The Tears of Sisme

by Peter Hutchinson

  The last pair of men reemerged, shaking their heads.

  "No one else."

  "Right then. It's only these two we wanted." This from the short thickset fellow, whose great meaty hand still gripped Berin's right arm. The leader of the band. He made a dismissive gesture as one of them pointed to the Empress. "Nar. Leave 'er be. She done what she came for. Our job's to get this lot inside without trouble. Quick an’ undamaged, the Captain said: they’re going to the Stone tonight. So we step along nice an’ easy an’ no one’s to notice, eh? The whole city's jumpy an’ foreign prisoners’d set off another riot quicker than a virgin in a barracks. Madl, scout ahead. Any crowds, steer us away from ‘em."

  The Road to Karkor

  Caldar lay awake, staring into the dying fire. He was tired, stiff and sore; riding eleven hours a day for the last two weeks had convinced him that, although Rasscu and Harol might be part horse, he definitely was not. They had lost fifteen days in their encounter with the army. The first week of relaxed, even friendly, captivity had ended when they had tried to escape and had run straight into an incoming patrol.

  The young captain had placed Harol as Mederro from the start and was not entirely convinced by Rasscu's claim to be a foreign merchant, who had sent his goods to Karkor with a caravan while he had taken ship from Razimir to investigate western parts of Belugor. After their attempted escape, he was even more sure that he had captured a group of rebels and they were confined closely while he awaited further instructions from the capital.

  By the end of the second week they were all becoming restive at the delay. Caldar was repeating to himself over and over Idressin’s advice to use intelligence rather than power, but bright ideas seemed very elusive. In the end it was quite simple, much to Harol's disgust: she expected something more dramatic from her wizards.

  One night the girl played the unlikely role of seductress, luring one of the guards into their room where Rasscu knocked him out. The Tesserit then dressed up in the man's uniform and disposed of the guard at the next door. Within a few anxious minutes they had found their horses, led them out through a gap in the perimeter sentries, and were riding slowly east under a dim moon.

  Before dawn they left the highway and headed south through the dry hills. Harol seemed to know exactly where they were in this land of boulder-strewn plateaux and steep-sided waterless valleys, and before the end of the day they had swung east again onto a smaller switchback trail which paralleled the main highway.

  Time was short now. They rode until it was pitch dark and too dangerous to continue, and each dawn found them well down the trail, having started out by moonlight. The days seemed infinitely long to Caldar as his legs grew stiff and cramped and his bottom grew sore. The others were not in the mood for sympathy. Harol constantly scouted the country ahead for water and for signs of army patrols; Rasscu, who had taken over leading the pack horses, rode with an increasingly distracted air and spoke little even when they camped.

  In the two weeks since they escaped, Caldar had often found himself like this, lying by the fire, numbed to his aches and pains, and wondering about his distant friends. Had they reached Karkor? What would happen when the Talisman appeared? He just hoped that they could find it without him and Rasscu; then if they were late, it wouldn’t ruin everything Idressin and the Tinker were hoping for. He shied away from thinking about it too deeply; they were doing all they could to get there in time and instinct told him that to dwell on the enormity of their quest was more likely to paralyse him than to help. Maybe that was what was making Rasscu uneasy too.

  He smiled ruefully in the darkness as he settled down to sleep, recalling what had led them all to separate. It was he himself when he had stormed out of the Glasshouse like a jealous schoolchild. How could wanting to be with someone lead people to act in exactly the opposite way? Idressin was quite right: if Caldar really did have access to some kind of power, he’d better not call on it while his emotions still led him around by the nose like a baby.

  According to Harol they were on time again to reach the capital for the start of the Festival. Three more long days she said. They had apparently hooked around even further south of the main highway to stay in these desolate hills, and they would soon have to ride down and cross the populous farmland which lay between them and Karkor. They had met no one all this last week, although the burnt remains of two villages and several farmhouses testified to the ferocity of the unseen war being waged around them.

  The next morning they came across a young goatherd and his flock. The boy ran off and hid in some large boulders at their approach, until Harol talked him warily out. Even then he would only come to the edge of his refuge, where he stood nervously answering her questions in a shrill voice.

  Harol's tiny face was grim, as they rode away.

  "Tell us the bad news," Caldar said after a few minutes uncomfortable silence, continuing when he received no reply, "The authorities have put down the rebellion? Or there’s an army between us and Karkor?"

  "No, Caldar." It must be serious, the youth thought; this was the first time she had called him by his right name. "It's not us. It's that poor little bugger. His village is over that ridge on the northern slope of these hills, or rather it was. He was away grazing the goats for four days and came back to find it burnt to the ground. Everybody dead. His parents, his brothers, his uncles, aunts, everybody. There was no one left to tell him what had happened, to comfort him, even to help him bury the dead. He buried his parents, then gave up. There were just too many bodies, family, people he knew. He had to leave, but now he's got no home and no friends except his goats. I offered to take him with us, but he said he'd rather stay 'near his people'."

  Her expression grew fierce and hatred vibrated in her voice. "The people here are not Mederro and they're not rebels, but they don't like the government either. They only want to be left in peace. I've seen this before. The army surround a village and leave no one alive, no witnesses. Then they blame the massacre on the rebels. What are a few dead peasants if they can persuade a whole district to side with them against us 'murdering southern devils'?"

  She turned to look at Caldar, her eyes on fire. "They’ll pay. They don't realise what they're doing will only make us fight harder. Maybe Sammar will die. Maybe thousands, tens of thousands of us will die. But in the end we'll exterminate the Emperor and all his kind like rats." She fell silent, her little face staring bleakly into a bitter future.

  "Would you feel so vehement about the village, Harol, if it had actually been the rebels who did it?" Caldar asked.

  “They’d never do that,” came the heated rejoinder. “Not kill everybody. It’s disgusting.”

  “Never?”

  "Not without some extraordinary reason. You know, the villagers betraying them or something."

  "Maybe the authorities have reasons just as good as that," Caldar said gently.

  The girl shot him a look of disbelieving scorn and rode ahead without replying. That afternoon, when they were walking their horses up a long swelling slope, she dropped back beside her companions.

  "Look, I know what I'm saying doesn't make much sense when you start taking it to pieces. But that's the way I feel, so leave it be. Alright?"

  "Alright."

  "I don't understand you people. You've seen so much and done so much, yet you couldn't break us out of a piddling little army outpost, 'cos Caldy here says he doesn't want to use magic unless he absolutely has to. Have I got that right, Caldy? And then you start preaching at me, when I already know that you're on your way to Karkor to nick this Talisman from under the Emperor’s nose." She peered at them doubtfully. "You're not going to go all soft and forgiving if you get the chance to castrate the bastard, are you?"

  "I don't have any personal plans for the Emperor, Harol," Rasscu replied smiling. "But if the Talisman’s a true gift from the Gods, it’s likely to put his nose out of joint."

  "I like what you say, big man." Harol was recovering her spirits. "I just wish
you were a bit more passionate about it. Give me the Talisman. I'd use it to drive the Jackal into the ground like a tent peg. And speaking of passionate, how come we've been together day and night for six weeks and neither of you two has made a pass at me? Aren't I a desirable piece of female flesh? That guard certainly thought so the other night, before you put out his lights. Hey, what's so funny? I'm not travelling with a couple of monks, am I? Or perhaps wizards don't do it?"

  The others were laughing so hard by this time, that she had to join in even as she tried to frown. Eventually Caldar recovered his breath enough to say seriously, "Any other time, Harol, and you'd have had to fight us off all the way. We're just a bit preoccupied at the moment."

  She gave him a hard stare, before shrugging and saying, "Well, that's alright then. Come on, we're nearly at the top of the rise. You'll see Karkor in a minute."

  The land unfolded before them as they rode forward over the crest. Sunlight and cloud shadow created their own patchwork across a broad valley, green with spring, which swept away to left and right into the dim distance. Directly ahead a chain of tawny coloured mountains rose to confront them across sixty miles of limpid air.

  "Where's..." Caldar began to say, then the cloud-shadows sailed majestically onwards and the capital slowly emerged, gleaming white in the sun. It lay sprawled across low foothills which thrust forward from the opposite range, and even at this distance it proclaimed its size and majesty. Towers and domes clustered thickly around its highest point, like a dazzling wave dominating the city's skirts which spread far out into the green countryside.

  "It looks so close," Caldar murmured, bringing a swift rejoinder from their diminutive guide.

  "It is, for a bird. It'll take us a couple of days riding, staying on side roads. That'll get us past the check-points they'll have on the main highway. Then if the river's not in flood and if we get past the city gates with no problem, you'll be there on Revelation Day, that’s when the Festival proper starts. After that it's up to you, me old mates."

  She led off down the hill at a swift trot and plunged them into a maze of lanes which zig-zagged across the farmlands. As they descended, pastures full of scampering lambs soon gave way to large rectangular fields, already ploughed and sown. The towers of Karkor were often visible, beckoning them on; but on the morning of the festival with fifteen miles still to go they were brought to an early and unexpected halt. Round a bend in the green lane they were following, they came across a heavy farm wagon on its side with its load of turnips spilled out across the water-filled ditch. It had clearly just happened. A pair of oxen were still heaving themselves back to their feet, thrown over by the yoke before it broke. There was no one in sight.

  They searched quickly, knowing that someone would have been with the wagon, and were rewarded when Harol spotted a foot sticking out of the heap of vegetables blocking the ditch. It was the work of a few frantic seconds to uncover the buried figure. It turned out to be a woman, a roughly dressed farmer's wife by the look of her, with a thin wrinkled face and calloused hands. She had been lying half in the seeping water, face down, and she didn't seem to be breathing.

  Watched a little hopelessly by the others, Rasscu expertly turned her over and began to press on her back in a steady rhythm. All at once she spluttered and threw up, first water and then the contents of her stomach. As soon as she had gasped in a few desperate breaths, she sat up.

  "Tough as old boots," Harol murmured, then listened as the woman began to wail, rocking to and fro and pointing at the cart.

  "Bloody hell, her husband's under there somewhere. Come on."

  Led by the girl, they began to throw aside the pile of turnips and all too soon they came on the farmer. The wagon itself had fallen across his body and his face was still and pale. The sight produced a fresh paroxysm of grief from his wife, who had tottered across to watch.

  "I don't think there's much we can do," Rasscu remarked sadly to Caldar, although they continued to clear the spilled load. Harol had led the older woman to one side and was attempting to comfort her. A few minutes later she walked across to the two men, plainly agitated.

  "Look, fellas, there's a small problem here. Today's the day you're supposed to be in Karkor, otherwise you may miss this Talisman, right? Well, we'll make it easy enough if we keep going. But after what this poor old biddy here has told me, I hate to walk away and just leave her to it."

  "Go on," Rasscu said, his face unreadable.

  "If I've got it right, their farm’s about five miles back. They’re taking this load of turnips in to the Imperial warehouse on the edge of Karkor. Under the new laws part of their crop has to be handed in to the authorities, a bigger part each year she says. If they don't make the payment on time, their farm will be confiscated."

  "We saw some of that in Dendria." Caldar remarked.

  "Well, for them today's the day, just like it is for you. I don't know which she's more upset about, her husband or losing the farm. She's got five young children back there - would you believe it, she's only thirty two? She says they'll starve without the farm and maybe they'll starve without her husband. She's knackered either way. So what's it to be, gents? Throw her a coin and ride on? Or help and risk being late?"

  No one spoke for a long minute, each of them grappling with their own thoughts. Then the man on the ground groaned and suddenly the decision was made. Harol and Caldar finished clearing the vegetables, while Rasscu hitched up the horses to haul the wagon upright. With exquisite control the Tesserit got the wagon pulled up until it was almost at the point of balance, then with a rope looped round a convenient tree lowered it gently onto its wheels.

  The farmer meanwhile had made no other sound. His wounds were fearful and Harol turned away pale and shaken. But when Caldar put an ear to his chest, he was rewarded with a heartbeat, faint and erratic to be sure, but unmistakably there.

  "Now what?" Rasscu asked rhetorically. "I'm no doctor, but I've seen enough accidents before to know that this man could easily die if we move him. The middle of his body's been crushed and blood's coming out of his mouth."

  "I suppose neither of you can do anything at all?" Harol asked in a resigned tone. "What's the point of being a bloody wizard? So far it's been a dead loss."

  The two men ignored her. "He'll die just the same if we don't move him, Rass. He needs a doctor and warmth and proper attention to have any chance at all."

  "You've got more faith in doctors than I have. But I agree. Come on, let's get moving. You reload the wagon and I'll try to repair the yoke."

  Helped by Harol and the farmer's wife, Caldar began to toss the turnips back into the wagon. It was back-breaking work for the next hour, and Harol, who had volunteered to get right into the ditch, emerged unrecognisable under a coating of wet mud. By the time the full load was back in place, the Tesserit had improvised an effective yoke, lashing the broken pieces together with rope. They made a rough bed of blankets on top of the load for the farmer and moved off as gently as possible.

  The lanes improved the nearer they came to Karkor, and they were soon moving as fast as the oxen could be persuaded to walk. Then for the last two miles they joined the press of travellers thronging the main western highway which swept in wide and straight towards the city. The soldiers guarding the river bridge gave them no more than a glance and there were no further checks before they reached the vast government warehouse, one of several such buildings, whose interior seemed to be bulging with every kind of produce.

  They were directed to an area to the left just inside the huge entrance, and while the farmer's wife argued with the officials about the weight and quality of the load, Harol and Rasscu went to ask for a doctor. There was a detachment of troops guarding the warehouses, and to their relief they learned that an army doctor was in fact making a routine visit to the unit at that very moment. Something was at last going right! Even better, the doctor was bored with minor ailments and malingerers and followed them with alacrity back to the wagon, where Caldar was
sitting with the injured man.

  One look at the terrible wounds and the doctor's face grew grave. He went quickly through the routines, listening to the farmer's heart and breathing and peering into his eyes. Then he sat back on his heels and spoke briefly to Harol, having realised by now that she at least could understand him.

  "The doctor says he's dying," the girl interpreted flatly. "He can't understand how he's lasted so long."

  Another harder voice sounded just behind the little group. They turned to see two soldiers respectfully flanking a small man with decorations of rank on his uniform. The officer spoke at length, and when he was interrupted shrilly by the farmer's wife, his voice rose as he angrily shouted her down.

  "Phew. What an ass-hole!" Harol said quietly to her companions. "All that's to say that she'll have to get her husband back over the river before he dies, 'cos if he pops his clogs inside the city limits, she'll have to pay a death tax before she can take him for burial. Can you believe that? The doctor says he'll die as soon as he's moved, the turkey in the fancy uniform says then she'll have to pay, and she says she hasn't got any money."

  The argument went on, but a great rage was building inside Caldar as he watched the distraught woman facing the official's implacable brutality. Remembering Idressin’s warning that letting his emotions run riot might have unpredictable results, he tried to turn his attention elsewhere. He could still hear the argument going on behind him, and for all his efforts to quieten it his anger growled the louder like an approaching thunderstorm.

  Without thinking he took hold of the farmer’s slack hand and found himself overwhelmed with pity. He desperately wanted to help this man, and his wife too. He saw suddenly that this was at the root of his anger, this wish and his powerlessness to fulfil it. A small realisation, but he clung to it as if it were a rock. It wasn’t that he hated the officer. When he was able to look at it straight, it was clear enough. The fellow was an obnoxious twit, but he had come across such people before without exploding like this. Slowly the rage of negativity inside abated, and as it sank, to his surprise a feeling of gratitude to the still figure at his side arose in him, so strong that it seemed as if he was borrowing a precious fragment of reality from the last moments of the farmer’s life. It was the dying man who was giving Caldar life, doing what Caldar could not do for him. He drew a deep breath and opened his eyes. Everything was as before, but his anger had gone and he felt fresh and light-hearted. What followed was a stunning surprise.