His face grew sour and glowering. “I know what’s right and what’s wrong at least as well as you do, Poilar. I couldn’t have lived with my conscience if I hadn’t made the attempt. You look after your own, and let me be.” And he spat against the side of the rockpile and walked off angrily with Grycindil’s arm through his.
I heard more than a little muttering, here and there, about me. For the first time some were taking Muurmut’s side. They saw his pursuit of Min as bold and heroic. Indeed that was what it had been; but it had been folly, all the same. The problem was that I was the only one who seemed to understand that.
We went higher, and the rain ceased, and the weather turned warmer again, though not nearly so warm as it had been in the lower reaches of the Wall. Once again we were forced by the shape of the cliff to turn toward an interior valley, and when we entered it we found it to be a hidden world of lush meadows and hills, as green and lovely as the plateau had been grim and dry.
This secret place within the vastness of the Wall gave us much pleasure, even though it slowed our ascent. It was like a great bowl, curving gently upward at the sides, but mainly all on one level. All about us rose lofty canyon walls of bright red stone banded with outcroppings of glossy black. One of them held the route that would allow us to continue Summitward; but we had no idea which one it was, or how to get ourselves up upon it. For days we made our way through this land of streams and thick grass with little sense of the proper direction.
I felt vulnerable to a rebellion. I doubted that anyone else had a better idea of the right way to go than I did; but I had no idea at all, and I was the leader, and a leader must lead. Others look to him for strength and wisdom. Woe betide him if he doesn’t provide those things.
Muurmut, during this time, kept silent. He might have said, “Poilar is leading us nowhere,” or, “Poilar complained when I wasted an hour in search of Min, and here he is wasting days for us in this land of streams,” or, “If Poilar doesn’t know where he’s going, perhaps there’s someone else who does.” He said nothing of this sort, though, at least not in my earshot. But I knew that he was thinking it. I could see it in his eyes, in the cocky set of his mouth, in his swaggering walk.
I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a voice in councils. I consulted with Traiben often, of course, and with Kath, with Jaif, even with Naxa and Kilarion. They had some quality or another, whether it was Traiben’s cleverness or Naxa’s fund of information or Kath’s cunning or Kilarion’s intuitive skill on the trail or Jaif’s sturdy good will, which led me to think they would be useful in helping me find the way. The one I never consulted was Muurmut. Perhaps it was petty of me; but he had obstructed me from the start, had sniped and grumbled and postured and hindered, and I wasn’t about to take him into my confidence now.
I saw him staring at me from afar. He looked tense and angry all the time. No doubt his mouth brimmed with sarcasms and slurs. But he kept his silence.
None of those whom I consulted was able to suggest the way to find the upward path, any more than I. And so we wandered aimlessly, occasionally coming across our own earlier trail in some meadow, or a campsite we had used three days before. We were all like children here—or perhaps I should say like dreamers trying to find their way through an unknown world. They had sent us onto the Wall knowing nothing of the realities that lay ahead for us—all their teachings in those years of our training had been guesswork and fable and foolishness—and if we were in difficulties now, that was only to have been expected.
Then Grycindil came to me in late afternoon while we were making our camp for the night on mossy beds beside a clear sweet stream after a long day of pointless wandering. Darkness was just beginning to come on and a couple of the moons were edging into the sky. She said, “Poilar, Muurmut is having a very difficult time of it.”
Grycindil and Muurmut had begun sleeping together after we had left the plateau. That seemed odd to me, because Grycindil, though a little quick-tempered, had always seemed to me a level-headed and good-hearted woman, and why she should want to entangle herself with an arrogant braggart and blowhard like Muurmut was beyond my understanding. But there is no accounting for reasons, where the Changes are involved. And perhaps there were qualities about Muurmut that I was simply incapable of perceiving.
I said, “We are all having a difficult time of it, Grycindil.”
“It’s different for him. He wants to be leader, and you stand in his way.”
“I know that. It’s nothing new.”
“He has ideas about the right trail to take.”
“Does he?” I said. “Let him speak up, then.”
“No. You said harsh things of him after he went to find Min. He was furious with you for that. He was awake all night, saying, ‘How could we not have tried to bring her back? How could we simply let her run away, and keep on going as if nothing had happened? And then for Poilar to tell me that I was wrong to do it—’ The bitterness won’t leave him now, Poilar. He sulks day and night. Sometimes I hear him crying, actually crying, a dry choking sort of crying, full of frustration and anger. He was in serious trouble two or three times while he was off looking for Min, do you know that? He was almost killed on the trail. Part of the path gave way beneath his feet and dropped into the abyss, and nearly took him down also. So for you to criticize him, then, when he came back—no, Poilar, he’s not going to volunteer any ideas now. He’s afraid you’ll make him look foolish again.”
“It was very brave of him to go after Min. But it was wrong, all the same.”
“It wasn’t, Poilar.”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t? Well, then, I was wrong, I suppose. Whichever you prefer to think. Listen, Grycindil, I’m sorry that Muurmut is suffering on my account. But it’s all his own doing.”
“Can’t you ease things for him a little?”
“How? By making him leader in my place?”
“You could consult him once in a while, at least.”
I gave her a close look. She was utterly sincere; and I beheld something in her eyes, a warmth, a love for Muurmut, even, that startled me. Again I considered the possibility that I might have underrated Muurmut. Even braggarts may actually have some virtues.
But I had no faith in Muurmut’s judgment, because it seemed to me always that his thinking was corrupted by love of self, that he was forever trying to impress others with the strength, courage, shrewdness, and capability of Muurmut. A true leader has no interest in doing that.
So I said to Grycindil, “Let me think about it,” meaning to do nothing. And she knew that I meant to do nothing; but the conversation had gone as far as it could, and she knew that also. So she turned away from me, murmuring to herself.
But scarcely any time later Hendy came to me, while I was looking about for a comfortable place to set my bedroll down for the night.
“Can we talk?” she asked. I was a little surprised at that, coming from Hendy, who had been so remote and aloof for so long; but she had seemed to be emerging a little from her shell lately. And her slender shoulders were set now in a posture of curious determination, very much at odds with the timid, hesitant bearing she usually displayed.
“Concerning what?” I asked her.
“Muurmut.”
“Muurmut! Kreshe, woman! Selemoy and Thig! Are you all in league against me for Muurmut’s sake? Tell me, are you making the Changes with him too?”