by K. J. Parker
'So that's who you're fighting,' he said. 'Feron Amathy.' He shrugged. 'Well, that's fine, and I hope you nail the bastard. But you obviously don't need me.'
Rather surprisingly, none of them said anything to that. The next words came from Gain Aciava, who clicked his tongue and said, 'Screw it, we're just going to have to dump the cart and walk to Dui Chirra.'
'Don't be stupid, Gain,' Xipho said, automatic as a sword-monk's draw.
'What's stupid about it? The bloody thing's stuck solid-yes, all my fault, I thought I knew the way and I didn't. But there's no way we can get this stupid cart free on our own. We can walk, or two of us can ride the horses.'
'I haven't come all this way just to be fucked over by a muddy road and your stupidity.' This time, Cleapho sounded quite different. 'We haven't got time to walk, we need to get there quickly, before that fool of an Earwig screws it all up.'
'Fine,' Gain snapped back. 'You ride one horse; Xipho, I expect you'll insist on haying the other. Ciartan and I will just have to walk.'
'Don't be ridiculous-' Was that doubt in Xipho's voice, as though quite suddenly she wasn't sure what to do next? 'You can't-not on your own.'
Can't what? Poldarn wondered, though not for long. Can't be trusted not to lose the prisoner. And he'd had to think before figuring that out. Maybe Cleapho had been right about the effects of concussion.
'What's more important?' Gain was saying. 'Which of us has got to get to Dui Chirra first? Cordo, obviously. And-?'
That, apparently, was a very good question, and neither Cleapho nor Xipho knew the answer. They weren't taking it well, either; two people who couldn't keep their balance without certainty. 'This is ridiculous,' Cleapho suddenly exploded. 'You bloody fool, Gain, you and your idiotic short cuts-'
'It wasn't meant to be a short cut,' Gain whined. 'I only tried this way because the proper roads were blocked. You can't blame me for the rain.'
'Fine.' Cleapho had made a decision. 'We'll walk. Just leave the cart, leave everything. Can either of you tell me how far it is, or do we just blunder about in the dark for a bit?'
It was all Poldarn could do not to laugh. And then he thought, now's as good a time as any: in the dark and the mud, they'd never be able to find me, they don't even know where they are. And staying with them-whoever heard of such a ludicrous idea?
Very well, then. Plan of action-nothing difficult there. One jump from the cart box to the top of the wall, one jump down, then run; no direction required, I'm not running to anyplace, just away. Easy as drawing a sword. It would mean he'd never find the moment to ask Copis about the kid, his son, whom he'd never seen. But there were so many things he'd never know about now, if he turned his back on them He jumped; felt the wall under his feet, kicked against it, relaxed his knees for the impact of landing (hoping very much that there weren't nasty sharp rocks on the other side; there weren't. Mud, yes; but a year in Tulice gives you a doctorate in mud studies.) He heard them shouting: Cleapho swearing, Xipho yelling at Gain, Gain yelling back. He grinned as he ran; those three had definitely known each other for a very long time. Too long, probably.
Poldarn ran, and he ran. No idea where he was going, not interested; when you'd got nowhere to go, you could go anywhere. Well, not Dui Chirra, for sure. But since that was where they'd been trying to get to, and it had defeated the combined intellect of three Deymeson graduates, one of them being the world's most powerful man, quite clearly finding Dui Chirra was impossibly difficult, far beyond his concussion-inhibited abilities, and so there was precious little risk that he'd manage to do it. So that was all right.
Free again, he thought, as he paused for breath, leaning his back against a tree. This was your true wisdom: when in doubt or danger, run away. He grinned; an image had popped into his mind of the past as a big, shaggy dog, standing in the middle of this very wood, sniffing the air in bewilderment because the scent had suddenly failed. It nearly got me that time, and here's the bite marks on my leg to prove it; but I escaped. Free again.
Just to be on the safe side, however, Poldarn kept on going till daybreak; not running, because running through a swamp-floored wood in the dark gives the best odds known to man for breaking a leg or spraining an ankle, and suddenly there's all that wonderful new-found freedom gone up in smoke. A sensible brisk walk, avoiding all unnecessary risks, until dawn watered down the darkness like a dishonest barmaid, taking away his best protection and freedom. On the other hand, it had, miraculously, stopped raining.
In the back of his mind, that damned song was spinning slowly round, unbalanced, like a broken wheelTwo crows sitting in a tall thin tree Two crows sitting in a tall thin tree Two crows sitting in a tall thin tree-And he couldn't remember what came after that. He tried not to think about it, for fear it would drive him mad. Instead, he thought They can't still be looking for me, they've got more important things to do; and even if they are, it's a moving needle in a soggy haystack. Even so, it'd be wise to stay out of the light for a day or so. In which case: climb a tree.
The nice thing about dense forest was that there were so many trees to choose from, another beguiling variation on the currently fashionable theme of infinite choice, unfettered opportunity. In the end, Poldarn chose a massive forked oak that couldn't have been easier to climb if it had been specially designed by Galand Dev and Spenno. About thirty feet off the ground, above the first layer of canopy, there was a delightful little platform where the main trunk divided four ways. He was able to lie back with his head pillowed on his hands and his feet crossed, and close his eyes for the best-earned snooze of a lifetime 'Comedy,' said a voice next to him.
He opened his eyes. 'I beg your pardon?'
'Comedy,' the crow repeated. 'Both the low comedy of slapstick and farce-people running about and falling in the mud, the humiliation of dignity and pomposity in a situation intrinsically ludicrous, such as getting stuck in a tight place-and the high comedy of inversion, the world turned topsy-turvy; as in the man who sleeps by day instead of night, up in the air rather than down on the ground, who runs away from his friends to seek sanctuary with his enemy-Actually,' the crow admitted, 'that's stretching it a little; you're the deadly enemy of crowkind, but I'm the individual, not the group, and I don't actually own the tree. Nevertheless, comedy. Also, add the god running away from the priests-that's a good one.'
'Very good,' Poldarn said, yawning; it was broad daylight, and he had cramp in his back and neck. 'I think I'll wake up now.'
'Don't be silly.' The crow pecked at a slight tangle in its wing feathers. 'You aren't asleep, this isn't a dream. You never met a talking crow before?'
Poldarn drew up his knee and massaged it. where it was stiff. 'Not that I remember,' he said. 'Except in dreams. Or hallucinations,' he added in fairness, 'caused by injuries and trauma, like getting bashed on the head. Did I fall out of the tree or something?'
The crow turned its beak toward him. 'Obviously not,' it said, 'since we're thirty feet off the ground.'
'In that case,' Poldarn said, yawning again, 'it's a dream. Is there a point to it, or is it just mental indigestion?'
'I don't understand,' said the crow.
'No reason why you should,' Poldarn replied cheerfully. 'Fact is, I get two kinds of dreams. One kind-well, it's like a series of lectures in remedial memory, so I can catch up with the rest of the class.' He paused. 'Actually,' he said, 'that's more comedy; because the only thing I'm afraid of right now is the rest of the class catching up with me. But they won't, because they're stuck in the mud, like you said. Good joke?'
'Laboured,' the crow replied. 'Go on. The second type of dream.'
'Oh, right. Yes, the second kind is where I'm lying in a river bed or some other place where there's running water, and I hear the two parts of me arguing, like an old married couple: there's the new me, who's trying to run away, and the old me, who keeps on tracking me down. That's about it.'
'I see.' The crow was silent for a long while, so long that Poldarn began to wonder if
he'd just imagined that it had talked to him at all. Then it laughed.
'Sorry,' it added. 'I was just thinking of the old song. You know: Two crows sitting in a tall thin tree-'
Poldarn shook his head. 'This is a tall thick tree,' he said. 'And there's only one of you.'
'No,' the crow said, 'two. But it's not important. I suppose I'd better get to the point.'
'Ah,' Poldarn said. 'So it is a dream, after all.'
The crow nodded. 'Actually,' it said, 'you were closer when you described it as a lecture. It's important, you see, to help you decide. Too many choices, and you won't know what to do with yourself.'
'I like having too many choices just fine,' Poldarn muttered, but the crow wasn't listening.
'Now then,' it said, 'I want you to pay attention. Look down there, to your left. Can you see?'
'No,' Poldarn said. 'Oh, just a moment, yes. There's people coming, on horses. Is that what you meant?'
'Look closely,' the crow said. 'Now, I'm going to open up your memory just a little bit-not too far, obviously, so don't worry about things getting out and escaping. Just enough so you'll know-'
At which point, the man on the leading horse glanced up, looked Poldarn in the eye and smiled at him. 'You know who that is?' asked the crow.
'Of course I know him,' Poldarn replied. 'That's Feron Amathy.'
'Watch closely.'
The man rode on, out of sight. Behind him came a troop of cavalry, carrying spears and wearing mail shirts.
'All right so far?' the crow asked. Poldarn nodded.
A moment later, Poldarn saw a column of men on foot, also armed. But they weren't regular soldiers or even irregulars like the Amathy house. They wore old farm clothes, and their only weapons were backsabres.
'And they are?' asked the crow.
'Easy,' Poldarn said. 'My lot. I never did find out what we call ourselves, but in these parts they're called raiders. Or savages,' he added, with a slight frown.
One of them looked up, saw Poldarn, and scowled: Eyvind. Sore loser.
'Still happy?' asked the crow.
'I guess so,' Poldarn said. 'Is there any point to this?'
'Be patient. Now, who's this?'
Prince Tazencius rode under the tree. He didn't look up, though clearly he knew Poldarn was there. Embarrassed; doesn't want to be seen with the likes of me. Fine.
'Nearly there,' the crow said. 'Now, while we're waiting, let's see if you can tell me what the connection is. Well?'
'Too easy,' Poldarn said. 'Evil. These are all bad people.'
The crow shifted an inch or so along the branch. 'Yes. And?'
Poldarn thought for a moment. 'They're all bad people I've been mixed up with over the years.'
'Yes. And?'
Cleapho rode under the tree, lifting one hand off the reins in a gesture of dignified acknowledgement. For some reason, Boarci was walking next to him, holding the horse's bridle. Poldarn frowned. 'They're all people I've betrayed,' he said. 'Or treated badly in some way.'
'Yes. And?'
'And nothing,' Poldarn replied, slightly annoyed. 'They're bad people, and I've treated them badly. Big deal. They had it coming.'
The crow sighed. 'Oh dear,' it said, 'and you were doing so well. Now, then. I want you to look down on your left side.'
Poldarn turned and looked down. 'I know her,' he said. 'That's my wife.'
The crow laughed. 'Which one?'
'First,' Poldarn replied. 'No, second-no, hang on, first. Lysalis. Tazencius's daughter.'
'Very good.' Lysalis smiled up at him and did a little finger-fluttery wave. 'Next.'
Next came Halder, walking, and Elja. 'My second wife,' Poldarn explained. 'Only, I have a bad feeling that she's also my daughter. Who's that boy she's with?'
'Your son,' the crow said, as the ferocious young swordsman Poldarn had killed in the woods strutted past. 'Lysalis's boy, Tazencius's grandson. Theme emerging?'
Poldarn laughed. 'Piece of cake,' he said. 'These are good people I've treated badly; though that boy wasn't so nice, he tried to kill me-'
'Quite,' the crow said. 'He did his best, and that's all you can ask of anybody. Pay attention.'
General Cronan rode by, and General Muno Silsny ('That's not fair, what harm did I do him?') and Carey the fieldhand walking beside them, his hand clamped to his slashed neck; and behind them a long stream of people Poldarn didn't recognise, thousands of them 'A representative sample,' the crow said. 'After all, the object of the exercise isn't just making you feel bad about yourself. Anyway, they're in reverse order, so it's the Falcata delegation at the front, then Choimera, followed by Josequin-You get the idea.'
Poldarn frowned. 'Where's Choimera?' he asked. 'I never heard of it.'
'You're a busy man,' the crow replied. 'You have people to deal with, that sort of thing.'
'Fine.' Poldarn tried to sit up, but the branch was slippery; the rain had started again. 'Point made. Point sledge-hammered into the ground. I haven't just harmed those bad people but all these innocent people too. That's why I don't want to remember any of it.'
'You just want to run away.'
'Exactly. The more I hang around the places I've already been, the more damage I do, on top of everything I've done already. Going back home proved that. Any contact I have with my past leads to more bad things; it's contagious, and I reinfect myself. Which is why I want to run away-really run away this time, get as far away from all of it as I possibly can. I thought I was doing that, coming here; all I wanted to do was get a job and settle down, it's not my fault that they all came chasing after me. But there's got to be some place I can go, somewhere outside the Empire, where nobody will ever find out who I used to be.'
'Fine,' said the crow. 'Look down.'
None of the people passing under the tree were familiar, though some of them looked up, smiled, waved. There were even more of them than before.
'Do you understand?' asked the crow.
'Yes,' Poldarn said. 'So what do you want me to do? Should I jump out of this tree and break my neck?'
'Look down,' said the crow again.
All strangers once more, and none of them acknowledged him; but the line went on out of sight in both directions.
'Really?' Poldarn said quietly. 'Even if I kill myself right now?'
'Of course,' the crow said. 'My, what a big head we have, assuming we can redeem the world by an act of supreme sacrifice. Look, there you go now.'
Sure enough, Poldarn could make out his own face in the crowd, just briefly, before it passed out of sight. 'One more victim wouldn't make things much worse,' the crow said. 'Wouldn't make it any better, either. Really, what was your tutor thinking of? You ought to have covered all this elementary stuff in second grade.'
'Maybe we did,' Poldarn said irritably. 'I really don't remember.' The branch was getting very slippery now; he was in danger of falling off. 'All right,' he said. 'I'm assuming there's a point to all this, so you tell me. What have I got to do?'
Then he fell out of the tree.
Comedy, he thought, as he opened his eyes; then, Where did that come from?
He was lying in deep mud; just as well, since he'd only a moment ago fallen thirty feet. It was broad daylight. A crow got up out of the branches above him and flapped away, shrieking. Poldarn didn't need to translate; he could remember what it had been saying.
The only difference is in what they've actually done.
And that, presumably, was the answer: find out who'd done most, and deal with him. I need someone I can ask, he thought. I need to speak to Cleapho, or Copis, someone who can tell me what's going on. Assuming, of course, that they'd tell me the truth.
Assuming I can find them again, having made such a spectacularly good job of making sure that they can't find me. Assuming, even, that I can ever get out of this horrible bloody wet forest.
Big assumption.
As if he'd woken out of something bigger and more malevolent than mere sleep, he got to his feet, stre
tched and flexed to make sure that nothing had got broken or bent in the fall, yawned and looked around. Trees. Lots of more or less interchangeable trees. Absolutely not a clue about where the hell he was. So breathtakingly well hidden that nobody on earth knew where he was, not even Poldarn or Ciartan Torstenson.
He remembered what the colliers had said about the Tulice forests: so dense that a man could walk for days and never realise that the main road was only twenty yards away to his left. And wet, too: full of nasty boggy patches that'd swallow you up before you'd figured out you were in trouble, in which case the best you could hope for was that you'd be sucked down over your head and drown or smother immediately, rather than stay mired up to your armpits until you starved to death, or the wolves or the bears or the wild pigs ate you (browsing off your arms and face like cows nibbling at a hedge; at the time he'd assumed that the colliers were just trying to put the wind up him…). Wonderful place to get lost in, the Tulice forest.
Poldarn walked for an hour in one direction, until the closeness of the trees and the depth of the shadows all around him made him feel like he was buried alive; so he turned left, and carried on that way for another hour or so, until that direction became just as unbearable, or more so. Left was obviously a bad idea, so he turned right. Right was worse. The canopy of leaves overhead was as tight as the lid on ajar; he needed light in order to breathe, and the canopy was choking the light, strangling him; and every change in direction led him to taller trees, thicker leaves, darker places. (Allegory, he thought bitterly; I hate fucking allegory.) How long he'd been blundering about he had no idea, but it didn't matter anyway; didn't matter if the sun had gone down, because it couldn't get any darker than this, could it? No trace, needless to say, of human beings here, nothing to suggest that a fellow human had ever been this way before-so much for the idea that all his problems had been caused by other people. Right now, he'd be overjoyed at any hint that there were such things as other people, that he wasn't the only talking biped left in the universe Something whistled in his ear, then went chunk. After a moment's bemused searching, he found it. It was a strange insect, with green and yellow wings and an absurdly long brown body, and it lived by boring into the bark of trees. No, it bloody well wasn't: it was an arrow. Some bastard was shooting at him.
