“It’s alright, my friend,” said Tarikel. “Bimji’s one with us. He’s helped me stage raids. We’d see more of him if only his lady would let him off the farm.”
“Is this your pasture?” said the man.
“Mine? Um, no. It is a commons. We share it.”
“Of course,” said the man.
“I trust you will help us keep this mound safe. We’re storing some important things here … for the resistance.”
“Of course we will,” said Tarikel. “Isn’t that right, Bimji?”
“No worries,” said Bimji. “Don’t plan to add my bones to this barrow. Nor anyone else’s, for that matter.”
The man tittered nervously. Tarikel caught and held Bimji’s gaze. He grinned conspiratorially, oozing the restraint of a starving man trusted with the keys to a larder.
***
It was Bimji’s task to deliver the tithing to the Venep’o agents. The Alar sent wagons to every village once a moon to collect tribute from any Giep’o clan that farmed or trapped or fished. The local Polus in Xama and Sinta commandeered a roadside barn to make the collections.
Bimji had loaded a single donkey with charcoal from their kiln, a meager tribute, but the best they could do this far out of season. Their grain stocks had run down nearly to the reserve they would need to re-seed. There were plenty of roots in their cellars, but the Sinkor faith forbade any ingestion of any crop harvested from beneath the soil. And it was a shame, because Bimji was tiring of stews of radish and beet and parsnip.
At the Polus barn, Bimji could see from the queue that many others were in the same predicament. Other villagers and woodsmen had come with wagons and beasts loaded with furs, flax, and raw hemp. The only foodstuffs he saw were some grapes and tree fruits; almost no grain. The Alar would not be happy not having flour for his bread.
The Polus tallied his offering and marked a shingle in receipt. Bimji took it and doubled back towards Sinta with his beast, pausing by a shaded gully to retrieve an extra sack of charcoal he did not wish the Polus to seize. Once in Sinta, he tied his donkey by a wooden stockade fence with some tall grass growing beneath it, and hoisted the small bag of charcoal onto his shoulder.
Bimji headed for the ruddy door of the traveler’s tavern for his customary monthly tankard of honey beer. Lizbet never much liked him going there because of the shady clientele such places attracted, but she tolerated his one indulgence. Bimji went their not only for the honey beer, but for news. In such turbulent times, news from travelers could mean the difference between surviving and not, as the residents of Verden found out when the Alar decided to turn their little valley into a gated colony. If such a thing was to happen in Sinta, Bimji wanted to know in advance.
Rugs lined the outer wall of the round tavern. The tavern keeper served his beer in tankards and bowls from a large clay cistern in the center of the room, on a table integrated with the central support of the structure. Half the diameter of the hut was screened off into sleeping quarters.
Bimji deposited the charcoal on the clay floor. Hiltahu, an unveiled and ancient woman beamed with her few remaining teeth.
“You’re too generous,” said Hiltahu. “Unless you plan on drinking many more bowls.”
“Just one for me,” said Bimji. “But if Ellie or Tom ever visits, perhaps you can favor them a drink.”
“A meal as well, perhaps? We have barley.”
“I’ve already eaten,” said Bimji. “But thank you.”
Hiltahu filled a tankard with the bubbly, yellow brew. Bits of bee and honeycomb floated here and there. Bimji just picked them out and tossed them on the floor. He retired to a round of carpet by a vent in the wall that offered a view of passersby on the road. The tavern harbored several other clusters of people, most of whom he knew, but he wasn’t feeling particularly sociable. He just wanted to sit back and listen to their words, and maybe if he heard something that interested him, introduce himself and inquire further if the topic interested him.
But when Tarikel spotted him, he wasn’t afforded that luxury. The older man waved him over. Tarikel had two of his cousins with him, and a woman named Paoala whose veil seemed to come and go every other time Bimji saw her in public. Bimji went to them reluctantly. It would have been impolite to stay away.
“Bimji of the hills,” said Tarikel. “Meet my cousins from Raacevo.”
“I think we’ve met before, no?” said Bimji.
“Have you?” said Tarikel.
“You and your clansmen get around,” said Bimji.
“So you’ve met Paoala, as well?”
“Seen her about,” said Bimji. He tipped his head to her.
“Bimji’s a hills man,” said Tarikel. “Hunter, tracker, herder. Though of late, he’s settled in, married a foreigner, a peregrin no less.”
“This true?” said Paoala, her face lighting up with curiosity. “What is it like?”
“What do you mean?” said Bimji.
“She must have … unusual habits, no?” said Paoala. “What she eats. In the bed.”
Bimji took a long, slow breath, seeking patience and restraint. “She’s just a woman. Like any woman. Like yourself.”
Tarikel’s cousins, silent till now, laughed.
“Paoala is not just any woman,” said Tarikel. “She is special … in some ways.”
Bimji looked her over, seeing a woman who was wiry but elegant, rough-clad but well-groomed. Nalkies used concubines to infiltrate the Venep’o garrisons and temples. She seemed the type, but Bimji didn’t see what made her so special.
“Lizbet’s a good woman,” he said. “Strong. Kind. I am very lucky.” Bimji’s hand went to his veil. He nudged it back up his cheekbones.
“Why is it she takes so few spouses?” said the veil-less Tarikel. “Her farm is large enough. And she has only you and the two children and the other peregrin … the skinny one.”
“The other peregrin is stronger than she looks,” said Bimji, smirking. “But I’ll pass on your offer. We could use some help shoring up our terraces. You look like someone who can haul some stone.”
The cousins snickered. Paoala smiled broadly.
“Better that I stay unattached in my line of work,” said Tarikel.
Bimji sipped from his tankard. The honey beer was weaker and more bitter than usual. The tavern keeper must be making thinner batches to stretch his reserves through the dry season. It would be months before the rains began again and the bees came out of their dormancy.
“How are things in Raacevo?” said Bimji.
“How do you think?” said Tarikel.
“My guess would be awful,” said Bimji. “I don’t know how you stand it. All those Venep’o.”
“It’s not just the Venep’o anymore,” said Tarikel. “Must be half the city folk have converted to Sinkor. Every day they recruit more Polus.”
Bimji winced. “Why do they do it? I don’t understand.”
“Safety,” said Paoala. “They never purge the clans that show up at temple.”
“You should consider converting then, Tarikel,” said Bimji. “Or at least carve yourself some of their demon gods to place on your mantle.”
“You laugh,” said Tarikel. “But you should see my mantle.”
Tarikel turned to Paoala. “Bimji is a veteran of the first raids. He rode with us in Maora, when we struck the new colony.”
“Really?” said Paoala, a sparkle igniting in her eyes.
Those were hot-headed days, as Bimji recalled. Maora had been home to his mother’s clan. Those who refused to leave their land were driven off by force; the survivors enslaved, including several of Bimji’s clansmen.
“That was ages ago,” said Bimji.
“Exactly,” said Tarikel. “Where have you been hiding?”
“I have a farm to tend,” said Bimji. “I don’t get involved with Nalki business anymore.”
“It’s a shame,” said Tarikel. “We need more like you, not fewer. Especially now … with all the purges.”
r />
“Are you … recruiting me?” said Bimji, lowering his voice.
“Wasn’t my intent,” said Tarikel. “But now that you mention it.”
“I really should be getting along,” said Bimji, shoving aside his tankard.
“And … we too must be leaving,” said Tarikel, rising from the bench. “But I’d like you to join us for a spell. I have something you should see.”
“See what?” said Bimji.
Tarikel had a giddy look in his eyes. “Remember when we last met?” he said. “By the barrows in the uplands?”
A chill rippled through Bimji. “Is that what this is all about?” he said. “I … I never spoke of it to—”
“I know,” said Tarikel. “And we’re grateful. But I want to show you something from those barrows. Just a little demonstration. Come across the fields with us for a bit.”
In spite of himself, Bimji found his curiosity stoked. He had always wondered what Tarikel and that Sesep’o man had stashed in the false barrow by the goat house. He had been tempted to excavate one of the crypts. Only taboo held him back. What if it turned out to be an actual grave? He regretted mentioning the incident to Tom. Ever since he did, he was always catching the boy poking around the mound whenever they had chores in the high meadows.
Tarikel smiled. “Finish your drink. I can tell you’re interested.”
One of Tarikel’s cousins lit a punk from the hearth; the kind the marsh folk burned slowly to generate smoke to keep mosquitoes at bay. They left the tavern, crossed the river over the causeway, and traversed a field full of mature white beets, bulging from the soil like so many green-haired foreheads.
Beyond a screen of trees that separated the silted flats of the beet fields from the sloping meadows, Tarikel pulled from his pocket a length of red cord, a small silvery cylinder, and a larger white cylinder with ends twisted closed like a sausage. He attached them to each other with smears of resin and bits of twine and tucked the resulting contraption under the curve of a well-rotted fallen log.
Tarikel took the smoldering punk from his cousin. “You might want to take a few steps back,” he said.
“What’s this? A fire starter?” said Bimji, looking down. “That log’s full of rot and damp. It will never burn.”
“Move back,” said Tarikel.
Bimji obliged, following Paoala and the cousins behind the stone wall that lined the top of the meadow.
Tarikel blew on the punk until it glowed and touched it against the tip of the red cord. The cord hissed and spat like an angry snake as the sparks worked their way toward the tube of metal. Tarikel watched it for a second, backing away, and then turned and ran.
As Tarikel hopped over the wall, a clap of thunder burst from the log, painfully loud and accompanied by a powerful wind that blasted their faces. The ground shook, rattling the stones in the wall. Bits of rotten wood rained down on their heads.
“How?” said Bimji, mouth agape.
“That was nothing,” said Tarikel. “This is but a tiny sprig of the magic in those barrows.”
“Why are you showing me this?” said Bimji.
“We trust you,” said Tarikel. “You kept quiet about the barrows. And you’ve helped us Nalkies before. So … are you in?”
***
Bimji thought about ignoring the appointment, feigning forgetfulness. But as the day grew closer, he found the necessary arrangements falling into place under his subconscious direction, driven by the undercurrent of excitement that the affair lent to his daily activities.
Until one day he found himself guiding a cart load of bundled parsnips to Raacevo to trade for some bolts of soft hemp cloth. This was not Bimji’s usual task. He offered to run the errand on the pretense of sparing Lizbet’s injured hip from the bumpy roads.
Once on the road, his apprehensions reasserted themselves. As he approached the road block on the outskirts of the city, he began hoping that Tarikel would not show as scheduled, so Bimji could get through his business and go home, escaping his promise, but saving face by keeping up his end of the agreement.
But they were there, across the road block, standing in front of a tea vendor—Tarikel and Paoala and the cousins. They spotted him before he could turn around.
They swarmed out onto the road to meet him.
“What animal eats the sky?” asked Tarikel.
“This is silly, Tarikel,” said Bimji. “There’s no need for secret passwords, you know it’s me.”
“This is important!” said Tarikel.
“It is a swallow feasts on the wing,” said Bimji, reluctantly.
“We were worried you wouldn’t show,” said Tarikel. “Glad to see you’re with us.”
“Am I?” said Bimji as his insides clenched. “I have yet to hear your plans.”
Tarikel looked about, waiting until a family passed and their little group was alone on the road.
“We’re taking down a bridge,” said Tarikel whispered.
“Which one?”
“The viaduct … in Siklaa Gorge.”
“That’s crazy,” said Bimji. “That’s a mountain’s worth of stone.”
“We have the means,” said Tarikel. “The materials are already at the site. We just need extra hands.”
“You plundered those barrows?” said Bimji. “Won’t the Sesep’o be angry?”
“I doubt they’ll notice,” said Tarikel. “We only took a portion of their clay.”
“Clay?”
“The white tubes. Tovex, they call it,” said Tarikel.
“Not sure I want to do this,” said Bimji. “It’s not a good time. We’ve got shearing to do. Planting season’s coming up.”
“It won’t take long,” said Tarikel. “The caravan’s due any day. It’s overdue, in fact. We’d need you for two days at most.”
“Caravan? You plan to destroy a caravan?”
“As they pass over the viaduct, yes.”
“I … don’t think I can spare the time,” said Bimji. “Maybe next time.”
“Next time?”
“I’m sorry,” said Bimji.
Tarikel and the others stopped in the road and watched Bimji continue on without them.
Bimji made his trades—sold the parsnips, bought the hemp. It was too late in the day to return to Sinta before nightfall, so Bimji made his way to the humble traveler’s inn where he always stayed when he visited Raacevo. When he found Tarikel and his cousins waiting for him, his heart sank.
After two bowls of potent honey beer and an impassioned pitch from Tarikel, Bimji reluctantly joined them on the south road. Paoala caught up with them halfway to the homestead of Tarikel’s clansman, where Bimji left his cart and donkeys and Lizbet’s bolts of cloth. The effects of the honey beer were already wearing off as Bimji made his way up the plateau with Tarikel and his gang of saboteurs. It was too late to back out and retain any dignity.
***
As the time waiting for the caravan had lengthened into three days and nights, Bimji had grown increasingly anxious. His alibi for returning home late—a tithing issue—had been completely shot by the end of the second day. Lizbet knew how fickle the Venep’o could be with their roadblocks and curfews, but a three day absence went beyond any excuse Bimji could dream up and reasonably expect Lizbet to believe.
But now that the caravan had arrived, all else was moot. Now, finally, Bimji could set the charge, escape across the plateau, retrieve his wagon and go home. He didn’t need to stick around for the results. He could let Tarikel report to him how everything went whenever he next saw him at the tavern in Sinta.
A piercing whistle sounded and the stalled wagons again began to roll across the viaduct—massive, ship-sized vessels pulled by six mules apiece, each wagon with wheels taller than a person. Bimji noted a tiny flurry of movement below the central span, and a large boulder beside it suddenly darkened from a drenching of river water. It was the signal he awaited from Tarikel’s cousins.
Bimji’s stomach lurched. Now t
he initiative belonged to him. Bimji struck the flint with the steel. Hot sparks ignited the tinder in a brief flare that sufficed to ignite his taper. The wind carried a tiny curl of smoke out over the void.
Bimji edged over to the charge, protecting his taper from the wind with one hand, leaving no hands to brace himself as he traversed the exposed ledge. Bimji’s heart pounded and he swooned at the sight of all that open air below his feet.
He tucked the taper into a crack beneath the overhang and stuck one end of the red burn rope deep into the silvery capsule, crimping its end closed with his teeth. He pressed the cap into the wad of tovex already in place and unwound the coil of fuse.
Satisfied it wouldn’t double back on itself, he took the taper and lit the end, moving quickly towards the chute as soon as sparks began to spray.
The fuse pulled free from the blasting cap and dropped onto the ledge, sliding towards the brink. Bimji reacted instinctively, and before he could stop himself he was sliding after the coil. He dug his fingernails into the stone and pressed his body flat. The friction slowed him to a stop an arm’s length away from the brink. His knee, luckily, had trapped the fuse which had burned down several hands. He stuck it in his mouth and crawled back up to the overhang, pulling himself up by a gnarled and stunted tree that clung to a crevice in the wall.
The fuse still burning, he considered snuffing it out, but it still had a long way to burn. He worked the fuse back into the cap, broke off the stem end of his punk, and jammed it in to hold it.
As soon as it was secure, he tore across the ledge and into the steep chute that funneled down to a broad step in the gorge wall. He snapped a glance towards the viaducts, satisfied to see a large contingent of Cuasars following the huge clerical wagons. A few stones knocked free and bounced down the chute and over the terrace, sure to give the Venep’o a preview of what was to come.
The footing in the chute was loose and steep. He slid back with every increment upward. He braced himself for the explosion, expecting it to rattle the cliffs at any moment. Bimji hauled himself up by pulling on the twisted trunks of the ancient cedars that clung to the gorge wall. The lip of the plateau lay just out of reach.
Bimji heard voices. He peered over the ledge that topped the ravine wall like a capstone. A Crasac patrol was making its way along the gorge wall. They had Tarikel bound, and were shoving him along. Their backs were turned. They moved parallel, but opposite the route of the caravan.