The Keep

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5Esyal Wrenith crashed down the steep snowy slope. She rolled over several times at the bottom before coming to a halt, then she lay motionless, face upwards, for a long time. Seen from afar, only the misting in the still, cold air above her told that she had survived the fall.

Nearer, there could have been no doubt. Her breathing was frantic and her face was contorted with effort — the effort needed to stop her from screaming out in a squalling mixture of terror and frustration.

You’re still alive, keep quiet, keep quiet, she forced herself to think, over and over, knowing that a hammering repetition was the only discipline that could quell all the other concerns clamouring for attention.

When she had breath enough to speak she allowed the words hiss out softly.

“Concentrate, woman, concentrate. Think what you’re doing. One step at a time.”

Then she was silent and listening intently.

No sounds of pursuit reached her. Somehow she had managed not to cry out as she had fallen. Either that or her flight had gone unnoticed.

Carefully she began testing her limbs and joints then she levered herself into a sitting position.

Not hurt, she realized. Relief flooded over her though it was followed immediately by the reproach that this had been more by good luck than good management. Next time luck might well not be with her.

There wasn’t going to be a next time.

Yet even as the resolution formed, she felt the hollow futility in it. Despair welled up and threatened to sweep her away. They were all lost. Her entire group. Her group. Someone had probably betrayed them like all the others though she could not think who. Not that it mattered now.

They had been ambushed and it had only been the untimely snow that had saved her, separating her from the others when it did. She had heard the noise of the encounter but it had echoed all about her and even as she floundered around in circles, desperately trying to determine its direction, it had faded into the swirling white haze.

Had they all been captured? Or, worse, had they all been killed?

She fought back a mounting urge to scream out curses into the silence.

And what had the snow saved her for? Itself? She was hardly equipped for surviving in this weather and this terrain. Her clothes were reasonable but she had no water, no food, and precious little idea where she was.

She was going to die in this place.

Then despair did overwhelm her and she dropped down into the snow and sobbed.

The New Order had won. The Rhanen had been defeated utterly. Good men and women who had had the vision to see what others could not and the courage to face it, and who were finally driven to force in an attempt to hold back the New Order’s menace. All gone. All scattered, lost. And so many dead. And so many just... no longer there.

She put her arms over her head as though that might hide her from the accusing voices and faces that swam through her mind. They were dispersed in the end only by a violent shiver as the coldness finally impinged on her. She ran still-shaking hands down her tear-stained face and despite the stark desolation of her situation, her despair, as it had done so many times before, began to twist into rage.

She stood up unsteadily and began walking, her thoughts meandering.

Why had so few been able to see what the New Order was like?

In some ways it was no mystery. The old government had been a mockery for decades — a shabby remnant of a once great institution. Raised in a sceptical and clear-eyed household, she had learned early that her destiny was largely in her own hands and that nothing was to be gained by looking beyond family and friends for any form of help. It was not the way it was supposed to be, it was not the way it pretended to be, but it was the reality of how things were.

Later she had come to her own conclusion that while government was, at best, a necessary evil, corruption in its many forms — fiscal, intellectual, spiritual — could routinely be expected from those who sought to rule.

Abuse of the power with which the government was supposed to be trusted was accepted as a commonplace and, within depressingly broad limits, was largely shrugged off, while their ineptitude was a by-word. In so far as the people prospered reasonably, it was in spite of the government not because of it. And, generally, indifference to and contempt for government outweighed the genuine concern that might have led to a more beneficial drive for change.

It had been a body ripe and ready to fall at the touch of an appropriate wind.

But even so, that did not fully explain how a movement such as the New Order could have swept to power so easily. Many disparate and impromptu groups had arisen over the years as people struggled to fulfil the needs that the government was failing in, but they usually foundered in the thickets of bureaucracy that constantly sprang up to enmesh them. Then, with a suddenness that still bewildered Esyal, they had been displaced by groups of wide-eyed and intense men and women, earnest, powerful and compelling in their speech and manners. Meetings held in local halls one week were held in great stadia the next. Police who had been charged with disbanding them were joining them. Politicians who had condemned them were praising them. Those who looked deeper into their words found only empty rhetoric but their voices went unheard, their arguments and reasons too studied and thoughtful to compete with the tidal wave of simplicity being generated.

And then they were there. Legitimately in power by what seemed to be popular acclaim though, in truth, scarcely a quarter of those entitled to had voted for them.

For a while there was a peculiar silence in the land.

Then...

Where before, there had been debate — inane and unfocused admittedly, but debate nonetheless — there came now only edicts.

And a quiet, seeping menace.

While their words proclaimed openness and freedom, the deeds of the New Order began to recommend silence and obedience. To criticize quite quickly became to defy. Then to defy was to provoke and to provoke was to be presumed guilty of treachery — to be an enemy. The New Order proclaimed both the overwhelming support — and love — of all the people and, at the same time, the presence of many enemies, silent, cunning and determined. Enemies of the New Order were, of course, enemies of the people.

And enemies had to be crushed.

And crushed they were. In this regard the New Order was extraordinarily efficient. It helped that it acquired many allies: those who learned quickly when their neighbours were mysteriously missing, and those who looked to secure themselves by pointing to their neighbours — and friends — and even kin.

To deal with the apparently increasing number of these enemies, the army and the police became one. Grey-uniformed and sporting the New Order’s gentle White Dove insignia they were to be seen in many places. And grey-hearted and anonymous, their unseen aides were everywhere.

A suffocating curtain fell across the land as engulfing and ubiquitous as the snow still falling around Esyal as she came to a halt in the failing light.

For some time she had been wandering aimlessly, her mind too occupied with where she was putting her hands and feet to allow her to dwell too long on her predicament. Now, however, it was becoming too difficult to distract herself with this simple task and she was forced to stop and reflect about what she must do next. Though she knew that she might die in this place, and though despair and guilt still gnawed at her, gone was any semblance of resignation. Without thinking she had quenched her thirst as she walked by eating the occasional handful of snow but now she was both tired and hungry.

Urgently she tried to recall the casual advice she had been given by her cousin as he had led them into the mountains.

What had happened to him...?

Leave it. Leave it! Concentrate!

She cursed herself for not paying more heed. But then they had had equipment and had been making proper and safe camps even though the snow had taken everyone unawares. There had been an air almost of excitement about their expedition. She had spent most of her time thinking how the Rhanen might best be re-formed, how the battle against the New Order might best be continued. She had left the details of their journey to her cousin and his friends — they knew the mountains and where they were supposed to be going. All she and the others had to do was use their common sense, watch where they were walking and otherwise do as they were told. The possibility that she might have to survive out here on her own never even occurred to her.

Some leader, you, she reproached herself bitterly.

“Don’t ask anyone to do anything you’re not prepared to do yourself, girl.”

“Thank you, father,” she whispered softly and not without some pained irony before she returned to her immediate concerns.

Although the snow was falling less heavily now, a wind was beginning to blow, making it dance and swirl, and noticeably colder. It needed no great mountain lore on her part to realize that she must find shelter, and quickly.

It was almost completely dark by the time she wedged herself into a narrow space in a tumbled cluster of rocks. It was sufficient to protect her from both the wind and the falling snow but it was far from comfortable. Nevertheless, it was a considerable relief and she pulled the hood of her coat over her face, wrapped her arms about her, and curled up tightly. Both emotional and physical tiredness came to her aid, sending her almost immediately into a deep sleep, but they did not allow her a trouble-free sleep, and she woke twice in the night full of shaking primitive terrors and with the faint sound of her own cries ringing in her ears.

The third time she woke, it was suddenly and to a brightness that make her screw her eyes tightly after the first shock of opening them. At first she thought she had been discovered, but no violent hands seized her and as she slowly allowed the light to splinter into her consciousness she saw that it was no more than fresh snow under a pale grey sky. As the first shock of this waking passed, so the pain of her night’s rest made itself felt and, involuntarily, she cried out as she moved.

It took her some time to extract herself from the gap in the rocks as she carefully tested each limb before moving it, but when she had eased the worst of the discomfort from her back and legs, other needs made themselves felt. She was thirsty and she was hungry. As on the previous day, unsatisfactory though it was, snow had to suffice to quench her thirst, but a painstaking search of her pockets yielded nothing other than a few stale crumbs. Her stomach protested noisily.

“Shut up, damn you,” she snarled.

What now, she thought, looking around at snow-covered mountains. Faintly it came to her that at another time they would have been beautiful and she would have gazed at them in awe. But the idea was like a scornful echo. Now, cold, indifferent peaks were just a measure of her desolation.

Downwards, she decided. Downwards towards a river or a stream that she could follow. It would lead her out of the mountains eventually, surely?

And food?

Her stomach rumbled again.

And warmth? And shelter?

Just be careful enough to see that you live to worry about these later, she thought, with grim wilfulness.

And she set off.