“What of the firestorms?” I said, picking the last crumbs from my hand and wiping my fingers on my breeches. “Do you have an idea about those?”
“I tell the Singlars that there must be a guardian beyond our lands who flogs the Bounded as our Guardian flogs Singlars, even if they do not understand their offense. We must help our land endure her punishment, just as we must ourselves endure.”
His gentle philosophy was sorely at odds with my view of the Guardian. I almost hated to tell the man that the only news of his “wide world” that I had to report was the judgments and activities of an iron-fisted despot. But the man listened so intently to my own discourse that I guessed he could have repeated my words more exactly than I could have re-created them. I mentioned nothing of the Singlars’ beliefs about me.
“And the Guardian believes our king will come from outside the Bounded?” he asked, his face hungry for my tale.
“It seems so. He sends searchers into lands beyond the Bounded - other worlds - to seek him out.”
The man wrinkled his brow, his first sign of disagreement. “No, no, that’s wrong! The king must be of the Bounded. He will speak for her, and mold her, and ease her suffering. How could he be from outside?”
“I agree with you,” I said. “It makes no sense.”
After we spent a few moments quietly pondering these mysteries, I took my leave, thanking him for his hospitality.
Outside the smoky hovel, the rain had eased into a warm drizzle. Pink sheet lightning flickered constantly overhead, illuminating the dismal settlement. Two Singlars, one a rheumy-eyed young woman wearing a sack-like covering, and the other a naked man with one foot like a tree stump, stood to one side waiting patiently for my host. Each of them carried a woven bag, just like the one from which my host had taken his tappa root.
“Abide a moment and I will serve you,” my host said to them. Then to me, “I must leave off my prattling and give these two their portion of tappa. They hunger much. Joyfully, I may share your words to fill out their stores.”
“Do you keep a common store of tappa then?” I asked. “I’ve not seen that custom among other Singlars.”
“It serves us best. Tappa grows only in one small part of our valley.” Not hard to understand, considering the steep, rocky walls, and the river of mud that comprised the valley floor. “To prevent disputes and to share equitably, we decided long ago to appoint one person to share out our stores. This waking, these two have come for their portion. Next waking, two more.”
He moved the stones from a small shelf in the steep embankment to reveal a root cellar, dug high enough up the wall that it wouldn’t flood when a capricious storm set the valley awash. With his stone knife, the man cut a sizable lump of dusty white from the huge knotted root in the little alcove. Then he allowed the woman to cut the lump in half, and the man to choose which piece was his. The two stuffed their portions, each roughly the size of a loaf of bread, into their bags, smiled and nodded at Paulo and me, and hurried away.
“Your people must trust you very much,” I said. “And it must be a great deal of trouble to feed everyone on every day.”
“Only two come each waking,” he said, flushing with embarrassment as he carefully replaced the rocks about the precious root cellar. “So it is no trouble. Farewell, kind traveler. I am honored by your speaking. Have care in your journey.”
Paulo and I started toward Vroon and the others, who stood waiting for us a hundred paces down the track. As the five of us trudged through the mud toward the end of the valley and the Edge, the gaunt Singlar began to sing. His song told of the suffering land and his people’s long waiting, the haunting tune echoing through the mists long after we lost sight of him.
I thought a great deal about the cheerful Singlar as we slogged down the road out of his muddy valley. It was easy to dismiss his fanciful imaginings. Yet, as we began feeling the slight tremors beneath our feet as we approached the Edge, I couldn’t completely rid myself of the image of a beating heart.
We hadn’t traveled far before Paulo pulled out a piece of flatbread to munch on, and my mind wandered onto the Singlar’s problem of feeding his people. If there were fifty towers in the cluster - fifty Singlars - and only two per day could claim a share of the tappa root, then the loaf-sized lump would have to last a person twenty-five days. No wonder then at their gaunt appearance. And then I thought back to the meal I had eaten… the thin slices of fried tappa, so much more appetizing than the boiled mush that could last for many days. The man had emptied his own woven bag for me - his month’s ration.
“Vroon!”
“Yes, my king?”
“What stores do we have?”
“Flatbread for us all to last a twolight, the hard sausage the Horseman Mighty favors though it is not what he is used to, five of the Guardian’s round fruits that you have named apple-things.”
“Each of you take one piece of flatbread for yourselves, none for me, then take the rest of our supplies back to the man we just visited.”
“But, great Master - ”
“Tell him it is our custom. I want him to have it.”
“But the Guardian - ”
“Blast the Guardian. He need never know if we don’t tell him. He can’t mean for those people to starve.” I would have to speak to the Guardian about the place. Even if the man kept all of our rations for himself, it wouldn’t hold him a month.
Vroon bowed, wearing his most long-suffering expression.
We proceeded through the increasingly rough country, along the path Zanore devised, slowly so Vroon could make his delivery and catch up with us.
“He seemed a right fellow,” said Paulo.
“A natural leader,” I said. “Probably the best mind we’ve run across in this place.”
After we had tramped through the gloom for another hour or so, Vroon rejoined us. “The Singlar delighted in your gift, great Master, praising you unstopping.”
“What did he do with it? Did he take it?”
“Five pieces of the flatbread he shared out among all his people, each taking a portion. Himself, too. The rest he put in the common store - ”
With an ear-splitting roar, a plume of steam shot skyward not fifty paces in front of us. We dodged sharply left to avoid a shower of glowing rock shards. Soon afterward the wind came up, a frigid gale, blowing right in our faces, even when we had to reverse our course again to skirt a bubbling pit of stinking yellow mud. I had no more time to think about the people of the rift.
“How long until we reach the Edge?” I shouted to Ob over the roar of the wind. We’d just made a third hour-long detour, this time in order to circumvent a bottomless crevasse. The earth groaned all around us.
“Long,” said Ob in the nuance of speech that I’d learned meant, “a very much longer period of time than you possibly could imagine.”
Even that would have been all right, if I hadn’t begun feeling so wretched. At first it was merely dizziness. But then waves of hot and cold that had no relation to the character of the wind left me variously sweating and shivering. My stomach tried turning inside out. I blamed the evil-smelling gasses from the sinkholes and steam vents, but no one else seemed at all affected.
Eventually, knees wobbling and head spinning, I had to stop and lean against a massive boulder that seemed a bit more stable than the heaving earth, forcing myself to hold on to the generous Singlar’s meal. I didn’t think my malady had anything to do with my humiliation at so callously gobbling up a starving man’s last provision. Before long, I could think of nothing but a warm dry bed and a lifetime of sleep. It had been hours since the others had eaten their flatbread, and I didn’t want to see them among the starving either. “Let’s go back,” I said. “I still intend to visit the Edge, but I guess I’ll just have to wait.”