Past Imperative

by Dave Duncan

  From the looks of him, Graybeard was a seasoned old rover. His face was burned by the sun, with lines of red road dust marking its wrinkles. His shoulders were impressively hairy and beefy, his dark eyes bloodshot and menacing. He said something contemptuous; the words could have been Chinese for all Edward knew, but the tone was an unmistakable warning that certain young scroungers should go and find themselves honest work before they had the living daylights knocked out of them. His companions jeered their agreement.

  Oh, is that so? Before he realized it, Edward had raised his eyebrows in challenge. He was not going to take that remark, whatever it meant, from a gang of vagrant peddlers. Never let them see you’re afraid of them….

  Too late he registered that his Fallow training might have betrayed him. He was not dressed to play the role of the young gentleman; these were not insubordinate English navvies. He was not His Majesty’s District Officer, backed by the invincible might of the British Empire. He was not even Bwana’s son at Nyagatha. He was exactly what these men thought he was, a beggar. Public school airs were inappropriate under the circumstances.

  Too bad! To back down now would only make things worse.

  He returned the man’s stare with contempt, holding the eye contact: Do your worst!

  Graybeard shouted again.

  Really? You don’t say?

  Doubt flickered over the other man’s craggy features. Had he never seen blue eyes before? He asked a question.

  Still Edward said nothing. Eleal said nothing. The doubt curdled into worry. The old man turned away; he strode quickly back to the fire and returned bearing a stick with a sizzling lump of charred meat on it. Eleal snatched it from him and peremptorily demanded another, holding out her hand. Another man hurried over with a second.

  Edward nodded in acceptance, and offered his spread-hand blessing. Both men laid palms on their hearts and bowed low, apparently relieved.

  The holy man returned to his log, trying not to limp on his blisters. He did not sit immediately, but took a careful look around to make sure the trouble was over. He had won the attention of the whole campground. Eleal came to stand beside him. Her face was paler than usual, but she flicked him a wink. He kept his features impassive, deciding it would be safe to eat.

  But then one of the younger men followed and knelt to offer Eleal a bowl of cereal mush. Edward gravely blessed him as she accepted it. Another came with a gourd of water. One by one, men hurried over to kneel and buy the holy man’s blessing. Other men from other groups joined in, bringing food from their own meals. Soon there was a feast spread out around the venerable pilgrim’s feet.

  Eleal’s eyes grew wider and wider every time she looked up at him. Edward remained inscrutable, as if this sort of tribute was no more than his due. Eventually he realized what was expected of him—he sat down to show that he was satisfied. Then the offerings stopped coming. He hoped the two of them could do justice to such a banquet. He had collected half the food in the campground, enough to feed a monasteryful of starving monks.

  His mouth was watering. He bit into the meat, feeling delicious hot fat run down his chin. His tooth had stopped aching.

  Graybeard’s oxcart was piled high with what seemed to be small blue carrots. They did not make a very comfortable throne, but Edward sat cross-legged on the top under the shade of his hat and made the best of the ride into Filoby. He clutched his staff, trying to look holy and ineffable, dribbling unholy sweat in the heat of the afternoon. Eleal sat beside the old man and chattered imperiously. God knew what sort of tale she was spinning, although Edward heard his name being mentioned. Her religious scruples were starting to seem surprisingly flexible. Every now and again she would twist around and address some remark to him, but he rarely caught more than a couple of words. Migafilo was one.

  Eventually they came to another river. A ford and a steep hill out of the valley brought them into a village of whitewashed cottages with roofs of red tiles. This must be Filoby, the Magafilo of the prophecy. It was an unimpressive clutter of narrow clay lanes and perhaps fifty homes, but a rank odor of charred wood hung in the air. Several cottages had been burned—recently, for repairs were under way. There were more people around than might have been expected at that time of day. They looked up with interest at the pilgrim on his chariot.

  Then worse destruction came in sight. Beyond the village rose a small conical hill, spiky with black tree trunks. As the oxcart approached, Edward began to feel the now-familiar sense of virtuality. He shivered despite the heat. That hill was a node and a sacred place. It must be the birthplace of the Filoby Testament, and it had been ravaged by fire. Gutted ruins of many buildings stood stark amid the ashes of the grove. From what Creighton had told him about prophecy, he could only assume that this destruction was more work of the Chamber, striving to block fulfillment of the Testament. The people who had devastated Nyagatha had struck here also, the killers of his parents, the enemies who would still be seeking his death.

  Here Graybeard’s road parted from his. The holy pilgrim descended from the carrots with as much dignity as he could contrive in his skimpy frock.

  Mumbling apologetically, the old man knelt in the dirt and removed his hat to receive the pilgrim’s final blessing. Feeling mischievous, Edward went so far as to lay his outspread hand on the man’s head. That must be a signal honor, for when the old rascal rose to his feet, tears were cleaning small tram lines down the dust on his weather-beaten cheeks. He gabbled thanks, fumbling with his hat.

  Edward turned and walked briskly in the direction his small disciple indicated. He could not see her face under her hat and he wondered what she was thinking. It was not like Eleal to remain silent.

  The street was narrow. He was constantly passing close to people. Almost without exception, they bowed to him. One or two women knelt as he went by. He responded with his sign of blessing and saw faces light up.

  This was all very creepy! Not everyone was dark-eyed and swarthy—he saw auburn hair, some mousy brown. He saw hazel eyes and gray eyes. His own blue eyes might be rare, but they could not be unique in the world, so they were not what was provoking superstitious respect. He was tall by local standards, but again not uniquely so. His was not the single white face among a thousand black. Above all, he was only a youth. Why should his pilgrim garb merit this sudden veneration? Were the inhabitants of Filoby so much more devout than those of Ruatvil, who had laughed at him that morning?

  No, something had changed when he faced down Graybeard in the campground. That confrontation had given him confidence, of course, which might be part of it, but his wildest theories were starting to seem believable.

  He could not ask Eleal to comment, for now the road was busy and a pilgrim must not speak. Even when he had left the village behind, there was no lack of travelers. As soon as one party had passed, another was in sight. They all seemed to be heading south, and he did not understand that. He was going the wrong way.

  Nor were they all peasants. Well-dressed folk rode past on swift moas or in gigs drawn by animals resembling pony-sized greyhounds. Many of the pedestrians wore colored robes, and he guessed that those were priests and priestesses. Even they greeted him with respectful gestures—clasped hands, touches to breast or forehead. He responded with his five-finger blessing, and no one accused him of irreverence.

  The travelers were more varied than the locals. He saw fairer skins, even some blond hair and eyes as blue as his own. One or two could have been Saxons or Scandinavians. Others might have been Indians or Arabs. Clothes showed more diversity, also—tunics and baggy pants like Turkish pajamas, gowns, simple loincloths. Men were bearded or clean-shaven or mustachioed, their limbs smooth or hairy. Noses were hooked or straight, broad or narrow. The population of Nextdoor was a cross section of European types, but of course that was to be expected. Creighton had said that most of the European portals connected with a territory he had called the Vales.
Of course the racial types would be similar if people had been crossing to and fro for thousands of years, keeping the bloodlines mingled.

  Fascinated, Edward strode along the dusty track. Heat and sweat and insects were minor inconveniences. He eyed the sprouting crops in the fields, the hedges, the livestock, the farmhouses. Many trees stood on carpets of fallen blossom—in England it was August, but in the Vales it was spring.

  A troop of six armed men approached, streaking along on moas. As they came near, their leader drew his sword. For a moment Edward’s muscles all tightened up in alarm, but the man merely raised the blade in salute and kept on going.

  Suddenly Eleal took a grip on her hat and tilted her head to look up at him. Her face was flushed and worried. “Rest?” she pleaded. She was panting, her smock soaked with sweat.

  He was so surprised and ashamed that he almost broke his presumed vow of silence. Nodding, he slowed down—blessing a passing pair of monks at the same time. Eleal limped to the shade of a hedge and flopped down on the grass. Edward joined her, lowering himself with more dignity. He had forgotten that his legs were so much longer than hers. He had run the poor cripple off her feet. How could he have been so thoughtless! And why had she not said something sooner? Obviously it was not only his teeth that were feeling better—he had recovered his physical strength, too.

  Two well-dressed men stopped and offered canteens of water, inquiring solicitously after the holy man’s health. Eleal replied in the same clipped dialect, obviously explaining that it was she who was weary. They nodded understandingly. Grateful for the drink, Edward sent them on their way with a blessing.

  Whatever his magic was, it worked on Eleal also. She was regarding him with awe and delight and adoration.

  He waited for a gap in the stream of passersby and risked a question. “Query many men going.”

  She replied with a long dissertation about the god Tion and the city of Suss, but he did not understand and had no chance to question her further. She seemed to know the reason for this migration and she was obviously not worried by it, so he could forget theories of plague or marauding Goths coming out of the hills. He would just have to wait and see. He hoped she would revive soon, so they might continue on their way.

  Another half hour or so brought them to Rotby, which was much like Filoby, or slightly larger. The natives were just as respectful to the young pilgrim, just as pleased to receive his blessing, so the effect was showing no signs of wearing off. If anything, it seemed to be growing stronger.

  The bridge beyond Rotby was marked by a great megalithic arch, a twin of the relic at Ruatvil. Another stood on the far bank of the gorge, several hundred feet away. The green-bronze chains looped between them supported a wooden roadbed barely wide enough for a single oxcart. Despite the steady flow of travelers approaching, few were heading north—Edward still wished he understood that imbalance—so there was no great press of people ahead of him at the massive timber gates. There were enough for him to work out the procedure, though, and to see that the men in metal helmets and leather armor were collecting a toll.

  Eleal took his hand and squeezed it warningly.

  He thought Phooey! Obviously a holy pilgrim who had taken an oath of silence and a vow of poverty could not be expected to have money.

  He might be required to find some rich layman to pay his way for him, of course.

  He laid a comforting hand on Eleal’s shoulder as they approached the gate. Two guards were taking the cash, checking it carefully, and then dropping it in a bag—one doing the actual work, the other mostly keeping a careful eye on him, although sometimes they would both have to bite a coin before reaching a decision. Three other guards lounged on a bench in the shade behind, chatting in bored fashion. All five wore swords.

  A peasant and his wife passed through. Edward and Eleal were next. The guard held out a horny hand.

  Edward gave him his respect-compelling stare.

  The soldier demanded money in unmistakable, no-nonsense terms.

  Edward said nothing.

  The soldier scowled, hesitated, and glanced at his companion. He, in turn, swung around and said something to the three on the bench. The man on the left and the one in the middle both looked to the one on the right. Obviously military procedures did not vary much from one world to another.

  The one on the right was a grizzled bull of a man, and his expression as he sized up the juvenile prophet suggested that he would like nothing better in the whole world than a chance to have that stripling under his command for a few hours. Edward waited. For a long, unhappy moment there was challenge and confrontation, as there had been in the campground.

  Then the leader rose to his feet, his two companions an instant behind him. He marched forward four steps as if to take a closer look at Edward’s blue eyes. He stamped his feet, barked an order, and the whole squad came to attention. He saluted. Edward gave him a blessing and led Eleal through the gate, onto the bridge.

  When I grow up, he thought, I am going to be Pope.

  The gorge was especially narrow there. The walls fell sheer to the spray—in fact the north side looked undercut, which suggested that one day soon the Rotby bridge might be taken out of service by the river itself. Even upstream and downstream from this notch the canyon was much deeper than it was wide, the river barely visible in the shadowy depths. Its voice was a constant, threatening mumble, sensed more through the soles of the feet than the ears. The chains creaked softly. Many roadbed timbers were in need of repairs and the road itself had a worrying dip to the center. Edward decided he would be evermore content to remain on the far side when he reached it.

  Other travelers stepped aside for him and bowed. The driver of an oxcart brought it to a halt—no easy task, for the roadbed sloped steeply at that point. The guard at the north gateway saluted as the pilgrim passed through.

  A few cottages stood to the right; a grove of trees to the left was clearly another of the wayfarers’ campsites. Several early bird groups were setting up tents and at least one hearth trickled smoke already. After the banquet he had eaten at noon, Edward did not expect to be hungry for several days, and his legs had found some sort of second wind—he could cheerfully have carried on walking—but the girl was flagging again and would appreciate a break. She must have come to that conclusion herself, because she turned off into the campground without hesitation.

  He sensed no virtuality this time. This was not a node, but it was an attractive enough spot, well shaded and cool. Between the trees, massive flowering bushes shaped like giant puffballs displayed innumerable shades of red, from orange through almost to violet. Some of them were bigger than armchairs. Taking a second look, he wondered if each bush might be a single enormous blossom. Half a dozen moas were grazing off to the side, and he decided to go and take a look at those interesting…

  A man shouted, “Eleal!” and came running forward.

  Eleal screamed. She grabbed Edward’s hand and hauled at him.

  “Reaper!” she shrieked. “Reaper!”

  Edward stayed where he was, ignoring her frantic tugging while he summed up the man who had provoked her terror. Seeing the effect he had produced, the stranger had halted, so he was no immediate danger. He was standing about twenty feet away, staring. There was nothing threatening about his appearance—he was taller than most and in his late twenties or early thirties, but he bore no visible weapon. There was a rawboned awkwardness even to the way he was standing. He wore a yellow tunic and loose pants down to his knees.

  Eleal was babbling, “Reaper!” and trying to pull Edward away.

  He could see no danger in the man. His expression was one of extreme distress—pain, perhaps, or fear, or any one of several things, but more suffering than any desire to cause suffering. Both ignorance of the language and the role he was playing prevented Edward from arguing with the girl, but he was much stronger than she was. Effortless
ly towing her along beside him, he strode forward to take a closer look.

  Act V

  Ensemble

  52

  “IT IS THE WAY OF THE DAUGHTERS,” DOLM ACTOR SAID sadly. “Irepit is goddess of repentance.”

  The three of them were sitting on the ground around an empty hearth of blackened pebbles. It was a private corner of the campground, almost surrounded by cloud blossoms. Eleal was cuddling very close to D’ward, for she did not trust the former reaper.

  Yet Dolm had obviously changed. His face was haggard, and he seemed much thinner than she remembered. There were gray streaks in his hair she did not recall either. His eyes were bloodshot and underlined with darkness.

  “I thought you had died,” she muttered. “The sword moved by itself. I had both hands on it and Sister Ahn had one and yet it felt as if it moved by itself.”

  Dolm groaned and covered his face. “It did not touch me.”

  “I did not feel it touch you,” she admitted.

  D’ward was listening intently, but she could not tell how much he understood. They were speaking Joalian, which was what she had been teaching him, and his bright blue eyes flickered back and forth as she and Dolm spoke, but he could not be catching very much of this, surely. He was still playing his pilgrim role, being very relaxed and confident. Whenever she looked at him he smiled at her reassuringly.

  “Did you not hear what she said?” Dolm asked. “She took my sin upon herself and then I saw what…”

  “Saw what?”

  “Saw what I had become, what I had been doing.”