‘But was it able to free your car from the tree?’
‘Yes, finally, though it took its time and it made a terrible mess of things. It shredded the car’s mainsail, broke the mast and cut away half the tree.’
‘And what of Ziller’s pipe?’
‘Bitten in half. Hub repaired it for him.’
‘Ah. I was wondering if I might have made him a present of a replacement.’
‘I’m not sure he’d take it in the spirit it was meant, Quil. Especially as it’s something he would be putting in his mouth.’
‘You suspect he might think I was trying to poison him?’
‘It might occur to him.’
‘I see. I still have a way to go, don’t I?’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘And how much further do we have to go here, on our walk?’
‘Another three or four kilometres.’ Kabe looked up at the sun. ‘We should be there nicely in time for lunch.’
Kabe and Quilan were walking along the cliff tops of the Vilster Peninsula on Fzan Plate. To their right, thirty metres below, Fzan Ocean beat against the rocks. The haze horizon swam with scattered islands. Closer in, a few sailboats and larger craft cut through the spreading patterns of the waves.
A cool wind came off the sea. It whipped Kabe’s coat about his legs and Quilan’s robes snapped and fluttered about him as he led the way along the narrow path though the tall grass. To their left the ground sloped away to deep grassland and then a forest of tall cloudtrees. Ahead, the land rose to a modest headland and a ridge heading inland notched with a cleft for one branch of the path they were on. They were taking the more strenuous and exposed route along the cliff top.
Quilan turned his head to look down towards the waves falling against tumbled rocks at the cliff’s base. The smell of brine was the same here.
Remembering again. Quil?
Yes.
You’re close to the edge. Mind you don’t fall.
-~ I will.
Snow was falling in the courtyard of the monastery of Cadracet, sinking gently from a silent grey sky. Quilan had brought up the rear of the firewood foraging detail, preferring to walk in solitude and silence as the others trudged up the trail ahead. The other monks had all gone inside to the warmth of the great hall’s hearth by the time he closed the postern door behind him, scuffed through the light covering of snow on the courtyard’s stones and dumped his basket of wood with the rest under the gallery.
He dallied a moment, soaking up the fresh, clean smell of the wood – he remembered a time when they’d taken a hunting cabin in the Loustrian Hills, just the two of them. The axe that came with the cabin was blunt; he’d sharpened it with a stone, hoping to impress her with his handiness, but then when he’d come to swing it at the first piece of wood the head had sailed off and disappeared into the trees. He could still exactly recall her laughter, and then, when he must have looked hurt, her kiss.
They had slept under furs on a platform of moss. He remem- bered one cold morning when the fire had gone out overnight and it was freezingly cold in the cabin and they had coupled, him straddling her, his teeth nipped gently in the fur at the nape of her neck, moving slowly over and in her, watching the smoke of her breath as it billowed in the sunlight and rolled out across the room to the window, where it froze in curving, recursive motifs; a coalescence of pattern out of chaos.
He shivered, blinking away cold tears.
When he turned away he saw the figure standing in the centre of the courtyard, looking at him.
It was a female, dressed in a cloak falling half-open over an Army uniform. The snow fell between them in soundless spirals. He blinked. Just for an instant… He shook his head, brushed his hands together and walked out to her, putting up the hood of his griefling robe.
He realised as he made those few steps that he hadn’t even seen a female in the flesh for half a year.
She did not look like Worosei at all; she was taller, her fur was darker and her eyes looked more narrowed and wizened. He guessed she was ten or so years older than him. The pips on her cap identified her as a colonel.
‘Can I help you, ma’am?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Major Quilan,’ she said in a precise, controlled voice. ‘Perhaps you can. Fronipel brought them both goblets of mulled wine. His office was about twice the size of Quilan’s cell, and cluttered with papers, screens and the ancient fraying string frames which were the holy books of the order. There was just enough room for the three of them to sit.
Colonel Ghejaline warmed her hands round the goblet. Her cap lay on the desk at her side, her cloak across the seat back. They had exchanged a few pleasantries about her journey up the old road by mount and her role during the war in charge of a space artillery section.
Fronipel settled himself slowly into his second-best curl-chair – the best had been given to the Colonel – and said, ‘I asked Colonel Ghejaline to come here, Major. She is familiar with your background and history. I believe she has a proposal for you.’
The Colonel looked as though she would have been happy to have spent rather more time approaching the reason for her visit, but gave a shrug of good grace and said, ‘Yes, Major. There is something you might be able to do for us.’
Quilan looked at Fronipel, who was smiling at him. ‘Who would the “us” here be, Colonel?’ he asked her. ‘The Army?’
The Colonel frowned. ‘Not really. The Army is involved, but this would not strictly speaking be a military assignment. It would be more like the one you and your wife undertook on Aorme, though even further afield and on a quite different level of security and importance. The “us” I refer to would be all Chelgrians, but especially those whose souls are currently held in limbo.’
Quilan sat back in his seat. ‘And what would I be expected to do?’
‘I can’t tell you exactly yet. I am here to find out if you will even consider undertaking the mission.~
‘But if I don’t know what it is…’
‘Major Quilan,’ the Colonel said, taking a small sip of her steaming wine and then – after a minimal nod to Fronipel to acknowledge the drink – putting the goblet down on the desk, ‘I’ll tell you all I can.’ She drew herself up a little straighter in the seat. ‘The task we would ask you to undertake is one that is very important indeed. That is almost all I know about that aspect of it. I do know a little more but I’m not allowed to talk about it. The mission would require that you undergo a considerable amount of training. Again, I can’t say much more about that. The clearance for the mission comes from the top of our society.’ She took a breath. ‘And the reason that it doesn’t matter too much at this stage exactly what it is you are being asked to do is that in one sense what’s being asked of you is as bad as it gets.’ She looked into his eyes. ‘This is a suicide mission, Major Quilan.’
He had forgotten the sheer pleasure of staring into a female’s eyes, even if she was not Worosei, and even if that pleasure, like some emotional internalisation of physical law, created an equal and opposite feeling of grief and loss and even guilt. He gave a small, sad smile. ‘Oh, in that case, Colonel,’ he said, ‘I’ll definitely do it.’
‘Quil?’
‘Hmm?’ He turned to face the tall, triangular bulk of the Homomdan, who had bumped into him.
‘Are you all right? You stopped very suddenly there. Did you see something?’
‘Nothing. No, I’m fine. I just … I’m fine. Come on. I’m hungry.’
They walked on.
I just recalled. The Lady Colonel told me this is a one-way mission.
Ah. yes, there is that.
It is all coming back, isn’t it?
Unlike us, yes. That’s the way they’ve arranged it. That’s what we both agreed to. It seems to have worked so far.
-~ You knew, too, then. -~ Yes. That was part of Visquile’s briefing.
Which is why they kept you backed-up in that substrate.
Which is why they kept me backed-up in that substrate.
Well. I can’t wait for the next instalment.
He reached the summit of the cliff path and saw the town; a scimitar of white towers and spires lying cradled in a bowl of wooded valley bordered by rising chalk cliffs, its bay protected from the sea by a spit of sand. Waves beat whitely on the strand. The Homomdan joined him, standing massively at his side and all but blocking out the wind. There was a hint of rain in the air.