Mnemo's Memory

by David Versace

  "I know all this." Vance willed his voice to annoyed indifference but even he could hear the fear at its core.

  "You know it. You don't understand it."

  "What are you saying, Strake?"

  His brother gave him a look a fond reproach, like a favourite pet caught doing something unspeakable to the furniture.

  "Oh you great fool. She still loves you. It's you who's tearing her apart."

  #

  Vance couldn't sleep. He stalked the rambling halls of the House of Saint Mitus' Eye, settling for a while in the dark kitchen to chew some sourroot. He poked through Bunstable's library but found only tedious works of military history and treatises on mercantile theory. Of those latter, Vance knew each volume by heart. He rested briefly before the common room fire before surrendering to the certainty that sleep would not come.

  He went outside. Dawn was an hour or two away. In the shadow of towering Luxichre, under snow-cloud skies, the dark was impenetrable. A single lantern hanging above the alpaca barn doors afforded dim respite from the ink of night.

  Snow drifted lazily down through the lantern's pale circle of light. Vance felt it settle on his face and neck. The tiny stings of cold transported his thoughts.

  Sila-of-old had spoken often about her home in the frozen wastes. Life was simple and hard. They hunted narwhals across the pack ice by day. By night they sealed their caves with blocks of ice and sang folk stories while they stripped carcasses, made clothes and repaired weapons. Word of Saint Mitus' feats was almost unknown there. When her visions began, seizing her with terrifying, mystifying images of strange landscapes and brutal wars, she might have gone mad. One night when they lay together, sweating and bright-eyed, Sila confessed to Vance that if it were not for a travelling mystic who recognised the signs of her possession by the spirit of the long-distant saint, she would have thrown herself into the freezing waters. Instead she had packed a few possessions and journeyed south to meet her destiny.

  Was what Strake said true? Was that brave girl, who left all she knew to seek communion with a holy figure she'd never heard of, still there in the stern taskmaster Saint Mitus left behind?

  His eyes adjusting to the dark, he circled the inn. Overhead Luxichre, broad and smooth, tapered to a thick pointed summit. It was atop its crest where Saint Mitus performed his second greatest miracle, after the first Resurrection. Facing the champion of King Scapra's army in single combat to decide the fate of the Dennel Tablelands, Mitus fought with such valour that king and champion both were persuaded to his cause. So legend went. Vance privately suspected that strong liquor and hasty land deals were a significant factor in the alliance.

  As he rounded the western side of the inn, Vance saw light spilling from an upper-storey window. He knew the room. Petitioner Kreiner was awake, it seemed.

  Seized by a sudden impulse, he re-entered the inn and climbed two flights to the western corridor. He knocked on her door before his resolve could fade.

  "Who is it?"

  "Vance. I saw the light, Petitioner. Is everything all right?"

  The door opened a crack. She was dressed in a thick cassock, a hood drawn over her bald head for warmth. If she had slept, it was only poorly. She regarded him with weary caution.

  "What do you want?"

  "I wanted to –." He couldn't finish. Her eyes held no fondness for him. They barely registered recognition. Strake was wrong. "I want to go through the treasury details with you."

  For a long moment she stared at him, blinking slowly. Then she said, "Are you hoping to cure my insomnia?"

  Her expression was unchanged. It took a while to sink in that she was joking. It finished the work of unnerving him.

  "I apologise for disturbing you, Petitioner. We can deal with this at a more appropriate hour."

  Her mouth tightened. Her curt gesture waved him into silence. "Get your books and meet me in the common room. We might as well make the most of the quiet."

  He caught a glimpse of her shucking off the cassock as her foot pushed the door closed.

  #

  It was the morning of the Feast of Horns.

  Sometime during their perusal of the Eight's accounts, Vance had succumbed to the warmth of the common room hearth and dozed off. His awakening had been less agreeable. Strake nudged him awake with a booted foot and a hearty morning's greeting.

  "Happy feast day, Eight-brother," he bellowed, shoving a steaming cup of vosot, the bitter tea flavoured with rancid alpaca butter favoured locally. Strake had taken to it with reckless abandon. Vance compared it unfavourably with spiced bile. "You didn't come back to our room last night. I hope you didn't do anything impious."

  "As if you spent any time in our room," Vance replied without rancour. Despite his gregarious bother's insinuations, there were no salacious details to share. True, the early hours he had spent with Sila Kreiner had been unexpectedly companionable, almost comfortable. She had attended closely to his review of pressures placed upon the Eight's dwindling finances by Goodhost Bunstable's fleecing rates. They discussed strategies for soliciting new benefactions, perhaps at the Feast of Horns or else in the spring. His final recollection before falling asleep was Sila's confidence that the inconvenience of lingering at the House of Saint Mitus' Eye might be turned to opportunity, if harmony prevailed through the winter.

  Vance did not ascribe her willingness to consult his expertise to well-hidden depths of rekindling passion.

  Strake just sipped his swamp-mud brew through a knowing smirk and said nothing.

  At morning venerations, Sila Kreiner's features were composed and relaxed, as though she'd woken fresh from a week's rest. At the end of her usual mechanical recitation of the liturgy, she had coughed and offered a few observations on the significance of the Feast of Horns to Saint Mitus. These amounted to little more than the observation that Mitus was a devotee of good food and copious liquor. Her suggestion that they take one last opportunity to enjoy themselves before a winter of meditative austerity and labour was delivered with her typical stolid pragmatism. Vance fancied he detected an amused note.

  The pilgrims threw themselves into the feast preparations with a will, completing the repairs to the inn's outbuildings, hanging decorations and erecting the great tent. They trudged down to the nearby town leading an alpaca-drawn dray, loaded it with chairs and tables and returned. They stacked platters with the meat of a dozen animals, chopped vegetables, stirred fruit and herbs through simmering cauldrons of wine. Goodhost Yousta oversaw their labours with judicious eyes, offering numerous suggestions for improvement. Her husband and his liquor cabinet entertained several local burghers of nominal piety and advanced appetites.

  At a mid-morning break, Vance observed the Goodhosts in a furious exchange of mutters. He couldn't make out the words, but the heat and the subject were unmistakable. He looked around, realising he hadn't seen Strake for some time. Nor was the Goodhosts' daughter Falaha present.

  Alarmed, he sneaked into the House of Saint Mitus' Eyes to look for his brother. His search ended at his first stop. When he reached their shared room, he heard the unmistakable exertions of lovemaking. The hoarse, urgent grunts suggested the participants were close to their climaxes.

  He didn't have time to wait for them to finish, nor was he inclined. Strake must know he was on the verge of exhausting both the Goodhosts' hospitality and his Petitioner's patience.

  Swallowing hard, Vance threw the door open. "Strake, for blood's sake, get dressed –"

  He stopped short, blood rushing to his head. Strake was there, naked skin flushed red with sweat and effort, his muscles rippling and hard. Falaha was beneath him, her fingers clawing into his shoulders, her chestnut curls spraying over the edge of the bunk like a spring waterfall. Beside them, Polma was perched astride Dessit, pinning him with her soldier's strength and a furious need. Her elder by nearly three decades, Dessit's face was purple with the effort to keep up with her.

  All four turned their heads toward Vance with expressions
ranging from horror to blank disinterest. Polma's hips did not slow their hungry rocking. Everyone else froze.

  Strake's guileless grin was unapologetic. "Welcome back, brother. The bunks aren't big but I'm sure we can squeeze you in somewhere. Of course if this puts you in mind of somewhere you'd prefer to be, we'll forgive you." Falaha giggled again, Dessit made a strangled noise and Polma chanted her battalion motto as she came, hoarse-breathed and small breasts heaving.

  "Saint's blood," said Vance. He didn't know where to look. Settling on the rough beams of the ceiling, he said, "Bunstable is on his way."

  "He's the least of our problems, I'd say," said Strake, looking past Vance and pointing a crooked finger.

  Vance whirled. Sila Kreiner stood behind him, her eyes simmering.

  "Get up." Her fury was like a blast of wind across the northlandic ice. "Get your clothes on."

  Falaha scurried from under Strake and scrabbled for her discarded clothes. Strake lazily untangled himself from the sheets and stood. Even Polma, whose eyes blazed with defiant satisfaction, climbed down from her summit. Dessit just lay there, his breath racing, his stiff cock flat against his stomach.

  Vance insinuated himself between the group and their leader. "Petitioner Kreiner," he began, "this is festive spirits, nothing more."

  She ignored him. She said, "You betray my oath of good conduct, to a Blessed Host, no less. Just to slake your cheap lusts."

  Vance tried again. "Sila, I –"

  "Say nothing." Struggle as she might to keep her face blank, Sila was grey with disappointment. It was not the face Vance knew better than any other. It was not the face he'd fallen in love with. Pilgrims made no vows of celibacy, not formal ones. But in the tight, tense communities of the Eight, discretion was essential.

  Worse, she committed the conduct of the Eight to the Goodhosts with her word as a Saint's Petitioner. Bunstable's House was Blessed by Mitus himself, in perpetuity. However willing was Falaha's participation, Strake's indulgence strained the limits of hospitality. The insult to their host was an insult to their patron.

  With sick horror Vance conceded the failure to prevent this moment was his. Sila had given him a responsibility she could not assume for herself. Her eyes were chips of frozen resolve. Vance could not meet her glare and looked at Strake instead. Strake was flushed, amused and unapologetic.

  Sila pushed the door wide open. Not an invitation but a command. She said, "Get dressed. Attend to the final preparations for the Feast of Horns. We will discharge our promise to the Blessed Hosts. As soon as the feast rituals are observed, you will all pack your belongings and leave the House of Saint Mitus' Eye."

  "Leave?" said Vance. "But the mountain road is closed, Petitioner. We cannot ascend in this weather."

  She replied in a cracking voice. "We are not climbing the sacred mountain. We will turn back down the valley. This Eight is broken. Our pilgrimage is done."

  Polma hissed in anger and slapped the timbers of the bunk. "The pilgrimage is not done," she growled. "I have not Resurrected. It is not done!"

  Falaha caught her breath. She threw her arms about Strake's shoulders as if she could protect him from the barbed decision. "Petitioner Kreiner, do not be rash. Please. If you break within these walls, my father's shame –"

  "Will be an ordeal of endurance I suspect he will survive, with enough coin," Sila said. "I am the Petitioner. The Eight is broken. It is done because I say it is done!"

  Dessit made a coughing noise that they mistook for assent. Then his jaw opened and he let out a howl of protest. His voice rose and became more shrill. The tight black hairs on his stomach and groin began to shrivel and wisp into smoke. Vance stared in horror at the dark tendrils coiling up from Dessit's belly.

  "Resurrection!" Vance gasped. "Get snow buckets! Quickly!"

  With a soldier's obedience and an innkeeper's duty, Polma and Falaha fled away to comply, their incomplete dress forgotten. Strake abandoned his clothes and watched, unconscious of his nakedness, his whole attention on Dessit's ordeal.

  Sila Kreiner pushed past Vance and hunched over Dessit, grasping his hand in support. Dessit rocked and curled his body, as if he could crawl away from the fire in his stomach. "Mitus' Blessings are on you, Erno Dessit, in this House of his Eyes, on this day of feasting," she recited, calm and sure, strong and soothing.

  Dessit howled again. Now flames guttered along his abdomen, spreading from one sizzling hair to the next like a racing forest fire. His skin was blistering and blackening.

  Vance grabbed a blanket from the top bunk and rolled it tight into an improvised beater. He smothered the flames before they could spread from the bunk. He could see it would be no use. In a moment Dessit's whole body would be engulfed in a miniature tornado of flame. When the final fireball came, it would consume the tiny bedchamber.

  "Get him out of here," he said, pulling at Sila Kreiner's shoulder.

  She was a rock, resolute and unmoving. "He stays," she replied with calm command.

  Strake said "Brother, see to the fire before it takes hold."

  He spared Sila a second of disbelief, and one for his brother. Then Vance ran to organise the fire fight.

  Organising was what he was good for.

  #

  The combination of a heavy snowfall and the intervention of guests arriving early for the feast brought the flames under control. From the outside, the House of Saint Mitus' Eyes was a sorry sight. The entire southern facing had charred and collapsed before the flames were finally snuffed out.

  Vance, shivering in damp and sooty clothing, dawdled at the rear of an exploratory troupe established to inspect the internal damage. Gerrolt the carpenter led, appraising the structure's soundness with each step. Sila Kreiner followed, placing herself between Goodhost Bunstable at the fore and his daughter Falaha. Perhaps she sought to forestall further recriminations between them. Vance suspected it was him she wanted to keep at a distance. He was grateful.

  The fire had spread quickly from the pilgrim's dormitory to the entrance hall, the library and several adjoining bedrooms. The investigators proceeded cautiously, one eye on the ceiling beams above. Before long it became apparent that while a staircase here and a dividing wall there were beyond repair, the bulk of the damage was superficial. The liberal application throughout of certain waxy varnishes had built a resistance to flame into the ancient timbers of the way-house.

  Gerrolt itemised a series of renovation projects. His manner was taciturn and assured. He struck Vance as completely at ease with the Eight's dissolution. When informed of Sila's decision, he had blinked just once, before turning to Bunstable. "With your permission, Goodhost, I would like to venerate Saint Mitus by restoring his House to order."

  The shocked Bunstable had naturally accepted the offer. His wits regathering, his mind had now turned to other matters. "Petitioner Kreiner, I wish to discuss appropriate restitutions. Until a full accounting can be made of damages, I suggest the ash-purse be doubled and-"

  Vance cut in. "Goodhost Bunstable, the Eight is disbanded. The customary obligations are no longer inapplicable. Tradition requires that I discharge contractual debts and divide the treasury's remaining funds equally to the pilgrims." After a moment's consideration he added, "For what it's worth, you may count on my share."

  In the dull lamplight, Bunstable's face fell into grey horror. Before he could muster a protest, Sila raised her voice. "Fear not, Goodhost. You are blessed by Saint Mitus."

  "Are you mad?" cried Bunstable. "My inn is in ruins. My lodgers have set it ablaze and now flee the bill of fare. What blessing is this?"

  Falaha placed her hand on her father's shoulder. He flinched and turned a furious eye upon her, but her thoughtful expression dissuaded further outburst. "Father, consider. No Eight of such high standing has broken in decades. Today's events border on the notorious, and Petitioner Kreiner's followers will carry word to the far corners of the land. Our House's fame will grow with a small taste of scandal."

  Bunsta
ble's frown contorted in grievance. She turned her beguiling smile on him, delivering the fatal blow to his objections. "Of course if you prefer no notoriety whatever to arise, a spring wedding on the birthday of the Saint would be as prestigious as it is auspicious."

  As the flustered Bunstable endured hearty congratulatory back slaps from Gerrolt, Vance slipped quietly away. He found his way to the threshold of his dormitory room. Fire resistant varnish had spared nothing from the fury of Dessit's conflagration. The furnishings, their possessions, his account books – all were muddy ash now.

  "You can account for every coin with or without your ledgers, Initiate." Sila had appeared at his side, her face a disdainful mask. The biting odour of steam and slag was almost unbearable.

  "Depend upon it, Petitioner."

  "I'm not the Petitioner anymore."

  "Nor do I follow." Having confirmed his destitution, Vance wanted nothing more than to leave. Under Sila's stern glare, he found himself rooted in place, framed by ruins.

  "You are freed of your obligations, Vance. I'm sorry they were such a burden."

  "Don't tell me you broke the Eight on my behalf," said Vance. "I couldn't bear that."

  The space between them was infinite. He felt too small beside her. Unresurrected. Unworthy. The Saint did not need him, nor did she.

  Sila sighed. The sound had a strangled quality. "Have I any hope of forgiveness?"

  Vance could not think of a response. He said nothing.

  Her voice barely a whisper, she said, "I Resurrected too soon."

  Vance said "Strake says Saint Mitus doesn't set the fire until the clay's become the cup." To his ears, it sounded hollow. He hoped she found some solace in it.