Memory

Poldarn looked at him. 'Why, then?'

'Oh, I like looking about me on long cart rides.'

It turned out to be a very long cart ride, at least in perceived time: a ford that Xipho had been planning on using proved to be flooded and impassable; the bridge ten miles further down had been washed away; the road they went back up so as to loop round and join up with another road that led to another bridge had turned into a quagmire they didn't dare set wheel to; then Gain suggested that when all else failed, there was no dishonour in looking at the map; so they fished the map out of the chest under the box, only to find that the rain had got in it and reduced the map to porridge; then Gain said that didn't matter, he was pretty sure he knew how to get to the second bridge… Come nightfall, they were stuck up to the axles in mud, in a high-walled lane so narrow that the wheel hubs had been striking sparks before they eventually ground to a soggy, inglorious halt 'Fuck,' Xipho announced, peering at the circle of pale yellow light thrown by her storm lantern. 'We're stuck in the mud and jammed solid against the wall. We're going to have to knock the wall down, pack the rubble under the wheels, and try and back up the way we came as far as the top of the slope.'

'The hell with that,' Gain snapped. The lane had been his idea, and guilt was making him irascible. 'I'm positive we can squeeze through, if only we can get a bit of pace-'

'In this swamp? Don't be ridiculous.' Xipho was getting shrill. Cleapho, for his part, was mostly staying out of it, limiting his participation to the occasional tongue click and sigh, to remind them both how disappointed he was in them. 'Wall's got to come down, it's the only way.'

'Well, it's not my fault,' Gain shouted. 'Besides, what kind of idiot'd build a walled lane right out in the middle of bloody nowhere?'

'The same sort of idiot who'd drive down a walled lane in the middle of a monsoon,' Xipho inevitably replied. 'Right, we'll need the hammer, the crowbar-'

'What hammer?'

'You didn't bring a hammer? Fucking hell. We'll just have to use the axe.'

'What axe?'

'Oh, for-'

Poldarn lifted his head. It was tones of voice, nothing more, the sheer musical pitch of their shouting and bickering that he recognised; but it was as familiar as if he'd last heard it a week ago. Where, though? He closed his eyes, trying to fit a place to the sound 'And you're no fucking help,' Copis yelled at him. 'Wake up, for crying out loud. This really isn't the time to fall asleep.'

'I'm not asleep, I'm thinking,' he replied.

'Then don't, it always causes trouble. Just get the crowbar, and-'

He grinned, hoping she wouldn't see in the dark. 'What crowbar?' he said.

'Fucking hell! Of all the idiots!'

And then it dropped into place like the wards of a lock: the same words, the same shrill fury; of all the idiots-It had only been a dream, unreliable evidence that he had been justified in disregarding; and he'd put it carefully to one side, where it wouldn't be in the way. Until now.

Cordo; Cordo in the library, when they'd broken in to steal the book. Cordo, not dead 'Shut up a minute, both of you,' he said, so firmly and quietly that they were shocked into compliance. Then he shifted round in his seat, awkward because one of the canopy hoops was in the way and he had to crane his neck round it. 'Cordo,' he said. (Strange to hear himself saying the name out loud; it was as alien as a word endlessly repeated.) 'Didn't I kill you, in seventh grade?'

Absolute silence, except for the inevitable drumming of rain. 'No,' Cleapho replied. Pause. 'You tried,' he went on, 'but you cocked it up. Don't obsess about it, though,' he added. 'Nobody's perfect.'

The bitterness lay in the casual delivery, a matter-of-fact drawl spread thin over twenty years of anger. Which was, of course, only reasonable.

'I can't remember very well,' Poldarn said slowly. 'But I stabbed you-'

'That's right,' Cleapho said. 'My sleeve caught fire, and so did a whole lot of books. Actually, it wasn't nearly as bad as it looked, but you panicked, must've thought the whole library was about to take off like a hayrick. I'm guessing here, but I think you reckoned the only way any of you would get out was if you could stop Xipho and Gain trying to save me, so you stuck me in the guts with that big pig-sticker knife of yours. And then all three of you pissed off and left me there in the smoke.'

Grim silence, practically unbearable. Cleapho was making it sound as though he was describing a game of knuckle-bones, or a barn dance. 'That was so like you in those days, Ciartan, you went to bits at the first sign of trouble. I think it's because of your upbringing, those people you grew up with. As I understand it, they don't make decisions like we do, it's sort of like a nationwide referendum every time one of you can't make up his mind whether to stop for a pee. In your case, once you came over here, it sort of worked the other way; you made decisions at the speed of lightning, never stopping to think. Like that night. Soon as my sleeve caught alight, you'd already raced ahead, you were thinking burning building, trapped inside, falling rafters, collapsing walls, coughing to death in the smoke: so you stabbed me. Religion, Father Tutor would have called it, the impulse to act followed by the completed action without the intervening moment. Only, if you'd stopped to think for just one tiny fraction of a second, you might have remembered the trapdoor down into the stacks…'

'Oh.' Xipho's voice, horrified.

'Yes, I know,' Cleapho went on, 'you were just as bad as he was, almost; and you, Gain, though I wouldn't have expected you to remember. But you, Xipho-anyhow,' Cleapho went on, 'fortunately, I remembered; and I crawled to the trapdoor, pulled it up and dropped through. Then it was just a matter of walking down the corridor-bleeding like a stuck pig, I might add, but it was only a flesh wound, fortunately-and across the yard to the infirmary.'

'But-' Xipho, struggling to understand. 'We thought you'd died. You let us believe-'

'Ah.' Poldarn could practically hear Cleapho's sardonic smile. 'So I did. And that's why I've forgiven you, all three of you. I guess you could say I owe you everything, because of that night. And coincidence, of course, or you could call it serendipity. Is that the word I'm looking for? It'll do. The point is, I staggered into the infirmary, believed dead by all concerned, on the very evening when Father Tutor realised he needed the services of a ghost: someone who didn't exist, someone with no identity. When the nurse called him over to the infirmary-I was yelling blue murder, I wanted to have you three hung, drawn, quartered and then thrown out of Deymeson in disgrace, in that order… But Father Tutor explained to me that it was just fine, couldn't have worked out better if he'd planned it that way, and he wanted to offer me a really splendid job opportunity-which, once he'd told me about it, I was delighted to accept.' He yawned. 'Now I won't bore you with all the in-between stuff, or we'd be here for days. Suffice to say, the end result, after many years of hard graft and brilliant planning, was me becoming Chaplain-in-Ordinary, supreme head of religion in the whole wide world, under the amusing name of Cleapho.' He paused. 'A joke that nobody's ever appreciated,' he added, 'or else they've kept it to themselves. Cleapho in Old High Thurmian means "partly dead". And all,' he went on, accentuating the drawl, 'because I remembered a silly old trapdoor and you three forgot about it. I guess it was one of those moments in religion when everything in the universe suddenly changes, but too fast for anybody to notice: one moment we're all facing south, next moment we're all standing on our heads facing north, but everything looks the same because the scenery's been switched round too, and it doesn't occur to anybody to consult a compass.' He sighed, pure affectation. 'And all this while you-and the Earwig too, I dare say-you've had it in for poor old Ciartan here because you blamed him for killing me, when in fact it's because of him that I got to be the most powerful man in the world. Well, nearly the most powerful, but we're working on that, aren't we?'