Kingdoms of the Wall (29 page)

After a long while I said, very quietly, "What do you want with us, Thrance?"

"You've already asked me that. And had your answer."

"To climb the mountain with us? That's all?"

"Nothing more than that. I've been wandering here at this level more years than I can remember. I've lived in my own company so long that the sound of my own breathing is disgusting to my ears. I want to move on. I can't tell you why, but I do. Take me with you and I'll share with you what I know about the Kingdoms that lie ahead. Or leave me behind and make it on your own, if you can, and I will take my own route, and so be it. I don't care. Do you understand that? I'm beyond all caring, boy!" And he shook his head. "An agent of the Kavnalla, he says!"

"It will have to be put to a vote," I told him.

* * *

The debate was a hard and heated one. Thrance lurked at the edge of the cliff, out of earshot and scarcely even glancing toward us, while we fought it out. At first we were nearly equally divided. Naxa and Muurmut and Seppil and Kath spoke out most vigorously against letting Thrance join us, and Marsiel and Traiben and Tull and Bress the Carpenter were for him, and the rest seemed to swing back and forth according to the arguments of whichever among us had been the most recent speaker. Muurmut, the strongest voice of the opposition, said that Thrance was a madman and a demon who would create turmoil among us and distract us from our task. Traiben, who in his quiet way led the other side, conceded the possibility that Thrance was mad, but pointed out that unlike any of us he had seen the country beyond this level of the Wall and it behooved us to make use of any information he might provide about those regions that were unknown to us.

During all this I played the role of a mere moderator, calling on the others but voicing no view of my own. This was in part because my mind was uncertain: to a considerable extent I inclined toward Muurmut's point of view, though I saw some wisdom in Traiben's, and it was so odd for me to be favoring any argument of Muurmut's over one of Traiben's that I did not know what to say. Also I had consulted Thissa before the outset of the meeting, and she had said, perplexed, that her witchcraft was of no use here: she found Thrance so strange and frightening that she had great difficulty reading his soul. That in itself was an argument for banning him from our midst, but Thissa didn't raise it in the debate.

I called for a preliminary vote, not binding but just an indication of feelings, and it was eight to eight, with more than half the group abstaining.

Then Grycindil, who had been silent, spoke up and said, "We'd be fools not to take him with us. As Traiben says, he knows things that we need to learn. And how much harm can one man do against so many of us?"

"Yes," said Galli, another who had taken no part up till now. "If he makes trouble, we can always kill him, can't we?"

There was general laughter. But I saw that the voices of these two strong and strong-minded women had done much to shift the balance. Muurmut saw it too; he scowled and paced, and glared at Grycindil, who after all was Muurmut's lover now and nonetheless had spoken out for Thrance.

Then Hendy looked toward me and said, "What do you think, Poilar? You've said nothing. Shouldn't you be sharing your ideas with us?"

A few people gasped. It was bold of her to have challenged me that way, especially since they all knew that Hendy and I had lately become lovers. I was annoyed that she had forced my hand, and glanced at her in irritation; but I saw her eyes shining with love for me. She had meant me no harm. She was simply looking to me as our leader, urging me to fulfill my responsibilities to the group.

Every eye was on me. Slowly I said, groping my way through the confusion of my thoughts, "I agree with Muurmut that he may be troublesome. I agree with Traiben that he may be useful. Balancing one against the other, I take into account what Galli says, that if he creates problems for us, we always have the option of getting rid of him. Therefore I vote for taking him in."

"And I," said Grycindil. "And I," said Galli and Malti and some others who had abstained before. I had swayed them all. Hands were going up all around the group. Muurmut growled and went stalking dourly away, taking his followers Seppil and Talbol with him; but of the others every vote went for Thrance, except that of Thissa, who held both her hands palm outward as if to say that she could not decide. So it was done. I went across to Thrance, who sat looking out the other way, across the great dark gulf of the lands that lay below us.

"The vote ran for you," I told him. "You are one of us now."

He seemed not to be greatly moved by that news.

"Am I?" he said. "Well, then. So I am."

17

We climbed, and the world itself altered as we ascended, flattening and broadening behind us, drawing itself together into a needle's point before us, while strange new lands rose about us and flowed past as though we were a rock sitting motionless in a river. And all the while two potent new forces exerted themselves upon us. One was the call of the Kavnalla, which was not long in making itself known to us, and the other was the presence of Thrance among us.

We had entered a new and darker phase of our Pilgrimage with his coming, and even the least thoughtful among us knew that. Perhaps Thrance was no demon—I quickly ceased thinking, even in jest, that he was—but his transformation in the land of the Kavnalla had turned him into some kind of elemental being, black and fierce of soul, who walked in our midst like a creature out of nightmare. His towering twisted form, so strange and monstrous in hue and shape, rose above us like the Wall itself.

There was a rough magnetism about him that drew us to him whether we wanted to be drawn or not. I felt it keenly. He seemed to take nothing seriously, to turn anything into some occasion for harsh laughter, to offer biting quips when a kinder word would have been more appropriate; and we expected it and even were entertained by his manner. That he was heroic, a man of enormous strength and endurance, we could not doubt. But he was also perplexing and difficult, a malcontent, a disturber of the peace, every bit as troublesome as Muurmut had predicted.

He was forever taking favorites among us, but the favorites kept changing. One day it was my company that he sought, and one day Kilarion's, and then he would only march with Galli on one side of him and Tull the Clown on the other; and so it went. If he had no interest in you, he would tell you straight out: "Keep away from me, you bore me," he would say. He said that to Muurmut. He said it to Naxa. But he said it also once to Jaif, that good-hearted clear-souled Singer, and Jaif could never understand why.

The women in particular were fascinated by him, hideous as he was: all but Thissa, who would not go near him. Grycindil seemed especially drawn to him, which didn't improve Muurmut's frame of mind. Often I saw her jostling to be at Thrance's side, while Muurmut rumbled and grumbled from afar. But at night Thrance always slept alone, at least in the early days of our march. For a time it seemed to me that he must have no interest at all in making the Changes in the usual sense of that term; a Change had been made upon him, certainly, a very great one, and it had put him into a mode of existence that was not in any way like ours. But I was wrong about that.

He never spoke of his life in the village, or of the fate of the Forty with whom he had set out upon the Wall so many years before, or indeed of any aspect of himself or of his past. The majestic Thrance of my childhood, whom I had watched so often racing in the winter games or casting javelins or winning the high leap, was dead and buried somewhere within his altered and deformed body. His conversation was all banter and gibe and wild mockery, or sarcasm and riddle. Perhaps the most mysterious thing about him was the volatility of his moods; for he was often fiery and outgoing, capering along the trail despite his limp and calling jubilantly to us to keep up with him, and then abruptly he would become sullen and ashen-souled and distant. It was as if a god sometimes would possess him, or some evil spirit; and when the god was gone from him, or the spirit, nothing remained but a husk. The change could happen three times in five minutes: you never knew which Thrance it was that you would be dealing with a moment from now.

When we had been on the trail with him for a week or so, he dismissed Muurmut from our midst.

I never knew precisely what happened. Grycindil was at the heart of the matter, that much was sure. Evidently she had gone to Thrance's sleeping-place in the night, and he had taken her in; so much for my theory that he was beyond the need or desire for making the Changes. And then—so Kath believed, for he had been sleeping nearby and heard a little of the dispute—Muurmut had gone to them to bring her back.

That was a childish thing to do, for although Muurmut and Grycindil had become lovers, they weren't sealed to each other—sealings are unthinkable on Kosa Saag—and Grycindil was free to sleep wherever she chose. But Muurmut would not have it. And so in the night there were words between Muurmut and Thrance. I heard them myself, angry sounds far away, but I was too tired from that day's march to give them much thought, and Hendy drew me down into her arms, sleepily telling me that it was nothing, that I should pay no attention. And in the morning Muurmut was gone.

"Where is he?" I asked, because his bulky presence was always conspicuous and so was his absence. "Who has seen him?"

Thrance gestured toward the steep slope behind us. "He has resigned from our company."

"What?"

"He fears the high country. He told me so. He thinks his soul will be devoured there. And I said, 'So it will be, Muurmut. You should go home. Slink down the hill to the village, Muurmut, and tell them to take you in.' He saw the wisdom in what I was saying to him. And so he is gone. He will be a Returned One, and he will be very good at it."

Thrance's words bewildered me. I had never known Muurmut to take orders from anyone, nor could any threat I was capable of imagining have frightened him into such a capitulation. "What nonsense is this?" I said, looking around. "Where's Muurmut? Who has seen Muurmut?" But no one had. We searched for his tracks, and Ment the Sweeper, who was skillful at such things, thought he saw a trail leading downward from our camp. I told Gazin and Talbol and Naxa to follow it and search for him. Thrance laughed and stood with folded arms, saying that Muurmut was gone and no one would find him. Some hours went by, and the searchers returned. We waited there all day, but Muurmut did not return. There was nothing to do but to go on. I took Grycindil aside and asked her to tell me what had happened, but all she could say was that Muurmut had come to her where she was sleeping with Thrance, and that Thrance and Muurmut had spoken in the night, and then Thrance had returned to her side. It had been a night of no moons. She had no idea which way Muurmut had gone, or why. Nor did we ever learn those things. What Thrance had said to Muurmut, or what enchantment he had worked on him, is something I do not know. I never will.

Strangely, I felt a great empty place in my spirit at Muurmut's disappearance. I hadn't ever liked him; he had been nothing but trouble for me; I should have rejoiced that he was no longer with us. But I am not like that. He had been a nuisance but he was of our Forty, and I mourned his going for that reason, and also because he was strong and sometimes valuable to the group. In a curious way I would miss him. It occurred to me that in trading Muurmut for Thrance I had not improved my situation. Muurmut, negative force though he had been in the group, had been easy enough for me to outflank and control. Thrance was a different matter: older, shrewder, with that strange burned-out quality that made him indifferent to ambition but highly dangerous all the same, since by his own admission he no longer cared about anything at all. When most of us act, it is usually with some thought for the consequences of what we are doing. Not so with Thrance. For him every moment was an independent thing, born with neither antecedent nor successor. In Thrance, I realized, I had acquired a much more complicated and deadlier rival than Muurmut ever had been. I would need to keep close watch on him.

* * *

During these days, also, we were drawing nearer and nearer to the Kingdom of the Kavnalla.

We had all begun feeling its pull almost as soon as we left our camp in the place of the red spires. Dorn was the first to come to me complaining of it: he spoke of a strangeness in his head, like an itching or a tickling within his skull, and on his heels came two of the women, Scardil and Pren, and then Ghibbilau, to tell me the same. They were relieved to find that they weren't the only ones afflicted that way, that in fact we all were. I called the group together and told them that what we were experiencing was a phenomenon particular to this sector of the Wall and that there was nothing to fear from it, at least not yet.

"Is that the Kavnalla that we feel?" I asked Thrance. And he nodded and pointed up the slope, grinning almost as though he were looking forward to a rendezvous with an old friend.

The force of it grew stronger hour by hour. At first it was as Dorn had said, no more than a kind of tickling inside our skulls, a barely perceptible feather-stroke, odd and a little disturbing, but light, very light. Then it grew more powerful and it became as Traiben and I had experienced it on our preliminary reconnoitering march: a clear voice within our heads, articulate and unmistakable, saying to us,
Come, come, this is the way, come to me, come.
There was a definite pull, but not an unpleasant one, nothing troublesome or alarming: something was beckoning to us like a mother opening her arms to her children.