Chapter Twenty Five - Pyre

The man in the green suit was not unduly worried. He relaxed back in the armchair by the fire and listened to the trivial chatter of the travelers off the road. News of war, panicky, garbled, exaggerated, rumours of almost no use. Surun sipped his drink, smoked his cigarette and waited. News would come and war was war. Yes, civilians died, but he had a feeling about these two children. Something about them would see them through this.

They had been captured by Muska and secured in Tepis Fortress. Muska had apparently let the boy go which, in hindsight, Surun could see from the report, had been a big mistake. Muska had underestimated this boy, to his cost. Surun wouldn't. The boy was irrelevant, dangerous but irrelevant. The girl was the key. The girl who had spoken to the mechanical man and who carried this stone. Information about the stone was garbled. Several soldiers at Tepis had described it issuing a beam of light into the eastern sky and one survivor of Goliath, one of the bridge officers, had clearly seen Colonel Muska using it placed alongside the ships compass to guide Goliath. Surun knew the story of a pirate ship being involved was true, he also knew Goliath hadn't been in pursuit of it, but following something else. This unknown giant airship, this floating island. This Laputa.

Everybody knew the stories of Laputa, they were fables, mothers told them to their children in their beds. Myths, fairy tales. But incredibly, it seemed Laputa was real. Muska had found it, and it had destroyed both Goliath and him. And this girl was the key to understanding Laputa and its power.

Yes, the girl was key. The boy merely an annoyance. He just needed to be got rid of.

Surun sat in the inn watching the weary muddy travelers come and go. Otto and Ryddyck were with him working up here in the north east, always checking information, following leads. He had called up two further teams, four more agents. He'd sent two to the Restormellian border. He knew the girl and boy were heading north and it seemed more and more likely they were going to her farm in the far north. That was stupid of them, very stupid. They would be easy to find and bring back. Surun had sent his other team deep into Restormel to investigate possible reasons why they might be heading there and not to Gondoa.

But as to the war, there was nothing to be done. But if Numenaorian troops had news of them, Surun would hear of it. Major General Beauhen was a fat arrogant fool. He was unaware of the Agency's influence even among his own officers. Many of the younger commanders knew the direction things were going.

--I--
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I I

It had become almost idyllic, almost a home, they had become nearly a couple, living as farmers. Tending the cows, letting the chickens out in the yard, cutting firewood, doing the washing. They had stayed two days and three nights. Two days in which they had got to know each other more than ever before. They had come to know each other not by talking but by living side by side, by cooking, working, cleaning and merely resting in each others presence. There was of course the watching too. Sheeta found it was one of her favourite pastimes. She had been in the garden sat on a tree stump shelling peas and he had been nearby chopping firewood. He was naked to the waist and she had found herself not just watching him but drowning. She held the bowl of peas on her lap and then, after ten minutes had not even noticed that she had put it down and just her hands were in her lap, pressing against herself. There. In shock and guilt she'd gone inside, splashed water on her face and neck and finished the peas away from that vision.

It had become almost a marriage.

But the war was always there, always reminding them. The noise of gunfire had awoken them the first morning. It was much closer than when they'd heard it before, they had lain in the pre-dawn half light, holding each other and listening to the sound. The guns were close now, it was no longer like distant thunder, they could hear individual explosions. Not more than ten or fifteen miles away, Sheeta thought.

The gunfire never really stopped, it might be quieter at times but at others very loud. Airships passed over several times and on the second morning a column of cavalrymen went riding down the lane. More and more they felt the war drawing nearer. Traveling further north was going to be not just difficult but dangerous.

On the third morning Pazu knew they had to move on, not because of the war coming but because he found he could no longer stay in this house, in this family's bed. It filled him with loathing to be near the place. At the end of the garden was a path through a scrubby field up the valley. He'd followed it, out of idle curiosity, and the path had led to a small wooden footbridge across the stream under the trees. The children had made a swing here, just a length of wood on the end of a rope. They must have enjoyed summer afternoons swinging above the stream and falling into the pool below. Beyond the bridge and the trees was a working space, another shed, the signs of a plough being used here.

He climbed a slope and above the valley floor on a low plateau were the farmers fields. He saw something at once. The plough. It stood in the centre of the field, the ploughing partly finished and now weeds coming up through the stubble of the area the plough had not reached. There was something on the ground beside it and Pazu went over. He didn't need to get very close to know what it was, he could smell it from a distance. A horse, dead and swollen and burst open, its stomach had been worried by dogs. Someone had killed the farmers horse while he was ploughing. So where was the farmer?

He went around the dead horse at a distance. On the ground in the furrows something glittered. He bent and picked it up. A brass bullet case. He sniffed it, it smelled exactly like the ones he'd thrown in the fire three nights ago. This one was bigger, longer, a rifle bullet had been fired here. As far as he knew the only people who went around with rifles were soldiers. Tanner had a shotgun, farmers tended to have shotguns to shoot rabbits and foxes. Tanner had a revolver as well, and the men in suits had pistols, but rifles were used by soldiers.

Across the field a little way he noticed something strange about the ploughed ground. There was a long deep gash cutting across the angle of the furrows. The trench was big, a foot wide and a foot deep and thirty or forty feet long. A little way from it, twenty feet away and parallel, was another exactly the same. Pazu tried to visualize what had made these marks. He had a thought and went along both deep furrows. Half way along one of them, on the 'outside' of the pair of marks he found what he was looking for. Footprints, boot prints, many of them. A group of men had appeared in the middle of the field, all in one spot and from here he could see the marks going towards the plough, spreading out.

His mind could visualize what had happened. The farmer had been ploughing and an airship had come down and landed in his field, men had got out, a lot of men. Men with rifles who had shot the farmers horse. And then what? A bleak vision came into the boy's head. The farmer was up here, surrounded by soldiers. That meant his wife and the three children were in the farm. Someone had gone into the farm and smashed the place up. As far as he could see no clothes had been taken, no cows, no cart. Only food.

Pazu began to sweat and feel very uncomfortable. He went to the plough again, covering his mouth against the stench. He found what he was most afraid to see. By the plough handle, where the man guiding it would stand, was a dark stain on the earth. He knelt down in the soft soil and put his hand to the dark patch, digging in his fingers he picked up a handful and sniffed.

He knew this smell well, he had seen enough accidents in the mines. It was blood.

Oh, no. No.

The farmer had been shot up here, leaving his family in the house. Defenceless. A woman and three children.

Instinctively he looked around at the land and the trees, as though the evil was still here, hiding in the soil. He got up and went back down to the bridge. As he passed the shed by the trees a sixth sense made him pause. This must be where the farmer kept his horse. The door had its exterior bolt thrown over. Someone had closed it from the outside. He worried at the stiff bolt and the door swung open.

The smell hit him first. Even though it was cold weather, they had lain here a week. Pazu and Sheeta had been here three days and he knew when they arrived that there had been no fire in the kitchen for another three. Pazu looked and his life changed. What he saw in that shed stayed with him until the day he died. Groaning with a terrible aching feeling of sheer sadness and frustration he sank down on his knees. They lay in an untidy pile near the rear wall, the two parents on the outside of the heap, the children in the middle as though gathered between their mom and dad for protection. And worst, oh no, worst of all in her arms the mother held a little bundle with a shock of blond curls. Pazu let his head down and pressed his forehead to the dirt. He let out a howl of distress and anger. Someone, some bastards, had done this. Came here, murdered an innocent happy family, stolen food and left. Soldiers probably and from which side he didn't know nor care.

He knelt there for a while. He didn't believe in any gods, he only used that name when he was struggling to express himself. He knew Sheeta believed in spirits but she'd never called them gods. But now, of all the reactions he could have had to this discovery, Pazu surprised himself by praying. He prayed for peace for the souls of the five people in the shed and then he prayed that those who had done this would be judged accordingly, treated accordingly, as they deserved.

He couldn't leave the bodies here, it was too cruel to leave them where dogs might get in. These innocent people deserved better. But he just couldn't bring himself to touch them, to carry them out to a grave. But he could burn them, a funeral pyre was all he could think of. It was all he could do for them. Weeping with frustration and anger, boiling with hate, he rose to his feet and left the shed.

"Sheeta!"
"Yes, in here."

She was in the kitchen, of all things baking. He stood in the doorway and looked at her. Her hair was bound up in a white scarf, her sleeves rolled up and her arms white to the elbow with flour. Such a scene of domestic calm, so ordinary, so innocent. He looked at her face, she seemed a little perturbed by his tone of voice. He wanted so much to go to her and hold her.

"What is it?"
"We need to leave. At once."
"I've just put a pie in to cook."
"How long will it take?"
"An hour."
"We leave in an hour. Take it with you. Pack anything you want to take. Food, clothes, candles. Whatever you think we can carry."
"Why? What is it?"
"Do you trust me?"
"Of course I do."
"Then please trust me. We must go. Now. This morning, but I can't tell you why. I just don't want you to know. So please trust me, trust this decision."

A look of worry came over her.

"What?"
"I can't tell you what, or why. We just need to go. But we're not in danger, so there isn't anything to worry about, I just want to be away from here."
"The cows."
"Leave them in the field, it's better they stay out there than in the shed. There's nothing else we can do for them. I'll leave the chickens out."
"Pazu."
"Hm?"
"I trust you. One hour."
"Thank you. Oh, and sorry, I need to be busy. Don't pay any attention to what I'm doing. And Sheeta."
"Yes."
"That isn't a request. I don't want you to see what I'm doing."
"I don't understand. But I do trust you."
"Good girl. One hour."

He got the chemical fire blocks from his knapsack. There were about twenty left and he put half of them in his pockets. As he went to leave the room he turned back and got the revolver and loaded it. Checking the lock was on he stuffed it in the back of his belt. He just felt better having it with him. From that moment on, for a long time, he always carried it loaded. Things had changed.

He got the wheelbarrow and loaded it with firewood. Up at the shed he put all but one of the fire blocks on the bodies and then covered them with wood. He made several trips to the woodpile until it was all used up, all piled in the shed. He stood in front of the crude pile. Thinking of that little bundle with the blonde curls, and the tiny dress he had seen in the wardrobe, he asked whoever might be listening to forgive him. He put the last chemical block at the front of the pile and then smashed it with a piece of timber. The chemicals mixed and burned and soon the flames spread through the dry timber to the other chemical blocks. These spat and burst and blazed in turn. Pazu backed out of the shed, he walked to the centre of the small yard by the trees and sat down. He tucked his knees up to his chin and hugged them, watching the shed burn. It soon became a furnace, roaring swirling flames reaching to the height of the trees, a column of black smoke drifting thickly up the valley.

Pazu thought he should say something, some appropriate words, but he wasn't an educated person and nothing would come. Nothing but an aching desire that those in the shed be at peace. And then something did occur to him.

"Lucita. Uh, you don't know me. And I don't know you. Tanner says you are a good spirit, a spirit who brings life. He says that when things die, people die, you take them, and take the good parts and use them again in a new creation. I don't know the people here, but it seems to me that this little girl couldn't have had any bad in her at all. So, please, if you would, please take her and use all of her in another child. She didn't have a proper life here, so… please let her have a life again. Uh, that's all. Thank you."

He wiped his eyes and got up. Hating war, hating soldiers, a burning red fury in his heart, he went back to the house.

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20 - 21 March 2007

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