Walk to the End of the World (17 page)
Read Walk to the End of the World Online
Authors: Suzy McKee Charnas
The carry-fems greeted her with murmurs of concern and light pattings over her body and limbs to assure themselves that she had not been injured. Then they sank back into sleep around her. She was grateful for their warmth. The back of her smock was wet through; the night was cool, and a fem who fell sick was likely to be abandoned. But she felt alone among them. Even if she had explained, not one of them would even have begun to comprehend the special unpleasantness of her encounter with the DarkDreamer.
She would simply have to put up with him, and with anything else that came her way during this journey, without help. That was nothing new. Her skills had always set her apart from all but a few of her kind anyway. At least she had a mission to serve by her endurance these days. If she failed, fems who survived the coming holocaust would be broken by their masters to become like these sleeping brutishly around her. There would be no more fems capable of organizing even the most timid and well hidden resistance.
That new pogroms were coming no thinking fem could doubt (though there were many who preferred to deny it). The lammin-failure and a consequently hungry winter made that inevitable. Moreover, the fems of Bayo knew something that the men had not yet realized: the lavers, too, would be coming in thinner than ever this year. The men would cry witchery and turn on the fems, as they always did when things went badly.
This time, certain young fems had sworn to fight back. Cells of young rebels had sprung up everywhere during the past five-year,
possibly triggered by an especially strict weeding-out process in Bayo which had alienated the young fems from their elders.
possibly triggered by an especially strict weeding-out process in Bayo which had alienated the young fems from their elders.
The older fems, the Matris, made a secret culling of each class of young fems due to leave the Bayo kit-pits for training by the men – and by the Matris, whose teaching ran secretly alongside the men’s training. The Matris saw to it that these kits submitted first to the underground authority of their own elders to assure full acceptance of the breaking-techniques of the men. In the past one or two youngsters had responded to the standard, initiatory beating by attacking male trainers. Each time, the reaction of the men had been immediate decimation of the femmish population in Bayo. So for the safety of all, young fems who showed signs of rebelliousness had to be cured of it before they fell into the hands of the Bayo trainers. Those judged incurable were simply killed by the Matris themselves; giving rise to the legend among men of kit fems so wild-natured as to bite open their own veins and bleed to death, rather than be brought up out of the pits for breaking.
Faced with new crop-failures on top of the old, the Matris had grown stricter than ever. They had been savage, hoping to avert the worst of the men’s unavoidable rage by permitting only the most docile young fems to live. One result had been the opposite of their intention: warning had somehow gotten round the pits, and many kits had successfully dissembled their true attitudes. Once dispersed among the labor pools and private fem holds beyond the direct reach of the ruling Matris in Bayo, these youngsters were swearing among themselves that this time there would be no slaughter without a fight. They sang songs of their own, saying that death was better than survival to no other purpose than the production of new generations of fems for a worse oppression than before.
Hearing of this, the Matris had sent out warnings by way of the news-songs, saying that men would be so enraged by even token resistance that they might well kill all fems without realizing the meaning of what they did. And the recalcitrant youngsters – who were now calling themselves The Pledged – had replied: let them.
Alldera herself doubted that the defiance of The Pledged would prove as bold or as far reaching as either side claimed. With many youngsters, taking the pledge was sheer bravado and would not hold up. Yet she found them very appealing. If she hadn’t been a few
years older than most of them, and experienced enough to know that she was neither a joiner nor physically brave enough to be a leader, she might have pledged herself. Instead, she kept track of them with anxious hope, seeing in them a potential organization of active but subtle resistance and dreading that they would sink in a welter of their own blood when the killing began.
years older than most of them, and experienced enough to know that she was neither a joiner nor physically brave enough to be a leader, she might have pledged herself. Instead, she kept track of them with anxious hope, seeing in them a potential organization of active but subtle resistance and dreading that they would sink in a welter of their own blood when the killing began.
So she had agreed to the Matris’ plan.
There was an old tale that in the mountains west of ‘Troi, deep in the heart of the Wild, lived the so-called ‘free ferns’, runaways who had learned to stay alive beyond the borders of the Holdfast. A token message brought from them might persuade the pledged fems to give up their plan of suicidal resistance in favor of simple endurance until armed support could arrive from the free fems. By the time it became apparent that no help was coming (for neither Fossa nor any of the other Matris actually believed in the existence of the free ferns), the men’s rampage would hopefully be spent. The disillusioned young rebels would then have to come to terms with reality and settle down to make the best of their situations in the tradition of their kind.
Alldera didn’t believe in the free fems either. Yet it seemed to her that if any young fems could grow bold enough to dare a concerted and determined break into the Wild under the mistaken impression that they would find allies there, then they themselves might of necessity turn into free fems. That was her hope, though not for herself. Her skills – speed and fluency – were fitted for spying against the masters, rather than for being part of a group that would depend on cooperation and planning to survive in the Wild.
So she had settled for the job of journeying toward the mountains and back again. The news-songs were already carrying hints of her mission to prepare acceptance of the message she would bring back. That it was a false message, made up by the Matris and memorized by Alldera before ever leaving Bayo, was a pity, but necessary. She could hardly count on finding real free fems in the Wild, let alone foresee their reaction to a plea for help. Fems knew if anyone did that having been victimized was no guarantee of courage, generosity, or virtue of any kind.
So she carried with her the hope-inspiring message that she was ostensibly traveling to beg of the legendary free fems. She accepted this dishonesty as she accepted the dangers of accompanying these
men merely because a fem could not travel sizeable distances alone without arousing suspicion. There was a difference between lying and bending her neck for the privilege of continuing to lie and bend her neck, and going through the same motions so that some other fems might not have to do either any more.
men merely because a fem could not travel sizeable distances alone without arousing suspicion. There was a difference between lying and bending her neck for the privilege of continuing to lie and bend her neck, and going through the same motions so that some other fems might not have to do either any more.
The next day, d Layo took charge of the carry-fems and ordered Alldera to ride in the camper with the Endtendant. For himself, he said, he wanted some exercise. If the fem failed to please Eykar, a complaint from him would bring swift discipline.
She climbed inside and squatted down at the foot of the bed, her eyes properly lowered. Outside, the fems heaved the camper up onto their shoulders and began to run with it. Trapped together in the musty interior, the two passengers were silent for a time.
Finally the Endtendant said, ‘Make yourself useful. Tell me about that night at the Scrappers.’
Alldera gaped at him and poked her tongue into the corner of her mouth as though trying her best to concentrate – without great success. If a fem showed herself to be in possession of what a man regarded as his secrets, she invited death in the witch-fires.
‘As the master says,’ she ventured.
‘Servan says I talked in my sleep. It is true?’
‘As the master says.’ She blinked at him.
‘Tell me what I said.’
‘As the master says,’ she quavered, puckering her face as if about to weep in fear and confusion.
‘I see,’ he said, contemptuously. ‘I misjudged you. I thought I detected a glimmer of intelligence. You must be no more than a brute with a memory for others’ words after all.’
Now that she had convinced him, she was tempted to blow it all up. She wanted to tell him what he asked and a lot more, yielding to
the prime fantasy of all speaking fems – that of becoming the one who, by sheer eloquence, drove through the barrier of the men’s guilt and fear.
the prime fantasy of all speaking fems – that of becoming the one who, by sheer eloquence, drove through the barrier of the men’s guilt and fear.
Others’ words? Her own words would blast his cursed bones – or at least it was gratifying to think so. The Matris said that the men already knew that fems were wrongly blamed for the Wasting, but that for men there was no truth but that which served their upraised fists.
Alldera ducked her head. ‘As the master says.’
He stared coldly at her. His dislike was hard as stone.
‘I’ve seen you doing exercises,’ he said. ‘They seem to be for stretching the muscles of the legs.’
‘As the master says.’
‘Spare me that sniveling cant!’ he exploded. ‘Just show me what you know that would work the muscles here.’ He laid his hand gingerly along the side of his injured leg.
‘These are femmish exercises, please you,’ she said, cringing to disguise the fact that she was offering a correction to a master, ‘which this fem hopes she can perform to the master’s satisfaction – ’
‘I want you to teach them to me,’ he snapped. ‘I’m not interested in a performance.’
Alldera had, and knew she had, considerable muscular grace, a side effect of speed-training. The exercises he required could show off her body without leaving her open to a charge of attempted seduction – while helping to accomplish the fact. Judging by d Layo’s remarks the night before, he had put her in here to seduce the Endtendant. To please d Layo seemed the sensible course.
Yet she would have to go carefully. Men like Bek – high strung, tightly controlled, inexperienced in the reality of fems as opposed to Boyhouse nonsense about them – were potentially dangerous to the first fem to break through their defenses. They sometimes went rogue and killed the offending fem or even themselves. Either way the blame was laid at the fem’s door.
How sick she was of this process of endlessly figuring out the subtlest, safest course to take with them! It used up so much time and energy, and to no avail. No matter how carefully you weighed up men’s motives and probable reactions, you ended with the same helpless gamble you’d started with. A man’s whim was law, and knowing this made men capricious.
She channeled the energy of her anger into the exercises, showing him with beauty and smoothness how to stretch, to turn, to bend the legs from the sitting position. Runners had to know how to keep fit even when penned in tight quarters for long periods as punishment or in the line of duty. She made a masterpiece of the routine. That was her defiance.
Slowly and clumsily, he imitated her, keeping himself decently covered with the blanket and the long skirts of the bedshirt that he wore. His prudery was comical at first, but as he sweated and fought to follow, he seemed to forget her, almost, in his absorption with another enemy: his own body. He strove against the stiffness of his muscles with grim concentration, so that she could not help feeling a grudging respect for him. Respect was not something she gave willingly to men. It annoyed her.
As they were about to go through the routine for the third time, there came an outbreak of terrified wailing from the carry-fems outside. The camper lurched forward, its canvas walls flying.
Alldera glimpsed a stranger in Hemaway colors standing over the forward-offside fem who had sunk down, clawing at his knees. He was sawing at her neck with a knife. His hissing breath was audible between her screams.
Then Alldera and the Endtendant were spilled together under a shroud of tangled canvas, rope and poles. They fought to be free of each other; they scrabbled for light and air.
The wreckage was wrenched aside.
‘Look! Raff Maggomas’ son entwined in the arms of a fem!’ exclaimed their discoverer, a high-mantled, round-faced man whose eyes were squeezed nearly shut with mirth at the sight of them. He was speaking to a group of hefty Hemaway Seniors, not one of them more than a couple of years across the age-line. Two Hemaways held the DarkDreamer by the arms, which they had twisted up behind his back. They had taken his knife from him. One of them kept turning to spit blood from his bruised mouth.
Five carry-fems stood huddled around the dead one. They glanced furtively over at Alldera. She lay quite still, hoping by example to keep them steady. They would be pulled down and butchered if they ran. These were strong men, not dodderers, and had already been primed for blood by one femmish death.
At their leader’s orders, three Hemaways hustled the Endtendant
and Alldera to their feet and out of the collapsed camper. Because of his bad leg. Bek had either to lean on Alldera, or to sit on the ground and look up at his captor and at the sun.
and Alldera to their feet and out of the collapsed camper. Because of his bad leg. Bek had either to lean on Alldera, or to sit on the ground and look up at his captor and at the sun.
He clamped his hand on her shoulder, glanced once at the Hemaways as they set about rebuilding the camper, and turned a bitter look on the senior Senior.
‘Senior Bajerman,’ he said, ‘I had hoped to meet you again sooner.’
‘Oh?’ inquired the other, brows arching in mock perplexity. ‘Were you planning to catch up with me by running away from the City where I live?’
‘I meant that I had hoped when I was still at Endpath to meet and serve you there, Senior; though in fact it is by leaving the City that I have found you, isn’t it?’
The Senior sighed and looked him up and down. ‘I remember you more kindly than you remember me, I think. You were less lean and sharp-faced in your Boyhouse days, Eykar, but, I must add, no less arrogant. To grow older without maturing is a dreadful waste.’
D Layo laughed. ‘You should know, Bajerman.’
The bloody-mouthed Hemaway gave d Layo’s arms a wrench. D Layo grinned at him, part pain, part promise.
‘You two young men,’ Senior Bajerman sadly remarked, ‘are a great reproach to me. You never did learn basic consideration for your elders. You’ve been slow – we’ve been waiting for you since dawn.’ He nodded in the direction of the levee, which was pierced at this point by the thick-woven cables of a bridge linking the north and south river-roads. ‘Our boat is down under the bridge. It’s too small, unfortunately, to carry us all but I see you have thoughtfully furnished transport yourselves. We knew you would come by on your way to ’Troi, so we were patient, and here is our reward.
‘You must have guessed, Eykar, that your father’s whereabouts have been known to certain members of the Board for some time. We were hoping that you yourself might be useful in curbing Maggomas’ ambitions. He’s been gathering considerable power about himself in ’Troi, more than seemed to us healthy for the general life of the Holdfast. Your flight from Endpath indicated to us that you were ripe to be used against him, if we could lay our hands on you and point you in the right direction.’
‘And now that you have – laid your hands on me,’ Bek said, with
a curl of his lips, ‘what direction do you have in mind?’
a curl of his lips, ‘what direction do you have in mind?’
‘Oh, we’ll go on to ’Troi,’ the Senior said. ‘There is no place else to go. An army of young madmen is at our heels now. The Juniors of the City, having discovered that there are no great hidden stocks of food and supplies there, have turned toward ’Troi instead, where other hoards are rumored to be hidden away.
‘Their rebellion apparently began with some quarrel in Lammintown between ’Wares and Chesters over a question of unauthorized passengers and lammin-theft. The ‘Wares took the matter to the City for the Board to adjudicate. Some young Chesters followed, were turned away drunk from the dreaming and returned to break into the Boardmen’s Hall and maltreat some of the ’Wares. Two men died. Other companies leaped into the dispute, and yesterday there were riots in the City. By noon, young men were cutting down their elders in the streets.’
‘It’s very gratifying,’ d Layo said, ‘to know that a man’s actions do count for something in this world.’
Senior Bajerman nodded: ‘I thought that tale of a raid on the lammin-stocks and a daring escape by sea might have involved you; it had your touch. But I wouldn’t take credit for setting off a generation-war if I were you; it’s been brewing for a long time. Anything could have ignited these City punks. The lessons of the Wasting have been too lightly remembered lately, and hardly taught to the young. If Juniors don’t understand the meaning of work or discipline or honor any more, why, I suppose we Seniors must bear some of the blame for that.
‘Now there will be a battle of ’Troi, I think, an historic event – which we will attend, hopefully, from a vantage point inside ‘Troi walls. We will arrive bringing word of the approach of the degenerate City rabble, and I’m sure that Raff Maggomas can find proper places for myself and my friends in exchange for that; and for the person of his own natural enemy, Eykar: yourself.’
‘But,’ d Layo said, with exaggerated astonishment, ‘where were the Seniors’ famous Rovers during this upheaval, where were the Rovers’ even more famous officers?’
‘The Rovers proved a great disappointment,’ the Senior admitted. ‘Some of the young men had made distance-weapons – strictly forbidden, of course, but these things are so hard to control. These boyos stationed themselves on the rooftops and picked off the
officers with stones whirled from slings.
officers with stones whirled from slings.
‘After that, it was not too difficult for them to lure the uncommanded Rovers into the alleys where barricades were thrown up to pen them in, and they were harrassed and bombarded from the rooftops until they went rogue and turned on one another. Of course, the caliber of the younger officers wasn’t all it should have been; it’s been declining lately with the caliber of all young men. I’ve come to regret having sent Captain Kelmz with you, Servan.
‘And I must say I am shocked at the way you treated him — to throw him aside like a worn-out shoe! A shocking end for a prominent man, to be struck down in the course of some obscure, illicit brawl when all decent men of the City were dreaming!’ Kindly, he added, ‘Yet I can see that Eykar feels his loss, and misses, no doubt, Kelmz’ courage, his experience, perhaps even his close friendship in spite of the disparity in ages? I’ll do what I can to take his place.’
‘You?’ Bek said, and he uttered a raw bark of laughter.
‘Do you scorn my good will, Eykar?’ murmured the Senior. ‘I could leave you to the mob, remember. You served the Board at Endpath for six years. I doubt those degenerate City cubs will look kindly on that career, so many of them having lost friends and lovers to the Rock.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Bek said, flatly. ‘You’ll take me to ’Troi because that’s where I’m going, with or without your aid. Do you think it matters whether I arrive there walking, crawling, or dragged by an enemy?’
Senior Bajerman gazed earnestly at the bright sky, assuming an expression of pink-cheeked magnanimity.
‘I was once fond of you, Eykar. I thought you had great promise. For the sake of our past closeness, I’ll put these ravings down to the effects of your wound. As for this DarkDreamer, I think I have a place for him quite close to me, for which he should be grateful. He needs lessons in behavior as badly as you do, since what was taught to you both in the Boyhouse evidently didn’t take. You should count yourself fortunate in finding a qualified Teacher to help you correct your errors. We’ll hold class in the camper for you two as we travel.
‘As for this fem of yours, Eykar —’
‘She’s not mine.’
‘Whichever of you two she belonged to,’ the Senior said, ‘it’s a good thing that someone thought to bring her along. She can take
the place of the carry-fem that my friend Arik killed. These over-trained personal fems are going to have to get used to honest work in the future. The City lads included fems in their rampage, apparently incensed by reports of fems actually attacking men. Only idiot boys would credit such tales, of course, but you know how rumors like that get about whenever there is any unrest. When the dust of this chaos clears, fems will be in short supply. So I must thank you young men, I suppose, for your forethought in providing me not only with your charming and invaluable selves, but with a useful bit of property besides.’
the place of the carry-fem that my friend Arik killed. These over-trained personal fems are going to have to get used to honest work in the future. The City lads included fems in their rampage, apparently incensed by reports of fems actually attacking men. Only idiot boys would credit such tales, of course, but you know how rumors like that get about whenever there is any unrest. When the dust of this chaos clears, fems will be in short supply. So I must thank you young men, I suppose, for your forethought in providing me not only with your charming and invaluable selves, but with a useful bit of property besides.’
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