together. Now, do you want to take a wild guess, or do I have to spell it out for you?’

  ‘Spell it out for me,’ he replied. ‘I’m not proud.’

  ‘Fine.’ His friend shrugged, and became – naturally enough – a huge crow, pinned to the floor by a fallen rafter, as the fire caught in its feathers. ‘Let me tell you a few things about yourself. I always wanted to tell you, but you know, you aren’t the sort of person who takes criticism well. You’ve never wanted to hear unpleasant truths about yourself, and you’ve always been a bit too quick on the draw, so to speak. There was always a remote chance that pointing out your little weaknesses and faults of character might earn your helpful friend a swift chop to the neck. But here I am.’ The crow tried to flap its broken wings, but couldn’t. ‘Nothing you can do to me, I’m as good as dead already. So here goes.’

  The bird’s feathers were full of fire and he couldn’t bear its pain; but he couldn’t move either, being trapped under the same rafter. ‘No, please,’ he said, but the crow didn’t seem to hear him.

  ‘Once upon a time,’ said the crow, ‘there was a young man who lived in a far country, a huge island in the middle of the sea. Everything was very pleasant there, if you like that sort of thing, and the people who lived there were a single-minded lot, rather like a mob of crows. You know what I mean by that; birds of a feather who flock together, and just the one fairly straightforward mind between them. But then the young man did something very bad; and although his grandfather forgave him and nobody else who mattered knew about it, it seemed sensible for the young man to clear out for a while, just a year or so, until things could be put right. So the young man got on a ship that was bound for the great and practically defenceless empire on the other side of the world. While he was away, he might as well make himself useful; so he was given the job of finding out as much as he could about the place he was going to – you see, his people had a very helpful sideline in robbing and plundering the great and practically defenceless empire, but they were hampered a bit by not knowing an awful lot about it, and a little reliable fieldwork would make life a whole lot easier. Besides, they had a friend in the empire, a very bad man who helped them out in exchange for a cut of the takings, but they didn’t know very much about him, either, and it seemed like a good idea to get rid of him and maybe put in someone of their own, who could be trusted implicitly.’ The crow’s beak was starting to melt in the desperate heat, making it look faintly ridiculous. ‘Are you with me so far, or do you want me to go back over all that?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he replied. ‘It’s coming back to me. Go on.’

  ‘Ah well,’ the crow said, ‘in that case you don’t need me to tell you about how you and I got to know each other. But just in case there’s still a gap or two in your memory, there was a time when we were the very best of friends – really and truly, it wasn’t just some part you were playing in the course of your research, or anything like that. Odd,’ the crow continued, ‘because after you left, I ended up making a career of sorts out of doing what you’d been sent over to do – spying, gathering information, always in and out of disguises, being a whole range of very plausible people, which I could always do because I never much enjoyed being myself. And now look at you.’ Contempt and compassion in equal measure. ‘You know, there were times when being one of my various personas was so much more bearable than being me that I nearly found the strength to run away, turn the deceit into truth, start again as someone else, crawling new-born out of a muddy river. But I didn’t,’ the crow added, with a palpable hint of superiority. ‘People were depending on me, and I never forgot my flock, if you’ll pardon the ecclesiastical metaphor.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the younger man said. ‘About what I did to you in the forge. I don’t know what came over me. You were flying around screaming and I guess I panicked.’

  The crow laughed, a harsh, painful noise. ‘Oh, that,’ it said. ‘Please, think nothing of it. You’d done it before and you’ll do it again. You never could abide us when you were a kid, you’d sit out with your slingshot and your pile of stones and kill us by the dozen. And then you helped burn Deymeson, which was no better and no worse. You’ve been punished for that, of course. In fact, I’m not sure which tends to come first in your case, the punishment or the crime. If you will insist on being reborn every five minutes, it makes it bloody hard to keep track. Most people are content to live in a straight line, but you’ve always been a dog with a burning tail, running round in frantic circles trying to bite off your own arse. Of course, from here I can see it all so much more clearly – a bird’s-eye view, if you like – and what really saddens me is the hopelessness of it all. Why bother? I ask myself; but that’s hindsight for you. Did you know that we birds have all-round vision? Comes of having little round eyes on the sides of our heads, instead of oval ones in the front. You can’t see what’s beside you or behind you; we can. Very useful attribute, almost makes up for not having minds of our own. A bit like a religious order, with its centuries of tradition, its prophetic insights into the future, its access to additional dimensions of perception. And that, in case you’re wondering, is why we wear the crow-black dressing gowns. I say “we”, because of course you’re one of us; just as much right to this livery as I have, if not better. Am I still making something vaguely approaching sense, or did I leave you behind some time ago?’

  He shook his head. ‘I think I can see what you’re getting at,’ he said. ‘I just don’t get the relevance, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh. Damn.’ The crow’s wings dissolved into black ash, which drifted up in a spiral as the hot air rose. ‘And yet you were always top of the class in textual interpretation. Used to do my homework for me, or I’d never have got past fourth grade. All right, here it is in baby language. You killed me in the forge, and the mountain stopped puking up fire. You killed me in the fields, and you found true love – twice, actually, but that was a dirty trick, not my idea. You killed me here, and you shot to the top of the tree. You killed me at Deymeson, and that’s how you came to be the heir apparent of Haldersness. Next time you kill me – or maybe the time after that, I’m a bit hazy about details – you’ll usurp the imperial throne, ge
t the girl, find out what you really wanted to know all along. Do you see a pattern emerging here, or what?’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘You’re my enemy.’

  The fire turned to glowing cinders around the crow’s skull. ‘Absolutely not,’ it said. ‘I’m the best friend you ever had, even though you’re going to burn me alive in your own house – and if you think this mess we’re in now is rough, you just wait till then, it’ll hurt you a whole lot more than it hurts me. But that’s a given, because—’

  The scorched and charred remains of the crow vanished and became Poldarn, holding the rake that was crushing him down into the forge fire. He screamed, flapped his wings desperately, but the weight of the rake pinned him down like a fallen rafter as the fire ran up his feathers into his flesh and bone. ‘That’s who you really are, you see,’ the voice went on, ‘just who you’ve always been. It’s a cliché, your own worst enemy, but in your case it’s absolutely appropriate. When you’re pinned down in Poldarn’s forge and everything around you is burning – but you won’t remember a word of this when you wake up, which is a real shame. Life can be so cruel.’

  He sat up. He was in a cart, and Copis was beside him on the box, her face hidden by the cowl of her riding cloak. He lifted it away and saw her face, but the voice remained the same. It sounded like his own, but he was hardly qualified to be sure about that.

  ‘It’s what I was born for,’ Copis said, ‘to drive you around, round and round in circles, from this mountain to the next and back again, year after bloody year.’ She sighed melodramatically. ‘Always a priestess, never a god, just my rotten luck. I get the blame, you get all the burnt offerings. I really wish you could remember at least some of this when you wake up, it’d save me a great deal of physical pain, not to mention the emotional shit. But there we go. I think we’re here,’ she added, as the mountain, belching fire, appeared in the background. ‘You’re on. Break a leg.’