K Parker - Memory

And even he'd been lucky, in a sense. Because the crucible had toppled before the molten bronze had reached flowing heat, the melt hadn't been hot enough to pour like water. When the mound collapsed and one of the heavy props had toppled over, pinning the unfortunate mould-fettler by the knee, the escaped melt had flooded out down the mound slope straight at him; but before it could actually reach him and reduce him to cinders, it'd cooled down enough to stop moving. This was good, up to a point. True, the wedged man wasn't going to be burnt to death by a lava flow from the crucible; but the metal was still hot enough to strip skin and muscle down to bone on contact, and if the mound dried out and shifted any more, as it was almost certain to do, a hundredweight blob of searingly hot bronze flash would go slithering down the slope directly on top of him; and by the time it had cooled enough for anybody to go in close, there wouldn't be enough remaining of the trapped fettler to be worth burying. Of course, only a lunatic would risk getting in close enough to pull him out, when the slightest movement could disturb the mound enough to get the hot flash moving.

The man pinned under the prop was Gain Aciava.

Even so, Poldarn told himself firmly; even so. This was the man who claimed to have all Poldarn's lost memories packed and slotted away in his own memory, like tools in a cabinetmaker's chest. If he died, all that would be lost (because heat draws the temper, relaxes memory; the symbolism was right bang on the nail, but Poldarn wasn't in the mood) and quite possibly he'd never know He was shocked.

Ordinary fear he could've forgiven himself for; and anybody with enough sense to breathe would have every right to be scared out of his wits at the mere thought of trying to get down there, heave a huge log out of the way, drag a helpless man up a muddy, slippery slope with that enormous glowing chunk of death poised to slither down on top of him; and all of it to be done in the face of excruciating heat. Perfectly valid reason, perfectly acceptable excuse for not getting involved, even if the man being cooked alive down there was an old, old friend (and he only had Gain Aciava's word for that, and maybe he hadn't been telling the truth). But that wasn't what was keeping him back; because wasn't he the man who'd tricked and beaten the fire-stream on the slopes of Poldarn's Forge, duping, conning the mountain into vomiting its burning puke on his best friend's house instead of his own? He knew fire, he had its number and its measure; fire was his pet, it gambolled alongside him like a big, happy dog being taken for a walk. He'd thrown sticks for it to fetch, sent it running down the mountainside onto Eyvind's wood, set it on Eyvind's roof and walls and doors. He was its master, made it work for him, softening steel, obliterating memory in the wrought object, wiping out past deeds and making new ones -And if he let it, fire was here now, ready to do his a favour by crisping another old friend, leaching out more memory, dissolving the past and all the horrors that might be trapped there, like flies in amber. If he let Gain Aciava die, he might never know who he'd been.

Fire, crouching in the cherry-red glow of the flash bronze, grinned at him, wagged its tail. Let him burn, it urged him, just like Eyvind, just like the men you fed me on the mountainside, Scerry and Hending and Barn; just like the crow you burned on the forge in Asburn's smithy. Burn the crow, burn the memory, and be free of them all for ever.

'Shit,' Poldarn muttered, and looked round for the men he'd seen earlier, the ones who'd brought rope. It took a while for him to explain what he wanted, longer to persuade them to cooperate (but Gain was still there, and the glowing hot metal, waiting for him; it'd have been too easy if the mud had given way while he'd been talking); and then he was gingerly picking his way down the face of the slope, edging by the heat-he could smell his own hair singeing as he passed it-digging his heels in to stop himself slipping forwards or losing his footing and sliding the rest of the way on his bum. I must be crazy, he told himself a dozen times, but he knew it wasn't true; I must be out of my tiny mind, all this to rescue some chancer who's probably just trying to use me in some godawful plot or scheme.

'Gain,' he heard himself whisper (as if he was worried he'd wake the fire; stupid). 'You all right?'

'Get this fucking log off me,' Gain Aciava replied graciously. 'And watch out, for crying out loud, you'll have the whole lot down on us.'

There's gratitude, Poldarn thought, loosening the rope tied round his waist and looping it round and under the log. No way he could lift the bloody thing on his own; an excellent chance that when the men up on top started hauling on the rope, the bank would shift, dislodge the hot bronze, and that'd be an end of it-the last thing he'd hear would probably be Gain Aciava screaming abuse at him: 'You careless, clumsy fucking idiot-'

He raised his hand to signal to the rope men to. take the strain. With his other hand he tried to guide, calm, control the log-deluding himself, thinking that'd do any good, because either the bank would come down or it wouldn't. Who did he think he was, some god almighty? As the log shifted, Gain yelled and cursed at him, which suggested that the procedure was causing him pain. Tough. Pain was beside the point, very low priority. After all, Poldarn could feel the skin roasting off his face and hands, and he wasn't making a fuss.

(Eyvind, he thought, in the burning house. And the crow. And rescuing Muno Silsny, whose legs had been broken, but who never cried out once.)

And the log moved slowly away, each bump and knot rasping Gain's broken bone, like a man roughing out a shape in wood. 'You bastard,' Gain was howling at him, 'you're fucking doing this on purpose-I'll kill you. This is just because she chose me, isn't it? It is, you know it is.' And eventually the log slid off his leg with a bump-a moment of sheer terror, because the jolt dislodged a double handful of burnt mud; Poldarn watched it tumble down the slope, observing every detail of its descent. But no more came after, or at least not yet.

'Gain,' he said, 'shut up.' He edged closer, a quarter step and then another, like a shy crab. 'Can you sit up? Can you move at all?' Gain shook his head. Lazy bugger, he's not even trying, expects me to carry him all the way up the bastard slope like a babe in arms. Well, he can forget that. 'Grab my hand,' Poldarn said, reaching out, 'I can't get in close, I'll have to drag you out.'

'Fuck you,' Gain replied.

So Poldarn went in a little closer, and then a little more, until he could get his hand under Gain's armpit and lift-He could feel muscles and tendons coming to grief in his shoulder and back, because that was no way to go lifting heavy weights, any bloody fool knew that. But he carried on with it anyway, and 'Gain,' he said, 'what did you mean by that? Who chose you instead of me?'

'For fuck's sake,' Gain yelled at him. 'Concentrate on what you're bloody doing.'

'Who was it?' he repeated, because even Gain Aciava (assuming he was a liar) wouldn't tell lies at a moment like this. 'Was it true, what you told me? Was all of it true, or just some of it?'

'You bastard, Ciartan. Watch out, you nearly dropped me then.'

Poldarn stopped. If he let him go now, if Gain's intolerable weight slipped through his grip and slumped back into the powder-baked mud, the whole terrible lot would come thundering down on both of them, and somehow that made it fair. 'Tell me the truth, Gain,' he said. 'Were you lying, or not?'

'Of course I wasn't lying, you shit,' Gain said. 'For God's sake, Ciartan, please-'

Oh well, Poldarn thought; and with his left hand he snatched at the rope tied round the log. 'Pull,' he shouted, and for a moment he was afraid they couldn't hear him or something; and then the log began to move, pitifully slowly, like an hourly-paid snail. More dirt tumbled down in his face; damn, he thought; never mind, it was worth a try, but then the log gathered pace as the men on the other end hauled and grunted, dragging Poldarn and his vituperative burden through the filthy dirt, across the face of the slope and up The bank did give way after all, and the massive blob of heat did go thundering down. But by then, Poldarn was being helped off his knees by the rope-pullers, people were running up, shouting, calling for stuff. Their hands on his skin were sheer torture and he swore at them to leave him alone. Stupid clumsy fucking bastards, they were only trying to help 'Tell Galand Dev,' Poldarn heard himself say; and he wondered, tell Galand Dev what? What dark and amazing secret had he noticed while he was down there? 'Tell Galand Dev he's an arsehole,' he heard himself say. 'And next time, to dig a bloody pit-'