‘Amen to that, brother!’ he said, slapping hands with me. ‘You know, I saw Concannon the other day. I was in Null Bazaar, visiting one of my dealers. He came in with a few guys. He was walking with a stick. It’s black, with a silver skull for a knob. Pretty cool, although I wouldn’t mind betting he’s got a sword in it.’
‘No doubt. Did he say where he was staying?’
‘No. But I heard a rumour he’s got a place way out, in Khar. But it’s only a rumour. There’s a lotta rumours floating around about that guy. He asked about you.’
‘What did he say?’
‘
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I said,
‘Don’t stress about Concannon. There’s a line ahead of you there.’
Idriss and Rannveig stood up. We walked around the fire to join them. Silvano was a step behind, the rifle on his shoulder.
‘You’re sure you won’t stay the night?’ Idriss asked her, holding her hands in his.
‘Thank you, sir, no. Stuart’s maid has a bad cough, and I want to be sure she is okay. She has been so kind to me, and there is no-one at home with her until we return.’
‘Very well, please give her our blessings. And come again, whenever you wish.’
She knelt to touch the earth before the teacher’s feet. Vinson shook hands amiably.
‘Thank you for your hospitality, sir,’ he said.
‘You are most welcome,’ Idriss said.
Silvano drew two young men to his side.
‘These two men are walking down now by the safer path,’ he said. ‘They will guide you, one torch in front, and one torch behind.’
‘They’ve got the plate of food for the sweet tooth spirit,’ I told her. ‘It’s wrapped in red cloth. They’ll give it to you at the base, and tell your driver where to stop. You’ll find the riverbank by torchlight.’
‘Thank you,’ she said dreamily. ‘Thank you for everything.’
They said their farewells, and walked into the darkness beyond the fire.
And I dreamed of them, that night, and a few times in the week that followed. And Didier visited my dreams, reminding me of the priorities. And Abdullah, the shadow-rider, visited dreams that raced over rooftops. And Lisa, calling to me in echoes of sorrow and remorse, hers and mine.
The world below the mountain was changing, of course, as everything does, but I couldn’t connect to it, except in those dreams. I wasn’t just physically separated from the life I’d made my own, and the people who’d become my society of friends: the mountain was my heart’s retreat from that world, and it faded in that cleaner, clearer air, only forcing its way back through visitors and dreams.
They were hard dreams. They woke me, most nights and mornings, before the sun and songbirds could ease me from sleep. And the dream-words that woke me that night were Rannveig’s, asking me about regret.
I sat up, listening to night sounds in the forest. A figure dressed in a robe as white as the stones beneath his feet walked across the courtyard of the mesa.
It was Idriss, carrying his long staff. He stopped at the edge of the clearing, where a break in the tree line gave a view of the city’s lights on the horizon.
He stood there for a while, appeasing spirits of his own, perhaps, or walking his own tightrope between attrition and contrition. Then he walked back to his cave slowly, his face drawn in sadness, and his steps quiet on the shifting stones.
Regret is a ghost of love. Regret is a nicer self that we send into the past from time to time, even though we know it’s too late to change what we said, or did. We do it because it’s human: a thing of our kind. We do it because we care, drawn by threads of shame that only fray and wither in the sea of regret.
Along the way regret, even more than love, teaches us that harm creates harm, and compassion creates compassion. And having done its work, regret fades to the nothing that all things become.
I lay back, wondering if Rannveig had placed the food beside the river on her way home from the mountain, and if the spirit she was resurrecting with remorse was free to leave her, in peace.
Chapter Forty-Four
I saw many visitors sweat their way into the mountain camp, and glow like stones in clear water when they strolled out again. The teacher was always gentle and serene. Nothing dislodged his benign smile. Nothing interrupted his trance of patient empathy. Until, that is, he was with Silvano and me, playing cards behind the shower screen.
His equanimity capsized in the cardroom-washroom, and he swore oaths against stupidity and cursed the
The devotees beyond the curtain could hear his tirades and cursing, but the thin sheet was enough to preserve the dignity that never failed when Idriss was in public, and the heir to their eyes.
