Paul O Williams - [Pelbar Cycle 02]

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

  Stel sank down again. “I am not fooling anyone—except myself. I am also an exile. Just let me go and I will never return. I am going westward. I saw your signs only yesterday. I want to get out of these mountains before winter. Now, raise the door. I will not bother you. You ought to know by your own troubles how deep mine are —deep as a mine, higher than these peaks. More than pique. I am weak as a reed. I reek like a weed with my own agonies. Let me be gone. Without gain. Never to return again.”

  Scule laughed again. “Good to hear a Pelbar pun again. But you don’t fool me. There is no friendliness in it. See your longbow. Now will let you think. Will lower you some food and water and return tomorrow. You may think in silence until then. Don’t worry. Have plenty of food. As I say, have been expecting you, Dahmen, and have prepared extra food for you every winter. Expect you to tell me of Pelbarigan, then finally to confess.”

  “Confess what?” But there was no answer. Eventually, a thin seed broth and a bottle of water came down a thin rope from the hole. Stel untied it. Again he said, “Confess what? What am I supposed to confess? That I came here for you, to bring you back? That is not true. How can I confess that? It would only be a lie. Am I here to lie here until I lie here? May you confester with your nonsense. And what if I do confess? Will you then kill me? Will Scule make a skull of me? Probably. You encourage me not to confess in every way—not knowing, too, what to confess. You confuse.”

  From above the old man’s voice whispered, “There will be time,” and then was silent.

  There was time. Stel talked upward at the roof hole occasionally, but since no answer came, he finally stopped. He felt the old man was never far, perhaps watching him from the upper darkness. What a fool he had been. It had been his trust of a Pelbar welcome, and the appearance of the far door, perhaps, that had entrapped him. Scule was clearly mad. Stel had heard of him as a child, as a whispered legend, again a warning against the dangers of freeing men from the governance of women. So Scule said that it was Visib who had committed the unspeakable. Stel half believed him. But there was no time for that. Clearly he had to find a way out.

  He fell to examining the stone room. Scule must have been a master stoneworker. The work was beautifully and carefully done, with each stone cube keyed in without mortar, so carefully joined that not even a knife blade could be slipped into the cracks. Stel knew the keying would prevent any slippage. Eventually he found the swingrock in the floor that would enable him to void himself into a space below, but even there the surrounding joining was so solid and careful that Stel felt he could not work it loose.

  He was further alarmed when he realized that the wall trap was so notched in place that Scule probably could not dislodge it if he wanted to. It would have to be dismantled stone by stone from outside, if Scule were still strong enough to do that. It was a one-way trap, a dead end. Stel turned his attention again to the window. There seemed little hope there. It was the top of the arch that seemed most promising. As he studied it, Stel felt that the two keys adjacent to Scule’s viewing hole were simply slipped into place. If they could be dislodged by a very hard shove from below, a portion of the arch would come down.

  Probably some weight lay on top to prevent that. Yet Scule wanted to look down, so there was likely not much weight. But the arch was too high anyway. Stel would have to shove the stones loose with a pole, and he had none. What of the false door? Examining it, Stel found that it was only thin veneer over wood that Scule had cut into, across the grain, deeply. So he had thought of that possibility, too.

  Stel examined what he had with him, mentally. He didn’t take anything out of his backsack, because the less Scule knew, the better. He had his flute, thrust into a side pocket, a short selection from the words of Aven, his clothing, a considerable supply of dried meat, some ground seeds, his small iron pot, his shortknife, his short bow and seven arrows, his sleepsack strapped on top, a coil of rawhide string, five rodent furs, a small bag of various furs, his fire kit, his needles, and soap. Outside, he also carried his longbow and nine arrows, his short-sword, the half-made coat, his snow sliders, his water bottle, and a tinder pouch. All those outside things Scule could see.

  When, after what seemed an age, the sun set, and the dim light from the high window faded out, Stel became frightened. Darkness pooled and gathered here the way it did in the caves under Pelbarigan where the ice was stored. Not even a star showed out the window hole. Cold seemed to flow in on him. No light survived anywhere.

  For a long time, Stel sat in silence. Then he felt the walls in the darkness, stone by stone, to see if Scule had left a key anywhere, a single stone that could be pushed, sliding back a hinged stone structure. When he was sure he had tested them all, he went over all again, tapping with the butt of his short-sword. Everything was solid. He could tell that the room was backed by rock on three sides, only the one with the high window being an outside wall.

  Finally he sat down again, thoroughly alert and awake. He would have to await Scule’s decisions, his pleasure. He took out his flute and reassured himself with a long session of playing, almost all hymns to Aven, running through at least three dozen, slowly and with dignity, playing the melody through as many times as there were verses, thinking the verses. The music filled him with relief, but when he stopped, the silence seemed that much more oppressive. After a long time, he grew drowsy, finally crawling into his sleepsack and dozing off.

  It was full daylight when he awoke. A new water supply lay on the floor, and a stew containing both meat and vegetables. Stel stared at it a long time before eating and drinking. Then he used the remainder of the water to wash himself, and grinding his short-sword on the floor stones, shaved as well as he could, without mirror or water surface. Finished, he sat back against the wall again. The silence continued.

  At last the voice from above asked, “Ready to confess?”

  “I have nothing to confess. I am an exile, like you. I married a Dahmen girl, but I was unable to be as fully servile as they wanted. For my wife it was one thing. For the whole family it was another. I had to escape when they tried to do away with me. I have been wandering now since just past last midwinter. For nearly a whole year now. You are mistaken. Now let me out so I can go beyond these mountains before full winter sets in.”

  “What lies then beyond the mountains?”

  “I don’t know. I have heard that there is a great sea to the west, beyond much. I was told the Commuters live beyond the mountains. They are herdsmen.”

  “Beyond the mountains is dryness, rivers contained in canyons, then more dryness a man cannot traverse. There is no great sea.”

  “You have been there?’

  “Far out in the dryness. Then returned to the mountains where I could be alone and await the Dahmens. You.”

  “To be alone? Who was there? The Commuters?”1

  “Yes. The herdsmen. They drove me off.”

  “Why?”

  From above there was only silence. At last Scule said, “I will ask the questions. You will answer them.”

  “No. I will answer some, and you will answer some.” “You forget. You are the prisoner.”

  “Only my body. Not my spirit or my will. I still can choose to answer or not to answer.”

  “And I can withhold your food and your water. I can watch you die. You can do nothing.”

  “You would do that to a Pelbar who has done you no harm? Then you did murder Visib just as they say at Pelbarigan. And for no reason. I think she did you no harm, as I have not. I think you are mad. You have always been mad. And I think you may well have committed the unspeakable.”

  From above again came only silence. It lasted all day. Stel paced, examined, and thought almost to distraction. Again at night he played his flute, then slept. In the morning no food was lowered, no water. By noon, Stel’s thirst had become extreme. By sunset he simply lay, dull-eyed, his tongue swelling in his mouth, as the evening cold again poured in through the window.

  Finally, in the full d
arkness, a voice from above said, “Play your flute.”

  “Too dry,” Stel croaked.

  From above he saw a light. A bottle of water swung down on its string, hanging just above his reach. “Will you play?”

  Stel managed to say, “Yes, if there is enough water.” The bottle lowered, and Stel drank it all. The bottle raised.

  “Now play.”

  “Not enough water. I need more.”

  After another silence, the bottle swung down again, full, and Stel drank deeply, managing, as he did, to pour some into his own pitched bottle under his coat.

  “Now play.”

  Stel sat against the wall and played the long hymn to Aven, source of the river, bringer of rain, sweller of flowers, stretcher of cattails, blesser of mankind.

  From above the voice said, “Aven did not give you the water. I did.”

  Stel played again, a psalm for kindness, placed in the hearts of women by Aven, given them to govern justly as She Herself did.

  Again the voice said, “Am kind because of myself, not because of Aven.”

  Stel did not reply. He played again, here the ancient hymn to gentleness, care for the children, forgiveness of the folly of men, firmness in adherence to the laws of Aven.

  “Play something that is not a hymn. You are worse than the winter festival.”

  Stel played a love song, the song of Iri, whose eyes seemed deep as the ancient quarry pools. Then he played the song of defenses, the guardsmen’s anthem, the prayer “for arms as strong as river-bluff stone/Defending the city though fighting alone.”

  Scule cackled lightly again. “The Pelbar think those river bluffs are high. They have never seen mountains. Now it is time for you to apologize.”

  “Apologize?”

  “For what you said.”

  “When? Oh. Well, perhaps you didn’t commit the unspeakable. I really don’t know. I don’t care, either.” “Perhaps is not enough.”

  “I don’t know, do I. I have heard from childhood that you did. You are a legend, a warning against men. But enough of us were glad that you put one over on the Dahmens.”

  “Perhaps is not enough.”

  “Do you want me to say that you never did?”

  “That is the truth.”

  “How do I know it?”

  “Do you enjoy thirst?”

  “No. It is awful. Thirst is the worst. I will say it because it pleases you. No, Scule, imprisoner of the innocent. You did not commit the unspeakable. Now. Does that make you feel better? How much weight has that? A forced admission of something no one can know.”

  From above there was another long silence. Finally, Scule said, “So they say that of me at Pelbarigan. And what do you suppose they say of you?”

  Stel mused. “I have often wondered. I have my family. My own. I know they have borne shame for me. I know, though, that they feel I did what I had to do. Sagan advised me to go Northwall. It is my wife I think of.” Stel himself fell silent, thinking of Ahroe.

  “Do not think,” said Scule. “Your wife will not remember you. By now she is either married, or, in the manner of the Dahmens, committing the unspeakable. She-—■”

  “Stop, you crazy old pervert!” Stel had jumped up and shouted at the gap in the roof. “What do you know? You are mad. You wouldn’t know decency if you trapped it. Curse you. You know nothing of my wife.” Stel stopped for breath, as his shouting seemed to echo and re-echo in the tall dark room.

  Scule laughed. “You know I am right. You would not get angry otherwise. However, you have called me that which I will not allow. You will now know thirst.” Silence followed, then another distant laugh from Scule. So now there would be more thirst. Damn him. At least Stel had a little water to hold out with.

  Slowly his anger subsided into despair. He crawled into his sleepsack, taking a small gulp from his pitched bottle. He could vaguely hear wind outside and feel a greater cold. What if Scule were right? What if Ahroe had married again—no. Not yet. The time prescribed for waiting had not passed yet. But what if she had forgotten him? What if they spoke of him in Pelbarigan as they had spoken of Scule, who had become a legend of evil? Stel didn’t sleep for a long time. Finally he took out his flute and played a few hymns, lying in the sleepsack on the stone floor. He grew more csjlm. Finally he stopped in the middle of a hymn, heavy with drowse, and pulled in his arms for warmth. Above, though he didn’t see it, Scule looked down, troubled because the hymn was not finished. The old man frowned down through the dark hole a long time. He could hear Stel’s heavy breathing.

  Stel dreamed of the great beast in the mountains. It rose again and again before him, its head dimly searching, nose testing the air. It seemed to enlarge and expand, hanging over him. Slowly it became Ahroe, then the beast again. Then the dream blackened into sleeep.

  In the morning the gray light brought a swirl of snowflakes into the window gap, and added cold. Scule didn’t come. Stel got up, went through a Pelbar exercise routine, then returned to his sleepsack, stiff with the hardness of the stone floor. Pulling his head inside the sack, he sipped at his pitched bottle, but sparingly. If he was to suffer thirst, at least he would last as long as he could.

  Scule didn’t appear all day. Stel remained most of the time in the sleepsack, but when he felt warm enough, he worked further on his winter coat. Night fell, with the blue cast of snowlight. Again Stel sipped at the pitched bottle, alarmed that he now neared the last of his water. Hunger cut his stomach. Night brought further despair. Ahroe. He had, after all, deserted her. He had violated the promises of his marriage. Did he show resemblances to Scule? What if Scule were telling the truth? What if Ahroe—no. What if, though, she saw him as a weakling, unworthy of being remembered? Well, what difference? He could not go back. But Ahroe was not like the other Dahmens. She had the steel of a guardsman’s sword. She would have defended him. But he left. And she hadn’t defended him. But she had followed.

  Stel slept. Again the dream came, the vast, shaggy shape, merging into Ahroe’s. That night Stel drank the last of the water.

  Again the next day, Scule did not appear. Stel again went through the Pelbar exercises, but listlessly. Again his thirst was acute. Doggedly he worked on the coat, and stuffed his thick, soft-soled boots with four of his small furs. Finally he returned to the sleepsack. He had not touched the dried beef. Better to suffer acute hunger than to add to his thirst.

  That night the dream came again. But it seemed to gain dimension. The great beast rose and hovered in the room itself. Then it shrank down and became Ahroe. She took out her short-sword, and, holding it up, blew on it, changing it into a torch, which lit the whole room. She seemed not to see him. Stel got to his knees and reached for her. “Ahroe,” he croaked in his thirst. “Ahroe. Here. Here. Help me.”

  “I had a husband,” said the vision of Ahroe, in slow, measured tones, her voice, but fiat. “His name was Stel. I thought him strong. He was weak. He left me. He would not accept discipline. Some say he v/as unspeakable. I don’t know. I thought he loved me. He left. I followed, but he eluded me. Now, with my sword of flame, I am going to kill his memory.” The face of the vision suddenly twisted with hatred, advanced on the kneeling Stel, and swept the flame through him again and again, in wide arcs. The pain seemed to cut through him. Stel shouted out in agony again and again. The vision laughed in the voice of Scule, blew out the sword, sheathed it, and said softly, “Now. It is finished. There is no Stel. There is no . . . what was his name? He had no name. He never was. I had a nameless misfortune, but now it is over.”

  Slowly the vision vanished. Stel groveled on the floor. Slowly the darkness and cold returned. No. It had not happened. He was in Scule’s prison, in the mountains, in winter, without food or water, a prisoner of a bitter old madman. Well, it did not matter. Perhaps the vision was right.

  What was he to do? He was confused. Perhaps he would return to the book of Aven. Nothing mattered, the book said, but to be just and merciful, to love. What about truth? Was he beaten
? And did it not matter that this miserable old man had tortured him? Would he bear it as long as he could, as he had at Pelbarigan, then contrive in the dark to put an arrow into Scule as he talked down the hole, knowing that it would mean his own death?

  No. He would not do that. The old man might kill him, but Stel would not kill him. In the first place, he would remove his own hope. In the second, some unknown thing had given this old man his cycles of misery. He had objectified all that in Stel, with his myth about the Dahmen searchers. If he killed Stel, then at least he might be mollified. At least there would be one human life, however twisted, where there otherwise would be none in all these mountains. Stel again slept.

  In the morning, water was on the floor in a stone jar, and a rich stew. Stel crawled to it, and ate and drank very slowly. It was good. He returned to the sleepsack and crawled in, wearing his winter coat. That day Scule said nothing, and Stel slept most of the day. The night resolved itself into dullness.

  In the morning, the voice from above said, “You must apologize.”

  “I apologize,” said Stel, still in the sleepsack.

  “You must also confess.”

  “I confess. What am I confessing to?”

  “You must confess that you have come for me, sent by the Dahmens, by the unreconciled relatives of Visib.”

  “That is not true. But I confess.”

  “If it is not true, why do you confess.”

  “You seem intent on it. It does not matter to me.”

  “Who is Ahroe?”

  “Ahroe?”

  “In the night you cried out for Ahroe. She is your wife, then, this Ahroe?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “She is named for a relative?”

  “What does it matter?”