The two of them jerked forward, the flatrunner caught in the braking straps of the government house’s dock. In only a moment, people from the government house would rush Cassian into hiding places and shrug him like a puppet for the rest of the evening, perhaps for days. He would be instructed on what to say and how best to show grieving and reluctant facial expressions, what his body language should convey, and in what time intervals he should eat or take rest to avoid perceptions of being callous to suffering. For now, in his final moment of peace in advance of those things, he locked eyes with the Red Witch man before him.
“I’ve tried to see it the way history will. I’ve tried to stay above it. You should know…” Cassian leaned in as he would at a campfire whispering of ghosts.
“It doesn’t matter how good you try to be, you always wind up doing what the Old Man wanted anyway.”
9 TO QUESTION IS A FEARFUL THING
Ring and Misling were sitting side by side, their hands locked around their knees, and watching Sylhauna on a grassy hill some distance off. In several directions beyond the lake, the foothills were green and beige ripples rolling to tall spiked pines in the distance and in large swaths frosted white with patches of meadowfoam. From their vantage, she was the size of a thumb, dancing alone and quite poorly. They were watching her twirling and gesturing with some abandon and not at all gracefully.
“She said she was saying goodbye.” Misling leaned his chin into his palm.
“She’s cuckoo. I like her.”
At that, the Recorder stiffened his back and looked at Ring suddenly, evaluating him once again. Behind them, Farmilion’s dirigible cruiser remained entangled within brush at the height of four men, overhanging a pink granite cliff rise which bordered the still black lake.
“The tent city was not one of your planned visitations.”
Ring laughed at the suddenness and off-topic nature of the Recorder’s address, “You’re still thinking about that? Actually, I’d never heard of the tent city till you mentioned it.”
They watched each other silently, then turned again to Sylhauna’s birdlike prancing.
“Was anything that you have said true?”
“Every word of it. I don’t lie.”
Ring waited politely while the Recorder very clearly replayed the conversations from the troop tower over again in his mind in confirmation, to perhaps see if Ring had in fact agreed the tent city was one of his stops after all. His coffee brown eyes floated up and to his left when he did that. He nodded gently when he was done.
“Where is the fifth visitation to be?”
“Who sealed Farmilion’s Record?”
“That is sealed.”
Grinning, “So’s my fifth stop, little professor.”
Misling frowned, irritated. Ring let him simmer a while as they watched her flailing, then began again, “It isn’t sealed at all, is it?”
Insulted, Misling gave a look of disgust. Ring noticed, and let it hang in the air a moment before continuing, “It isn’t.”
Misling’s tone was acidic, “The day is kept whole! Unlike yourself, Recorders may not prance about the truth as if it were a spring frolic!”
“And yet, you’re lying. He’s losing his memory; and you’re hiding it.”
The Recorder went quiet, avoiding eye contact and suddenly uncomfortable.
“Every month, it gets worse; and he can recall less of what you’re trying desperately to record. He contradicts himself and says things that sound made up; and you sometimes feel like the only thing between his having made a mark on the world and his irrelevance. And that breaks your heart because you never wanted the Record to be personal like that. And one day, you’re afraid to your very soul he’ll look at you and have absolutely no idea who you are. And then, you will be alone in a way that is worse than being by yourself.”
Misling looked at Ring sharply, examing Ring’s eyes for something to say how he knew this much and so intimately. He said nothing though. Ring waited, then nodded.
“I’ve never met the man, if that’s what you’re wondering. I just know exactly what it feels like.”
Sylhauna had completed whatever it was she was about and was cartwheeling in their direction. It was enough of a break in the view to shift their subject once again, turning their attention to the crashed dirigible.
“She’s on her way back. We’ve got to get this thing untangled. Why don’t you climb up the cliff face and try to start that compressor again? I’ll spot you.”
Misling was lost in what he’d heard just then, “You did not select this Recorder from the airpark crowd at random.”
“You’re being paranoid. Rovers don’t squirt on their own out of tangles like this – how about a hand?”
“Your dishonesty and evasion are tedious. This Recorder was tasked with observation of your pointless visit to the Rauchka Sniper. His obligations fulfilled, he will follow the Record while you address your unfortunate circumstances.”
Misling sat cross-legged on a weathered stone by the muddy shoreline and shut his eyes, frowning. A little dip of flesh rose between his eyebrows. Ring smiled before making his way across some mossy boulders to the netting of vines and brush clinging web-like to the rock face.
“Pointless? You weren’t paying attention. All sorts of things were happening. I worry about your share of the Record, sounds all muddled.” The Recorder did not betray his curiosity, though he couldn’t be seen clearly anyway by Ring who was gripping a small chalky outcropping and lifting his right leg to the rock face. It was quiet for a time but for the call of birds and lapping of shore water.
“Visiting your girlfriend, Phianna again?” Ring had already scurried quite far up and was to a point where he was grunting in exertion, reaching out over a bit of a precipice to grasp the mooring line they’d secured on their arrival.
“Please focus. Your irresponsible disregard for that which is predictable and mature has no doubt blinded you to the weak lift capacity of those gasbags relative to the mountain face above which they are to convey. Shuttles are available from Alson. This was a mistake.”
“You’re a rude little bunion, implying I don’t have a plan for getting back! We’re meeting Farmilion at Balcister yeah? I’ll get you there. You really think the trip was pointless?”
“Entirely.”
“Look at that reading again, you saw it. Look at it right now…all the stuff in transition, all the golems tramping along, the fatigue. The whole feel of it is structure and decay and old ideas that don’t work anymore. They’re waiting on something reckless. ‘If it were a time of wild abandon, the people would crave order’-haven’t you heard that?
The Recorder made a sound like, “Hmmph.”
“And the knuckleheads at the heart of it all…it’s like you could pry the whole bit up from one side and flip them all over, isn’t it? You don’t think things are all wobbly like that?” Ring was balancing himself horizontally, his boots pressed on a clump of bushes growing out of the rock and gripping the mooring line. Misling rolled his eyes while Ring busily went about his tasks high above as if his meaning were cast in the precision of a dictionary.
“Your statement is meaningless; and your implying otherwise is cruel. The visitation was pointless as no doubt was your time in the white fleet and the market, if in fact you have ever even been in the white fleet.” Ring stayed in place a moment watching and possibly evaluating, then returned to his tasks.
“Wobbly bobbly!”
Sylhauna was suddenly beside Misling, drawing an embarrassing squeal from the Recorder at her suddenness. His squeal surprised her as well, eliciting from her a giggle.
“Does that freak you out?” She smiled in satisfaction. Ring waved at her from his vantage beneath the dirigible cruiser’s smooth keel the color of buttermilk. Without slowing his advance, he threw a leg around the anchor line and reached to the extremity of his arm’s length to find purchase on the keel.
“Hey, the little professor has checked out. Tell
me what you saw in the-“
“Are you trying to start a religion?” Sylhauna smiled confidently, a purple and pink hairfall lilting over her left eye. Ring’s grip slid such that he almost fell entirely.
“Uhh...no. Don’t we have enough of those?”
“Where does suffering come from?”
“Wait…what?”
“All religions start with that, what’s your take?” Sylhauna had a confident smirk about her soft face. Ring grunted, regaining a grip on the bullnosed gunwale of the cruiser’s back deck. The cruiser tilted to one side and groaned like a whale as he did so.
“I don’t know. Entangled consequences. Fishy odors.”
“Not much of a religion.”
“I’m not trying to start a religion!” Ring’s voice rose as he leapt over the gunwale and entered the cruiser’s deck. He leaned over the railing to see them below him.
“Then why are you cryptic? I think you’re mean to him.”
“I’m not cryptic.” Ring glanced at the Recorder when he tilted his head, incensed, perhaps leaving Ring a heightened view of how he was being perceived since he at least acknowledged Misling’s reaction.
“I’m sorry, guys. I have a lot on my mind.”
Ring worked for some time silently, working the ballonet compressor’s starter cord and leaning back and forth to free the graphite balustrade from its dry brush entwinement. He looked to them below cracking his mouth as if to make a pronouncement, then turned again to his task without speaking. Sylhauna stood between Misling and the cruiser such that Ring couldn’t see her face and held a finger to her mouth to sign for the Recorder’s silence. After a number of tries, the compressor fired and commenced inflating the ballonets embedded deep in the elongated gas bags. The cruiser tilted further, unsteadily so. He leaned over again and watched them.
“I told you the places I want to see. Mostly. I don’t know about cruel…or pointless…that seemed a bit much. I told him something personal; and I never do that.”
As he worked the last of the brush from the rails, he hopped three times in an attempt to right the dirigible. Their silence was working him; and the familiar excited grin was gone. Some stillness passed as the cruiser slowly crept lower.
At last, Ring leaned over the gunwale once again and looked directly into the Recorder’s face. Misling watched him curiously while the strange young man seemed to decide something. When he had, he quickly slung his legs around the anchor line and spun upside down, dropping like a spider below the keel and facing the Recorder eye-level with his chin. When he at last spoke, his tone was different…older. If the Recorder had shut his eyes to listen, perhaps it would have sounded entirely unlike this new young man before him and instead like a weathered sea captain with a face cracked from sea salt or a leather-clad cowboy more at home in wild brushfires or blurry combat and wearing the years of experience.
“Our world is malleable, Recorder. The words we choose filter and sift what we see and what we hear, it’s true. Just so, our words strike out and order that which is in flux.” Ring watched quietly, without expression. Unprepared for this change of demeanor, the Recorder awkwardly forgot what his face was doing and left his chin and eyes to drift into embarrassing positions.
“Once poured, the water doesn’t draw back to the basin; but we can loose from it a hurricane in a whisper. To question is a fearful thing, beyond the honor and calling of a bearer of the Record. Yet if you are braced to overstep your own boundaries, then so am I; and let loose the floodgates. One question, little professor. One straight and direct answer. Ask what you will.”
Misling’s amazement possessed him; and he stood at once, stepping directly to Ring. Sylhauna stepped closer as well till the both of them were close by. The solemn nature of a processional had at once settled upon them. Here was something new, something odd and out of shape…perhaps unwelcome. This was not the voice of Ring, not his vocabulary nor manner, and certainly not his way. The only sound was the white noise of the compressor and the gentle hum of the drive fan.
“You will answer with distractions and falsehoods. It is a careless and empty offer.” These were the Recorder’s words; but his expression didn’t bear them out.
“I do not lie, Recorder.” It was the same tone, mysterious and older.
They stared at one another, the Recorder’s young face tight as if he’d been told a joke in church. Ring was without a doubt quite seriously steeling himself, his sparkle dulled. He looked almost frightened but certainly pained at what he was offering.
“I absolutely have one!” Sylhauna was standing on her toes, anxious. She was largely ignored, as the Recorder and Ring examined one another’s eyes and eyebrows, the turn of their lips and the hue of their facial skin.
Deep in the third year of Recorder training in an exercise the young neophytes call, ‘the liars’ ball’, faculty inflicted grueling sleepless challenges involving overly long recounts of events and anecdotes and lessons of the previous three years for students to repeat word for word. Spiced within the recounts were purposeful untruths which only unpromising novices would fail to repeat and would, in fact, correct unknowingly. The real lesson of the liars’ ball was that Recorders weren’t to alter the Record but only sustain it – a philosophy which left those who received their mark with the distinct inability to perceive untruths. Nothing in Misling’s life staged him to see anything other than what was before him, which is why his Record was such an enigma to generations which were to come.
Ring’s eyes were steady. Gripping a graphite cleat, Misling stared as he might at a famous painting, then suddenly slung his boots over and hauled himself clumsily over the railing.
“The offer will be exercised at a time of this Recorder’s choosing, following due consideration.” Misling’s eyebrows and dimples betrayed his transparent pride at the reversal, his seizure of power.
Ring paused reluctantly, then nodded and righted himself. Sylhauna tossed him her satchel; and he helped her aboard. She fluffed her skirt and tossed back the colorful hairfalls before looking him in the eye.
“Weird religion.”
Dirigible cruisers such as this one were often seen carrying tipsy city dwellers on holiday, drifting like soap bubbles close to the ground and carelessly following the breezes. Fishing and swimming tours hovered in linked masses over the Yagrada for most of each Summer, commonly encircled by catamarans and small boats with the inhabitants of which busily looking at one another. What was extraordinarily uncommon was for a dirigible cruiser to scale to an altitude of any consequence given the capacity of the gasbags. It exceeded the designs to go beyond the height of about two men depending on the temperature.
Nevertheless, Ring was supremely confident at the helm with a destination in mind as Sylhauna and Misling remained in the railed outside deck astern of the bridge. They drifted over country roads and speckled fields that went as far as the horizon, the tips of corn swishing lightly against the keel. Sylhauna lowered herself backwards and over the side to run her hands over the corn stalks. The Recorder stole a glance at her shiny stomach reflecting the sun before looking out over the swaying fields.
After some time, the Recorder watched some faded computronium ruins drift by, pale and depressing in their decades old resting place and swallowed by the crops, possibly the remains of a battle simulator for screaming warriors whose dreams had died in these rolling hills. Around lunchtime, Misling was twirling his thumb back and forth between his other thumb and forefinger, daydreaming or perhaps listening to ghosts as Recorders do, when at last he turned to see Sylhauna staring at him again. She smiled. Her legs and arms were oriented in precisely the same fashion as his own.
“This Recorder does not know with any certainty this vessel’s destination.”
“Okay.” She said this as if that was obvious and wasn’t what she was considering anyway.
“Do you not have a home or family you must let know you are traveling?” Misling asked.
“Nobody cares where I
am.” She watched him a moment, then changed the subject. “We’re new friends now, right? Would you like a present?”
He watched her cautiously, unsure, which was his way of saying okay. When she at last understood that, Sylhauna sat upright and took a breath to continue.
“Shut your eyes tight and listen.” She waited till he at last complied. It took a while for him.
“A quiet blue night sky full of stars…creamy piles of snow with only the occasional twig or bush popping up…puffy white snowflakes falling without a sound…on a half-finished covered bridge. Isn’t that a pretty picture for you? Do you like it?”
“This Recorder does not understand what you have offered. Is it over?”
Frowning, “So how did your friend know Isaniel’s name? That’s crazy.”
“What about the bridge? To which bridge were you referring? What is the significance of it?”
Tearing Down The Statues Page 11
