Kitabı oku: «Imajica», sayfa 18

3

Efreet had said the climb would be easy, and measuring it in terms of incline, so it was. But the darkness made an easy route difficult, even for one as light-footed as Pie’oh’pah. Efreet was an accommodating guide, however, slowing his pace when he realized Pie was lagging behind, and warning him of places where the ground was uncertain. After a time they were high above the village, with the snow-clad peaks of the Jokalaylau visible above the backs of the hills in which Beatrix slept. High and majestic as those mountains were, the lower slopes of peaks yet more monumental were visible beyond them, their heads lost in cumulus. Not far now, the boy said, and this time his promises were good. Within a few yards Pie spotted a building silhouetted against the sky, with a light burning on its porch.

‘Hey, Wretched!’ Efreet started to call. ‘Someone to see you! Someone to see you!’

There was no reply forthcoming, however, and when they reached the house itself the only living occupant was the flame in the lamp. The door stood open; there was food on the table. But of Wretched Tasko there was no sign. Efreet went out to search around, leaving Pie on the porch. Animals corralled behind the house stamped and muttered in the darkness; there was a palpable unease. Efreet came back moments later, and said:

‘I see him up the hill! He’s almost at the top.’

‘What’s he doing there?’ Pie asked.

‘Watching the sky maybe. We’ll go up. He won’t mind.’

They continued to climb, their presence now noticed by the figure standing on the hill’s higher reaches. ‘Who is this?’ he called down.

‘It’s only Efreet, Mr Tasko. I’m with a friend.’

‘Your voice is too loud, boy,’ the man returned. ‘Keep it low, will you?’

‘He wants us to keep quiet,’ Efreet whispered.

‘I understand.’

There was a wind blowing on these heights, and its chill put Pie in mind of the fact that neither Gentle or itself had clothes appropriate to the journey that lay ahead of them. Coaxial clearly climbed here regularly; he was wearing a shaggy coat, and a hat with fur ear-warmers. He was very clearly not a local man. It would have taken three of the villagers to equal his mass or strength, and his skin was almost as dark as Pie’s.

‘This is my friend Pie’oh’pah,’ Efreet whispered to him when they were at his side.

‘Mystif,’ Tasko said instantly.

‘Yes.’

‘Ah. So, you’re a stranger?’

‘Yes.’

‘From Yzordderrex?’

‘No.’

That’s to the good, at least. But so many strangers, and all on the same night. What are we to make of it?’

‘Are there others?’ said Efreet.

‘Listen …’ Tasko said, casting his gaze over the valley to the darkened slopes beyond. ‘Don’t you hear the machines?’

‘No. Just the wind.’

Tasko’s response was to pick the boy up and physically point him in the direction of the sound.

‘Now listen!’ he said fiercely.

The wind carried a low rumble that might have been distant thunder, but that it was unbroken. Its source was certainly not the village below, nor did it seem likely there were earthworks in the hills. This was the sound of engines, moving through the night.

They’re coming towards the valley.’

Efreet made a whoop of pleasure, which was cut short by Tasko slapping his hand over the boy’s mouth.

‘Why so happy, child?’ he said. ‘Have you never learned fear? No, I don’t suppose you have. Well, learn it now.’ He held Efreet so tightly the boy struggled to be free. Those machines are from Yzordderrex. From the Autarch. Do you understand?’

Growling his displeasure he let go, and Efreet backed away from him, at least as nervous of Tasko now as of the distant machines. The man hawked up a wad of phlegm, and spat it in the direction of the sound.

‘Maybe they’ll pass us by,’ he said. There are other valleys they could choose. They may not come through ours.’ He spat again. ‘Ach, well, there’s no purpose in staying up here. If they come, they come.’ He turned to Efreet. ‘I’m sorry if I was rough, boy,’ he said. ‘But I’ve heard these machines before. They’re the same that killed my people. Take it from me, they’re nothing to whoop about. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ Efreet said, though Pie doubted he did. The pros-pea of a visitation from these thundering things held no horror for him, only exhilaration.

‘So tell me what you want, mystif,’ Tasko said as he started back down the hill. ‘You didn’t climb all the way up here to watch the stars. Or maybe you did. Are you in love?’

Efreet tittered in the darkness behind them. ‘If I were I wouldn’t talk about it,’ Pie replied.

‘So what, then?’

‘I came here with a friend, from … some considerable distance, and our vehicle’s nearly defunct. We need to trade it in for animals.’

‘Where are you heading?’

‘Up into the mountains.’

‘Are you prepared for that journey?’

‘No. But it has to be taken.’

‘The faster you’re out of the valley the safer we’ll be, I think. Strangers attract strangers.’

‘Will you help us?’

‘Here’s my offer,’ Tasko said. ‘If you leave Beatrix now, I’ll see they give you supplies and two doeki. But you must be quick, mystif.’

‘I understand.’

‘If you go now, maybe the machines will pass us by.’

4

Without anyone to lead him, Gentle had soon lost his way on the dark hill. But rather than turning round and heading back to await Pie in Beatrix, he continued to climb, drawn by the promise of a view from the heights, and a wind to clear his head. Both took his breath away. The wind with its chill, the panorama with its sweep. Ahead, range upon range receded into mist and distance, the furthest heights so vast he doubted the Fifth Dominion could boast their equal. Behind him, just visible between the softer silhouettes of the foothills, the forests which they’d driven through.

Once again, he wished he had a map of the territory, so that he could begin to grasp the scale of the journey they were undertaking. He tried to lay the landscape out on a page in his mind, like a sketch for a painting with this vista of mountains, hills and plain as the subject. But the fact of the scene before him overwhelmed his attempt to make symbols of it; to reduce it, and set it down. He let the problem go, and turned his eyes back towards the Jokalaylau. Before his gaze reached its destination, it came to rest on the hill slopes directly across from him. He was suddenly aware of the valley’s symmetry, hills rising to the same height, left and right. He studied the slopes opposite. It was a nonsensical quest, seeking a sign of life at such a distance, but the more he squinted at the hill’s face the more certain he became that it was a dark mirror, and that somebody as yet unseen was studying the shadows in which he stood, looking for some sign of him as he in his turn searched for them. The notion intrigued him at first, but then it began to make him afraid. The chill in his skin worked its way into his innards. He began to shiver inside, afraid to move for fear that this other, whoever or whatever it was, would see him, and in the seeing, bring calamity. He remained motionless for a long time, the wind coming in frigid gusts, and bringing with it sounds he hadn’t heard until now. The rumble of machinery; the complaint of unfed animals; sobbing. The sounds and the seeker on the mirror hill belonged together, he knew. This other had not come alone. It had engines, and beasts. It brought tears.

As the cold reached his marrow, he heard Pie’oh’pah calling his name, way down the hill. He prayed the wind wouldn’t veer, and carry the call, and thus his whereabouts, in the direction of the watcher. Pie continued to call for him, the voice getting nearer as the mystif climbed through the darkness. He endured five terrible minutes of this, his system racked by contrary desires: part of him desperately wanting Pie here with him, embracing him, telling him that the fear upon him was ridiculous; the other part in terror that Pie would find him and thus reveal his whereabouts to the creature on the other hill. At last, the mystif gave up on its search, and retraced its steps down into the secure streets of Beatrix.

Gentle didn’t break cover, however. He waited another quarter of an hour until his aching eyes discovered a motion on the opposite slope. The watcher was giving up his post, it seemed, moving around the back of the hill. Gentle caught a glimpse of his silhouette as he disappeared over the brow, just enough to confirm that the other had indeed been human, at least in shape if not in spirit. He waited another minute, then started down the slope. His extremities were numb, his teeth chattering, his torso rigid with cold, but he went quickly, falling and descending several yards on his buttocks, much to the startlement of dozing doeki. Pie was below, waiting at the door of Mother Splendid’s house. Two saddled and bridled beasts stood in the street, one being fed a palmful of fodder by Efreet.

‘Where did you go?’ Pie wanted to know. ‘I came looking for you.’

‘Later,’ Gentle said. ‘I have to get warm.’

‘No time,’ Pie replied. The deal is we get the doeki, food and coats if we go immediately.’

They’re very eager to get rid of us suddenly.’

‘Yes we are,’ said a voice from beneath the trees opposite the house. A black man with pale, mesmeric eyes stepped into view.

‘You’re Zacharias?’

‘I am.’

‘I’m Coaxial Tasko, called the Wretched. The doeki are yours. I’ve given the mystif some supplies to set you on your way, but please … tell nobody you’ve been here.’

‘He thinks we’re bad luck,’ Pie said.

‘He could be right,’ said Gentle. ‘Am I allowed to shake your hand, Mr Tasko, or is that bad luck too?’

‘You may shake my hand,’ the man said.

Thank you for the transport. I swear we’ll tell nobody we were here. But I may want to mention you in my memoirs.’

A smile broke over Tasko’s stern features.

‘You may do that too,’ he said, shaking Gentle’s hand. ‘But not till I’m dead, huh? I don’t like scrutiny.’

That’s fair.’

‘Now, please … the sooner you’re gone the sooner we can pretend we never saw you.’

Efreet came forward, bearing a coat, which Gentle put on. It reached to his shins, and smelt strongly of the animal who’d been born in it, but it was welcome.

‘Mother says goodbye,’ the boy told Gentle. ‘She won’t come out and see you.’ He lowered his voice to an embarrassed whisper. ‘She’s crying a lot.’

Gentle made a move towards the door, but Tasko checked him. ‘Please, Mr Zacharias, no delays,’ he said. ‘Go now, with our blessing, or not at all.’

‘He means it,’ Pie said, climbing up on to his doeki, the animal casting a backward glance at its rider as it was mounted. ‘We have to go.’

‘Don’t we even discuss the route?’

‘Tasko has given me a compass and directions,’ the mystif said. ‘That’s the way we take,’ it said, pointing to a narrow trail that led up out of the village.

Reluctantly, Gentle put his foot in the doeki’s leather stirrup and hoisted himself into the saddle. Only Efreet managed a goodbye, daring Tasko’s wrath to press his hand into Gentle’s.

‘I’ll see you in Patashoqua one day,’ he said.

‘I hope so,’ Gentle replied.

That being the full sum of their farewells, Gentle was left with the sense of an exchange broken in mid-sentence, and now permanently unfinished. But they were at least going on from the village better equipped for the terrain ahead than they’d been when they’d entered.

‘What was all that about?’ Gentle asked Pie, when they were on the ridge above Beatrix, and the trail was about to turn and take its tranquil, lamplit streets from sight.

‘A battalion of the Autarch’s army is passing through the hills, on its way to Patashoqua. Tasko was afraid the presence of strangers in the village would give the soldiers an excuse for marauding.’

‘So that’s what I heard on the hill.’

‘That’s what you heard.’

‘And I saw somebody on the other hill. I swear he was looking for me. No, that’s not right. Not me, but somebody. That’s why I didn’t answer you when you came looking for me.’

‘Any idea who it was?’

Gentle shook his head. ‘I just felt his stare. Then I got a glimpse of somebody, on the ridge. Who knows? It sounds absurd now I say it.’

‘There was nothing absurd about the noises I heard. The best thing we can do is get out of this region as fast as possible.’

‘Agreed.’

Tasko said there was a place to the north-east of here, where the border of the Third reaches into this Dominion a good distance - maybe a thousand miles. We could shorten our journey if we made for it.’

That sounds good.’

‘But it means taking the High Pass.’

‘That sounds bad.’

‘It’ll be faster.’

‘It’ll be fatal,’ Gentle said. ‘I want to see Yzordderrex, I don’t want to die frozen stiff in the Jokalaylau.’

‘Then we go the long way?’

‘That’s my vote.’

‘It’ll add two or three weeks to the journey.’

‘And years to our lives,’ Gentle replied. ‘As if we haven’t lived long enough,’ Pie remarked.

‘I’ve always held to the belief,’ Gentle said, ‘that you can never live too long, or love too many women.’

5

The doeki were obedient and surefooted mounts, negotiating the track whether it was churned mud or dust and pebbles, seemingly indifferent to the ravines that gaped inches from their hooves at one moment, and the white waters that wound beside them the next. All this in the dark, for although the hours passed, and it seemed dawn should have crept up over the hills, the peacock sky hid its glory in a starless gloom.

‘Is it possible the nights are longer up here than they were down on the Highway?’ Gentle wondered.

‘It seems so,’ Pie said. ‘My bowels tell me the sun should have been up hours ago.’

‘Do you always calculate the passage of time by your bowels?’

They’re more reliable than your beard,’ Pie replied.

‘Which direction is the light going to come from when it comes?’ Gentle asked, turning in his saddle to scan the horizon. As he craned round to look back the way they’d come a murmur of distress escaped his lips.

‘What is it?’ the mystif said, bringing its beast to a halt, and following Gentle’s gaze.

It didn’t need telling. A column of black smoke was rising from the cradle of the hills, its lower plumes tinged with fire. Gentle was already slipping from his saddle, and now scrambled up the rock face at their side to get a better sense of the fire’s location. He lingered only seconds at the top before scrambling down, sweating and panting.

‘We have to turn back,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘Beatrix is burning.’

‘How can you tell from this distance?’ Pie said.

‘I know, damn it! Beatrix is burning! We have to go back.’ He climbed on to his doeki, and started to haul it round on the narrow path.

‘Wait,’ said Pie. ‘Wait, for God’s sake!’

‘We have to help them,’ Gentle said, against the rock face. ‘They were good to us.’

‘Only because they wanted us out!’ Pie replied.

‘Well, now the worst’s happened, and we have to do what we can.’

‘You used to be more rational than this.’

‘What do you mean: used to be? You don’t know anything about me, so don’t start making judgements. If you won’t come with me, fuck you!’

The doeki was fully turned now, and Gentle dug his heels into its flanks to make it pick up speed. There had only been three or four places along the route where the road had divided. He was certain he could retrace their steps back to Beatrix without much problem. And if he was right, and it was the town that was burning up ahead, he would have the column of smoke as a grim marker. Pie followed, after a time, as Gentle knew it must. The mystif was happy to be called a friend, but somewhere in its soul it was a slave.

They didn’t speak as they travelled, which was not surprising given their last exchange. Only once, as they mounted a ridge that laid the vista of foothills before them, with the valley in which Beatrix nestled still out of sight but unequivocally the source of the smoke, did Pie’oh’pah murmur:

‘Why is it always fire?’ and Gentle realized how insensitive he’d been to Pie’s reluctance to return.

The devastation that undoubtedly lay before them was an echo of the fire in which its adopted family had perished - a matter that had gone undiscussed between them since.

‘Shall I go from here without you?’ he asked.

Pie shook its head. Together, or not at all,’ it said.

The route became easier to negotiate from there on. The inclines were mellower and the track itself better kept, but there was also light in the sky, as the long-delayed dawn finally came. By the time they finally laid their eyes on the remains of Beatrix the peacock-tail glory Gentle had first admired in the heavens over Patashoqua was overhead, its glamour making grimmer still the scene laid below. Beatrix was still burning fitfully, but the fire had consumed most of the houses and their birch-bamboo arbours. He brought his doeki to a halt and scoured the place from this vantage-point. There was no sign of Beatrix’s destroyers.

‘On foot from here?’ Gentle said.

‘I think so.’

They tethered the beasts, and descended into the village. The sound of lamentation reached them before they were within its perimeters, the sobbing, emerging as it did from the murk of the smoke, reminding Gentle of the sounds he’d heard while keeping his vigil on the hill. The destruction around them now was somehow a consequence of that sightless encounter, he knew. Though he’d avoided the eye of the watcher in the darkness, his presence had been suspected, and that had been enough to bring this calamity upon Beatrix.

‘I’m responsible …’ he said. ‘God help me … I’m responsible.’

He turned to the mystif, who was standing in the middle of the street, its features drained of blood and expression.

‘Stay here,’ Gentle said. ‘I’m going to find the family.’

Pie didn’t register any response, but Gentle assumed what he’d said had been understood, and headed off in the direction of the Splendids’ house. It wasn’t simply fire that had undone Beatrix. Some of the houses had been toppled unburned, the copses around them uprooted. There was no sign of fatalities, however, and Gentle began to hope that Coaxial Tasko had persuaded the villagers to take to the hills before Beatrix’s violators had appeared out of the night. That hope was dashed when he came to the place where the Splendids’ home had stood. It was rubble, like the others, and the smoke from its burning timbers had concealed from him until now the horror heaped in front of it. Here were the good people of Beatrix, shovelled together in a bleeding pile higher than his head. There were a few sobbing survivors at the heap, looking for their loved ones in the confusion of broken bodies, some clutching at limbs they thought they recognized, others simply kneeling in the bloody dirt, keening.

Gentle walked around the pile, searching amongst the mourners for a face he knew. One fellow he’d seen laughing at the show was cradling in his arms a wife or sister whose body was as lifeless as the puppets he’d taken such pleasure in. Another, a woman, was burrowing in amongst the bodies, yelling somebody’s name. He went to help her, but she screamed at him to stay away. As he retreated he caught sight of Efreet. The boy was in the heap, his eyes open, his mouth - which had been the vehicle for such unalloyed enthusiasms - beaten in by a rifle butt or a boot. At that moment Gentle wanted nothing - not life itself - as much as he wanted the bastard who’d done this, standing in his sights. He felt the killing breath hot in his throat, itching to be merciless.

He turned from the heap, looking for some target, even if it wasn’t the murderer himself. Someone with a gun, or a uniform; a man he could call the enemy. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this way before, but then he’d never possessed the power he had now - or rather, if Pie was to be believed, he’d had it without recognizing the fact - and agonizing as these horrors were, it was salve to his distress, knowing there was such a capacity for cleansing in him; that his lungs, throat and palm could take the guilty out of life with such ease. He headed away from the cairn of flesh, ready to be an executioner at the first invitation.

The street twisted, and he followed its convolutions, turning a corner to find the way ahead blocked by one of the invaders’ war machines. He stopped in his tracks, expecting it to turn its steel eyes upon him. It was a perfect death-bringer, armoured as a crab, its wheels bristling with bloodied scythes, its turret with armaments. But death had found the bringer. Smoke rose from the turret, and the driver lay where the fire had found him, in the act of scrabbling from the machine’s stomach. A small victory, but one that at least proved the machines had frailties. Come another day, that knowledge might be the difference between hope and despair. He was turning his back on the machine when he heard his name called, and Tasko appeared from behind the smoking carcass. Wretched he was, his face bloodied, his clothes filthy with dust.

‘Bad timing, Zacharias,’ he said. ‘You left too late and now you come back, too late again.’

‘Why did they do this?’

‘The Autarch doesn’t need reasons.’

‘He was here?’ Gentle said. The thought that the Butcher of Yzordderrex had stood in Beatrix made his heart beat faster. But Tasko said:

‘Who knows? Nobody’s ever seen his face. Maybe he was here yesterday, counting the children, and nobody even noticed him.’

‘Do you know where Mother Splendid is?’

‘In the heap somewhere.’

‘Jesus

‘She wouldn’t have made a very good witness. She was too crazy with grief. They left alive the ones who’d tell the story best. Atrocities need witnesses, Zacharias. People to spread the word.’

‘They did this as a warning?’ Gentle said.

Tasko shook his huge head. ‘I don’t know how their minds work,’ he said.

‘Maybe we have to learn, so that we can stop them.’

‘I’d prefer to die,’ the man replied, ‘than understand filth like that. If you’ve got the appetite, then go to Yzordderrex. You’ll get your education there.’

‘I want to help here,’ Gentle said. ‘There must be something I can do.’

‘You can leave us to mourn.’

If there was any profounder dismissal, Gentle didn’t know it. He searched for some word of comfort or apology, but in the face of such devastation only silence seemed appropriate. He bowed his head, and left Tasko to the burden of being a witness, returning up the street past the heap of corpses to where Pie’oh’pah was standing. The mystif hadn’t moved an inch, and even when Gentle came abreast of it, and quietly told it they should go, it was a long time before it looked round at him.

‘We shouldn’t have come back,’ it said.

‘Every day we waste, this is going to happen again …

‘You think you can stop it?’ Pie said, with a trace of sarcasm.

‘We won’t go the long way round, we’ll go through the mountains. Save ourselves three weeks.’

‘You do, don’t you?’ Pie said. ‘You think you can stop this.’

‘We won’t die,’ Gentle said, putting his arms around Pie’oh’pah. ‘I won’t let us. I came here to understand and I will.’

‘How much more of this can you take?’

‘As much as I have to.’

‘I may remind you of that.’

‘I’ll remember,’ Gentle said. ‘After this, I’ll remember everything.’