‘Our Seniors,’ Kambl went on, ‘had heard the rumors, and considered Raff a trouble-maker. But he was a Senior himself, so they had to take him in. From the beginning he was full of notions that set him apart. He insisted once that fems’ milkcurd could be turned into a hard substance useful for making into buttons and buckles. The Quarterback Seniors were laughing behind his back for weeks afterward.
‘So he used to talk with us younger men. He said the Seniors were too soft anyway, not men enough to be really intent on Reconquest, which was his goal. He wanted to explore the waterways south through the marsh, looking for solid land to be the site of a new town, a base for expansion beyond the present borders of the Holdfast. He spoke of winning back our pride by winning back the world. It was very exciting. We liked to think of ourselves as new heroes, turning our backs on everything we hated: our Seniors, the Rovers, the marshes, the smell and sound of fems around us all the time …
‘What we hated we also feared. Some of us came to love Raff for his enthusiasms, his brilliance and for his – misplaced – faith in us. But we never did do what he planned for us to do.
‘Toward the end of that five-year the lavers failed again. Raff was enraged to see the fems being decimated for witchery in retaliation. He said they weren’t to blame and that killing them was a stupid waste. That got him into more trouble. Some of the Seniors began saying that he had brought the blight with him, that he was in league with the fems. But he was tough and clever, and he got back to the City with us at the end of that unhappy five-year and began working to amass new power – which he did.
‘Then, a few years later came this other upheaval: news that his son was mixed up in a DarkDreaming. He went to a Board meeting about it and came back very keyed-up, but he wouldn’t say anything. He began to get ready immediately to got to ’Troi in a boat that he’d been fitting out for that journey for some time. Nobody knew he was doing it, except me. I don’t know even now where he found all the metal he needed to make the machine that drove it. At the time, I didn’t dare ask – he had no scruples at all about things he thought were necessary.
‘He needed a helper for the journey and asked me to come. It was amazing, to travel so swiftly and steadily against the current of the river! A fire burned in the machine. I remember wondering if that signified some holy tie with the sun.’
It was impossible to tell whether the burned man was smiling or not as he said this.
‘The trouble was, I had no aptitude for mechanical things. Also, those were full-moon nights that we traveled. Maybe the Moonwitch was watching, remembering the machines of the Ancients that had violated her in the old days …
‘Anyway, I stayed behind when we stopped near Oldtown, and Raff went to get some more fuel. The machine exploded. I went floating down the river in a mass of wreckage, until a hemp-barge picked me up and brought me back to the City – and into the hands of my good friends.
‘Now, this is the part that we argue about, Dagg and I. I’ve heard nothing from Raff since then, and I haven’t tried to get in touch with him. But he’s alive and doing well in ’Troi, it’s perfectly obvious. Rumors have been coming down the river ever since, of invention, excitement – the kind of stir he’s always made wherever he’s gone. And then there are the Boardmen, responding as they always do to signs of unusual power and organization. They’ve been asking nervous questions everywhere and sending spies upriver. Raff is already beset, without his son being after him besides.’
More traveling, then, Bek thought, dismally; Maggomas isn’t in the City at all. When we get to ’Troi, where will they tell me he’s gone to? To the mines, to the moon – anywhere but where I am.
15
‘What’s the matter?’ Kelmz said, speaking close and quiet at Bek’s shoulder. ‘You look washed out.’
‘Does it amuse you, Captain,’ Bek rasped, ‘to gull a cripple and his friends? I hate to have to go further – I don’t like what this trip is making of me.’
‘Nothing worse than those you’re dealing with,’ the captain said.
‘These are all grown men, you’re not responsible for what they do or say. Riggert, there, is trying to use you to wipe out a rival he’s too thin-blooded to murder himself. As for Kambl, he looks to me as if his brains got a good cooking in that fire.’
‘They seem to care about each other.’
‘Oh, you can call that caring if you like. I’ve taken orders from men like them all my life, run my Rovers to death for their little quarrels and jealousies. You find this kind of petty stuff at the bottom of every inter-company skirmish, if you dig deep enough.’
Kendizen joined them. ‘Well,’ he said accusingly, ‘you have what you need now, don’t you. And here I am, helping Riggert achieve something he’s had in mind for a long time – to his discredit, and my own now that I’m involved, thanks to you.’
‘I’m not the cause of Senior Riggert’s bloodthirsty passions,’ Bek retorted.
‘But you’ll get your use of them all the same.’ Kendizen looked back to where Servan and Riggert stood still attentive to Kambl’s twisted form. ‘I don’t like Riggert and never have,’ he muttered, ‘and that goes far beyond this specific mania of his about Maggomas. But I hate worse to see him helped to realizing the worst in him, because there’s so much else. Look at this relationship of his with Karz, of such long standing and in spite of everything …’ He gnawed at his lip.
‘Aren’t they done yet?’ Kelmz said.
‘Karz wants a promise that no one will tell Maggomas that he’s still alive here like this. Your friend Servan is making a pretty show of reluctance.’ Kendizen gathered the folds of his mantle over one arm and turned on Bek with a bitter look. ‘Well, you won’t forget to send back some kind of token for Dagg, will you, so that he can convince Karz that Maggomas is dead?’
In his mind’s eye Bek saw Riggert’s tall wig dipping forward in a stately manner as the Senior bent to deposit a whitehaired, severed head on the lap of the burned man.
He said, harshly, ‘Let him come make a corpse of Maggomas himself – then he can choose his own mementos!’
Too late, he heard his voice crack sharply out in the sudden quiet – the others had ceased speaking.
Karz Kambl heaved himself upright, lunging past Servan and knocking Riggert staggering with his outflung arm. Roaring incomprehensibly, the burned man came hurtling down on Bek, brandishing aloft in his sound hand the brazier that had stood by his chair, a solid metal box that glowed with the fire it held.
Kelmz rammed Bek aside and met the burned man’s charge in his place. The brazier smashed down on the captain’s neck and back, and he fell against Kambl’s knees. Kambl stumbled backward, the brazier tore out of his hand, and Bek sprang and grappled with him. Somehow, the burned man kept his feet. The two of them wove in a tottering circle, gasping, straining against each other. The arm that was clamped across Kambl’s torso pressed against Bek, blocking any clean bodyblow. With his good hand the burned man clawed for Bek’s hair, seeking to drag his head back and dig at his eyes.
Bek braced his forehead against the ropey scar-slick of Kambl’s neck and lunged with all his power. They toppled.
He forgot about his eyes, his head snapped back, he screamed. His thigh was jammed against the brazier’s scorching lip – he could smell the burning. Frantic, he heaved himself free of Kambl’s struggling weight and rolled clear of the searing pressure on his leg.
His cheek and mouth were pressed against the cool tiles, he could see his breath misting the shining surface. Why hadn’t he passed out? Why didn’t Kambl return to the attack? He felt only a numb ache in his leg. He closed his eyes, trying to remember just where he’d felt the burning –
‘– Up!’ That was Servan, speaking urgently into his ear and pulling at him. He pushed Servan’s hands away, rolled onto his back and sat up, supporting himself with rigid arms.
Servan bent, blocking his view of the wound, and began cutting off Bek’s pants-leg with his knife.
br />
Right next to them, Karz Kambl lay crumpled on the floor, his terrible face turned down into the blood that had pooled from his body. He looked like a hunchback because he lay on the arm that was clamped across his belly. Bek remembered being pressed against that unnatural bar of bone. He looked away, feeling sick.
The brazier stood tipped against the far wall on two of its legs, smoking a dark spout of soot up the glazed bricks. In the hearth, Kendizen was trying to help Riggert to his feet. The Angelist, whose wig had fallen off, kept patting around for it, raising a fine dust of ash. Kendizen looked up at Bek, his features shock-whitened, his brindled hair standing up in spikes.
‘Where’s Kelmz?’ Bek croaked.
‘Behind you,’ Servan said, ‘but leave it. There’s nothing to do, or if there is someone else will have to do it.’
Bek twisted to look.
‘Hold still,’ Servan protested, ‘I haven’t finished binding up your wound.’
‘He’s breathing.’ But Bek knew how bad the captain’s breathing sounded, and how bad his color was.
‘His skull’s smashed, and his neck may be broken. Move him a foot and you’ll kill him for certain. We’ve got to leave him and get to where we can lie up quietly for a while.’
Looking at Kelmz’ slack face, Bek thought of the words of the Endpath offering. He didn’t speak them; it wasn’t as Endtendant that he had traveled with Kelmz. He wanted to say or do something, but there was no time to find the right words for his feelings.
What he did say, finally, was, ‘I can’t stay.’ Stupid; it was just as well if Kelmz couldn’t hear him. Was this the way men met the sudden and violent destruction of friends, gaping like fools and stammering inanities? How could it be that Endpath had not prepared Bek to do any better? It was a relief to be hauled upright by Servan and half-carried away.
‘No, no, look,’ Servan said, tugging at him, ‘put your arm across my shoulders, do you think you’re going to stroll off to ’Troi on that leg tonight? He put his brand on you, that Kambl. No, don’t try to put any weight on it at all, lean on me; lean, Christ-God-Son! Who would have imagined a ruin like that could move so fast or be so strong? I had to stick him twice. He must have been really something before he got burned. Bitch it!’ He elbowed the obstructing screens out of the way. ‘Everything was going so well! In another minute I’d have had us a boat upriver even - and you had to blow up like that!’
Before they had gone very far in the sunblind streets, downhill toward Skidro, Bek began to flash faintness and fall against Servan. Some one came up on his other side and helped to support him. Not Kelmz; Kelmz was back there dying. It was over the slim shoulders of the fem that Bek’s arm was drawn.
He came to with a wrench. He was lying, stripped, on a blanket. People worked by lamplight over his leg. Whc were they, standing around to watch, commenting to one another? Was someone kneeling on his leg, to make it hurt like that?
‘Get off!’ he shouted.
Servan bent close over him, pinning him back by the shoulders. ‘Stop that!’ he said. ‘Listen to me: every hair and every bit of charred thread has got to come out of that wound. Otherwise, you’ll end up with an infection and lose your leg, maybe your life. If it hurts, so much the better. That means there’s still some skin there with live nerves in it, something to heal from.’
Bek clamped his jaw shut. He watched the drops of sweat form among the hairs on Servan’s temple, heard his own breath sobbing, was embarrassed, wished he could stop his muscles from jerking and thrumming. The warm pressure of Servan’s hands gave him something to steady himself against.
‘– cold water,’ a voice said, ‘until the pain lets up, if he’s to get any rest. That will help prevent scarring, too, and muscle-shrinkage. That’s not cold; you call that cold?’
‘You wanted it boiled,’ responded another voice, ‘so it was boiled. We have no ice to cool it again, so that’s as cold as you’re going to get it.’
It was cold enough. Bek nearly howled at the first contact. Then the pain went deep, spreading away from the coldness and seeping into his bones. He could hardly feel anything at the injury itself, except for the pressure of the wet cloth. Cold water ran down his skin; the blanket was soaking.
Above him, Servan sat back on his heels, blotting at his own forehead with his sleeve. When someone remarked that the burn looked like it was well down into muscle on one side, Servan said furiously, ‘Shut up, you!’
Bek tried to look at the wound. He saw the fem bending over his swollen leg, a dripping pad of cloth in her hand. He let his head fall back again, panting, ‘Get her away from me!’
‘All right,’ Servan said, moving down to take the fem’s place. ‘I’ll do that. Somebody show her where to find something she can cook up into soup.’
The room was full of shifting footsteps as people moved away.
‘Dinker, don’t go,’ Servan said. ‘You and I have some things to talk over.’
A shaggy-headed man of indeterminate age stayed, glum-faced. There were bright-glazed armlets on his lean biceps. He kept turning these glittering ornaments with his grimy fingers.
‘Last time I helped you out,’ he said, resentfully, ‘as soon as you’d gone two pair of Rovers and a squad of patrolmen busted in on me at the old place and killed three of my lads. I don’t have to tell you what kind of good stuff I lost in that raid – six weeks’ worth of scrapping right at the edge of the Wild.’
‘Dinker,’ coaxed Servan, ‘look at the favor I’ll be doing for you. Who else is going to carry freight for you in times like these?’
‘Carry for me?’ cried the shaggy man. ‘Steal me blind, you mean! Double my trouble for half the gain!’
‘Think a minute, Dinker: the patrols have been rough lately, and they’re going to get rougher; bands of lads go roaming the streets during a dreaming; the Seniors are so nervous they’ll strike out every time a rock rolls. Now, your face is known and your lads are all known, at least the ones you know well enough yourself to trust them. Who would carry contraband scrap to ’Troi for you but me?’
Silence, while the Scrapper mulled that over.
‘As for myself,’ Servan added, ‘I have no choice. I have to go to ’Troi, so why shouldn’t you take advantage of that fact? You let me use your set-up to get there, and I’ll carry your stuff for you.’
Plaintively the Scrapper inquired, ‘When are we going to be paid up, you and me?’
Bek lost track of the conversation after that. Several times they propped him up and slapped him till he was awake enough to swallow instead of choking, and they spooned soup into him. He couldn’t taste any flavor to it, but it was hot, and afterwards they let him sleep.
Eventually he woke clear-headed and jerked his face aside from the slaps that were meant to bring him around.
Servan squatted beside him, with a steaming bowl of soup. The flame of the floor-lamp nearby was washed out in daylight that shone in through a frosted window. The room, a bare cell with cracks in the walls, was part of some abandoned complex of buildings in Skidro.
‘I don’t want any more soup,’ Bek said.
‘You’re sure?’ Servan drank it up himself. He wiped his mouth on the edge of Bek’s blanket. ‘How does your leg feel?’
‘It hurts.’ The leg was one great, nauseating ache. Bek looked at the opaque windowpane. ‘Is it morning?’
‘Afternoon, and so far everything’s quiet. Dinker went with a couple of his lads to clean up the mess we left behind us. Things could be worse. The sun-cultists won’t be eager to come forward with information. Eventually, though, Riggert will have to answer some questions, high as he is. So will Kendizen. They’ll put aside their pride and throw the blame for everything on a notorious DarkDreamer and a renegade Endtendant whom they somehow got mixed up with – in their sleep or something.
‘But it will take some time before the Board even figures out what questions to ask. Dinker’s men will cut up Kambl and Kelmz and sling them into the alleys on th
e other side of town. They’ll lie on a rubbish heap for days before – ’
‘What about transport for us?’ Bek said.
‘Transport where? You’re supposed to rest and heal up, and this is as good a place as any. When the time comes, I’ll take care of getting us on to ’Troi. It’s all set up already.’
‘How long do you expect me to lie here wondering what kind of deal you can work out to sell me? I know you, Servan. This burn will take time to heal, and you’ll get bored. A friend doesn’t put his friend into the way of temptation.’
Sighing, Servan held the soup bowl up to the light, studying its translucence. ‘This is the finest piece I’ve ever seen in Dinker’s hands. I’ll have to find out where he dug it up and who told him it was worth hanging on to. Normally he has miserable taste. But even Dinker shows better sense than you do, by Christ! Are you feverish, or what? You’re hurt, my friend; what do you want to do, crawl up to Maggomas and bite him on the foot? Be sensible, man! You need to take time out to mend, whatever the risks.’
‘No. We must go now, while Maggomas may still be in ‘Troi. That information cost too much to waste.’
‘The burn must be very painful,’ Servan remarked. ‘You didn’t used to set much value on your injuries.’
‘I meant Kelmz. That blow was meant for me.’ Bek could see, in memory, the fiery brazier sliding down a curve of air, spewing bright spots, rebounding from Kelmz’ shuddering back with Kambl’s grip.
‘Ah,’ said Servan blandly. ‘Of course, Kelmz stepped into save you. Noble Captain Kelmz.’
‘You didn’t see – ’
‘I saw. You don’t think its possible that he was merely responding to an attack according to a lifetime of training?’
‘It’s possible.’