by M. A. Foster
As the cold darkness grew and spread from the well of the east, they heard around them, some far, some farther, the haunting evening cries of bosels, each one anarchic and expressing some demonic emotion known only to the individual creature. Far, far off to the east, there were a few scattered lights, and in the south they could see a faint glow from Marula; but here, going north hard against the hills of the Left Leg, there was no road and there were no settled places, and the land seemed as empty and free as when men first set foot on Oerlikon.
After a time, the distant, hallucinating cries began to bother Phaedrus, and he asked Emerna, “Is there any danger from the creatures?”
She stopped, turned, and said, “No, not from bosels, at least not in this season.”
He ventured, “From men?”
“Not so much so from organized bands, such as the Arms of the Amalgam. But from wanderers… best be wary. We have passed several already; they sensed us, and I them, and we kept distance. No one trusts another now, not around these parts of the Swale, and, for all I know, so it is throughout the rest of Lisagor. People do things and blame ‘the Troubles’ for them, and every person’s hand is turned against another’s. I have learned that to hold power is the only way to fix this. You must lead, or find one who will, and stick by that, gathering others. Thus I came to Krikorio, and now it is just you and I.”
An odd flash crossed Phaedrus’s mind, listening to her, and after a few more steps, he said, “That doesn’t change anything, does it? It just raises the level of violence… It is still one hand against another. I sense that down that road is the road to hell, in fact, we have already walked it, we Lisaks.”
She thought a moment, walking on, and finally said, “Perhaps. But one must do something; try.”
“It’s too much trying that makes it stir. The way out is to let go. Do what one must, but stop trying to make something that won’t be made. We say Krikorio was insane, do we not? Then his insanity lay in that he was divided, planning, desiring his great dream of power and force, but also doing what he knew was right: he hid and waited. Had he accepted the one, he could have seen the foolishness of the other.”
“You would have wasted yourself had you said so to him.”
“I see that. The evidence he left was clear.”
She scoffed, “Ha! You say let go; what then? Isolated individuals who fall to the strongest hand! You’d be prey in a heartbeat. Press gangs would catch you and you’d find out what the Mask Factory is like; and you’d obey orders.”
“I know. But wait… did you say ‘press gangs’? I thought only the criminal were sent there.”
“So did I. But we captured one of the troopers once, badly injured and dying, but incoherent, and we pieced it together from him. No criminals, but whoever they can catch—the young and ignorant, and those too old or slow to escape. You were there, too.”
Phaedrus stopped. “Yes.”
Emerna also stopped, and turned to face him, an intense watchfulness in her face, and a loose, awkward stance to her large, powerful body. She said, in a careful, measured way, “You remember it?”
Phaedrus shook his head. “Not what they did to me as I was before. I remember the latter parts, when I was whole again.”
Emerna still held the same stance, and the same intense regard. Phaedrus saw and understood the signs correctly, that at this moment was great peril. She said softly, “And they sent you forth with secret instructions in mind, horrid deeds.”
He sighed, and half-turned from her, knowing that relying on his recollection of Rael he stood a good chance of taking her. He said, “No. They only instructed me in some things, and let me figure the rest out, and when I had gotten deep in it, they released me to do what I wanted to do, what I thought was right. They did not understand what they created. And I have no horrid instructions: I have already done it, and am free of them, a wanderer of no more consequence than yourself.” He turned away from her, making the decision then and there to turn from the path of control, and let be what would.
Emerna did not ask him what he did, but instead, “I suspected, but only now did I know. What is it you want?”
The answer came easily, although he had not thought of it so much before. “To be free of wanting; to just be, as I am now. I know there is no going back, not an inch. No, just to become, to be nobody.”
“You can’t forget.”
“But I can refuse to act, knowing that it does no good.” With his senses sharpened, he heard her relax; the slight motions of her body within its clothing.
She said, after a time, “Let us be moving on; this is not a good place, but I think a bit farther on there are some abandoned farms where we might find a refuge.”
He nodded, readjusted his pack, and turned to follow her. She said, “I believe you would have let me kill you, just then; that was what convinced me… I will take you to Zolotane, and from there you can lead. As you will.”
Again, he nodded silently. Then he said, “Yes, that will be soon enough.” And then they set forth again, walking now a little more confidently in the cold night.
Darkness fell slowly, nevertheless it fell, and the wind increased and grew colder. They walked on into the dark, steadily, and they did not speak for a long time. At last, however, triggered by something Phaedrus did not notice, Emerna stopped, a little uncertainly, listening, looking intently into the darkness. He had been following some distance behind her, and now he approached and stood close. He ventured, after a while, “What is it?”
She whispered, “If I remember right, we should now have an old place in sight, even in the dark, but I see it not.”
“Could you have navigated wrongly?”
“No. The signs are right; something isn’t right. Change.” Phaedrus sniffed at the cold air, testing it. “I smell fire, ashes. Very faint. Old fire, old ash. What would we be looking for?”
“House, barn. They had a commune here, long ago, but they failed and went away. House remained… This was a place where wanderers came; there was a well. Many people know of this place. Be wary, now.”
Phaedrus started to say, “I think…” but he stopped, hearing a sudden rustle and pounding feet. Emerna heard it also, and began wriggling out of her heavy pack. Phaedrus shed his instinctively, reaching for the first weapon that came to hand—and what met his hand was one of the odd shotgun-pistols from the Troopers. He said, grimly, “Let them come! I’ve got something that’ll water their eyes!”
Emerna raised something metallic; there was a sharp report, and a bright streak fled to the zenith, where it blossomed in fire: a flare. The darkness faded and they could see: a band of ragged tramps, armed, so far as they could see, with a random collection of odd things which only had marginal use as weapons: scythes, pitchforks, staves and clubs. Still, there were about a score of them, and they rapidly fanned out to surround the two before they had time to seek shelter. Keeping his eye on them, Phaedrus drew close to Emerna, who, watching the band, hissed at him, “Can you use what we brought?”
Phaedrus grinned and risked a quick glance at her. “I can use it all. Call them, ask them to leave off. I want no more killing.”
She hesitated, but called out, “You, there, parley!”
The leader, a slight, furtive person who remained somewhat back, called back, weakly, “No parley. No quarter asked, none given.”
She called out, “We have no money!”
The answer came, “Don’t want money. Want fresh meat for the pot!”
The voice was neither angry nor heated, and it had a thin, reedy whine to it that was more chilling than what it said. Emerna glanced at Phaedrus, and said, “Kill or be killed.”
He replied, “All of them.”
The circle was almost complete, and the flare went out. Emerna took aim and fired the flare pistol again, this time at one of the figures, the slim one who had spoken. A bright light flashed across the distance between them and lodged in the speaker’s midsection, burning with a bright white light,
and then it went out as he apparently fell on it, but it flared up again, reaching its flare stage. Phaedrus recalled instincts he had learned as Rael, and listened, aiming by feel, and pulled the trigger six times, feeling the heavy explosive canisters slam and buck as they fired, and each time one fired, another of the would-be attackers fell back, flailing the air or grasping at its head. He threw the shotgun-pistol down, now emptied and useless for this kind of work, and reached for the pack. Emerna fired two more flares, hitting with one. A third she fired at the sky. When it exploded, they could see that half the attempted circle was gone, and there, were gaps in the half that remained.
She called out again, “Now it evens up! Will you stop while you can?”
They heard a strangled voice call back, “No quarter,” and by the light of the flare they could see the remaining members of the band still coming on, fatalistically.
Phaedrus said, “These are fools! Break free and leave them.”
She said back, in a low harsh whisper, “Close your eyes and cover them, quick!”
He glanced at the band, and did as she commanded, throwing his arm up, but he was almost too late: there was a searing fright flash that shone through the flesh of his arm. Afterwards, he heard moans and pitiful calls in the dark, which had become permanent for those who had sought them. Emerna said, “Open your eyes now.”
“What was that?”
“Light-bomb. These won’t bother any more wayfarers, nor roast limbs for the pot—they can’t kill what they can’t see. Closing your eyes is no good against it—it can blind even through eyelids.”
“What about the survivors?”
Emerna bent to her pack, and began rearranging things. “It would be merciful to dispatch them, cruel to leave them alone. You left injured and maimed, too.”
Phaedrus felt a sudden heat, and said, “Let them grope for each other and gnaw in the dark like worms.”
“Just so: you have made judgment. But now I say we should check their stronghold before we leave; there may be more of them, one or two.”
“I would not have survivors tracking us; you are right. But we cannot remain here.”
“No. I wouldn’t stay here, now, unless we cut all their throats, and even then I wouldn’t. There may be outriders, scouts. No. We would best move on. But first we will see what we can.”
She withdrew a large knife from the pack and sidled up to one of the blinded attackers, who was crawling about aimlessly and blinking his eyes, occasionally stopping to rub them. Phaedrus saw her kneel close beside him, and lean close, as if whispering. The man started violently, as if stuck, and grabbed at her. She pulled his head up by the hair and cut his throat, and went to the next. After he had listened, he grew still for a moment, and then rushed up with an inarticulate cry and ran blindly off into the night until a sodden thump and a last cry revealed that he had run headlong into a pit. Emerna called to Phaedrus wearily, “This is hopeless! All these folk are mad! Totally mad!”
And he thought, by an act of mine was all this brought to pass, these vile men and their vile end, none better than the other. One cries for the power to change a world, and I had, have that power, and used it, and this is the result. This, and who knows what miseries elsewhere? Lia, staring sightless at the winter sky, her beautiful pale limbs moving gracefully no more. Cliofino, bringing no more of the incomparable release and joy that he brought to the women he casually seduced, and thought nothing of. A hundred people looking for a tavern and taken for a riot by the overreactive governors of Lisagor, and had set upon them the relentless killers. But he said, “We will probably have to look on our own. Do you remember anything about the lay of this place?”
Emerna came back to him, and said softly, “There was a large communal house, and some barns and outbuildings. I do not see any of them left standing.”
“Yet these robbers and cannibals would have some place to hide.”
She said impatiently, “Just so. Come, we will look. There would be a cellar somewhere… Also let us be quiet.”
They moved first toward the place where the leader of the band had stood, reasoning that they had issued forth from a spot near there. They found the body, burned nearly in half by the action of the flare, smelling of burned flesh and still smoking. From there, they spread out a little, going over the ground carefully, looking for something, a mark, that would show a concealed entrance. Emerna found a blinded sentry some distance beyond the leader’s body, moaning on the ground. He would have been close to the entrance, watching what he could see of the action.
The burned-out timbers of a barn loomed behind the groping figure, and close by the foundations was a low, slanted door, one of its leaves still open. Inside, there was no sound.
Emerna shed her pack, and gripping the knife, peered into the dark opening, and then quickly stepped over the sill and into the darkness. Phaedrus half expected to see some struggle, but in another moment, she reappeared and motioned for him to follow her. He followed, carefully setting his pack on the ground beside the door.
Inside it was pitch-dark and musty-smelling, flavored with a rancid fatty odor that cut through the lingering stench of burned wood from the barn. Emerna whispered, “It goes on under the old barn. They’ll have dug a place out, and made light-baffles. They’d have to, for that big a band.”
She turned and began moving slowly along the tunnel, which was low enough so that they had to stoop in places, and in others gave a suggestion of large open space. After what seemed a long walk, they saw a dim glimmer of light ahead and a bit to the left. And as Emerna went forward to draw closer to the light, Phaedrus heard a sudden scrape from behind him and above and felt a weight about his shoulders, grasping and feeling for his chin. He stumbled forward under the weight, and bent over and ran hard, for he had seen Emerna duck, silhouetted against the light. He felt an impact, cushioned by whatever had fallen on him, and the struggles stopped for a moment. He fell flat onto the floor, and then stood upright with all his strength, feeling the impact of the roof again. Stunned, his attacker went limp, and Phaedrus threw him off and knelt by him for a moment, feeling along the unkempt head for the right place, and then he sent this one into the darkness to join the others they had killed. After a moment, there was no surge of pulse.
He looked up and sensed the bulk of Emerna close beside him. She said, “Clever, that. You look innocent, but you act like a man who knows woman, and you kill with precision, like one who knows what he is doing.”
He said, “Seeming other than I have been has saved my life, has it not”
“So far.”
“Then observe that there is much else you have not seen, and allow things to pass as if they were just as they seem, save that I guard your flank well.”
“Is that all you want?”
“No, but what I want you cannot give me.”
“Hah! Fame, fortune, power, beauty?”
“No. Leave it, and let us see within. Others may lurk.”
She turned abruptly and set off toward the light After a short traverse through a zigzag part of the tunnel, they emerged into a large room with a series of corridors radiating from it. In this room were lanterns, burning a greasy oil which bubbled and smoked, and a pit in the center, which was used for a roasting fire, but which now was very low. Along the walls were various devices, whose purpose did not seem clear until Phaedrus reflected that here, with such a large crowd to feed, they would shackle one victim close to hand while they were working on the other—no point in having to carry them any distance, and in addition, their lamentations would doubtless provide a macabre entertainment. A shiver rippled across his spine, and a hot fluid rose in his throat, a gall of disgust.
Emerna called out, “Is anyone left in here? Throw down your arms and come out and walk away free.” That was what she said, but she stood alertly and held the knife at readiness.
No one responded, at least not anyone of the band, but from one of the corridors, they heard a voice call out weakly, “Releas
e us! There are prisoners!”
Emerna looked at Phaedrus, and then grasped a lamp from its wall bracket, and entered one of the corridors. Not far down it, they found a large pen, or cell, in which were kept women, about half a dozen of them, mostly unkempt and filthy, and most withdrawn, with much horror on their faces. They stared blankly as Emerna and Phaedrus approached their cell, and manipulated the crude latch that secured it, and stepped inside. Phaedrus looked over the group with wonder and horror alike; most looked as if they had once, not long ago, been young and pretty, or at least plain. Now, they looked otherwise. Only two responded with any animation. One, a ragged young girl who was very dirty and skinny, but who had retained some kind of animal sense of survival. The other looked familiar, somehow, but Phaedrus couldn’t quite place the girl’s face, although it seemed that he should.
The ragged waifs name was Janea, and she was telling Emerna a tale of horror and abuse, about why they had kept a pit of women inside, although they could have guessed as much by themselves. What interested him, in hearing the tale, was that Janea told them that the familiar girl had resisted them long, and in fact had proven so obstinate and uncooperative that they were planning to roast her the next day. Emerna moved, so that the weak light of the lamp shone on the girl’s face somewhat better. It was a dirty face, to be sure, but it looked more familiar yet, and it came to Phaedrus who this girl was: Meliosme, the wandering gatherer, whom he had met as Rael, long ago. Phaedrus wanted to grasp her, for she had been kind to him, as an old friend, but he dared not, because here, in his present body, he was no more than a stranger to her.
— 13 —
Meliosme
They did not waste any time lingering over the possessions of the robbers; those were scant loot from poor travelers. Nor did they attempt to find or use any food they might have found. There were some cured pieces, but they would have none of it. And last, there was nothing like a place to clean the survivors, so they gathered them up, one by one; some they had to work with more than others, and guided them back through the tunnels and corridors to the night outside, by the slanted door, by which the blinded guard was still moaning and making scrabbling motions with his hands at the dirt and ashes. As they emerged into the night, which had more light than the reeking tunnel, one of the women who had been passive and withdrawn suddenly came alive, and spoke earnestly with Emerna, who presently gave her a small knife from her pack, and then went back to the others and began guiding them off, away from the place. The woman who had taken the knife dropped down on her hands and knees, and crawled to where the moaning guard lay. The rest of them moved off, Emerna motioning them in agitation, Phaedrus bringing up the rear, looking about warily. Presently they were well away from the barn, and still the woman did not join them. But they heard a sudden sharp cry, followed from the same throat by more hoarse calls, entreaties, remonstrances, confessions, and finally, sounds that bore no resemblance to a human voice at all. These sounds were still going on as they trudged away, and never quite ended, but merely faded from the distance increasing between them.