Grass (27 page)

Bored, Brother Mainoa had said. Bored to insanity. And Brother Lourai would just have to learn to get along with them.

It wasn't their threats that moved Rillibee. He had considered death many times during recent years. He had seen no reason why he should go on living when Joshua and Songbird and Miriam had all died. Dying had not seemed a bad thing, though getting dead had seemed to be more difficult than he had liked. So now getting dead seemed the problem. If he gave himself to this pack, here and now, there would be pain first, and humiliation, neither of which he wanted. If he was to die, he wanted it to be in peace, and not at the hands of some long-armed barbarian like Highbones.

What really moved him to the first ladder, however, was the confounded noise they made, the derisive cacophony centered on him, the knowledge that they would give him no peace until he acted.

The ladder did not frighten him. All those years, up and down the towers of Sanctity, ten times taller than these. He knew enough not to look down. He knew enough to have a good hold before he shifted his weight. He went up the ladder, slowly at first, then faster, his eyes up, seeing something there that those assembled on the thatch evidently had not seen or had taken no notice of.

The mists were coming down. The fog was falling over the Friary. Even now, the tops of the towers were lost in it, the spidersilk bridges were striped with veils. Perhaps those down on the rooftop would not notice it in time, if he could get far enough ahead of them.

He came to the first crossbrace on the tower. Getting to the next ladder required that he move along a curved rod of grass as thick as his leg. Though this was rounded and the girders at Sanctity had been square, this was wider than the girders he had crossed in the drop shafts. Without stopping to think about it; Rillibee ran along the crossbrace and started up the second ladder, eyes examining the route above him. Where the ladders were. Where the bridges were. And where was the nearest cloud?

A howl from below greeted his run. Newcomers did not run across the braces! Though the allotted time had not elapsed, Highbones waited no longer. He started up the ladder even as some few below had the temerity to shout, "Time. Time. Unfair!"

Anger spurted in Rillibee Chime. Highbones had broken his own rules. What right had he to break his own rules?

Highbones did not acknowledge the shouts. After a moment, his followers started after him, Hardflight and Steeplehands in the lead with Long Bridge close behind. Topclinger did not follow. He stood aside, shouting, "You didn't give him his fair time, Bones. You didn't give him time." Rillibee heard it. He heard the shout of approval that greeted it, as well, a dozen voices perhaps. Topclinger had his admirers.

Rillibee also heard Highbones below him, heard the threats, the sniggers designed to make Rillibee nervous, to make him tremble. Instead, the sound only fed his anger, making him move more surely and swiftly upward. There were three more ladders between him and the cloud that was sinking toward him. He had already memorized the ladders and bridges above it. He had seen one thing that would be useful if he decided to try life and several things which would do if he decided to die. Now, spurred by his anger, possessed by a devil of contrariness, part fear, part hate, he lunged upward, hands and feet pulling and thrusting while the howl of the climbers rose from below as the time was up and all of them leapt for the towers.

"Comin' after you, peeper," cried Highbones exultantly from below. "Comin' after you."

Rillibee risked one quick glance. He was already a great height above the ground. The bottom of the ladder below him was swarming with climbers now, as were those to either side. He lunged upward. There were two more runs along crossbraces which grew more slender the higher he went, and finally the ladder which led upward into the mist.

His anger made him tense. The tension made him gasp for breath, made his arms ache. Not so hard a breath or so aching an arm as would make him fall. Not yet. But he knew that could happen eventually. In time. How much time? The wet of the fog lay on his cheeks, cooling them. He climbed.

Suddenly the mist wrapped him, sweeping across him like a fabric so that he was muffled in it, all at once draped in an impenetrable gauze. Those below him could no longer see him or be seen by him. He was alone in the cloud with only the trembling of the tower to tell them where he was moving, to tell him where they came after him. He climbed more slowly, looking to his side, peering through the growing dusk. The thing he had been looking for appeared at last as a shadow, an extrusion of the tower into space, ending out there, lost in the gray mist, only a few feet away.

Rillibee untied the knot of his rope sash, unwound it from his waist, tugged his robe off, rolled it up, and tied it in the end of the sash. Clad now only in slim trousers and sleeveless shirt, he crawled out onto the spur, the line draped around his neck, the tightly rolled robe dangling against his chest. The spur had obviously been left over from the time the tower had been constructed, a crane from which tackle had been suspended to raise materials from below. It was supported from below by a series of diagonal braces. Behind him the spidery legs of the tower vanished in the damp gray of the cloud, just beyond the last brace he sat up and waited in a misty bubble where sound was muted.

Ten or twelve feet above the spur was a bridge, three ropes strung from this tower to another not far away, one rope to walk upon, two to hold onto, with slender lines woven between. Rillibee could not see it now, but he knew it was there. He had seen it from below and memorized its position. He hoped it was no farther above him than his rope sash could reach.

Balanced upon the spur, legs anchored in the angle of the brace below it, he swung his rolled robe, pendulum fashion, gaining length with each swing, finally throwing the robe up and over as it caught on the bridge above him. He had intended to tie the two ends of the belt together to make a loop and suspend himself under the bridge, lost in the mist where no one would think of looking for him. Now he tugged at the end of the rope, dismayed. It had caught on the bridge. Even as he jerked at it again and again he realized his scheme would not have worked. The rope bridge would have sagged under the weight of his body. Those who climbed these heights every evening would know that someone was out there in midspan. If they could not find that person on the bridge, they would look below it. So. He took a deep breath and stayed as he was, squatted on the spur, the end of the rope still in his hand. Someone was grunting and mumbling below him on the tower, within a few arm's lengths. "Up here!" shouted Highbone's voice, cracking in hysterical delight "He's up here." Other voices answered, not far below.

Rillibee waited. If they decided to climb out on the spur, he would jump. Getting dead from this height would be almost certain. He hoped he was over bare earth and not over a densely thatched roof which would break his fall. He kept his mind on this, scarcely breathing, still as a stone.

Someone climbed past him on the tower, then someone else. Sudden inspiration struck him, and he tugged at the rope, feeling the motion transmitted to the rope bridge above him.

"He's on the bridge," shrieked Highbones. "I can feel him. On the bridge!"

An answering bellow came out of the fog from the far tower where the bridge ended.

The rope in Rillibee's hands jiggled and danced, transmitting the motion of the bridge as the climbers moved out upon it. He left the rope hanging there, jiggling behind him, as he crawled back toward the tower, hand by hand, harkening to the sound of climbers-by, losing himself in the fog to descend as he had ascended, sometimes standing aside from the climbing shadows and shouting wraiths to let them go by, sometimes slipping down wet ladders, himself invisible in the mist, hidden by cloud, one with the sky. Above him was a discordancy of voices, directions and misdirections, shouts of "Here he is" mixed with cries of "Where is he?"

No one was guarding the bottom of the ladder he had climbed. The rooftop was empty. The fog had sunk almost to the level of the roof, and the door stood open with empty stairs below. From high above still came voices crying, "Here, here," and the ladder still trembled with the force of the bodies rushing to and fro. He went out silently, down the stairs and through the vacant hall, out into the alleyway and back to his cell in the new dormitory, which was still only partially finished and almost uninhabited. As he entered the dormitory, he heard a dwindling cry, as of someone falling forever from a high place.

Once inside his cell he crawled under his cot and lay there, almost without breathing, tight against the wall. Twice in the night his door opened and a light was thrust inside.

Before dawn he rose and climbed back onto the tower, moving through gray dusk to the bridge where his robe was caught, with the rope girdle still dangling below. A sleeve of the robe had come loose and wound itself around the foot rope of the bridge, only enough to prevent the bundle falling, not enough that anyone had noticed it. Rillibee retrieved his robe and put it on, then sat on a high crossbrace for a long time, looking out over the Friary and the surrounding prairie.

In his head the parrot said, "Let me die."

"I planned to," he replied. "This morning."

He put it off a little. He had planned to die this morning, but it was interesting upon the heights. The grass rippled below like an unending sea, stretching on every side to a limitless horizon. Things moved in the grass. Great beasts with barbed necks paraded on the ridge: Hippae. Torso-sized white crawlers struggled among the grass roots: peepers. Far to the south a line of great grazers moved slowly toward the east. He stared at them all, at the birds moving in clouds across the grasses, at the ripples here and there betokening mysterious movements by creatures he could not see. He wished there were trees. If there had only been trees … Still, the warm light shone on him like a benison, like a promise of something good to come.

By the time the sun rose, he was hungry enough to climb down and go to breakfast.

He was interrupted twice while he ate.

Once by Highbones, who strolled down the long line of tables to hiss at him, "Nobody makes a fool out of me and gets away with it, Lourai. Watch your back, because I'm coming to get you."

Once by a man who called himself Ropeknots, accompanied by two others who seemed to be watching Ropeknots more than they watched Rillibee. Ropeknots had an angry, frustrated look as he said, "Topclinger got hisself killed last night, peeper. Some of us was his friends and we figure you must've knocked him off his perch tryin' to get down."

"I went up," Rillibee explained, not looking at Ropeknots – who was livid with resentment and obviously unable to listen – but at the other two. "I hid in the fog and then when everyone went past, I came down the same ladder again. I didn't knock anybody off anything, and by your own rules I'm not a peeper anymore."

The calmer two of the delegation exchanged glances. Ropeknots growled, "I was guarding the door. You didn't get past me. You killed Topclinger, then you got down somewhere else."

"I went down through the same door. There was no guard there," Rillibee said, tired of it all. "There was no one there at all."

"I was there," the other claimed with an ugly flush on his face and a sidelong glare at his companions. "Highbones told me to stay there and guard the door and I did."

He turned and went away, leaving Rillibee staring after. After a moment, his two companions followed him. Rillibee wondered if the lie had been as patent to them as it was to him. The man had been told to keep watch, but he had left his post. Afterward, he had denied it. The denial suited Highbones' purpose, too, for it served to throw suspicion for Topclinger's death upon Rillibee. If anyone had killed Topclinger, it had been Highbones himself.

So, a faithless guard and a treacherous pack leader. Fine enemies to have. Rillibee sighed, wishing he had thrown himself off the spur when he'd had the chance last night. Or jumped off at dawn, as he'd planned to do.

He was considering climbing back up the tower for that purpose when he was interrupted again. This time it was half a dozen young Brothers who rubbed his head and laughed and said he had done a good job of losing them and named him Willy Climb on the spot because he'd climbed better than any other peeper of their generation. They loved him because he had confounded Highbones, whom they disliked, and because he had amused them. He became one of them in that instant, a leader of them, with several promising to watch his back for him and protect him from Ropeknots because everyone knew he was a shit and from Highbones, too, who yelled at other people for breaking the rules but always broke them himself.

Their easy friendship was enough to make Rillibee stop thinking about dying for a while. In the company of these newfound companions he climbed to the heights each evening in the dusk hours to sit on a brace and chant his own name while the others played tag across the bridges. He was aware of no distractions except the great night moths that blundered into him with their squishy bodies and the peepers that raised their hymns from the grass roots. Each sundown he ceased being Brother Lourai and became Rillibee Chime once again. As night came down he sat in cloudy silence, remembering his people and his place, and chanted, over and over again, Rillibee Chime, Songbird Chime, Joshua Chime, Miriam Chime. When his friends called him Willy Climb, he answered to that name, too. He was Willy Climb among the pack and ruck, becoming, so he thought to himself, multiple. Rillibee, Lourai, Willy. As though he had been folded and trimmed, like paper dolls, a chain of him extending from the planet of his birth to these cloud-wrapped steeples, where he would die, pretty soon, when he grew bored and depressed once more.

In the offices of Jhamlees Zoe, head of the Office of Security and Acceptable Doctrine, the man responsible for the affairs of the Friary was undoing, for the third or fourth time, a packet which had arrived a considerable time ago. Inside was a wad of printing beginning, as did all communications from the Hierarch – or even putatively from the Hierarch – "Dear Brother in Sanctity." And so on and so on, wah, wah, wah. Pages of it, spewed out of a cleric-all, dull as porridge and meaningless as peeper song. The real meat was in the middle of this manuscript, two pages inserted there which were written in a familiar hand: