BURNING ROCK, ABARRACH
HOW CAN I WRITE AN ACCOUNT OF THIS TERRIBLE TRAGEDY? HOW CAN I make sense of it, record it in some coherent manner? And yet I must. I promised Edmund his father’s heroism would be set down for all to remember. Yet my hand shakes so that I can barely hold the pen. Not with cold. The tunnel is warm, now. And to think we welcomed the warmth! My trembling is a reaction to my recent experiences. I must concentrate.
Edmund. I will do this for Edmund.
I lift my eyes from my work and see him sitting across from me, sitting alone, as befits one in mourning. The people have made the ritual gestures of sympathy. They would have given him the customary mourning gift—food, all they have left of value—but their prince (now their king, although he refuses to accept the crown until after the resurrection) forbade it. I composed the body’s stiffening limbs and performed the preserving rites. We will carry it with us, of course.
Edmund, in his grief, begged me to give the king the final rites at this time, but I reminded the prince sternly that these rites can be done only after three complete cycles have elapsed. To do so any earlier would be far too dangerous. Our code forbids it for that very reason.
Edmund did not pursue the subject. The fact that he even could consider such an aberration was undoubtedly a result of his dazed confusion and pain. I wish he would sleep. Perhaps he will, now that everyone has left him alone. Although, if he is like me, every time he doses his eyes he will see that awful head rearing up out of the …
I look back over what I have written and it occurs to me that I have begun at the end, instead of the beginning. I consider destroying this page and starting again, but my parchment pages are few, too precious to waste. Besides, this is not a tale I am recounting pleasurably over glasses of chilled parfruit wine. And yet, now that I think of it, this might well be an after-dinner type of tale, for tragedy struck us—as so often happens to those in the stories—just when hope shone brightest.
The last two cycles’ journeying had been easy, one might almost call them blissful. We came across a stream of fresh water, the first we’d found in the tunnels. Not only were we able to drink our fill and replenish our dwindling water supply, but we discovered fish swimming in the swift current.
Hastily we rigged nets, making them out of anything that came to hand—a woman’s shawl, a baby’s tattered blanket, a man’s worn shirt. Adults stood along the banks, holding the nets that were stretched out from one side to the other. The people were going about their task with a grim earnestness until Edmund, who was leading the fishing party, slipped on a rock and, arms waving wildly, tumbled into the water with a tremendous splash.
We could not tell how deep the stream was, our only source of fight being the kairn-grass torches. The people cried out in alarm, several soldiers started to jump to his rescue. Edmund clambered to his feet. The water came only to his shins. Looking foolish, he began to laugh heartily at himself.
Then I heard our people laugh for the first time in many cycles.
Edmund heard them, too. He was dripping wet, yet I am convinced that the drops falling down his cheeks did not come from the stream, but bore the salty flavor of tears. Nor will I ever believe that Edmund, a sure-footed hunter, could have fallen from that bank by accident.
The prince reached out his hand to a friend, a son of one of the council members. The friend, trying to pull Edmund out, slipped on the wet shoreline. Both of them went over backward. The laughter increased, and then everyone was jumping or pretending to fall into the water. What had been a grim task turned into joyous play.
We did manage to catch some fish, eventually. We had a grand feast, that cycle’s end, and everyone slept soundly, hunger assuaged and hearts gladdened. We spent an extra cycle’s time near the stream; no one wanted to leave a place so blessed by laughter and good feelings. We caught more fish, salted them down, and took them with us to supplement our supplies.