Motherstone Page 6

  ‘Oh, I know,’ Susan said. ‘We have your sort. You’re like Adolf Hitler or Al Capone. You’re a gangster.’

  ‘Who are these? Great men? What is a gangster?’

  ‘Why don’t you marry Slarda? She’d be a good queen.’

  ‘Master,’ Slarda cried, ‘let me silence her.’

  ‘No, no,’ Osro said. ‘She presumes. But she is harmless. She speaks so to keep her courage up. It interests me. I shall be king, Susan Ferris, not just because I have the Weapon and lead the tribes but because I know how people think – how their minds go, how they move, from here, to here, to here.’ He made little movements with his hands. ‘It is all so tiny and pathetic, and to one who sits above it all and sees, predictable. I can turn them, and place them, these small ones, so – and so. Therefore, I am king. I am greater.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Susan said. She had the sick feeling it might be true. ‘But in the end you’ll die, like everyone else. And be forgotten.’

  Osro’s eyes flashed, and narrowed briefly. Then he laughed. ‘That is true. I don’t forget. But before that happens, how wide I shall spread myself, how great I shall grow. And the games I shall have with my little toys.’

  ‘People won’t let you. They won’t follow.’

  ‘Oh, but they will. Already they do. So eagerly. They cannot wait to give themselves away. They think they are part of me. Is it not so, Slarda?’

  ‘Yes, Master.’ She did not understand, but her eyes shone with devotion as she looked at him and her horsey teeth turned pink in the firelight.

  ‘You see, Susan? But first, of course, there is the war to fight. I shall bring fire to the tribes. My Weapon. They worship fire, and they shall worship me. I shall lead them against these Freemen and strike before they are ready. And burn them into ashes. They will join me, those who are left, they will be mine, part of me. And I shall give them enemies, creatures to hate. Birdfolk and Woodlanders and Varg. And lead them to conquer new lands. They shall shout with one voice and think, if at all, with one mind – which I control. That is the new history of O, Susan Ferris. You played your little part in the old, but you have no part written in the new.’

  She could not answer. She felt very tired, and told herself that tomorrow, chance or not, she would escape. Osro turned away and went into his shelter, but the memory of his face, with its sharp bones and hungry mouth and pale hot eyes, stayed with her as she tried to sleep. Steen threw a blanket over her and sat behind her on a stone, holding the rope knotted round her waist. The embers in the fire dulled.

  She did not know she had slept, but knew she was woken. She was cold, the blanket gone. And someone was kneeling by her head. She heard the gristly creaking of his spine as he bent close. Fingers nipped her mouth so she could not scream.

  ‘No sound. If they wake we are dead.’ It was Steen. ‘Follow the rope. Go where it leads.’

  She heard him stand, and knew she had no choice but to follow. With no one to trust, she would trust him. She sat up, stood up, felt the rope tugging at her waist. She stepped after it, past the pale blur of Osro’s shelter. She had no idea where the guards were sleeping, but heard snorts and gurgles, whispered dreams, nightmare slayings. Steen took her soft-footed round their edge. She heard the exhalations of his breath. A hot pool hissed and simmered as they passed – heading west, or starting west. The jungle made a humming; distant screams as something died. Steen led her into it, giving little tugs like a fisherman feeling bites.

  ‘Steen.’

  ‘Don’t speak. Not yet.’

  She followed, walking blind, for what seemed hours. At last he stopped. She felt his fingers working on the knots and the rope fell away. He put the end in her hand. ‘Hold it now and follow.’

  ‘Why are you doing this? Helping me?’

  For a moment he made no answer. She seemed to see his eyes moving faintly in the dark. ‘I can be this Osro’s man no longer. So I will take you to your friends.’

  ‘They’ll kill you if they catch you.’

  ‘They’ll kill us both. We must get far away. They will hunt, but not for long. Osro cannot waste the time.’

  ‘Slarda won’t give up.’

  ‘She is the one. We must keep ahead. Do you have the rope?’

  She gave it a jerk.

  ‘Hold and follow.’

  ‘What about animals?’

  ‘We must take the risk.’

  She could not tell how long they went on then, but guessed three or four hours. They climbed spurs and threaded through valleys, crossing streams that were cold or warm, and sometimes both. Steen seemed to know his way; but told her when she asked that he did not know this part of the jungle, he was heading west, that was all.

  ‘Why west?’

  ‘We’ll go to the coast. Birdfolk will find you there. Or perhaps these Seafolk men you say you talk with.’

  ‘I can talk with them. And Stonefolk. And Woodlanders. Varg too, in a way.’

  ‘I know nothing. That is all I know.’

  Dawn came, lighting the sky, but leaving the jungle almost as dark as night. Steen gave her meat from his pack. They found berries, sour but edible, and drank from a spring tasting of iron. It set her teeth on edge.

  ‘Do you need to rest?’

  ‘I can keep going.’

  ‘They have woken and found us gone. Slarda hunts. She tracks like a dog. We must stay ahead.’

  She tried to see his face but could make out only his eyes, pale and gleaming, and the movements of his hands as he carried food to his mouth. A few days ago he had wanted to kill her. Now he risked his life to help her escape.

  ‘Why can’t you follow Osro?’

  ‘I don’t know. I cannot. Something in me says, turn away.’

  ‘Because he’s evil?’

  ‘I don’t know evil. I don’t know good. I know nothing.’

  ‘Was it the Shy?’

  ‘The stinkweed? When the boy crushed it in my face, then I seemed to lose all I knew. But for a moment there was something. It said no, and it said yes. To one way and another. But I can’t – I can’t remember. And I must. Something goes before me, but it turns, it eludes me, I glimpse it but it will not stay and let itself be seen. All it tells me now is – I am alone. And so I must not be Osro’s man.’

  ‘What will you do? When we’re safe?’

  ‘I’ll go into the mountains. Live alone. And find there the thing that I must know.’

  ‘You can use the Shy again.’

  ‘Perhaps. I would sooner learn it for myself.’

  ‘You’d have a better chance of getting away if you left me.’

  ‘I cannot.’

  They started west again, the sun behind them. It slanted through the trees and brought some light to the jungle floor. Then the jungle shrank, and soon they pushed through scrub that pricked like gorse. Steam rose ahead, with cliffs and towers that seemed to be trekking by like misshapen men.

  ‘We are at the Belt,’ Steen said. ‘A place gone mad. It rots the land like gangrene. O burns in a fever here.’

  ‘Do we have to go in?’

  ‘It runs north and south. So we cross. One day, one night. Then more sands. Iron, pumice, copper. Beyond that jungle, down to the sea.’

  ‘Can’t we find the Birdfolk?’

  ‘I’ve looked. They’re searching elsewhere.’

  ‘Steen – ’

  ‘Don’t be afraid. Test every step. We’ll use the rope.’ He tied an end round her waist and knotted the other in his belt. They walked over pumice sand, through fissures wet by steam and dried by heat. The bushes dwindled, giving way to scurfy weed and rock in clusters. Then they were in the cliffs and towers, which leaned away from them or bent over. They were like giants peering to see or jerking back. The steam turned and surged like blown cloud. It wet their faces and their clothes. Water covered them like sweat, dripping from their chins and fingertips. At least Slarda can’t track us here, Susan thought. She followed Steen’s back. She trusted him. He was almost as broad a
s he was tall – built like a barn door, Nick would say. She trusted him to find a way through this.

  They went round the side of a boiling spring half as long as a football field, and followed the river flowing out. It churned through rapids, dived over falls, but did not lose its heat until it joined a cold stream flowing from the south. Steam sprang up from their meeting, rolling in the monoliths and blotting out the sky. They crossed further down, swimming roped together in water warm as tea.

  By night they had climbed out of wet into dry. They slept on shaly stone warmed from underground and Susan had nightmares as though covered with too many blankets. She felt a stirring as if the hill she slept on was shifting. In the morning she saw they were on the inner slope of a huge pit.

  ‘Here a mountain was swallowed,’ Steen said. ‘O is hollow underneath and feeds on herself. And spits herself out.’ A rumbling came from the west. ‘That is her sound. She has no manners.’ He smiled – the first smile she had seen from him. It lit his heavy face and seemed to give a lighter colour to his slaty eyes. ‘We should reach the sands by afternoon.’

  They went round the pit and crossed a trembling plain and climbed the flank of a long low mountain stretching north. Lava wormed from holes blown in its sides. It crumbled as it nosed down the slope. Smoking stones rolled on ahead. The mountain itself was lava-built. Great flat tongues lay on the landscape south.

  It took them all day to get across. By nightfall they were in the scrub. Steen wrapped blankets round them to save them from the thorns. He kept on to the edge of a dry-grass plain, where he gave Susan meat and fruit and water.

  ‘The sands are close. We will not stop but go straight across. Slarda cannot be far away. She will hope to pick up our trail on the sand. But when we reach the jungle I can lose her.’

  ‘How long will we be on the sands?’

  ‘All night and all the morning. Perhaps we’ll sleep an hour, we’ll see. Before the hottest sun we’ll reach the jungle.’

  That did not seem bad. It was no great desert. And though she was tired she would rather keep going if Slarda was close.

  The night was black. She followed the rope. Soon they left the grass and climbed in dunes. Steen had some way of finding firm-packed sand and she found the walking easy at first. In places a brittle grass still grew. It pricked her legs. Later it was gone and the sand was finer, shifting and sliding. She felt as if she were trudging in mud. It grew harder to lift her feet. Steen let her rest twice but would not let her sleep. He kept a tension on the rope and she felt as if she were a broken car being towed along.

  At last he said, ‘Midnight. Sleep a while.’

  ‘Can I have some water?’

  He gave her his flask.

  ‘Have we got enough?’

  ‘There’s a water-hole halfway across. We should find it at sunrise.’

  She drank, and covered herself with a blanket. When he woke her she thought no more than a moment had passed. But he said, ‘Morning in two hours. We must get close to the water-hole. Slarda will find our trail. She will be fresh and we are tired.’ He led her among dunes cresting like breakers. Then he found a plain of hard flat sand and they walked more easily. Soon she felt dry grass brushing her legs. The sky behind them lightened and he took the rope and looped it in his belt.

  ‘Over the rise. Can you smell water?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It is the smell of life in the sands.’ He moved again, but stopped uncertainly.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Ashes. Dead fires.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Hotlanders. I hope they’ve gone.’

  He went on until they came to the rise. It was like a bank round a fortified village. Steen put his hand back and stopped her. She saw his eyes gleaming in the dawn-light. ‘Stay here.’ He climbed, bent at the waist, and crouched below the rim of the bank. She lost hope. If no one was there he would have called. Then he beckoned, putting his fingers to his lips. She crept up to his side and looked where he was pointing, at the oasis. Colours moved about it as if a cloth were rippling on the ground. It took her a moment to understand that people, men and women, naked except for loin-cloths, shaven-headed, painted over their bodies blue and red, were moving in a silent ritual dance about the few black bushes, the yard or so of water.

  ‘They dance to welcome the sun. He is their god, or one of them.’

  ‘The god of fire.’

  Blue lines rippled through the red. Clusters, splashes, formed here and there; and suddenly the dance had a burning core, a concentration of red so bright it seemed to throb. The sun came over the bank. A shout rose to greet it, an exultant yell. That was all. The simplicity of it startled Susan. The Hotlanders broke up and moved to their morning tasks. She was able to look at one or two and see them more closely. They were tall and sinewy, with a mantis angularity. Their colours made them beautiful, yet in a way that was frightening. She got from them a sense of threat and savagery, a sense of suddenness. They would, she thought, see and kill, with nothing in between – a single action. They looked as if they could run all day, exist on a mouthful of water. The desert was theirs, they belonged.

  Iron age, she thought, looking at their weapons; yet they did not seem that civilized. The women, tall and stringy as the men, were painted blue. They were the axe and club warriors. The men carried whippy spears, red like themselves.

  ‘Is it war paint?’

  ‘No,’ Steen said. ‘It wards off the sun. They paint themselves differently for war. This must be a band on its way to join Osro.’

  ‘Will they really follow him?’

  ‘The Hotlands are theirs. They believe darkness lies outside. But Osro will lead them with his Weapon. Fire and light. They will follow.’

  ‘Will they stay here long – at the water-hole?’

  ‘The men are setting up targets for their spears. They will stay all morning. And Slarda comes behind. So …’ He shrugged.

  ‘What about water?’

  ‘A mouthful each.’ He looked at his flask. ‘We must reach the jungle by midday. Otherwise …’

  They backed down the slope and rounded the water-hole to the south. Soon they crossed the trail left by the Hotlanders and struck out into the dunes. Steen kept them in hollows and when he climbed at last the water-hole was gone and sand was all about like a sea. Susan looked ahead for the jungle but only pale sky showed on the horizon. Later it vanished in a pool of heat. Steen tore head-coverings from his blanket but heat burned through and clung to them, dry and sticky at once. The sand radiated heat, at the same time dragging their feet. Susan felt she was walking up to her knees, but floating too, horizontal, squeezed flat by the pressure from above and below.

  ‘Steen, I need some water.’

  ‘One sip.’ He pulled the flask away. ‘We’re not halfway there.’

  They went on. She had a time of clarity and fierceness. She followed Steen, stepping in his steps. If this was the worst then she would do it.

  ‘Steen?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How close?’

  ‘An hour. The jungle. See.’

  Something was forming in the heat. It would not stay still.

  ‘It looks alive. It looks like a snake.’

  Steen gave her the flask. ‘Finish it now.’ It made a hollow rattle and was empty before her mouth was wet. Steen let the last drops fall on his palm. He licked them off and fastened the flask on his belt. ‘Water in the jungle. Can you get there?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Half an hour later she wasn’t sure. The dunes had a steep side and a flat side, and the steep always faced them and had to be climbed. Steen began hauling her up like a swimmer from a pool. Then he stood her and pulled her to the next climb. She heard him grunt and pant, and when she managed to look at him his eyes were blind from his exertions. She wondered why he made them go so fast.

  ‘Steen?’

  ‘We must keep moving.’ He was using himself up and she saw no need for it. The jungle
was close. The glassy wall of heat was lifted away. She saw individual trees, and green round heads printed on the sky.

  ‘Steen?’

  ‘Slarda is coming.’

  ‘Where?’ She looked back. Nothing was there, only dune-tops, salty-white. Then a brown speck showed, and swelled from the surface into a questing four-legged shape. She thought it was a dog, but it stood, grew into a stick-limbed man or woman, treading quickly; and shrank again, sank into a hollow between dunes, and went from sight.

  ‘Is it her?’

  ‘Yes. She’s closing. I have watched her.’

  ‘Has she seen us?’

  ‘She follows our footmarks. That is her way. We can’t get to the jungle, there’s no time. Not both of us.’

  She stared at him with fear. He was going to leave her. But he shook his head, smiled in his flat-mouthed way. ‘I cannot save myself. I don’t know why. I must stay and fight. She has her crossbow, so I must hide and ambush her.’

  ‘If she sees you first …’

  ‘Then I am dead. It doesn’t trouble me. All things die. But I die as Steen, not Osro’s man. And not as priest. I thank you for that.’

  ‘Can’t we both – ’

  ‘No. While I fight with Slarda you must reach the jungle. Wait there, I will find you.’ He gave his smile again. ‘If it’s her – then I’m sorry. Quickly. Go.’

  She tried to say thank you but could not make her mouth work. Instead, she touched his hand. Then she turned and left him. She walked down the slope of the dune and reached the face of the next. When she looked back Steen was gone. She climbed the face, using hands and feet, and looked again from the top. Wherever he was, he was hidden well. But Slarda was there, topping another dune two hundred metres back. It was like watching someone over a river. Slarda made no sign of seeing her, but sank into a hollow. For a moment her head seemed to float on the sand, then was gone. Susan ran, stumbling down to another sand-face. This one seemed more steep. She slid back as she climbed. At the top she rolled until she was hidden, then ran again, and climbed; and so it went on, three more, four more, five more dunes. She looked back but had no sight of Slarda. By now the woman must have reached the place where Steen had left her.