On the moors, in the hills, he saw animals. Tiny ones that darted invisibly into thickets from almost under-foot, larger ones that leapt and stopped, looked back, then leapt away again, disappearing into burrows or between rocks; larger ones still that ran flowing off across the ground in herds, watching him, and then became almost invisible when they stopped to graze. Birds mobbed him when he walked too near their nests; others called out from nearby, one-wing fluttering, trying to distract him, when he approached theirs. He was careful not to step on their nests.
He always took a small notebook with him on his walks, and made a point of writing down anything interesting. He tried to describe the feel of the grasses in his fingers, the way the trees sounded, the visual diversity of the flowers, the way the animals and birds moved and reacted, the colour of the rocks and the sky. He kept a proper journal in a larger book, back in his room at the old couple's cottage. He wrote his notes up in that each evening, as though filling out a report for some higher authority.
In another large journal book, he wrote his notes out again, along with further notes on the notes, and then started to cross words out of the completed, annotated notes, carefully removing word after word until he had something that looked like a poem. This was how he imagined poetry to be made.
He had brought some books of poetry with him, and when the weather was wet, which was only rarely, he stayed in and tried to read them. Usually, though, they sent him to sleep. The books he had brought about poetry and poets confused him even more, and he had to continually re-read passage after passage to retain each word, and even then still felt none the wiser.
He went into the village tavern every few days, and played skittle and pebble games with the locals. The mornings after these evenings he regarded as recovery periods, and left his notebook behind when he walked.
The rest of the time he tired himself out and kept fit; climbing trees to see how high he could get before the branches became too thin, climbing rock faces and old quarries, balancing his way across fallen trees in steep gullies, leaping from rock to rock across rivers, and sometimes stalking and then chasing the animals on the moor, knowing he could never catch up with them, but laughing as he sprinted after them.
The only other people he saw in the hills were farmers and shepherds. Sometimes he saw slaves working in the fields, and very rarely he met other people out walking. He didn't like to stop and talk to them.
The one other person he ever saw regularly was a man who flew a kite on the high hills. They only saw each other from a distance. At first it just happened that their paths never crossed, but later he made sure that they didn't meet; he would change direction if he saw the gaunt figure of the man walking towards him, climb up a different hill if he saw the little red kite flying above the summit he'd intended to head for. It had become a sort of tradition, a little private custom.
The days went on. He sat on a hill once, and saw a slave running through the fields beneath, through the strange slow patterns that the currents in the wind pushed through the golden-red pelt of the land. The slave's path left a trail like the wake behind a ship. She got as far as the river, where the landlord's mounted overseer ran her down. He watched the overseer beat the woman - saw the long stick rise and fall, tiny in the distance - but he couldn't hear anything because the wind was in the wrong direction. When the woman finally lay still on the river bank, the overseer got down off his mount and knelt near her head; he saw something flash, but could not tell exactly what was going on. The overseer rode off; hobbled slaves came and took the woman away, later.
He made a note.
That evening, after dinner in the house of the old couple, once the wife had gone to bed, he told the old man what he had seen. The man nodded slowly, chewing on a mildly narcotic root, and spat juice into the fire. The overseer was known to be strict, the old man said; he took the tongue of any slave who tried to escape. He kept the tongues drying on a string stretched over the entrance to the slaves' compound at the lordship's farm.
He and the old man drank some fierce grain spirit from little cups, and then the old man told him a folk tale.
In the tale, a man walking through the wild wood was tempted from the path by some beautiful flowers, and then saw a handsome young woman lying asleep in a clearing. He went to the maiden, and she woke. He sat down beside her and as they talked he realised that she smelled of flowers, a perfume more wonderful than anything he had ever experienced before, and so intense that he was made dizzy by the heady strength of it. After a while, surrounded by her flowery scent, enchanted by her softly lilting voice and shy demeanour, he asked to kiss her, and finally was allowed, and their kisses grew passionate, and they coupled.
But as they did so, even from the first moment that joined them, whenever the man looked out of one eye he saw the woman change. From one eye she looked as she had from the first, but looking through the other eye she was older, no longer just past her childhood. With each beat of their love she grew older (though only seen through one eye), through her maturity and late glow and the matron look, to spry then frail old age.
All the time the man could see her in all her youth by just closing one eye - and certainly could not stop himself from the act they had embarked upon - but always he was tempted to sneak a look through the other eye, and be shocked and amazed at the terrible transformation taking place beneath him.
In the last few movements of his knowledge, he closed his eyes, only opening both at the moment of fulfilment, when he saw - with both eyes, now - that he had taken to him a rotting corpse, already known by worms and grubs; the smell of flowers changed in that instant to an overpowering stench of corruption, but in such a way that he knew that it had always smelled like that, and as his loins gave themselves to the corpse, his belly threw out his last meal at the same time.
The wood spirit had his life by two strands, therefore, and with both hands took a firm grip of him, unravelled him from the weave of life, and dragged him away to the shadow world.
His soul was shattered into a million pieces there, and thrown over the world, to make up the souls of all pollen-flies, which bring new life and old death to flowers, at the same time.
He thanked the old man for telling him the story, and told him some tales he remembered from his own upbringing.
A few days later he was running after one of the small animals on the moor; it skidded on some dew-wet grass and tumbled end-over-end, finally falling, limbs spread, on some stones, winding itself. He gave a victorious, whooping cry and threw himself forward down the slope towards the animal as it wobbled to its feet; he jumped the last couple of metres, landing with both feet, just beside where the animal had fallen; it collected itself and sped off again, unharmed, and vanished down a hole. He laughed, breathing hard, sweating. He stood there, put his hands on his knees and bent at the waist, trying to get his breath back.
Something moved under his feet. He saw it, felt it.
There was a nest under him. He had landed right on it. The eggs, their speckled shells shattered, spread their fluids over his boot heels and into the twigs and moss.
He moved his foot, already sick in his heart. Something black wriggled underneath. It moved into the sunlight; a black head and neck; a black eye staring up at him, bright and hard as a jet pebble at the bottom of a brook. The bird struggled, making him jump back a little, as though he had landed with naked feet on something that stung; the bird flapped hopelessly out onto the moor grass, hopping on one foot, dragging one limp wing after it. It stopped, a little way off, sideways to him, and tipped its head, seeming to regard him.
He wiped his boots on the moss. All the eggs were smashed. The bird made a small keening noise. He turned away and began to walk off, then stopped, cursed, retraced his steps and stamped after the bird, catching it easily in a storm of squawks and feathers.
He twisted its neck and dropped the limp remains into the grass.
That evening he stopped writing his journal and never retur
ned to it. The weather grew humid and oppressive and no rains fell. The man with the kite waved and called out to him one day, from the top of a hill; he hurried away, sweating.
It was ten or so days after the incident with the bird that he admitted to himself he would never be a poet.
He left a couple of days later and was never heard of again, even though the lord's marshal sent word to every town in the land, because the stranger was suspected of being involved in what happened the night he left, when the overseer at the lord's farm was found trussed in his bed, his face fixed in an expression of darkest horror, and his mouth and throat stuffed with dried human tongues and pieces of blank paper, on which he had choked to death.
Nine
He slept until after dawn, then went for a walk to think. He left via the service tunnel from the main hotel to the annexe, and left the dark glasses in his pocket. The hotel had cleaned the old raincoat; he put it on and some thick gloves and wound a scarf round his neck.
He walked carefully along warmed streets and dripping pavements, and held his head up to gaze at the sky. His breath went before him. Little snow-falls slumped off buildings and wires as the weak sunlight and a mild breeze raised the temperature. The gutters ran with clear water and soggy bergs of bumping slush; pipes from buildings ran or dripped with the melt and, when a vehicle passed, it did so with a wet hiss. He crossed the road to the other side, where the sun was.
He climbed steps and crossed bridges; he walked gingerly over icy parts where there was no heating, or it had failed. He wished he'd put on better boots; these looked fine but they didn't have enough grip. To avoid falling you had to walk like an old man, hands splayed as though trying to grasp a stick, bending at the waist when you wanted to walk straight-backed. This annoyed him, but walking on without acknowledging the changed conditions, and slipping on his backside, appealed to him even less.
When he did slip, it was in front of some young people. He was walking carefully down some icy steps leading onto a broad suspension bridge over a railway junction. The youngsters were walking towards him, laughing and joking with each other. He divided his attention between the treacherous steps and the group. They looked very young, and their actions, gestures and pealing voices all seemed to bubble with energy, suddenly making him feel his age. There were four of them; the two young men trying to impress the girls, talking loudly. One of the girls in particular was tall and dark, and elegant in that unselfconscious manner of the recently matured. He kept
his eyes on her, straightening his back, and just before his feet went out from under him, felt a slight swagger return to his walk.
He crashed down on the last step, and sat for a moment, then smiled thinly and got up just before the four young people drew level with him. (One of the young men was guffawing, making a show of covering his mufflered mouth with a gloved hand.)
He brushed some snow from the tails of the raincoat, and flicked some of it at the young man. They went by and on up the steps, laughing. He walked halfway across the bridge - grimacing at the pain seeping up from his backside - and heard a voice call; he turned around and took a snowball full in the face.
He caught a glimpse of them laughing as they sprinted away from the top of the steps, but he was too busy clearing the snow from his nostrils and stinging eyes to see properly. His nose throbbed fiercely, but hadn't re-broken. He walked on, passing an older couple walking arm in arm, who shook their heads and tutted and said something about damned students. He just nodded to them and wiped his face with a handkerchief.
He smiled as he left the bridge, up more steps to an esplanade cut under old office buildings. Once, he knew, he would have been embarrassed at what had happened, embarrassed at slipping, at being seen to slip, at being hit by the snowball after so gullibly turning round on cue, and at the elderly couple witnessing his embarrassment. Once he might have chased after the youngsters, to give them a fright at least, but not now.
He stopped at a small hot drinks stall set up on the esplanade and ordered a mug of soup. He leant against the stall and pulled off one glove with his teeth; he held the steaming mug in his hand, feeling the warmth. He went to the railings, sat down on a bench and drank the soup slowly, in careful sips. The man in the soup stall wiped the counter and listened to the radio, smoking a ceramic cigarette on a chain round his neck.
His backside still ached dully from the slip. He smiled at the city through the steam rising from the mug. Served him right, he told himself.
When he got back to the hotel they'd left a message. Mr Beychae would like to meet him. They would send a car after lunch, unless he objected.
'This is wonderful news, Cheradenine.'
'Well, I suppose.'
'You're not still being pessimistic, are you?'
'All I'm saying is, don't get your hopes up.' He lay back on the bed looking at the ceiling paintings, talking to Sma via the earring transceiver. 'I might just get to meet him, but I doubt I'll have any chance to get him out. Probably find he's gone senile and says, "Hey, Zakalwe; still working for the Culture against these gas-heads?" In which case I want my ass hauled out, all right?'
'We'll get you out, don't worry about that.'
'If and when I do get the guy, you still want me to head for the Impren Habitats?'
'Yes. You'll have to use the module; we can't risk bringing the Xenophobe in. If you do spring Beychae they'll be on maximum alert; we'd never get in and out without being noticed, and that could swing the whole Cluster against us for interfering.'
'So how far's Impren by module?'
'Two days.'
He sighed. 'I suppose we can handle that.'
'You all ready, in case you can do anything today?'
'Yeah. Capsule's buried in the desert and primed; module's hiding in the nearest gas-giant, waiting for the same signal. If they take the transceiver from me, how do I get in touch?'
'Well,' Sma said. 'Much as I'd like to say "I told you so", and displace you a scout or knife missile, we can't; their surveillance might just be good enough to spot it. Best we can do is put a microsat in orbit and just passive-scan; watch, in other words. If it sees you in trouble, we'll signal the capsule and the module for you. The alternative is to use the phone, would you believe. There's the unlisted Vanguard numbers you already have... Zakalwe?'
'Hmm?'
'You do have those numbers?'
'Oh, yeah.'
'Or, we've a downlink tap on Solotol's emergency services; just dial three ones and scream "Zakalwe!" at the operator; we'll hear.'
'I am filled with confidence,' he breathed, shaking his head. 'Don't worry, Cheradenine.'
'Me, worry?'
The car came; he saw it from his window. He went down to meet Mollen. He'd liked to have worn the suit again, but doubted they'd let him into their high security areas wearing it. He took the old raincoat, and the dark glasses.
'Hello.'
'Hello there, Mollen.'
'A pleasant day.'
'Yes.'
'Where are we going?'
'I don't know.'
'But you're driving.'
'Yes.'
'Then you must know where we're going.'
'Please repeat that?'
'I said you must know where you're going if you're driving.'
'I'm sorry.'
He stood by the side of the car while Mollen held the door open.
'Well, at least tell me whether it's very far, I may want to tell people I won't be back for a while.'
The large man frowned, the scarred face creasing in strange directions, unusual patterns. He hesitated over which button on the box to press. Mollen's tongue licked his lips as he concentrated. So they had not literally taken his tongue out, after all.
He assumed whatever was wrong with Mollen was to do with his vocal chords. Why the man's superiors hadn't just fitted him with an artificial or re-grown set he couldn't deduce, unless they preferred their underlings to have a limited set of replies. Certainly they'
d have a hard time speaking ill of you.
'Yes.'
'Yes it's far away?'
'No.'
'Make up your mind.' He stood with his hand on the open car door, indifferent to his unkindness to the grey-haired man; he rather wanted to test his inbuilt vocabulary.
'I'm sorry.'
'Is it quite close then, within the city?'
The scarred face frowned again. Mollen tutted with his lips and pressed another set of buttons with an apologetic look. 'Yes.'
'Within the city?'
'Perhaps.'
'Thank you.'
'Yes.'
He got in. It was a different car to that he'd been in the night before. Mollen got into the separate driver's compartment and belted himself in carefully; he pedalled a gear and drew smoothly away. A couple of other cars followed immediately behind them, then stopped at the entrance to the first street they took outside the hotel, blocking the cars of the pursuing media people.
He was watching the small, high specks of wheeling birds when the view started to disappear. At first he thought that black screens were rising outside the windows behind and to either side of him. Then he saw the bubbles; it was some black liquid which was filling the space between the double-layers of glass in the back of the car. He pressed the button to talk to Mollen. 'Hey!' he shouted.
The black liquid was halfway up the screens, gradually rising between him and Mollen as well as on the other three sides.
'Yes?' Mollen said.
He grabbed a door handle. The door opened; a draft of cold air whistled in. The black liquid continued to fill the space between the panes of glass. 'What is this?'