The Gnomes and beasts departed the council, leaving the dune pock-marked with boot and paw prints. Roland and his friends remained, isolated from the animals by their preference for the light and warmth of a fire, and from the Gnomes by the latter’s characteristic lack of warmth and hospitality. All night, Sloat kept the fire low and under the lip of the dune to shield the animals from its disquieting effects.
A strange, spiritual mood settled over the entire camp. Yesterday, they had been a brash company of warriors fighting in defense of liberty and their families. On this evening, they were a communion of martyrs on the eve of their execution. Some paced compulsively in an endless parade. Twelve steps one way, twelve steps back. Over and over. Some, like Bannaclaw, sat alone in the distance, wrapped in an eerie calm, their apprehensions self-contained. The Gnomes tossed and turned in their blankets, their prone figures silhouetted in tents lit by the ghostly glow of their torches.
Inside the dune, the air crackled with tension. Only Belfray enjoyed a brief respite from his nerves, having fallen asleep from utter exhaustion. Digtry curled up with his hands on his temples in a posture of such intense meditation that Roland dared not approach him. Sloat whittled aimlessly on a piece of wood, a telltale sign that the Tishaaran was struggling mightily with his conscience.
“Would that I were an animal,” said Sloat, as his blade shaved the wood into slivers. “Then I could live by the rule of the wild--kill or be killed--and think no more of it. But I am not a beast, and though fond of some of them and a friend and ally of the wolves, I cannot conform to their nature. This is wrong. The troubles with Ishyrus should never have come to this.”
“But they have,” insisted Roland, “so we have to deal with it.”
“I cannot shrug off responsibility like that, begging pardon,” said Sloat, slicing deeper into the heart of the wood. “Is life of so little consequence that we say, ‘oh well, we were not quite on top of things. I guess thousands shall have to die.’ Why is death always accepted without question as the master in these matters?”
“What do you suggest?” asked Roland, getting exasperated. “Just give up?Surrender to evil?”
Sloat gestured with his knife toward the battlefield that had already claimed a down payment of blood, with the balance due tomorrow. “What is a greater surrender to evil than this? We have let ourselves be maneuvered into a game we do not control and cannot quit until it has played out to the end.”
He sighed heavily. “I will fight tomorrow, Roland. Not to kill, for I am a Tishaaran. I can do no more than offer such protection as I am able to our allies who take up the battle. But even if by a miracle we were to prevail tomorrow, this battle is not a solution but a monument to the weakness of the realmlands.”
Although he did not endorse Sloat’s argument, Roland felt powerless to dispute it. This drove him deeper than ever into the pit of depression. Thanks to his encounter with the Draxis, he no longer feared death, neither the concept nor the violence of the end he could expect. He was acutely aware that he had narrowly escaped a fate far worse than death and that such would likely be the lot of the realmlanders who survived tomorrow’s encounter.
It was not death but the sense of purposelessness in Sloat’s pronouncements that deflated him. Without some shred of meaning or nobility or decency in their cause, what was left to cling to?
He walked aimlessly to the lip of the dune and looked south toward the lands through which he had come. Far beyond that horizon, many days out of sight, there were living, breathing creatures going about their daily business, wrapped up in their routine cares. They would enjoy at least another night of their existence, ignorant of the calamity that had befallen the realms and would soon overtake them.
Suddenly, from out of that darkness, a vision took shape. Roland shrank back at first, fearing a raid from Ishyrus’s wraiths. But the blur materialized into Berch, returning from a solitary walk.
“You can’t sleep either, huh?” said Roland.
“What’s new?” grunted Berch, bleary-eyed. He saw no point in going into all the details about why he had not slept since Glasswater. Noting Roland’s hangdog look, he said, “You looking for handouts or pity? Either way, you come to the wrong place.”
The moon shone so brightly that it exposed the deep pores on Berch’s face and the incredible hollowness around his glazed eyes. The man was turning into a zombie before Roland's very eyes.
Roland was in no mood to argue with a cantankerous old man. Although he no longer actively disliked Berch, and found he could tolerate his ideosyncrasies, he had trouble thinking of him as a friend. On the eve of death, Roland craved peace, or divine reassurance, or at least some bond with another living thing--something that he could fool himself into believing could not be severed by the death.
So what do I get? First, Sloat’s hand-wringing and now Berch, of all people. On this night of all nights!
“I just went through a night like this,” said Berch, stretching out on the sand. “With the wolves. We thought we were goners then. It turns out our unexpected survival s was just a stay of execution. Now we get to go through all the last rites one more time; how lucky is that?”
“Hey, live large, my man,” said Roland, trying to dismiss him without being rude. He swung his gaze northward, toward the purple glow that outlined the distant cliffs of the Point against the ocean, as he shifted and paced in agitation.
“Got ants in your pants, kid?” asked Berch.
“I seem to be a tad restless. Can’t imagine why!”
Berch accepted this. Squinting past Roland’s shoulder toward Point Harrow, he asked, “What do you see out there?” he asked.
“This is a fun game,” said Roland, bitterly. “I see a freshly dug grave waiting for all of us. What do you see?”
“A grave? Nah, I don’t see that at all.”
“Really. What do you see?” Could that possibly be a note of hope in the old man’s voice?
“I see our bodies burning in a big bonfire on the plain. Or being eaten by buzzards.” He broke into a low chuckle.
“And you make fun of my sense of humor,” said Roland. Good ol’ Berch--obnoxious to the last drop.
Berch shrugged. “Couldn’t resist. They stood silently together for a few moments After a moment, sounding more serious, he said, “What do you see when you look into that grave?”
Roland stared at him, irritated.
"I'm serious this time," offered Berch.
Would you just leave me alone please? The man had shown no interest in any meaningful conversation since the first days they had met. Roland was not sure he was capable of it. Now he was asking questions, either to bait Roland with his twisted sense of humor or, well, who knew? Roland did not care one way or the other.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“What I woudn't give for toilet right now,” he said.
“You’re that scared, huh?”
“No, it’s just that I’d really like to give you a swirly.”
Berch nodded, a smile playing on his lips. For a long time, neither said a word.
Roland found himself reliving his cowardice at the river. He was always replaying horror scenes at rivers. While so many other memories seemed to fade in this realmlands, that images of his meltdown at Glasswater and of the cruelty of Devil Throat was branded onto his skull. His companions had been too gracious to demand an apology for his behavior, too kind ever to mention the incident. As a result, he had never apologized. He could do so now, but what was the point? Apologizing to Berch was like handing your jewels to a burglar for safe keeping. Besides, he sensed that an apology here would be only a band-aid on a larger problem. He felt a vague memory of similar events and similar outcomes in a forgotten world. Failures, unfinished business. Every one of them throbbed like an open wound. The days of righting past wrongs were past. The festering sores he now carried would go with him to his death.
These thoughts ricocheted through Roland’s mind until, quite unexpectedly, he found himself answering Berch’s question out loud. “When I look into the grave, I see silence. Total silence.”
Berch nodded but gave no reply. Whatever his purpose in asking the question, he had succeeded in priming Roland’s pump. Roland had nothing to say to Berch, did not even care to be around him, yet he had to talk to someone.
“I’m not afraid of death, Berch. I’m afraid of the silence. I’m afraid of being the tree falling in the forest that no one hears.”
Berch arched his bushy eyebrows and shook his head. “I had to ask.”
“Just sit there and pretend to listen for a moment, would you?” snapped Roland. “Right now, if I had only one wish, I’d wish to be home.” He struggled to keep his chin from quivering. “We’re no closer to home than the day we set foot here. Man, I’ve heard about being isolated and far from home, but this takes the cake.
“You know what I really hate about this place?” he chattered on. “I hate how it steals memories. I can’t even get a clear picture in my mind of what Delaney looks like, and we didn’t leave her all that long ago. Isn’t my life supposed to be flashing before me on a night like this? I don’t remember my life. I try, but here’s nothing.”
Berch said nothing. Was he even listening? More to himself than to Berch, Roland muttered, “I can’t help it; I don’t want to die without memories.”
“Who knows?” said Berch at last. “Maybe death is the way home from here.” Wrinkles etched more deeply than ever into his face, and his eyes were those of a dying fish. His tone was as gruff as ever. Yet Roland wondered if he were looking into a softer shade of Berch. Unaware of the tortured sleeplessness that Berch suffered in his semi-Droom state, Roland reacted instinctively to what he viewed as surrender.
“I’m not going there,” he said. “If death is the way home, then suicide is, you know, just a bus ride. An energy-saving option. Not to be scorned. Seems to me there’s something wrong with that picture.”
He fully expected Berch to react defensively, to come back snarling. But the old man just looked off toward the Point, and said, “There’s a lot of ways to go home. You can sneak in through the back door in the dead of night with your tail between your legs. That would be suicide. Or you can walk in through the front door with your head held high.” After a moment, he snorted, “Ah crap! I guess this is what comes of hanging around the wolves too long.”
“Death is the way home, huh?” said Roland. “That’s a tough theory for us non-kool-aid drinkers to test.”
Neither admitted the obvious: the test was coming soon whether they were willing or not.
“Strange adventures we’ve had, huh?” Berch said, with a shake of his head.
“That’s an understatement.” Look who needs to talk now! Mr. Strong and Silent!
“You know, I think it’s worse for you young folks. The people that sell the books and make movies, they think fantasy is kids’ stuff. Always thought so myself. Never paid any attention to it. Never went to any of them movies.
"Uh-uh. We had it wrong. Shoot, when you’re young and wet behind the ears, the normal world is adventure enough. Too wild for some of us.
“You get up in years, though, you’ve seen the sights, figured stuff out. ‘Been there, done that.’ Isn’t that what you kids say? You get old and you know exactly what’s going to happen tomorrow. More or less what happened yesterday. Not because you got pushed into some corner but because you want it that way. You custom design it for yourself. You get tired and lazy and you give up looking for the wonder and the mystery and you start trying to control the little part of life that you know. Trying to control it all without getting too close to it. Without touching it. Like picking things up with one of them remote control arms.
“But you can’t do it. You can’t do it because when you got no . . . wonder in life, you’re not really part of life. It’s like you got no traction in the world. Spinnin’ your wheels, not getting anyplace. Now that’s when it pays to travel to a new world. It shakes the bejeebers out of you at first because you spent half your life trying to beat all the mystery out of life so you could control it. And just when you’ve got to the point where you think you know everything, you come here and now you don’t know any more than some snot-nosed kid. Scary. At first.”
He turned and looked Roland square in the eye. “But once you get over the fear, you find out all over again what’s it’s like to be young. And this time you know enough not to waste it.
“Youth is wasted on the young,” he said, chuckling humorlessly. “You don’t know how good youth is until you’ve been old.”
Roland squirmed. He was not in the mood for a lecture, especially from someone who was beginning to sound like his least favorite uncle. Did he ever tire of running down “kids these days.”
But Berch’s rambling took an unexpected turn. “Let me tell you, Roland, I’ve been old! I mean old, as in covered with mold and smelling like worm food. I know what that’s like. By the time I quit farming I was so old that I looked at the prettiest sunset the way you’d look at a second hand going around a clock. Weren’t no different watching one or the other. I can remember a day when a piece of music--a song or maybe a hymn that my mother sang--would get under my skin and bring me to tears, it was so pretty or sad. But you let yourself get old and the same music sounds no different than piss off a urinal.
“I’ll tell you what tomorrow means when you’re old,” he said, with more passion than Roland had ever seen from him. “Before I came to the realmlands, if you could have told me that all I had to do was snap my fingers and every wish I could think of would come true, you know what my answer would have been? ‘So what?’ When you got no wishes worth wishin’ for, that’s when you’re old.”
He stopped to examine his cracked, sandpaper fingers. “I lost the feeling in my fingertips last year. At my age you wonder if that’s the beginning of the end. Is it going to spread until I can’t feel anything?"
He sighed. "Turned out, I had it backward. It starts from the center, Roland. The fingertips were probably the last to go.”
Roland did not know exactly what to make of this speech. It was an intensely
personal reflection, the kind that Berch may never have shared with anyone before. It
offered some insight into what the old farmer had been through, both in the realmlands and in the previous world. Roland had always suspected that Berch’s life had never been easy. On top of that, the tragedy with the wolves had dragged him deep through the slime of hell. Berch had borne it. Not nobly, perhaps. Certainly not with grace. But he had toughed it out and was still standing, and that counted for something.
“You know what made me young again?” said Berch. Without waiting for an answer, he said, “Ubor. After the grief I caused the wolves, you know what he said? He quoted a Tishaaran proverb, of all things. Never thought I’d pay attention to one of those old chestnuts. ‘Forgiveness makes yesterday’s news of today’s sins.’ That was the end of the story for him. Case closed.”
Roland stared hard at him in the dim light of the fire. To look at the man's face, he seemed haunted, even tortured. But in the words and voice Roland detected a sense of peace. He swallowed a lump in his throat, moved by and envious of that peace that. He thought his heart would burst with shame over his own cowardly performance at the river. After much hesitation, he summoned the nerve to say, ”Are you suggesting you could do the same for me?”
“You mean for that meltdown at the Glasswater?”
Roland was taken aback; he had not expected Berch to know exactly what he was referring to.
“Old news," said Berch. "Unless, of course, you pull another stupid stunt like that again.”
Roland bristled, until he saw the twinkle in Berch’s eye. He took a deep breath and let it out. “Thanks,” he said. But somehow it was not the same for him as for Berch. Futility and regret continued to drag him down.
“Back home, I used to dream of other worlds that weren’t so messed up as ours,” said Roland. “I loved to read about them. And I would dream of a better me: smarter, more confident, braver. Then it happened. Here I was, given a new life, really. A fresh start.
“Turns out, it’s no different,” he continued, listlessly. “I’m no different. All those fresh starts--the New Year’s resolutions, saying your sorry--they’re only mirages. There is no better place this side of heaven. There is no better me. This is all I am and all I ever will be.”
Berch looked up from picking at calluses on his thumb. “Ever hear about the kid who planted a seed and dug it up the next day to see if it grew?”
Roland had no energy for Berch’s curious homespun philosophy. But he felt obligated to ask, “What about it?”
“Got a creek that runs behind my farm,” said Berch. “It’s been there forever. Never moved a lick since I first saw it. But if you look around, you can see where the stream used to run, and it’s changed course considerable. When things change so slowly, you don’t notice. Takes patience.”
“You need time to be patient,” Roland reminded him, bitterly. “We’re out of time. Even if I were changing, no one will never see me beyond the mousy little snot I’ve been. Delaney will never know what I really think of her.” He sighed heavily, exasperated with himself for revealing that little item to Berch. “It's not fair.”
“Fair or not, what is is,” said Berch. “You go from there.
“Big comfort,” muttered Roland, growing irritated with Berch.
“Carry what you can carry. What you can’t carry, you give back.”
That took a while to sink in. “What are you talking about?”
“Another Tishaaran proverb. Got that from Belfray,” said Berch. “I think the reason they have so many of those in Tishaara is so people like Belfray can’t make such a hash out of everything they say. It says to me, just carry your load as you’re able. When you’re up to it, you pull a little extra for someone else. Sometime they pull some of yours. And what none of you can handle, you give back. You’re pulling your limit, Roland. Give some of it back.”
Roland stared at him, clinging to both hope and doubt. Tears began to spill out of his eyelids. He laughed uneasily. “To whom? What are you saying? You gettin’ religion on your deathbed?”
Berch shrugged. “Stars shine more brightly when the sky is the darkest.”
“Are you going to be quoting Tishaaran proverbs at me all night?” asked Roland. “What are you telling me?”
“Hell, I’m just quoting Belfray. You’re the one with the college education.” He patted Roland on the shoulder and left him alone with his thoughts.
Funny what that slightest touch, that brief point of contact with another human could accomplish, thought Roland. The touch let him know that he was not alone in a sterile world. Even if it was just Berch, that was something.