“One day, a scout named Hal P’Jardas was traveling deep among the canyons outside our mountains, and he came over a narrow, hidden pass and saw three wide valleys spread out like leaves of clover. He came down from the pass and went from valley to valley, fishing the streams and testing the soil, and where the three valleys ran into one another, where Hold is now, he camped near a mound covered with strangely twisted lava pillars, like glass, he said, with lights inside them. He found a fumarole nearby that served him for a campfire, and a warm pond where he could wash himself. He roasted a snared rabbit over the fumarole, and finally settled himself to sleep.
“Deep in the night, he wakened to a cracking sound and a change in the smell of the air. His eyes slitted open in time to see a line of fire come out of the fumarole, a fiery candle that stood taller than a tall man, wavering in the light wind, then broadening to take the form of a woman. She was cloaked in black so that only her shape could be seen against the predawn sky, her body visible only when the cinereous robes parted momentarily to show a blazing hand, the fiery curve of a cheek or thigh, a set of burning lips and a tongue of white flame.
“‘Why are you here,’ she asked him in a voice like hissing lava, and he trembled, for in all his years on the Trek, he had seen nothing like this.
“‘Looking for a place for my people,’ he said. ‘A place for them to settle.’
“‘And does this place suit you?’ the fiery woman asked.
“He thought he should say no, it didn’t, he was leaving in the morning, but what came from his mouth was the truth. ‘Yes. It is a good place. My people will like it.’
“‘And your people are called?’ she asked.
“‘We are the Praise Trek-band of the Spared Ones.’
“She laughed, then, the kind of laughter a volcano might utter while it was resting.”
Horcus interrupted her. “Miss Dismé, how do you know this?”
“P’Jardas wrote it all down!”
“Including the bit about the cinereous robes and the volcanic laughter?” asked Gustaf, his eyes wide.
“I’m making it vivid for you.”
“So it’s not all true?”
“It is all true,” she said, annoyed. “I’m merely giving you the feel of it. One can tell from what Hal P’Jardas wrote how the woman of fire behaved, and what Hal P’Jardas wrote is in the archives in the Fortress of Hold and the person who told me the story memorized it directly from that document.”
When Arnole had told her this story, Dismé had had similar doubts. “You’ve read them, Arnole? How did you get to read them?”
He had shaken his head at her. “Dismé, I was sixteen when the Spared took me for a slave, fifty years ago. After they spent a year re-educating me, they put me to working a night shift in the Fortress. Nobody notices a man with a mop, and I spent more time reading the old files than cleaning the floors.”
Dismé went on, “Then the fiery woman said: ‘If they are the Spared Ones, then I will spare them yet a while, explorer. Tell them, however, that if they come here, in time they will be charged a fee for the use of these lands, for this is a place dedicated to Elnith who was, Lady of the Silences who is yet to come.’”
“That’s one of the Council of Guardians!” cried Jem.
Dismé nodded. “She said, ‘I am her friend, her forerunner, her prophetess, if you like. Have you heard of Tamlar of the Flames?’
“Hal shook his head, too full of fear to speak, and she said, ‘Elnith sleeps in this land, and it is hers, not mine, though we cohabit it in part. In time to come, Elnith will wake and set her sign on your people. Be sure to tell your masters, so they will know all about it.’
“And she moved her hand in the air, leaving a glowing line that looped upon itself, and this sign hung there even while the ashen robes closed around the radiant body and dropped back into the fumarole. That was the last he saw of Tamlar.”
“Tamlar is one of the Guardians,” said Sanly. “There’s Tamlar of the Flames and Bertral of the Book and Camwar of the Cask…”
“What do we need guardians for when we got angels?” demanded Horcus, a bit truculently.
Dismé gave a careful reply. “The Dicta tell us to believe in the Rebel Angels, Horcus, but they don’t name them or describe them. For all we know, the Rebel Angels and the Guardians are the same creatures under different names.”
“Go on with the story, Miss Dismé,” Gustaf said.
“When Hal returned to the Trekkers and announced his find, the Spared gathered together from all over the land and spent the last year of their great trek clambering their way over the mountains into this land of Bastion. When the Spared reached the center of Bastion, they found a mound topped by a number of curiously shaped lava pillars. Nearby was a dead fumarole and a recently dried-up pond, but no one connected this place with the place P’Jardas had spoken of…” Perhaps, thought Dismé, because they had not believed the story to begin with. “…and when P’Jardas next saw the place, the curving stones had been removed, and the foundations of the Fortress were already encircling the mound…”
Dismé reached for her shoes.
“…so the mound where Hal P’Jardas camped is still there, in the cellars of the Fortress itself and that’s how the story ends,” Dismé glanced at the sky. “Look. The sun’s moved past lunchtime. We need to get back to the classroom.”
In the Time of Desperation, there had been darkness for a very long time and what remained of humanity had lost track of time. When the darkness lifted, someone had figured out when midsummer was and had counted days until the next midsummer to establish the solar year as lasting four hundred days. This neatly divisible annum was divided into four seasons—though there was much less difference among them than formerly—each season made up of ten spans of ten days each, yielding such calendar nomenclature as “Spring-span ten, fourday,” or “Winter-span three, nineday.”
In Bastion, days one through seven were work days, days eight and half nine were marketing days, while the afternoon of nine and all of ten were span-ends, given over to rest, amusements, and a required obeisance to the Rebel Angels. Dismé usually accompanied either Rashel or the housekeeper to Apocanew on marketing days, and in the latter case, it was a much relished outing.
On a particular day during Fall-span three, Rashel told Dismé she was to do the shopping while Rashel herself kept an appointment. In Apocanew, Michael stopped at a corner, and Rashel went off down the street while the carriage pro-ceded to the grocers’ street where Dismé went into the cheese shop and the sausage shop and the green-grocer’s and the bakery and half a dozen other places, in each case paying the bill with Rashel’s money and exchanging her own bits and splits for Holdmarks, which she hid in her shoe. She and Michael arrived back at the corner in time to see Rashel coming down the street, obviously in a fury.
She got into the carriage and immediately went through the string bags that held the purchases, snarling about each item. Then she took Dismé’s purse and went through that, pocketing the change, and then through Dismé’s pockets. Dismé said nothing for Rashel had always done this, since Dismé was very small. There was nothing in the purse except a comb, the change, and the receipts, which Rashel took. Dismé’s pockets held only a couple of honey lozenges wrapped up in a clean handkerchief.
“What, no commission?” Rashel sneered, peering at the receipts. “You’re a fool, girl. You should have asked for a commission,” and she settled into the cushions, her face obdurate, obviously raging about something. Dismé did nothing to set her off anew, nor, she noted, did Michael.
When they arrived back at the conservator’s house, Rashel was delivered at the front door while Dismé rode around to the kitchen door, to take in the groceries.
Dismé looked up through her lashes, whispering, “Where does she go, Michael? When you drop her off there? Is she always this angry, afterward?”
Michael stared at the sky. “Angry, yes. Where, I don’t know. I know a way to find ou
t, however. Perhaps I will.”
“It would be interesting to know,” said Dismé. “If it makes her that furious, why does she go on doing it?”
18
hetman gone
When Rashel was dropped off at a street corner in Apocanew, she was either on her way to visit one of her dear, dear friends or she was keeping an appointment with her “Uncle Influence.” She often rehearsed upcoming visits in her mirror, mouthing this invented title with some insouciance, even impudence, the merest gloss of insolence which vanished completely when she approached the visit itself. Pretence stopped at the grilled gate in the blank wall a block or so from the Turnaway government house in Apocanew. Even knocking on the gatepost demanded an effort of will, and it was only with great difficulty that she retained an outward aplomb.
Eventually, and only when the street was totally empty except for herself, a wizened and hairy dwarf responded to the knock by appearing out of a hole in the wall, like a marmot. As always, he looked her up and down as though she were spoiled produce left too long at the market. Whichever one of the dwarfish servitors opened the gate, Issel, Gnang, or Thitch, he always waited for her to pronounce the correct name before unlocking it and holding it just wide enough for her to slip through.
Once admitted, she went through the hole to the flights of stairs and lengths of ill-lit hallway that ended in another gate, this one of iron, with a peephole that opened with a peculiar and mind-wrenching shriek.
“Rashel Deshôll, Thitch,” she said to the eye behind the peephole.
“Known to the Hetman?” asked a sepulchral voice.
“You know I am,” she muttered.
Thitch made the slobbering gargle which passed among the Hetman’s servants as a laugh. It was derision, not humor. Neither the Hetman nor his minions found anything funny, though certain very horrid things afforded them amusement, but it was amusement of a gobbling kind, more akin to voracity than to joy.
The stony anteroom was lit by several iron-bracketed torches. Rashel settled herself uncomfortably on a roughly squared stone. The wait was likely to be long, and, as always, she was too vividly reminded of the first times she had come here.
It had happened only a day or two after Roger’s accident, when Cora had mentioned an “acquaintance,” Hetman Gone, a person of great influence who was in a position to grant Rashel many benefits—if he took a liking to her and if he offered her a job. If he did both these things, Rashel would receive expensive schooling, the finest clothing. She would be given introductions to this one and that one. Her future would be assured.
How did her mother know this? Ah, well, Cora worked for the Hetman herself, occasionally, and she had gained many benefits from that association.
It had sounded tempting. Rashel had gone with her mother to visit him in his lair by the fire, among his dwarfish assistants: Issel. Thitch. Kravel. Gnang. He had complimented her upon her appearance, her intelligence. He had mentioned the benefits she would receive for serving him, much as her mother had.
“Do you agree?” he had asked.
Rashel, age thirteen, had shrugged. “Yes,” she had said. “Why not?”
“And you, Cora?” the Hetman purred. “Do you agree as well?”
“Yes, Hetman,” she had said, her voice shaking slightly.
All during that first visit, Rashel had noticed that her mother was not herself. She had sat quietly, hands clenched so tightly together that they seemed bloodless. Even her face had been ashen, and it took several days for her to recover her usual appearance and manner. At the time, Rashel had thought her reaction a stupid one, for nothing bad had happened. The place had been strange, and the man had been stranger yet, but nothing had happened.
After that, everything happened as promised: schools, clothing, introductions, and the Hetman didn’t even ask for a report on how well she was doing. Not until Val, Dismé’s father, was installed in the bottle room.
“We must meet with Hetman Gone,” her mother said, when the installation was complete. Her face was again ashen and her hands trembled when she spoke.
“I don’t want to meet with him,” Rashel had said in her most arrogant tone. “I have no reason to meet with him.”
Her mother swallowed, gulping at nothing and having a hard time getting it down. “If you want to go on living, you will need to meet with him. If you want to accomplish all those things you desire, then you will meet with Hetman Gone.”
Rashel hadn’t believed it. She had thought it ridiculous, believing the actual visit would prove how silly her mother was being. So, she had returned to that dismal, fire-lit cellar and listened while Cora explained that a second one of the Latimer family had recently died, and this failure of her duty had to be reported to the Hetman.
Rashel had looked up at this. She had never heard of any duty her mother owed the Hetman.
The Hetman reached for an iron-bound box on the table beside him, opened it and took out a journal from which he read a list of all the benefits Rashel had received through his efforts—her schooling, her clothing, certain luxuries with which she had been provided.
She thanked him nicely, assuming that was what was wanted.
He had smiled, and for the first time she had felt afraid, for it was a terrible smile.
“These gifts were not so inconsiderable as to be given for a mere thank you, Rashel. They constitute an indebtedness much larger than that.”
“Then you should collect from her!” she said impassively, pointing at her mother “It was she who arranged it all. I never did.”
“Oh yes, you did,” said the Hetman, in a particular tone that seemed to cut her tongue and freeze her throat. “You said, ‘Yes.’ You said, ‘Why not?’ You agreed. You owe the debt.”
“Now, Rashel,” her white-faced mother had begged. “Listen to the Hetman.”
“Children are often encumbered by their parents, with chains of one kind or another.” He had smiled his terrible smile. “Even though you are the cause of your mother’s breach of her duty, your chains will be relatively light. You will merely visit me here, regularly, either spontaneously or at my invitation. You will merely do, from time to time, what you are told to do. These duties will not be onerous. They will be within your capability.”
“And if I won’t?” she had gasped, her anger still riding atop her fear.
The Hetman made his peculiar gargling, slobbering sound. “Then, surprisingly, the school you attend will find it made a mistake in admitting you. People will not want to meet you or work with you. You will find yourself isolated, friendless, and poor, as your mother once was. Soon you will catch the Disease. You will be Chaired. Your life will end.”
“Rashel?” her mother begged in a frantic whisper.
“Oh, all right,” she had gasped as the Hetman had turned away from her to summon his assistants.
What happened after that, Rashel preferred not to remember. At the age of fifteen, she had been dedicated to the Fell, as, evidently, her mother had been before her. The Hetman had insisted upon it. Issel and Thitch had held her mother so she could not interfere, not that her mother tried to interfere, for she merely hung there between them, ice white, with her eyes shut tight pretending she did not hear Rashel’s screams. Kravel and Gnang had held Rashel. Each time Rashel screamed, she promised herself she would not scream again, and each time a new cry was wrung from her until her throat was as raw as the parts the Fell concentrated upon as he had his horrible way with her, his excruciating and dreadful way that left her bleeding and bruised and terrified. The Fell had teeth where no other creature had teeth. The Fell had poison that did not kill but only excruciated. No one had ever…ever before done…anything like that to her. Scarcely conscious, barely able to walk, she had been taken home.
Outwardly, she had healed, without scars. Inwardly, she quivered with remembrance. Since that time she had been punctilious in meeting the Hetman’s expectations. Since that time, she had come here, as he ordered, regularly.
; The iron door across the anteroom screeched open on rusted hinges, and the dwarfish form of the particular creature called Gnang leaned through the opening. “Are you expected?”
“I believe he knows I’m coming,” she said. He always knew when she was coming, whether or not she herself had known it before she actually approached the gate.
The dwarf stood back, allowing her to enter Hetman Gone’s home, or perhaps his office, or perhaps only a place in which he transacted business from time to time. The only parts of it she had ever seen were the lengthy hallways she had just traversed and this single overheated room where he waited.
As always, he was seated in a large chair before an open fire with his back to the door. The fire gave the room’s only light as well as its excessive heat, though Rashel did not remark upon this. As had been pointed out to her on a previous occasion, the fire was not there for her convenience or comfort. She circled the chair to come into his view, bowing slightly.
“So, you’ve come visiting.” Gone’s expressionless voice was belied by the intent gaze of half-lidded eyes that glowed redly in the firelight. Despite the ruddiness of the fire-glow, Rashel believed his flesh was rather gray, a hue she detected where the sides of his face and neck curved into shadow. Dark, stiff hair rose from a point almost between his brows and ran back along the center of his head in a bushy crest. His long, thick fingers bore several heavy rings set with worn intaglios, and he habitually fondled a dagger that ticked and tinged on the rings as he juggled with it. She had always seen him seated, and each time she saw him she was surprised anew that from hip to crown he did not appear to be much taller than she.
“I am astonished,” he mused in an unsurprised tone. “I hear your husband may have acquired the Disease.”
She remained silent, head bowed. It was not wise to comment to this person, and a bad idea, as she had to remind herself after the fact, to argue.