He thought hard before answering: Do you just send out one spy at a time, he asked, or are there many of us?
The voice became hard and cold, as if it was angry at having been tricked into giving away too much. Consider this, it said -And he saw his mother as a young girl, standing up with the knife in her hand, her skirt wet and filthy falling back down to her knees, as his father tried to breathe but couldn't, his throat having been cut; and he saw her as an old woman, coming out of the barn because she'd heard voices and assumed it was the bone cart from Sansory (she wasn't afraid of a man in a cart rolling up to her door) and hardly seeing the backsabre before it severed the veins and tendons of her neck and bit into and through the bone, and the last thing she heard was an old man talking about his dead son.
The voice said: Consider this, since you're so clever: Copis is carrying your child, he'll be born in just over seven months. When he's born, you'll be a long way away, or dead. As he leaves the mob and flies away from the trees, will he think of himself as an individual or merely a part of the pattern?
He replied: What'll happen to her? Will she be all right?
The voice laughed, and said: Consider the five dozen crows you killed when you won your famous victory, when you pegged out all of me that was in that place, so that the roosting trees were empty and the nests were deserted. Consider the one crow that didn't fly into the decoys, and so survived, when all the rest of me was dead. Do you think she considered herself still to be part of the mob, or an individual?
He replied: But she's not the last survivor of the order. There are others, scattered about.
The voice replied: On the day you won your famous victory over the divine Poldarn you killed all but one of me that were in that place, but there were others of me, hundreds of millions, scattered about. Do you think she considered herself still to be part of them, or an individual?
He said: I don't know. But I never meant her any harm. I'd never do anything to hurt her.
The voice said: Consider this -And he saw himself standing on the cart on the road to Laise Bohec, facing Eyvind, the last survivor of his party. And he saw himself standing up out of the mud and staring at the two dozen dead men, not knowing who they were or who he was.
He said: I think that the scout believes it's an individual, but it's wrong. It's still part of the mob.
Thank you, the voice replied, that's better. Is there anything else you'd like me to tell you, or shall I send you back to the battle?
He shouted, Yes; but the sky exploded into light, and he saw the heel of a boot come down and skin his cheek, shearing away the skin. The sky was bright and empty. Another boot crashed into the back of his head, and everything went away.
Chapter Twenty-Five
'For the very last time,' said the body lying in the water, 'go away. I won't tell you again.'
'Oh sure,' sneered the reflection. 'Wasn't it going to be the very last time the last time you tried to get rid of me? And the time before that?'
He was in the air, feeling the crisp breeze in his wings and against the feathers of his belly. He was happy now that he'd rejoined his people, been allowed back into their mind, and would soon be flying home. Meanwhile, he spared a moment to look down at the body lying in the water (but it was still alive, so no joy) and its reflection, which was apparently talking to it.
'I'm not going to listen to you any more,' said the body to its reflection. 'I can't hear a word you're saying.'
'Oh, please,' said the reflection, scornfully. 'Try and act like a grown-up.'
'Anyway,' the body went on, 'fairly soon I'll be rid of you once and for all. I'm going home.'
'Home?' The reflection laughed. 'No such place.'
'Yes there is. I've found my family and I'm going home over the sea, where you can't follow me.'
'Want to bet?'
'You can't follow me,' the body repeated, 'and even if you could, you'll never find me there, not just one among so many. It'd be like trying to find a leaf in a forest.'
'I'll find you,' said the reflection, 'bet on it.'
'You can try,' replied the body. 'I expect you will, it's just the sort of nasty, obsessive behaviour I've come to expect from you. But you'll fail.'
Silence, just for a moment.
'You don't need to do that,' said the reflection. 'Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. And anyway, it's not what you really want.'
'How the hell would you know?'
'I know everything about you. I know everything from the moment you were born. Before that, even. Every single thing there is to know about you, I've got it in here. Safe, where you can't lose it or get rid of it. It's my duty,' it added, 'as your better half.'
'You've never known me,' said the body, furiously angry, 'you don't know the first thing about me. All you know about or care about is you. All these years you think you know me, but all you can see is your own smug grin in a mirror. You think I'm just a polished surface you can shine in. Well, that's all over. I'm leaving. And without me-' Great pleasure in the voice, suddenly. 'Without me, you'll be dead. You'll just stop existing and fade away.'
'You really believe that? God, you're stupid.'
'All right, we'll see who's left once I've gone, and taken the baby with me. Back home-'
'Don't be ridiculous.'
'Back home, to his family, where he belongs.'
When Poldarn woke up, he panicked: God help me, he thought, where am I, who am I, God damn it, I can't even remember my own name…
He lifted his head and looked round. He'd been lying in blood-soaked mud beside a river, and all around him lay the bodies of dead men; some dressed one way, some another. A crow glanced up from its meal and smirked at him, one professional acknowledging another.
It's all right, he told himself, as the mist cleared in his mind, you're home. Very much home, you were born here (in that barn over there, in fact), and in a few minutes Copis will be along with the cart and you'll be off about your missionary work; unless, of course, the world ended while you were asleep, and this is the brave new world -Same as the old one, only more painful. The last time he'd been here, at this point of departure, he hadn't had a pair of three-inch spikes stuck through his foot and his arm. This time the blood in the mud was his own, which at least afforded him a sense of belonging, almost equivalent to citizenship.
Must've missed the major veins, he rationalised, or I'd be dead. Unless I am dead, and this is heaven; or unless I'm a god, in which case they could drain all the blood out of me to make sausages, and it wouldn't make a whole lot of difference.
It would have been nice, he thought, if there'd been someone he could have asked; he was tired of having to rebuild the world from scratch practically every time he opened his eyes, it was a scandalous waste of mental energy that could have been used for more positive, constructive purposes.
He shifted a little, wondering how he was going to get the caltrops out without making everything worse. It was a highly intriguing combination-left foot and right arm-likely to present a worthwhile challenge to even the most ingenious (as if he'd gone up a grade since last time, and had been set a fittingly ingenious puzzle as a reward).
Come on, Copis, you're late. No, she wouldn't be along this time. He remembered about her now; he'd dragged her out of the store room at Deymeson, splashed water from the stable trough on her face until she'd woken up; before that he'd found a horse nobody seemed to want and he shunted her up on to it; she was still dizzy and confused, unable to talk because of her smashed jaw; he'd put the reins in her hand and led the horse by the bridle out of the abbey gate, given it a hard slap to make it walk on. She hadn't looked back at him as the horse carried her away down the hill. He'd made sure there was some food in the saddlebags, and six gross-quarters he'd found in a dead monk's sleeve. Then he'd gone back inside, before he was missed, and helped out with the looting and burning.