The Emperor’s Library
Book One
The Flight from Kar
Frederick Kirchhoff
Dron Press
Smashwords Edition
Revised
Copyright Frederick Kirchhoff, 2011
Cover Art and Maps Copyright Frederick Kirchhoff, 2011
All Rights Reserved
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Author’s Note
The Flight from Kar is the first book in The Emperor’s Library. The second book, The Tritargon, narrates events that immediately follow those in Book One. The third book, The Game, takes place roughly twenty years after Books One and Two. A fourth book in the series, The Clavis, will treat occurrences one hundred years later.
Chapter 1
Somewhere below, Alf was searching for him. He’d never guess that Jon was deliberately keeping out of his way, but today Jon wanted to climb as high as he could climb on the mountain—as far as the base of the White Wall itself—and to do it alone.
Drawing a breath, Jon released it slowly. Self-control was everything. Alf believed he could change the world, but Jon wanted to free himself from it. Overhead, a black-tailed hawk circled in easy disdain for the earth. Below, where the slope grew gentler, boys were playing fleers and catchers, but their presence only emphasized Jon’s freedom. They belonged to the life he’d left behind, which now appeared small and insignificant.
Yet, as he watched, two boys who’d been hiding leapt up and ran to their companions. The group stared at the mountainside above them, then made a beeline for the village. What had they seen? A spotted cat? Not likely. Jon was sure the cats were a myth the women had invented to discourage them from wandering. Still, if he saw a cat, he’d follow it.
But he’d have to act fast. Once they’d made their report, the women would come swarming, and that would scare a cat for sure, although among these rocks you could elude a pursuer easily—especially if you were a cat. Jon tried to walk without a sound, but on ground this steep it was impossible not to dislodge a few loose stones. Each time it happened, he’d pause and count to ten, hoping the cat would think it was rubble from the cliff. If what the boys had seen had been a cat and if cats made such distinctions and if the cat wasn’t already long gone. From below, the alarm bell told him he had little time for his search.
“Are you looking for me?”
The voice came from above, but that was impossible—unless hawks could speak. Raising his eyes, Jon saw a man standing on a boulder. He held a short bow with an arrow aimed his way, so Jon’s first impulse was to run, but he resisted it. Someone smiling like that had no intention of killing him. And no one had ever smiled at Jon that way before. Besides, he was the first grown man who had ever spoken to him.
Yet how had the intruder come here? Through a hole in the sky?
“I was trying to find out what scared the boys,” Jon said.
The stranger loosened his bow and squatted on the edge of the rock. He’d found the perfect place to hide, but didn’t he know how dangerous for him it was here?
“That must have been me, although I didn’t mean to scare anyone. Do I look frightening?”
Jon shook his head no.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Who am I? That’s a fair question. I’m a friend—you can see that. If I were an enemy, you’d have been an easy target, and I’m an excellent shot—all of my family are—although today you’ll have to take my word for it.”
“Do you often shoot people?”
The stranger laughed, and Jon found himself laughing, too. His question had been absurd. The man was no murderer. Any fool could see that.
“Not once in my life, I confess. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do it. I know where to strike the heart.” He narrowed his eyes and touched his chest. “And how much force to use. It’s hard to penetrate the ribs; you have to hit the right spot. But we’re taught the skill early. Of course you can always shoot a man in the belly. But it’s a painful way to go, so we aim for the heart—as a matter of respect. Still, the belly is an easier target, and you can get a man there with no trouble.”
“You were aiming an arrow at my heart,” Jon pointed out.
“That was for show. I wanted to see how you’d react. I bet it was the first time anyone had threatened you that way.
“Did I pass the test?”
“You didn’t flinch, if that’s what you’re asking. But who told you it was a test? If you’re going to kill a man, the last thing you’d do is reveal yourself in advance. Wasn’t that why you decided not to run?”
Had he made a decision or simply acted on impulse? Everything had happened so fast. It was like a dream. “But you still haven’t said who you are,” he asked.
The stranger raised his right hand.
“I said it was a fair question, but that doesn’t mean it’s an appropriate one. In my part of the world, custom lets the newcomer volunteer that information. After all, a person may have reason to hide his identity.”
“Only a bad reason, I’d think.”
“Then you’d think wrong, my handsome young friend. I hope you don’t mind my calling you that. You are young, you know, and somehow I feel we’ve become friends. As for the handsome—well, let’s call that a polite compliment. But I can see there’s much you’ve yet to learn. Would you like me to be your teacher? I’ve never taught anyone before, but I’m game for a new experience.”
Jon enjoyed the flattery, but the talk about being Jon’s teacher was absurd. Whoever he was, the stranger had to leave as soon as possible. The woman would take his life if they found him here.
Jon backed away two steps to get a better view of the man. Blue eyes and a full head of dark brown, almost black hair, short-cropped, and not long and stringy like the boys in the valley. He couldn’t have been one of the Bearded Men. He was clean-shaven; and they wore black, while he was wearing drab green.
“Yes, that’s the way,” the stranger told him. “You always learn more from a man’s appearance than from his name—or what he claims his name to be. A smart man trusts his eyes, not his ears. Still, I’d like to know why they’re ringing that bell. Is something on fire?”
“It’s not a fire—it’s you. The boys ran to tell the women they’d seen a man, and now they’re gathering to come after you. You’re not supposed to be here. No man is allowed to enter this valley.”
“What about you? Aren’t you a man?”
“By their reckoning, I’m a boy—until next summer, when the Bearded Men take us away.”
“But you said no men were allowed in the valley.”
“They don’t come here. They meet us at the end of the big lake in the next valley, where the river from the small lake below us ends up—Bent Lake, they call it, because the lake bends twice between its west and east ends.”
“It doesn’t end up there—but you couldn’t be expected to know that. You’ve never left this valley, have you?”
Did he take Jon for a fool?
“I’ve been to Bent Lake—I told you that,” Jon blurted out. “And I know our water doesn’t end up there. It cuts through the mountains and becomes the Great River; then it goes north, past Kar, where the Emperor lives, and finally empties into the sea at Tarnak. I’ve known that for as long as I can remember.”
The stranger raised his hand once more. Jon saw he was trying not to smile.
“I’m sorry. I should have realized that the women teach you geography. But it’s one of my own interests, so I forget that other people know more than I do. I’ve heard of Kar and Tarnak, of course, but I’ve never set eyes on either. I bet you could teach me a lot I don’t know.”
Jon felt like an idiot. Why had he been so defensive?
“I don’t know anything really,” he admitted. “Only the basics—like where the river goes. Kar and Tarnak are somewhere in the North, but how far from here I couldn’t tell you. The women have a school for boys, but it’s a joke. They don’t expect us to attend, and the only books we read were written for children—like one about how a girl named Marva saved the Emperor’s life when he fell into the water. No one with a grain of sense could take a story like that seriously. An emperor wouldn’t go swimming alone in a dangerous river. He’d have hundreds of men with him. I didn’t believe it for a minute, but that story was where I learned about Kar and the Great River. I’ve always wanted to know about other places, but the farthest I’ve been is the west end of Bent Lake. I’ve never even seen the village that’s further up the shore road. Is that where you’re from?”
Jon realized he’d said too much. He expected the stranger to laugh at his absurd torrent of language, but instead he looked at Jon thoughtfully.
“No. I’ve never been to Bent Lake and I know nothing about the village. We can’t see it from our territory the way we can see this valley. Is that where the Bearded Men come from?”
“No,” Jon replied. “They come from somewhere else, but I don’t know where. The Bent-Lakers are different. The women call them riff-raff, and say they ended up here because no other place would have them. The women were given their valley by the Emperor himself, so they resent the people who’ve settled Bent Lake without permission. Especially because the land around Bent Lake is such good land. At least that’s what the women say.”
“So why didn’t the women take it for themselves?”
“They’d never leave this valley.”
“I suspect you’re right. But what do you know about the Bearded Men, besides the fact that they don’t come from Bent Lake. Lots of men have beards.”
“When they arrive they’re dirty. The first thing they do is bathe in the lake. Not in front of us, of course. The women make them wash behind a grove of trees, so no one sees them naked.
“They’re not as tall as you”—he checked his impulse to say or as handsome—“and their clothes are black and they wear silver—silver bracelets and silver earrings and silver collars—silver everywhere. It’s crazy how much silver they wear. And they have pictures on their arms and legs. Mostly black, but other colors, too. I can’t figure out why they do it—but some of the other boys say they want to have pictures on them, too, once they leave the valley. They think it’s the manly thing to do.”
The stranger knotted his eyebrows.
“The Brotherhood. Your Bearded Men are the Brotherhood. And that means you’re the boys they take into slavery. The women used to send their male children to the Emperor. But at some point things changed. We knew that much, but we had no idea why they’d changed. Maybe the Emperor no longer needed an annual supply of young men. Who can say?”
“The women never told us that they used to take us to the Emperor.”
“There’s probably a lot they don’t tell you. But that doesn’t excuse us for failing to ask what the women did with their male children once the Emperor no longer wanted them. They couldn’t very well have kept you here. That would have defeated the purpose of the Valley of Women. We just assumed they sent you to Bent Lake, where settlers have been living for many years. But there must have been too many of you and too few of them for that to work.
“As you see, we take a look here occasionally—it’s our duty—but that’s about all. Otherwise, the valley tends to be forgotten. Not even the Prefect asks us about it anymore.”
So much to think about, but Jon’s most important discovery was that what the women called apprenticeship was really slavery.
“The summer after we come of age the women hand us over to the men you call the Brotherhood,” Jon said.
“Do you know what happens to the boys they take?”
“The women say they teach us to work, but they never tell us what the work is, except that it’ll be hard.”
“I’m not going to tell you what the work is. But I’ll say this. If you can escape those men, do it—even if it means risking your life. But I hear voices from below. You mustn’t be found with me. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“What about you?” Jon asked. “You’re the one in danger.”
“I’ll stay on this rock. They won’t find me. They have no dogs to track by scent, have they?”
“No. Dogs are forbidden in the valley. The women say they’re unclean, but I know what a dog is—the girl Marva had a dog, and I’ve heard they have them at Bent Lake.”
“Then I’ll be safe. People never think to look over their heads. There’s a depression in the middle of this rock. If I lie there, I’ll be invisible to anyone unless they climb the ridge behind us.”
“No one can climb that ridge.”
The stranger laughed again, but quietly this time.
“How do you think I got here?”
“You climbed the White Wall?”
“I climbed down it. And if I climbed down it, I imagine I can climb up it as well. It’s always easier to go up than to come down—safer to test with your hands than with your feet. But what’s your name? You forgot to tell me.”
Didn’t he remember what he’d said about names? But this was no time to quibble.
“Jon.”
“John! How wonderful! That’s my name, too. John and John—we make a pair.”
“How do you spell it?” Jon asked.
“Spell it?” He was confused for an instant. “Oh, my name, you mean. J-O-H-N. How else would you spell it?”
“Then it’s not the same. My name is spelled J-O-N.”
“It’s the same word when you say it—you simply write it differently. And speech comes first. I bet you heard people call you Jon before you knew how to read and write.”
“I can read and write, but not very well. Boys aren’t expected to read; they say it’s wasted on us.”
“But you want to read, don’t you?”
How did the stranger know so much about him?
“Yes. I want to learn about the world.”
John laughed again. He seemed enormously pleased by everything—and unconcerned about the risk to his safety.
“Men like my brother Karl will tell you that reading’s the opposite of learning about the world. He says the hours I spend in the library are wasted time. Poking your nose into books, he calls it.”
“You have a library?” Jon asked, making no effort to conceal his excitement. “You said something about a book but not about a whole library of them.”
“The library isn’t here—in the next valley, I mean. We have only one book there, a history of the families, and it’s not a book so much as a record we add to every year. But our winter home has a whole roomful of books. A fantastic collection. Anything you’d ever want to read—or close to that. But it’s time for me to hide and for you to put them off my trail. I can count on you, can’t I?”
“Yes, you can count on me.”
“Here,” John said, slipping a leather cord from his neck and dropping it to Jon, who caught it in his right hand. “Keep this to remember our meeting—to remember me,” he added, looking intently at Jon.
The cord held a piece of greenish stone like an arrowhead with a broken tip. A ridge ran down the center of one side, from the top to the broken place, and left of the ridge the stone had been carved to create a raised swirl.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Something I found and kept for luck. But you need luck more than I do—and it will be a way to keep me in mind. And there’s something else about it, too—feelings I get when I wear it. I can’t explain, but you’ll see what I mean.”
Jon turned the arrowhead over in his hand.
“There’s writing on the back of it—or at least carving that looks like writing—but it’s almost worn away.”
“I know. It isn’t a real arrowhead—one side is heavier than the other—no good for shooting. But what it was made for I don’t know. The inscription belongs to a language I can’t read. It was lying among the pebbles of a streambed; the green color caught my eye, so I picked it up, but who carved the stone and how it got there’s a mystery.”
Jon reexamined the stone. Except for the broken tip, it was smooth to the touch, and the green color had a translucence that drew you into its depths, where he made out faint streaks of other colors like threads of silver and copper. Then he slipped the cord over his neck, tucking the arrowhead beneath his shirt.
“The women tell us that dangerous creatures live in the forest beyond the Boundary Mountain.”
“You don’t think I’m a dangerous creature, do you?” John asked.
“No.”
“That’s a relief. As for the forest itself, there’s much I could tell you. Unfortunately, we don’t have the time—your lady friends are getting closer—but I’ll say one more thing: nothing beyond the Boundary Mountain is more dangerous than life with the Brotherhood.”
“Will I see you again?” Jon asked.
“I hope so—but that’s up to you. I’d ask you to come with me now, but it would be wrong to force you to make a decision so quickly—besides, I need you to put them off my trail.”
“But if I decide to cross the mountain, how will I find you?”
“By following the path I took. There’s only one way to the summit and only one path goes down the other side. Don’t try it in the winter—the upper stretches of the trail are icy—but once spring comes the way is easy. Now go. You can’t be found here with me.”
He dropped his head and disappeared.
“Have a safe journey,” Jon said quietly, speaking more to himself than to the stranger, and ran back among the boulders, taking care to avoid being seen from below as he distanced himself from John’s rock; then he stepped casually into the open and began to amble downhill, stopping to examine the flowers that bloomed among the rubble. A line of women armed with crossbows and spears was climbing the slope below him. At first, he pretended not to notice them, intent on his botanical pursuits; then, looking up, he made a show of surprise and hurried down to ask the nearest one what she was searching for.
“A man,” she growled. “The boys said they saw a man on the mountain.”
Two other women bustled over.
“What were you doing up there?” one asked.
Jon was all innocence.
“I was looking at the flowers.”
The answer took her off guard, but that only heightened her suspicion.
“Where?”
He ignored her hostility.
“Up there, below the wall. They grow in cracks in the stone. Yellow flowers, and also very small blue and purple ones. I’d never noticed them before. They’re small but amazingly beautiful. Each flower has four petals, three light and one dark, and the center is white—a tiny dot of white surrounded by shades of blue and purple. I’ll show you some if you’d like. I’m sure you’d like them.”
The woman grunted.
“You see the way men waste time, Emmy? We thresh grain while this boy strolls about looking at flowers. Be-you-ti-ful flowers, he calls them.”
“I’m not allowed to help with the harvest,” he replied. “I’d work if you’d let me.”
“Boys aren’t members of the community,” Emmy explained—as if the fact were new to him. “You’re only a guest.”
“Emmy, don’t waste your breath telling him what he already knows. We want to find out about the man.” She glared at Jon. “The boys claim they saw him on the mountain. Not just one boy but the whole lot of them. You were up there. Did you see anyone?”
Jon put on a face of amazement.
“A man? No, I’m sure there wasn’t a man. I’ve been here since lunch and I haven’t seen anyone. How close did the boys get to him?”
“They saw him in the distance, that’s all.”
“By the White Wall. They said they saw him by the White Wall,” Emmy added.
“Then they must have seen me. I wasn’t far from the White Wall. We’re allowed to climb that high,” he reminded her. “And from below I could be mistaken for a man. I’m tall for my age.
“What’s your name?” Marge asked Jon.
“Jon.”
“Yes, Jon—I remember now, Maya’s son, the twin whose sister died at birth. Jon, you talk half too smart for your own good. I think you should repeat what you just told us to one of the Mothers. She’ll know whether you’re telling the truth.”
The twin whose sister died at birth? No one had ever told him that. He knew his mother—a tall woman who used to nod at him when they passed, until he’d tried to start a conversation by asking if she was happy. He’d imagined she’d jump at the opportunity to talk, but it didn’t work out that way. First she was embarrassed; then she became angry. “Never speak to me again,” she’d said fiercely. He’d thought she was about to strike him across the face.
If he’d been a girl it would have been lawful to speak to her, although even between mothers and daughters no special bond was expected. Girls were children of the community; all older women were their mothers. And each woman was expected to bear at least one daughter—how else could they maintain the population? Thus, having a boy twin live and his sister die must have been painful. But he’d heard nothing about it before today.
First the stranger, then this news about his birth, and now he had to face one of the Mothers. Everything was coming at once.
***
If the valley was a prison, the Mothers were the head jailers. The women revered them, but the Mothers were nothing more than the oldest members of the community, and Jon was convinced that a stupid old woman was just as bad as a stupid girl. Still, the prospect of interrogation unnerved him. So far, his lie about what he’d seen on the mountain had worked, but he couldn’t risk contradicting himself.
Jon expected one of the old women he’d passed in the village, but the Mother they brought him to was unfamiliar. She was old, but old in a different way. When they approached, she was sitting in a sunlit doorway, mending a fabric. She’d pulled her gray hair back from her face, but one tress had fallen across her forehead. Focused on her work, she brushed it aside absentmindedly. It took a cough from Marge to catch her attention.
Or had it? For the Mother showed no surprise at hearing the sound. Had she simply been waiting for them to make a sign?
“Mother Lyla,” Marge said. “We’ve brought this boy Jon to you because he was up by the White Wall where the younger boys told us they saw a man. He claims it must’ve been him they saw, because he’d climbed there after the midday meal and he hadn’t seen anybody else. If he’s telling the truth, part of his story makes sense. He’s tall, so he could be taken for a man; and he has dark hair, and the boys said the man had dark hair. But they see Jon every day, so why didn’t anyone recognize him?”
“He was at a distance,” Emmy pointed out.
Marge grunted.
“Yes, he was at a distance. But he’s not wearing green, and the boys said the man was wearing green.”
“Light can make colors look different,” Emmy ventured. “Especially far away.”
Emmy wasn’t trying to help him, Jon realized. She simply prided herself on fairness.
“I’d like to know what he was doing on the Boundary Mountain,” Marge said. “So high and all that. None of the other boys ever go that far.”
“He said he was looking at flowers,” Emmy reminded her.
Marge shook her head. No boys looked at flowers, and anyone claiming to do it was clearly a liar.
“He told us that and a lot of other things, Mother Lyla. He’s the kind with a quick answer for any question you put to him.”
“Then you were wise to bring him to speak with me,” Lyla said, glancing down at her work. “Although he’s too old to be called a boy anymore. Jon, pull that chair over and sit down where I can see you. I’d like to hear your own account of what you were doing at the White Wall.
“Marge, you and Emmy may go now.”
“We’ll stay round the corner—in case things get dangerous,” Marge said. “Just call and we’ll come running.”
“Thank you, but the precaution is unnecessary. I’d be surprised if I can’t handle any danger this young man poses.”
The flicker of a smile crossed her face. Marge scowled at Jon, then strode off, followed by Emmy, scampering to keep up.
“I think I told you to sit down,” Lyla said.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
But she waited for Marge and Emmy to be well away before turning to reveal her full face. Jon could identify no physical resemblance, but her smile reminded him of John’s.
“So you were exploring the mountain?” she asked in a careless tone. Jon’s first thought was that she was laying a trap for him, but nothing in her voice threatened a trap. Somehow, he could tell that she was on his side.
“Yes. I go there a lot,” he replied, trying to sound as noncommittal as Lyla.
“The view is beautiful, the higher you climb. You don’t realize the full extent of the southern peaks until you see them from the Boundary Mountain. Funny, the way it takes height to see height.”
How much like John she talked—as if words meant different things at the same time.
“I saw the peaks you’re talking about. But, like Emmy told you, I climbed to look at the flowers.”
“Ah, yes. So she did. I know them well, those yellow flowers that bloom before the rains come. They’re like tiny stars—thousands of tiny stars nestling in the crevices. And you must have seen the even smaller blue and purple flowers scattered among them. It’s hard to imagine anything growing in such a rocky place, but they manage it—perhaps because this time of year nowhere else on the mountain holds a drop of moisture. To me, the late summer flowers are more beautiful than the rush of blooms in spring. I used to explore the Boundary Mountain myself before I assumed my adult duties—important duties, as you can see—mending old clothes and talking to an occasional miscreant. Even then, I took time off to visit the fall flowers, but not often, since I didn’t want to appear frivolous. Isn’t that absurd? I’ve sometimes wished I’d been a man and as frivolous as I desired without anyone raising her eyebrow.
“And that was all you went to see—just flowers?”
She moved toward him, her face filled with kindness. He’d never guessed a Mother would share her feelings with him. Jon felt an urge to reveal everything that had happened that afternoon. She was the one person in the valley who’d understand him—but he felt John’s greenstone close to his heart. He could not betray his new friend.
“Sometimes I like to be alone,” he ventured.
“Yes, you would, wouldn’t you? I suspect you don’t spend much time with the other boys.”
It wasn’t an accusation, yet Jon felt a need to defend himself.
“I have a friend.”
“A friend?—that’s good. It’s always good to have a friend. What’s his name?”
“Alf.”
“Does he climb the mountain, too?”
“Sometimes we walk there together. Although not so high as I went today. Alf isn’t as good at climbing as I am.”
“So you and Alf like to walk together on the mountain—but not the high part, of course. Is that all you do?”
What was she was getting at? Jon had never imagined his friendship with Alf important, yet Lyla seemed to think it was.
“Yes, Ma’am. That’s all,” he said. “We walk around and look at things and talk about them. Alf is interested in birds.”
That wasn’t entirely true. But Alf had pointed out an eagle once and talked about the way it used its wings to glide on updrafts.
“Ah. Flowers and birds. Two young men after my own heart. But this man the children saw—you’re sure you didn’t see him—or say anything to him?”
She was trying to trick him now, Jon thought. But not in a bad way. She wanted to draw information from him, but not to use it against him. He was sure of that. Still, he’d be loyal to John, even though he now wanted to be loyal to Lyla as well. She was genuinely interested in him, although he couldn’t have explained why.
“I didn’t see anybody, so I must have been the one the boys saw. They probably caught a glimpse of me among the rocks. Emmy was right about colors. In the shadows, gray can look like anything.”
“That’s likely—very likely. If the women find someone, that will prove you’re wrong, of course. But if they don’t, then I’d say you’ve offered the best explanation. After all, how could a man get here?”
She looked at him steadily.
“He’d have to come from Bent Lake, and he’d have been seen at the gate,” Jon said.
“Of course he would—unless there were another way. But there isn’t another way, is there?”
He knew exactly what she wanted him to say.
“There is no other way.”
“At least none that you and I know anything about.”
She knew there was another way, and she knew he knew it, too. But they were agreeing to keep it a secret.
Mother Lyla leaned forward again and peered into his eyes.
“Jon, when you climb high up like that, do you ever think of going further?”
This was a hard one.
“Well, I think about having to leave the valley. It’s my last year, so I wonder if the Bearded Men live on the other side of the Boundary Mountain.”
“I can answer that question. The Bearded Men come from east of the Great River, and the land north of the Boundary Mountain is on our side of the river. It’s absurd that we allow boys to read so few books. If you’d read more, you’d know more. But few of the girls read either. These days, no one cares about what happens outside this valley. They’ve convinced themselves that the rest of the world is a folktale, but it’s nothing of the kind.”
She was about to say something more on this subject, but paused and returned to his earlier question.
“As for the land on the other side of the Boundary Mountain, the Bearded Men seldom or never travel there. Friends of the Emperor would observe them, and they hate observation. So, if you wanted to avoid the Bearded Men, that would be the place to go. But dangers lie everywhere. Even here. The women think we’re safe in our valley, but we’re not so safe as they suppose.”
“Have you been farther than Bent Lake?” Jon asked.
While men were forbidden to enter, women were not forbidden to leave, and in the past parties had traveled north to exchange their woolens for iron or steel. Recently, however, the growth of Bent Lake had encouraged merchants to journey south and that allowed the women to trade in the next valley. But some of the older women had made the trek to Bridgetown and beyond, and they told their stories to the girls, who retold them to boys like Jon who were curious about what lay outside the Valley of Women.
“Yes, I know a little of the planet beyond this small fold in the earth. But I’ve taken too much of your time. There was no need to bring you here. You could have been enjoying the flowers instead of listening to an old woman’s ramblings.
“However, before you go, I want to say one thing.”
She opened the fingers of her right hand and looked down at them as she spoke.
“If you ever, of your free will, make a promise, keep it—even if you have to break a rule you’d otherwise follow.”
She closed her hand into a fist and looked back at Jon.
“Never forget that human beings are more important than the rules they invent for themselves. We decree laws and then pretend they came from some higher power. It makes no sense, but we congratulate ourselves for doing it—all because we are such weak creatures. Do you understand me?”
He felt her drilling into his mind. She must have known about the stranger, and she must have known about the promise Jon had made. Why else would she be saying this? But he was still certain that she meant him no harm.
“Yes, I understand.”
Lyla turned back to her work.
“Did you make that cloth?” Jon asked, rising from his chair.
“I did—a long time ago.”
“It must have been very beautiful.”
“It’s still beautiful, only in a different way. If something has true beauty it will always possess it, so long as you know what to look for.”
She dismissed him with a wave of the hand, and Jon ran from the room into the autumn twilight. The search party had returned; he could hear their quiet talk. If they’d found the stranger, their voices would have been different, so John must have escaped. His lie had worked, and that thought filled Jon with joy. Not only had he deceived the women; he’d also entered into complicity with a Mother. It was like discovering a new way to be alive.
He couldn’t go back up the mountain—he’d only raise suspicions—so Jon took the long way to the boys’ cabins, following the lakeshore past the standing stone they called the old woman. People said it had been erected by the first of the Mothers, but it resembled nothing else in the valley and served no identifiable purpose.
Examining the stone, you could trace what might have been inscriptions, but the shapes were so weathered they could easily be a natural formation. Yet now something about the stone reminded him of the broken arrowhead John had given him. Making sure he was unobserved, Jon removed it from his shirt and held it against the stone. The material was dissimilar, but one of the carvings on the greenstone was like a larger form on the rock—a curved S that was smaller at the bottom than the top. Could whoever placed the stone also have made the arrowhead? No. There was no reason to imagine a relationship. Yet, as he touched the stone, Jon felt a faint tingling through his body that disappeared when he pulled the arrowhead away. Probably nothing, he thought. Nevertheless, if he had the chance to speak to Lyla again, he’d ask her about the standing stone. If any of the women knew the truth, she’d be the person.
Chapter 2
The months of rain were ending. The morning sun shone bright above the eastern horizon and the lake glittered in its reflection. But it was too early to expect a brilliant spring day. Already, clouds were writhing down the West Mountain; rain would soon return. Still, this sunlit hour meant that before many weeks had passed the valley would be bathed in light from dawn to nightfall.
Jon looked forward to the change, but he also dreaded it, for, once the roads were dry, the Bearded Men would come for all the boys who’d turned seventeen three months earlier. The day before the Summer Solstice, the able-bodied population—women, girls, and boys—would march to Bent Lake. It was only a dozen miles, but the event was memorable, for, not long after they’d made camp, the riders would appear, galloping in a show of prowess, circling before they dropped from their horses and made a gallant bow to their audience—a sign that, for once in the year, the women would allow themselves three days of abandon.
However, even in the carnival that ensued, they made sure that none of the boys took the opportunity to escape. Why they bothered puzzled Jon. The oldest of them would join the Bearded Men in a few days and all would leave the Valley eventually, so why prevent a few from running away? Were the women honor bound to transfer every last one of their male children to the Bearded Men? Whatever the reason, the precautions confirmed Jon’s certainty that he should flee the valley before Midsummer arrived.
From the women’s talk, he knew that the village called Bent Lake was a cluster of ramshackle dwellings where the lake jogged to the South. Beyond, it bent east again, ultimately ending in hills that forced the water north through a narrow gap in the Boundary Mountain, through which it fell in a series of cataracts. Here, the easy road that had followed the water through the Valley of Bent Lake became difficult, threading steep cliffs with precipitous drop-offs, but beyond this notch, it returned to level ground and, joined by another road from the East, became the highway to the Imperial City known as the River Road. The women must have feared that the villagers would help boys escape by this route, but Jon had heard of no one making such an attempt.
“Look at the sun, Jon. You know what that means.”
Alf had followed him from the cabin. With his red hair and milky complexion, he resembled no one else in the valley. But you saw many types here—light and dark, tall and short—for the women who’d settled the place had come from all corners of the Empire.
“Yes, I see it.”
“How long before they come for us?”
“Two months, minus a few days. But I didn’t have to tell you that. You knew the answer yourself.”
But Alf had a more important question.
“Do you want to go—seriously, I mean? Just for once, give me a straight answer.”
Jon smiled. John, he thought, would have laughed at such a moment, but a smile went in the right direction.
“You think I’m not giving you a straight answer because you expect everything to be black and white. But nothing’s that simple. I want to go because I want to leave this valley, but I don’t want to go because I don’t want to join the Bearded Men. You’ve seen how ridiculous they look—and you know what the girls say.”
“But why should we believe them? The girls are jealous because they stay behind.”
“They want to scare us, but that doesn’t mean they’re lying. Yet it’s not what they say the men will do that worries me; I’m afraid of what we’ll do ourselves. Haven’t you seen it in the other boys.”
“Seen what?” Alf asked, looking more than usually quizzical. They’d talked about the girls and the Bearded Men before, but today Jon was in new territory.
“Seen a look in their eyes that makes me want to puke.”
Alf grinned broadly.
“I haven’t seen you puke anytime lately.”
“I didn’t say it made me puke; I said it made me want to puke. Please note the difference between those two sentences.”
“OK, OK. But what do you mean by a look in their eyes.”
“It’s hard to describe.”
“It must be like something,” Alf said.
“Let’s say it’s the look of what they’d do if no one stood in their way.”
“They’re pretty stupid.”
“Yes, like animals. But an animal in a trap will bite your hand even if you’re freeing it.”
“Do you feel that way, too—that this valley is a trap?”
“Look around. Except for the river, nothing’s free to leave. Unless it’s something we don’t know about,” Jon added, trying to be accurate without giving too much away.
“Like what?” Alf asked.
“Like a spotted cat.”
“I’m surprised you believe in things like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like things no one’s ever seen. But we weren’t talking about spotted cats. We were talking about the way you feel about leaving this place. You said the other boys were animals who’d bite you if you tried to free them from a trap, but we’ve grown up here, too. You’re not planning to bite anyone, are you?”
Jon turned on him suddenly.
“Did I say them and not us? Maybe what I saw in their eyes was a reflection. My teeth are as sharp as anyone else’s.”
Jon opened his mouth wide and then shut it with a snap.
“You’re not like that,” Alf said. You’re different from us. I don’t know why, but I know you’re different.”
“I’m not like that? What makes you think I couldn’t turn into a monster?”
Jon bared his teeth and growled. He knew that Alf wanted a serious conversation, but Jon didn’t feel like seriousness.
“Because that’s not what you are,” Alf said, shaking his head.
“How do you know? How do you know what I am? And how do you know what I couldn’t become? How do you even know what you couldn’t become yourself? You have teeth, too. You could bite hard if you wanted to.”
Jon showed his teeth once more in a comic grimace; then he turned and walked toward the lake, Alf at his heels. Tracing its shore, they reached the rocky spot where it narrowed into the river that then meandered toward the entrance to the next valley. To their north, where the ground leveled out, the women had built their community—houses where the women slept, four to a room, except for the Mothers, who had quarters to themselves; the great refectory with its high, steeply pitched roof; a scattering of buildings for work or storage; and, in the center, the octagonal Hall of the Mothers. The girls’ cabins and dining hall stood at the far end of the village, while the boys’ were off by themselves, where the ground began its climb toward the White Wall. The older the boys, the higher their cabin—a rule laid down centuries ago. Each summer, after the oldest left the valley, the sixteen-year-olds would carry their bundles to the highest cabin, followed by each age group in turn, and the five-year-olds would march up the hill from the nursery, where they’d been living with the girls. For the first weeks, you could hear some of them crying at night, but the women made no effort to comfort them, and eventually they grew used to their new life.
The valley lay between arms of the mountain at its western end, which spread out and then drew close, leaving only a narrow gap for the river and the road along its north bank. Here, at the Gate of the Valley the women had built a guard tower. Across the river, mountain rose in sheer cliffs, but on the north side the ground climbed less abruptly, so they’d constructed a wall from the tower to a high ridge jutting out from the Boundary Mountain.
On the far side of the West Mountain lay the sea—or so the women said. But no paths led above the hemlocks on the mountain’s lower reaches, and snow blanketed its heights all but a few weeks in late summer. The lower reaches of the Boundary Mountain, which formed the northern border of the Valley of Women, were considered part of the valley, but their slope ended in the cliff known as the White Wall. Boys were forbidden to pass beyond it, but this seemed a needless prohibition—or so Jon had believed until he met John.
Turning away from the sun, Jon and Alf faced this panorama. Light still brightened the lake, but the shadow of rain clouds had fallen over the women and girls working in the fields beyond the lake head. If it was a privilege to be a woman in the Valley of Women, that privilege entailed responsibility. The boys were free to sleep away the morning, but not the older girls, who joined the women in their labors as soon as the sun rose.
“Look—even on such a beautiful morning, it is clear that the valley hates the sun,” Jon said. “If I didn’t know we were headed for months of light I’d be certain that leaving was a good thing—even leaving with those jerks.”
“Good or bad—what does it matter?” Alf asked. “We have no choice.”
“That’s the rub. We have no choice in anything.”
“The girls say they’ll make us work.”
Jon sniffed.
“I’m not afraid to work.”
“But it’s not just work, you know. Audrey says they’ll fuck us up the ass. They have no women, so they use the new boys instead. What would you do if a man tried something like that?”
“Why ask such a stupid question?”
“They say it’ll hurt like hell.”
“Hurt? I’m not afraid of pain—and I’m certainly not afraid of those louts. But I’m hungry. If we get to the dining hall right away, we’ll be done before the twerps show their faces.”
Alf looked at him for a moment.
“I’ll tell you something, Jon. You think the other boys ignore you, but you’re dead wrong. They watch everything you do, and, if they pretend to hate you, it’s because they know you avoid them, eating off by yourself whenever you can. They may have never heard you call them ‘twerps,’ but they know that’s what you think of them.”
“I’m not going to eat off by myself this morning. I’m going to eat with you, Alf. A pleasant breakfast we’ll have, side by side in the refectory.”
“That just makes it worse. You know what they say about us.”
“No. What do they say about us?”
“That we do things together.”
“Do things? Of course we do things. Everybody does something. This morning we’re going to eat breakfast together. That’s doing something, isn’t it?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“So what is it they say?”
“That we mess around with each other. You know what I mean—jerking off together and that kind of stuff.”
Jon shuddered. Alf’s freckled skin gave him the creeps. How could you touch something like that? And that carrot hair around his dick. Ugh!
“They say stuff like that about everybody, and they don’t believe it themselves—nothing they say means anything.”
“I don’t care, Jon. I don’t care what anyone says. You’re my friend—that’s the important thing.”
Jon hated it when Alf spoke this way. He had nothing against him. Alf was smart—whom else could he talk to? He had said that Jon was different from the other boys, yet Alf was just as different—maybe even more. So in that way at least they were two of a kind. But Alf was a connection, and Jon wanted no connections in the valley.
“I wish you wouldn’t say that. Can’t we be friends without your talking about it all the time?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Forget it. Let’s eat.”
In the barn-like room where they ate, each age group had its own table, slabs of rough-hewn wood polished by centuries of use. How had the women brought them down the mountain? He couldn’t imagine them undertaking such an effort today. But of course there had been more of them in the past—or so they claimed.
The women cooked and served the food, but left it to the boys to clean up, with each cabin assigned its duty days. The younger boys marched to the dining hall in groups, but the older cadres made a point of arriving on their own time. They had the freedom, so why not take it? And the arrangement suited Jon. Porridge was much the same, hot or cold, but, arriving early, he could eat by himself. Or, like today, with Alf, who would have been OK if he hadn’t pestered him with questions. But Jon never lingered—the food was tasteless and he hated the noise so many boys were bound to make.
***
Jon had kept the greenstone arrowhead hidden. In the cabin, anything you cared about would be stolen or destroyed. Tug had started a collection of birds’ eggs, using a straw to empty each shell through a small hole. They’d let him work undisturbed for weeks, until a row of blue and speckled eggs were lined up on the shelf behind his bed. But they’d been watching; and, once his effort was complete, two boys had held him down while a third used his shoe to smash each shell one by one and the cabin applauded.
Jon hadn’t been there. He’d only heard about the event later in the day. He’d wondered what he would have done, faced with Tug’s humiliation. But the lesson was clear. If you showed you cared about anything they’d be sure to use it against you. He understood why some boys wanted to dominate the others, but why did so many of them enjoy being dominated? Assigned dining-hall duty, the younger ones worked as teams, but among the older boys self-appointed bosses gave the orders. The tallest in the cabin, Jon could have avoided work, but he made a point of volunteering for tasks. As he expected, the clique running the cabin ridiculed him for his efforts; what he did not expect, the boys they bullied eagerly joined in the jeering.
But, once he’d met John, their behavior mattered little. His secret connection with a world beyond the valley insulated him from insults. Last fall, as soon as he could, he’d climbed John’s rock, which was exactly as John had described it, with a scooped-out center deep enough to hide in. Invisible from the valley floor, he lay where John had lain, imagining that the passing clouds were fixed to the sky while he revolved beneath them, the master of time itself. The waxy smoothness of the broken arrowhead heightened his awareness of his own body, at once familiar and different—like the outline of another man. Unbuttoning his shirt, he ran his fingertips around his nipples and then down along the line dividing his chest. Touched the right way, his skin became wonderful. Even the fine hairs that began below his navel seemed to possess significance.
No single image focused the desire welling up within him—unless it was the image of John. Jon had given little thought to the resemblance between them, but now it seemed linked to the similarity of their names. Picturing John was like picturing himself in the future, and, touching his hard penis, he wondered if John’s was shaped like his, and if John felt the same desires he felt. He measured its length between the tip of his little finger and the end of his thumb and then held his hand high in the air. At the same time, he tried to imagine John beside him. Could anything be better?
“John” he whispered again and again. Or was it his own name Jon?
A few spurts of fluid and the moment was over. Once more he found himself lying on cold stone, watching the clouds darken above him, wondering why he’d allowed the place to mean so much. Boys jerked off every night in the cabin. They tried to be quiet about it, but you couldn’t help hearing them. And some of them wanted to be heard. Was this nothing different? Using the edge of his hand to scoop up the mess, he wiped it on a ripple of stone, climbed down, and made his way to the village, reaching it just as the first drops of rain began to fall. But the next afternoon he returned to the rock. It was his place now, and yet it was also John’s rock—both his own and someone else’s.
***
Once the rains began in earnest, climbing the rock was difficult, but Jon managed it. His cradle had become a basin of water, but he’d sit beside it, gazing up at the White Wall, trying to determine where John had descended into the valley. To his left, a fissure split the cliff. Possibly you could work your way to the top there, pushing up with your legs and feet, grasping cracks and protuberances in the rock. But what if you became trapped? Tight spaces terrified him. Once, playing a game, Jon had lodged himself in a crevice and been unable to escape. He’d wanted to call for help, but repressed the urge. Cut and bleeding, he’d managed to free himself and dashed across the hillside, heedless of the other boys, who yelled that he was breaking the rules. But rules didn’t matter. He’d needed to stand in the most open space he could find. Since then, he’d avoided places like that fissure, but what if this was the only way to follow John?
And so the winter had passed, until at last the steady rain turned into showers broken by hours of sunshine. Jon and the other boys in his cabin had turned seventeen. Soon, the Bearded Men would be making their journey to Bent Lake. The time for his climb had come, but Jon held back. He was unnerved by the thought of jumping into the unknown, even though he knew that he had no other choice.
***
Their cabin had clean-up duty in the refectory, and Alf, as usual, was assigned to wash dishes. Jon usually helped him, but he volunteered to clear tables instead. He disliked touching other people’s uneaten food, but he wanted to leave the hall while Alf was still busy.
When he entered the building, the cabin leaders were clustered around the end of their table. They were planning something. But it couldn’t be important—just the usual play-acting. Once he’d finished his meal, Jon began clearing plates.
“I’ll take that,” he said to one of the boys who’d pushed his empty plate to one side.
“Fine with us, Asshole,” Piers responded. “It’s the kind of work you’re good at. You’ll make somebody a good wife. Have you seen any pretty flowers lately?”
His companions chortled. The flower story had gotten out and become a standing joke, but Jon allowed no expression to cross his face.
“See you later,” Jon told them.
“Yeah, Asshole. See you later,” Piers said as he left the room.
He popped his head into the kitchen, where Alf and Tug were washing dishes.
“See you later,” he repeated.
Alf looked up to see the back of Jon’s head leaving the room.
***
The White Wall stretched further west than he’d expected, but here the rock face broke into a series of clefts, with one going deep into the face of the mountain. The afternoon sun made it impossible to make out the upper structure, but the higher rocks looked as if they’d been cut into footholds. Of John’s possible ascents, this was the most likely.
Pulling himself into the cleft, Jon struggled a few yards up the rock face, but, beyond that, the climb seemed impossible. Using all his strength, he edged his body higher, but he slipped back, barely avoiding a fall. He was merely scouting the territory, but if this was John’s route, how could he climb it? Angry and frustrated, he let himself down and set off for the village.
Directly in his path, a cluster of fallen monoliths stood off to themselves. With other boys, he’d played here as s child, but he expected no one here today—it was still cold on the mountain. Yet, as he approached, a boy from his cabin emerged from the shadows and stared at him in confusion.
“You can’t pass this way,” he told Jon. “Piers said nobody . . . ”
This was the last straw. Jon wasn’t going to let this pipsqueak order him around.
“I’ll pass where I want,” Jon said.
The boy ran a few steps ahead, trying to bar his way, but, thinking better, he sprinted off. “Asshole,” he called out from a safe distance, and then disappeared.
Passing between the rocks, Jon found a group of boys in the middle of the open space, three surrounding someone on his knees and others looking on. The boy on his knees was small like Alf—but his hair was blond, not red. It was Klei from the sixteen-year-olds’ cabin. One boy was grasping Klei’s shoulders, holding him down. Piers, he realized. Jon saw a flicker of pale skin from his body—that dick Piers liked to show off with a hard-on in the morning. “Take a look at the biggest one in the valley,” he’d say, strutting around the cabin.
Jon was close enough to hear them now.
“You know you want it,” Piers said. “Just wet your lips and relax. It’s a mouthful, but if you won’t cooperate, I’ll give you something that’ll hurt a lot more. You ever heard of a butt fuck?”
Klei looked up at him without saying a word.
“And from me that’s gonna hurt. You’re a lot better off taking it in the mouth. I promise to come nice and easy.”