Chapter Nine
"When I glanced at him, I was struck by his suffering aspect, his troubled and confused expression. He hurriedly led me into the small room where he slept and limply sank onto his bed and started crying, weeping out loud. In horror, I wondered if something dreadful had happened to a member of his family. In response to my questions, he mumbled indistinctly through his tears: 'They have been hounding me, they have been pursuing me.'"
—Isaak Glikman
Pain causes ever so completely much much more than just simply hurting. True, that's a part of it, but sometimes not even one of the more significant parts. The psychological component is nearly always the greater fraction, and in reference to that, I don't mean simply the dull ache remaining from a physical blow or the prolonged sting of an attack on the feelings. There's a reaction element as well, one that works in different ways, all the ways with consequences that will generally outlast the extent of physical troubles. And since those consequences may inevitably lead to more of that elementary physical or mental hurt, they should be included in all that encompasses pain.
There are two standard reactions to pain; I found this out because I was at some time fielding both of them. To give them labels—underdescriptive ones at that—melancholy and vengeance. My pain, you know, was initially of the psychological variety. I'm actually not certain why Zlaya didn't bother making it physical, but one could easily say that a creature suffers considerably less after death. If Zlaya was out to deliberately make me as miserable as possible, from Broken-Sword Warrior on, she had an excellent battleplan.
As it were, I was numbed by the ferocity with which Zlaya threw her darts into my opera. You know I wasn't out to attack her by writing it, you know I used a story older than Mtsensk's very foundations. Zlaya was seeing demons, it seems, much like any powerful Dictator will encounter sooner or later. Like an uncontrollable fear of water—that is a parallel between them, but I only see it now. At the time, I puzzled over how Zlaya could have been so wrong, how she never bothered to check where the opera was coming from. And if I had been out to deliberately mock her then, she should have known I wouldn't be stupid enough to be so open about it. To consider that way, Broken-Sword Warrior was so incredibly blatant, so to speak, that it had to honestly be harmless, a sort of overkill factor. That would be sensible reasoning. But, as you know, Zlaya Trudnaya never did anything sensibly.
For a while, two weeks or so, perhaps, I moped. I ate less, slept less, and halfheartedly composed a fair quantity of useless music to Zlaya's prescription. As it was useless, it took very little time to write and left me more time to sit and ruminate. Volklov had told me about the other artists Zlaya had violently oppressed—we'd looked at some of their music, sent it off to Evgeny and Venyamin in the same folder as my own. But at that point, I didn't quite go with them. I had no idea quite what it meant to have a ban deathlocked to you. But then it happened, and I suddenly knew all of those other artists on the same level as myself. I thought of them often, I still do. And that stirred forth the vengeance part of pain.
I am generally not a vengeful creature; vengeance does little in the end. But then again, so does melancholy, and I feel I'll never be able to shake that I acquired during the ordeal I describe here. I know I'd never particularly seek physical vengeance on anybeast, though one might say I've had it quite by accident. In what seemed an endlessly hopeless situation for me and others under Zlaya, though, I found a loophole through which I could rise against that tyranny, ironically employing the very charges condemning me.
Zlaya still did not know about the old music room then, so it was still available as a sanctuary. It had been that before as well, you know, but more rested on that status at that point. You know Zlaya only proposed to search my quarters. I painstakingly ordered my quarters, therefore, so my "official" works and blank paper were the only musical paraphernalia present. The majority of my papers were in the old study; they were filled with lyricless notes reaching out to Redwall, commiserating with my newfound artistic equals, and even notes written with a claw's edge that deliberately attacked the dictator, so to speak. Deliberately in a musician's eyes, in a way that could be easily translated by one to the commoners. But as Zlaya, as you know, as I've told you too many times, was completely without musical knowledge, and as Volklov and I were the only creatures in Mtsensk capable of translating, the pieces were safe. But they were useless inside Mtsensk. As it were, they could have been taken to Redwall handily, but there was a chance that Zlaya could return there and hear the explanation. And then I'd be through, so to speak. But when one has the slightest undertone of vengeance in him, one looks past that fear of more complex pain.
I hadn't seen much of Volklov Varzar since Zlaya's reaction to Broken-Sword Warrior had become public. I'd guess that, as the topic inevitably came up of exactly how the opera got to Redwall, he was probably trying to keep a lower profile than the one he already held. He paid me fewer visits, rarely any; I went to specifically find him upon finishing some of my barbed pieces. He seemed rather surprised that I so urgently needed his services after their last employment had led to a level of downfall, so to speak. But his amber eyes did reflect both concern and interest—I remember that expression, a strange one—as he followed me back to the "forbidden" study.
We sat down at the desk and I sighed heavily, paws flickering across the edge of my papers. "You know, they're pressuring me, they're watching me."
"I know," Volklov returned simply, not his jovial self.
"And I don't like it. I hate it," I stated unnecessarily.
The corners of Volklov's lips twitched. "It would be an unusual beast, a sick or a crazy one that would enjoy what they're setting on you, Mitya."
"I mean the concept, you know, the idea. That they think they're seeing everything. They're not, I've still got this room, you know, and I can still write. But it's the idea of what they'd do, what they'd do if they found out..." I trailed off, slightly trembling.
"You can rant to me all you want," Volklov offered, throwing a steadying arm around my shoulders like he'd done on the happier occasion at Redwall.
I had no need to rant out loud. I'd already done that in music. And so, instead, I continued. "You know, I'll continue to compose music, even if they cut off my paws and I have to hold the pen in my teeth."
At that remark, Volklov dropped his arm, looking distinctly more discomfited at the idea then I. But I soon outdid him again. "And I'm afraid they will, Volklov, I'm afraid they will! I'm already a spectacle, so to speak. I sit on that piano bench and play to Zlaya's whims and it's ridiculous, it's demeaning! And if I had no paws or something, it would be grotesque to see me try my trade. They'd find it funny, they'd laugh, they'd laugh! I could stop what I live to really do and just be what they see, but then I'm dead, so to speak, as good as dead. I can't stop using my creativity, it wouldn't be right and I couldn't. You have to take these papers to Redwall, but do it carefully. They'd cut off my paws for the notes, they would. If there were words and Zlaya found them, they'd cut off my paws at best, they'd do worse!"
Still deeply shocked, Volklov tentatively approached me again, giving me a long, mournful, amber stare, then reached up and patted me softly between the ears repeatedly, also repeating softly, "Mitya, Mitya, I'm sorry..."
For a while, that was the only noise, but I finally summoned enough more voice to conclude, "Will you take the manuscripts?"
Volklov continued patting my head. "I will, Mitya, but only if you go to bed right now. You need the sleep."
Volklov Varzar was a wonderful, wonderful friend, paternal at times, childishly immature at others, but always remarkably equal. He walked me to my quarters, then returned toward the main part of Mtsensk.
The events of that night from there on you know, albeit vaguely. I have to recount them again here, though, even though I certainly don't want to. The events are vague to me as well, I must confess. There are some events, you know, that the details are closely kept to. What I do know is that Volklov returned to the old music study and picked up my anti-Zlaya pieces as well as one of the Redwall song cycles. And I also know that somewhere between inside the study and the door out of Mtsensk, he was intercepted by several guards. I don't know what amount of investigation the guards took, whether they inspected the papers Volklov carried or asked questions later. The third thing I do know is that somewhere in a dark corridor of Mtsensk that night, a wolf was clubbed to death by heavy standard-issue scabbards.
I didn't find out until three days later; Marshal Raikh approached me and stated, simply, "Volklov Varzar is dead."
I froze inside, though I continued to fidget outside. My thoughts were rivulets of frigid water, the same ice blue as Zlaya's fur. And they runnets all pooled into one crevasse of thought—I had, no matter how indirectly, caused Volklov's death. It was a horror I didn't, I still can't completely face nor describe in a fraction of its extent. But as Volklov undoubtedly died carrying my music, there was a reality that lowered my status significantly in my own eyes. There it disfigured me, so to speak, more than the loss of paws, more than being Zlaya Trudnaya's piano-playing clown. There's some chance to break free from those, but there were only confining stone walls in the loss of the only beast in Mtsensk I was sure would side with me at the time. I wasn't certain what would happen to me in result of the manuscripts found on the body. Death, clearly, was not the consequence, but I felt dead anyway. And I felt a need to be buried, so to speak, in the shame and horror that confined me then.
Marshal Raikh said nothing, but rather assumed a surprised and notedly disapproving expression as I announced to her that I wanted to join Mtsensk's official military.
"When I glanced at him, I was struck by his suffering aspect, his troubled and confused expression. He hurriedly led me into the small room where he slept and limply sank onto his bed and started crying, weeping out loud. In horror, I wondered if something dreadful had happened to a member of his family. In response to my questions, he mumbled indistinctly through his tears: 'They have been hounding me, they have been pursuing me.'"
—Isaak Glikman
Pain causes ever so completely much much more than just simply hurting. True, that's a part of it, but sometimes not even one of the more significant parts. The psychological component is nearly always the greater fraction, and in reference to that, I don't mean simply the dull ache remaining from a physical blow or the prolonged sting of an attack on the feelings. There's a reaction element as well, one that works in different ways, all the ways with consequences that will generally outlast the extent of physical troubles. And since those consequences may inevitably lead to more of that elementary physical or mental hurt, they should be included in all that encompasses pain.
There are two standard reactions to pain; I found this out because I was at some time fielding both of them. To give them labels—underdescriptive ones at that—melancholy and vengeance. My pain, you know, was initially of the psychological variety. I'm actually not certain why Zlaya didn't bother making it physical, but one could easily say that a creature suffers considerably less after death. If Zlaya was out to deliberately make me as miserable as possible, from Broken-Sword Warrior on, she had an excellent battleplan.
As it were, I was numbed by the ferocity with which Zlaya threw her darts into my opera. You know I wasn't out to attack her by writing it, you know I used a story older than Mtsensk's very foundations. Zlaya was seeing demons, it seems, much like any powerful Dictator will encounter sooner or later. Like an uncontrollable fear of water—that is a parallel between them, but I only see it now. At the time, I puzzled over how Zlaya could have been so wrong, how she never bothered to check where the opera was coming from. And if I had been out to deliberately mock her then, she should have known I wouldn't be stupid enough to be so open about it. To consider that way, Broken-Sword Warrior was so incredibly blatant, so to speak, that it had to honestly be harmless, a sort of overkill factor. That would be sensible reasoning. But, as you know, Zlaya Trudnaya never did anything sensibly.
For a while, two weeks or so, perhaps, I moped. I ate less, slept less, and halfheartedly composed a fair quantity of useless music to Zlaya's prescription. As it was useless, it took very little time to write and left me more time to sit and ruminate. Volklov had told me about the other artists Zlaya had violently oppressed—we'd looked at some of their music, sent it off to Evgeny and Venyamin in the same folder as my own. But at that point, I didn't quite go with them. I had no idea quite what it meant to have a ban deathlocked to you. But then it happened, and I suddenly knew all of those other artists on the same level as myself. I thought of them often, I still do. And that stirred forth the vengeance part of pain.
I am generally not a vengeful creature; vengeance does little in the end. But then again, so does melancholy, and I feel I'll never be able to shake that I acquired during the ordeal I describe here. I know I'd never particularly seek physical vengeance on anybeast, though one might say I've had it quite by accident. In what seemed an endlessly hopeless situation for me and others under Zlaya, though, I found a loophole through which I could rise against that tyranny, ironically employing the very charges condemning me.
Zlaya still did not know about the old music room then, so it was still available as a sanctuary. It had been that before as well, you know, but more rested on that status at that point. You know Zlaya only proposed to search my quarters. I painstakingly ordered my quarters, therefore, so my "official" works and blank paper were the only musical paraphernalia present. The majority of my papers were in the old study; they were filled with lyricless notes reaching out to Redwall, commiserating with my newfound artistic equals, and even notes written with a claw's edge that deliberately attacked the dictator, so to speak. Deliberately in a musician's eyes, in a way that could be easily translated by one to the commoners. But as Zlaya, as you know, as I've told you too many times, was completely without musical knowledge, and as Volklov and I were the only creatures in Mtsensk capable of translating, the pieces were safe. But they were useless inside Mtsensk. As it were, they could have been taken to Redwall handily, but there was a chance that Zlaya could return there and hear the explanation. And then I'd be through, so to speak. But when one has the slightest undertone of vengeance in him, one looks past that fear of more complex pain.
I hadn't seen much of Volklov Varzar since Zlaya's reaction to Broken-Sword Warrior had become public. I'd guess that, as the topic inevitably came up of exactly how the opera got to Redwall, he was probably trying to keep a lower profile than the one he already held. He paid me fewer visits, rarely any; I went to specifically find him upon finishing some of my barbed pieces. He seemed rather surprised that I so urgently needed his services after their last employment had led to a level of downfall, so to speak. But his amber eyes did reflect both concern and interest—I remember that expression, a strange one—as he followed me back to the "forbidden" study.
We sat down at the desk and I sighed heavily, paws flickering across the edge of my papers. "You know, they're pressuring me, they're watching me."
"I know," Volklov returned simply, not his jovial self.
"And I don't like it. I hate it," I stated unnecessarily.
The corners of Volklov's lips twitched. "It would be an unusual beast, a sick or a crazy one that would enjoy what they're setting on you, Mitya."
"I mean the concept, you know, the idea. That they think they're seeing everything. They're not, I've still got this room, you know, and I can still write. But it's the idea of what they'd do, what they'd do if they found out..." I trailed off, slightly trembling.
"You can rant to me all you want," Volklov offered, throwing a steadying arm around my shoulders like he'd done on the happier occasion at Redwall.
I had no need to rant out loud. I'd already done that in music. And so, instead, I continued. "You know, I'll continue to compose music, even if they cut off my paws and I have to hold the pen in my teeth."
At that remark, Volklov dropped his arm, looking distinctly more discomfited at the idea then I. But I soon outdid him again. "And I'm afraid they will, Volklov, I'm afraid they will! I'm already a spectacle, so to speak. I sit on that piano bench and play to Zlaya's whims and it's ridiculous, it's demeaning! And if I had no paws or something, it would be grotesque to see me try my trade. They'd find it funny, they'd laugh, they'd laugh! I could stop what I live to really do and just be what they see, but then I'm dead, so to speak, as good as dead. I can't stop using my creativity, it wouldn't be right and I couldn't. You have to take these papers to Redwall, but do it carefully. They'd cut off my paws for the notes, they would. If there were words and Zlaya found them, they'd cut off my paws at best, they'd do worse!"
Still deeply shocked, Volklov tentatively approached me again, giving me a long, mournful, amber stare, then reached up and patted me softly between the ears repeatedly, also repeating softly, "Mitya, Mitya, I'm sorry..."
For a while, that was the only noise, but I finally summoned enough more voice to conclude, "Will you take the manuscripts?"
Volklov continued patting my head. "I will, Mitya, but only if you go to bed right now. You need the sleep."
Volklov Varzar was a wonderful, wonderful friend, paternal at times, childishly immature at others, but always remarkably equal. He walked me to my quarters, then returned toward the main part of Mtsensk.
The events of that night from there on you know, albeit vaguely. I have to recount them again here, though, even though I certainly don't want to. The events are vague to me as well, I must confess. There are some events, you know, that the details are closely kept to. What I do know is that Volklov returned to the old music study and picked up my anti-Zlaya pieces as well as one of the Redwall song cycles. And I also know that somewhere between inside the study and the door out of Mtsensk, he was intercepted by several guards. I don't know what amount of investigation the guards took, whether they inspected the papers Volklov carried or asked questions later. The third thing I do know is that somewhere in a dark corridor of Mtsensk that night, a wolf was clubbed to death by heavy standard-issue scabbards.
I didn't find out until three days later; Marshal Raikh approached me and stated, simply, "Volklov Varzar is dead."
I froze inside, though I continued to fidget outside. My thoughts were rivulets of frigid water, the same ice blue as Zlaya's fur. And they runnets all pooled into one crevasse of thought—I had, no matter how indirectly, caused Volklov's death. It was a horror I didn't, I still can't completely face nor describe in a fraction of its extent. But as Volklov undoubtedly died carrying my music, there was a reality that lowered my status significantly in my own eyes. There it disfigured me, so to speak, more than the loss of paws, more than being Zlaya Trudnaya's piano-playing clown. There's some chance to break free from those, but there were only confining stone walls in the loss of the only beast in Mtsensk I was sure would side with me at the time. I wasn't certain what would happen to me in result of the manuscripts found on the body. Death, clearly, was not the consequence, but I felt dead anyway. And I felt a need to be buried, so to speak, in the shame and horror that confined me then.
Marshal Raikh said nothing, but rather assumed a surprised and notedly disapproving expression as I announced to her that I wanted to join Mtsensk's official military.