by Jeff Kamen
The black areas thickened as the wall advanced, rising slowly upwards like veins of ink drawn up through blotting paper. He dropped from the air the moment he felt the pressure change, descending in a hail of flying dust and grit. By the time he’d made it to a rock shelter, the first desolate howls were within hearing. The land turned to night as the ash-choked winds bore down upon him and hurled all things loosely fixtured high into screaming vaults of destruction. On it billowed, like some endless train roaring overhead and him squirming there insectlike, pinned to the tracks.
He lived on the supplies in his bag for two days, sitting there fireless and cold. Thinking of Cora all the while, his father too. Picturing a man that had stayed away so long he’d not even noticed the years speeding by, having discovered means and reasons not to turn around, his wings hooked up in a yard. The wintry north forgotten ... the pain gone ... the rest of his life to spend in frugal solitude or in the arms of some gentle stranger ...
Moth in the dark, pining and muttering. And hour by hour something changing in his face. A mark of something other than restlessness. Some other kind of searching, he did not know what. A mark like terror. Terror of what lay ahead if his father was nowhere to be found.
He had to dig his way out of the ash once the storm was over. The rocky landscape lay matted and grey and he did not recognise his surroundings. He left as a man alone in a silent aftermath, shouldering a long dusty package. Hiking on from there, following the storm’s fading trail, he watched as the sun descended into the mountains. It hung between the peaks like something blotched and veined and malignant, with dark clusters of fire dropping from its underbelly to the sunken pit of the hills. A realm as desolate as the earth, and as wholly tarnished. He wiped his goggles clean, staring emptily ahead.
He continued his explorations, but in growing doubt of an outcome. On he glided, observing blankly the dim ruins of a city upon the skyline. Like some trembling place of siege. Vertical blocks crumbling to powder. Canyons of burnt-out and fallen buildings rusting in their rows. Standing as blackened temples of despair.
On landing at a set of old rotted traintracks he’d flown down to examine, he stood reconsidering his strategy. He still believed his father would have been attracted to the remoteness of the interior, but also that after a while, having discovered its limitations, he would have reviewed his circumstances. Here, on the borderlands of an endless waste, an arid and burnt away tundra where no man lived, surely no manner of incentive could have kept him permanently. Not someone so thoughtful, so cultivated as he. Reminded on a daily basis of his loneliness, his lifelong experience as an outcast and stranger, surely his mind would have turned to the sprawling humanity that clung to the coast. Surely contact with people would have motivated him, a man so far from home.
Taking to the sky again, he looked back down at the rails. Two faint scratches of orange. Where they were running from or leading to he did not know, had no ability to process. On he went, soaring away from the cracked and riven hinterlands, turning westwards.
Passing towers of crumbling and naked rock, passing through high planes of shadow, the back of the mountains’ haunted reaching. Far below him a few people were trekking between the villages. Herders, perhaps. Tiny, resembling grains of rice. He wondered if they could see him up there; whether they’d seen a man flying overhead once before.
Chapter 66 — Illyrian Roads
At Obro they drove out from the harbour at speed before their stomachs gave out, both weak and filthy and dazed with lack of sleep. As they clattered alongside the walls of the town, Radjík said in a dangerous tone, ‘Aint never doin that again,’ and Jaala snorted in agreement, driving them uphill in search of a place to stay. Behind them the dark vessel they’d been hurled about in was swallowed into the fog, and the grey waters of the Zar canal faded from view. Twice they’d thought the ship would run aground and twice the screaming tillerman and crew had managed to force her about at the last, turning from the rocks infesting the seas around the eroded coastal islands, the pair of them trapped all the while belowdecks in the company of flea-infested mattresses and animals and wailing children, taking turns to puke from the porthole as the vessel lurched ahead.
They found a tiny guesthouse behind a run of stinking market shacks and spent the first hours of the afternoon groaning on a bed with the shutters closed. A few women were talking in the house overlooking the back yard, and they lay listening to the rise and fall of their conversation. Jaala watched the flies buzz around the ceiling. Wafted them away. The day stretched on uneasily. Eventually they forced themselves up and went down to the yard to tend to the mule. They brought a few things back from the cart and lay down again.
When they stirred an hour later they washed themselves in buckets, pulled on a change of clothing. Sat at the crumbling hole of a window looking down at the street at the front.
‘Let’s get out,’ Jaala said, and they pulled on their boots and went wandering around the locality, passing hovels row on row and trade stalls reeking of produce raked in from the sea and hung up to dry or left struggling in filthy pails and crates. As they roamed on, the subject of the crossing came up again. Each vented their anger about the conditions on board until their new surroundings began to impose themselves; after which they fell quiet. Anonymous here, walking among strangers immersed in their daily routines, it struck them that they were already far from home. They stopped at the harbour in a sober and more forgiving mood, looking out at the grey swell on which they’d come sailing.
‘So,’ Jaala said. ‘We’re here.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What do you think?’
‘Not much.’
‘I know. Sorry.’
‘Don’t say sorry if aint your fault.’
‘Okay.’
Radjík nodded.
‘You know ... if we’re turning back, now’s the time to do it.’
‘That what you want?’
‘No. But you know what I mean. The ship’s here, we’ve not gone too far ...’
‘I aint turnin back.’
‘I know, but if you did, I’m just saying I’d understand. Better to do it now, rather than —’
‘I aint turnin back,’ Radjík repeated, and spat.
Jaala watched her a moment. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘I won’t ask again,’ and after taking a last look at the ship and its crew, they walked slowly back to their room.
~O~
The trade road was cold that first morning. Grey hills arose behind a mist that seemed to overhang everything in that chill landscape. The early traffic was lumbering along dimly: carts and laden wagons, a few heads of plodding cattle urged on by herders with sticks. The ground was soft from recent rains and after a while Jaala got down and continued on foot, occasionally going back to push them out of a rut when the mule was struggling.
They slept in the bone-strewn wilds for two nights, and in this time sat at fires with people they shared the road with. Attentive to the glow of strange faces, strange utterances in the common language. People they were not sure they could trust, but for the moment had to. They watched them each, watched them all, striving to adjust to the world they’d be living in for months to come. The world of the other; the world of passers-by.
Turnings away led some of the travellers into the stark hills. More left to follow other routes, and a few days later they were alone on that blighted highway. They were alone too as the day darkened, with foxes or wild dogs baying mournfully in the dusk. They were casting about for shelter when they spotted a dim blotch of light ahead and drove straight towards it. The light resolved into the shape of a sprawling encampment built around a natural seep or pond where groups of itinerants were gathered beside their vehicles, some sitting on benches within smoky canework weaves where fat sizzled on the coals and vents of steam billowed ceaselessly. The site was dirty but it felt safe enough and they decided to stay. They drew up and mingled with straying animals and people draped in blankets and shawls and were barke
d at by merchants hawking goods from crude handcarts. In one area was a paddock where stood bins of feed and a rusting trough. A gathering had formed where people were talking earnestly, a few of them shouting, and it took a little while for them to realise that some kind of auction was in progress. As they looked on, Radjík noticed Jalaa nodding once or twice and nudged her, whispering, ‘Know what they’re sayin?’ to which she replied, ‘Some of it. The goats belong to the big man. He’s saying they’ve been fed very well. Something about black earth.’
‘Yeah? How d’you know?’
‘It’s just ... bits of words coming back.’
‘Yeah, but how? Who taught you?’
‘No one. It just comes.’
‘Yeah? You remember all that stuff? Even if it wasn’t you?’
‘More or less, yes.’
‘Vadraskar, you said?’
‘Shh.’
‘What?’
Jaala checked to see who was listening. ‘Don’t use that name here.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she’ll be known.’
Radjík looked away. Then after a minute whispered, ‘So you remember it, yeah?’
‘It’s hard to explain. But yes. In a way.’
‘That why you were sick?’
‘Partly.’
Radjík watched as the big man prompted a goat to its feet so it could be studied the better by those observing it. He shouted a string of words in his language, gesturing to the animal with pride. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘We stayin here or eatin?’
‘Eating.’
‘Then let’s go.’
At daybreak they followed a road out from there so densely misted they could barely see more than a few yards ahead of them. It led up into bleak grey crowlands where figures in the fields were working the plots like strawmen come to life, shapeless forms almost mummified in the stillness. The road continued uphill, winding cruelly, both of them on foot now, leading the mule by the halter. Wary of spending what little money they had, they took to hunting with bows and snares, and the next time they entered a settlement, set high above the coastal hills, they were able to trade their small stock of game for the supplies they needed.
Looking out from a ledge they saw spread below them a dusty waste where the ash formations lay in long grey meanders. All of it to be crossed, all foreign to them. Even the mountains were unlike the mountains of home.
They crossed the waste with their faces wrapped, trekking through a gusting stream of debris. Rags of dead foliage and washed-out plastic scraps transparent with age, all swirling through in one long bitty deluge. The relics of everyday items blasted to useless shreds. Charred and ashen. The various parts of enormous leaves or stalks long jettisoned as the mother plants expired.
Grey and shrouded miles of it. They were forced to stop overnight in the clutches of the wind, the canopy shaking on its frame such that they had to lash each corner afresh and pin the canvas down to hold it all in place. In the raw sunrise they saw the stunted towers and spires of ruins to the east, and the same day they saw ruins ahead that the road ran through. As they approached the rearing structures, Jaala eyed them with growing reservation. She’d taken a couple of pills in the night to help her sleep and was feeling woolly-headed and disconnected.
‘Mind out,’ she cried, as a group of urchins ran in their path, shrieking and throwing stones. ‘Think I can’t see em?’ Radjík muttered, steering a course away, and Jaala apologised and sat silently in her wraps as they entered the smoking tendrils of the colony.
~O~
They left it wanting to rinse out their clothes, such was the stench of the place. Hanging on them heavily was the reek of burning refuse and clogged drains, and as soon as they found a wayside dwelling with water, they stopped to use it. Here they washed their garments and bathed themselves in a rusted iron vat and did what they could to scrub themselves clean.
After that they took the road out to the hills, taking turns to walk as the gradient steepened. Cooking at a fire, they reflected on the foul citadel and its dripping streets, watching as the stars came out on the tree of night as if to finally cleanse themselves of the experience. Radjík asked more about Vadraskar, and with reluctance, Jaala told her some of what she knew, describing the tyrant’s presence as being like a shadow she was forced to tolerate, whether she liked it or not, adding that she could sense the tyrant’s hand at work in the history of the locals — could even sense her role in the wars which had raged through those lands in times gone by. She said that were they to look for them, doubtless there would be burial sites in the region testifying to what she’d said. Later, as they ate, she described how mercenaries had been drawn into the conflict from surrounding regions rank on rank until the bloodshed was such that finally even Vadraskar’s most loyal lieutenants had had enough; and how the reign of a monster was brought to an end with her arrest — and planned execution. ‘I don’t know why they didn’t chase her further,’ she said, wiping the dust from a cup. ‘Perhaps they’d have stopped her reaching Ansthalt if they had.’
Radjík watched her through the smoke. ‘Then you wouldn’t be here,’ she said.
‘So?’
‘So I wouldn’t know you.’
‘Well. That’s true. But you wouldn’t know you didn’t know me. Would you. It wouldn’t affect you.’
‘You wish she hadn’t got away, then?’
‘Yes. In lots of ways.’
‘What if they’d killed her?’
‘She’d have deserved it.’
‘Yeah, but you wouldn’t have. So it wouldn’t be fair.’
‘But I wouldn’t know, would I? Besides, it wouldn’t have been my punishment.’
‘Maybe. I spose.’ Radjík digested this a moment, then said, ‘Do you want to see those places?’
‘Places?’
‘Yeah. Where they’re buried.’
‘No, I don’t. Do you?’
‘Not if you don’t.’
‘... Why say it like that?’
‘Like what?’
Jaala smiled thinly, watching Radjík’s face. ‘I know it’s hard to believe,’ she said. ‘But it’s true.’
‘Yeah. If you say so.’
‘I do say so.’
‘Okay,’ Radjík said neutrally, and reached and placed more wood on the fire.
~O~
‘Which way?’ Radjík asked a couple of days later, squinting at the wings of a battered roadsign. The names of two destinations were daubed there and Jaala read them aloud for her benefit. As she spoke, something made her turn to the hills, a faint impression forming in her mind that another had looked back that way on a dark journey northwards. ‘Go left,’ she said, and Radjík turned them aside.
On they went, the cart rattling and swaying. The temperatures were warming daily and they no longer wore coats or heavy jackets. By now they’d fallen into a routine they were comfortable with, and with it had come a better understanding of the other’s mood. Sometimes they pushed themselves hard and sometimes they rested. Radjík would drive one day, Jaala the other. Sometimes they spoke of the life and friends they’d left behind and sometimes they said nothing at all.
They drove on through teeming dust, and in the same high winds as the weather changed, they drove through torrential rainfall. After sitting out the storm in a natural shelter, they continued across a hill where part of a farmstead and surrounding dwellings had been lost to a giant mudslide. Avoiding the floods which had caused the damage, they followed a trail running parallel to what resembled a bubbling river, and which turned about to be the road leading seawards. It was carrying branches and rocks and other swirling detritus amidst which were pieces of furniture. Jaala saw a table go by, followed by a dog with its head up, paddling furiously. A fallen bridge forced them to take a long diversion and they passed a number of sites where the locals were picking through the silty wreckage and clearing away what they could. Once again they climbed uphill. In bypassing the lowlying areas they thought they’d e
scaped the flooding’s legacy altogether until, on entering a village, they crossed the tail end of a funeral procession, the covered bodies lifted high above the mourners. They stared after them, those wooden forms surging through the crowds, as once they had stared after Sandor. Figures bedecked in sprigs and branches, draped in a family’s meagre finery, their tattered brocades soon to twist and blackly curl apart.
The next day they were travelling along a windblasted ridge, overlooking the land as it dropped away. On the damp slopes below, clusters of villagers were going about their work, herding goats, carrying fuel, shouldering implements. The outlying coast was banished in vapour, a remote idea. Further along they saw others working with picks and hoes to break up the ground. Split the rock, Jaala heard them singing, and I will grow …
They drove on, looking for a turning so they could go down to ask for water, but no turning was to be found. Rather than lose the opportunity, Radjík suggested she go down to the villagers on foot. While she was gone, Jaala lay down to rest. Her head had been getting worse in the last few days, and using this as a justification, she took out the pills and swallowed a couple and turned over to sleep.
At some point in the woollen silence she found herself wandering ... found herself making contact with the dark little girl with pigtails down her back ... thinking of how it would be one day to arrive there. Treading in her actual steps, perhaps ... treading after the one who’d emerged from the fire era ...
Eventually her eyelids twitched. Her features tightening with effort. With the strain.
Then all was clear.
