by K. J. Parker
He told himself, Nothing in the world matters more to me, right now, than gouging out this hole. I must do it carefully, properly, I must not hurry, I must not just do half a job, I must not give up or panic or think about anything else. There’s no rush. I have all the time in the world, and every bit of crumbly stuff I can dislodge is another bit done. I must not panic. I mustn’t think about graves or the jaws of animals or any of that nonsense. There’s nothing in the world except the job in hand.
He relaxed, making a point of feeling every muscle and tendon at rest, apart from his right hand on the hoe-head. He knew terror was only a breath or two away—not like the first time, when he’d been dead already and there was no hope. This time, though he’d be just as dead if he got stuck, he had the terrifying knowledge that getting through was possible, that there was a way out a few yards ahead if he could get there, and he wasn’t just finding activities to keep himself occupied and take his mind off things. He knew from that experience that he could handle despair. Hope was a far more dangerous condition.
To pass the time he recited poetry: the first twenty lines of Alphis and Eurymedon (he despised Substantivist epic, but the relentless tumpty-tum metre had jammed it in his head when he was nine), over and over again until the words lost any vestige of meaning. He sang “La doca votz” and “Can l’herba fresc,” but his voice echoed in the tunnel, and maybe Luso was out looking for him by now. He recited the seven, eight and nine times tables, and couldn’t remember what eight nines were. He summarised what he’d learned about dactylic hexameters, and tried to embody it in classical hexametric verse. The blisters at the base of his middle and index fingers had burst, making the hoe-head almost too slippery to hold. He recited all he could remember of the met’Oc family tree. He counted backwards from five hundred.
He stopped digging. He had no way of knowing how much he’d managed to scoop out, how big the hole was, whether it was big enough. He knew there was a serious risk of getting irrevocably stuck if the hole was too small, or if he’d contrived to divert himself into another undetected blockage. The decision to go ahead was entirely arbitrary, which bothered him, but his right hand was now so cramped that he couldn’t use it any more. He could lie there still and quiet for an hour or so and see if it got better, or he could go now. Life and death decision. I’ll go now, he thought. I’ve had enough of this.
There was a bad moment when his shoulder came up against something that wouldn’t shift, almost certainly a big stone. He had no purchase for wriggling back, and the original blockage was now level with his left hip, so turning round was out of the question. He twisted until he was lying on his left side, his right shoulder slightly compressed. He felt the tip of his nose (still painful to the touch) brushing the original obstruction as he eased himself along, a flex of the toes at a time. He felt the cover of one of the books jammed in his belt catch on something and tear. Then, remarkably, he was through, and sliding far too fast head-first into light.
He reached the hole mouth and couldn’t stop. As he fell into thin air, he threw the sword away, so he wouldn’t land on it and snap it. He hit the ground back first, and all the air was bumped out of his lungs. They were so empty that for a moment he couldn’t make himself breathe in. New air and pain came at the same time. He choked, caught his breath and opened his eyes.
He was looking up at the white face of the cliff. It looked sheer and whole; he had to turn his head to find the hole he’d just fallen out of. It was barely visible, you’d take it for a shadow or a discoloration of the rock unless you knew what you were looking at. He flexed his fingers and toes, and was mightily relieved to find that everything more or less worked. His right hand, when he raised it and examined it, was a red and white pulp which he probably wouldn’t have recognised as a hand if it hadn’t been attached to his wrist.
Easier the second time, he thought. Well, maybe not.
The hoe-head, presumably, was still up there somewhere. He thanked it in absentia. A small thing, of no commercial value, judged not worth repairing by Stheno and the met’Oc, but it had brought him through the hour of his trial like the intercession of some saint. The sword was lying in the thin grass. It didn’t look anything. You could have taken it for a bit of old dry wood, fallen from the edge of the canopy a hundred feet above, and the white sheen of its handle no more than silver birch bark. Mere things, artefacts, make all the difference.
He thought, Once by accident, once on purpose. Never again.
He stood up, an adventure in itself. He hadn’t thought any further than this: go back, get the sword, get out again. Beyond that—beyond here, the place where he now stood—he had only a vague design, an awareness of what he had to do, a determination to make a proper job of it this time. He realised that he’d anticipated (practically relied on) dying in the hole, because good luck pushed too far turns to bad luck as reliably as any properly attested reaction in alchemy.
He walked down to the river favouring his left ankle, which he must have twisted or turned at some point. He realised he’d never been this far upstream before. He looked for a place to cross, but there didn’t seem to be one; the river was fast, skimming over large rocks that sheltered deep pools. A non-swimmer with a bad ankle could slip, trying to hop from rock to rock and end up in one of those pools, or else get battered along by the current. He followed the river upstream for a while, until the pain in his leg started to get on his nerves, but the river just got wider and faster. That made him laugh. Not the best omen for someone with a head full of complex mechanisms, if he couldn’t cross a river not half a mile from where he’d been born. He turned back and trudged awkwardly downstream towards his usual ford. He was nearly there when it occurred to him that if Luso was aware of his new truancy, there’d be men watching the ford from the Gate, and in his present unsatisfactory condition he wouldn’t stand a chance. He turned round and limped upstream, the way he’d just come.
The hell with all this walking up and down, he decided. Time to think.
He knew there was at least one good ford upstream, because he’d heard people talking about it while he was at Furio’s. The cattle drovers used it, but they were afraid Luso might ambush them there, and there wasn’t (damn it, he should have remembered this earlier) there wasn’t another ford for ten miles in either direction. That gave him some sort of fix. Assuming the nearest ford downstream was the one by the Gate, which he’d always used in the past, then it followed that the ford the drovers had been talking about was something like ten miles upstream from there. Ten miles limping on a bad ankle that was rapidly getting worse. Also, by the time he got there (at rather less than his usual walking pace), wasn’t there a serious chance that Luso would have men there as well, if it was the only other place where the river could be crossed?
He sat down on a fallen tree and scowled at the river, which ignored him. There was, of course, a flaw in his reasoning. The drovers had been talking about places where you could cross the river with a herd of cattle. A man, even a man with a trick ankle, was rather more agile and resourceful. A man setting forth boldly to meet his destiny wouldn’t need yelling at or prodding with a stick. So there could be another place where he could cross, which didn’t mean to say there was.
A very small part of him was getting distinctly nostalgic for the nice warm dry library, where there were chairs to sit on and books to read. He hauled himself onto his feet, ordered his ankle to stop hurting, and lumbered painfully up the riverbank. This wasn’t, of course, how it was supposed to be. When he’d resolved to go back and get the sword, he’d seen the task ahead of him, he realised, in strictly heroic terms, focusing, as any epic narrator would, on the cunning deceptions and the great, dangerous effort. The rather more mundane business of dealing with hostile geography and crossing distances was something to be glossed over with a some time later or an eventually, after many travails. The sad fact was that he didn’t have a friendly poet on hand to whisk him away from the foot of the mountain and put him down
where he needed to be next. Instead, he’d have to walk.
To pass the time he reviewed his options like a beggar endlessly counting the same three coins. Here on the plain, the perspectives were entirely different. By turning his head a little he could see the plateau, a neat and convenient metaphor—isolated, elevated, defended, separate. When he was up there it was all the world, and therefore any improvement in his condition could only be achieved by changing it, which (he now realised) he didn’t really want to do. Leaving it was a quite extraordinary thing. It was as though he’d contrived to burrow his way out of being himself, and was now alone and free on a flat plain of infinite possibility, holding a talisman, the sword, that could turn him into something else, the existence of his choice. He couldn’t help grinning, because that was just the sort of heroic thinking that he’d been cursing a little while ago. Besides, if there were heroes in his family (in spite of the history and the legends, he was inclined to doubt it), he wasn’t one of them. Luso would probably do, at a pinch. Stheno had the build for it. Not me, he thought, unless it’s one of those stories that begins, Once upon a time there were three brothers. Those stories usually ended with the two eldest brothers dead.
(If Stheno and Luso died, and Father as well, of course, I’d be… He looked back at the plateau, and shook his head. The thought of owning it, that great big enormous thing, was too extraordinary even to consider. Besides, would he want it? On balance, he decided, not really.)
He stopped. A flat rock stuck out into the river, with furious white water boiling up on either side of it. He could see it was slippery and sharply angled on the far side. Beyond it, he guessed, was a deep pool, almost certainly up to his chin. But it was the likeliest prospect he’d seen so far. All sorts of possible disasters occurred to him as he jumped from the bank to the rock. He could have landed worse, but there was a horrible moment when he felt himself toppling forward, and his right hand closed on empty air, and he almost toppled head first into the pool. But he managed to pull himself back (so little in it) and get himself balanced again. First thing I’ll do, he promised himself, once I’ve made my fortune, is get someone to teach me to swim.
He stared across the pool to the far bank. If he hadn’t hurt his ankle, he might have jumped it. Or he might have tried, at any rate, so it was probably just as well. Slowly, feeling extremely stupid, he sat down on the edge of the rock and lowered his feet into the pool, cringing as his shoes filled with water. He felt with his toes for a firm place, but found nothing. Metaphor, he thought, bloody metaphor again (the flat rock being the plateau, the river the possibilities of the world), and slid forward, terrified. Water rushed up over his legs and chest, into his mouth, over his eyes. His feet found the bottom. It was slippery as goose-grease.
Ridiculous, he thought, and lunged forward wildly. He staggered as the current shoved at him. His feet skidded on the slippery rocks of the riverbed and he fell, but the current kept him just about upright, as he danced furiously for a foothold. Like a fool, he hadn’t thought to breathe in. There was no air in his lungs. Trying not to inhale was like trying to hold a coiled spring between his fingers. He lunged again and found a foothold. When he straightened his leg, his head pushed up out of the water. He gobbled a chunk of air, like an owl swallowing a mouse. His feet slipped again. He was unsupported, falling. His left foot landed between two rocks, twisting his bad ankle, and he hopped away from the pain. This time his right foot found a firm place, on which he balanced just long enough to swing wildly sideways. His shoulders were out of the water. He kicked at the riverbed, one foot and then the other, not even trying to stand up, just doing his best not to fall. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the bank was only five yards away. He threw the sword as hard as he could. The effort toppled him over and he landed on his outstretched hands, his face in the water but on all fours. Like this he could cope much better. He scampered the five yards, eyes tight shut, until his shoulder hit something solid, which had to be the bank. He opened his eyes again, saw a bunch of reeds and grabbed them with both hands just as his feet slipped again. He hauled on the reeds until his chest and then his waist were on the bank. Then, lacking the strength to do anything else, he rolled onto his side, which pulled his legs out of the water.
Once upon a time there were three brothers, he thought, and they came to a wide river.
He lay still for a long time. Breathing was like pushing his skinned hand against the dirt, back in the hole. If being alive hurts this much, he thought, why the hell bother?
Well, he’d learned two things. There wasn’t really a secret way down off the mountain, and there wasn’t really a place where you could cross the river. Instead, there were two opportunities for a bloody fool to kill himself trying. But look on the bright side, he demanded of himself. I made it, I’ve got the sword, I may hurt all over but I haven’t broken any bones this time, and the river’s washed all the dirt out of my lacerated flesh. And I’m here.
Which begged the question of where here was. A good question, probably a bit too deep for him (if he’d stayed in the library long enough to read Zosimus’ On Being and Reality, he might have been able to answer it). In very simplistic terms, however, he was on the other side of the river, and the town was about seven miles away, north-east. Assuming he wanted to go there.
He stood up, apologising to his body for the shocking state he’d managed to get it in. He looked across at the plateau. The further away from it he went, the more of it he could see. Yet more metaphor. Fuck that. He turned round, and all he could see was the flat plain.
Some time later, he reached the dock. There was no ship.
The place was, in fact, practically deserted. There was just the one old man sitting on an upturned barrel with his feet dangling like a child’s. He was looking down at his hands, and didn’t look up when Gignomai’s shadow fell across his face. But he said, “I know you. You’re the youngest met’Oc boy.”
Gignomai never understood how people he’d never met knew who he was, but he was gradually learning to accept it. “When’s the next ship due?” he asked.
The old man lifted his thumb and stared at it. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it. “Spring,” he said.
“Oh.”
The old man laughed. “Season’s over, see,” he said. “From now till spring, you can forget about going anywhere. Wind’s all over the place, like the mad woman’s shit.”
Gignomai took a moment to parse that. “No ships at all?”
“No.” Now he looked up. “You in a hurry or something?”
Gignomai shrugged. “I’ve got business I want to see to back Home. Look, is there anybody with a ship here who’d—?”
The old man thought that was really funny. “Nobody’s got a ship,” he said, “don’t you know that? Term of the fucking charter, we aren’t allowed any. So the Company keeps its monopoly, see? Even the fishing’s owned by the Company.”
No, Gignomai hadn’t known that. “Nothing at all?”
“Nothing,” the old man said slowly and deliberately, “with a sail, or capable of being fitted with a sail. That’s the words, in the charter. It’s the law.”
“Fine,” he said, “not to worry, I’ll just have to make other arrangements.”
The old man must have thought Gignomai was the funniest thing ever. “Other arrangements,” he repeated, with a huge grin. “What, you going to walk to the mainland?”
Some time later, Gignomai thought, after many travails. But no; he’d had quite enough of doing the impossible. “Thanks,” he said. “You’ve been a real help.”
The old man was looking at his thumb again. Gignomai really couldn’t see what was so fascinating. “What are you doing here anyhow?” the old man asked. “Business, you say.”
“That’s right. Thanks again.”
So he walked into town. By the time he’d got there, he knew he wasn’t going to get much further. He just made it to Furio’s place. He really didn’t want to pass out on the front step, because that w
ould be sheer unadulterated melodrama, but in the event he didn’t have any choice.
“You’re back, then,” Furio said. He was grinning.
Gignomai lifted his head. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Furio stifled a yawn. That and the way he was sitting in his chair suggested he’d been there for some time. “Glad you came back.”
“The sword,” Gignomai said. Furio leaned back and lifted it off the floor. “It’s all right,” Furio said. “It’s here, it’s safe. That’s what you went back for, right?”
“I need to see your uncle,” Gignomai said. “Soon as possible.”
“Now isn’t possible.” Furio frowned a little. “Teucer says you’re too weak for visitors. She tried to chase me out, but…”
Teucer. Gignomai raised his left hand and stared at it. Four neat, perfectly spaced little stitches. He felt his stomach contract, and he had to swallow hard three times to keep from throwing up.
“Good, isn’t she?” Furio was saying. “She’s forgiven you, by the way. At least, she was so thrilled to have someone to practise on. Someone who kept still, on account of being dead to the world.”
Gignomai lowered his hand, letting it droop over the side of the bed so he wouldn’t catch sight of it. “Please,” he said, “get your uncle. She doesn’t have to know.”
“All right.” Furio went to the door, then stopped. “You know what,” he said, “for a pampered son of the aristocracy born to a life of idle pleasure, you don’t half get yourself banged up.”
