K Parker - Memory

This time he was waking up, for sure. Pins and needles or no pins and needles, Poldarn hopped backwards five paces in a straight line, bumped into the small two-horned anvil, sat down on it and pretended to be trying to tease a splinter out of the ball of his thumb. Just in time 'Oh,' Spenno said, opening his eyes. 'Good heavens. Don't tell me I fell asleep.'

He shifted, and the book slid off his lap and onto the floor, closing itself and losing its place. (Which was very considerate of it, Poldarn thought, to wipe out all memory of his intrusion, though arguably rather disloyal to its master.) 'Where is everybody?' Spenno asked.

'Resting,' Poldarn replied. 'Lathe's almost finished, apparently. In fact, you'd better be getting over there right now, or you'll miss the first try-out.'

Spenno made a loud squawking noise, scrabbled on the floor for his book, jumped up and ran. Poldarn counted to ten, to give him time to get clear, then followed, limping.

The sun had come out while he'd been stuck in the forge. (How long had it been since he'd left the building? He couldn't remember. The pools of water that had stood in the yard since the rains began had dwindled into small reservations of black mud. Soon it'd be high Tulice summer (to which, the old lags assured him, the rainy season was vastly preferable): ground-splitting, skin-peeling heat, just the weather for tending the hellburning furnaces they were planning on building to melt the enormous quantities of bronze they'd be needing for the tubes. Under normal circumstances, they'd shut the works down for a month at midsummer. Just my luck, Poldarn thought.

Nobody about; he guessed that everybody was snatching a little sleep before the next phase began. From what he could remember of Galand Dev's briefing, this would consist of building a set of giant trestles fitted with spindles on which the wood and clay patterns would be turned. (More lathes, in other words; at least Galand Dev had had the tact not to call them that.) The idea was basically a variation on the standard method of making bell patterns: a pole, rotating on trestles, around which they'd build up a full-size clay model of the tube; then slap a thick layer of tallow on top of the clay, then more clay on top of that; melt out the tallow to free the core, and you had your mould. All there was to it.

Poldarn yawned, wondering what to do next. He could limp back to his little mud hut, or he could try and find something to eat (fat chance); or he could be really sybaritic and decadent, and have a wash. Not just a splash of black, gritty water out of the slack tub on his face and hands, but a genuine, no-holds-barred, wet-all-over bath, the kind that normal people had once a day. He knew just the place; where the river tripped and stumbled down a heap of rock slabs into a deep round pool, curtained with ferns and flag iris. It couldn't have been better suited for the purpose if some duke or king had commissioned an architect to build him an alfresco bathhouse. Of course, nobody ever went there, except in late autumn, when there were rumoured to be fair-sized salmon in the deepest corner.

After Poldarn had scoured off the worst of the grime with handfuls of dry moss, he lay floating on his back in the water, staring up at the blue sky. Suppose, he thought, that the blue sky is a mirror in the same way as the blue water; suppose the sky could show you your reflection, not in space but time. Interesting concept, but false; nothing to be seen except the sun, a few fluffy white clouds, the silhouettes of a few crows-scouts for the big mob that hung around the back of the sheds, robbing the feed bins where the fodder for the treadmill and windlass mules was stored. Suppose, he said to himself (he knew that he was starting to get drowsy) that there are crows in the afternoon sky like there are stars at night: small twinkling spots of black, as opposed to silver. Could you learn to steer a ship by them, or tell your own fortune?

'There you are.' The voice came from behind the screen of flag irises. 'Why am I not surprised? You always were a luxurious bastard.'

For a few drowsy moments he tried to convince himself he was dreaming; but the crows were too high up and far away. The voice belonged in his dreams, but also in the real world. 'Gain Aciava,' he said.

'Hello, Ciartan.' Gain Aciava pushed through the reeds and stood at the edge of the pool, his reflection torn up and shattered by slight ripples in the water. 'Father Tutor once said you were an otter pretending to be a monk.'

'What the hell are you doing here?'

'Same as you.' Aciava grinned. 'Wonderful thing, administration. They keep a big list somewhere in Torcea, of people with valuable specialist skills. Then, when the government suddenly needs us-die-founders, fettlers, people with relevant experience in advanced foundry work-they know where to look. And here I am. Some people might consider it an unpardonable intrusion, but the way I look at it, it's got to be better than peddling false teeth for a living. What's the water like?'

'Overlooked,' Poldarn replied. 'You know about foundry work?'

'Practically wrote the book.' Aciava yawned. 'Not that there really is a book, unless you count that musty old doorstop your pattern-maker lugs round with him. Spenno, is that right?'

Poldarn nodded. 'Is there really a register?'

'Oh yes. You're on it, of course, only not under your current name. And half the people on it are dead, or far too old to work. What's the matter? Aren't you pleased to see me?'

'I don't know,' Poldarn replied. 'Depends. Were you telling the truth, last time?'

'I always tell the truth.' Aciava's grin was full of teeth. 'It's a habit I got into when I was a kid, and I stuck like it. My old mother did warn me; I guess the wind changed when I wasn't looking. Come on,' he added, 'don't you remember the class motto when we were in fifth grade?'

'No.'

'Ah well' Aciava sat down on a rock. 'So how's the big secret project coming along? Did Galand Dev get his monster lathe built? Must say, I had my doubts when I heard about it. Seems a bloody strange way to go about making a tube. Me, I'd have tried casting it with a core, and the hell with what the book says.'

For some reason, Poldarn's flesh began to crawl. 'What book?' he asked.

'The book, stupid.' Aciava reached inside his coat and pulled out a small book, bound in white vellum. 'Next you'll be telling me you've lost your copy. You haven't, have you?'

'What book?'

'Here.' He tossed the book in the air. Poldarn stood up and just managed to catch it before it fell in the water. On the spine, in long, spindly writing: Concerning Various Matters.

'Where that idiot Spenno got hold of a copy, God only knows,' Aciava was saying. 'Different edition, obviously; probably an earlier one, not quite up to date. You can keep that one,' he added, 'I've got a spare. Look inside and you'll see that it's not mine anyway.'

Poldarn opened the book at the flyleaf. Written in the top left-hand corner: If this book should chance to roam, Box its ears and send it home. Xipho Dorunoxy, Grade II. 'Where did you get this?' he asked.

'Ah,' Aciava replied with a smirk, 'that'd be telling. Are you going to stay in there all day, or are you going to show me where they keep the food? It's been a long day, and you owe me dinner.'

Poldarn waded ashore and put his clothes on; they felt clammy and foul against his clean, wet skin. 'Why are you here?' he asked. 'I don't believe there's any register. I'd have heard about it before now if there was.'

Aciava sighed. 'There is too a register,' he said. 'And my name's on it. So's yours. But those clowns in Torcea have either lost it or forgotten about it, or else it got burned when your horrible relatives crisped Deymeson. Offhand, I can't recall if there was more than one copy. Like I told you,' he added, 'I always tell the truth.'