Paul Kearney - Corvus

Phaestus watched them go, and raised his spear to answer the headman’s departing salute. Ten families, perhaps thirty warriors and a hundred women and children and old folk. A unit more cohesive than the citizenry of any city.

If only life were that simple, Phaestus thought.

He had grown a beard to keep the wind from his face, and it had come out as grey as hoar frost. His plump wife had lost some of her padding and had stopped complaining about having to sleep on the ground. And his son had become a man right in front of his eyes, discarding the preening sulks of the adolescent in a few short weeks.

Exile had been good for him, young Philemos. Dark like his mother, and inclined to amplitude like her, he had become an angular young man who took to this life of exile as though he had been waiting for it to happen. There was that much, at least, to be thankful for. The two girls were a different matter.

Phaestus turned in his tracks to regard the straggling little column on the slope below him. One mule had died already, and the rest were overburdened. They would have to dump more of their possessions, pitifully few though they were. His complete collection of Ondimion was already in a snowdrift two days back, a sacrifice which had wrenched his heart. But there was no need to read of drama in a scroll when it was the stuff of their daily lives now.

Tragedy, revenge; yes, that is what life hinges around. The poets had it right after all.

He looked north, at the furrowed valleys and glens of the Gostheres, white in a dreaming world of snow.

That old word they used, from the ancient Machtic – nemesis. That is what I am, Phaestus thought.

His son joined him, scratching and grinning. “These bearskins have lice in them, father. Are we to become barbarians to survive?”

“Yes,” Phaestus said. “That is exactly what we must be. But not forever, Philemos.”

“I hope not – I can’t listen to my sisters carp and moan for much longer. I love them dearly, but I would also love to clash their heads together.”

Phaestus laughed, his white teeth gleaming in his beard. “Now you know how I have felt these last few years. The women are unhappy, and rightly so -this is not their world, up here. Everything they have known has been taken away from them – the least we can do is bear their carping without complaint. That is what men do.”

“We’re soft. I had not thought so until we were with the goatherder people last night. I think their women are tougher than us.”

“They breed them hard, this high,” Phaestus said, and his smile faded. “Your mother and sisters are folk of the city, lowlanders, but my people came from the highlands, and it is in your blood too. It’s well to remember that. The clans of the mountains are not savages – not like the goatmen, who are worse than animals. They are ourselves, in a purer state. What we write down, they keep in their heads, and their sense of honour is as refined as our own. As soon as they sat across a fire from us last night, we were part of their camp, and had some threat come upon us, we would all have fought it together.”

“And if we had cheated them in the bargaining?”

“They would have considered themselves fools for being cheated – that is what such barter is about. But you cross them in a matter of honour, Philemon, and they will kill you without mercy, and all your family. You must remember that.”

“I will.” The boy sobered.

“Good lad. Now, get back down and help with the repacking and, for Phobos’s sake, don’t overload the mules. They have a long journey still to make. Send Berimus up to me.”

“Yes, father.”

Phaestus watched him go.

Seventeen years old, and ostrakr. It’s still an adventure to him – he has no real idea what it means.

Berimus stood silently for some time before Phaestus spoke to him, and when he did his tone was entirely different, harsh and cold as the mountain stone below the ice.

“Are all the preparations made?”

“Yes, master.”

“I am no longer your master, Berimus. You are no longer a slave.”

He turned around. Berimus was a small man, built as broad as an oak door, with a nut-shaped head of dark hair and lively grey eyes. The same age as Phaestus, he looked ten years younger, a compact, muscular version of the tall patrician with the pepper-grey beard, who looked him in the eye.

Phaestus handed him a clinking pouch of soft leather.

“That is all we have left, but it should be enough. You won’t need it up here in the hills, and do not show it – it will only make trouble.”

“I know.” “Once you reach the lowlands, show someone in authority this.” Phaestus produced a sealed scroll of parchment. He rubbed the red wax with one finger.

“This is the seal of Karnos himself. Any official of the hinterland cities will recognise it, and will assist you. Make due west – it’s four hundred pasangs to Machran. Do not let the ladies tell you otherwise. My wife will think to command you – do not let her. You are a free man now, but still my steward, and the man I trust most in the world.”

“Master, your family is my own – you know that.”

“I do. Berimus, we will come out of this thing. When I bring Karnos what I seek we will be citizens again, of the greatest city in our world. I will see you right, I swear.”

Berimus bowed his head.

“You remember when we were boys together, and we came up here hunting with my father?”

“The day the boar felled him – I remember.”

“We stood over him that day, shoulder to shoulder like brothers. That is what you have always been to me. I am entrusting my family to you now – stand over them as you stood over my father.”

“I will, master.”

“I am called Phaestus, my friend.”

Berimus looked solemn as an owl. “Phaestus. I will deliver your family to Machran, or I will die trying. You have my word on it.”

They clasped forearms as free men do.

“Philemos and I will join you before midwinter. Karnos will look after you until then. Give this to him.” Another scroll, another waxed seal.

“Be careful, Phaestus,” Berimus said. “These hills are a strange and dangerous place.”

“Dangerous?” Phaestus smiled. “Don’t worry, Berimus. I only go to call on the home of a friend.”

TWO separate lines of people, one family. They moved apart from one another, mere dots on the white spine of the world. Phaestus was throwing his life into the hollow of a knucklebone, and with it, those of all he loved.

Let me show you how it feels, Rictus, he thought.

He had hunted in these hills for decades; he knew them as well as any city-dweller could. In the winter he had tracked wolf, in the summer deer. North of the Gostheres, in the deep Harukush, there were mountain leopards with blue eyes, and enormous white cave bears. So it was rumoured, though Phaestus had never seen one, or met anyone who had.

It was an ancient place, the Deep Mountains. The legends said that the Macht themselves had originated there, migrating south and east out of the snows and the savage peaks, leaving behind them a lost city – the first city – whose walls had been made of iron.

The first Macht had all been Cursebearers, according to the myth, and had known Antimone herself. She had descended to the surface of the world to dress them in her Gift, and then had left for her endless vigil among the stars with only her two sons for company.

And God had turned His face from them all, from the goddess of pity and the race on whose behalf she had intervened upon the face of the earth.

So said the legends. Phaestus was nothing if not a rational man, but he was astute enough to know the value of myth. The black armours which dotted the Macht world were an undeniable reality, and had not been made by any craft that now existed. So there was that seed of truth at the root of the legends. If there was one, there might be others.