Memory

Chapter Two

Poldarn put his mug down slowly. 'Look,' he said. Aciava laughed. 'It's just struck me,' he said. 'In context, that sounded like a pick-up line. No, absolutely not. The truth is, I know who you are. And I've come a very long way to find you.'

That was, of course, the moment when the door swung open and a sutler backed into the chapel, holding a large tray full of plates of food. Smoked lamb, Poldarn noticed, with cabbage, artichokes and creamed leeks Tulice style. Not bad for six quarters.

The sutler put the tray down. 'Ready for more beer?' he asked.

'We will be,' Aciava said, his eyes fixed on Poldarn's face, 'by the time you get around to fetching it.'

'Fine,' the sutler replied, and left.

'What did you say?' Poldarn said.

Aciava sighed, and pulled one of the plates towards him. 'You're probably asking yourself,' he said, 'why I made up all that garbage on the coach; like I didn't know you, and so forth. Actually, it's very simple. I already knew you'd lost your memory, and that the chances were you wouldn't recognise me. I'd also figured that if you'd gone this long without remembering anything, it was a fair bet it's because you don't really want to. Of course, I didn't know how much you'd found out about yourself since; partly, that's what the charade was in aid of. Luckily, I've always been easy to talk to. I do this boisterous, likeable idiot thing very well, and there's nothing like a long wagon ride for striking up conversations, often about things we wouldn't normally discuss with strangers.' He speared a slice of lamb with the point of his knife. 'So, how much have you found out? I know you went home for a year.'

Poldarn stared. 'How the hell do you know about that?'

'Good question,' Aciava said with his mouth full. 'How many people in the Empire even know about the islands in the far west, where the raiders come from? I can't be sure about this, but my guess is, three. Two of whom,' he added, 'are drinking beer from the same jug. Refill?'

Poldarn shook his head. 'How could you possibly know?' he said. 'Who in God's name are you, anyway?'

But Aciava only smiled. 'Now that's interesting,' he said. 'Anybody else in the world, in your shoes, his first question would've been, Who in God's name am I? But you're more concerned with me. Haven't you been listening? I can tell you who you are. Your name.'

Poldarn kicked his chair back and stood up. 'I asked you a question,' he said.

Aciava scowled. 'Sit down, for heaven's sake. Eat your dinner before it goes cold. This is going to be hard enough as it is without melodrama.'

So Poldarn sat down. 'You're lying,' he said. 'This is what you do for a living. You get talking to people on coaches. They tell you something, like me telling you about losing my memory; then you think up some scam-'

'Fair assumption,' Aciava replied. 'And your scepticism does you credit. But it seems to me you're trying suspiciously hard to make excuses for not asking me the sort of thing you should be wanting to know. Who am I? What did I do for a living? Where do I live?'

'I told you,' Poldarn said hesitantly, 'I'm not sure I want-'

Aciava put his knife down on his plate. 'Your real name,' he said, 'is, of course, Ciartan. Your father's name was Tursten, but he died before you were born. You were brought up by your grandfather, at Haldersness. You had to leave home because of some trouble over someone else's wife, which is why you came to the Empire in the first place.' He frowned. 'Look, if you're going to hit me with something, please don't let it be the beer jug; that's solid earthenware, you could do me an injury.'

Poldarn sat back and stared at him.

'That's better. Now,' Aciava went on, 'I don't actually know if any of that stuff is true, because it's only what you told me, many years ago, in an out-of-bounds wine shop in Deymeson. But it ought to knock the itinerant con artist theory on the head, don't you think?'

Poldarn nodded without speaking.

'By the way,' Aciava went on, 'if you think this is easy for me, just because I'm being all laid back and relaxed about it, think again. This is just my defences, like all the wards and guards we learned back in the second year. We had to pretend it was someone else in the ring sparring with sharp blades, not us, or we'd have died of fright. Remember? No, of course you don't. You still don't know me from a hole in the ground, do you? That's-well, that's rather hard for me. But we won't worry about it now. Have some spring cabbage, it's not half bad.'

Poldarn didn't move. There was a precept of religion about why that was advisable, tactically, but he couldn't remember the exact words offhand.

'Anyhow,' Aciava went on, 'when you were telling me, in the cart, about not having remembered anything because, basically, you don't want to-I can tell you, that actually makes a whole lot of sense. At any rate, it puts me in a dilemma. If you believe that I'm your friend, at least that I used to be the friend of the man I used to know-you appreciate the distinction, I'm sure-then you'll understand why I'm doing all this faffing about, instead of spitting it straight out and telling you, whether you like it or not. Truth is, I don't know you any more; I don't know who you've become. And I can imagine how some of the stuff I could tell you might do you a lot of damage. Hence-well, I suppose it's a sort of test, or what the government clerks call an assessment. Only way I can find out what you'd really like to know is to ask you; only I can't ask you straight out without risking doing the damage. Like, if I said, "Do you want me to tell you about that time in the Poverty and Prudence, with the violin-maker's daughter and the six goats?"-well, you get the idea, I'm sure.'

While Aciava had been saying all this, Poldarn hadn't moved. For some reason, he was acutely aware of every detail of his surroundings-the hiss of slightly damp logs on the fire, the smell of the onion sauce on the smoked lamb, the pecking of light rain on the chapel slates. He realised that he'd breathed out some time ago and hadn't breathed in again.

'Who are you?' he said.

Aciava sighed. 'Now that,' he said, 'is what Father Tutor used to call a very intelligent question. Well, for a start, my name really is Gain Aciava. I was born in Paraon in eastern Tulice thirty-nine years ago; my father was a retired cavalry officer who got a sinecure in the governor's office when he left the service, and my mother was his CO's younger daughter. When I was twelve they decided that since both my elder brothers had gone into the army, it'd be sensible to diversify a bit and send me into religion; so they packed me off to Deymeson as a junior novice. I did my time there, and eventually I was ordained. As luck would have it, I got a transfer away from Deymeson the year before you and your relations trashed the place; I joined Cleapho's office in Torcea as a junior chaplain. When the order abruptly ceased to exist and Cleapho formally rescinded its charter I found myself out of a job, and since sword-monks were distinctly out of favour by then, I hunted round for someone who'd pay me a wage, with indifferent success, until I sort of stumbled into this false-teeth lark. Amazingly, it's turned out to be a good living, totally undemanding, quite relaxing in fact, and I'm enjoying it rather more than eight hours perched on a high stool in an office followed by six hours' sword-drawing practice and sleeping on a plank bed in a small stone cell. And that, give or take an unimportant detail or two, is basically all there is to know.'

But Poldarn shook his head. 'That may be the truth,' he said, 'but it sure as hell isn't the whole truth. How do you know all that stuff about me, and why did you go to all the trouble of finding me?'

Aciava grinned offensively. 'I could give you an answer, only it's not allowed. If you want to know why you're worth busting my arse to find-'

'All right,' Poldarn conceded, 'you've made your point.' He stood up. There wasn't really enough room in the chapel for pacing up and down, at least not without making himself look ridiculous; but he felt uncomfortable staying still. 'Perhaps it'd be better if I just left.'

'For you, maybe,' Aciava said. 'But don't I get a say in the matter? Come on, give me a chance. I've been rattling about in mail-coaches for a week, and that's not taking account of three years of painstaking, dreary investigation. Surely I deserve some consideration.'

'Why? I never asked you to-'

'How,' Aciava interrupted calmly, 'do you know that? I mean,' he went on, 'for all you know, there was an evening many years ago when you took me on one side, confessed that your biggest fear in all the world was losing your memory, and made me swear on my mother's life that if it ever happened to you, I'd find you and tell you who you are.'

Poldarn looked at him. 'And did I?'

'No. But there could be all sorts of reasons. Maybe there are people who need you. Have you ever once considered that?'

'Yes,' Poldarn said, without much confidence. 'But-well, I may not remember further back than three years, but I learned a few things about myself back in the old country-not things I did, things I am. I reckon anybody who knew me before is probably better off without me.'

'Oh, sure,' Aciava said, pulling a face. 'You're a sadistic wife-beater and you carry thirteen infectious diseases. While sleepwalking, you set fire to hospitals and orphanages. You are, in fact, the god who brings the end of the world. But apart from that-'

'Fine.' Poldarn sat down. 'Just tell me, why was finding me so important?'

Aciava hesitated, then grinned sheepishly. 'I missed you,' he said.

Poldarn stared. 'You what?'

'Straight up. I'd better explain. At Deymeson-you do know, don't you, you were at Deymeson?'

Poldarn nodded.

'Well, that's something. You were a novice there. You joined in second year of the third grade; you were eighteen months older than the rest of us, but Father Tutor reckoned you had to stay down, because you were so far behind. Anyhow, that's beside the point. There were six of us. No, that's misleading, because there were twenty of us in the class; but there were six of us who always went round together. Bestest friends, that sort of thing. There was you, and me; and Elaos Tanwar-he's dead now-and the only girl in our year, Xipho Dorunoxy-'

Poldarn felt as if he'd just been slammed back in his chair by a kick in the stomach. 'Copis.'

'That's right, Copis. That makes five. And one more. Cordomine was what we knew him as, but he's better known these days as Chaplain Cleapho.'

There was a long silence. 'I don't believe you,' Poldarn said eventually.

'Oh.' Aciava frowned. 'What a shame, because it's true. I can prove it, you know.'

'I don't want you to prove it,' Poldarn shouted; then he took a deep breath. 'No matter what you say,' he said, 'I'm not going to believe you. See, I've been through this before; I was at Deymeson-before the raiders burned it down-and they told me all sorts of stuff, all perfectly plausible, about who I was. And I believed them; but then I found out they were lying, using me, it was something to do with the war and some general called Cronan-'

Aciava nodded. 'I know about that,' he said. 'Hardly surprising, you weren't very popular with the sword-monks after you left. Anyway, that was when Copis told you she'd been-well, looking after you, bad choice of words, on their instructions, and then she pulled a sword on you. No wonder you're suspicious when I tell you I used to be a monk too. And you don't believe she was one of them, because you were in love with her at the time. Sort of.'

'No,' Poldarn said.

Aciava shook his head. 'Trust me,' he said, 'you were. You were in love with her back in fifth grade-sorry, I'm not allowed to tell you that, am I? But she wouldn't have anything to do with you, so it's probably all right.' He smiled. 'Actually, it's bitterly unfair, because when you did finally get her in the sack, you weren't to know that you were finally achieving a lifetime ambition.' He leaned back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap. As he did so, a fold of his coat fell away, revealing the hilt of a short sword tucked into his sash. Poldarn wondered if it was deliberate. 'Now do you want me to piss off and leave you in peace? If you do, I will.'

Poldarn closed his eyes. 'No,' he said.

Then the door opened, and the sutler came in with a big jug of beer. 'Here you go,' he said. 'You haven't finished the first one.'

'Leave it,' Aciava said, 'we've got a use for it.'

The sutler went away again. 'Sorry,' Aciava said, 'I've lost my thread. Did you just agree that you do want me to tell you?'

Poldarn sighed. 'I'm not sure,' he said.

'Progress,' Aciava said brightly. 'A few moments ago, you were absolutely dead set against it.'

'That was before-'

'Would you rather I hadn't told you? About Xipho-sorry, Copis?'

'That's academic, isn't it? You've told me now.' He slumped forward onto his elbows. 'I guess you'd better tell me the rest.'

But Aciava shook his head. 'Not so fast,' he said. 'I've still got your best interests at heart, remember. I'll tell you some things, but only what's good for you. All right?'

'I'm not in the mood for games.'

'Ah.' Aciava grinned. 'I've heard you say that before. You always were an impatient sort-you know, always reading ahead, wanting to learn lesson five before you'd properly got the hang of lesson three. I can still just get up and leave, and I will if you don't behave. Understood?'

'Fuck you,' Poldarn said. But he stayed where he was. 'Go on, then.'

'Thank you so much.' Aciava settled himself in his chair and picked up a slice of smoked lamb in his fingers. 'Now,' he said, 'one step at a time. Do you want me to tell you your name-not Ciartan, the name you had in the order? Or not; it's up to you.'

'Yes.'

'Splendid. You were called Poldarn.' Aciava smiled. 'No, I'm not kidding you, it was the name Father Tutor chose for you, since he refused to call you Ciartan, he said there was no such name; and it's quite usual for novices to take a name-in-religion. Signifies a complete severance of ties with the outside world, or some such shit. Anyhow, that's what we all knew you as.' He breathed in deeply, like a man of sensibility smelling a rare flower. 'My guess is, Xipho was playing a game with you. Probably, being told to look after you put the idea of the god-in-the-cart stunt into her mind. Also, it'd be easier for her, so there wouldn't be any risk that she'd suddenly call you Poldarn by mistake, out of habit, and then you'd get suspicious. Either that, or it was just her idea of a joke. You see, it was always a source of extreme merriment and wit in our gang, Father Tutor giving you such a wonderfully apt name.' He paused. 'You do know why it's apt, don't you?'

'Enlighten me.'

Aciava sighed. 'Well, Poldarn's the god of fire and the forge, and before you joined up, you were working in a blacksmith's shop. You learned the trade back in Haldersness, and when you wound up over here and needed to start earning a living, it was the only useful thing you knew how to do.'

'I see,' Poldarn said. 'That explains-no, forget it. None of your business.'

'Suit yourself.' Aciava shrugged. 'So that's your name,' he said. 'I reckoned there couldn't be any harm in telling you, since that's what you've been calling yourself any way. And of course, it's not your actual name, because really you're Ciartan. Bit of a non-issue, really.'

'I've had enough of this,' Poldarn said, jumping up again. 'I think I was right to start with. I don't want to know any more, it's just making me angry-'

Aciava nodded gravely. 'Because you're finding out you've been made a fool of. Same old Poldarn, always was scared to death of being made to look stupid in front of the class.'

If he'd had a sword, Poldarn would probably have drawn it; he could feel the intrusion into his circle, like a splinter in the joint of a finger. 'Maybe,' he said. 'But you've told me now, and I don't want to know any more, thanks all the same. You can piss off now.'

'Fine.' Aciava held his hands up. 'Whatever you like. But a moment ago you were dead set on knowing why I'd come looking for you. Obviously you've changed your mind.'

Poldarn closed his eyes. 'You said you missed me.'

'Oh, I did.' Aciava laughed. 'But I miss loads of people. Hardly a day goes by when I don't ask myself what happened to old so-and-so. But I don't go hunting them down across half the Empire. There's a reason why I'm here, something that affects your present and your future, not just your past. You can ignore it if you like.'

'Thank you,' Poldarn said, and left.

Three hours' walk, down a muddy, rutted lane in the dark, when he could probably have had a good night's sleep on a soft mattress in the Virtue Triumphant, at the gold-tooth people's expense. He cursed himself as he walked; never did know a good thing when he saw it. It was hard to imagine a sensible person in his situation walking out on a good offer like that. All that had been expected of him in return was sitting still and listening to some stuff about some people he used to know, one of them being himself. He carried on, feeling the mud slopping under his boots. It was a long nine miles, and his own stupidity went with him all the way.

The tragedy of my life, he thought; wherever I go, I take myself with me. And I expect my mother warned me about getting into bad company.

Copis, he thought (and at that moment, the low branch across the road that he knew was around there somewhere smacked him across the face; it probably laughed at him too, behind his back). Why the hell should the worst thing, the most important thing, be that she made a fool of me? All that time, on the road, in that bloody cart; she knew and I didn't. At Deymeson she said she was quietly hating me all the way, under her breath, because she knew who I was and what I'd done. Our kid'll be-what, two, nearly three by now, assuming she didn't strangle it as soon as it was born.

It'd be so much simpler, so much better, if Aciava (his real name? God knows) was lying. Sure, he knew all that stuff about the old country, but maybe a whole lot of people knew that once, in which case he could've found it out easily enough. Poldarn stopped, one foot in a puddle; just because he knows who I am doesn't necessarily mean he's telling me the truth. Think of what the sword-monks did to me, and he even says he's one of them. Probably I was one of them-it'd explain this knack of being able to pull out a sword and kill people. And Aciava said it himself, they had some reason to hate me. So I'd have to be crazy to believe them, wouldn't I?

He remembered an old joke: I wouldn't believe you if you told me my own name.

He shook his head, like a carthorse bothered by flies. It all came down to whether he wanted to know. What could there be in the past that he could conceivably want back? Like the old character-assessment question, what one thing would you save if your house was on fire? It stood to reason, he'd been three years away from his past and there hadn't been any one thing he'd felt the lack of. He could sleep in ditches and eat stale bread and raw meat; the state of his clothes or his boots didn't seem to bother him; luxury and comfort and pleasure weren't worth going back for, he could manage without them just fine. Company, now; in the past three years he'd had two lovers and a friend. Hadn't worked out too well; the lovers he'd lost to the past, but the friend-He remembered what it had felt like, that very short time when he'd been able to do what everybody else back in the old country could do: hear other people's thoughts. It had been while he stood outside the house at Ciartanstead, while Eyvind, his friend, was burning to death inside.

I killed him; and that wasn't the past's fault. That was just some quarrel over some trees.

Indeed; that had been a bad business, and in consequence he'd left the old country and come back here, so as to transfer Eyvind's murder from his present to his past, like a banker moving money from current account to deposit. The past would be useful if you could use it like that, as a place where you could bury dead bodies, shovelling this convenient loss of memory into the grave to cover up their faces. That's not what the past was for, though. It was where the present went to rot down, so you could use it to grow the future.

He smiled; nice piece of imagery, but it was too glib to fool anyone.

What harm could it do? After all, just because I know about the past doesn't mean I've got to go back there. And besides, it'll make it easier to avoid the bad stuff if I know what I'm avoiding.

That made Poldarn wonder if there was a little tiny lawyer lurking maggot-like deep inside his brain. It was a specious argument, designed to lure him into a trap. Yes, but.

Yes, but if I'd known then what I know now, Copis couldn't have played that dirty trick on me. And what about the sword-monks at Deymeson? If I find out about my past, they won't find it so easy the next time.

Assuming this isn't the next time.

Big assumption, given that the source of the information appeared to be a sword-monk. If he was going to believe anything one of them told him ever again, he might as well go the whole hog, shave his scalp and have the word IDIOT tattooed on it in bright purple letters. Except, of course-what if they were the only people who knew the truth and could tell him? In that case, better not to know?

Clearly, he told himself, there are arguments on both sides, like an ambush in a narrow pass. Now, if he wanted something really scary to occupy his mind with, how about the ease with which this joker had found him? He hadn't come to this godforsaken place because he liked mud and fog, or because he'd always wanted to be a bell-founder when he grew up. If someone could find him here Assuming anybody wanted to; anybody else, apart from the incredibly annoying man who claimed his name was Aciava; who apparently wanted him for something, and had been prepared to tell him what it was (assuming he hadn't been lying) Fine. Poldarn's head was spinning, and he hadn't even stopped long enough to drink much of the free beer. Which was another way of saying the same thing. He was going to be miserable anyway, so why not have something tangible to be miserable about?

Stupid line of reasoning; stupid, like the very rich merchants in Falcata, who took crucial business decisions on the basis of the phases of the moon, and whether Saturn was in the fifth house. Stupid; but the answers thereby derived must've been right, or the merchants wouldn't have ended up very rich.

Did it really matter that Copis had made a fool of him, after all? Arguably, he'd had the last laugh, if the man had been telling the truth; he'd got her into bed in the end, hadn't he, just like he'd always wanted. No wonder she'd wanted to kill him, come to think of it.

(It was all a bit like his name, assuming it was his name. First he'd been a god. Then he was called after a roof-tile. Then it turned out the roof-tile was named after the god. And now it turned out it really was his name-called after the god, who'd probably been called after the roof-tile in the first place. Is that where gods come from, he wondered?)

Or he could carry on as he was (assuming they didn't burst in and drag him away if he wouldn't come quietly). He could stay here, in flat, wet, foggy, horrible Tulice, living in a turf house and working in the foundry. A lot of people lived in Tulice, in turf houses, working in foundries; and as far as he could tell, most of them seemed to get away with it, without ever being recognised or discovered or ambushed by their past lives. It couldn't be difficult, if they could manage it. Old joke: if a Tulicer can do it, so can a small rock. So, if they could do it, so could he.

Or maybe the bastard was lying to him. Ready-made pasts had to be on the list of things you weren't supposed to accept from strangers. Not without Ah, Poldarn thought (and there was a faint, thin yellow light in the distance, the lantern burning outside the foundry gates), that's the word I've been searching for. Not without proof.

(-Assuming Aciava has any, and that he hasn't been so offended that he gets on the dawn mail-coach and buggers off back where he came from before I can ask him. Assuming I'm going to ask him. Come to think of it, the whole of our world is made up of assumings, like chalk is the bones of billions of small dead fish.)

At least the turf houses at the foundry were better than the horrible little dirt dog-kennels at the charcoal-burners' camp. The foundry had been in business for over a century, and the workers' houses had to be at least forty years old, if not older; long enough for the turf to put down roots and knit together nicely. The foundrymen were almost proud of them, in a way. It wasn't everybody, they said, who lives in a living house, with walls and a roof that grow, even if it is a bit like living in your own grave.

Poldarn was shaken out of a dream about something or other he couldn't remember by Banspati the foreman. 'You're back, then,' he said, looming over Poldarn like an overhanging cliff.

'Looks like it,' Poldarn mumbled. 'What's the time?'

Banspati grunted. 'Some of us've been up for hours,' he said. 'So, how did you get on?'

The question puzzled Poldarn for a moment; then he remembered. The charcoal. He tried to recall how all that had turned out. 'It's all right,' he said. 'We did the deal.'

'Fine,' Banspati said. 'What deal?'

Pulling the details out of his memory was like levering an awkward stone out of a post-hole. 'They can let us have all we need,' he said, 'two quarters a bushel on the road, tenth off for cash on delivery, half a quarter a bushel penalty for failure to deliver. The quality's good,' he added, 'I think. Looked all right to me, anyhow.'

Banspati nodded slowly. 'That's more or less what we decided on,' he said. 'Dunno why you had to go all that way when we'd already settled it here. Still, that's that sorted.'

Poldarn wanted to point out that the trip hadn't been his idea, but he couldn't face the effort of putting it into words. 'Yes,' he said. 'First load should be with us by the end of next month. The bloke said they're rushed off their feet, but he was lying. I think they were glad of the business.'

'You bet. Who wants charcoal round here, except us? Probably we could've got it cheaper if you'd sweated 'em a bit, but it's all settled now, so never mind. Good trip?'

'No.'

'Get yourself together, and get down to the shop. The Vestoer job's all done, bar scouring and polishing, so you'd better get a move on.'

Poldarn nodded, and reached for his boots. His head hurt, but there wasn't any point in mentioning that.

Besides lifting things and hauling on ropes and shovelling wet clay into buckets when the need arose, Poldarn's main job at the bell foundry was the forge work, making brackets and mountings and clappers; none of which could be made and fitted until everything else had been done, by which time the job was usually a month or so late. Somehow matters had so resolved themselves that every late delivery was officially his fault, and he didn't mind that particularly, nor the fact that he was always having to do difficult and delicate work in a hurry. Just this once, however, he'd have preferred it otherwise. He wasn't really in the right frame of mind for concentrating on precision work. But he hauled himself to his feet nevertheless. There was some bread in the crock, but it had gone a funny shade of green, and the water in the jug had flies and stuff floating in it. Skip breakfast, he thought, and I can wash my face in the slack tub when I get there. He tied on his leather apron and shoved through the door into the yard.

As usual, the yard gave no indication that thirty or so men worked there, or that there was anybody around the place at all. To Poldarn's left and in front of him were the abnormally tall timber-framed sheds, with high lintels and curved doors, where the carpenters made patterns and jigs, and where the half-finished bells were ground, polished and accoutered; away to the right was the muddy wilderness of casting pits and furnace cupolas. He was halfway across before anybody else appeared: an old man and three boys, hauling sand up from the river in wheelbarrows. He didn't recognise them, and if they knew him they didn't show it. He reached the forge, unlatched the heavy door and went inside.

It was, of course, dark in the forge; shutters closed and bolted, no light other than the splinter of sun from the doorway. On his way he grabbed a sack of charcoal, which he heaped around the little pile of kindling he'd left there a few days ago. For once, the tinderbox was where he'd left it, and the kindling caught quite easily. He hadn't had much trouble getting a fire started, not since the night at Ciartanstead when he'd murdered Eyvind.

As Poldarn drew in the coals with the rake, he tried to clear his mind of all extraneous concerns. Making the clapper for a bell involved careful thought. Both the length and the weight had to be exactly right, or the note would be false. He could either draw the thing down in one piece from a thick bar and swage the round bulb that actually made contact with the bell, or else he could use thinner stock and forge-weld bands around it to form the bulb. Quicker the second way, less heavy work, but considerably trickier, because of the weld. Because he was always in a hurry, he always ended up doing it the second way, and this time looked like no exception. A pity, but there it was.

If only Halder could see me now, he thought; his grandfather had kept on at him to learn the trade (relearn it, rather, since he'd been taught it as a boy and since forgotten it, until after the burning at Ciartanstead, by which point Halder was dead and Poldarn no longer needed the skill). Or Asburn, the real smith at Haldersness, who'd tried to teach him and failed; Asburn could've done four awkward welds one after the other without turning a hair. But Asburn wasn't here, and if he was they'd cut his head off for being a raider. Poldarn took the lid off the flux jar. Just about enough, if he was sparing with it (and that was the wrong approach).

In spite of the lack of flux, the welds took, rather to his surprise. Oddly enough, it seemed as though he was starting to get good at this, now that he was just an employee of the foundry rather than the master of Haldersness and Ciartanstead. Another slight miscalculation with past and present; story of his life, apparently.

Once he'd made the basic shape, he stopped. No point going any further until he'd measured up the bell and spoken to Malla Ancola, the chief founder, who'd have worked out how long and heavy the clapper had to be. Annoying; should have done that before he started, because now he'd have to let his fire burn out. Waste of time and good charcoal, and that was what came of not giving your full attention to the job in hand. Never mind the past, or the future; you had to concentrate on the present, and on the work you were supposed to be doing.

Malla didn't look like a foundryman; he should have been either a prince or a poet, ideally both. He was tall and slim, with long, delicate hands, a smooth round face and, most of the time, a profoundly gormless expression, as if he'd just been interrupted in the middle of composing an ode by a courtier needing something signed.

'You're back, then,' he said, as Poldarn edged his way past the grinding-house door, which had stuck at slightly ajar since the accession of the dynasty before last. 'Any luck with the charcoal people?'

(Malla even sounded like a poet; low-voiced, quiet, droopy. The accent wasn't necessarily a problem. Even Tulicers wrote poetry sometimes.)

'All settled,' Poldarn replied briskly. He knew from experience that getting into any kind of conversation with Malla was a fatal mistake if you ever wanted to get some work done. Malla could talk about anything, indefinitely. 'I'm just doing the clapper now, so I need some measurements.'

'Ah,' Malla replied. 'Right. She's over here. We'll be making a start on grinding her directly.' Poldarn sighed. Making a start meant that Malla was just beginning to think about it; like a god at the creation of the world, he was opening his mind to the vague, inchoate possibility of the existence of shapes and forms. In other words, he hadn't got round to figuring out the measurements yet. Before he did that, he'd need to prune away the rough, gritty skin of casting waste, which might be anything up to an eighth of an inch deep. Until he knew precisely how thick the walls of the bell would eventually be, he couldn't calculate anything. If this world was going to take a week to create, Malla was still in the mid-afternoon of the second day, turning over in his mind what colour the sky should be.

'Right,' Poldarn said. 'Well, not to worry. I'll go back and rough out the brackets.'

Malla shrugged. 'Yes,' he said. 'That'll be all right.'

'See you later, then.'

'See you later.'

Poldarn had managed to get one arm of the bracket drawn down and was making good progress with bending up the scrollwork when Aciava finally showed up. Poldarn had been expecting him all day, and now it was almost noon. There could be some deep significance to that, but it was rather more likely that he'd had a lie-in.

'Hello there.' He heard Aciava's voice coming from the junction of light and darkness just by the door. 'So this is where you work. Nice set-up you people have got here.'

Poldarn didn't turn round or look up; he was watching the steel in the fire, waiting for the right colour. He wished the steel was ready and he could start hammering it, so he'd have an excuse for drowning out whatever Aciava said. 'It's all right,' he replied.

'I should say so.' The voice was getting nearer. 'Biggest foundry this side of the mountains, and the only bell factory in Tulice. Founded, no pun intended, over a century ago, the secret of its success is the unique composition of the mud and sand deposits found in the nearby Green River, which are ideally suited to the extremely specialised business of large-scale deep-core cupola founding.' He stopped, and in spite of the heat of the fire Poldarn could almost feel the glow of his grin. 'I read up on this outfit before I left,' he said. 'Rule number one in the gold-tooth racket: always do your homework before you set out.'

Poldarn nodded. 'I'd sort of got the impression you like knowing more than everybody else,' he said. 'Gives you the edge, I suppose.'

'Of course.' Aciava chuckled. 'Going in somewhere without knowing all about it'd be like walking into a pitch-dark room where there's an enemy waiting for you.'

Poldarn was, of course, standing next to the fire, plainly visible. 'Well,' he said, 'this is it. But I don't suppose you're here to order a bell.'

'Nice idea. Out of my price range, though. Talking of which, did you know the bell in the cloister tower at Deymeson originally came from here?'

Disconcerting. The man sounded like a tour guide. 'Really,' Poldarn said. 'Sorry, don't remember it.'

'Don't you? We all cursed it often enough for dragging us out of bed in the wee small hours. Anyway, here's where it was made. Clapper forged on that very anvil, I dare say. It's a small world, isn't it?'

'So you say,' Poldarn answered. 'Only got your word for that, though.'

'Ah.' Aciava sounded pleased. 'So you've had enough of bland assertions, and want some hard evidence. I think we can manage that.'

Frowning, Poldarn laid down his hammer. The work would go cold and the fire would probably go out, but he wasn't too bothered about that. 'Go on, then,' he said.

'Fine.' Aciava took a step forward, and broke into the circle of firelight. As if to greet him, the fire flared up (or else it was just poor-quality charcoal). Poldarn felt a sharp tug in the tendons of his right arm. 'Let's see,' he said. 'What would you like me to prove first?'

Put like that-good question; and he hadn't given it any thought. 'My name,' he said. 'Prove to me that I used to be called Poldarn.'

'All right.' First, Aciava held up his hands, like a conjuror demonstrating that he had nothing palmed or up his sleeve. Then he drew his coat open and reached for his sash. As he did so, he took a step forward. Maybe it was the way Aciava did it, or else at the back of his mind Poldarn was thinking about the sword he'd seen there the previous evening; he skipped back two steps, and seized the hammer. At once, Aciava raised his hands again.

'Reflex,' he said. 'Something you'll never be rid of, no matter how hard you try. You were trained to do that from third grade onwards. I made it look like I was drawing my sword, so you took two steps back, left leg first, and grabbed for the nearest weapon. Conclusion: you used to be a sword-monk.'

'Maybe,' Poldarn conceded. 'But I'd sort of figured that out before you showed up. And if you do that again, don't blame me if I bash your head in.'

Aciava grinned. 'You can try,' he said. 'Actually, that's just the first stage of the proof, to establish that you were once a member of the order. Now, take a look at this.' Very slowly, he dipped his fingers into an inside pocket and fished out a scrap of paper. 'Nothing very exciting,' he said, 'just a twenty-year-old class timetable. See for yourself.'

He looked round, picked up a fairly clean piece of rag from the floor, and spread it rather ostentatiously on the anvil; then he put the paper on it and stood back.

It was just a list of names; twenty of them, divided into four unequal groups. One of them read; Elaos Tanwar Xipho Dorunoxy Monachus Ciartan Monachus Cordomine Gain Aciava Monachus Poldarn Poldarn took a closer look, trying to force himself to be calm, analytical. The paper could easily have been twenty years old; it was yellow and frayed across two folds, and the ink was greyish-brown. The letters-well, he could read them without thinking, but it wasn't the same alphabet that they used in Tulice. There weren't any names in the other groups that he recognised, though several of them started with Monachus; he remembered what Aciava had said the previous evening, and guessed that those were names-in-religion. There were four little pinholes, one in each corner, as you'd expect on a notice put up on a door or a notice-board.

'That's not proof,' he said. 'The most it could mean is that there was once a class with people with those names in it. Or this could just be something you wrote yourself, and dipped in vegetable stock to make it turn yellow.'

'Very good,' Aciava said. 'And if I showed you my business seal, with Gain Aciava engraved on it, you'd tell me I murdered someone with that name and took his seal before I wrote the paper. Fair enough. I said I'd show you some evidence. I didn't say it was irrefutable. But now you've got to tell me why I'd go to so much trouble.'

It was Poldarn's turn to grin. 'I can't,' he said. 'Not without knowing who you really are, and what you're really up to.'

'Quite.' Aciava dipped his head to acknowledge the point. 'As I recall, you weren't at all bad at analytical reasoning when we did it in fifth grade. Better than me, anyhow. Mind you, I did miss a lot of classes, because of them clashing with archery practice. I was on the archery team, you see.'

'I'm impressed,' Poldarn yawned. 'So this is your proof, is it? Just this little bit of old paper.'

'Allegedly old paper-you missed an opportunity. Come on, it was twenty years ago, what do you expect? I was damned lucky to have found that; I mean, who keeps old school notices?'

'Good question, who does? Why would you hang on to something like that?'

'Look on the back,' Aciava replied. Poldarn did so. He saw a sketch: a diagram of an eight-pointed figure, drawn in charcoal, and below it a childish doodle of a vaguely heraldic-looking crow.

'The diagram,' Aciava said, 'is the eight principal wards. Lecture notes. The crow was just me being bored during lessons, though I probably chose to draw it because the crow was our team mascot. I was never very imaginative, even then. Innovation's always struck me as being somehow disrespectful. Result of a religious upbringing, I suppose, the tendency to couple together the words original and sin. Anyhow, to answer your question: I kept the paper for the sketch, and it was sheer accident, coming across it the other day. I'd used it to mark the place in an old textbook. Satisfied?'

Poldarn shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'There's still nothing linking that name on that bit of paper to me. If you can do that-'

'Can't, sorry.' Aciava scratched his ear. 'And I haven't brought anything else with me, because-well, to be honest, I wasn't expecting this kind of attitude, all this suspicion and hostility. I thought that maybe you'd be in two minds about whether you'd want me to tell you about the past and all, but I didn't anticipate that you wouldn't believe me. It's like I'd given you a cute little carved ivory box for your birthday and you're demanding to see a receipt.'

'Really?' Poldarn raised an eyebrow. 'You told me you knew about what happened when I went to Deymeson. Didn't it occur to you that after that I wasn't likely to be in a hurry to believe anything a sword-monk tells me?'

'Now you put it like that,' Aciava conceded, 'I can see your point, sort of. But all right, then. You tell me what'd make you believe, and I'll see what I can do.'

Poldarn turned away and started raking out the hearth. 'Why should I?' he said. 'If you're lying, I'd be telling you how to deceive me.'

'Fine.' Was there just a hint of impatience in Aciava's voice? Or was that just play-acting too?

'I'll tell you what I think, shall I? I think you still don't want to know the truth about yourself, and not believing me's the only way you can do it. If you can persuade yourself I'm lying, you can chicken out of learning who you used to be. Am I getting warm?'

Poldarn frowned; any warmer, and he wouldn't have to bother lighting the fire. 'You can think what you like,' he said. 'But maybe you should go and do it somewhere else. This is tricky work, and I need to concentrate.'

Aciava yawned. 'Not all that tricky,' he said. 'You've done the drawing down, so now all you need to do is bend the angles on a bick stake and punch the holes. Like I said,' he added cheerfully, 'I do my homework.'

That, or he can read minds. 'If you're so smart, you do it.'

'Not likely. I'd get my hands dirty. Besides, my idea of research is looking stuff up in books. Except for sword drill, I'm what you might call physically inept. And I'm not here to do your work for you. I don't think your outfit could afford me, for one thing.'

Maybe it was the residue of a religious upbringing, Poldarn thought; this compulsion to fence, shadow-box, score points, even at the risk of seriously pissing off the person you were talking to. If so, it was the most convincing thing about Aciava. Unless it too was fake (homework, and attention to detail). 'I see,' he said. 'So, what are you here for? We've established that it's not just for a class reunion.'

Aciava sighed. 'Not just that, no. I need your help. Or-' He hesitated, as if he was trying to figure out how to put it tactfully. 'I thought I could use your help. Now, no offence, but I'm not so sure. You've changed, you know. Hardly surprising, after all these years, and the stuff you've been through. I suppose I have, too. But you're-'

'I'm what?'

'Smaller.' There was a faint, sad smile on Aciava's face. 'You've lost something, you know? That hardened edge, that touch of devilment-' He walked past Poldarn and sat on the small anvil. 'It's only a slight change, but it makes all the difference. Pity.'

If Aciava was trying to be annoying, he certainly had the knack for it. 'I've got no idea what you mean,' Poldarn said.

'Don't suppose you have.' Aciava pulled a stick of dried meat out of his pocket, bit off the end and started to chew. 'It's all part of the tragedy, I guess. Not only have you lost that extra something that made you special, you don't know you ever had it. Now that's sad.'

Lying. Of course. But 'Explain,' Poldarn said.

'All right, then,' Aciava replied, spitting something out. 'Here's a little story for you. Back in fourth grade-I think; not totally sure. Anyhow, it was our first lesson in full-contact sparring. Wooden swords, no worries. Anyhow, Father Tutor calls for a volunteer. All the volunteer's got to do is knock the sword out of Father Tutor's hand, and he'll be let off the ten-mile cross-country run scheduled for that evening. Now you never could abide running, you'd rather stand and fight a herd of stampeding cattle. So up you go; you both stand on the mat, bow and draw, Father Tutor swats the wooden sword out of your hand and cracks you across the cheekbone, hard enough to draw blood. You take a step back, ask-well, demand's more like it, you demand to be given another shot at it. So you try again, same result, only he bloodies your other cheek. Never mind, he says, you've shown character and there was no way you'd ever have been able to win, you're let off the run. But no, you say, give me another chance. Father Tutor grins, and this time, instead of bashing you, he kicks your knee out from under you before you've even reached for the hilt. You go down on your bum, everybody laughs like mad, Father Tutor says, right, back to your place. But you won't go. You're hopping mad, and you demand another try. No, says Father Tutor, now sit down. But you won't sit down. You shout; one more try, just one. Now, instead of punishing you, like we all thought he would, for not showing respect and doing as you're told, Father Tutor nods and says, all right, but if you fail this time, you run fifteen miles, carrying a sack of stones. Fine, you say, and you both stand on the mat; but before he can go for his sword, you drop down on one knee, grab the edge of the mat and give it an almighty tug. Polished floor, of course; you pull the mat out from under him and Father Tutor goes down flat on his back. He's up again like a flash, into position, hand on sash ready for the draw, but you look him in the eye and just stand there. Draw, he says. No, you say, and you fold your arms and grin. I said draw, he says; but you shake your head again and say, No, I won't; precepts of religion-like you've scored a point or something. And he scowls at you and says, What do you mean, precepts of religion? And that's when you grab an inkwell off the lectern and throw it in his face. He's not expecting that; and while he's staggering back with ink in his eyes, you reach forward, cool as ice, pull the wooden sword out of his sash and throw it across the room. Never heard such silence in all my life. We were sure he was going to kill you, or at least kick your arse clean over to Torcea; but all he does is stand there, dripping ink, and finally he says, Yes, I see what you mean, well done. And then he lets you off the run, class dismissed, and we're all out in the fresh air half an hour early.'

Poldarn waited to see if there was any more, but apparently not. 'I don't understand,' he said.

'Oh.' Aciava looked disappointed. 'Precepts of religion,' he said. 'The best fight is not to fight. And you didn't-fight him, I mean. Beating you wasn't enough for him, he wanted a proper drawing match, to prove his point. He wanted to fight. You didn't. All you wanted to do was win. Your best fight was not to fight at all. So you won.'

Poldarn thought about that for a little while. It sounded too romantic to be true; it sounded like something you'd be taught in school, as an example. 'That doesn't sound like me,' he said.

'Of course not.' Aciava stood up. 'You'd never do anything like that now-proves my point. You've changed. Back then, you cared about winning. Now, you don't care about anything.' He took a couple of steps toward the door, then turned round. 'If you want to me to go away and never come back, just say so. I can still help you, but you're no earthly good to me any more. It's like with you and Xipho. You finally got her, but it doesn't count, because it wasn't really you. The real you just wasn't there.'

'Fine,' Poldarn said. 'The real me sounds like a menace.'

Aciava looked at him. 'What do you want?' he said. 'Most of all, in all the world?'

Poldarn thought. 'I don't know,' he said.

'There, you see. The real Poldarn wouldn't even have had to think; there'd have been something he wanted, and he'd have answered, just like that. Victory, revenge, to be the Emperor, to know the truth, there'd have been something. Something worth coming back for. But you.' He shook his head. 'You're just a waste of space.'

Poldarn turned his back. The fire was almost out, but not quite. With the rake, he flicked a handful of unburnt charcoal onto the glowing embers, and pulled down hard on the bellows handle. The red heart of the fire glowed immediately. He'd have answered, just like that. No need to ask fire what it wants; it wants to burn. No such thing as a fire without purpose.

'Goodbye,' Poldarn said. 'I'm sorry I couldn't help you.'

'Doesn't matter. Sweet dreams.'

Poldarn turned to face Aciava. 'What's that supposed to mean?' he asked.

Aciava grinned. 'I shared a dormitory with you all those years,' he said. 'You get strange dreams, where you live bits of other people's lives. True stuff, things you couldn't possibly know about, but in your dreams you're there, like you'd found your way into the other guy's memory. Do you still get them?'

'I'm not sure,' Poldarn said. 'I know I get dreams, and they're incredibly vivid, and all sorts of things happen. Sometimes, I think, I even die. But when I wake up, they're all gone, about a second after I open my eyes. All that's left is, I remember that, for that one second, I knew-'

Aciava nodded. 'Sounds right enough. We used to think it was because you were one of them, the island people from across the ocean. They can read minds, for want of a better way of putting it, and we reckoned you saw bits of memories in other people's minds, and explored them in your sleep. To begin with, it was just like you're describing now; you knew there'd been something, but as soon as you woke up, it went away again. Then Tanwar and Xipho found something in a book in the library, about how to make it so you could remember your dreams when you woke up. You tried it, and it worked.'

Poldarn looked at him doubtfully. 'Did it?'

'So you told us,' Aciava replied. 'We only had your word for it, of course. But we trusted you. Anyhow, I suppose you must've forgotten how to do it, along with everything else. It's very simple,' he went on. 'You just think of something, deliberately, when you're awake-a white cat, for instance, or a carthorse, or an old blind man selling buttons. Come to think of it, you decided on a crow, because of it being our group mascot. Anyway, next time you had a dream, there was a crow in it somewhere; and you knew, deep down inside you somewhere, even while the dream was going on, that you were just dreaming and that the crow was you. And ever since then, you could always remember the dream when you woke up. You couldn't help it,' he added, 'after that it always just happened. All your dreams had a crow or two in them, and they didn't melt away as soon as you opened your eyes.'

Poldarn stared at him. 'And these dreams,' he said, 'they were other people's memories?'

'Mostly,' Aciava replied. 'Just occasionally, you told us you saw glimpses of the future. But we were almost sure you were lying.'

A strange chill spread up from Poldarn's fingertips. 'I think,' he said, 'that if you're right-'

'Proof?' Aciava grinned lopsidedly. 'If you find yourself remembering your dreams from now on, you'll know I've been telling the truth? Oh, come on.' He yawned. 'See you around,' he said. 'You have changed, you know-rather a lot. For one thing, the man I used to know-he was a lot of things, but he wasn't a coward.'

Poldarn frowned. 'Should I be mortally offended by that? I'm not.'

'You've changed. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and poke about in rich people's mouths.'

Aciava was almost through the door when Poldarn spoke to him. 'Hey,' he said. 'Have you changed too?'

'Me?' Aciava hesitated, as though it was something he hadn't previously considered. 'Oh, sure. Ever such a lot. Take care of yourself. Don't cast any square bells.'

Of course, the fire had gone out. Poldarn prodded it a few times to make sure, then took the rake to it. There was a fist-sized chunk of clinker jammed in the flue. After he'd dragged that out, he had no trouble getting it lit.