The Dubious Hills (9 page)

Tiln and Jony and Beldi were in a corner with the
maps. Beldi must have mastered the second form of memory, to have
been allowed to study with those two. He must be growing up. He
looked small beside the older children, stocky and short like his
father. Tiln and Jony were tall for their ages, and thin. Tiln’s
hair was as white as Mally’s, and he had Mally’s round face. Jony
had her father Jonat’s long thin one, with large eyes and nose.
They both had Jonat’s greeny-dark skin. Jony had his dark hair,
too.

Arry stood in the doorway, wondering if she should
catch Halver’s eye. He was in the corner opposite Beldi’s, with Con
and Zia and Tany, writing something on the big slate. His pencil
squeaked. Arry decided to talk to him later, and went on over to
her companions. Beldi saw her first, and flashed her a delighted
grin. Jony noticed that, and looked up, and moved aside so Arry
could share her cushion. Tiln, his head bent over the map, never
noticed. He did speak, after a few moments.

“
Who drew this map?”

“
How should we know?” said
Jony.

“
Why?” said Beldi.

“
It’s ugly.”

Jony looked at Arry. There was a moment of perfect
stillness. “How do you know?” Jony said to her half- brother.

Tiln said impatiently, “It’s obvious. Look here.”
With a long grubby finger he traced the line the mountains of
Fence’s Country made southward into the Hidden Land, west to
Druogonos, east to the Kingdom of Dust. “That’s a bad shape,” he
said.

“
Is it wrong?” said Jony, a little
cautiously. “Are the mountains otherwise in truth?”

“
How should I know? Ask
Frances.”

Frances had not known geography, Mally said; but she
had, she said herself, been all over those mountains with people
who did know it, as far as Outsiders could be said to know
anything. Somebody in this corner of the room hurt. Arry looked at
Beldi. He was eyeing the map, obedient and dutiful as always. But
his eyes squinched a little, like somebody’s with a headache. It
was not his head that ached.

Arry felt as if hours had gone by, but when Jony
spoke she was answering Tiln, as one did seem often to answer one’s
brother, a little scornfully. “We can’t, oh doubter; she’s
gone.”

“
Mally says swearing means you
aren’t thinking.”

“
Frances is gone just the same,”
said Jony. Her head came up; Arry saw her searching for the
authority to back up what she had said. Jony looked at Arry, who
shrugged at her; at Beldi, who was staring steadfastly at the map.
“Mally and Halver said so,” said Jony.“What are we supposed to be
studying here?” said Arry.

“
Halver supposes us to be
memorizing the map,” said Jony. “Tiln got us off track, worrying
about how the mountains look.”

“
You aren’t sheep,” said Tiln,
moving his dirty finger along a river with “Owlswater” written
along it. “I’m not a sheepdog.”

“
Mally says you are utterly
without the ability to comprehend metaphor.”

“
What’s metaphor?” said
Arry.

Jony blushed a little. “She said I should ask Sune
or Halver, but I forgot.”

“
It’s saying something’s like
something else when it isn’t really,” said Tiln,
impatiently.

I think I do that all the time, thought Arry. She
said, “Have you looked at the map enough? Shall you draw it while I
watch to see if you’re right?”

“
Yes, or Halver will say something
about all this talking.” Jony took out their slate and went to
work. She could draw all the lines perfectly, mountains, rivers,
lakes, the desert of sand and the desert of dust and the desert of
salt water. She could name them all, too. But she had not learned
where the lines went between all the little countries. Arry pointed
this out, and Jony said crossly, “It makes no sense
anyway.”

“
Where do the wolves come from?”
asked Beldi. He had been quiet so long that all three of them
jumped.

Jony shouldered Tiln aside a little and looked at
the original map. “Derry says here,” she said, laying her clean
dark hand on the western edge of the Dubious Hills. “Halver says
they come from Fence’s Country and also Wormsreign. Sune says they
used to be in Druogonos, too, but Belaparthalion drove them
out.”

“
Who?” said Tiln, looking
up.

“
Sune says he was a
dragon.”

“
What about the Hidden Land?” said
Beldi.

“
Sune says they used to have
wolves a long time ago but Belaparthalion drove them out of there
as well,” said Jony.

“
Can you draw the map?” Arry asked
Beldi.

Jony handed him the pencil and wiped her own
correct and nameless offering from the slate.

By the time Halver was ready for them they could all
draw the map and name everything on it, and Tiln had insisted on
drawing a new map with the mountains in a more beautiful
configuration. Halver walked over to their corner and caught sight
of it just as Jony, to Tiln’s protests, wiped half of it away.

“
What’s the matter?” said
Halver.

“
Tiln,” said Jony, with a
long-suffering air, “says the mountains aren’t right.”

“
Which, these?” said Halver,
touching with his own slate pencil the mountains at the Hidden
Land’s southern border. “He’s probably right, though I don’t know
how he might know. It’s difficult to get any geography in those
lands right. The Wormsreign spells down there are thick as sorrel.
How did you see that, Tiln?”

“
Not those mountains,” said Tiln.
“Ours. They’re ugly.”

His tone made Halver look at him, and at Jony and at
Arry. Beldi was wiping the rest of the map off the slate, and he
kept on doing it as if nothing had been said.

“
Are they?” said
Halver.

“Look
at them,” said Tiln, impatiently. “Anybody can see
it.”

“
No, I don’t think so,” said
Halver. “Talk to Mally when you get home, and ask her to talk to
me.”

This time it was Tiln who became perfectly still.
Arry looked at him. He was twelve. He hadn’t started growing
notably, his voice wasn’t changing. Arry said, “Mally says
knowledge comes with growing up. But he hasn’t yet.”

“
Mally may say it,” said Halver,
almost absently, “but—” he stopped. Arry thought it was the four
shocked stares that had awakened him. Nobody talked about Mally
that way, any more than they would talk about Oonan or Arry or
Derry or Halver himself, or anybody who had come into
knowledge.

Halver looked around the circle of his students, and
rubbed at the place on his hand where the sliver had been. It
didn’t hurt, but it was itching. Not really enough to make him
behave so oddly. Arry concentrated on him. He had not slept,
either. Perhaps that was it.

“
Ask Mally when you go home,” said
Halver. “In the meantime, draw me these ugly mountains.”

“
I can’t,” said Tiln. “Truly, I
can’t. It makes my head hurt.”

Halver looked at Arry. “Try a bit,” said Arry. Tiln
wrinkled up his forehead and did so. Arry nodded at Halver. “It
does make his head hurt—Tiln! How do you know that?”

Tiln looked helpless. “Should I go home now?” he
said.

“
Yes,” said Halver. “Jony can show
you what else we do today.”

Tiln stood up slowly. His face was more green than
dark. He was as tall as Halver. “I’ll see you at supper,” he said
to his sister, and went out of the schoolhouse, shutting the door
quietly.

“
Will we have a party?” said Beldi
hopefully.

“
If Mally says so,” said Halver.
“Now, tell me what I’ve said about the Owlswater.”

While Jony did this, Arry looked attentive and
remembered the day she came into knowledge. Her birthday, Wim
said, was in August, and it had been her birthday. She was helping
her mother put up the beans; there had been, Mally and Jony and Wim
all agreed, an enormous crop that year. They were working in a
wooden shed Frances and Beldi had made, with a roof for shade but
open sides. Con had chosen that day to learn to walk, and being Con
had toddled straight outside and put both hands in the fire they
were cooking the beans over. It had hurt more than anything Arry
had felt since, though probably less than having a baby. She had
hated it. She screamed and grabbed Con, who of course had screamed
too, deprived of her interesting play.

The celebration, which had had to wait until the
bean crop was dealt with, had been awful too. Everybody treated her
as if she were grown up, which was very nice, but it was all
punctuated with the sensations of children burning their lips on
their tea and Jony falling out of the pine tree and Con pulling the
cat’s tail and Zia hitting everybody she could reach, which she had
been doing all year: Mally said that since Zia had survived that
year she would probably live forever. Arry sometimes felt that
anybody else who had survived Zia’s bad year ought to live forever
too.

The knowledge of pain had narrowed and sharpened
over time, until people could fall out of trees a few hills away
without Arry’s starting up from her chair. But at the beginning it
had been most horrible.

Did the ugly mountains make Tiln feel that way? Did
every less-than-lovely thing he saw sting like the burn of hot tea?
She should have attended to him more. He hadn’t screamed,
certainly.

But thinking of people who ought to be attended
to—Halver was extremely uncomfortable, between his itching hand and
his headache. Arry wondered if the sliver had had a sickness in it.
She would have to stay and talk to him about it.

He was rather short with her when she did. “It isn’t
the sliver,” he said. “Oonan looked at the wound and said all the
wood was out and it would close up cleanly.”

“
Well, it’s something,” said Arry.
“Maybe you should close school for a day or two, or let Sune read
to us, perhaps.”

Halver looked impatient, and then thoughtful. “Maybe
I ought,” he said. “Just until half-moon.” He rubbed at his hand.
“We’ll let everyone come to school tomorrow as usual, and I’ll tell
them then, and give them a few lessons to do. And while school is
closed they can help plant the beans.” He beamed at her.

Arry felt uneasy, but she smiled back.

8

Once home, Arry fed Con and Beldi early and set them
to throwing pinecones for the cats, while she settled down with
the rest of Mally’s stories. The book covered in red leather had
seven of them in it. The first one was called “The Cruel Sister.”
In it the older of two sisters drowned the younger so she could
marry the younger’s swain. The body of the drowned girl was found
by two minstrels, who made a harp of her breastbone and took it to
the wedding, where it accused her sister, who was then hanged. Arry
could hardly bear to read it. What in the world was Mally thinking
of?

She made herself some of the strong green tea from
Wormsreign and started cautiously on the second story. It was
devoid of hurtful things, merely detailing a young boy’s meeting
with a soldier on the road and their exchange of riddles. She
looked at the third story. It was a song, but not one she had ever
heard. In it a mother asked her son why his sword dripped with
blood, and after telling her he had killed his hawk, his hound, and
his horse without being believed, he told her he had killed his
brother. She asked him what he would do now, and he told her; and
when she asked what of his goods he would leave to his mother dear,
he said, “The curse of hell to burn you with, mother, such counsels
you did give to me.”

Arry dropped the book. The cats both came running to
see what it was, followed by Con and Beldi. Beldi picked the book
up, smoothed the pages, and handed it to her.

“
What’s that?” said Con. “Will you
read it to us?”

“
No,” said Arry.

“
Why?”

“
It’ll hurt you.”

“
I bet it won’t,” said Con,
climbing onto the arm of the chair.

Arry sighed and opened her mouth. Then she caught
sight of Beldi. He was hanging back a little, his eyes still on the
book he had handed back to her so carefully. He looked
wistful.

Arry said, “Well, the one about the riddles is
probably safe. Bring up another chair, Beldi.”

Beldi did so solemnly, but some small tangle at the
edge of Arry’s mind smoothed itself out and vanished. She was still
squinting after it when Con pulled her hair.

“
Don’t do that, it hurts,” said
Arry, opened the book, and began to read.

Con guessed all the riddles before Arry could read
them. She did not word the answers as the book did, but Arry felt
faintly alarmed nevertheless. Beldi looked chagrined.

“
Read us another one,” said
Con.

She was now sitting on Arry’s lap, and dislodging
her would involve a great deal of work and more noise. Besides, it
might be cruel. Arry paged past the awful song to the fourth story.
Unlike the stories in the scrolls, none of these had a name. It
began harmlessly enough—no swords dripping with blood, no vanishing
parents, no older sisters—and if it were frightening, maybe that
would show Con that Arry knew what she was doing. She began to
read.

“
In the dark long-ago, before all
countries and all wizards, before books and castles and candles and
waterjugs, the first people in the world were cold.”

The story was about a dragon, never named, who was
always too hot because of her armoring scales. She came to live
with the cold people and after a time took pity on them. She flew
far through the bright black spaces around the world until she
found a star so small nobody could see it, and this she swallowed,
and brought back to them, and showed them all the things they could
do with fire.