“What are you going to do,” they said. “What are you going to do?”
“You brought it all down on yourself,” said his own brother, covered in blue bruises. “Are you Mandella enough to hold it?”
“You were responsible,” said his mother.
“You still are responsible,” said his father, failure, exile, coward.
“If only I hadn’t run out of tricks!” said Ed Gallacelli, resurrected from ashes, his tongue glowing like embers.
“Stop stop stop stop!” cried Rael Mandella Jr. “Stop the dream! I want to wake up!”
And he did wake up and found himself alone in the holy place among the trees. The moonring twinkled on high, wind whispered in the branches, and the air was still, sweet and godly. In a shaft of starshine the light curdled, thickened, and took on solid human form. A tall, moustachioed man in a long grey coat sat himself down on the tree root next to Rael Jr.
“Fine night,” he said, searching through his multitudinous pockets for his pipe. “Fine night.” He located the pipe, charged it, lit it, and took a few meditative puffs.
“You’ve got to go back, you know.”
“No more dreams,” whispered Rael Jr. “No more ghosts.”
“Dreams? The Xanthic mystagogues believe that existence ended on the third day and that our world is only the dream of the second night,” said the grey stranger. “Ghosts? Pah. We are the most substantial things in the world, the foundations of the present. We are memories.” His pipe made a little red glow-worm dot on the night. “Mnemologues. We are the things that make up a life; only here, in this one place, do we have body and substance. We are he dreams of the trees. Do you know what this tree is? Of course you do, it’s the Tree of World’s Beginning. But it is also the Tree of World’s End, for every beginning must have an end. You’ve unfinished business in my town, Rael, and until you make an end of what you have begun, your memories won’t give you peace.”
“Who are you?”
“You know me but you’ve never met me. Your father knew me when he was a boy, your grandfather, too, and you’ve been carrying me around on your back these past days. I’m Desolation Road’s oldest memory. I’m Dr. Alimantando.”
“But they say you’re travelling in time, chasing some kind of legendary creature.”
“And so I am, but the memories remain. Listen; though it pains me, a gentleman of science, to have to say this; you have the magic in you. If the land here is strong enough to give body to your memories and fears, might it not also be strong enough to give body to your hopes and desires? And if that is the case, maybe then that strength is within you, as I was, and not tied to any one place, no matter how special. Think about that.” Dr. Alimantando rose and placed his pipe in his mouth. He took a long look at the sky, the stars, the trees. “Fine night,” he said. “Fine fine night. Well, so long, Rael. It was nice meeting you. You are a Mandella, no mistake. You’ll get by.” Then he folded his arms and walked into the starlight shadows.
The sound of jean-Michel Gastineau’s radio woke Rael Mandella Jr. Like it, he was poorly tuned, somewhere between a programme about the edge of the universe and a popular early morning music show. Light streamed through the ill-fitting planks that made up the wall. There was a smell and chuckle of eggs frying on the brazier.
“Good morning good morning good morning,” said jean-Michel Gastineau. “Up and at it, we’ve a long way to go today and you can’t be going anywhere without a decent breakfast.”
Rael Jr. knuckled sleep from his eyes, not quite comprehending.
“Going. Today. Got the call. Last night. While you were busy with your mnemologue, I was busy with mine, the Blessed Lady, well, at least her memory; anyhows, she told me this was the time, that I was to go with you. Apparently you’ll have need of my special talents. Might even be why you were brought here in the first place. These things have hidden connections.”
“Aren’t…”
“Aren’t I the least little bit upset to be leaving all this? Well… only a little. It’s temporary, soon as I’ve finished the Holy Will I can have my old job back. Anyhows, she told me if I didn’t go, there wouldn’t be no forest to mind. What they call an Event Cusp; there’s a lot of futures hanging on a few individuals, and that includes the future of the Forest of Chryse.”
“But…”
“But who’s going to look after the Ladywood while I’m away saving it? Shouldn’t be telling you this, but a whole new order of angels is being constructed right now, right under your feet in the hatcheries: the Mark Six, the Amschastrias, specially designed for environmental maintenance. The old place’ll be all right for a while without me. Old Father Tree’ll keep an eye on them. Well, come on. Get up, wash up, eat up! We’ve a long way to go before we get to the forest wall and I’ve to pack and say good-bye to the chickens. Don’t look so surprised! Where do you think those eggs came from? Air?”
55
One of Arnie Tenebrae’s Jaguar patrols captured the four men on the inside of Passive Defence Zone 6. Standing orders called for all prisoners to be terminated immediately but Sub-lieutenant Sergio Estramadura’s curiosity had been piqued by their ability to traverse ten kilometres of booby traps, pitfalls, noose wires, and shit-tipped pungi stakes without injury. Despite Parliamentarian air patrols he broke radio silence to ask advice of his commander.
“Who are they?” Arnie Tenebrae asked.
“Four men. One of them’s the Old Man of the Woods guy, the sarcastic one, the others look normal. No identity, but some B.A.C. gear on them.”
“Interesting. Gastineau’s never formally aligned himself before. He must have brought them through the defence zone. I’d quite like to see them.”
She watched her guerrillas bring the captives in. The soldiers had them bound and blindfolded and led them on leashes. Three of them stumbled and faltered over the rough ground at the end of the valley; the fourth walked straight and tall, leading, not lead, as if he were seeing with senses other than sight. That would be Gastineau. Though Arnie Tenebrae had met him only twice previously, his name was legend among the veterans of the Chryse campaign, both Whole Earth Army and Parliamentarian.
—What a guerrilla he’d make. He is part of the forest, animally aware. She looked at her guerrillas, boy-soldiers clumsy in chameleon suits and heavy battle packs, faces scrolled with tattoos or painted like tigers or demons or insects; spotted, striped, paisley-patterned. Silly boys pretending silly boys’ games. Runaways tearaways castaways blowaways tomboys schizoids, homosexuals and visionaries. Actors in the theatre of war. Give her a thousand men like Gastineau and she’d grind Quinsana fine as sand.
The faces of two of the prisoners looked familiar. She kept trying to place them in her memory as Sub-lieutenant Estramadura stripped them of their packs, clothes and dignity and tied them to the bamboo holding pen. Estramadura’s debriefing was farcical. Had the boy no eyes, no ears? His information amounted to “all of a sudden, there they were.” A man without eyes and ears will not live long in forest fighting. She searched the prisoners’ clothing. Gastineau’s worn whites produced nothing, the others were Company stuff, tough, well made. The pockets were empty of anything save paper tissues, fluff and a small ball of silver paper.
Before she examined the packs she asked Sub-lieutenant Estramadura, “Their names.”
“Ah. I forgot to ask.”
“Go and ask them.”
He bounded down the hill to the holding pens, face red and humiliated beneath the bold blue and yellow tiger-stripes.
—He will not live long. He has no intelligence…