Kingdoms of the Wall

13

On a barren stony outcropping swept by harsh winds, half a day’s march above the plateau, we held a memorial service in honor of Stum. We were saddened greatly to think that she would never come to behold the gods of the Summit. Stum had been an earnest, sturdy, buoyant woman unafraid of all obstacles: she deserved better fortune than she had had.

I asked Min and Maiti to say the words of the Book of Death for her as they had for Stapp, but Min was lost in grief for her friend and could not do it, so Grycindil spoke in her place. Once again Jaif sang and Tenilda played; and then we built a cairn for Stum and made our farewells to her, and set about continuing our journey toward the upper regions of the Wall. For life is brief and the world holds many perils, but the Pilgrimage must go ever onward.

It was a blessed mercy to be climbing again after such a long while in the flatlands; and we rejoiced to be leaving the doleful plateau and the dire Kingdom of the Melted Ones behind. There was a fresh spring in our step and we moved up the face of Kosa Saag with quick, steady strides.

From far away this part of the Wall had seemed to be an impassable steep curtain of stone, ascending in a single straight leap to the gates of Heaven. But that was just a trick of the eye. Once we were on it we found that it was not in fact as vertical as it appeared when viewed across the great expanse of the plateau, but rose in a more gradual way, climbing by curves and sweeps and swoops. There was many a foothold for the climber and frequent stretches where the slope was easy indeed. So in that respect this inner spire of the Wall was much like the outer face where we had begun our climb. And we moved swiftly, exceedingly swiftly, in those early days after leaving the plateau.

To cheer ourselves after the loss of Stum we told ourselves that the ascent would be an easy one from here on, that we would soon find ourselves in the home of the gods. It was the sort of thing Stum would have said.

But we were deceiving ourselves. The difficulties of the plateau might be behind us now, but new difficulties were already making themselves apparent.

How can I begin to tell you of all the hardships we experienced in this zone of Kosa Saag?

The air, for one thing, grew amazingly chill before we had climbed very far, and there were occasional white patches of unmelted snow on the ground, a truly strange thing for children of the torrid lowlands such as we were. Sometimes when we looked up we saw dark crusted clumps of old ice clinging to high spurs of the mountain that were hidden from the light of the sun. They seemed to have been there for centuries. The cold snowy crusts burned us when we touched them out of curiosity. They stung our fingers; they chapped and cracked our skin.

By our fifth day above the plateau we were huddling together at night for warmth, shivering and miserable. Well, our instructors had warned us that we must expect the air in these high altitudes to be colder. “I should think it would be warmer, rather,” said Kilarion, pointing to bright Ekmelios blazing in the sky above us. “After all, we’re getting closer to the sun with every step we take.”

We all laughed at Kilarion’s simplicity. But no one, not even Traiben, could make a proper answer to him on that.

Our skins thickened once again to shield us from the worst of the bite and our hearts pumped faster to make our blood surge warmly within us. We were adapting to the cold, as we had earlier to the thinning of the air. But I wondered privately what sort of chill we would meet in the truly high regions of the Wall, if this was what we were encountering here.

Not only was the weather colder up here but the season was turning against us. We had had dry, bright weather for most of our climb thus far. But now came a time of frequent icy rain and occasional snow. One night there was a fearful storm when black howling winds raked the mountain, so fierce that I thought we would be hurled back down onto the plateau. Sharp sleet rode on the winds, sleet that nipped our faces and hands like fire, sweeping in upon us until we cried out to the gods to spare us. We found crevices and crannies and little caverns and tried to hide ourselves from the storm’s fury, nestling together by twos and threes to give warmth to one another.

That night cost us a life. When I emerged at dawn, stiff and sore and more than half-frozen, the first thing that took my eye was the rigid, staring face of Aminteer the Weaver, white as bone, jutting like a trail-marker above a white field of snow. He was buried to his neck. I shouted for help and we dug him out, but it was no use. Aminteer had chosen an unlucky place to pass the night, a pocket where the wind could pile the flakes high very quickly, and the sleet had trapped him as he slept. Perhaps he had died without knowing what was happening to him.

So there were three of us lost already, and we were scarcely beyond the first of the Kingdoms. I understood now why so few Pilgrims ever return from this journey. The mountain is very high and the hazards are beyond counting. That anyone ever reached the Summit was beginning to seem miraculous to me.

The snow and sleet abated and the cold lessened somewhat, but now we had rain, a steady maddening downpour that threatened to go on forever. We waited two days in a dank cave for it to end. During that time Jekka and Thissa and, I think, Maiti, made an attempt to heal Min’s ruined face with Changes and spells. I saw them huddled together in a far corner, murmuring and clasping hands and chanting, and lighting aromatic tapers and giving her potions and holy images to hold. But it was a failure. There was no way they could persuade her flesh to flow back to its original form and, if anything, I think they made matters a little worse. When they had done with her, Min moved back into the deepest shadows of the cave and huddled there with her cloak pulled up over that side of her face. I heard her sobbing. I would have gone to her, but she waved me away. Later Galli tried to comfort her, and she too was refused. But afterward Marsiel and a few of the other women were able to talk with her, though she still remained withdrawn and somber and kept herself apart from the rest of us.

The next day, although the rain was still falling, we decided to go on.

It would have been better if we had stayed where we were. Soon after we took the trail we heard a deep rumbling sound from above. “Thunder,” said Kath. But thunder was not what it was. A moment later Ijo the Scholar put his hand to his forehead and drew it away bloody. “Strange sort of rain,” he muttered. I felt a stinging blow myself. Others cried out. A scattering mist of light pebbles was falling upon us. And then came the heavy thump of a solid boulder bigger around than my outspread hand could cover, which landed almost at my feet.

“Take cover!” Traiben cried. “Landslide!”

A moment later it was as if the whole mountain were falling upon us. The world shook beneath our feet. But Kreshe the Savior provided for us in that dark time of danger. An overhanging brow of stone was jutting from the breast of the Wall not far in front of us, and we ran frantically toward it while rocks great and small volleyed down all around us.

We got to the shelter just before the main burden of the rockfall hit, pressing ourselves in against it so wildly and chaotically that we began to laugh despite the gravity of the moment. But it was not a happy laughter. There we stood, jammed tight against one another, stunned and fearing for our lives, while a tremendous hail of tumbling rock came crashing down. The sound it made as it bounced along the flank of the Wall was like the hammering of giants on the mountain’s side. The rain, no doubt, had loosened some slope far overhead. From our safe place we watched, astounded, as the great boulders slammed into the path we had just been on and went bouncing over the edge of the cliff.

It went on for minute after minute. We thought it would never stop. Tenilda and Ais began to beat time to imaginary drums as if they heard a secret music in the endless crashing. Jaif began to chant to their rhythm, a Song of the Falling Mountain. But then came one great earthshaking thud more terrible than anything that had gone before, and a second almost as frightful, and a third, and we all fell silent and stared at one another, thinking that this was the end of us. After that third crash, though, there were no more. An awesome hush descended. At last the thunderous booming had ceased, and we heard only the lesser sound of falling pebbles once more against the hissing of the rain. And then, only the rain.

Cautiously we peered out. A tremendous rocky mound, three times the height of a tall man, covered the place where we had been only a few moments before. It could easily have served as a cairn for us all. The trail we had been following was utterly shattered and buried behind us.

Through the providence of the gods none of us had been killed or even injured. And gradually we began to shake off the impact that so much noise and fury had had upon us. But we had let our packs and bedrolls drop as we ran for safety, and much of what we had left exposed on the trail lay buried now beneath tons of stone. There was no hope of uncovering it. We had lost a great deal in the way of equipment and would have to share and make do with double service from now on. But we paused anyway to give thanks to Kreshe for our preservation before continuing onward.

Then I said, as we made ready to go, “Where is Min?”

My glance went up and down, up and down, and I saw no sign of her anywhere. I walked to the edge of the rockpile and kicked at it despairingly, thinking that she must have failed to reach the shelter in time, that she lay entombed now under that great mass here.

Then Hendy came forward and said, “I saw her turning back, just before the rocks fell.”

“Back? Back where?”

“To the land of the Melted Ones. She was running. Down the path we had just come. I called to her but she kept going, and then there was the rockslide.”

“It was because of her face,” offered Marsiel. “She told me yesterday that she didn’t think she could bear to let anyone look at her. It was after the Healers tried to repair her and failed—she said she was thinking of running away, that she didn’t see how she could stay with us any more. And also on account of Stum—she was so very miserable about Stum. She was talking about going back to the place where Stum had died.”

“And no one let me know of this?” I asked.

“I didn’t think she really meant it,” said Marsiel, very abashed. “I thought it was something that would pass. If I had understood—if I had only understood—”

I looked about, angry and confused. What sort of leader was I, to be losing my Pilgrims right and left like this, and the climb only begun?

The same thing must have occurred to Muurmut. He drew himself up tall and said, “Everyone stay here. I’ll bring her back.”

“Wait,” I said. “I don’t want you going anywhere—”

But I was too slow. Muurmut was already scrambling up the side of the great heap of rocks. He moved with astonishing agility for a man his size, and enormous determination. There was no sense ordering him back; he was already far up the mound, clambering swiftly. The ill-matched rocks slid and slipped beneath him, and for a moment it looked as if the whole mound would give way and topple him into the gulf just beyond. But he raced forward even as the rocks underfoot were moving past him, and somehow held his footing, passing over the crest of the huge cairn and disappearing on the far side.

I was furious. These empty-headed heroics were idiocy. Even if he found Min, how was he going to bring her back? Only someone of immense strength could negotiate that immense pile of jagged rock. Muurmut might make it alone, but not if he were carrying Min.

I had no choice, though, but to wait in this spot until Muurmut returned. If I had given the order to move on without him, I would have laid myself open to a charge of trying to rid myself of my rival, and in a crude and cowardly way besides.

He was gone more than an hour. Much as I would have rejoiced to have him perish on the slopes in his folly, I found myself instead praying for his safe passage, so that he would come back shortly and we might move along without further delay. But there was no sign of him for a long while.

Then we heard scrabbling sounds, and Muurmut appeared atop the rocks, red-faced, dirt-stained, sweating. In silence we watched as he lowered himself to the place where we stood and took a long drink of water from a flask that Grycindil handed him.

“Well?” I said, finally.

“She’s gone.”

“Dead?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. But gone. I went back to the place where the trail winds round and round, and looked down over the edge. And I could see her far below, heading down the hill. Running. She was no bigger than a doll from where I was. I called to her, and I think that she heard me; and she may have called something back, but her voice was blown away on the wind. And she was running all the while. Heading for the plateau as fast as she could, as if that was the finest place in all the world. Heading for the Melted Ones.”

“The other Melted Ones,” Hendy said. “They are her people, now.”

I shivered. But I knew that what Hendy had said was true. Min was lost to us. If Muurmut had succeeded in catching up with her, he could only have brought her back by force; and she would not long have remained.

And so we had the first of our deserters to the Kingdoms: the first of what we would learn to call the Transformed Ones, those who gave themselves up to the will of the mountain and surrendered themselves utterly to the power of change-fire. I muttered a prayer for Min, wherever she might be, whatever she was destined to become.

Muurmut beckoned for another water-flask. He must have put himself under tremendous strain in that futile chase. He drank deep; and then he looked around at everyone, grinning, puffing up his chest, preening. He was obviously immensely pleased with himself for having carried out that solitary trek rearward, and expected everyone else to be also.

I felt that I had to deflate him.

I looked at him and said, “I don’t want anyone to go off on a solo expedition like that ever again.”

“What?” Muurmut cried, and he gave me a look of pure hatred.

“What Min did is a sad and pitiful thing, Muurmut. The hearts of all of us go out to her. But it was absolutely wrong for you to go running after her. There was no way you could have succeeded in catching up with her or bringing her back. And we’ve wasted valuable time here while we were waiting for you. We need to move forward—forward—forward all the time—”

His face grew sour and glowering. “I know what’s right and what’s wrong at least as well as you do, Poilar. I couldn’t have lived with my conscience if I hadn’t made the attempt. You look after your own, and let me be.” And he spat against the side of the rockpile and walked off angrily with Grycindil’s arm through his.

I heard more than a little muttering, here and there, about me. For the first time some were taking Muurmut’s side. They saw his pursuit of Min as bold and heroic. Indeed that was what it had been; but it had been folly, all the same. The problem was that I was the only one who seemed to understand that.

We went higher, and the rain ceased, and the weather turned warmer again, though not nearly so warm as it had been in the lower reaches of the Wall. Once again we were forced by the shape of the cliff to turn toward an interior valley, and when we entered it we found it to be a hidden world of lush meadows and hills, as green and lovely as the plateau had been grim and dry.

This secret place within the vastness of the Wall gave us much pleasure, even though it slowed our ascent. It was like a great bowl, curving gently upward at the sides, but mainly all on one level. All about us rose lofty canyon walls of bright red stone banded with outcroppings of glossy black. One of them held the route that would allow us to continue Summitward; but we had no idea which one it was, or how to get ourselves up upon it. For days we made our way through this land of streams and thick grass with little sense of the proper direction.

I felt vulnerable to a rebellion. I doubted that anyone else had a better idea of the right way to go than I did; but I had no idea at all, and I was the leader, and a leader must lead. Others look to him for strength and wisdom. Woe betide him if he doesn’t provide those things.

Muurmut, during this time, kept silent. He might have said, “Poilar is leading us nowhere,” or, “Poilar complained when I wasted an hour in search of Min, and here he is wasting days for us in this land of streams,” or, “If Poilar doesn’t know where he’s going, perhaps there’s someone else who does.” He said nothing of this sort, though, at least not in my earshot. But I knew that he was thinking it. I could see it in his eyes, in the cocky set of his mouth, in his swaggering walk.

I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a voice in councils. I consulted with Traiben often, of course, and with Kath, with Jaif, even with Naxa and Kilarion. They had some quality or another, whether it was Traiben’s cleverness or Naxa’s fund of information or Kath’s cunning or Kilarion’s intuitive skill on the trail or Jaif’s sturdy good will, which led me to think they would be useful in helping me find the way. The one I never consulted was Muurmut. Perhaps it was petty of me; but he had obstructed me from the start, had sniped and grumbled and postured and hindered, and I wasn’t about to take him into my confidence now.

I saw him staring at me from afar. He looked tense and angry all the time. No doubt his mouth brimmed with sarcasms and slurs. But he kept his silence.

None of those whom I consulted was able to suggest the way to find the upward path, any more than I. And so we wandered aimlessly, occasionally coming across our own earlier trail in some meadow, or a campsite we had used three days before. We were all like children here—or perhaps I should say like dreamers trying to find their way through an unknown world. They had sent us onto the Wall knowing nothing of the realities that lay ahead for us—all their teachings in those years of our training had been guesswork and fable and foolishness—and if we were in difficulties now, that was only to have been expected.

Then Grycindil came to me in late afternoon while we were making our camp for the night on mossy beds beside a clear sweet stream after a long day of pointless wandering. Darkness was just beginning to come on and a couple of the moons were edging into the sky. She said, “Poilar, Muurmut is having a very difficult time of it.”

Grycindil and Muurmut had begun sleeping together after we had left the plateau. That seemed odd to me, because Grycindil, though a little quick-tempered, had always seemed to me a level-headed and good-hearted woman, and why she should want to entangle herself with an arrogant braggart and blowhard like Muurmut was beyond my understanding. But there is no accounting for reasons, where the Changes are involved. And perhaps there were qualities about Muurmut that I was simply incapable of perceiving.

I said, “We are all having a difficult time of it, Grycindil.”

“It’s different for him. He wants to be leader, and you stand in his way.”

“I know that. It’s nothing new.”

“He has ideas about the right trail to take.”

“Does he?” I said. “Let him speak up, then.”

“No. You said harsh things of him after he went to find Min. He was furious with you for that. He was awake all night, saying, ‘How could we not have tried to bring her back? How could we simply let her run away, and keep on going as if nothing had happened? And then for Poilar to tell me that I was wrong to do it—’ The bitterness won’t leave him now, Poilar. He sulks day and night. Sometimes I hear him crying, actually crying, a dry choking sort of crying, full of frustration and anger. He was in serious trouble two or three times while he was off looking for Min, do you know that? He was almost killed on the trail. Part of the path gave way beneath his feet and dropped into the abyss, and nearly took him down also. So for you to criticize him, then, when he came back—no, Poilar, he’s not going to volunteer any ideas now. He’s afraid you’ll make him look foolish again.”

“It was very brave of him to go after Min. But it was wrong, all the same.”

“It wasn’t, Poilar.”

I shrugged. “It wasn’t? Well, then, I was wrong, I suppose. Whichever you prefer to think. Listen, Grycindil, I’m sorry that Muurmut is suffering on my account. But it’s all his own doing.”

“Can’t you ease things for him a little?”

“How? By making him leader in my place?”

“You could consult him once in a while, at least.”

I gave her a close look. She was utterly sincere; and I beheld something in her eyes, a warmth, a love for Muurmut, even, that startled me. Again I considered the possibility that I might have underrated Muurmut. Even braggarts may actually have some virtues.

But I had no faith in Muurmut’s judgment, because it seemed to me always that his thinking was corrupted by love of self, that he was forever trying to impress others with the strength, courage, shrewdness, and capability of Muurmut. A true leader has no interest in doing that.

So I said to Grycindil, “Let me think about it,” meaning to do nothing. And she knew that I meant to do nothing; but the conversation had gone as far as it could, and she knew that also. So she turned away from me, murmuring to herself.

But scarcely any time later Hendy came to me, while I was looking about for a comfortable place to set my bedroll down for the night.

“Can we talk?” she asked. I was a little surprised at that, coming from Hendy, who had been so remote and aloof for so long; but she had seemed to be emerging a little from her shell lately. And her slender shoulders were set now in a posture of curious determination, very much at odds with the timid, hesitant bearing she usually displayed.

“Concerning what?” I asked her.

“Muurmut.”

“Muurmut! Kreshe, woman! Selemoy and Thig! Are you all in league against me for Muurmut’s sake? Tell me, are you making the Changes with him too?”

It was a crude thing to say. And my tone was so rough and loud that she backed away, but only a pace or two. Her eyes held steady on mine. “Too? Am I making Changes with so many people, then? Muurmut and which others, do you think?”

“That’s not what I meant,” I said, reddening, wishing I could call back my words. “But Grycindil just came to me to speak in Muurmut’s favor. Well, at least I can see her reasons for that. But now when you show up also—”

She said quietly, “Muurmut is no lover of mine. And what Grycindil does with Muurmut is her own affair. I came to you because the trouble here can only get worse, and it will hurt us all.”

“Trouble?”

“Between you and Muurmut. Oh, no, no, Poilar, please don’t try to look so innocent. The two of you have been butting heads since Hithiat milepost and everyone is aware of it.”

“He thought he was fit to be leader. I knew that I was. We’ve been butting heads because he disagrees with me.”

“The same could be said the other way around.”

“Do you believe Muurmut’s better qualified than I to lead us?”

“No,” she said. “He’s rash and stubborn and he can be very foolish. But you underestimate him, Poilar. He has ideas to offer us. Some of them may be good ideas. And because you refuse to listen to them, you cause pain for him. If this goes on, he’ll force us all to share that pain.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean a battle for the leadership.”

“He won’t try it,” I said. “And if he does, only those few hangers-on of his will follow him.”

“Are you willing to risk it?” Hendy asked. “A struggle for power up here, when we’ve come so far?”

Her dark eyes were shining mysteriously. A soft perfume was rising from her throat and shoulders, and I knew the fragrance must be that of her own skin. This show of strength was bringing a sudden beauty to life in her, and it was having a powerful effect on me.

I said, “Do you have any suggestions, then?”

“A reconciliation between you and him.”

“There can’t be a reconciliation when there was never friendship in the first place.”

“Well, then, peace, at least. A handshake. You were very cruel to him, that time he climbed the rocks to look for Min. You could tell him that you regret that now.”

“You swear to me that you haven’t hatched this together with Grycindil?”

Her nostrils quivered in anger. “I’ve told you already that I haven’t.”

“She thinks the same way you do about this.”

“Many of us do.”

I considered that. I remembered the grumbling I had heard. A leader leads only by consent of the led. That consent might be withdrawn at any time.

“All right,” I said, after a time. “I’ll give him a handshake, if you think it’ll do any good. What else do you suggest, Hendy?”

“That you invite Muurmut to share his ideas with us about the direction we should take.”

“Grycindil said that also.”

“As well she might have.”

She stared me straight in the eyes for a long moment. Then she turned and walked away.

Around the campfire that night Jaif sang the Song of the High Peaks, and Ais and Tenilda made astonishingly lovely music by clicking sticks together, and Naxa told a long, involved, and oddly perverse comic fable that he said he had learned from a manuscript five thousand years old, which dealt with the mating of gods and rock-apes. Though we had achieved nothing useful in our day’s travel, we were strangely cheerful that evening.

When Naxa was done, I walked over to the place where Muurmut sat on the far side of the fire with Talbol and Seppil and said to him, “May we talk?”

“I don’t know. May we?”

“Go easy, Muurmut. This has been too pleasant an evening to have it spoiled now.”

“You came to me, Crookleg. There was nothing I wanted to say to you.”

I could gladly have thrown him into the stream for that “Crookleg.” But I held myself in check and said, with a quick glance at Grycindil—who was watching us from a distance—“I owe you an apology, Muurmut.”

His expression was one of mingled amazement and wariness. “An apology? For what?”

“For some of the things I said to you when you came back after looking for Min.”

He was all suspicion now.

“What are you getting at, Poilar?”

I took a deep breath. And told him that I never would have given him permission to go in search of Min the way he had if he had asked me, but that I had been wrong to accuse him of disobedience, because he had simply jumped up and run off impulsively, without taking the time to ask me whether he could. If there is no refusal of permission, I said, there is no disobedience.

He listened to these dry legalisms with a skeptical expression on his face, and made no reply.

“Furthermore,” I said, “I told you then that it had been wrong for you to go after her. In fact I now realize that you did the right thing. If there was any chance at all that Min could have been found and brought back to us, what you did was worth trying.”

Plainly Muurmut had expected none of this from me. I was amazed myself that I was able to say it. He continued to stare at me, as if weighing my words to find some secret mockery in them. But there was none, and he seemed to be struggling to believe that. Seppil and Talbol looked at each other in complete bewilderment. I saw Grycindil coming toward us, smiling.

“Well—” Muurmut began, and then he stopped, not knowing what to say.

I said, “I spoke too harshly to you that day. I regret that now. And so I wanted to tell you that I’ve come to think it was right of you to go in search of Min. And very brave to attempt it alone.”

“Well,” he said again, almost tongue-tied with perplexity. “Well, then, Poilar—”

He had never seen me in this mode before. No one ever had. And he wasn’t at all sure what to make of it. Part of him must still have thought that I was setting him up for some new kind of humiliation.

I stared at him levelly. This was very difficult for me, but I was determined to see it through.

“Well, Muurmut? Are you going to accept my apology or aren’t you?”

“If it’s sincere, yes, I accept. Why shouldn’t I? But I confess I don’t understand why you’re bothering.”

“Because we’ve used up much too much energy in hatred,” I said, “and now we have none to spare.” There was little warmth in my tone, none in my eyes. It was hard, all right, forcing myself to crawl to him like this. But I held my hand out toward him. “Can we make an end to all this bickering?”

“Are you resigning your leadership to me, then?” he asked coolly.

Again I came close to clunking him. But I clenched my jaw and replied, as evenly as I could, “Our fellow Pilgrims chose me leader by their vote. If they want to remove me by their vote, so be it. But resigning’s not in my spirit. I ask you to accept me ungrudgingly as the leader of this Pilgrimage, Muurmut, as you should. And I’ll promise you in return to put aside the coldness I’ve felt toward you, and draw you into my circle of advisers.”

“You want us to be friends? ” he asked, in disbelief.

“Allies, rather. Fellow Pilgrims, working together for the good of all.”

“Well—”

Grycindil, who was at his side now, nudged him sharply with her foot. He glared at her; but then he rose, unlimbering himself until he stood high above me, for he was a very big man. My hand was still out. He took it, though his expression was a strange, strained one.

“Allies, then,” he said. “Fellow Pilgrims. Yes. Yes. All right, Poilar. Fellow Pilgrims, working together.”

It wasn’t the most tender of reconciliations. But it did the job. Tomorrow, I resolved, I would quietly call Muurmut aside and ask him if he had any thoughts on how to leave this valley of streams.

As I walked back to my side of the fire, Grycindil came by me and whispered a word of thanks. I nodded and kept going. None of this had been pleasant for me. I had done it the way one lets the cautery be put to a bloody wound: because one must.