K Parker: Pattern

But the fire was hotter than usual, for welding the iron to the steel, and Poldarn contrived to burn more wire than he shaped; his mind wasn't on his work, which wouldn't do at all in a forge. Egil, he thought, and killing crows. Why had he hated them so much, he wondered? It was hard to imagine himself feeling that strongly about anything, let alone slow-moving black birds. It seemed likely that, at some point, he and Egil had got up to some kind of mischief, and Egil was warily delighted to find that Poldarn had forgotten all about it. For the reasons he'd already considered, he was fairly sure that it hadn't been anything too bad, and whatever it was, they'd never been found out. So that was probably all right, too.

Poldarn pulled his strip of wire out of the forge and dropped it into the sett. Before he could start peening over the head, the door scraped open, and a face he recognised but couldn't put a name to appeared round it.

'You two,' said the newcomer, 'you want to come and take a look at this.'

Asburn was just about to take a weld on a complicated joint; the metal was glassy white and sparkling, it'd be a devil of a job to get it right again if he let it cool. But the newcomer's tone of voice was enough to make him lay the piece down on the anvil and hurry to the door. What the hell, Poldarn thought, and followed him.

Outside in the yard, most of the farm people were gathered in a tight group. They were staring up towards the mountain, and it didn't take Poldarn long to figure out why.

A column of crow-black smoke was rising out of a red gash in the mountainside, just to the right of the rather crooked summit.

'What do you suppose that's in aid of?' someone asked. Nobody seemed disposed to reply. The red gash was flickering in and out of sight, sporadically masked by plump white clouds-steam, presumably.

'How long has it been doing that?' Poldarn asked the man standing next to him, a long-barn hand called Rook.

'Well, since the noises,' Rook replied, as if stating the obvious.

'What noises?'

Rook shifted his gaze from the mountain and gave Poldarn a curious stare. 'The three loud bangs,' he said. 'You didn't hear them, then?'

Poldarn shook his head. 'I was in the forge.'

'Three loud bangs,' Rook said, 'and when we stopped for a look, there was all that black stuff coming out the top.' He frowned. This was clearly something outside his experience, and it occurred to Poldarn that these people-his people-probably didn't come across something new and unknown more than once or twice in a lifetime. 'You were abroad all those years,' Rook said. 'You got any idea what it is?'

Poldarn nodded. 'I think so,' he said. 'I think it's a-' He paused. No word in their language, his language, for volcano. 'I've never seen anything like it that I can remember,' he said carefully. 'But yes, I think I know what it is. Where's Halder?'

Rook indicated with a sideways nod of his head. 'So what is it, then?'

'It's a mountain with its head on fire,' Poldarn replied. 'What does it look like?'

He pushed his way through the crowd until he was standing next to Grandfather. 'So,' he said, 'what do you make of that?'

Grandfather shrugged. 'Beats me,' he said.

'I think there's a word for it in one of the languages I know. Basically, it's a mountain that gets stuffed up with fire, like a boil or an abscess under a tooth; and when it gets full, it bursts.'

'Oh.' Grandfather was frowning. 'Is it bad?'

'Usually,' Poldarn replied. 'Unfortunately, you now know as much about volcanoes-that's the foreign word for them-as I do.'

'Volcanoes.' Grandfather repeated the word a couple of times, as if trying out a new tool for balance and fit. 'How is it bad?'

Poldarn shrugged. 'I don't honestly know,' he admitted. 'But if that red stuff is fire and the white cloud is steam, chances are it's melting a lot of the pack snow, at the very least. Has the river ever flooded, do you know?'

Halder rubbed his chin. 'Once,' he said, 'when I was a boy. But that was just months of heavy rain, and everything got so waterlogged there was nowhere for it to go.'

'Fine,' Poldarn replied. 'All I'm thinking is, if there's a whole lot of melt water coming off the mountain all at once, it's got to go somewhere.'

'Not here,' Halder said, after a moment's thought. 'Come summer thaw, the melt always runs off down the other fork of the valley, out to Lyatsbridge and Colscegsford.' He pursed his lips. 'Colsceg's pretty high up, but I wouldn't want to be in Lyat's house if you're right about a spate coming down.'

Rook, who'd been listening in on the conversation, said, 'Maybe I'd better get over there, in case they haven't figured it for themselves.'

'The black mare's saddled,' Halder replied. 'I was going to ride back with Colsceg when he went on.'

Rook hurried off; and Poldarn noticed out of the corner of his eye that the stablehands had the horse outside and waiting for him some time before he reached the stable door. 'What happens next?' Halder asked.

'No idea,' Poldarn said. 'You sure it's never done anything like this before?'

'Could well have done, before we were here to see it. But not since we've been here.'

They stood and watched for a while, but nothing else seemed to be happening. Gradually, people started drifting away, back to work. They seemed uneasy, though, as if they'd suddenly woken up after an hour's unscheduled and unexplained sleep. 'Bloody thing,' Halder muttered resentfully. 'Always something.'

Indeed, Poldarn said to himself; how thoughtless of the mountain to catch on fire, just when everything was going so smoothly. 'Is Lyatsbridge a big place?' he asked, by way of making conversation.

'What? Oh, no, nothing much; not so big as here, or Colscegsford. Lyat was one of Colsceg's father's men, struck out on his own thirty years back. He took the ford because nobody wanted it, on account of the flooding.'

That seemed to cover that. 'Do you want to stay close to the house, in case something happens?' he asked.

Halder shook his head. 'Don't suppose there's anything to worry about,' he replied, in a voice that suggested he was making it so by saying it out loud. 'We might as well take that walk down as far as your wood, now you're here.'

And sure enough, Colsceg and his offspring were suddenly there, right behind him. Stands to reason they're invited too, Poldarn thought, since Elja's going to be living there one day. He looked up at the mountain again, just in case it had stopped performing while his back was turned; but it hadn't. 'Maybe Polden fell asleep,' he suggested, 'and his chimney caught alight.'

Halder didn't bother to reply to that.

Needless to say, nobody spoke, all the way from the house to the bottom meadow. When they reached the river, the whole party stopped; Poldarn wondered why, then realised that this was the last point from which they'd be able to see the mountain, without the reverse slope of the combe being in the way.

'Still at it, then,' Colsceg said.

He was right; the mountain was still pouring black smoke into the sky, like a leaking wineskin. They stood and scowled at it for a short while, then moved on.

More than once as they walked, Poldarn had looked sideways at Elja; but each time, she was looking straight ahead, absolutely no trace of an expression on her face. Egil, he noticed, stayed the other side of her, as far away from Poldarn as he could get, and he just looked bored and slightly constipated. Well, Poldarn thought, who wants chatty inlaws and a wife who talks all the time?

His first sight of the wood came as they rounded a slight bend in the river, where the western slope of the combe fell sharply down to the bank. Over its shoulder he could make out the tops of pine trees. The sight was extremely familiar-which didn't make any sense at all, he realised, since the last time he'd been here, the trees would have been too short to show above the hillside. He dismissed it as his imagination coining false memories for him.