He opened his eyes.
'Wake up, for crying out loud.' Colsceg was leaning over him, shaking him by the shoulder. 'We need you to tell us what to do.'
There was something in his mind, something incredibly important; but the light-and the sound of Colsceg's voice-washed it away, like a flood dissolving snow. 'What's the matter?' he asked sleepily.
(The main hall at Colscegsford; he could see the joists and cross-beams of the roof behind the old man's head. For some reason they seemed horribly threatening, as if they could fall in on him at any moment. Why? he wondered; I must have been dreaming.)
'What's the matter, he says.' Colsceg scowled at him. 'You bloody fool, can't you hear it?'
He could hear something; it was a gentle, familiar noise, one that he rather liked, because of pleasant associations he could no longer quite remember. 'Please,' he said, 'tell me. What's going on?'
(And then he recognised the sound-)
'I'll tell you what's going on,' Colsceg shouted, as if it was all his fault. 'It's raining.'
Chapter Ten
Poldarn pushed past Colsceg and burst through the door.
The rain was hard, each drop hitting his face like a slingstone, and so thick that he could only just make out the shapes of the encircling mountains. But he didn't need to see them. In his mind's eye, he had a clear vision of what was happening. The ash was dissolving into mud, slithering off the rocky slopes, following the channels and contours like sheep herded by a well-trained dog. Soon it would form its lines and columns, its ranks and files, ready to march; then it would move with terrifying speed (like the raiders, his people, swooping down on Josequin or Deymeson), gathering strength and pace as it went, before cascading in a black river into the valley, and filling it like molten metal poured into a mould. It would be here very soon, too soon to put together a coherent plan of action, organise the household, allocate duties and responsibilities, establish an effective chain of command-all the things that needed to be seen to if anything was ever to get done.
'Well,' Colsceg shouted at him, 'so what do we do?'
He thought about it for a whole second. 'Run,' he said.
'Fine. Where to?'
Ah, Poldarn thought, now there you have me. He looked round, more with his mind and memory than with his eyes. The valley plain was out of the question. He thought of Rook's account of the mudslides at Lyatsbridge; if they ran out onto the flat, there was every chance they'd be swamped and buried before they went more than a few hundred yards. Going up the slopes was no better, they ran the risk of being in the way of a mudslide coming down; it'd be quicker, though not by much, and that was the best to be said for it. Bloody hell, he thought, why's it got to be up to me, this isn't even my house. Why can't someone else tell me what to do, for a change?
'Up the hillside,' he said, and as he said it he knew perfectly well that he was only saying the first thing that came into his head, because there wasn't time to reach a considered decision. 'Keep to the high ground, away from the dips and trenches. You'll be just fine.'
Colsceg nodded and ran off; Poldarn could see people hurrying towards him. Of course, he and he alone was at liberty to please himself, he didn't have to go with the rest of them or allow his mind to be swamped by theirs. He could stay where he was, observe, collate more data, drown in mud, because he wasn't a part of this community. He only had himself to think about.
Not true. The hell with this, he thought; where's Boarci? Damn him to hell, Boarci was his responsibility now, and of course he was nowhere to be seen. Suppose it took him three minutes to find him, that'd use up his little allowance of grace and then it'd be too late to save either of them, even if he knew how to go about it. Waiting for him, looking for him would be an act of monumental stupidity, like running back into a burning house to try and save someone who was probably dead already. Only an imbecile would even consider doing something like that.
'Boarci,' he yelled, but he could only just hear himself over the hammering of the rain.
This would be a good time to be a mind-reader, Poldarn thought as he splashed and skidded across the yard. Already the rain had created pools in every bump and dip; it was flooding down off the eaves and gathering in miniature rivers, scuttling down the slight incline towards the edge of the plateau. The stables, he told himself; if I were Boarci, I'd try and get a horse, see if I could outrun the mud on the flat. Now that wasn't a bad idea, though needless to say it wasn't applicable to the Colscegsford household; there weren't enough horses to go round, and if they couldn't all go, none of them would even consider trying. But Boarci wasn't a part of this house, not even remotely, by betrothal; he could clear out and leave them all to die, and nobody would know he'd even been here. Now if only he could be trusted to think that way for himself, Poldarn would be relieved of the obligation of thinking for him, and that'd be one less thing to waste time on. But it wouldn't be safe to assume that Boarci would do that, and so Poldarn had no choice but to keep looking for him (and that'd be comical, if Poldarn died trying to save the one man in the place who managed to get away).
While he was standing in the yard trying to figure out this dilemma, the first mudslide made its spectacular entrance. It must have come down off the very steep escarpment at the far end of the plateau, because it landed on the roof of the grain store, smashed it into kindling and scooped up the mess before butting through the fence like an unusually ornery bull and slopping over the edge into the valley. Poldarn spun round to gawp, and by the time he'd seen enough the walls of the middle stable were being folded down flat as a torrent of black muck shouldered its way through, heading straight for the main house. That wasn't a problem, it was going away from where he was standing, and he'd noticed a nice sharp outcrop well above the channel it was following down the slope. If he looked sharp about it, he could see no reason why he couldn't get up there and be as safe as any man can be in this notoriously uncertain world. But before he could set off (time, of course, being very much of the essence) he realised that Elja was still inside the house. He didn't have a clue how he knew this, but he knew it.
Marvellous, he thought. But you'd have to be plumb crazy to try and outrun something moving that fast.
Poldarn ran; and, to his surprise, he found that he was making ground on the mudslide with every forced stride. By his calculations, the mud was shifting along at slightly more than a brisk walking pace, too slow for him to be able to abandon his responsibilities with a clear conscience. The door was wide open, as he'd left it, but he slipped in a pool of mud under the eaves and collided painfully hard with the door frame. He landed on his left knee, with a painful impression of having done it no good at all, but he couldn't spare the time for it to hurt or anything self-indulgent like that. Instead he pulled himself up on the edge of the door and charged into the house, howling Elja's name.
She came out of the inner room, looking sleepy.
'Mudslide,' he tried to say, but he was too out of breath to be able to shape words. Instead, he grabbed her arm and yanked her after him, reaching the doorway just as the mud caved it in.
Too late after all, Poldarn concluded sadly, as the mud swept his feet from under him and he flopped awkwardly onto his side, half falling and half collapsing, like an old shed in a high wind. He pulled Elja down with him, of course, and she screamed at him, bending back the fingers of his left hand where they were closed around her wrist. Now that really was painful, but he didn't have time or breath left to ask her to stop. The current carried him on a yard or so, twisting him round until he was lying on his back, watching the roof timbers getting pulled out of their mortices. He wondered whether he'd live long enough for the pain of having his head crushed by a falling beam to make him scream; he hoped not, since he didn't want to look pathetic in front of Elja.