Chapter XIX
Desperate at last to dull the stabbing, anything to quell the gnawing hunger, I sought out the paste of Domen’s beneficence. I did not desire it so much as to want to barter, though, certainly not at the price of whatever soul I had left. So around the shadowy corners of the human imagination I crept, against the walls as Gastgedal went after his ration. The inhabitants of Feallengod filed by in every direction, looking down or away, no words spoken.
With me I carried a flagon of the hard stuff, a raw mixture drained from pilfered bottles of dregs. He stood dutifully in line to receive his pail full of slop. As Gastgedal returned past me, he dangled his foul prize under my nose, always ready to taunt; at that moment I produced my own prize and returned the favor. His eyes lit up.
“You warm my heart, I’ve taught you so well. There’s hope yet for you in the new world.”
“This may help wash down that mush, or at least dull the smell.”
“Do you complain against the good graces of Domen’s rule?” Gastgedal blustered. He snatched the bottle away from my grip, and took a splashing swig. “Yet a time comes that you will beg for this mess, or wish to steal it.”
I startled at the word: Did he know me too well? “I’d rather have your backwash,” and I reached weakly to retrieve the drink.
“Shut up!” Gastgedal retorted, and cuddled the bottle close. “Only if I say so do you satisfy your thirst. Only on my terms will you see to the pleasures of your body. Long now you’ve refused any grog – you won’t mind if today you can only see its good savor.” He took another deep draft of the spirits.
“At least leave some at the bottom,” I whined, putting on a real desire for the stuff. “If you drink it all, I’ll have nothing in my stomach today.”
“Then nothing it is,” he said, “And afterwards you can watch me eat as well.” With that he killed the flagon, rocking backwards. I lurched toward him to struggle for the bottle, but made sure not to breach his hand outstretched to keep me at bay. He arose from his chugging with dazed triumph, belching and taking an expression like an ox had run over him.
“You’ll do what I tell you,” he said without conviction. Again he belched, his face looking like all his innards had flown up into his head. The bottle hit the ground with a clunk.
There he sat, no sign even of breathing; he made a grotesque statue. I studied him hard; he eyes hung open but empty. He slumped slightly; he seemed indisposed, but I knew him still to be just as dangerous as a rotting corpse. His eyes glazed over.
Like a snake my hand struck, taking hold of Gastgedal’s pail of paste.
In a blink he bellowed like a buffalo, his fingers still grasping the handle of the pail. Wide his eyes spread as he jerked upright, wild as his screaming. I hung on like grim death, not sure if Gastgedal was there or not, but driven to desperation by hunger. Frozen in motion for a moment we engaged in a posed tug-of-war, until he collapsed limply upon his back in satiated stupor. Even with his eyes staring, he clearly had fallen woozily asleep upon the cobblestones. I made off with his pail, seeking a hidden place, where the cold mess fell like a brick into my belly.
Hell soon disabused me about its niceties. The sickness arose in me like a balloon growing, like a sheep blown up on clover. My stomach would neither tolerate nor give up its putrid treasure. My throat tight, suddenly my head as well seemed to billow and pucker in turn. A clammy sweat broke over my face, wet to the ministrations of my trembling fingers. The wind twisted the world about, a troupe of dancers, doors and windows flashing by with mocking upon their gaping faces, and my knees and ankles wobbled treacherously. I could see thunder; I heard the ripping screams of starlight. Perhaps my years of dabbling in the spirits, so much fermenting my brain, made for this reaction; I can only wonder at what the goo painted upon other minds. A beam of light exposed all the most extreme excess that lay in the latent recesses of my will; the paste like a stick prodding a hornets’ nest gave me over. Swaying violently, it seemed, to every side my body lurched, and I stumbled through the opening of some nearby grotto and crawled like a wet dog through a growth of trees and bramble. The ground had the choking smell of dung and sick. Somehow I found a low ceiling and fell into the cool shade of solitude. Darkness swirled unseen but in my mind, rolling like a violent sea. In my isolated room I desperately tried to hold still my head, with both hands, wishing myself back into a world familiar to me.
To the east, the low mountains of my homeland sat as ever, nestled within a crook in the higher peaks, one of Four Rivers winding around. They gave birth to the great quarries, womb to the stone that in turn raised up the grand buildings of the village. Their steep sides, dotted with pockets of scree, leveled off into wide plateaus some 250 yards up, natural mesas expanded by quarrymen to act as a platform for extracting huge blocks of granite. I confess, in the days that I worked the stone, I often slipped away from my labors to find sanctuary in the plateaus’ nooks and crannies, and so did I learn the many hidden passageways. These flat highlands always did seem like an enchanted land unto themselves; so the scattered opponents of Domen hoped as they sought asylum, yet I lay moldering elsewhere.
The flinty soil of the plateaus stretched nearly devoid of greenery, but ample pools of captured rainwater lay deep and clear. The little ponds attracted wild goats from their vaulted sanctuary in the higher peaks, the only animals able for the climb; birds as well swooped from the skies to drink and bathe. Though activity at the quarries had fallen silent in recent years, cranes around the lip, erected to lift great cut boulders, remained in place. The massive machines rose rickety overhead, simple wooden levers, clumsy pulleys, ropes of hemp, stones for counterweights. These the refugees now used to haul up food and fuel, tents, tools, utensils and animals. They brought up musical instruments and books, family heirlooms and sentimental treasures without price. Everything they could move, everything they could carry that might recall home to the mountaintop, they brought to their new haven.
The wind whipped at Beorn’s coat and leggings as he scanned the outlying lands. “Pity about those tools,” a voice said behind him, and he turned to see the barkeep. “The fire made nearly every one useless.” Beorn grunted assent and continued to survey the grounds. The back half of the low mountains butted the higher peaks, completely blocking access. An attack could come only from the east and south, he saw, and the face of the mountain, sufficiently steep, promised to make any advance difficult and slow. Though without weapons of any consequence, the people could defend themselves here, at least for a time. Beorn stood at the very brink of the precipice. At every move of his feet, small rocks kicked and bounced to the bottom of the perilous drop, clicking and clacking gaily.
Dice rattled and rebounded off the stone walls of the village’s tallest building. A harsh voice called from above, drawing the eyes of Mann and Cynn from their gaming and up the height of the wall, and there to Domen summoning from a window. A couple more throws, and they abandoned their sport, making for Domen’s quarters. A cold, stone room on the top floor, with only one narrow window to the outside, it suited Domen perfectly. A heavy curtain blocked the sun’s trespass through the single window; the room’s only light glowed orange from a single tallow candle upon a heavy wooden table.
“What do you desire, Lord Domen?” the two asked, laughing. “We came right away.”
“What use do you pretend to? Why has the branding ceased?”
“Nobody remains without the brand, Lord. We carefully check everyone in the village. All have taken the mark of the king of beasts.”
“I must give all my time to raise an army! Draw out invasion plans! Do you think Ecealdor will be so easily overthrown? Much scheming remains for me here! Do I have time to complete your obligation? Do you not realize your lives siphon value only at my pleasure? My records say several hundred upon Feallengod go still without the brand!”
“Your records lie, Lord.” And the two twittered at each other.
Domen’s fist pounded upon the table
, splattering wax from the candle onto the folios and scrolls, and raising a cloud of dust. “My records lie only as I desire! Can I not see? This paper lists shirkers from before the great battle — can you understand that, through your daft reason? Do you wish to read your names? These list the dead, and these the branding record. At least seven hundred names remain missing.” Domen rapped the stack of parchments with a bent finger.
“They lie, they lie,” the twins said, staring blankly at the papers.
“The missing confess themselves traitors — they offend the brand, they refuse it. Every one.”
“Perhaps they love Coren,” Mann and Cynn said, twittering.
“You say that name again and I will blacken your bones inside the furnace!” Domen roared and threw a chair across the room, bouncing off Mann and splintering against the wall.
Mann gathered himself from the floor and Cynn squeaked, their eyes glassy and panicked as they again scanned the lists, no better to them than a foreign child’s riddle. “They lie,” they suggested again without thinking.
Domen lost what little patience he’d ever had. “So clever you make yourselves! A couple of geniuses. The turncoats not found upon the branding list, they also go missing from the village. Do you think hundreds of people vanish into thin air? They remain on the island, treading my ground, breathing my air! Find them — find them now!”
Domen snatched up the lit candle, hurled at Mann and Cynn, who scattered from the room and out the door of the building. For a time they wandered about the streets of the village, not knowing how to go about their mission but feigning so. Each man and woman they passed fell subject to questioning, yet all they ran across carried the brand. Many spoke of friends missing and missed, but nobody could say where they had gone. Trickery and deception failed to raise leads; nor did intimidation improve any memories. The brothers continued to roam the streets, until arriving at the Boar’s Brew Tavern.
“Look at that,” said Mann.
“This place holds promise,” replied Cynn.
A glaring light, the sun or perhaps a candle, burned brutally into my vision, and I could not turn my eyes away. Slowly a red hue overcame the glowering beam, waxing and waning over me as it faded in and out of focus. Deeper the scarlet flowed; my head pounded with devilish fury, like waves crashing upon jagged coasts, or boulders bounding down mountainsides and into the confines of my skull. The light dripped out of the air and left shifting, flowing waves of color I’d never seen before. I think I groaned; certainly I wanted to, but my throat squeezed tight. I knew I rested in the embrace of my shrinking enclave, dark solitude, and still I could not escape the fiendish illusion intruding upon my reality, this phantasm world so mercifully hidden from my sight until now. Confusion cavorted upon my brain, pounding, beating; even now I strive against my words. I prayed for escape, but my captivity only revealed new watchmen.
From the whirlpool of black mists, two beasts, two creatures of hellish design, came into view; I cowered into nightmare shadow. One a great, toothsome snout round about with scales, like a crocodile, or perhaps a cackling fowl but with a tail whipping behind, and about the size of a man; the other a bear, I think, with pointed ears and a muzzle short like a cat, its teeth long like sabers, shambling in with casual, confident threat. How I trembled, for surely they sought me! So alone, for the selling of my life to save my stomach! For the stolen paste, the instrument of my torture, now I would fall into the maw of unearthly beasts, torn to shreds, passionate, unholy vengeance! They spoke like humans, but not so — hard to understand, but still the language of Feallengod tripped upon their gurgling voices. Cruel frowns above pure white eyes, grins split their faces as they scanned the surroundings. They sat or squatted upon something, I know not what, and leaned their elbows on what looked like a great slab of dirty ice. I shivered in its cold.
There appeared a woman, I thought at first my mother, and I wept that she truly now saw me thus, and had returned to the Feallengod she had already left through death, certainly lost and unable to recognize it. Then the face changed, swirling into a young girl’s smile, and then again into the work-worn face of a woman upon whom life had fallen, drawn and sad. She held before her a large basket, in which she somehow appeared also to sit, until she appeared to carry a platter bearing towering objects, like great buildings. Speaking softly to the hideous beasts, she set down two of the heavy objects, like mortars with pestles, or metal tankards. The beasts addressed her in their garbled talk, and though she clearly drew back repulsed, and wanted to make her business quick, she could not tear away. I felt sleep weighing down upon me, but my eyes wouldn’t close.
“Signs against you, mistress,” the reptilian beast’s tongue slathered out the side of its mouth. “Lion sign! Forbid trade! Paste free, freedom paste. Lion door!”
“Right here,” the woman defensively pulled up her sleeve, flaunting her forearm. Her words rushed in my ears like a flock of birds, surging into the air then settling again, high-pitched and clear. “Right here’s the brand.” It glowed swollen and angry.
“Show lion,” growled the other beast, digging its great claws into her arm directly at the wound, blood oozing, pain flashing across the woman’s face. She twisted toward release, but her arm only burned worse from the struggle, so she gave in with a low, resigned cry. The horrid thing threw her arm aside and tipped to his mouth the object, now clear to me a mug of bitters.
“Fresh meat, woman,” the first beast yanked her toward his attention, popping open her blouse. “People don’t follow rules, dead people. We watch, watch you closely.”
“I’ll change the sign. I can’t find the carpenter who always did our work. With no coin, nobody cares for work like this now anyway.”
“Yes, man gone,” roared the second beast, and slammed his drink down. “Know you where?”
“I haven’t seen him, not since the great battle.” Before my eyes the woman’s belly grew until it was fully round. She edged away from the conversation. “But I never saw him that often even before then.”
“Sit, mistress.”
“I can’t, other customers require me.” The woman withdrew slightly more in hopes of getting away.
“Sit,” the second beast caught her again by the wrist, and her arm slipped all the way down into its gaping throat. She saw she had no choice. My head fell backward and banged against a hard surface. Something was crawling under my skin.
“Customers? Forbid trade! Tell them us. Any drunkards wasted not here, no still come?”
“I don’t know.” The scene shimmered back into view, and I saw the woman still had her arm. I don’t know how.
“What, don’t know,” bellowed the first beast, greatly indignant. “No games play us, bitch. Answer.”
“I don’t know, I tell you!” insisted the woman, afraid and frantic to make them believe. “I didn’t work here until a fortnight ago! I stayed home. My husband worked this place until he left!” Her face distorted into a deeper and different anguish, an expression as sad and awful to behold as those of the beasts.
“Husband left?” the second beast purred, as though concerned. Then in my eyes it changed, melting into the image of Begietan, smiling in his foul way. His eyes misted sentimental, until they turned vacant, and opened into round sockets, his smile stretching across macabre teeth, and he became a severed head upon its pole. The smile turned into Gastgedal’s sick grin. I shook with terror, greater so than the woman. Why did she not flee? The skull’s yammering jaw worked like an insane nutcracker.
“Yes, yes,” the woman sobbed through tears. “The fool, he refused the brand. He knew business would fail if he didn’t take the brand, so he just left. He said at least I’d have money, but what good that? Now I have to run the place by myself, with not an hour’s worth of knowing how, and I still have to keep my house, and I’m alone, so alone. I have no time to rest, no time to think — much less time to change a damn-fool sign!” She fell into weeping, out of anger and heartache and fear. The voice grew
to a blaring screech in my ears as I wished hell upon all of them.
“Dearest,” continued the beast, back to itself. “Not right your burden. Help you.” The beast’s eyes did not match its words, and saliva dripped from glimmering teeth.
“You would — help me, sirs?”
“Something to think,” the beast seemed actually contemplative, like a man. “Something to allow — take away shop? Please you? Then no sign worry. Like?”
“But then I’d have nothing,” the woman, struggling to understand, realizing a cruel trick, though even I, surely the author of these imaginings, did not comprehend.
“No work forever,” said the first beast.
“I’d lose everything,” she replied, laughing nervously, as if to suggest the creatures merely crafted a clever joke.
“Then no problems.”
The sky fell heavily dark. I looked upward as a great presence grew out of the clouds, a stone, perhaps the stone, falling from the heavens. But it looked nothing like the stone, and bearing down upon the Earth it grew into a blazing star. What happened to us I know not, for as the stone exploded into the ground, all beneath it was obliterated. Among the destroyed I saw two bodies, lying head-to-head, rotting in the paste and blood. I saw them with a thousand eyes, and the bodies came clearly to my sight: One had the face of Astigan, and the other mine. Then the low ceiling again became my covering, and I held my head in moaning.
“Sirs, please — I got the brand,” said the woman’s voice. “I did what you said. What has happened of Domen’s care? He promised. Please ...”
“Arguing, woman? Forbid trade, paste free! Why still trade? Why seek us help, hate ideas? New thought then — fetch husband you?”
“You could do that?”
“If knew us he. No lion, so not here. Where? Where he for us?”
“He longed sometimes to leave the village. He dreamed of leaving with others who didn’t take the brand.”
“So true?” asked the second beast, only mildly interested. “What others?”
“I don’t know …”
“Not like ‘I don’t know,’ ” said the first beast again in a low growl, rattling within its throat, looking sore disappointed and drumming short talons upon the slab bearing up its elbows.
The woman looked anxiously at the first beast and directed her answers to the second. “I don’t know. He never told me names. He mostly talked about men who fought alongside Cirice, all those gone from Feallengod.”
“Lord Domen many killed. Great victory,” the beast’s fur bristling, his size and attitude swelling.
“He never!” blurted the woman, not thinking. “They laid him flat on his bum.”
The reptilian stood abruptly and grabbed the woman’s collar. “Subversive here,” he said to the other with mock astonishment. “Woman, much of master to learn. Those favored does he crush; cross him and he consumes.”
The commotion caught the attention of other figures within the murky background, and they scattered before my eyes at the brutal business. I cannot guess what so possessed them to stay to that moment. For myself, I could do no more than quake. I saw myself running and never moving, my feet mired in grasping muck. The mire brought me to my hands and knees, and I knew I slipped into a bog of the paste, and I sank deeper and wallowed in it. The comfort I found in its enveloping ooze soon became cold filth, and I shook and scraped at it with my ragged fingernails. Then I arose from the fetid pool, my feet planted firmly on rising ground. Beneath my feet I saw two forms, facing each other, climbing upon themselves, and as the slime fell from them they became the two beasts.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. That’s my husband’s talk, curse him, not mine. I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the woman pleaded.
“Much to make up, woman,” said the hairy beast. Horns or perhaps new ears grew around the perimeter of his head, until together they looked like a furry crown. “What insult from you! How repent you? What penance Lord Domen does satisfy?”
“What must I do?” she looked up now at the first beast, begging in her eyes.
“One thing only — ” the first beast’s face brightened. “Turn in husband!”
“Turn in my husband?”
“Now. Ran out! Brought you ruin! Want him punished?”
“What would you do to him?”
“Not worry you. Get he what’s coming. Get justice you want.”
“But I want him back.”
The beasts sat silent and startled at this simple statement of love: Beneath the tears and terror in her face, still beat a heart for mercy. They had counted on the woman’s anger. I myself blinked in disbelief, and I wondered how my feverish illusion could give rise to something kind and honorable. But blinking swept no fuddlement, ill or good, from my eyes.
“We decide that,” the second beast at length answered.
“I don’t want you to harm him,” her look flitted from one beast to the other, afraid to rest upon either.
The first beast took hold again of her limp blouse. “Tell he where us, then decide us what do him.” Adding again to his anger, he loomed over the woman and shook her roughly, shredding her frock. As she tried to cover herself, the beast slammed a fist to the slab, and it crumbled under the force. I saw no ice in it at all, but rather iron, mixed with clay and easily broken.
“No, don’t hurt him. I won’t let you injure him,” the woman cried quietly.
“Realize you not, plenty harm all,” the first spoke with measured patience. His grip upon the woman’s collar loosened, and instead he took her firmly by one wrist and forced her fingers to spread flat upon the slab, returned again, smooth and hard like flint. “New group on Feallengod means war. Not Domen follow, means war. War want you? No brand die. Perhaps more.”
The woman struggled weakly, wild-eyed, pleading looks darting from the second beast, to her hand, to the empty room. Her hand held fast, yet the world tumbled. I saw the tail of the first beast grow, and it wrapped about itself and the woman. The tail drew them both into its grasp and a deep abyss, until they disappeared in boiling rocks and smoke. I hoped the vision had seen its end, but then a voice pealed.
“Yes,” said the second beast, as he raised his stein and studied the beveling around its base. The object changed as he spoke. “War leave many dead. Better make end now, before too late.” The stein turned into a wheel in my mind, spinning and rolling, going every direction at once. Rising, he placed the maniacal wheel over the last knuckle of the woman’s small finger. Just enough pressure told her exactly what to expect.
“No!” her voice wavered.
“Before you say. Before rash, understand,” said the beast, holding her hand prisoner with his mighty strength. In her terror she did not feel how it squeezed her wrist, and claws sunk into her flesh.
I fell back into my shadows. I plummeted backwards, as though caught in an avalanche upon the high mountains. Cascading faces and vermin and horses rolled screaming past as lights swirled about me in helpless descent, and brought with them a rush of heat.
“Know us must. Reveal husband place. Traitor he, save us him before too late,” said the second beast, its voice rising into a psychotic shriek at the final words. Leaning all his weight upon the wheel, it rolled over the woman’s finger, circling and grinding upon her flesh in terrible retribution. She screamed frantically as the unreal spinning crushed the bone, and blood oozed from beneath her fingernail.
“Stop! No, stop! Please …”
“Important know us,” said the monster, with either smile or craving grimace, and moved the whirling, turning wheel to the end of her ring finger. “Shame it, wedding band not there. Shame,” and it drove the churning wheel down on her finger again under all its force, the sound of the bone scraping and breaking covered only by the woman’s convulsive wailing.
She turned pallid there in my vision, then flush, her face awash with tears and beads of sweat, eyelids fluttering, eyes rolling backwards. I knew the heat and light-headedness she felt, as though she
drifted into my nightmare, then awakened by the agonizing pain, as the beast leaned into his work. “Stop! Please, stop! The plateaus! They’re on the plateaus!” she screamed in the escalating horror.
I heard her, and yet I didn’t hear. I had seen such ruthlessness before; what difference might this specter make? Yet still for some reason this injustice stabbed me right through. Never in all my hedonist past had I so suffered the wages of my ways. Reality eluded me as I sorted what I saw – what had brought me here? I did not know, for neither could I say where my sad body lay sprawled. The chill dampness trickled down my neck, and my teeth chattered. My surroundings turned, ever faster; perhaps the swoon I foresaw in the woman would fall upon me.
“Not so difficult, no?” said the second beast, and he lifted the wheel from her finger, then higher as if studying it once more. Aloft I saw it change again, into the form of the lion, into a solid gold image of the snarling icon. Then hard it came down upon the woman’s hand again, a cruel, crushing blow. Blonde liquid splashed glistening from the gold, sprinkling the slab, tainted red. The colors melted before my eyes and spun into murky brown, then blackness, and I saw no more. Gentle rest flowed over my mind as sounds folded into themselves, quiet shuddering, until I could hear little, then less, then nothing.
“Wasted us time you, wench,” said the first beast. “May we no need return. Return not so easy you.”
What little I know of the vision, I know less about what followed. Hours, certainly; days, perhaps. I can say for certain only that my mind let go the torment, fount of the horrible images. Eventually I returned to my world, to habitats familiar. My eyes opened to cool light, a tender awakening, and an enclosed space the size of a small cart, to both sides solid benches. Above me spread a wooden structure, supported by a central wooden beam — the underside of a table. I slid toward the opening, tending to throbbing head and muscles, and quickly recognized the Boar’s Brew. Then I caught sight of the next table over, one corner broken off, covered with golden lager, tinged with blood.
The images of my unrest flooded back, and a worse nightmare lit upon me: I had seen no vision. The beasts and their brutality, the woman’s suffering, the plateau and its betrayal — I had been made witness to all, to the vicious appetite of power. Yet again, the goodwill of the island’s rulers had defrauded me; the promise of the paste had proven a deadly lure, and under their power I could trust nothing, not even the passing of my thoughts. So deep did Domen’s covenant with Feallengod run. On my hands and knees I crawled out into the open.
That day’s revelers, whichever day, had descended again upon the inn. In turn they brushed past the matron, indifferent, brusque, and though her hand thickly bandaged, demanded service. I staggered toward the door, turning from the tavern’s society and deeper into void, only to be called back by a familiar voice.
“Leaving again so soon, my lovely?”
I turned around in time to see the butt end of a staff careening toward my head, Gastgedal’s bulging eyes taking pointed aim. I managed to deflect the blow, flinging up my forearm, and so took little of its punishment. Twisting into the smallest target I could make, I rammed my shoulder into his gut, and we spilled out into the street, upsetting a group of horses. His staff clattered to the ground.
Gastgedal recovered first and clambered to his feet. That old goat always looked a day away from death, but he had the strength of a hemp rope. One swing he took with a foot at my ribcage. “So, you would pilfer my very food, then steal away yourself?” he chided. “Must I teach you again who’s master? Do I not grow weary of these lessons?” He smiled a grimace while kicking me about in the garbage and muck allowed to accumulate along the curb.
I rolled as I could to dodge his boot. Finally I laid my hand upon a stone, which I lobbed at Gastgedal, catching him on the throat. Enough chance then to gain my own feet, I rushed at him like a crazed bull, head down, screaming and weeping. Together we plunged into a wall, he blindly delivering one uppercut after another to my face.
“Aw, ye little girl!” he taunted. “Shall I tie your skirts over your head? Let us show the island your manhood!”
A tremendous weight crashed down on the back of my neck, and I saw only blackness for a moment. My eyes slowly focused again to see Gastgedal looming over me, looping a black leather whip in his hand. “You’ll be my pack mule, my lovely, if I have to lead you around on a bridle, you will serve me.” The whip cracked in the air, and I felt a sudden stabbing upon my cheek and across my eyes.
From my knees I lunged at him again, taking hold of his ankles, sinking my teeth into one calf – never since have I been able to rid myself of the foul taste. Yelping like a dog, Gastgedal kicked and shook his legs to get free. My only hope was to hold on, and I slowly climbed up his body like Domen’s mountain. Once reaching his neck I wrapped my fingers round and clung like a frightened child to its mother. His eyes told the tale of shocked doom, and I squeezed harder.
Suddenly my knees gave way as pain plowed into my groin. Nothing more was left to me but to collapse into a heap upon the cobblestones, groaning in agony. Gastgedal wheezed and coughed as he gathered his breath and wits, and rewound the whip. “I see you do not believe, still you belong to me,” he panted. “Your life is mine, to end or extend, to do as I like.”
I don’t know how long the whipping continued, nor even when it began. At some point, however, the pain upon my back overruled that of my underpinnings, and I struggled to move. Twice, I think, or three times I lurched to my knees only to fall again. My pathetic writhing fed Gastgedal’s confidence, and he opened a door to my last desperate attempt to put some end to his rule over me.
With a flourish he waved the long whip over his head, but his skill was not so great as his ego, and as he brought the whip low, caressing the ground like a snake, it wrapped securely around his legs. Seeing the tangle, I mustered my remaining bit of strength to leap at Gastgedal, pushing him headlong into a deep stone trough filled with water for the horses.
Then I ran as best I could. I fled like a coward whose only strength is a place to hide. Into a cleft between the scattered buildings of the village I escaped, I fled until fully swallowed up within the black shadows.
Through the village’s streets I drifted, taking no straight line anywhere, until I arrived outside the walls. Though fresh from a beating, the cuts and bruises left no greater impression than the sights of my horrors. My mind cast aside the escape from my haunting companion and returned to the nightmare vision of the Boar’s Brew. The trials of my hidden witnessing may have turned me truly invisible, for though I gazed in panic upon every set of eyes, every forearm, not one man glanced toward me on the way. No man walked unworthy of my suspicion or judgment, as if I alone laid claim to truth, though hidden in terror. In that same hour I knew that though my heart thought itself alive, what I had seen left it dead. I found myself at last at the ashes, grasping for the denuded pillar of the tree, lorn monolith, its support still grand and strong, perched upon roots sunk deep in unbending soil; yet surely Domen squatted grinning at its peak. I clung to the tree, I vomited at its foot, I worshipped that tree, and never was I so destitute.
In short time the open road called me, leading to the fields where I had once before seen those without the brand, the fields where one could stand idly swinging a scythe, gleaning little, thinking nothing. How I hoped to find them there again! How badly I wished to blend into the dirt.
So I sought out among the tall grasses the few islanders I could find without the lion, isolated communities, a handful of vagabonds content with seeds and freedom. I kept my sleeves and head judiciously low.
In the distance, some men coming down the path caught the attention of my little gathering. We ducked into hiding, breath low, and stealthily watched the company, approaching in two straight lines, twelve rows, perfectly shoulder-to-shoulder. They carried with them a bristling assortment of weapons, all polished brightly and sharpened well. As one we watched them upon the road, listened to their cadence, g
azed upon their stoic expression passing, and minded their disappearance beyond a bend leading to the village. Upon each forearm the brand splayed prominently.
“Where do they march?” asked a girl with brown skin.
Suddenly a memory fell into my head. “What? What was it?” I drilled myself, and my brain ached for answer, for at times I still buckled woozy. At last the words made sense, and I translated my horrid dream. “They’re going to the plateaus! They will attack the plateaus!”
“Attack?” The girl and the others turned anxious. “Who will they attack?”
“Those without the brand, they have fled to the plateaus,” I said, not sure what urgency I felt. “They will be slaughtered.”
“We must go! We must go!” they all screamed at me. The girl grabbed my hand with both of hers and pulled at me desperately. “We must run!”
“They’re going there to attack!” I argued.
The girl only pulled harder. “There will be no hiding for us either!” Many a maiden has led me by the hand, but never one with the love and desperation of that girl. Terror flashed in her eyes, but not for herself. For no reason I know, she saw only the fate that awaited me. I looked deep into those eyes. I drank deep, for in those eyes glistened tenderness that I had thirsted for, without even knowing, since the days of my youth. And I knew this girl not at all; her heart bled for me, but not because of me. Some other inspiration gave it birth.
I don’t know why, still I don’t know why, but at that moment I thought of Gastgedal and hesitated. What was he doing, and should I know?
I looked in the direction of the passing brigade. I looked back toward my retreating fellows, and still the girl pulled at my arm. My resignation to believe nothing abruptly wavered – but what to believe, or believe in? Still, this I knew: In one direction lay destruction, ruination, the end of everything I once held decent, whether in admiration or disdain. In the other at least lay life and breath. Again I scoffed at the idea of promise. But what if the king’s promises proved true, in spite of my eyes? The idea finally took root in my obstinate head: Oh, my king, how could you have waited upon me so long? How did you restrain your hand from justice? Without warning the mists dissipated into nothingness, and my brain beheld a notion that now seems too cruelly obvious. Should I believe the king, or believe my eyes? What deprivations I had forced upon myself to remain blind! But now I could see what had remained veiled so long. This truth I saw at last, that the guarantee was death, the promise hope. The promises always gave us our only hope! And considered alongside, truly nothing else did matter. As dark as I had walked my chosen path, I suddenly realized it surely would one day open up into light. A spark ignited within me, and I turned and ran, ran harder than ever before, desiring the plateaus, ran to save my pathetic life, and now it was I pulling the girl.
In the heights of the low mountains, where the sky sat flat upon the mesa, Beorn joined in the work, organizing the labor, setting up tents and other shelters. Once the last of the supplies reached the summit, the men attached large harnesses to the cranes. A dozen at a time, women and young children climbed into their grasp and rose to the plateau. Rope ladders reached down for the more hearty men and women to ascend; I scrambled to the top like a startled squirrel. I joined Beorn as he helped many step from those unsteady rungs onto the mountaintop; he hung precariously over the ledge, steadied by a rope wrapped around one hand and extending to a pile of loose lumber. My heart stopped as the girl — no, the angel — from the fields slipped upon the frail rigging. Without a sound she dangled, her feet hanging as if at rest, and I would have sold my useless soul to save her; but Beorn caught her by the wrist and lifted her to sanctuary.
The refugees reached safety in due haste, a final check found none left at the foot of the mountain, and all means of scaling the peak slinked delicately to the top. My group had been among the last to arrive, the entire escape taking only a couple of days. I had never felt so exhilarated; for the first time in all my years, I knew that, truly, beatifically, nothing mattered. Live or die, I belonged in this mountaintop community, and what happened to me there didn’t matter at all, now or ever. We gathered in a council at the top of the rock, I joyfully pulled my sleeves up to my pits, and we chose our leaders. Beorn sat with a tin cup, chewing on coffee grounds.
“In all your generations, Feohtan, you bear the most honor of any man here, and you must be our elder,” the gathered people said to him.
“No — you must choose a worthy man as chieftain. King Ecealdor bestowed blessings upon my family, which for long years treasured the gift, but I laid waste to it. Instead of honoring the king, the prince, I followed his worst enemy. I stand among you the greatest of traitors.”
“We all carry the guilt of our rebellion, we all scattered like fawns before wolves,” said the tavern-keeper. “Your regret makes you worthy to lead. Because you failed then, you join us here now, to help protect us. We didn’t call you here by accident, you know.”
Beorn looked to Cwen, who smiled warmly, the kind of smile he had not seen since the day of Hatan’s birth. He walked to the edge of the plateau and gazed upon the expanse of Feallengod for a long moment. The October wind whipped over us in brisk, victorious cleanliness. Beorn’s eyes explored the beauty of the land, and now he gave it the last thing he had. “I hope we brought up everybody,” he said finally, “because those ladders will never go down again.”
So as I at last embraced Coren’s people, safety at last embraced me, or so I thought. At least I had cast off Domen by choosing death for myself. But in truth my self-assurance still stood exposed, and I strode about blind. Domen knew all too well.