Above the Snowline

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Above the Snowline Page 35

by Steph Swainston


  SNIPE

  What was he doing? He walked with measured tread, hands clasped behind him, but there’s nothing out here. Jant put all the guards to demolition duty, and they’re asleep after a hard day’s work. No one’s set foot up here since the lamplighter. Halfway along, though, a flight of stairs led down to the bailey. He must be going to my house, all right. He must be going the long way round to escape Jant’s notice. But the steps were covered in ice and dicey. I strained my eyes to see if soldiers were converging on the house next to mine. A glow in my cabin window showed the Archer was inside, but I couldn’t see any movement.

  Raven always walked with his head lowered, like he was tugging his whole body along by his forehead. He was pondering more deeply than ever, as if he was sleepwalking. I kept him in sight - a darker patch on the dark path. I hugged the wall and dashed across the light cast by one of the lamps, into the shadow between them.

  Had he heard my footsteps? I paused, but he paced on. He passed another lamp and his shadow jumped like a clock hand, from lying behind him to angled in front. It glided on, as if keen not to be trodden on.

  Perhaps he is sleepwalking and I should wake him. I prepared to run up and rest my hand on his shoulder, but curiosity stopped me. I really did need to know if he was going to barricade Lightning in my house. I followed, with my skin crawling, ’cause I thought any moment he’d swing round and shout, ‘Gotcha!’

  RAVEN

  This is certainly the perfect night for it. The ice shimmers more strongly around the storm lamps’ flames, as if practically alive. This is what eighteen ninety-one looks like. Quiet and peaceful, barren and void, and damnably the same as eighteen ninety. I have seen too many men overcome with fear when the end draws nigh and I would never be so craven. I am pleased to find myself just as I imagined I would be: composed and without qualms.

  Jant’s destruction of Carniss, and my loss, is inevitable in a way. No matter how determined I am, the ignorance of others will always win because it is effortless. Stupidity and laziness are without cost of exertion so they will always outlast and prevail over any effortful work. Similarly, natural decay will always overwhelm our buildings and, at length, our own bodies. A multitude will always overpower an individual. The Castle will always prevail over a mortal … and the manor I have spent years building will be overturned in days by the reversion of the ignorant to their usual habits. No matter how much effort I have put in, the mountains are more powerful than I am because they are mindless. I have struggled to the last of my strength but in the end they have won.

  SNIPE

  Nearly slipped! Careful! I had to stay in the centre of the walkway or I’d crunch the ice, but I leant close to the wall. On the other side, the railing was plastered in icicles, hanging over the drop to the bailey.

  Raven would have told the guards to gather in the captain’s house - that’s next to mine - and they would creep to my cabin and turn the key in the lock. The cabin’s sturdy enough, but they’d have to bar the window to stop Lightning getting out. Yeah, but even if Raven succeeded without Lightning shooting him, Jant would take to the air and vanish. How’s he supposed to arrest a man who can fly? He’s going to call down the wrath of the Castle as well as the king!

  Raven reached the top of the steps and walked straight past. He didn’t even look down to the bailey but kept going and climbed another couple of stairs where the rock crags up. I followed him along an exposed section, our shadows slipping ahead of us. He’s walking all the way to the end.

  I couldn’t understand what he was doing at all. I wondered if I should just shout to him, but then I’d have to explain why the hell I was following.

  RAVEN

  The promontory is narrowing. I am nearly there, but I walk no slower, nor any more hurriedly. I will take things at my own pace. Ironically, the immortals never have the leisure to feel as sedate as I do now. They are always rushed, fending off Challengers, fighting every crisis. Only a mortal can feel as if he has all the time in the world.

  The cliff cuts in here and the wall grafted exactly on top of it sweeps in a long embayment. Below, I can see nothing. The three-hundred-metre drop is invisible; it is like looking down into a lake of ink. Thin, fine clouds drift below me. I have the impression the wall is afloat like a ship and the clouds are reflections in immeasurably deep water. I pass the last of the dimly lit houses in the bailey. Nothing else remains. Capercaillie peak with its serrated forest outline is just a black space blotting out the overcrowded stars. Carniss is all that exists, floating in the void, darkness lapping against it like water against a harbour wall. I shudder. By god, may I leave Carniss to those who deserve it.

  It is colder out here, towards the tip of the cliff, and a breeze is blowing. The promontory is coming to its point. I can just make out the bell tower and, very indistinctly, the curtain wall on the other side. Sky and wall merge in the darkness so the storm lanterns on the opposite wall top hang like a line of stars.

  I know what I am doing. I have never been more sane. Has any other King of Awia faced it with as much noble calm as I do? I arrive at the point of the promontory and walk past a small turret where sentries may shelter. The cold wind plays on my face and stirs a little melancholy in my soul. What man about to leave the world would not feel melancholy?

  But my world is no longer Rachiswater but Carniss: I hate and abjure it. I feel no fear. I look down as I unbutton my coat. I can see nothing below. The drop may be three hundred metres or three thousand. All the same, it will be short. I shall feel the wind rush through my feathers as if I am flying. Thankfully, I will see nothing. It will be a brief rush of air, a shock and then oblivion. I welcome it.

  I remove my coat and fold it neatly on the parapet. Then I put my boot toe into a crack, climb up carefully onto the top of the parapet and stand with my wings spread.

  SNIPE

  Shit - he’s climbing up! He’s going to jump! I shouted and ran towards him. He was looking straight ahead. He raised a foot and—

  RAVEN

  I step out.

  SNIPE

  He’s gone! I ran to the parapet and looked over. Nothing below. Nothing but the pitch darkness and a few shreds of mist. He’d fallen out of sight. Three hundred metres, he was probably still falling!

  My legs buckled and I sat down, leant against the wall, clutched my fingers into the ice. For fuck’s sake don’t let me fall! Everything was spinning - the walkway could vanish and drop me into space!

  He had stepped out and, as his foot met empty air, tilted forward till he was falling horizontally, with his wings spread like hooked canopies. He was looking past this world and his flight feathers were bending, already fluttering, as the air began to race.

  My ears strained but I heard no noise. No cry, no … collision. God, it was the cliff fall all over again! After a few seconds the freezing water soaking into my backside brought me to my senses and I stood up. I felt my way along the parapet and gathered his coat. It was still warm.

  I looked down into the abyss and realised I was shivering violently. No point shouting; he’s dead. He’s dead … down there … smashed on the rocks … and already freezing. Besides, if I shouted, who knows what might answer?

  I pressed the coat to my chest and hurried back along the walkway towards the lights of the keep. It seemed that I had crept the opposite way hours earlier, though it had only been minutes. The sensation was so powerful I could almost see myself tiptoeing in the shadows, following my lord, who walked with sure tread some distance in front, and still walked there, just out of the corner of my eye. Something told me that Raven - his back broad, his head bowed - will always be walking along the top of this bloody wall. Every night, when the oil in the lamps is running low, the flames guttering out and ice is forming on the stone, he’ll walk here. By god, the sooner we demolish the keep the better!

  But even if we level Carniss, I know I’ll always see him, up at the height of the wall with no parapet to support him, or pacing the ground b
elow, or any-bloody-where - even if I’m walking through the market in the middle of Rachis town - because he’s branded on my mind’s eye.

  I shuddered. Pull yourself together, I told myself. The dumb fantasies of nobles and immortals must have rubbed off on me. I’ve been mixing with ’em too long. So I made an effort to think carefully. I’m the only one who knows Raven is dead. Who knows Raven has … has committed suicide. If I find the Eszai and tell them straight away, I’ll be more likely to escape any blame. I know Lightning’s in my house, and last time I saw Jant, he was moping at the top of the tower. I took a deep breath. Brace yourself, man, I thought. This time, when I find them I’ll tell them the truth.

  LIGHTNING

  Some time after midnight I was sitting by the fire, putting the finishing touches to a letter to Tarmigan, in which I detailed how we had prevented the planned putsch. The night was silent apart from the crackling of the logs in the grate and the scratch of my fountain pen across the page.

  I folded the letter and turned the end of a stick of sealing wax in the candle flame, watching it become glossy and rounded, which is always very satisfying. There was a knock on the door. ‘Come in!’ I called, but the knocking continued with brisk desperation.

  You’re not in Foin now, I thought, irritated, and pushed my chair back. ‘All right, all right, I’m coming.’

  I opened the door to Snipe, with Jant behind him, who had changed back into Awian clothes and wore an even more tortured expression than before. Between them they blurted out the news. The shock swept over me, dulling my hearing. I stood, not thinking of anything, and it took me a while to come to myself and realise I was looking down at the rag rug and Snipe’s boot toes. Both Snipe and Jant were waiting like anxious schoolboys for my reaction.

  ‘This is your house,’ I said to Snipe, and turned aside for him to enter. They sat down either side of the square table in front of the fire. I whisked the letter into my pocket and drew up a third chair.

  ‘It was suicide,’ Snipe repeated. ‘Suicide. I saw him just step off. Lightning, he spread his wings as if … as if he was going to fly … and strode off the wall. Off the cliff.’ He raised his hand and tipped it from vertical to horizontal, then closed his fingers. ‘Gone.’

  Jant flinched and his wings twitched. I doubted that he had come across suicide before. Snipe certainly hadn’t; he was even more stunned. His shoulders were bowed - not with the servility he faked when in Raven’s presence, but in genuine shock. His pallor was so sickly it cast his black eye into lurid contrast. He was no longer the man I had met on the cloud-bound path, when he had mistaken me for a soldier of fortune. He was shaken to the core.

  He went on, ‘Honestly, if I’d known I would have stopped him. I would have, before he reached the end. I wouldn’t have even let him leave the keep.’

  I hastened to reassure him. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Raven was strong. Stronger than me, yes - and a swordsman too. I was a long way behind him - ten metres behind him, all the way.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Jant. ‘Nobody is accusing you of having a hand in his death.’

  Snipe swallowed and nodded. ‘Good, good. I swear I only saw it.’ He heaved a great sigh and stood up. He went to the dresser and opened a door, brought out a bottle of whisky and stoneware cups. He plonked them down in front of us, uncorked the whisky and filled his cup. He knocked it back, sank onto his chair and filled it again.

  We sat in silence, wondering how desperate Raven had to be to kill himself. Suicides are very rare, and even then it’s almost always the elderly, the insane or those with excruciating diseases without hope of a cure. You only have one life, and if you choose to leave it for oblivion, you should at least heft a sword and use the opportunity to bring down as many Insects as possible. Everyone wants to win immortality, to live for ever; who would take the losers’ way out? I thought it an act of cowardice. Raven had felt trapped, as much as Dellin had been trapped in her cage. He was not prepared to compromise, so chose to die rather than adapt himself to life here. I looked into the top layers of his desperation and I recoiled. Give me solid ground and certainty, I thought. From the way Jant was staring into space I could tell he was thinking much the same.

  ‘Lightning, Comet,’ Snipe said softly. ‘I must tell you, or I’ll have this on my conscience for the rest of my life … along with everything else. I swear, if I’d known Raven would react like that I’d never have done it. I thought it would anger him, frustrate him, certainly. I never thought he’d throw himself off the cliff. I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry. Honestly sorry.’ He shot us a quick glance from under his brows and I saw how frightened and guilty he was.

  ‘What did you do?’ I asked.

  ‘I let Dellin out of the cage.’

  ‘You?’ Jant sat up. ‘But you hated her!’

  ‘I didn’t know that freeing her would make my lord kill himself,’ Snipe moaned.

  ‘No,’ I stepped in. ‘Nobody could. Snipe, we are not blaming you, so do not blame yourself. But tell us, why did you release her?’

  Snipe rubbed his mouth and thought awhile before answering. He had lost the end joints of his little finger and ring finger from both hands, rendering them stubby, blunt and oddly blind where I expected nails to be. His other fingers were blackened at the ends, and the skin of his hands and face was patched red and numb frostbite yellow. I doubted whether he would ever regain his original complexion. He would bear the marks of having been Dellin’s prey until his dying day.

  ‘I had good reason to loathe her,’ he said slowly, ‘and fear her too, but when I saw her in the cage it all began to melt away. She was lying against the bars … not looking at anything. I tried to speak to her, but she wouldn’t turn to me. She was dying, Jant.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I couldn’t let it happen. I’ve seen trapped wolves lie down that way, when they give up struggling and just wait to die.’

  ‘You pitied her?’

  ‘Oh, you’re surprised. Don’t think me capable of pity, do you, Messenger? Let me tell you something. I was married - once. In Rachiswater, when I was a servant at the palace. How do you think a mere ploughboy came to be Raven’s retainer, anyway? My wife, Gerygone, was seamstress to the queen.

  ‘A year before Raven and Francolin started plotting, Gerygone became pregnant. Now I need to tell you how beautiful my Gerygone was. She was lovely. She surpassed all the maids of honour. Her name meant “echo” and she was so ethereal - I mean slight, so to speak … She had such grace that you’d have thought her an echo far too delicate for this world. She died in childbirth … while giving birth to our daughter. Two days and nights she struggled in agony, pain so bad I never thought a human frame could bear it. She were very brave …’ He looked at his rainbow hands. ‘But the baby wouldn’t come. In the end it sapped her strength. The Queen’s own doctor tried to cut her, but she had no stamina left to endure the operation. He should have tried it on the first day. She just lay there, not looking at anything. Then she gathered her energy and focused on me. She smiled at me, a faint little smile, and she died.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. Jant said nothing, and perhaps rightly so, because the ‘correct’ words often sound false.

  Snipe sniffed and rubbed his nose. ‘Our daughter had died hours before. I buried them together. Gerygone and little Owlett, who never saw the light of day.’

  As if strapping on armour he pulled himself together, hiding his grief beneath a pioneer’s tough pelt. ‘Now you know, immortals. Now you know why I wanted to come to Carniss. There was nothing but bad memories left in Rachiswater. Nightmares every night. Mistaking other women for her in the street. At least out on the frontier, with the fresh air and my hands full of work, a whole half-hour might pass without me seeing her.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Jant said quietly.

  ‘When I saw Dellin lying in the cage, she looked exactly as my wife did - so frail she couldn’t possibly live. The more fragile they seem, the mor
e precious. I don’t know why that should be, but it’s true. I couldn’t let it happen again. I couldn’t let her breathe her last. God knows I did all I could for Gerygone, but it was beyond my power. So I saved Dellin.’

  He looked at his cup of whisky. ‘I gave her her freedom and I didn’t expect her to thank me. She couldn’t understand … It’s like, if you let a caged bird free she doesn’t thank you, but it is good to see her fly away. Would that I could have saved Gerygone so easily.’

  ‘By mercy we show we are civilised,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. Dellin caused us terror, but we still shouldn’t lock her in a cage. She stood against Raven’s might. I kind of appreciated her pluck.’

  ‘Raven captured her,’ said Jant. ‘He stopped her running around, but he could never tame her. Nothing can change her. She’ll die defiant. She’ll die a creature of the mountains whether we trap her or no.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Snipe. ‘All I know is, when she hunted me in the forest she beat me fairly. I had no chance in her world. She could have eaten me, but she spared me and let me go. How low would I be if I didn’t return the favour?’

  I expected Jant to answer, but he was looking into the mid-distance and dreamily fingering his earlobe as if testing costly silk. So I prompted Snipe gently: ‘How did you open the cage when Raven held the key?’

  Snipe shrugged. ‘He left his coat on the hook while he cleared those burnt pelts off his chair. When his back was turned I picked his pocket. Simple. I took a bottle of liquor down to the kennels and got the guard drunk. He’d been on duty since the fire and he’s fond of a drop. I told him I’d relieve him if he wanted to sleep, and he went to bed with gratitude. For all I know, he’s sleeping still. As a steward, I find it helps to know people. Raven never did - he thought we were all one mass.’

 

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