The Nearest Fire (V1.0), page 4
“You can count on it!” said Gwell Nu. “A worker from Tsagul like this Cub here is worth two of your Rintoul runaways!”
So I came to the cleanest work on Itsik through the privilege of Clan Dohtroy, and I put aside my principles to the point of wearing a brown hood, the Dohtroy color. In the crazy world of Itsik it helped to do such things. For Itsik was like a history of Old Torin acted out by a troupe of street players.
It was designed and run by clever builders and makers of engines, who were themselves often former vassals, some of the half-blood, children of a grandee male and a “common” female. The prisoners, who did the work of Itsik, were mainly vassals dismissed from service or sent for punishment. These benighted creatures, right from Boss Black, the Pentroy half-blood who ruled from the second compound, to the humblest runaway, still kept their allegiance to the clans that had cast them out and sent them to the place of dishonor. Even the common criminals, the scourings of the city of Rintoul, found it wise to choose a clan and wear its colors.
We worked hard on Itsik, by the light of the sun and of the Far Sun. We had our own strength foods: toben fish or tough salted meat from the old wool-deer killed for their hides. I did well on Itsik in spite of the petty clan battles and the endless gossip about noble families. I led my woodcutting team in five days and soon took control of our mess mat. My workmates were the younger prisoners, young vassals, misfits, dazed by the long hours, the bullying and the dishonor.
I did well on Itsik, and I hated the place more deeply and bitterly every day. Every blow I struck, every exercise of power, every shouted command, reminded me that I was Cub, the successful bully. I had been sentenced for wounding, and I was condemned to repeat my crime in some small way every hour that passed. The stink of Itsik, for me, had nothing to do with hides or tallow or toben blubber.
One morning in Esder light, before the Great Sun rose, there was a bad accident in the bara plantation. A heavily laden skip full of the glossy leaves and oily branches came off its wooden track and landed on a work party. I did what had to be done. Hauled the skip aside, gave the alarm, chivvied my poor shocked team into uncovering the victims. I did what I could for the injured; one omor was badly cut with her own axe—I staunched the flow of blood. I worked like a devil until Gwell Nu and her aides came to help, and I went on helping them all morning.
As I washed my hands from the gourd in the first sick-house, Gwell Nu snuffled beside me.
“You did well, Yolo Harn, my dear. You did almost too well!”
“Too well?”
“Perhaps you will be recommended for a guard, my dear; what do you think of that? A guard, a helper, who remains when it is out of time and works at Itsik for credits.”
My face must have betrayed my horror at this idea; Gwell Nu laughed sadly.
“It is not a bad life,” she said.
She filled two beakers with water, added a pinch of herbs and handed one to me. We sat on a high sleeping platform—this first sickhouse was half empty.
“A guard may live in the second or even the third compound. Many of them found or join Fives. They love to follow the old threads.”
“I’ll bet they do,” I said grimly.
“It is an honor difficult to refuse,” she said. “I have known a sentence to lengthen, a day here, ten days there, until the half year became a year—and the offers were repeated until the prisoner accepted.*’
“That is vile injustice.”
“Most things are,” said Gwell Nu.
I knew how she had come to Itsik. Years ago she had run off up the Datse and left the house service of old Ton Dohtroy. This grandee was well known in Tsagul for his kind patronage, yet he had cast aside and wasted this wise servant.
We drank the water, and it was sweet and delicious with the herb she had added.
“Cheer up!” she said. “I will order you to be my Night Watch. I need one with a strong back and good nerves.”
I went out and broke four rules immediately so that I earned five lashes. I hoped that I would receive no rewards for good behavior in this place. I spent a few more shifts woodcutting, then I became Gwell Nu’s Night Watch. She usually employed a “Dohtroy” omor for this task, and indeed all her helpers tended to wear brown. The sickhouse work was interesting and it did not make me queasy: Itsik is not an unhealthy place and most of the cases were work accidents. I relished the talks with Gwell Nu in the long, silver-lit night hours.
“What are the Specials?” I asked, one night. “I have asked, but I get no straight answer.”
“Truly, my dear, your old devil of a foster father, Ham, would call diem political prisoners,” said Gwell Nu. “There are never very many. One or two come in under Secret Hand … a clan method for shutting a person up secretly, no questions asked.”
“Gwell Nu, when the clans do so much wrong, how can you cleave to a clan?”
“Dohtroy is not a bad clan,” she said.
We had no secrets.
“Escape on a muck raft, my dear? Well, it might be possible if you have something to bribe the guard on cargo duty.”
“I would not be stealing from the cargo shed.”
“It would be a cover … a round of food pinching on the dock.”
“Gwell Forgan, do you know anything of the islands?” “Not much. They are hot and green and a few primitive Moruia live there. On the island of Tsabeggan, the Nearest Fire, there is a stone villa, raised in old time by the distant mothers of the Tsatroy clan.”
‘Tsatroy was once a great clan, so Harn told me, and now there are only small pockets of their land remaining: the old Palace in Tsagul, this villa, which I had not heard of … and Sarunin, the place of ashes…
“Every fire is put out,” said Gwell Nu. “I heard of the Last Battle at Sarunin from an old Tsatroy vassal serving out its time when I first came here.”
It was a cold, sad tale, one that I thought I knew well: long after the clan wars, in fact only ten or eleven fives of years ago, the clans Tsatroy and Pentroy fought over a land dispute. The Tsatroy host were encamped in a valley between Itsik and Tsagul, not far from the present course of the red road. In a day and a night the whole army died in its camp, accursed, some said, or poisoned; the Tsatroy leaders burned and buried their dead, then went into the fire themselves, died burning in their silken tents. The place was deeply defiled, and the curse had never been lifted.
“Gwell Nu,” I asked now, “what killed those poor warriors?”
“Red-wither,” she said promptly. “Summer Plague. I am sure it was that. The Tsatroy lieges did right to burn out the camp as a purification.”
“I wonder if it was this thing that turned the wits of Crazy Elbin,” I said. “What became of her? Perhaps she did run off to the islands as the singing game tells us… Gwell Nu gave me a sad, sly look.
“No, my dear, not so far. Elbin Elbinroyan Tsatroy lies in a firestone grave behind the Special Compound. She spent her last days there, the poor old Highness, courtesy of the Pentroy.”
“Gwell Forgan,” I said shuddering, “come with me. Come away from this terrible place.. ..”
“Child, I am too old, and I am needed here. Where would the poor dears get another Forgan, even a mad one?” “You are not mad!”
“If I stay on Itsik, who knows?”
It was a day at the end of spring, a day of light rains. I came on duty as Night Watch and found Coth, a male sick aide, cleaning up after an operation. I knew it must have been a serious one because Gwell Nu sat on a sleeping platform tired out, flexing her thin hands.
“Keep watch on it,” said Coth. “She wants it to pull through, but for all her skill I think the poor devil is done for.”
“Where was it cut?”
“Left leg amputated below the joint. An old chain wound that had turned ravenous.”
We were in the cutting tent: not really a tent but a wicker-roofed oval house, like all the such houses. I went and laid cooling chest cloths wrung out in herb water on the patient. An old male with no clan markings. A cloth full of sleeping medicine still covered the face. I wondered vaguely if this were some new arrival, then went about my watch. I went up and down the sickhouses and gave out cool drinks or settled some patient more comfortably. I came back to the amputee and worked on him again. He lay like the dead, but his skin was cool, dry and healthy.
In the loneliest hour of the night, with clouds hiding the Far Sun, I came back to the cutting tent again and found Gwell Nu rested. She had made a sweet drink.
“It will live, I think,” she said. “It is strong as Telve the spirit warrior.”
“New prisoner?”
“No, my dear.” She grinned. “Not very new. It is one of your Specials.”
I was more interested. We stood beside the sleeping platform, and Gwell Nu lifted the covers and stared at the stump of the left leg, bound and daubed with healing plaster. I stared at the strong arms, with metal bracelets, the leather vest; something began to sing in my head. Gwell Nu saw me staring, and she reached out and lifted the cloth from the face. I felt breath hiss into my mouth. It was impossible, but it had happened. All the links were forged in the chain, and I saw my destiny clear and inescapable in that moment. The special prisoner had a strong, handsome face wisped with gray hair on the cheeks. I had heard him speak more than once. It was Tsorl-U-Tsorl, the former Deputy of Tsagul.
3
The Way to Freedom
Gwell Nu listened with hooded eyes when I told her the identity of the patient. I was full of plans, but I did not tell them all, there was no need: she guessed what I wanted to do. We spent another night and another going about the normal work of the sickhouse. Tsorl-U-Tsorl was not permitted to wake fully.
“What kills after a cutting,” explained Gwell Nu, “is a kind of bodily fear. He must have sleep.”
I sat by the Deputy’s sleeping platform, and once or twice his eyes rested on me. He spoke in a deep, rumbling voice, broken words and phrases from his dreams. He cried out, “Gargan, you devil!” and sketched a blow with his open hand. Gwell Nu was watching.
“You see … he is in the secret hand of Tiath Gargan, the Strangler!” she whispered.
The name of the Pentroy Great Elder filled me with fear.
“Gwell Forgan, the rafts sail in three days… .”
“I don’t hear you, my dear, I don’t hear you,” she chirruped.
She went flouncing off through the sickhouses, the instruments bouncing about on her shabby finery. Mad or not, Gwell Nu could be maddening. I sat beside the Deputy and he murmured softly: “Tsabeggan … the Nearest Fire …” as if he had heard my thoughts.
The following night when I came on watch, I thought there had been another operation for Gwell Nu was curled on a sleeping platform as if exhausted. Presently she called me.
“I reported to Boss Black on the condition of the Special patient.”
“He is very strong. It is the best cutting you have done; he will live.”
“I am not quite so hopeful.” She grinned.
Suddenly a fit of anger seemed to shake her.
“He is condemned,” she said. “My work was for nothing. He is marked down to die … the term is ‘to wither away.’ He will not be sentenced, he will simply die… .
“In fact,” she announced, “although I shall miss my good Night Watch, I think this Tsorl is scheduled to die this very night.”
“Oh Gwell Nu!” I understood her plan, and it filled me with excitement and gratitude.
We were alone in the sickhouses all through the night hours, and we managed it easily. Tsorl-U-Tsorl was surprisingly light for us to carry; we put him in a little room where Gwell Nu slept sometimes and stored her medicines. In the first light of the Great Sun, I wheeled the death cart to the Special compound, and a sleepy guard led me to the burying ground at the back. There was no sound or movement from the other huts in the block, and I guessed that Tsorl had had the place to himself.
The burying ground was beyond the stockade on a strip of land reclaimed from the sea. The ground was sandy and soft, only a few gray creeping plants grew there; a wind from the sea was always blowing, and a few seabirds drifted overhead.
Tile graves of the Specials were scarcely marked, but on one grave, not the oldest, some person had laid a skein of mixed red and orange. A single character was woven into the skein … the fire symbol. I knew who lay in this place and I called to her proud mad spirit. “Crazy Elbin .. . Nahoo, Enu Elbine … Give us your blessing, old Fire Mother, for we are coming to the Islands!”
The guard helped me prepare the grave: I dug a deep pit, and we wheeled out charily a metal container in a waterbath. We emptied the steaming firestone and clay mixture into the pit. Then I heaved in the long hide bundle that Gwell Nu had stitched so well “against infection.“ The guard went away, complaining that the whole business had spoiled her breakfast. I buried the hide bundle, which contained nothing but bara branches, as quickly as possible. Gwell Nu had prepared a skein, and I laid it on the grave. The skein read simply “Release for the prisoner,” a common grave thread on Itsik, and one symbol of Tsorl’s name … the fire symbol again, so there were two of these glyphs lying side by side. I read this for a good omen.
There was much to be done. I waited until the day shifts were at breakfast, then went to the kitchens and boldly loaded up with food. If any questions were asked, I was to say that Gwell Nu was ordering a special strength meal for all the sickhouse patients, as she was sometimes allowed to do. As it was, no one asked; I could have walked away with two carts full. I took my laden cart and wheeled it toward the sickhouse then turned aside and hid it in a stand of bushes by the stockade.
Then at last I went to my own sleeping place and slept with the other shift workers. I always worked a double shift so I was allowed to sleep a double shift, all the day in fact. For a long time I tossed and turned, eager for the night to come, and I was up again about the time the Great Sun set. I went down to the docks at their busiest time.
I had checked out the muck rafts many times since I came to Itsik, but now as I stared at them I felt a thump of fear. There were two rafts, sturdy and long, about ten body-lengths one way and twenty the other. Both were already fully laden with a mountain of food waste in the center in a rough enclosure of branches. Vats of stinking waste from the tanneries stood near this midden; on the sides, piled up high, were great clumps of bara straw, the coarse fiber that is left after the rendering of the bara trees for tallow.
There were three ships at the dock, and they suited my purpose well. One was a fruit ship from the Rintoul delta, and this gave me an excuse for bribing a guard to leave the dock—fruit ships were worth robbing. The other two ships, called Tabel and Ullo, were of the fleet of the merchant Mattroyan, a town grandee and great trader out of Rintoul. They were loading with hides and would sail at first Esto light, towing the muck rafts to the Round Current before continuing on their journey east to Rintoul or west to the Fire-Town.
I hung about and passed the time of day with Red, who was a leading stevedore. I took a chance and asked which guard might be on middle watch. She nodded at a Wentroy vassal and thought she guessed my purpose.
“Bribes like a charm,” she said hoarsely, “and so do I, come to that. Come on, Cub. …” I gave her a credit’s weight of smack from Len’s package. I had not used a crumb of the stuff since I came to Itsik.
A crowd had gathered at the bow of the Tab el, where the cargo doors opened onto the dock. A mat had gone down, and there was a gambling ring in progress. Vassals love to gamble—perhaps they believe that only chance can help them—and the Itsik prisoners would gamble away the very food they ate. It looked as though the Mattroyan sailors were willing to take their credits if they could. I joined the crowd and saw that there was a game going on, but the main interest was a tall omor paying out bets and telling a strange tale.
“Mumo Pentroy, Blacklock, everyone’s favorite—second place!” she cried. “I have it on my skein here. Match this token or I cannot pay!”
A Luntroy vassal, a prisoner, matched the skein and received credits, asking plaintively: “But the winds took the good Jebbal? I made sure she would outfly flaming Black-lock this spring.”
I knew then they were talking about the Bird Clan, a great air race held up country every spring for young clansfolk and others with more wealth than sense. We had already heard more than one garbled report of this contest, and the Great Air Race, as far as I was concerned, was a great bore. I was looking through the crowd for the Wentroy guard when the tale became more interesting.
“Tell us about the devil who won!” begged the crowd.
“I saw it,” said the omor proudly. “I stood in the escort of our good Ullo Mattroyan, the Merchant’s child, when she flew her fine machine Tildee into third spot.”
“But the winner! The winner!”
“It was tall and strong, of a size with Blacklock. It had curly hair, dyed red-brown, but the natural color was said to be black.”
“Pah, it wore a wig!”
“By the fire it did not. Persons close to it said it was a male, and it had the look of one. Strangest thing was the eyes…
“Where did it fly from?”
“From the black heart of the void!” cried the omor. “I heard the spirit warriors, the twirlers, give out its history in their dance. ‘A hero flew in a silver ship from beyond Derin, the Far World.’ ”
This was exciting stuff but it made me uncomfortable. I seemed to hear Old Ham’s voice whispering, “Slag and ashes! Superstitious nonsense! Nothing can fly from the void. The twirlers so-called are religious tricksters, no better than beggars.”
“It wore goggles to hide its eyes,” the omor was saying, “and one time I saw it bare-faced. You could have tripped me with a thread. The eyes were small and round and bright blue.”
The crowd gasped with awe and disbelief; I shuddered at such an unnatural thought. It seemed too fantastic for the omor to have invented. Then as I spotted the guard I wanted and moved to his side, the omor said something even more frightening.
