For an hour in First Field they talked again, as Noyock again explained to them all the agreement he had worked out over these last months, despite the quarrels, despite the ones who insisted that the only solution if the “children” would not come home was to divide the world at the river, and have no more to do with each other. The compromise was simple and elegant, like Dilna's tools: beautiful because they worked. All of Heaven City was divided into sections: Heaven City, Stipock's city, Linkeree's bay, Wien's forge, Hux's mills, Kapock's meadow, and Noyock's hill. Each separate group had some authority to decide their own way, and each would choose someone to sit in Council, where with the Mayor they would decide the laws, and try offenders, and decide disputes between the towns. “We are too many now,” said Noyock at the end, “too many for one man like me to know everyone and decide everything. But even with these changes, because of these changes, we are still one people, and when Jason returns after harvest, he will find that we found a way to settle our differences without hatred, and without division.”
It was a hopeful speech. It promised much, and it was plain that Noyock believed in it. Hoom believed it, too.
Then the vote was taken, and Billin and his friends voted with Aven and the others who hated Stipock's city, and the compromise failed.
The meeting broke up in chaos. For an hour afterward, the people of Stipock's city quarreled and argued. It was finally clear that Billin would settle for nothing less than complete separation, and when he took to calling Wix a dog because he always barked when Noyock told him to, Wix declared the meeting over and started up the hill. Hoom and Dilna at once followed him, with Cammar in Hoom's arms. So it was that they were the first to crest Noyock's hill, the first to see the ships on fire.
They cried out and called the others to help, but it was too late. Many of them worked, trying to get water up onto the boats, but it was too late, and the fire burned too hot for them to get very close, and Hoom never bothered at all. He just sat on the shore, Cammar in his lap, watched the flames dancing above the water, and thought, You have burned me up, you have killed me on the water, Father and whoever helped you bring the flame. You have undone all that I have ever done, and I am dead.
Hours later, exhausted, their boats mere skeletons of blackened wood along the shore, they all watched the sun go down and talked dispiritedly of what they ought to do.
“We can build new ships,” Dilna said. “I'm still the master of tools, and Hoom still knows how it's done. You know that Noyock will allow us. Our enemies can't stop us!”
“It takes three months to build a ship.”
“The cows will go unmilked,” someone answered.
“The gardens will go to seed.”
“The cattle on the meadows will go wild.”
“Where will we live for the months of building?”
“With our parents?”
And then, amid the weary, hopeless anger, came Billin's voice. “Where in Jason's law is our protection? We trusted Noyock, but he didn't have the power to save us, did he? If we're to be protected, then we must protect ourselves!”
Wix tried to silence him. “It was you that did this, voting against us.”
“Do you think that made a difference? They planned this before the meeting ever began. Fice and Aven, Orecet and Kree they knew that this would be their one chance, the one time that every one of us would come, that all our boats would be here, and no one back in Stipock's city to sail across and bring us home. They burned our only road home. And I say we ought to answer them in kind!”
For once, Hoom agreed with Billin. What else was there to do? Nothing would undo the harm that this had done them. It was Father again, just when I thought that I was free.
The talk got wilder and angrier as the night came on. They built fires on the beach, and their friends from Heaven City came to them and offered food and beds for the night. One by one the families went away, leaving behind only the angriest, only those who still cared to hear Billin talk of hate and vengeance.
“Come with me,” Dilna said. “Roun and Ul have offered us a place to sleep, and Cammar and I need the rest.”
“Then go,” said Hoom.
She waited for a while longer, hoping he would come. But he stayed, and finally she left, and at last there were only a dozen of them gathered at the fires on the beach, and the moon was setting in the west, so the darkest of the night was soon to come.
It was then that Hoom finally raised his voice to be heard.
“All you do is talk,” he said to Billin. “All you do is talk about how they'll pay. I say we answer them as simply as we can. They used fire to steal our homes from us. What right do they have to sleep content in their own homes, after what they did to us?”
“Burn Heaven City?” Billin asked, incredulous. Even he had not thought of something as insane as that.
“Not Heaven City, fool,” Hoom said. “Were they all consenting to the fire? Justice is all I want. It was my father who did this, you know it's true, my father who hated me so much that he would burn my boats.”
So they pried off boards from the half-burnt boats, water-soaked on one end, easily alight on the other, and carried them a roundabout way up the hill, so they'd not be seen from the city. Hoom led the way, because the dogs knew him.
But someone was awake and waiting for them as they passed behind the stables, where the horses stamped at the smell of fire.
“Don't do this,” Noyock said.
Hoom said nothing.
Noyock looked past him to the others. “Don't do this. Give me time to find those who burned your boats. They'll be punished. We'll turn all the resources of Heaven City to build new boats for you. It won't take months, but weeks, and in a few days Stipock assures me we can have a small boat so a few of you can cross and tend the animals.”
It was Wix who answered him—at heart he still hoped for compromise, probably. “What sort of punishment will you give the ones who did this?”
“If we can be sure who did it, then the punishment is in the law—they lose their property, and all they own is given to you.”
Billin spat. “And of course all you have to do is ask who did it, and they'll step right forward, won't they?”
Noyock shook his head. “If they won't admit it, Billin, then Jason will be here in four more months. You will have long since gone back to your homes, and he will settle it. I promise you, he'll have no tolerance for what they did. But if you do this tonight, he'll have no more tolerance for you. What kind of justice is this? What if you burn the house of an innocent man?”
“He's right,” someone murmured. “We don't know for sure.”
But Hoom said, “If we burn this house, Noyock, I think it won't be an innocent man who suffers.”
“It'll be an innocent woman, then, your mother. And me. I live there.”
Billin laughed. “That's all he's thinking of. His own roof.”
“No, Billin. I'm thinking of you. Tonight all Heaven City is outraged, their sympathy is with you. But if you come and burn a house in the night, you'll lose every friend you have, because they'll all be afraid that sometime in the night their house will burn, too.”
Hoom took Grandfather by the shirt, and pushed him back against the stable wall. “Don't talk anymore,” he said.
“It's the Mayor,” someone whispered, aghast that Hoom would touch him.
“He knows who it is,” Billin said. “Hoom doesn't have the courage.” And Billin stepped up, pushed Hoom aside, and struck Noyock a blow in the jaw, jamming his head back into the wall. Noyock slumped and fell to the ground.
“What are you doing!” Wix demanded.
Billin whirled on him. “What is Noyock to us?”
“Stipock told us that if we strike a man, then his friends will only strike us back. No one said anything about coming to blows, like children playing in the grass.”
Hoom didn't hear any more of the argument. He took a sheaf of long straw from inside the stable door. The horse
s looked in fear at the torch in his hand. “Not for you,” he murmured, and strode from the stable to the house. The others fell silent when they saw him go, and some of them, at least, soon followed him. Hoom went in through the kitchen door, set the straw and some of the cookfire wood near the curtains in the big room with the table. The room where Aven had struck him for the last time. He did not hesitate—when the kindling was ready, he put the torch to it. The flames erupted at once, and the curtains soon caught. It was hot enough that Hoom had to step back right away, and step back again a moment later. The fire quickly caught on the timbers of the house, and the smoke rushed along the ceiling toward the opening of the stairs.
Wix stood behind him. “Come on, Hoom. We've got fires well set outside, too—it's time to give the alarm to them.”
“No,” said Hoom.
“We didn't bargain to kill anybody,” Wix said.
Father killed me, Hoom answered silently.
“Your wife and son are alive,” Wix said. “Don't let it be said that someone besides you gave the alarm to save your mother's life. Don't let it be said that you wanted your father dead.”
Hoom shuddered. What was I doing? What am I? He ran to the foot of the stairs and shouted, “Fire! Fire, wake up! Come out!”
Wix joined in the shouting, and when no one came from the rooms upstairs, they ran up. Smoke must be seeping through the floors, Hoom realized—it was already thick in the hallway, and there was smoke coming through the tops of the bedroom doors. He ran to his father's room and opened the door. His mother was staggering from the bed, coughing, brushing smoke away with her hands, trying to see. Hoom took her, led her out, rushed her down the stairs. The other end of the house downstairs was all aflame. “Who else is in the house?” Hoom demanded.
Mother shook her head. “Just Aven and Biss.”
“Father wasn't in bed,” he said.
“I made him—I made him sleep somewhere else,” she said. “He burned your boats,” she said. Then all at once she realized. “You set this fire! You burned my house!”
But by then he had her out the door. He rushed back in. Wix had Biss and was carrying her down the stairs. “Where's Father!” Hoom shouted.
“I didn't see him!” Wix shouted back. Hoom pushed by him and ran back up. Flames were already lapping around the edges of the stairwell, and the door of his parents' bedroom was bright with flame. The fire was spreading faster than Hoom had expected. He could see the flames coming in from the windows now, spreading across the ceilings of each room in turn. Father wasn't in his own room, wasn't in Biss's—of course not, you fool, Wix would have seen him!—wasn't in Noyock's room.
“Come down, Hoom! He isn't there!” Wix shouted from downstairs.
Hoom ran to the head of the stairs. The stairway itself was on fire, at the edges.
“Come down before it's too late!” Wix was standing at the front door. The porch was also on fire now.
“Is he down there?”
“If he were in the house he'd be awake by now!” shouted Wix.
So they hadn't found him. He must be here. Hoom opened the door of Noyock's office. The flames leapt out at him when he opened the door, singeing his hair, catching his pants on fire. But he didn't stop to beat out the flames. Only one room left his own. He forced his way down the little hallway, kicked in his door. This room hadn't caught fire as badly as the others, but it was thick with smoke. His father lay coughing on the floor.
“Help me,” he said.
Hoom took him by the hand and tried to drag him to the door, but Aven was too large and heavy for him. So he took him under the arms and tried to lift him. “Get up!” he shouted. “I can't carry you! Get up and walk!”
Aven finally understood, and staggered to his feet, clung to his son as he led him from the room. Hoom rushed him as fast as he could toward the stairs, but as they passed the open door of Noyock's office, Aven pulled away from him. “The history!” he shouted. “Father will kill me, Father will kill me!” He staggered toward the door. The pages of the history were already curling with flame. Hoom tried to hold him back, shouted that it was too late, but Aven only knocked him down and stumbled into the room. Hoom got up again in time to see the flames reach out to greet Aven as he clutched at the parchments and screamed and screamed. “I'm sorry!” he cried. He turned to face Hoom through the doorway, his clothing all afire, and screamed again, “I'm sorry!”
Then he fell backward onto the burning floor, just as someone grabbed Hoom by the ankle and pulled him to the stairs. Desperate hands took him and carried him outside. But all Hoom could think of was the sight of his father in the fire, clutching the burning parchment, screaming, “I'm sorry” as the flames uncovered his heart.
Lared awoke sobbing, his father holding him close, whispering, “It's all right, Lared. Nothing's wrong, Lared, it's all right.”
Lared gasped at the sight of his father's face, then clung to him. “Oh, I dreamed!”
“Of course you did.”
“I saw a father—a father dying, and I was afraid—”
“Just a dream, Lared.”
Lared breathed deeply, tried to calm himself. He looked around and saw that the other men were also awake, looking at him curiously. “Just a dream,” he explained to them.
But it was not just a dream. It was a true story, and a terrible one, and when the other men finally looked away, Lared gripped Father's hand and held it to his lips and whispered, “Father, I love you, I would never harm you.”
“I know it,” Father said.
“But I mean it,” Lared said again.
“I know you do. Now go back to sleep. It was a terrible dream, but it's over now, and you didn't hurt me, whatever happened in the dream.”
Then Father turned away, curled back under his blanket to sleep again.
But to Lared it was no dream. What Justice put into his mind came with too much clarity to be dismissed as mere madness of the night. Lared knew now how it felt to watch his father die, knowing that he caused it. And then, with her unsurpassed ability to intrude in his thoughts when Lared wanted her the least, Justice asked him, Did you know you loved your father before now?
To which Lared answered fervently, I hope I die before you make me dream again.
At sunrise Lared felt spent from the night's experience. He felt shy now before the other men—they had seen him vain as a cock yesterday, and tearful as a babe last night. This morning he was quiet, speaking little, embarrassed now to be in the lead with the others watching him.
Above all, to Jason he said nothing. Rather he stayed with his father, spoke to him when he needed to, and kept the pure blue eyes out of his sight.
At noon, Lared and Father mounted their horses to leave the last team behind. Jason would not be put off then. “Lared,” he said.
Lared looked at the harness of his horse.
“Lared, I remember it, too. Before you dreamed your dreams, I have dreamed them all.”
“Only because you wanted to,” Lared said. “I never asked to see.”
“I was given eyes. If you had them, would you leave them closed?”
“He has eyes,” Father said, puzzled.
“Let's go now, Father,” Lared said. They rode in silence past each of the last four trees in turn, until they reached the hut that Jason and Lared had built the last night, not all that long before. There was the final tree, girdled and ready for cutting.
And suddenly Lared was afraid. He did not know why. He simply felt—unprotected. Exposed. He stayed close to his father, following him when it had no purpose, even when his father went back to the sledge for another axe, because the one he used was too light for him, and kept twisting when it hit the tree.
Finally, Lared had to speak, just to calm his fear. “What if there weren't any iron in the world? Or so far away we couldn't get it?”
“I'm a blacksmith, Lared,” Father said. “Those words are like telling a woman she's barren.”
“What if?”
/> “Before iron, people were savages. Who would live in such a place?”
“Worthing,” Lared said.
Father stiffened, rested on his axe for a moment.
“I mean the world, the planet. The iron only came shallow enough to find it in one place in the world. A desert.”
“So you go to the desert and dig it out. Cut wood.”
Lared swung his axe and made a chip fly. Father swung in turn and made the tree shudder.
The tree fell, and together they hacked away limbs, and rolled and levered it onto the sledge. It was not a mast tree; it was not so heavy that the horses had to be used just to pull it into place. By nightfall they had the second tree as well, and then they lay down to sleep in the hut.
Lared did not sleep, however. He lay awake, staring into darkness, waiting for the dream that he knew would come. Whenever he began to doze, he pictured Aven in his mind, Aven burning like paper in the forge. He did not know whether it was his own memory of the dream, or Justice putting it in his mind afresh. He dared not sleep for fear of worse dreams, though he did not know how he might stop Justice even if he could stay awake forever. It was not a rational decision to stay awake—it was pure dread, dread of the woman waiting in the night to take his mind from him and make him be someone else and do another man's acts. I would die for my father, I would never harm him.
Sleep never came, and neither did the dream. For once they had done precisely what he asked. They told him nothing, they showed him nothing, But waiting for it cost him rest, and at first light his father, thinking him asleep, poked him to wake him up. Now, with his father awake, now suddenly Lared felt himself able to sleep; and once he could dare to do it, his desperate body demanded it. Sleep. He staggered through the morning rituals, the hitching of the team; he almost fell from his horse when he dozed. “Wake up, lad,” Father said, annoyed. “What's wrong with you?”
Chopping at the third tree invigorated him somewhat, but he was still not alert. Twice Father had to stop him. “You're cutting too high here. Bring it down, we don't want the branches to get caught up in other trees and never fall.”
The Worthing Saga Page 21