'All the time, without even trying. It's a way of life with them, like being able to see or hear. They don't think anything of it.'

  'No wonder they wipe the floor with our lot, then,' the other man said. 'Just think of it, an army of soldiers who know exactly what they're supposed to be doing without having to be told. Is that how it is?'

  'Exactly.' He yawned; it was warm, and he was feeling drowsy. 'No disagreements, either; there's no one man giving orders, the whole lot of 'em decide what to do, and then they do it. There's nothing else special about them, though. They're just a bunch of farmers the rest of the year.'

  'Remarkable,' the other man said. 'You know, that must be a wonderful thing, to be linked so intimately to so many people. I'd love to be able to do that. If I'd have been you, I don't think I'd have left there.'

  He laughed. 'Oh, I had my reasons,' he said. 'Truth is, I made myself a bit unpopular, and it seemed like it was time to be on my way.'

  'Ah.' The other man didn't press for further details. 'So, do you think you'll ever go back there? On the one hand, I don't suppose you're in a hurry to get back to the farm and dig turnips. On the other hand, being so close to the rest of them, I don't see how you could give that up, once you'd got used to it.'

  'Oh, I'll go back again some day,' he replied, 'once things have calmed down a bit. I left there once before, when I was still just a kid—things hadn't worked out very well, one way and another. Then I went back, a year or so ago, and everything was fine for a while until someone let me down badly and I had to do something about it. Well, that was a pity, because it meant I had to clear out again; but it'll all blow over sooner or later. They're a very forgiving people.'

  'I suppose it's hard to bear a grudge when you can see what's in the other man's mind,' his companion said. 'I really would like to go there one day, it sounds absolutely fascinating.'

  At the far end of the path, the gates were opening, though he couldn't see who was coming through. 'It's all right, I suppose,' he said, 'if you like the quiet life. Nothing much ever happens, but that's the whole point of the place, really.' He laughed abruptly. 'You know, if all the generals and elder statesmen in Torcea could go there and actually see these people they're so terrified of, they'd never believe it. This whole empire, scared stiff of a bunch of farmers. There isn't enough gold in the whole country to make up a year's wages for a palace clerk.'

  Behind him the sun was setting, and the fiery red light glowed in the streams gushing down from the fountain. It put him in mind of a mountain far away; and that made him think of another pool, circled round with ferns and tall grass, where he'd first seen his face, on the day he stood up out of the river. He wondered about that; but the logical conclusion was disturbing, so he thought about something else instead. 'Well,' he said, 'tomorrow's the big day. Are you feeling nervous?'

  'Me?' The other man laughed. 'Well, yes and no. After all, it's not as though it actually means anything, we both know that. But standing up in front of all those thousands of people, and trying not to make a bog of the ceremony, that sort of thing—I don't think I'd be human if I wasn't a bit nervous. So, yes.'

  'I'm not,' he replied. 'It's just a theatrical performance, after all, and I've had a bit of experience in that line myself. Of course, I wasn't playing at being a king or an emperor, and the audience was rather smaller, too. But I should imagine the principle's the same.'

  The sunset was closing in, and it was starting to get cold.

  He stood up. 'Come on,' he said, 'we might as well go inside. Neither of us is going to do any good if we're sneezing and snuffling all through the ceremony.'

  'True,' said the other man. 'Look, do you mind if I ask you a question?'

  'Fire away.'

  'If you had your time over again,' the other man said, 'would you do things differently?'

  He smiled. The fountain was a bubbling cauldron of red-hot lava, and it was all his doing. 'First, yes, I will. And second, no, I won't. All right?'

  'Fine,' said the other man. 'I was just asking, that was all. No offence, by the way.'

  'None taken,' he replied. 'After all, when I haven't done anything wrong, what's there to be offended by?'

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  They walked back over the mountain to Poldarn's Forge. Two crows followed them all the way. By the time they got their first view of the house, Poldarn knew he'd lost the ability to see the others' thoughts. He'd hardly noticed it coming or going, and he was left with the conclusion that it was no big deal. Most of what he'd seen on the night of the burning was the sort of thing he'd have been able to guess quite easily anyway—I'm cold, I'm scared, I don't like what we're doing, maybe this wasn't such a good idea—and none of it was important. In a way, he felt cheated because gaining and losing the knack had both been such an anticlimax; it had come and gone and he'd hardly noticed, being preoccupied with other concerns.

  They reached home in the middle of the afternoon, and the rest of them went straight back to work, pausing only to dump their knapsacks and change their boots. Poldarn sat down on the porch and sat for a while, staring at the sky over the mountain, but that wasn't really achieving anything; so he hauled himself up out of the chair and crossed the yard to the forge.

  Asburn had already laid in the fire; he had a long double-edged spearhead in the coals, which Poldarn couldn't remember having seen in the scrap, so he asked where it had come from.

  'Oh, I picked it up at Ciartanstead,' Asburn replied, his gaze fixed on his work. 'I saw it there when I went over to their forge for charcoal, and I knew we needed something to make a long-handled bean-hook out of. So I brought it on.'

  Poldarn shrugged. 'Good idea,' he said. 'What else needs doing? I'm at a loose end.'

  Asburn pulled out the steel, but it was only just starting to blush, so he put it back. 'Well,' he said, 'we're pretty much up to date, really. Saying that, it wouldn't hurt to draw down some more wire. Or there's always nails.'

  'Fine,' Poldarn replied. 'I'll make some nails, then.'

  He made a show of prowling round the workshop floor looking for splinters and offcuts that couldn't be used for anything else, but he wasn't in the mood for nail-making. Instead, he leaned up against the west wall and watched Asburn as he pulled out the orange-hot spearhead with the inside tongs, laid it over the anvil beak and started bending it round with a succession of quick, hard blows from the four-pound sledge. Once he'd got the curve he wanted, he slapped it down on the face and straightened out the crinkles and twists with six mighty smacks, then nudged it back under the coals and hauled on the bellows handle until the fire began to flare. He took another good heat, waiting till the metal was bright orange, almost ready to burn; then he thickened the convex edge into a spine by slamming it against the anvil face, stopping every now and then to straighten and square it with deft nips from the hammer. The whole job only took him five heats; then one more to get the whole thing up to cherry red (patience and diligence, passing the curved blade to and fro through the fire, turning it over to spread the heat evenly) before dumping it into the slack tub. The thin oil caught fire, but he put out the flames by dunking the hook an inch deeper; then he held it still until the oil had stopped bubbling, pulled it out and laid it on the anvil to cool. Under the broken skin of burnt oil the blade was a dull slate-grey, a sure sign that it had hardened properly. Asburn took a few moments to rake up the fire and damp down the backplate with a splash of water from the ladle; then, gripping the socket of the hook with the tongs and supporting the spine on the head of the hammer, he held it up to the light to see if it had warped. The expression on his face suggested that it hadn't. He nodded to himself, put the hook down again, and took down a coarse grey stone from a rack on the wall.

  (So that was that, Poldarn said to himself; from an abandoned weapon to a useful farm tool in six heats—seven, to include the tempering. Once he'd done that, drawn out the brittle hardness and left it springy and tough, it'd be a hook. Anybody looking at it would assume it had always been a hook, there was nothing to show that it had once been a spear. It had been purged of its old memory and supplied with a new one. There was no risk that it would ever remember its old life and suddenly uncurl back into a spear, like a shoot standing up out of the earth in spring, and there was no reason to suppose it would be likely to suffer from unpleasant dreams.)

  'Sorry,' Asburn said, noticing him, 'did you want to get to the fire?'

  'Thanks.' Poldarn gripped his silly little shaving of iron in the small tongs and snuggled it into the coals, while Asburn ground off the scale and burnt oil from his hook. 'Just the job, that spear,' he said, 'as it turned out.'

  Asburn nodded. 'Nice bit of hardening steel,' he said. 'It'd have been a pity to waste it.'

  How true, Poldarn thought. His scrap took no time at all to heat up, and he transferred it to the other anvil and started to draw it into a taper. Almost at once the wedge flew out of his hammer. He swore and looked round for it, but it could have been anywhere. 'Might as well make a new one,' he grumbled. 'Quicker in the long run.'

  He found a piece of thick iron strap in the trash and drew it down in two heats into a fan; then he closed in the sides and cut it off with the hot sett. It wasn't much to look at, but it was what he needed, and it went in smoothly enough. He rapped the bottom of the handle sharply on the anvil to settle the head, and dunked the hammer in the water tank to swell. It'd have to stay there overnight before it was fit to use, so at least he wouldn't have to make any nails that day.

  He managed to get an hour or two of sleep that night, which left him wide awake in the early hours of the morning, at the time of day when even small worries cast long shadows. He lay in the dark, staring at the shadow where the roof ought to be, and wondered what it would feel like to be a bean-hook that suddenly woke up remembering what it had been like to be a spear. It was a ridiculous notion, not the sort of thing you could contemplate without grinning at any other time of day, but it clamoured for his attention like an obstreperous child, and wouldn't go away until he played with it. What would it be like to be a farmer who suddenly realised that he'd once been a soldier, a leader of armies, a deviser of strategies, figuring out the best way to achieve an objective through the use of violent force? An academic question if ever there was one, but interesting, as a case study in human temperament.

  As he lay there, he felt the stuffed-straw mattress under his back soften into the churned mud beside the Bohec; and somewhere nearby, two people were talking.

  You again, said one voice. How many times have I got to tell you, we don't want you here.

  We, the other voice repeated, that's a new one. Since when have you been we? Oh, I forgot, you're married. You're in love. Two hearts, one mind, one flesh. Excuse me while I do the figures; is this the third time, or the fourth?

  It's the last time, the first voice said firmly. This is the time that matters. She's having my baby, and we're going to stay here and grow old together. And three's a crowd. Go away.

  Sure, replied the other voice, that's what you always say, there's a definite pattern to it. Every time, before you snap out of it and come back to me, you find some girl, father a kid, it's some kind of gesture you feel the need to make so I'll know you don't need me. Then you realise that you do need me after all, and off we go together. Actually, I'm glad. I'm patient, but not that patient. It's about time.

  You just don't listen, the first voice said angrily. You're out of the picture, you don't exist any more, you're buried and cremated and gone. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better for both of us.

  The other voice laughed; a cold, patronising laugh that made Poldarn shiver. That's what you always say, it said, around about this stage in the proceedings. I love it when you're predictable.

  The first voice tried to object, but the second voice overrode it. Imagine what it'd be like, the second voice said, if you were a farmer who woke up and remembered he'd once been a soldier, a master of a free company. Think how you'd feel, bending down to prod cabbage plants into the dirt, knowing that once upon a time, all you had to do was say the word and cities would burn. Think of the shame—

  Exactly, the first voice put in. Shame, guilt—

  I didn't mean it like that, said the other voice calmly. You know perfectly well what I meant. I'm talking about the shame you'd feel at how low you'd fallen, how little and pathetic and grubby you'd become—it could break your heart, knowing that. But we don't have to do it that way. All you've got to do is come with me, and it can be smooth and easy and enjoyable—

  Never, the first voice said. That's where you completely fail to understand me, because deep down, we're totally opposite, no common ground between us whatsoever. Which is why I pushed you out of my life, and why I won't ever let you back. What's so difficult to understand about that?

  It's a lie, the other voice said simply. It's not true. So there's nothing to understand. It's just you playing hard to get, as usual. Or are you trying to pretend you don't remember us having exactly this conversation about ten years ago, in Mael? Or five years before that, in Deymeson?

  Of course I don't remember, the first voice said. Obviously. That wasn't me back then, it was you. Really, what kind of an idiot do you take me for?

  It's the other way round, the second voice replied, as if explaining something simple to a backwards child. You're trying to make me believe something that's patently untrue. I could take offence at that, if I didn't love you so much.

  You don't love me. You never loved anybody.

  That's a lie. The second voice flared into anger, then slipped easily back into its quiet, superior tone. Don't be ridiculous, of course I love you. For pity's sake, just look at the things I've done for you. I've burned cities to the ground, churned up a whole empire, killed thousands of people. You can try and bury my love, but that just makes things worse; you can pile a whole mountain on top of it, and it'll still burst through and come streaming down the mountainside in fire. I've moved heaven and earth for you, literally, so don't you ever say I don't love you. And I'll tell you another thing, the voice went on, quieter and more urgent; if you care a damn about that woman of yours, or about any of these people, you won't let them come between us. You know what happens to people who come between us. If you're capable of any kind of affection—well, I won't spell it out, you're not that dense. But you need to think about stuff like that before you go plunging into things. You've got obligations, you ought to remember that.

  I hate you, the first voice said.

  Really? The second voice sounded insufferably amused. That's something else you always say, just before we get back together again. Come on, don't be a pain. Give in easily for a change, it'll be better for everybody, you'll see. All you've got to do is close your eyes.

  I don't care what you do, the first voice said, you do what the hell you like, because it'll be your fault, not mine. This time I really mean it. We're finished. I'm going to stay here, even if you turn the whole place into a desert.

  I can do that, the second voice said pleasantly. You've seen how I can do that: all I've got to do is push a little harder, and the next time you won't be able to deflect me so easily. Oh, for crying out loud, you don't think you did that? You don't honestly believe you pushed me aside, do you? You didn't push me, I got out of the way, to please you—and because I could see where it'd lead, of course, where you'd have me believe you couldn't. You know me, I'm the dog you throw sticks for. You tell me to go right instead of left, I can do that, for sure. You tell me to make a loud noise so the bad guys will look the other way, I'll do that too. And when you ask me to come and huff and puff and burn a little house down, that's not a problem, I come running—and exactly on time, I hope you noticed, I was in position to the minute. I hope you noticed that.

  I was busy, the other voice whispered. I didn't see.

  No? Pity. Never mind, I held up my side of the bargain. Now you're obligated. And don't pretend you didn't know—you knew perfectly well, the moment you started it all.

  I didn't start it, the first voice said, almost pleading.

  The hell you didn't. Let's see, where exactly did it all start? Was it when you cut that man's throat, out by the washing pool? Or when you diverted the fire-stream, or when you hid the beef barrel, or when you took in your killer waif off the mountainside? Or was it earlier than that, even—you know, I lose track sometimes, you're so busy when you're on your own, always getting up to mischief. That's why you need me, to keep you on the straight and narrow, not dissipating your energy on silly little jobs. Anyway, it was definitely you, each and every step of the way. It could only have been you, because of course I wasn't there. I've got the perfect alibi, you see. I wasn't there, because you turned me away, told me to get lost. You do understand that, don't you? Because it's absolutely crucial. You can't blame me for anything, because it was all you.

  All right! the first voice shouted. It was me, it was me. But it's all your fault, because you made me like this. Even without you, I still do these horrible things. That's why I can never go back to you. Because if I do, it'll be worse—

  No. There was a smile in the second voice, an audible grin of triumph. The only difference between what you do on your own and what you did when we were together is that your solo efforts are meaningless, they don't achieve anything, they're just random chaos and destruction. All right, when we're together we do the same sort of stuff, but just think for a moment about what we've achieved. That's the difference. You know, the voice went on, you seem to believe that I'm the bad side and you're the good side; but that's horseshit, it's the other way around. You and I together, we were getting somewhere. On your own, you're just a fox running through a cornfield with a burning switch tied to its tail. Besides, by any standards, what you do on your own is worse. It doesn't mean anything. It's just blind malevolence, like the volcano.

  There was a long silence. Then the first voice said, No. All right, so maybe some of what you're saying is true. But that doesn't change anything, it really doesn't matter. I don't care if I'm as evil as you are, or worse, even. I don't care if I'm the devil incarnate and you're an angel. I hate you, and I'm never going back. Not ever—

 

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