The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (38 page)

---

That afternoon Mahrree finally got to see the
enormous colored pools of Idumea. The only way the Shin family
gained access to the largest pools was by using the High General’s
open carriage to take in more fully the sights of Idumea.

“Benefits of high-ranking army life,” Joriana
reminded them. “Access to everywhere, even if the general is at
home resting from a rough morning.”

Perrin’s presence—and the brass buttons on
his new colonel’s jacket that Joriana had already purchased in
anticipation—also helped get them through the locked iron gates
monitored by private guards. As they drove through the most
exclusive communities with elaborate and large homes, Mahrree and
her children could only gape.

“Not quite as big as the mansion district,”
Joriana sniffed almost haughtily as the carriage slowly traveled
along a wide drive that fully encircled one massive hot pool, blue
and steaming. “They do
try
, though. Newer houses just don’t
quite have the same character.”

Mahrree opened her mouth to point out that
was exactly what they’ve been trying to tell her whenever she
pressured them to move from their little
old
house, but
Colonel Shin was already practicing his new brass button glare, and
Mahrree decided she had probably already said a bit too much that
day anyway.

Jaytsy and Peto were just glad they got to go
to the pools instead of seeing some “old statue” their mother went
on and on about during midday meal.

The pools were more fantastic than Mahrree
imagined. Some were several hundred paces across, and the water
that welled up in them came from depths immeasurable. The greens,
blues, and even oranges were radiant and most tempting to leap
into, if the water hadn’t been near boiling temperatures. The crust
around the edges had been known to break away at times, and few
people had lost their lives, as well as a few stray animals.

Since the tremor many were more active. A few
were even bubbling steadily and sending sprays of water into the
air. In one neighborhood a guard was posted by the Administrator of
Science at a particularly active pool to record its changes. Two
evenings before it had sent a spray so high a young woman passing
it was severely burned.

“So Mother Shin, explain to me
why
people want to live here?” Mahrree asked after they learned about
the injured girl. They were walking around another pool, but
several paces away from it, and Mahrree nudged her children to
observe the hot colored water from an even safer distance.

“Mahrree, see the beauty of them!” her
mother-in-law held out her hands. “Look at those colors.”

“Which you can hardly see because of all the
steam.”

“The steam is helpful. Notice how most of the
houses are positioned to be hit by the steam when the wind blows?
In the Raining Season these pools and their steam warm the whole
neighborhood. If you had places like this in Edge, you wouldn’t
have nearly so much snow on the ground. It’d all be melted.”

“Hmm,” Mahrree considered. “I have to admit,
that’s a tempting thought. And when the wind blows just right, you
actually can see the colors. Nor do they smell as bad as I imagined
they would.”

“Depends on the time of year,” Mrs. Shin told
her. “And even then, you get used to the smell. I’ve been told the
smellier the water, the healthier it is.”

Peto made a face. “Smelly healthy water? Are
you sure?”

“No, son,” Mahrree said sadly. “Someone
brought this water to Edge to try to cure my father when he was
dying.”

Jaytsy shook her head. “I’ve smelled the
water after Peto’s bathed. There’s nothing healthy about that.”

“Different smell, Jayts,” Perrin assured her.
“More sulfur, just like the smaller hot springs in Edge and
Moorland. But I’ve never heard of anyone being healthier here than
anywhere else, Mother.”

His mother sighed. “You’re always so cynical,
Perrin.”

By the time they finished their tour Mahrree
had to admit that while the pools could be deadly, they were most
beautiful. Although the idea of them being ‘healthy’ was debated
loudly and at length by Mrs. Shin and her son as they reentered the
carriage.

From the pools they traveled to the center of
Idumea and the business district. Here were the buildings Peto
thought should have been named hill-makers because of their size.
All were built from block, but in unique designs and patterns that
almost made up for the dull shapes of the pieces. These had held up
surprisingly well during the land tremor, and Perrin wondered aloud
why Idumea had been begging for assistance.

That’s when Joriana had the driver take them
to the old garrison.

Perrin hadn’t visited either garrison, new or
old, since he’d come back. Even though they were only about two
miles from the Shin home in the opposite direction of the
Administrators’ Headquarters, Perrin had confided to Mahrree he was
in no hurry to be garrisoned again.

“Why are there two garrisons?” Jaytsy asked
as they left the city center.

“The old one was too small,” Perrin told her.
“The army kept growing under my father, and instead of adding on to
the old buildings, some of which were crumbling, they decided to
cut down the last orchard in Idumea,” he said with obvious
disappointment, “and build a larger, stronger garrison.”

“There was an orchard
in
the city?”
Peto said, astonished.

Before Perrin could harp on the tragedy of
chopping down the trees, Joriana sent him a withering look. “The
orchard was older than the reign of kings, Peto,” she said. “The
trees had stopped producing and needed to come down anyway! It was
logical to build the new garrison next to the old one, so that the
objective of fighting Guarders was uninterrupted.”

Perrin folded his arms and brooded, having no
response for that. Eventually he said, “They didn’t have to use
block for the new garrison, though.”

“Well, it’s a good thing they did!” his
mother exclaimed. “I know you think it’s dull, as if
that’s
important, but when you see what happened to the stone structures,
you may change your mind. They were going to tear the old buildings
down in Weeding Season, but now they don’t have to.”

When they arrived at the old section, it was
to see a massive pile of rubble that made Perrin stand up in
surprise. “Stop!” he shouted at the driver, and he leaped out of
the carriage as it lurched to a halt.

Mahrree looked at her children quizzically,
then helped herself out of the carriage to follow him. Perrin had
stopped in his jog and gestured helplessly to the destruction in
front of him. The footman helped Joriana out of the carriage, and
she walked almost timidly with her grandchildren to join her
son.

When he felt Mahrree next to him, Perrin said
in hushed tones, “That was our old home, right there. This whole
line of rubble,” he waved his hand, “were the officers’ homes in
Idumea. It looks like the soldiers and ox carts have pushed all the
rubble together, though.”

Joriana and her grandchildren caught up to
him. “Now you understand. They’ve been piling the rubble to move it
easier. Some of us went through the empty houses right after the
tremor, looking for things, looking for . . . your father,” she
said shakily.

Perrin put a bracing arm around her.

“Most of it was just storage, fortunately,”
she continued. “Imagine if people had still been living here! There
were a few layabouts, but I think they expelled them some moons
ago.”

Perrin said nothing but stared.

“I’m really tired of seeing rubble,” Jaytsy
said miserably. Her mother put her arm around her.

“There’s just one more stop we need to make
though, Jaytsy,” her grandmother assured her. “Well, at least, I
want to see it, but I didn’t want to go without Perrin.”

He turned to look at her. “Where they found
Father?”

Joriana nodded at him.

“Of course,” said Perrin.

“It was dark when they finally pulled him
out,” Joriana said as they walked back to the carriage. “I was
lying down in the surgeon’s coach, so worried, so drained . . . No
one thought he was still alive, but I was praying, oh, how I was
praying!”

A short ride later around the housing
district, which was now a make-shift quarry, they came to the old
administrative building. Or what would have been it.

“How big did it used to be?” Peto asked in
awe.

“Three levels, with at least twenty offices
on each level, and the cellar basement,” Perrin said, shaking his
head slowly at the mountain of devastation. “It was the biggest
building in Idumea for many years, and it’ll take seasons to remove
it all.”

Joriana was already out of the carriage,
walking determinedly to the enormous pile of rubble, so the rest of
the family caught up to her. They picked their way cautiously
through the large blocks of stone and miscellaneous debris. The
women frequently lifted their skirts while Perrin and Peto took
their hands and helped them over the more unstable sections.

Mixed together were smashed bookshelves,
crates, chairs, papers and indefinable clutter. A team of soldiers
sifted through the rubble nearby, looking for anything worth
salvaging before the rest of the soldiers used the mule teams to
drag the larger pieces away.

Peto seemed surprisingly interested. “What
was in here?”

“Mostly storage, again,” his grandmother told
him as she gingerly squeezed between two splintered desks. “But a
few people still kept offices. With the army growing so fast, the
new garrison is already too small. Some of the lesser departments
kept their staff here, at the bottom level. But no one had workers
here so early in the morning, especially on Holy Day. Only Relf.”
She shook her head. “He and his misplaced papers.”

Jaytsy and Joriana made their way to an area
where they didn’t have to hold their skirts up so high, but Peto
crouched and cautiously pulled ripped pages out from under rock and
wood.

His parents watched him brush the dust off a
page, read the words, put it down in disappointment, and slide out
another.

“Peto, are you looking for something?” his
father asked.

“Just curious,” Peto answered casually as he
pulled out another piece of parchment. “I’ve never seen so many
documents in one place. Seems like you brass button types are
obsessed with how many blankets the men go through.” He smiled as
he held up an old inventory list.

Perrin smiled cynically back at him, not at
all satisfied with his answer. “This isn’t where they found your
grandfather, if you’re interested.”

Peto immediately looked up.

“The storage room where he kept his files is
down there about twenty paces. You can see where they moved the
rubble to reach him.”

Joriana and Jaytsy were already on their way
to the spot. Peto stood up and picked and jumped his way through
the rubble to beat them there. Mahrree and Perrin looked at each
other questioningly and followed their son.

Two soldiers were where Relf had been
retrieved, salvaging large pieces of carved wood. One, a sergeant,
left the excavation effort and led Joriana to a small opening in
the rock.

“Down there, ma’am. It’s really quite
remarkable we noticed him. You can’t even see how he could have fit
in there. Hey! Where you going, boy?”

That’s what Mahrree was wondering as she
stopped in shock. Peto was lowering himself down into a crevice
near the soldier, and before Mahrree could cry out, he slipped
between two large stones and vanished from view.

“Peto, NO!” cried four Shins at the same
time.

Mahrree rushed to the edge of the crevice to
see Peto look up at her innocently, the sunlight reaching the top
his head.

“I can squeeze, see?”

“But it’s not stable!” the sergeant
exclaimed.

“No, it’s not!” Perrin seconded as he
squatted at the opening. “Peto, out of there now!”

“I just wanted to see if I could find what
Grandfather left here. He seemed a little upset yesterday that he
didn’t get the files put away properly.”

His voice sounded muffled in the enormous
piles of debris, and Mahrree chewed her lower lip, scanning for
ways to reach her foolish son. But even as slight as she was, she
couldn’t see a reasonable way into the mess.

“I thought that maybe—” Peto bent to peer
further into the dusty, jagged gloom, “—if I found some of what he
was looking for, he might feel better about things.”

“Peto, that’s very noble, but also very
stupid,” Joriana told him, wringing her hands. “Relf’s obsessed
with keeping his files orderly. Something like this will be good
for him. Make him realize life goes on without perfect
paperwork!”

“Peto, you’re making me very nervous,”
Mahrree said as he took a step in a small opening under shadowy
broken rock. He tried to shift aside what looked like a splintered
bookshelf, but too much wreckage rested on it. Instead he inched
around it.

“Peto, just let it go,” Mahrree pleaded.
“Whatever it is, your grandfather wouldn’t want you to risk your
life for a piece of paper!”

Peto paused and looked up at her between the
cracks of crisscrossing timbers. “Are you really sure about
that?”

In disbelief, Mahrree looked at Perrin.

Perrin transferred the incredulous look to
his son. “Of course we’re sure! Peto, OUT NOW!”

Usually that tone made his son shrink with
immediate obedience. It certainly made the soldier flinch as he lay
down before the crevice and extended his arm into it to try to
touch Peto, but he was several paces away. Perrin crouched next to
the sergeant and put a protective hand on his back.

Peto looked up at his father then back into
the deep rubble again. “I think I can see something—”