Elizabeth Moon - Those who Walk in Darkness

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Moon, Elizabeth - Lunar Activity SS 10- Those Who Walk in Darkness

Those Who Walk in

Darkness

by Elizabeth Moon

published as story #10 in

LUNAR ACTIVITY

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Moon, Elizabeth - Lunar Activity SS 10- Those Who Walk in Darkness

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events

portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance

to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

book or portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

260 Fifth Avenue

New York, N.Y. 10001

ISBN: 0-671-69870-2

First printing, April 1990

Distributed by SIMON & SCHUSTER

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, N.Y. 10020

Printed in the United States of America

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Moon, Elizabeth - Lunar Activity SS 10- Those Who Walk in Darkness

Introduction

Real Weather, Small Towns, and

Science Fiction

Lunar Activity suggests lunar exploration, colonization, mining or

industrial or scientific endeavors. Space-suited figures adjusting

telescopes on the far side of the Moon, sweating construction

workers fitting together another section of habitat or workspace.

The Moon is clearly Space, and Space, someone said, has no

weather —an arguable thesis, but meant (in that case) to extoll the

virtues of living in a planned, controllable environment. No sudden

tornadoes, no wild floods, no killing frosts just when the peaches

bloom or the oranges ripen.

Far from such a planned environment, this terrestrial Moon lives in

a small town brimful of real weather. Hail this spring pitted the

young fruit; a tornado ripped the guts out of a neighboring town;

drought parches the grass and floods undermine the fence corners.

More than that, the mind has its own weather, as hard to predict and

control as the planet’s whirl of wind and water. Even in weatherless

space, in the shuttle or space station, on the cloudless, rainless

Moon, the human mind would have storms, whirlwinds, long cold

frozen winters and sudden thaws, rising floods and barren droughts.

Human societies form contentious factions that clash like warm

Gulf air and a Canadian cold front, producing political upheavals,

deadly fireworks… the exterior human weather that buffets all of us.

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Moon, Elizabeth - Lunar Activity SS 10- Those Who Walk in Darkness

And on our world, the visible weather of atmospheric movement is

partnered by the invisible contention of plate tectonics. As the

meeting of atmospheric forces throws up great walls of cumulus, the

meeting of plates sends mountain ranges surging up—and these in

turn affect continental weather for centuries.

Living in a small town, in a true (if imperfect) community, all the

layers of weather lie open to the eye. There are fewer grandly

engineered edifices to hide the cloud patterns and individual

motives, as skyscrapers and corporations do. Under our feet, the

rock witnesses to ancient weathers, then erodes under present

storms to form tomorrow’s sediments… just as ancient grievances

and alliances appear as fossilized relationships that send small

replicas out into the world to replay the same games. Interfaces

matter: where people touch, where atmosphere shapes geology,

where science and technology meet human emotion and biology.

Science fiction is the logical result of letting a Moon loose in small

town weather.

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Moon, Elizabeth - Lunar Activity SS 10- Those Who Walk in Darkness

Those Who Walk In Darkness

Fantasy, unlike science fiction, is expected to have weather. It

arises from the depths of the mind, those tectonic impacts when

buried axioms clash and thrust new mountain ranges up to poke

holes in the mind’s atmosphere, to change climate into stormy

chaos, star-crowned. Don’t be surprised when the mountain ranges,

explored, show ancient fossils around every corner. The mountains

are new; the rock itself is not.

Those who have read The Deed of Paksenarrion will recognize

instantly which night a frightened boy wanders the streets of

Vérella. For the rest of you—be careful. Some of these fossils have

undergone extensive metamorphosis.

—«—»—

He was feverish and shaky; they had made him stay to the end.

Now he slipped away from his father in the crowd, swerving

quickly into a side passage, and forced himself to hurry on the

stairs. His back hurt still, four days after the beating.

It was already dark outside, and cold. Torches flickered in the light

wind, sending crazy shadows along the street. He took a long breath

of fresh air, grateful for it. The streets were strange again. Every

time they stayed below too long, he had trouble adjusting to the

movement and noise. He had tried to say that, but his father had

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Moon, Elizabeth - Lunar Activity SS 10- Those Who Walk in Darkness

silenced him with threats. Just as the priests silenced his father with

threats.

They had not silenced the paladin. He hunched his shoulders,

remembering her last words. She had refused to acknowledge the

Master; she had claimed the protection of the High Lord and Gird.

The priests always said there was no High Lord, but when they

unbound her legs the terrible burn wounds closed over as everyone

stared. Even the priests; he could tell they were frightened too, by

the way they screamed at the crowd and drove them away.

He slid behind Sim the baker, and flicked a roll from the tray while

Sim bickered with a customer who wanted a discount this late in the

day. Sim caught the movement and kicked at him, but the kick

didn’t land. Sim didn’t mean it to. The roll was cold and hard, that

morning’s baking, but better than nothing. He sank his teeth in it,

pulled off a mouthful. The paladin—they’d had to taste her blood.

He hadn’t wanted to, but after the other he knew better than to stand

back. It tasted like anyone’s blood, after all. Salty. The bread stuck

in his throat; he choked. A hard hand pounded his back; another

grabbed the roll. For an instant he flailed, off balance with the pain

of his back; he heard the laugh, and knew it was Raki.

“Take a bite of my supper will you?” Raki lounged against the wall,

inspecting the roll. He had years and height, and the assurance of

them.

“Wasn’t for you,” said Selis. He moved his shoulders, wondering if

the welts had opened again.

“Should have been. You owe me.” Raki took a small bite, watching

him. Selis shifted his feet, wondering which way to go.

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Moon, Elizabeth - Lunar Activity SS 10- Those Who Walk in Darkness

“I couldn’t come,” he said.

“Couldn’t.” Raki chuckled, an unpleasant sound. “That’s what I

heard. Jori said you squealed like a rabbit.”

“You knew—”

“Isn’t much I don’t know. Eh, dark of three nights I was there

myself. Not as good sport as some, that fighter.”

“Paladin,” said Selis, before he thought. Rafe’s brows went up,

changing the shape of his face in the torchlight.

“Paladin,” he said. “You say that like you meant it, Selis. Don’t you

know there is no such thing?”

“I saw it,” said Selis stubbornly.

“Saw what?” Raki spat, just missing Selis’s foot. “I saw a fighter

shaved naked and trussed like a market pig for everyone to sport

with. That’s all I saw.”

“Did you see the end?”

“And me a prentice with an afternoon shift? Of course not—I’ve

been on the street since midday, earning my share. Just you wait,

Selis, until you’re on the street— then you’ll learn—”

“But Raki—”

Raki glared at him. “Have you forgotten, little boy? You’re nothing.

That’s the rule—as far as you and I are concerned, and the Master is

concerned, you’re nothing.” Selis looked down. Raki was right; he

had street duty, he had rank in the Guild. And no Guild child could

argue with him, however close he was to his own apprenticeship.

“That’s better,” he heard Raki say, then two quick strides and Raki

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Moon, Elizabeth - Lunar Activity SS 10- Those Who Walk in Darkness

gripped his shoulders, hard, intending to hurt. “And you listen, Selis

who squeals like a rabbit: you’ll always be nothing. I’ll always be

ahead of you—I’ll always have the power, and you’ll always serve

me—little boy.” He shoved Selis against the wall, until the smaller

boy was gasping with pain, then released him with a hard push that

sent him sprawling.

For a long moment Selis crouched there in the shadow, shaking

with both fear and anger. Raki hated him—had always hated him.

Raki’s father was dead, killed on Guild business; Raki had been

reared by the Guild, a fosterchild. Selis’s father held rank enough:

the richest fence in Vérella, with contacts from Valdaire to Rostvok.

But Raki was bigger, older, and early skilled in those torments that

give older boys dominance in any gang. Selis knew Raki was doing

well as an apprentice thief; they all knew, when the lists were

posted. And Selis, small even for his younger age—his stomach

knotted when he thought of the years ahead.

That made him think of food; he looked back toward Sim’s stall, but

the baker was already closed. He could not go home. The priests

had forbidden it as part of his father’s punishment—the punishment

that fell on him, because they knew that was worse for his father.

They had also forbidden an inn. He dared not spend the coins his

father had palmed him, with their spies everywhere. He had to

scavenge, they had said. With a sigh, he pushed himself up and

started toward the great market. Perhaps someone had left scraps

there.

Selis had rarely been alone on the street after dark. Before Raki

made apprentice, he had gone out with that group once or twice, and

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Moon, Elizabeth - Lunar Activity SS 10- Those Who Walk in Darkness

his father had taken him along to a tavern from time to time, but this

was different. The noise of booted feet seemed loud, and the men

and women larger. He heard the crash of arms down one street, and

darted across it to another. Here it was darker, with fewer people.

Selis slid along the wall, half-feeling his way. It grew colder. He

shivered, wishing for the cloak the priests had taken from him. They

had told him where he could sleep warm, whispering in his ear as he

hung on the frame, but he would never go there. For one night he

could survive on the street; he had been out before with the others.

He wondered about the paladin. He had heard the talk— she was

being given to another, to be killed outside the walls later—but how

much later? If he was cold, in wool pants and tunic, she must be

colder, stripped and shaved like that. The wind ruffled his thick mat

of hair, and he shivered again.

The great market, when he came to it, was a cold windy space lit

spottily by windblown torches. No stalls showed, and the local brats

had scavenged any dropped food long before. Selis sighed as he

hunted along the edges, turning over bits of trash with his foot. His

stomach growled, and his mouth felt dry. At the public fountain, a

thin skim of ice slicked the stone margin. The icy water made his

teeth ache. He looked up; nothing but thick darkness that smelled

wet. The wind dropped again; he could hear footsteps in the

distance, and a drunken voice singing. He moved around the

fountain, looking for a place out of the moving air.

He could still see the paladin in his mind, and he could see himself.

Why had he squealed like that, before they even hit him? Someone

had laughed, and others had joined them; he should have been

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Moon, Elizabeth - Lunar Activity SS 10- Those Who Walk in Darkness

silent. The paladin had been silent. When they first brought her in,

everyone was: he had been breathless, waiting for the high gods to

send a bolt of fire or something. And nothing had happened. He

almost believed the priests, that nothing could happen, that only the

Master had power. He believed it when they dragged him forward,

and when they beat him, and nothing happened. He believed it when

the paladin’s torment went on and on, and nothing happened. He

believed it until—he frowned, thinking of it—until he had gone

forward himself, to spit on her and taste her blood, as the children

must. Then he saw gentle gray eyes, a tired face drawn by pain but

unafraid and—most strange to him—not angry. He had stared then,

forgetting what to do, but the priest had tapped his sore back and

reminded him. And so he had spit, and rubbed his finger along her

bloody sides and tasted it, and she had looked at him, without anger

or fear.

How could that be? They were all frightened, all the rest: he was,

and his father, and all the others in the hall, and the guards. Even the

priests. But she was not frightened. She had been hurt—had cried

out with pain, as he had—but not frightened. Nothing changed her

mind. She had said, again and again, that the High Lord was real.

That Gird Strongarm was real. That the Master was nothing before

them. That thought made him twitch. It was dangerous. If he defied

the Master, if he didn’t believe, then they would hurt him as they

hurt her. He curled into a ball, the taste of that blood filling his

mouth. He felt nausea burn his throat. He had to believe. He had to

obey, or else— But when he screwed his eyes shut, he saw her face.

He heard her voice, somehow steady and clear despite the torments.

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