In the Earth Abides the Flame (17 page)

'These scars have been giving you pain, haven't they,' the voice commented.

Nothing to the pain within. You wouldn't believe the nightmares I have.

'I would. Andratan. Favony. Torrelstrommen. Breidhan Moor. Withwestwa Wood. I saw it all; it hurt me too. Now bend forward.'

Mahnum laid his whip-scarred back open to whatever the voice chose to do. For a while nothing happened; then the Trader noted small lines of flame running across the floor. They travelled up his arms and legs, meeting on his back. The flames felt like the most soothing of ointments, the ministrations of countless supple fingers.

'Your feet.'

Why are you doing this?

'A symbolic gesture. These are the outward scars. Will you let me?'

Yes, his heart shouted, before his mind could organise any defence.

'As I heal your feet, I heal your future. You shall be Faltha's servant. Your back shall bear her burdens. Your feet shall walk her paths. Will you give her your future?'

1 will. Eagerly he slipped his shoes off, and held his feet to the flame.

The Hermit knelt before the flame, head bowed, hands outstretched. Dream or not, he was convinced of its reality. He knew such visions could be both dream and real.

'Oh my child, my child,' the gentle, familiar voice lamented. 'So long you've known me, yet you still don't know who I am.'

Use me, use me, the man begged. I want to be your servant.

'And I had planned to use you,' the voice responded, 'yet you are not content with the role I have chosen for you. So be it. I will continue to call you; you will continue to hear my voice.

One day, my child, you will discover that I am more than that which you have constructed.'

Just let me be the least of all your servants, the Hermit petitioned.

'1 hear your words,' the voice said, not unkindly, 'but 1 also see what is written on your heart.

Even so, I embrace you. 1 will continue to fall on you with anointing, in the hope that one day 1 will be permitted to fill you.'

1 dedicate my life to you, the snowy-haired man vowed. 1 will do whatever you ask.

'So be it,' came the response. 'Let he who has no understanding be as one who is led by bit and bridle.'

The Hermit did not understand the words of his master, but abased himself before him with a familiar, pleasant humility.

Bent over double by the force of the bright white fire, Stella found she could barely breathe.

What's happening? she screamed. Go away! Leave me alone! This seemed different to her other nightmares, being pursued by shadowy strangers, grasped at by clumsy unseen hands, different and yet the same. Here her assailant was implied rather than visible, but an assailant nonetheless. She could not see him, but she knew he was there. Go away!

'But you've been calling me for years,' a rich, sonorous voice spoke as though into the back of her mind. 'Are you sure you want me to leave you?' An invisible hand took hold of her arm.

Wait a moment! Who are you? Let me go! Let me see you! Stella struggled against the overbearing weight of the light.

'It would be better if you saw yourself,' the voice answered, and instantly the room disappeared.

She sat outside, a little way up a grassy hill, looking down on a scene she knew well. There in front of her lay the lake. Behind the small body of water stood the village of Loulea. As she sat there Stella began to cry, her heart aching at the sheer familiarity of it all, and the longing for home she had stifled within herself rose up and broke down her carefully constructed walls.

Through her tears she saw a group of children - no, not children, young men and women -

swimming, socialising and relaxing at the shore of the lake. There stood sweet little Lonie, at least three inches taller than she remembered, her best friend Hermesa - with a new hairstyle -

and Insusa, another girl from the village. With them were Hayne and Druin. She could never forget that face. They were talking: she listened closely.

'The water's still a little cold,' Lonie said.

'Yaaah, you weakling,' Druin teased her. 'Go back and play with the babies. Us grown-ups can swim in the water.'

'I've noticed you in the water much more recently,' Hermesa said to Druin, tilting her head towards him as she spoke.

The broad-shouldered boy blushed slightly. 'The lake's a good place in the summer.'

'Or perhaps it is because now Stella has gone, no one can beat you across the lake?' Hermesa said sweetly.

Thank you, my friend! Stella wanted to shout.

'I miss her,' Insusa said quietly. 'And Leith. There's no one interesting around here now.'

Druin will take that as a personal affront, Stella thought. Sure enough, he walked menacingly towards her.

'No one?' he said.

'Present company excepted,' Insusa said politely. 'We all find you very interesting,' she added, and the other girls laughed. The irony passed right over Druin, and he smiled at the unintended compliment.

'She used to sit on that rock,' Hayne commented.

'And dive in,' added Lonie. 'With a big splash.'

'Not as big as my splashes,' Druin insisted, but no one was listening.

'I wonder what really happened to her,' Hermesa said. 'If she really wandered off and got lost in a blizzard, surely we would have found her body. And I don't remember a blizzard that night; do you?'

The others shook their heads.

'She could be a proper cow at times,' Insusa added. Acted as though she was the queen of Loulea, and we were all her servants.' She turned to Druin. 'I don't know how you put up with her for so long.'

Stella wanted to rush down the hill and do something nasty to the girl, but found she could not move.

'Her mother was really broken-hearted about it. We hardly hear anything from her these days.'

'Two birds with one stone!' Druin laughed.

'That's the problem if you're both clever and good-looking; you think you own the world. Too good for us, that's what she was.' Insusa warmed to her subject. Stella waited for the others to contradict her, but they all nodded their heads in agreement. 'Probably she ran away to find somewhere better, somewhere her talents would be appreciated.'

That's not fair, Stella screamed inside. Couldn't you see 1 was hurting?

'The problem with Stella was that you couldn't tell what she was thinking,' Hayne added. 'I have trouble telling what any female is thinking - if they think at all.' Lonie cuffed him on the back of the head, and he rubbed it as though it had hurt. 'Stella was totally closed. Is that what you thought?' He turned to Druin.

'I dunno,' the big boy said. 'Sometimes I thought she was scared of me. But she was so high and mighty, I don't think anyone could scare her.'

I was scared of you, 1 was scared of you! Why couldn't you see you were tormenting me?

'I miss her too,' Druin added. 'But I don't miss her tongue.'

Nor I your fists! Stella fumed.

'It was a good funeral,' Hayne said. 'Everybody cried.'

'But she had no real friends,' Hermesa commented.

What about you?

'I never knew what she really felt about things. She wouldn't let anyone get close to her. I'm glad I've got you now, Lonie,' concluded Hermesa.

'Coming for a swim?' Hayne asked. He took off his shirt and stepped into the shallows. 'Ooh, it's cold,' he mocked Lonie. 'I'm turning to ice.' The others laughed.

Babies, all babies, Stella thought as she watched them frolic in the water; but her feet tingled at the thought of the cool water of the lake, and she longed to run down the hill and join them.

A cloud passed overhead, borne on a cool breeze. 'Sometimes I think she's still here,' Druin said, glancing around. 'I feel like she's come back to haunt us.' They all turned and looked up the hill, and for a moment Stella thought she would be discovered. But for some reason they appeared not to see her.

Was I really so selfish, so wrapped up in myself? she asked.

The voice did not reply.

But what about Druin? Stella pleaded. He was mean to me; he never loved me.

'You shut him out, so he reacted by being cruel. He thought that if he could hurt you, he could open you up. The more you closed up, the more he tried to hurt you. Of course he was to blame, but it is a hard truth to accept that the blame did not rest on him alone.'

Who are you? How do you know these things?

The voice ignored the questions. 'This is your home, and these are your people. Did you think that running away would change you, or change them? There is not a place far enough away that you can escape from yourself.'

What is wrong with me?

'Nothing that a little fire won't fix. Will you open yourself to the Flame?'

Stella nodded her head miserably, and immediately found herself back on the floor of the basement, the fire pouring over her still, licking all around her as though seeking an entry point. She stretched out a hand and touched a yellow-orange flame; it detached from the filament of fire and burned painlessly on her hand. As she watched, blue-edged flames ran up her arms. Slowly, slowly.

While Perdu knew this was a dream, he valued it more for that; the Fenni taught that the dream world was in many ways more real than that experienced while awake.

I'm not interested in the god of the underworlders, he warned. Not after all my time with the Fenni. Compared to them, your people are barely alive.

'I'm not much interested in that god either,' said the fire. 'He seems petty and self-serving to me.'

Small gods for small people. No offence, but 1 want my gods to be big, like the vast spaces of Myrvidda.

In answer the flames roared menacingly around the adopted Fenni, arching over him in a yellow-white sheet. Intimidated though he was, Perdu would see this through. You're a far cry from the watered-down god we learned to reject in Mjolkbridge. You'd fit right in on the vidda, especially with all that fire. Why haven't I met you before?

'Because one of us is too small,' the flames roared.

Oh, really? I couldn't see you because you're too big?

The fire surrounding Perdu rose even higher, and the Fenni marvelled that he was not consumed. 'Ah, wisdom comes belatedly to the Fenni. Or is it the Falthan? When a man denies his heritage so vehemently, I begin to wonder from what he is trying to hide.'

You're hardly likely to make a follower out of me by employing that sort of insult, Perdu snapped. What a strange dream!

'Not a follower?' the flames questioned, genuinely puzzled. 'Yet here you are in Instruere.'

Not by choice! Perdu commented wryly.

'They seemed like choices to me,' the voice laughed in reply. 'Keep making those choices, and we'll see where we end up.'

The burning, the burning, the burning. Kurr took the dream-flames and wielded them like knives against his pain, hammering himself with the Tightness of the fire, beating his weary, blackened heart. Burn it all out, sear out the pain. 1 deserve to be punished. Reality was much less painful than this searing dream, and therefore he mistrusted reality.

'You shouldn't be doing this,' the voice said to him. 'I didn't come to punish you. Don't use my flames to hurt yourself.'

1 want to be hurt. You know what I did to Tinei. You know I neglected her while 1 searched for answers. How can you say I don't need punishment? My soul will feel better when it bleeds.

'So you're the expert?' the voice said with the hint of a chuckle. 'I've been looking for a few days off. Care to take over for a while?'

Don't taunt me. I've led these people into a trap: even now the Council may be planning our deaths. Deaths! For what purpose was Wira slain? Did Parlevaag die in vain? 1 have chosen wrong at every turn. Others suffer as a result of my failures.

'Get down off your throne!' the voice growled. 'You are but a human leading humans. By what standards do you evaluate your efforts? Those of a god? Put down the fire and kneel. I have come to break you.'

Break me? That 1 understand. Make it hurt.

'You do not understand. I brought with me a message for you.'

Without warning another voice spoke; the gentle, lilting voice of the one he had loved all his adult life. 'I forgive you,' Tinei whispered. 'I forgive you.'

No, no, no! You can't forgive me! I've done wrong!

'I know, my love, my rock-man.' She used her old name for him with all the tenderness he remembered. 'That's why I'm forgiving you.'

'There was absolutely no excuse for many of the things you did,' the first voice insisted. As he spoke, images Kurr had thought were forgotten flashed through his mind, and his shame rose like a flash flood to drown him. 'No excuse. So she forgives you. Put down your knife. If she chooses not to hurt you, why should you hurt yourself?'

Higher the wave of shame rose, then broke against him and receded, leaving him still standing. 'You're tough, rock-man,' her voice chuckled. 'But not as tough as you fear.'

The words were like battering rams, driving down on top of him, forcing him to his knees.

The wave rose again, this time washing over him and knocking him to the floor. And all the time the flames beat at him.

An image rose in his mind; an image of Tinei coughing as she helped round up the sheep.

Kurr realised that she should not be out there, but he had insisted on bringing sheep to the Midwinter feast...

She turned and looked towards him, compassion on her clear-eyed face. 'I forgive you,' she mouthed, her words whipped away by the cold wind. 'I forgive you.'

Suddenly, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Kurr knew that this was no fantasy. He saw what had actually happened. She had really said those words, out there that morning in the bitter cold; she had really meant them. He was undone.

As he lay there and wept out the pain and the long hard years of tight self-control, the flames flowed over him and through him, burning away the blackness, leavening the sorrow with sweetness.

You liar, the old farmer smiled through his tears. You said you weren't going to hurt me.

Fuir afHiminn! Phemanderac cried. Harp in hand, his music soared to the heavens, helping kindle the flames as they spread throughout the room. Fire of Heaven! He knew this was merely a dream; he even knew what had prompted it. Hadn't he and the Archivist recently argued about the truth of the Firefall? But oh, if only ...