Paul O Williams - [Pelbar Cycle 02]

by The Ends of the Circle (v0. 9) (epub)

  “What did he do to her?”

  “Nothing. She hated what she couldn’t control or understand, and that was anybody without guile. She hated me, too, but we were sisters, and there was some regard for that in her, I suppose.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Dead.” Fitzhugh sat down from her stirring of the pot of fish and beans, motioning Finkelstein over to take it up. He took the ladle without a word.

  “After Stel left, the rest of the people, especially the blind ones, began to realize what they had lost. They began to blame her, avoid her. She convinced them that Stel was waiting for them to greet him in the house of Ozar—up there. She got them all to go there, blind and senile as they were, and managed even with the seeing ones to trap them inside, then burned the whole building down on them all, herself included.”

  No one said anything for a time. “Now we three are left,” Fitzhugh said. “And now I think it is time to eat.” Quen went outside and looked in the direction Fitzhugh had pointed. Against the hill slope lay a blackened mass, in the middle of which a rounded bulk sagged and protruded. Then he turned and went in. He would try some beaus and fish after all—until he could hunt.

  13

  Stel had killed the five Roti. As he climbed up through the trees and scrub grass, he heard the familiar chant. He was still angry and bewildered by what had happened to him, still smelling the stew faintly in his nostrils. He was weary. Yes, there they came, rattling and sliding down the slope, mindlessly chanting, now unfurling the coiled ropes they carried at their waists. Very deliberately, anger boiling up in him, Stel strung his longbow and nocked an arrow. He strained the bow back, aiming with care. The arrow flashed out, piercing the first two men completely through and penetrating the third. The fourth and fifth simply stopped and looked, unbelieving. Stel drew again and killed another. The fifth looked, screamed, and came for Stel, swinging his rope. Stel waited until he was sure, then released his third arrow at that man’s chest. The Roti pitched forward with only a grunt and lay on the ground twitching.

  Stel sank down on the grass. Putting out a foot, he unstrung the bow. Then he rolled over and put his face to the stony ground. What was he to experience next? He lay in utter misery of spirit for some time. Sitting up, he tried to remember where he was, what he was doing there. He took care not to look at the dead men, nor retrieve his arrows, for all the labor they took to make. He could make more. In the mountains. Alone. Far up in the cold wind, then the snow, he would camp and methodically make new arrows. Why would he? He didn’t know. Men needed arrows.

  He was conscious of putting one foot in front of the other, drearily, as he went slowly up the hillside. Eventually he would camp, but only after nightfall, only after he could not look back and see the Roti. But what had they been? Nothing. Even now they were returning to the grass, leaching down like dry grass itself. He too was the same. He had no solidity, no direction, no future. Why was he climbing the hill? He didn’t really know. He was wind, moving like the wind in his face. It was not wind. It was simple movement. As he reached the saddle of the westward hill, the sun was setting in red streamers, long flags of blood-red light, stretched and flowing. Stel kept his eyes down, but saw the rose glow on his legs and boots.

  He camped that night under a hulking, reddish misshapen rock, building a large fire that threw its moving shadows off the rock and the shrubby pines beyond it. Were there Roti to see and come? He didn’t care. What was wrong? Somehow he seemed subtly unfit for human company. Was that it? He had gotten along well enough at Pelbarigan before his marriage. What had it aroused in him then that twisted all awry? Or was it not him? He tried to review it all, but everything seemed to spiral in his mind like the rising flames.

  No Roti came. Stel was half disappointed. He didn’t sleep, but let the fire die down toward morning anyhow. As the sun rose, there were only upward wisps of smoke. He stood and stretched, somehow felt better, with each pine needle, each grain of rock now distinct and in its place in the clear sunlight. He was thirsty but found no water in his pitched bottle. He would let it all go and move on, still westward, toward the higher country, which seemed to expand in its dimensions, with the clarity of the air, and the jutting mountains, which could be seen so long before they could be reached.

  Stel found a stream tumbling through the red rocks, drank, and carefully bathed himself. He boiled a grain mush and ate it sweetened with honey Fitzhugh had given him. He still felt empty, but he wasn’t sure whether in body or in spirit. If he had had a motive for his travel, or a desire to see what no Pelbar had seen, even Jestak, that was gone. If only Ahroe were here. Then what? He didn’t know. Well, he would go on.

  Stel continued west for some days, through a high country of short pines, some aspen and cottonwood in gullies, and open meadows of bunched grass, now drying with the fall season. High peaks with snow on them appeared to his north, then far ahead. He finally descended into a great basin of dry land, with a herd of black cattle apparently undisturbed by anyone. On the valley’s west side he could see a long range of snow-topped mountains, with pines thick on their sides. It seemed a barrier. He would try to make it beyond them before winter set in, though he could see that on the rims and crests it was already winter. No matter. He would try to traverse them anyhow. Stel crossed the basin slowly, killing a heifer on the way, smoking dried beef from it, and working the hide for a winter coat. He wished he knew more about tanning, for the black hair came off in bunches as he worked on the skin. Was there no way to keep it on? He finally decided to make the coat in two layers, stuffing it in between with grass, working in the evenings. He was startled, one morning, to see that snow had moved down from the peaks at least five hundred arms. It was time to be going.

  As Stel began his climb, he found fragments of ancient roadway, interspersed with great sections in which the falling rock had torn it all away. Here, perhaps, was a way, winding through the mountains. He could see by the occasional notches in the mountainsides that the road followed the shoulder of the steep grades with a steady rise, not too steep, sometimes doubling back. The ancients, with their characteristic massive energy, had somehow gouged away great slices of rock, cutting deep gashes into the mountain faces, and plowing away boulders as high as the wall of Pelbarigan. And the mountain, with its timeless passivity, had also characteristically shrugged aside all that work in its great rockfalls. But here, perhaps, was a direction.

  Picking his way into the increasingly cold mountain maze by day, Stel worked on a new pair of snow sliders in evenings. He shot and ate a new kind of rodent, not the woodchucks of home, nor the smaller ones of the plains, but a shorter and fatter rock dweller, a friendly animal that whistled and hid when he came near. It took two for a dinner, and Stel would rather have laughed at their peerings and twitchings but for his hunger.

  Finally, after nine days, the road disappeared upward into the snow, and Stel strapped on his snow sliders and continued his ascent. For a moment as he bent down to fasten them, he seemed across the river at Pelbarigan again, and then, when he stood, slightly dizzy, blood rushing, he almost expected to look back across the river at the looming city, knowing Ahroe was there. What he saw almost startled him—an empty, cold, and beautiful land, a home of giant crows, rushing water, gigantic rocks, and the tall, thin, spiring evergreens. He was momentarily bewildered at his own presence. Then, as if the strange, passive hostility of the country had suddenly taken shape, an animal, dark, shaggy, enormous, terrifying, rose ahead of him on its hind legs, far taller than Stel, its massive front legs hanging, tipped with long, curved claws, eyes nearly buried in its heavy furred head. Stel held perfectly still. What was it? The beast was testing the wind, which blew crosswise between them. Stel made no sound. The beast seemed puzzled, not quite aware of the nature of the vague, strange stimulus that had brought it upright. Finally it lowered itself and moved down through the trees.

  Stel held himself still until he saw the beast emerge far below on an outcrop. He found
he had been sweating. He knew then he wanted to get out of the mountains, but it still was a long way, a climb ahead, then a descent. He set to it.

  Late that afternoon he came to the crest of a pass. It seemed he was on the rim of the world. Far to the east he could see the descending crags, the winding valleys, the dim outline of the west edge of the basin far away, with its brown hills. To the west, against the haze of the waning sun, the wild grandeur continued. Stel felt a strange, savage elation. He was standing alone at the world’s summit. He had come by himself. This was be yond anything Jestak had found. And yet why was lie here? He still was not sure. He began his careful descent. There were still remnants of the winding road of the ancients, notching the rocky mountainsides.

  For two days Stel trended downward, below the snow, again below the tall, thin evergreens, but still in the wild mountains, still on or near the ancient road. Emerging into a flat meadow, he came suddenly to a cairn. This was strange! Surely it was a Pelbar waymarker. Yes. How could that be? It pointed farther, clearly down the road. Yes, here were the distance marks. Fourteen of them. Fourteen ayas westerward, clearly marked—and then the mark of Pell. Stel sat down. He reached out and passed his hands across the cuts in the rock. There was no mistake. These were not only human marks, but Pelbar ones. Was he insane? Jestak had not been here. Who, then? He would continue. If this was a waymark, then there should be another in four ayas, then one more two ayas farther along.

  Stel hurried on, scrambling down the rocky sides of hills, trotting across the meadows, forcing the undergrowth. Estimating the first interval, he found the next waymark on an open shoulder of the ancient road, clearly marked. Again Stel stopped and studied the cairn. According to Pelbar custom, this one contained no marks at all. Now Stel was sure. Somewhere ahead there were Pelbar—or at least one. Or there had been recently. There would be time before night to get to the third cairn. That one should be unmarked as well.

  As the sun was setting, Stel found the cairn, not only in an open grassy area, but one clearly kept visible by the pruning back of the encroaching brush. Somewhere, eight ayas ahead, then, was some sort of Pelbar structure. Stel could hardly force himself to stop, but he did. There would be time in the morning. He might easily miss his way at night. And knowing Pelbar habits, both of secrecy and self-defense, he wanted to come visibly. But it took all of his stolid self-containment to sit by his fire, working on his coat, pushing the twisted sinew through the rows of holes he had made in the hide, pounding grass for lining, shredding it into the doubled pouch of a sleeve, blowing on his fingers in the cold, sipping occasionally from his lightly boiling stew. He would be ready to continue in the early light.

  He was half afraid of another human contact. His recent ones had gone so badly that his self-confidence wavered like the last unfallen aspen leaves. As he lay in his sleepsack that night, watching the slow overhead passage of the stars from twig to twig, he thought of the strangeness of his whole experience, the emptiness of the wide land, his intense aloneness, the indifference of the land and its cold, the remoteness of the stars themselves. What pattern had Aven in Her great thought? Ahroe, where was she? Was she still in their small room at Pelbarigan? Was she directing the weaving of river rushes for winter mats? Surely with all the evidences of pattern, of order, of the array of species, of human accomplishments, there must be a niche in the system for someone like himself. He caught himself wondering if he existed only to represent exile and anguish.

  He knew without doubt that there were Pelbar ahead of him—or had been recently. How would they receive him? What would he tell them? Would he read their defenses correctly? He had never heard of western Pelbar, but perhaps they had been lost, separated in some dim period of the past, and had wandered this far away. He had. Perhaps this was to be his function—to reunite the Pelbar colonies..

  Light came long before the sun was to push above the rims of the high eastern mountains, and Stel had picked his way through nearly all the final eight ayas before it struck down to the now nearly bare aspens among the pines, bathing their light-tan trunks in its clarity. Stel was strangely elated.

  Rounding a curve in the shoulder of the hill, he looked ahead toward a thin column of smoke that rose, then spread like a gauzy sheet, vague and continuous, across the valley. Following it down, Stel saw, with a sinking disappointment, the familiar Pelbar structure, a square of rock, tucked in against the hill. It was small. Here was no city. Unless it was an outpost, it was the home of only a few—perhaps even of one person. But it was Pelbar.

  Stel advanced into the open and studied the situation. Yes, there would be the pit trap, and beyond the next curve the rolling snares. There might also be a ditch trap, but that would be close in. In front of the structure, a short-bow shot away, was the familiar message stone, small but prominent. Stel would work his way across the perimeter of defenses to it, announce himself, and wait for a reply from the structure.

  As he mounted the message stone, Stel took out his flute, and when in formal position, he played, slowly and loudly, a hymn of Aven, praise for the beauty of autumn, the cleansing white of winter, the rebirth of spring. The square stone structure remained impassive. He played through the hymn again, then became aware of a face, dimly seen, at one of the two high windows. It looked old and gaunt.

  Finally, the door opened, a pivot door beautifully concealed in the front face of the structure. A small old man emerged, dressed in a formal Pelbar tunic, but made of small furs sewn together with no great skill. He stood just beyond the entrance, leaning on a staff.

  “Greetings from Stel Dahmen of Pelbarigan,” said Stel.

  “Dahmen?” the old man repeated in a high quaver.

  “Dahmen, by marriage, son of Sagan, a stonebuilder, Arden by birth, a carpenter and workman of Pelbarigan, here through self-exile.”

  “Exile?” The old man laughed a strange laugh, then came forward slowly and mounted the stone.

  Each man put a hand on the shoulder of the other and repeated together, “May Aven protect, guide, govern, and direct you. May She enrich your ways with kindness and temper our meeting with Her love and decorum. May we be the better for this meeting.”

  The old man silently looked at Stel for a long time, his eyes slightly sunken with age, but dark and penetrating in the thin face, which showed a strange, contradictory combination of fragility and sturdiness, Pelbar reserve and toughness. “Come inside,” he said abruptly, and turned, then added over his shoulder, “I am Scule, also Dahmen by marriage, sent to be our western outpost. Come.”

  Stel sighed slightly and followed Scule in through the pivot door, which the old man shut and bolted after them, as was proper. Then he opened an arched wooden door to their right and motioned Stel to precede him into the room. Stel could see another arched wooden door ahead of him, and a high window, through which a thin ray of light streamed. He bowed to Scule, then entered the room. Scule stopped to fool with something in his belt, saying, “Continue through the next door. I am coming.”

  Stel moved ahead, took hold of the ring in the far door, and swung it toward him. For a slight moment he was puzzled. Behind it stood a blank wall. But as his first thoughts flashed through his mind, he heard the familiar grate of a wall trap, and, spinning, saw the door he had just entered disappear as a rock wall thundered down into place. The old man had trapped him. How could he have been so stupid, so incautious? Why would an old Pelbar want to trap him? Stel sank down against the wall and looked around.

  He was in a tall, arched room. The window was too high to reach and too small to squeeze through anyway. At the top of the arch was another small square hole, where the final keystone might have been placed. It was dark, but Stel knew that the old man would soon be looking down at him through that gap. He studied the surrounding stonework. The keystones on either side reached across the adjacent stones in the arch, thus effectively keying that row. It was well done. For the present, he would have to wait and talk to the old man.

  Before lo
ng, his thin voice called down from above. “I have been waiting for you for thirty-five hard winters here. I knew the Dahmens would want me back. I knew they would send. I have made ready for you.” He laughed nervously.

  “What? The Dahmens send me? What for?”

  “No use pretending. Have waited too long. Knew they would not consider exile enough when they discovered how I had fooled them.”

  Stel shook his head. “Nobody fools the Dahmens. What are you talking about? The Dahmens fool everyone else. They are canker in the stomach of Pelbarigan.”

  The old man laughed. “No use talking. I know.”

  Stel thought rapidly. What was he talking about? He had fooled the Dahmens? And over thirty-five years ago?

  What was he talking about? A thought began to dawn on Stel. He stood up suddenly, looking up. “You. You are not Scule. You are Soole, exiled for the unspeakable, who went willingly, leaving a trap for Visib, your bride, which killed her as she re-entered your room. I have heard your story. How they searched for you and never found you. You are here? I can’t believe this. And I have come here through all this trackless wildness and have also been trapped. I thought you were from the dim lost past.”

  After a silence, the old man chuckled again. “For Visib? It killed her, then? I was not guilty of the unspeakable. Visib herself was. I found out. When she learned that, she found ways of accusing me, of exiling me not long after truceweek, sure I would be killed. I turned it on her, and now I am turning it on you. I knew they would never give up.”

  Stel felt dizzy. “On me? What have I done?”

  “You are a Dahmen searcher. I knew they would come. Anyone traveling westward comes to the two great bums, the empty places, which overlap. If he goes south, around the edge, he comes to the great basin, continuing west. From there he can go south around the mountains, or the ancient road will suck him up here, through the pass. You have been clever, but not enough to fool Scule.”