Robert Silverberg: A Time of Changes

“You spoke with her,” I said. I could barely manage words. “What did she tell you?”

“One stopped by her door, because one thought one heard the sound of sobbing,” Noim answered. “One inquired if she was well. She came out: her face was strange, it was full of dreams, her eyes were as blank as pieces of polished metal, and yes, yes, she had been weeping. And one asked what was wrong, whether there had been any trouble here. No, she said, all was well. She said you and she had talked all evening. Why was she weeping, then? She shrugged and smiled again and closed the door. But that look in her eyes — it was the drug, Kinnall! Against all your vows, you gave it to her! And now — and now—”

“Please,” I said softly. But he went on shouting, loading me with accusations, and I could not reply.

The grooms had reconstructed everything. They had found the path of Halum’s feet in the dew-moist sandy road. They had found the door ajar of the house that gives access to the stormshield pens. They had found marks of forcing on the inner door that leads to the feeding-gate itself. She had gone through; she had carefully opened the feeding-gate, and just as carefully closed it behind her, to loose no killers on the sleeping estate; then she had offered herself to the waiting claws. All this between darkness and dawn, perhaps even while I strolled in a different part. That cry out of the mists — Why? Why? Why? Why?

By early afternoon such few possessions as I had were packed. I asked Noim for the loan of a groundcar, and he granted it with a brusque wave of his fingers. There was no question of remaining here any longer. Not only were there echoes of Halum resonating everywhere about, but also I had to go apart, into some place where I could think undisturbed, and examine all that I had done and that I hoped to do. Nor did I wish to be here when the district police carried out their inquest into Halum’s death.

Had she been unable to face me again, the morning after having given her soul away? She had gone gladly enough into the sharing of selves. But afterward, in that rush of guilty reappraisal that often follows the first opening, she may have felt another way: old habits of reticence reasserting themselves, a sudden cascading sense of horror at what she had revealed. And the quick irreversible decision, the frozen-faced trek to the stormshield pens, the ill-considered passing of the final gate, the moment of regret-within- regret as the animals pounced and she realized she had carried her atonement too far. Was that it? I could think of no other explanation for that plunge from serenity to despair, except that it was a second thought, a reflex of shock that swept her to doom. And I was without a bondsister, and had lost bondbrother too, for Noim’s eyes were merciless when he looked at me. Was this what I had intended, when I dreamed of opening souls?

“Where will you go?” Noim asked. “They’ll jail you in Manneran. Take one step into Glin with your drug and you’ll be flayed. Stirron will hound you out of Salla. Where, then, Kinnall? Threish? Velis? Or maybe Umbis, eh? Dabis? No! By the gods, it will be Sumara Borthan, won’t it? Yes. Among your savages, and you’ll have all the selfbaring you’ll need there, yes? Yes?”

Quietly I said, “You forget the Burnt Lowlands, Noim. A cabin in the desert — a place to think, a place of peace — there is so much one must try to understand, now—”

“The Burnt Lowlands? Yes, that’s good, Kinnall. The Burnt Lowlands in high summer. A fiery purge for your soul. Go there, yes. Go.”

Alone, I drove northward along the flank of the Huishtors, and then westward, on the road that leads to Kongoroi and Salla’s Gate. More than once I thought of swerving the car and sending it tumbling over the highway’s rim, and making an end. More than once, as the first light of day touched my eyelids in some back-country hostelry, I thought of Halum and had to struggle to leave my bed, for it seemed so much easier to go on sleeping. Day and night and day and night and day, and a few days more, and I was deep into West Salla, ready to go up the mountains and through the gate. While resting one night in a town midway into the uplands I discovered that an order was out in Salla for my arrest. Kinnall Darival, the septarch’s son, a man of thirty years, of this height and having these features, brother to the Lord Stirron, was wanted for monstrous crimes: selfbaring, and the use of a dangerous drug, which against the explicit orders of the septarch he was offering to the unwary. By means of this drug the fugitive Darival had driven his own bondsister insane and in her madness she had perished in a horrible way. Therefore all citizens of Salla were enjoined to apprehend the evildoer, for whom a heavy reward would be paid.

If Stirron knew why Halum had died, then Noim had told him everything. I was lost. When I reached Salla’s Gate, I would find officers of the West Sallan constabulary waiting for me, for my destination was known. Yet in that case why had the announcement not informed the populace that I was heading for the Burnt Lowlands? Possibly Noim had held back some of what he knew, so that I could make an escape.

I had no choice but to go forward. It would take me days to reach the coast, and I would find all of Salla’s ports alerted for me when I got there; even if I slipped on board a vessel, where would I go? Glin? Manneran? Similarly it was hopeless thinking of getting somehow across the Huish or the Woyn, into the neighboring provinces: I was already proscribed in Manneran, and surely I would find a chilly greeting in Glin. The Burnt Lowlands it would have to be, then. I would stay there some while, and then perhaps try to make my way out via one of the Threishtor passes, to start a new life on the western coast. Perhaps.

I brought provisions in the town, at a place that serves the needs of hunters entering the Lowlands: dried food, some weapons, and condensed water, enough to last me by careful expansion for several moontimes. As I made my purchases I thought the townsfolk were eyeing me strangely. Did they recognize me as the depraved prince whom the septarch sought? No one moved to seize me. Possibly they knew there was a cordon across Salla’s Gate, and would take no risks with such a brute, when there were police in plenty to capture me on top of Kongoroi. Whatever the reason, I got out of the town unbothered, and set out now on the final stretch of the highway. In the past I had come this way only in winter, when snow lay deep; even now there were patches of dirty whiteness in shadowy corners, and as the road rose, the snow thickened, until near Kongoroi’s double summit everything lay mantled in it. Timing my ascent carefully, I managed things so that I came to the great pass well after sundown, hoping that darkness would protect me in case of a roadblock. But the gate was unguarded. My car’s lights were off as I drove the last distance — I half expected to go over the edge — and I made the familiar left turn, which brought me into Salla’s Gate, and I saw no one there. Stirron had not had time to close the western border, or else he did not think I would be so mad as to flee that way. I went forward, and through the pass, and slowly down the switchbacks on the western face of Kongoroi, and when dawn overtook me I was into the Burnt Lowlands, choking in the heat, but safe.

Near the place where the hornfowl nest I found this cabin, about where I remembered it to be. It was without plumbing, nor were the walls even whole, yet it would do. It would do. The awful heat of the place would be my purge. I set up housekeeping inside, laying out my things, unpacking the journal-paper I had bought in the town for this record of my life and deeds, setting the jeweled case containing the last of the drug in a corner, piling my clothing above it, sweeping away the red sand. On my first full day of residence I busied myself camouflaging my groundcar, so that it would not betray my presence when searchers came: I drove it into a shallow ravine, so that its top barely broke the level of the ground, and collected woody ground-plants to make a covering for it, throwing sand atop the interwoven stems of the plants. Only sharp eyes would see the car when I was done. I made careful note of the place, lest I fail to find it myself when I was ready to leave.