K Parker - Memory

Eventually he did fall asleep, soothed by a lullaby of querulous voices, and by some miracle or merciful dispensation he didn't have a dream or it didn't stay with him when he woke up, cramped and drenched in dew, at first light the next morning.

Either the soldiers had sat up arguing all night or they'd resumed bright and early: the debate was still going on, though he didn't seem to have missed anything in the way of exciting new arguments. The sergeant, though, was now the only proponent of carrying on to Dui Chirra. The opposition was more or less equally divided between turning round and going back to camp, or heading into the forest and finding the nearest colliers' camp, in the hope of scrounging some food.

Mention of the colliers reminded Poldarn of something; and it occurred to him that, if his sense of direction wasn't completely skewed, he wasn't all that far from Basano's camp, where he'd gone to negotiate a supply of charcoal for the foundry. Had that carefree negotiator really been him? It seemed like a thousand years ago, back in the Age of Gold, before the human race lost its innocence, and there was nothing to worry about except deer ticks, stale beer and boredom. He couldn't help remembering what Basano had said, about how colliery workers came and went, how there was always a job for anybody who was prepared to hang around long enough. At the time, he couldn't get away from the place fast enough. Strange, how the world can change so much so quickly and still look pretty much the same on the outside.

That put a different complexion on all the relevant arguments. True, he'd still be whoever he was, as much so at a colliers' camp as on the road or back at Dui Chirra. The difference was that, during the days and weeks it took for a big pile of cordwood to cook itself into charcoal, the colliers' idea of work was to sit on the edge of the stack and drink their revolting home-brewed beer. Getting rid of himself by drowning his conscious mind in booze was an approach that Poldarn couldn't remember having tried; between intoxication and dysentery, he doubted whether he'd have much opportunity to brood. Ideal.

That was that, then. Unfortunately, it was now too late for him to sneak away in the dark without being noticed; another opportunity neglected. On the other hand, nobody showed the slightest interest in getting up and moving on. It looked as if they'd be perfectly capable of staying here arguing all day, until it was dark enough for him to sling his hook without being seen or missed. But that wasn't so good; waking up to find they'd lost their prisoner might just be enough to snap them out of their differences and bring them along after him. He could always join in the debate and add his support to the pro-food faction; much easier to fake his own disappearance once they were at the colliers' camp, whereupon the soldiers would light out into the forest looking for him, and he could stay behind and ask if there was any work going. He decided against that, however; in the mood the sergeant was in, he'd be certain to veto any suggestion coming from his human cargo. Poldarn gave the matter some more thought, and came to the conclusion that the deciding factor in the debate was bound to be the realisation that they had enough food left for one meal, just possibly two.

So he waited until just after noon, when the soldiers had opened the ration sacks and been reminded of how very little they contained; then he wandered over to the fire, waited for the next tense, gloomy silence, and said in as conversational a tone as he could manage that as far as he could recall, there was a large and well-supplied colliers' camp just across the way from where they were, and maybe they could spare a bit of flour and a drop of beer. When the sergeant started to object, Poldarn added that when he'd been here the last time, the colliers had put him on a good worthwhile short cut back to Dui Chirra, which had shaved at least a day off his return journey That put paid to any further resistance from the sergeant, and Poldarn found himself promoted from high-security prisoner to navigator-in-chief. That was fine, the only drawback being that he didn't have more than a vague idea of the way to Basano's place, not without the annoying old man to guide him, and his sense of direction seemed to be allergic to trees in quantity. Annoyingly, the first major landmark he recognised was the filthy, muddy swamp that the old man had called Battle Slough; and he only realised he knew where he was once they'd blundered into it up over their knees.

For some reason, the soldiers didn't seem too pleased about that. Probably because of the rains, the swamp was even stickier and more treacherous than it had been the last time Poldarn had been out that way; and he couldn't help recalling the incident from which, according to his guide on that occasion (Corvolo: he dragged the name out of the back of his mind, with roughly the same level of effort as it was costing him to take one step forward), the place had derived its name. Fairly soon, if Corvolo hadn't been embellishing for dramatic effect, they could expect to come across the mildewed skeletons of the soldiers who'd got themselves hopelessly stuck here, and stayed put until they starved to death At least it took his mind off brooding over whether Gain Aciava had been telling the truth. Instead, Poldarn forced himself to concentrate on what he could remember of his first visit, with particular reference to such points as which direction the shadows had been pointing, the time of day, whether the slope had been with or against them. In the end he wasn't sure whether he found the way out of Battle Slough or whether it found him; in any event, by nightfall they were on the faint pattern of bent bracken stems and trampled leaf mould that was the best the forest could furnish them with by way of a road, and on their way to Basano's camp-assuming, of course, that it was still there.

As their circles collided, he drew and so did she.

There was a moment during which time was the circular room in which the examination was taking place. In the middle of the room he stood facing her: at his back was the past-Elaos, Cordo, Gain, the Earwig, the rest of his year, Father Tutor and the two external examiners, draped in heavy black robes like a crow's plumage; behind her was the future, but she was standing in the way and he couldn't see it clearly. But he saw her hand slip down onto the sword hilt, saw the blade sliding smoothly out over her sash, rising to meet him, until its bevelled side collided with its mirror image, his own sword, like the reflection of a face in a still, shallow pool.

There are no moments in religion; no present, only past and future waging war over a disputed frontier. As her hand dropped to her waist, he saw both of them draw, and then the blades smacked together, flat on flat.

A voice inside his head was telling him what to do; and he knew it was his own voice, calling to him from across the border, where he'd already watched the fight and knew what had happened. The voice directed his moves as he cut, parried, lunged, sidestepped-you tried a cut to her right temple but she anticipated and cut to your left knee-so he moved across and back as he slashed at her head, and when her counter-attack came, his knee wasn't there any more; and then you tried a draw cut across the inside of her elbow, but at the last moment you pulled it and turned it into a jab to her throat, but she dodged back and feinted at your chin, you fell for that and she swung at your wrist, so he dropped his wrist as he jabbed and her cut missed him by the thickness of a leaf. And then she recovered before you did and tried for a lunge straight at your neck He opened his eyes, but it was still dark. Something was pricking his throat.

'Easy,' said a voice behind and above him, very softly. 'Perfectly still or you'll do yourself a mischief.'