“Bet,” responded Topclinger. “Bet one whole turn on kitchen duty.”
“Done,” said Highbones, giggling. “In my opinion he’s a deader.”
Rillibee felt the chill of that giggle run down his bones.
“Oh, God, oh,” said the parrot in his mind.
“Shut up,” he whispered to himself.
“Did you say something, peeper?”
Rillibee shook his head. Highbones was not the sort to leave the winning of his bet to chance. Highbones would try to make sure, up there somewhere.
But then, did it matter? Why not let him have his way?
“Let me die,” begged the parrot.
The dozen surrounded Rillibee, all of them posturing now as though they were one creature, pointing upward toward the heights, toward the last of the sunlight.
“Will he climb?” they wanted to know, pressing closer to him as they explained the rules. They would give him three minutes’ start and then come after him. If he could reach another ladder and get down without being caught, then he’d be a climber. If they caught him, he’d be a peeper, but they wouldn’t beat him too badly if he gave them a good chase. If he fell off, he’d be a deader, depending on where he fell from. He might get away with no injury at all. But if he wouldn’t climb, he would die right there on the thatch. They would rub his face in shit and keep hitting him in the stomach until he’d wished he’d died up there, rather than here. If he didn’t climb, said Highbones, there were other pleasures some might find in Brother Lourai’s anatomy before they killed him, Others agreed to this with wide, toothy grins and feverish eyes.
“Up,” they chanted. “Up, Lourai. Got to be initiated. Got to climb!” The word “climb” was howled from half a hundred throats as others, drawn by the initial ruckus, ran to join the ten or twelve who had started the racket, clambering up the side of the hall on rope sashes dropped to them from those above, clustering upon the thatch. “Climb, Lourai! Climb,” bellowed the Brothers of Sanctity, the Green Brothers, with Green Brother names like Nuazoi and Flumzee and faces intent upon mayhem.
Bored, Brother Mainoa had said. Bored to insanity. And Brother Lourai would just have to learn to get along with them.
It wasn’t their threats that moved Rillibee. He had considered death many times during recent years. He had seen no reason why he should go on living when Joshua and Songbird and Miriam had all died. Dying had not seemed a bad thing, though getting dead had seemed to be more difficult than he had liked. So now getting dead seemed the problem. If he gave himself to this pack, here and now, there would be pain first, and humiliation, neither of which he wanted. If he was to die, he wanted it to be in peace, and not at the hands of some long-armed barbarian like Highbones.
What really moved him to the first ladder, however, was the confounded noise they made, the derisive cacophony centered on him, the knowledge that they would give him no peace until he acted.
The ladder did not frighten him. All those years, up and down the towers of Sanctity, ten times taller than these. He knew enough not to look down. He knew enough to have a good hold before he shifted his weight. He went up the ladder, slowly at first, then faster, his eyes up, seeing something there that those assembled on the thatch evidently had not seen or had taken no notice of.
The mists were coming down. The fog was falling over the Friary, Even now, the tops of the towers were lost in it, the spidersilk bridges were striped with veils. Perhaps those down on the rooftop would not notice it in time, if he could get far enough ahead of them.
He came to the first crossbrace on the tower. Getting to the next ladder required that he move along a curved rod of grass as thick as his leg. Though this was rounded and the girders at Sanctity had been square, this was wider than the girders he had crossed in the drop shafts. Without stopping to think about it, Rillibee ran along the crossbrace and started up the second ladder, eyes examining the route above him. Where the ladders were. Where the bridges were. And where was the nearest cloud?
A howl from below greeted his run. Newcomers did not run across the braces! Though the allotted time had not elapsed, High-bones waited no longer. He started up the ladder even as some few below had the temerity to shout, “Time. Time. Unfair!”
Anger spurted in Rillibee Chime. Highbones had broken his own rules. What right had he to break his own rules?
Highbones did not acknowledge the shouts. After a moment, his followers started after him, Hardflight and Steeplehands in the lead with Long Bridge close behind. Topclinger did not follow. He stood aside, shouting, “You didn’t give him his fair time, Bones. You didn’t give him time.” Rillibee heard it. He heard the shout of approval that greeted it, as well, a dozen voices perhaps. Topclinger had his admirers.
Rillibee also heard Highbones below him, heard the threats, the sniggers designed to make Rillibee nervous, to make him tremble. Instead, the sound only fed his anger, making him move more surely and swiftly upward. There were three more ladders between him and the cloud that was sinking toward him. He had already memorized the ladders and bridges above it. He had seen one thing that would be useful if he decided to try life and several things which would do if he decided to die. Now, spurred by his anger, possessed by a devil of contrariness, part fear, part hate, he lunged upward, hands and feet pulling and thrusting while the howl of the climbers rose from below as the time was up and all of them leapt
