‘Endest Silann is at the deep river.’
‘Hardly alone, I should think.’’He must return.’
She was silent for a moment, head cocked. Then she said, ‘Ten bells have sounded.’
‘Ten.’
‘I shall be on my way, then.’
‘Fly true, Crone.’
‘I pray you tell your beloved the same, Master, when the time is nigh.’ He smiled. ‘There is no need for that.’Who are you to judge whether she is old or young, and if she is lifting the bucket or lowering it down into this well? And is she pretty or plain as undyed linen, is she a sail riding the summer wind bright as a maiden’s eye above waves of blue? Does her walk sway in pleasure and promise of bracing dreams as if the earth could sing fertile as joyous butterflies in a flowered field, or has this saddle stretched slack in cascades of ripe fruit and rides no more through blossomed orchards? Who then are you to cage in presumptuous iron the very mystery that calls us to life where hovers the brimming bucket, ever poised between dark depths and choral sunlight-she is beauty and this too is a criminal exhortation, and nothing worthwhile is to be found in your regard that does little more than stretch this frayed rope-so shame! Dismissal delivers vicious wounds and she walks away or walks to with inner cringing. Dare not speak of fairness, dare not indulge cruel judgement when here I sit watching and all the calculations between blinks invite the multitude to heavy scorn and see that dwindling sail passing for ever beyond you as is her privilege there on the sea of flowers all sweet fragrance swirling in her wake-it will never ever reach you-and this is balance, this is measure, this is the observance of strangers who hide their tears when turning away.
Young Men Against a Wall Nekath of Onl Eye CatNo purer artist exists or has ever existed than a child freed to imagine. This scattering of sticks in the dust, that any adult might kick through without a moment’s thought, is in truth the bones of a vast world, clothed, fleshed, a fortress, a forest, a great wall against which terrible hordes surge and are thrown back by a handful of grim heroes. A nest for dragons, and these shiny smooth pebbles are their eggs, each one home to a furious, glorious future. No creation was ever raised as fulfilled, as brimming, as joyously triumphant, and all the machinations and manipulations of adults are the ghostly recollections of childhood and its wonders, the awkward mating to cogent function, reasonable purpose; and each facade has a tale to recount, a legend to behold in stylized propriety. Statues in alcoves fix sombre expressions, indifferent to every passer-by. Regimentation rules these creaking, stiff minds so settled in habit and fear.
To drive children into labour is to slaughter artists, to scour deathly all wonder, the flickering dart of imagination eager as finches flitting from branch to branch-all crushed to serve grown-up needs and heartless expectations. The adult who demands such a thing is dead inside, devoid of nostalgia’s bright dancing colours, so smooth, so delicious, so replete with longing both sweet and bitter-dead inside, yes, and dead outside, too. Corpses in motion, cold with the resentment the undead bear towards all things still alive, all things still warm, still breathing.
Pity these ones? Nay, never, never so long as they drive on hordes of children into grisly labour, then sup languid of air upon the myriad rewards.
Dare this round self descend into hard judgement? This round self does dare! A world built of a handful of sticks can start tears in the eyes, as the artist on hands and knees sings a score of wordless songs, speaks in a hundred voices, and moves unseen figures across the vast panorama of the mind’s canvas (pausing but once to wipe nose on sleeve). He does so dare this! And would hasten the demise of such cruel abuse.
Even a serpent has grandiose designs, yet must slither in minute increments, struggling for distances a giant or god would scorn. Tongue flicking for the scent, this way and that. Salvation is the succulent fruit at hunt’s end, the sun-warmed bird’s egg, the soft cuddly rat trapped in the jaws.
So searches the serpent, friend to the righteous. So slides the eel through the world’s stirred muck, whiskers a-probing. Soon, one hopes, soon!
Young Harllo was not thinking of justice, nor of righteous freedom, nor was he idly fashioning glittering worlds from the glistening veins of raw iron, or the flecks of gold in the midst of cold, sharp quartzite. He had no time to kneel in some over-grown city garden building tiny forts and reed bridges over run-off tracks left by yesterday’s downpour. No, for Harllo childhood was over. Aged six.
At this moment, then, he was lying on a shelf of hard, black stone, devoured by darkness. He could barely hear the workers far above, although rocks bouncedtheir way clown the crevasse every now and then, echoing with harsh harks from the floor far below.
The last time here he had dangled from a rope, and there had been no careless ram of stones-any one of which could crush his skull. And on his descent hack then, his outstretched arms had encountered no walls, leading him to believe the crevasse was vast, opening out perhaps into a cavern. This time, of course, there was no rope-Harllo should not even be here and would probably be switched once he was found out.
Bainisk had sent him back to Chuffs at shift’s end. And that was where he ought now to be, hurriedly devouring his bowl of watery soup and husk of black bread, before stumbling off to his cot. Instead, he was climbing down this wall, without light to ensure that he would not be discovered by those working above.
Not a cavern after all. Instead, a pocked, sheer cliff-face-and those gaping holes were all oddly regular, rectangular, although not until Harllo reached this balcony ledge did he comprehend that he was climbing down the face of some buried building. He wanted to slip into one of these windows and explore, but he had promised to deliver splints to the Bone Miner below, and that was what he would do.
Careful questioning had led him to a definition of “splints”, but he could not find sticks suitable for the purpose of fixing the Miner’s shattered legs. Either too feeble and small, or not straight enough; and besides, all the wood brought to the camp was too well guarded. Instead, he had gone to the tailings heaps, where all manner of garbage was thrown. Eyed suspiciously by the old women who’d sold children and grandchildren to the mine yet found they could not sever their ties-thus dooming themselves to this fringe-world at camp’s edge-Harllo had picked through the rubbish.
Often, and especially from the run-off tunnels pumped through layers of sandstone, miners would find piles of bones from long dead creatures. Bones heavy and solid and almost impossible to break. Skulls and the like were sold to collectors-scholars with squinty eyes and too much coin and time for their own good. The pieces already fractured off, broken up and forming a kind of gravel, went to the herbalists for their gardens and the mock-healers for potions and pastes-or so Bainisk called them, mock-healers, with a sneer-ground-up bone’s good only for constipation! This left the oversized long bones-which for some reason were believed to be cursed.
Out on the heaps he found two that seemed to have been from the same kind of beast. After some examination and comparison, he confirmed that he had a right one and a left one. They were heavy, thick and ridged, and he hoped they would do.
Between shifts at the main tunnel there was a half-bell when no one was under rock, and Harllo, sweating beneath the weight of the bones, hurriedly carried them in; then, finding an abandoned side-passage, he stashed them along with some lengths of rope and leather laces. That had been before his shift, and now here he was, trying to do what he had promised.
Those long leg bones were strapped to his back. His neck and shoulders wereraw from the ropes and more than once he had thought the swinging of the heavy hones would tug him away from the wall, but he had held on, this far at least. Ami now, lying on this balcony ledge, Harllo rested.
If someone went looking for him and didn’t find him, an alarm would be raised. Always two possibilities when someone went missing. Flight, or lost in the tunnels. Searches would set out in both directions, and some old woman would say how she saw him at the heaps, collecting bones and who knew what else. Then someone else would recall seeing Harllo carrying something back to the main tunnel mouth in between shifts-and Venaz would say that Harllo was clearly up to something, since he never came back for his meal. Something against the rules! Which would put Bainisk in a bad situation, since Bainisk had favoured him more than once. Oh, this was all a mistake!
Groaning, he slipped over the edge, cautious with his handholds, and resumed his journey down.
And, not two man-heights down from the balcony, his groping feet found another ledge, followed immediately by another-a staircase, angling steeply down the wall. One hand maintaining contact with the seamless stone, Harllo worked his way down, step by step.
He did not recall noticing any of this his first time down here. Of course, the candlelight had been feeble-which made easier catching the glitter of gold and the like-and he had gone straight back to the rope. And hadn’t his mind been awhirl? A talking Imass! Down here for maybe hundreds of years-with no one to talk to and nothing to look at,
