The Pleasure of Memory (37 page)

“I’d have to agree.”

“Flesh doesn’t just heal overnight,” Beam said. He looked up at the monk. “Right? I mean…it’s impossible! Flesh doesn’t heal in one goddamned night!”

Chance said nothing.

“How long was I asleep?” Beam pressed him, “A week? Longer?”

“No, Beam,” Chance said, “Just a night. No more.”

Beam thought back to the night before. Last thing he remembered was the confinement dread. It’d come back with a vengeance. He remembered panicking, remembered pushing the monk, remembered…the elixir.

“You gave me something,” he said, looking hard at the monk, “Last night. It knocked me out.”

“I medicated you,” the man said, “You were suffering another bout of terror.”

“How long did it put me out for?”

“Blood of the gods,” Chance snapped back, “I already told you, you slept only for the night.”

Beam thought about it. Then he said, “Maybe you slept a week, too? Maybe you just don’t know it was a week because you were asleep the whole time?”

“Do I look like I’ve slept for a week?”

Beam examined the man. He appeared every bit as haggard as he had the day before. His face was still lined and hollow, his eyes drowning in exhaustion. His jaw and chin showed a faint red stubble, but he had no significant beard growth, at least no more than Beam would’ve expected overnight. No, he decided, this man could never have slept a week. He probably hadn’t even slept an hour.

“How do you feel?” Chance asked him.

“How do I feel? How in the hell do you think I feel? Like I’m losing my bloody mind!”

“You’re not losing your mind, Beam. I promise.”

“Oh, that’s assuring. I’ve seen the world you come from, Brother.”

“This is all real. Make no doubt of it.”

“Oh, it’s all real, is it?” Beam said sarcastically, “You’re sure about that?”

“Look at your hands. You doubt your own eyes?”

Beam laughed at that. “I’m a hundred feet underground,” he said, “I’ve suffered more than a few good blows to the head these past few days. I’m drinking a tonic to keep the terrors at bay. You don’t think that’s enough to support the possibility of delusions?”

“I see it, too. It’s not just you.”

“Forgive me, Brother, but that isn’t exactly reassuring.”

“I told you to stop calling me Brother. I’m not a goddamned monk!”

“No?” Beam said, just to irritate him further.

“No, my name’s Chance.” The man stood up and threw a hard look down on Beam. “Monk! Gods, you’re an idiot.” Then he crossed the tunnel and knelt down before his pack.

Beam dragged the sword back up to his lap and tilted the blade again. He couldn’t deny that the face looking back had indeed appeared to heal overnight. His senses confirmed the image and his mind validated it. So why was his heart pounding so? Why was he sweating like a horse in labor?

Then he remembered what Dael used to tell him about the indwellers, that their worlds were every bit as real to them as ours were to us. What they saw through their eyes was reality to them, regardless what anyone else saw. Beam wondered if that were true. If so, how could truth ever be defined in any practical manner?

He leaned his head back against the rock and closed his eyes, and he whispered, “Please, gods, don’t let me be one of them.”

“One of what?”

Beam opened his eyes. Chance was squatting across the corridor from him. He was looking back over his shoulder at him from the pack.

“One of what?” the man pressed.

“An indweller,” Beam snapped back. Gods, the man was worse than a wife.

“Indweller?” Chance asked as he worked, “What’s that?”

Beam rubbed his palms into his face. Then he dropped his hands to his lap and sighed. He felt like an orphan from hope.

“I’m not familiar with the term,” Chance said, “What’s an indweller?”

Beam dropped his head back to the stone, closed his eyes, and sighed. There was no running away from this. “It’s what Brother Dael called the lunatics,” he said at last, “He thought ‘troubler’ was impolite.”

“So, what about them? Indwellers?”

Beam thought back to those days in Parhron City. He thought about the lunatics wandering aimlessly through the expansive priory. Locked in their insanity, they'd pick at the air or eat any inanimate object small enough to put in their mouths or talk too loudly to nonexistent people.

“Most of them were ravers,” he said as he remembered, “Totally mad. Babbling and screaming, prowling around the priory like the walking dead. Some days it was amusing as hell, other days…it was unbearable.”

“I can’t imagine living in such a place.”

“They weren’t all that bad,” Beam continued, “Some of them were unnaturally peaceful, practically civilized, even though they were completely out of their minds. Hell, you’d never guess those ones insane, not at first pass. Not if you didn’t know. I didn’t get it then, how they could be insane and yet be so at peace, but I’m beginning to see it now. It was because they were comfortable in their madness. They were…I don’t know…content, I suppose.

Chance crossed the corridor and knelt beside him. He set a bundle of leather cloth on Beam’s lap, and then dropped to sit beside him. Beam unwrapped the leather to find a meal of dried fruit, cheese, and meat.

“Those were the interesting ones,” Beam said as he studied the food, “The ones that were at peace. I could talk to them, carry on something like a normal conversation. They could describe their delusions in such perfectly logical terms that if I wasn’t careful I’d almost start to believe them.”

Chance opened his own packet and picked up a piece of dried apple. “Almost,” he said as he put it in his mouth, “There’s the key.”

“There was one fellow I really liked. He was the tallest Parhronii I’d ever seen, maybe seven feet, and skinny as a snake. Weird looking guy with huge hands and feet, and a pumpkin-sized skull with a shock of orange hair that grew straight up off his scalp. Always looked like his head was on fire. His name was Ukee Oyt.”

“Ukee Oyt,” Chance said as he chewed, “Odd name. Was he a Boborean? Northern Parhronii?”

“I don’t know. I never asked.”

Chance shrugged his brow and took another bite.

“He swore he could make himself invisible,” Beam said as he thought about it, “He told me that whenever I went into the city, he’d make himself invisible and follow me. I remember asking him why he’d do that? I mean, was he spying on me or what? He said no, that he’d never use his powers to spy on people because that’d be rude. He said he was just watching out for me, making sure I was safe when I was away from the priory.”

“How old were you?”

“Ukee was there until I was around fifteen years, as I recall.”

“Most of your childhood,” Chance said matter-of-factly.

“The queer part was that he could always describe exactly where I’d gone and what I’d done. He could even tell me who I’d talked to.” Beam laughed again. “You can imagine that was a little unnerving, especially for a kid. Never did figure out how he knew. He was too big and too strange looking to sneak around behind me without being noticed. That was some kind of trick he managed to pull on me.”

“Was it?”

“What?”

“A trick?”

Beam frowned at him. “Yes, Chance. It was a trick. People can’t make themselves invisible. I’m sure he was just a damned good stealth.”

Chance said nothing.

“Anyway,” Beam continued, “I’d ask him if it were true what he said, why come back? If he could make himself invisible and all, why stay in the asylum? Instead of following me around town, why the hell didn’t he just keep on going straight out the city’s front gate? Most people would never know he was insane as long as he didn’t mention his special skill, so why stay there with all the irritating ravers? Why be locked up when he could be free?”

“What would he say?” Chance asked.

“He’d never give me an answer. Every time I’d ask him, he’d just shrug and walk away, saying I wouldn’t understand.”

“So, he never told you?”

“I’m getting to it. One afternoon we’re in the main hall of the priory washing the floors together. Side by side on our hands and knees, lye froth up to the elbows, scrubbing away at the stone. I hated the work. And he wasn’t much of a talker, so I did most of the gabbing. I’m sure it irritated him to no end.”

“I have no doubt,” Chance said, popping a bit of meat into his mouth.

Beam scowled.

“Sorry,” Chance said, raising a hand, “That came out wrong.”

“Do you want to hear this or not? Because I couldn’t care less either way.”

“I do.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely. Please, go on.”

Beam watched him for a moment, looking for any lingering evidence of an insult. Once convinced it was safe, he returned to his story.

“Anyway, on that particular day I asked him again. Ukee, why not make yourself invisible right now? Why not cross through that door over there and just keep on going? Why not get out of Parhron City and make for freedom? Why hang around this bloody hellhole when you don’t have to? I even offered to give him the little bit of gold I’d earned doing neighborhood chores.

“Well, much to my surprise, this time he sat back on his heels, and he looked at me with those milky eyes all serious as a tomb, and he said, you know they’re all insane out there, right?

“Well, I laughed at that because it was about the strangest thing I’d ever heard any raver say. I pointed out that he was insane, too, or he wouldn’t be here, and I said he’d probably be right at home out there. I mean, insane in here with the ravers or insane out there with the civilians, what’s the difference?

“Well, Ukee politely agreed that, yes, he was indeed insane, and he wasn’t the least bit ashamed of the fact. But, he was quick to point out that there was an important difference.

“An important difference? I asked him what could possibly be different. Insane is insane, right?

“Not so fast, Ukee says. Then he wraps his arm around my shoulder and scans the corridor like there might be spies in the stones, and he whispers, The difference, dear Beam, is this: The insanity in here makes sense. But the insanity out there? Why, it’s complete chaos.”

Finished, Beam leaned back into the stone. “Wisest words anyone’s ever passed my way,” he said in conclusion, “I’ve found them useful more times than I can count through my life.”

Chance sat there watching him as he chewed his food. A minute passed. As the silence lingered, Beam began to feel self-conscious. Finally, when no response seemed forthcoming, he said, “You don’t have anything to say?”

Chance shrugged. “I’m still trying to find a point.”

Beam couldn’t believe it. Didn’t the man have any sense of metaphor? “The point,” he said sharply, “Is that it’s important to get comfortable in your madness. And we’re all mad, make no mistake about it. None of us live in the same world, only the worlds we perceive.” He held his newly healed palms up before Chance. “I don’t understand my world anymore. Maybe it’s madness, maybe it’s not. The point is, either way, sanity or madness, I need to make sense of it.”

Chance pushed his last bit of meat into his mouth and watched Beam as he chewed. After a bit, he swallowed and said, “Whatever happened to Ukee Oyt?”

“Whatever happened to Ukee Oyt?” Beam said in exasperation, “Seriously? That’s what you got out of the story? Whatever happened to Ukee Oyt?”

“Pretty much.”

Beam just shook his head. He was disappointed. He expected more insight from a man who could read. He picked up a piece of meat and held it to his mouth, but abandoned it before eating.

“Is there anything else?” Chance asked.

Beam sighed. “Yeah, I guess. About a year after that conversation, Ukee did disappear.” He bit off a chunk of the meat. “Never saw him again.”

“Perhaps he took your advice.”

Beam barely heard the words. A wave of disgust seized him. The meat was wretched. He leaned to the side and spit it out into the dirt.

“What are you doing?”

“This meat’s spoilt.” Beam grabbed the wineskin and drew in a long draught, rinsed his mouth and spit it out.

“Spoiled?” Chance sniffed at the piece he was holding. He took a bite and chewed. “It’s fine. It’s the same meat we ate last night.”

“I’m telling you it’s gone over. Tastes fishy.” Beam poured more wine in his mouth, but this time he swallowed it.

“Beam, there’s nothing wrong with this meat. You liked it well enough last night. You ate enough to last any other man a week.” Chance bit off another piece. “No, it’s fine. Perhaps your Vaemysh blood is stronger than you think. You’re developing their aversion to consuming flesh.”

“Well, that’s just bullshit. Hell, I can eat a whole cow when I’m hungry enough. It’s gone rotten, I tell you.”

Chance pointed at the food on Beam’s lap. “Well, have some fruit then.”

Beam frowned. He folded up the leather square containing the food and handed the packet back to Chance. “I don’t think so. I’m not hungry anyway.”