Historian's Notebook

... Their language is beautiful, like bird-calls almost, but very quiet most of the time. When they must hail each other over a distance, they do sound like birds or insects, or else they make other non-human sounds: water dripping in a pool, wind blowing through the pines and oaks, a rock coming loose and bounding down a slope.

I don't know how long I've been with them — the last thing I remember is a late spring snowstorm, and now it is early autumn. I must have fallen, judging from the new crook in my leg, and the pain it causes me when I try to walk. Well, one doesn't exactly walk in this terrain, one scrambles. It's a vertical life. Luckily my arms are strong, and my thumbs have healed completely.

They have begun to leave me by myself for a day or so at a time, so I explore my prison. Actually, I only call it that — there are no iron doors, no locks, no night guards who like touching up the Bone-Snapper's work after everyone's asleep, or pretending to be. A young female used to be left with me, a kind of nurse who fed me and helped me exercise my leg. She didn't seem happy with the assignment, if I can judge from her peculiar little face, which bore no expression I could read except extreme alertness. She rarely turned her eyes on me, but when she did, it was chilling — interest without feeling. I had no doubt she could have dispatched me as easily as a cat kills a moth that wanders into the room.

They do remind me of cats in a way — they're so agile among the rocks and tree limbs — and they can sit perfectly still and silent for long periods of time. They don't speak often, but when they do, they bring their faces very close together and murmur, accompanying this musical speech with astonishing expressions and gestures that incorporate the whole body. It's downright arousing to watch two of them doing this, and the others, if there are more than just the two present, seem equally rapt by this performance. It may last only a few moments, or go on for an hour or more, but it always seems to break off abruptly, when one of them simply turns and moves away.

One mystery among many is this notebook and stylus. In every other way, my hosts seem so primitive, so aboriginal, that even their owning such tools is amazing. But when these objects were first put into my hands, my benefactor made gestures that clearly indicated that I was to write something, if I knew how. Once he saw that I could hold the things properly, however, he went away. In fact, none of them has showed any interest at all in what I am writing here, which makes me think I may not be the first wayfarer to have dropped in on them — as I did, literally.

Tired now, and my leg is aching. They have a lovely potion for pain — one seems to float upward on billows of warm light. I imagine dying to be like that, though I'm probably wrong...

Something is happening: we are on the move. Last night for the first time I saw the whole band together in one place, the large 'hall' near the lower crevice. Nurse had summoned me with three sharp cries right in my face. I was so stunned that I followed her without thinking. Only now, as I write this in predawn twilight, do I realize that it is the first time any of them has spoken to me directly. That is, with the voice. Until last night what communication I have had with them has been only through signs and gestures.

Everyone is awake now; we are moving out.

This notebook is fascinating to me. I cannot tell what the pages are made of — skin? bark? — but, stiff and rumpled though they are, they have one property that makes them perfect for the conditions in which we live: one has only to scratch on the page with the stylus to make a legible mark — no ink is necessary. I have also been given a pebble of some chalky substance that can be rubbed on the page to erase the marks I have made. I'm not sure how this works, and the erasure is in some ways worse than the mistake it was supposed to remove. The chalky substance makes the page stick to the back of the one on top of it when I close the book, and at least one page I have written simply cannot be pried loose any more.

But why do they want me to write in this notebook? When they first gave it to me, back in the Rock Rooms (as I call that warren of roofless caves where I first found myself among them), if one of them happened to come upon me while I was writing, he would turn quickly away, as if not wishing to interrupt me at important work, or — now that I think about it more precisely — as one backs away from a feeding cat, so as not to frighten it away from its own food. Now, since we came to this place for the winter, they seem to regard my writing with indulgence, as if I am a good little boy playing quietly in the corner. But still none has come close to see what I am actually writing here. I do not understand it.

However that may be, I am thankful for the diversion. Unlike my hosts, I am unable to sit utterly still and silent for hours, and if I don't work my leg from time to time it seizes up entirely. I can hardly describe how very difficult it was for me to make this move to winter quarters — I had felt pain before, but never like that, not even under the Bone-Snapper's expert hand. And there is no despair like total exhaustion. Nevertheless, I made it, and am now relatively comfortable in my little nook in this cave in the mountains, in the company of a dozen other souls about whom I know absolutely nothing that makes any sense.

Unless I was transported by these folk a long distance from where I fell — and only a vague feeling tells me this is not the case — we must be somewhere in the mountains I was trying to get through in my attempted escape. I have no idea if there is any civilization (meaning, I suppose, a gathering of people like me) close by, but once again, I have a feeling there is.

In winter quarters there isn't much to else for me to do except to wonder who these people are. We all stay together in the main part of the cave most of the time, so I have the opportunity to observe my hosts at leisure. Our life is primitive with respect to the necessities of life, but the social life is quite complex.

There does not seem to be any leader per se, and yet when there is something to be done, all act as one. Or rather, each takes part in a perfectly coordinated effort that is rather like a single body's various members performing different but equally important actions to complete a single but complicated task — say, break camp and move to winter quarters (and bring the clumsy stranger along).

They wear garments that cover the entire body and head, with a flap to cover the mouth and nose when it's very cold. A few of the older ones also wear a peculiar kind of visor that shields their eyes from the light, to which they seem extraordinarily sensitive. In fact, this piece of equipment is a kind of badge of seniority, if I am correctly reading the way these elders are treated by the others.

I do not think they ever take these garments off, let alone bathe. I am beginning to be able to distinguish individuals with my eyes closed, by their scent.

I witnessed something horrifying a few days ago, from which I am only now recovering sufficient control of my hands to write it down.

One of the younger males has lately developed a liking for me, and has been taking me with him to hunt. The season so far has been bountiful, and there is plenty of game, not to mention a profusion of berries, acorns, and pine-nuts to ease our hunger along the way.

On this particular morning, my companion led me to a boulder field that struck me with its harsh beauty. I thought we were merely going to pass through on our way to the woods at the other side, but he kept heading for the cliff from which these boulders had broken off long ago. And then we began to climb. I could only keep up with the greatest effort, but he was patient and came back to pull me up a couple of times when I could not find the handholds myself.

At last we reached a fairly broad ledge that is invisible from below. My companion pointed back the way we came and waved, but when I looked I saw no one, only a squirrel dashing from one boulder to another. My host then put both hands on my shoulders, which I have come to understand means 'Stay here'. And then he started up the face of the cliff again.

As I watched, he scaled the sheer wall as easily as a spider, and then, unbelievably, continued up as the rock face curved outward to form the underside of a kind of platform at the top. There he hung supine a moment, twisting his head completely around to look at me with what might have been a smile.

Then came the sound of crunching gravel, and a soldier stepped onto the platform. What happened next was so quick I would have missed it had not my eyes already been popping at the sight. The soldier spotted me and came to the edge to get a closer look. At the same time my companion somehow slipped around onto the platform behind the soldier, then slapped his hands and feet smartly on the flat stone. The soldier wheeled around, and the creature leaped at him, making a frightful noise — like a hiss and a screech together. The soldier jumped back, right over the edge. My comrade was around the underside of the platform again before the soldier could make a sound. When he did find his voice, of course, it didn't matter.

What followed was even more appalling. The soldier's body was shattered on the sharp rocks below me, but the fall did not quite kill him. What finished him off was the rest of my new 'family', who appeared instantly around the groaning man, ripped him joint from joint with their incredibly strong hands, and then vanished almost immediately with the fragments. All that was left was a splatter of blood, steaming on the stones.

I must have fainted, because I remember nothing of how I got back here to the cave. I cannot think about this any more.

This morning when I awoke, I found myself alone with the Old One who tends the box. (Beyond a certain age, it is impossible to distinguish male from female among these creatures.) The rest I believe are gone for what I call Thaw Day, the first time it is possible to actually get out of the cave where we spend the winter. Last year I tried to go with them, but it is much too dangerous out on the rocks for a stumbler like me until all the ice is melted. So this year they have wisely left me behind, and I willingly bow to their wisdom.

Knowing they would be out foraging and hunting until sunset, I will occupy my time by contemplating my own sorry story, in other words, to live up to my nickname at last. It was my friend, now the Golias, who dubbed me the Historian, in one of our many youthful bouts of drinking ourselves sick — before his father, then the Golias, drove us apart. For a long time I was bitter, but I was sure my friend would not forget me when he came into his kingdom.

When he did in fact ascend the throne, my old friend would not even answer my letters, let alone permit me to see him. It was then I began to understand what fortune means, and I ceased to blame my friend for only being what he was destined to be: a man required by his privilege to cut off anyone who was a danger to it. I threatened his position because I was a drunken fool who used to play with him, who in fact still loved him, was as besotted with love for him as with the drink I swilled to try to forget him. I was an embarrassment at best, at worst a potential weapon that his enemies could use against him — and what man endowed with power has no enemies?

My anger was now directed not at my friend, but at such a world as made our friendship impossible. A drunkard's anger, in other words, hopeless on purpose, a fine reason for another drink. Such foolish rage is not without its wisdom, of course: the world is in fact evil and cruel, does in fact drive friends and lovers apart, and for what purpose? Only to continue as it is, without discomforting those whose comfort is the reason for its working the way it does.

Being drunk took away the restraint that makes people do their duty no matter how bad it is for them, no matter how unworthy the cause. I had no duty, except what I perversely regarded as my love for the truth, when in fact all I really loved was the bottle or the wineskin and the sound of my own voice. And my gift for words, especially words of disparagement — how easily they tripped out of my mouth once I'd poured the sweet liquor in! And how brave I was, telling anyone within earshot just how craven were the masters of this world!

Well, someone finally listened, and for my courageous acts of defiance took me to that awful place, where my first and worst torment was being deprived of a drink. In a way the sessions with the Examiners were a consolation for the aching loss I felt once my hangover cleared. At least they gave me something else to think about. But even the pain became boring after a time — until my last Examiner appeared, and taught me what real pain can be.

The box is made of the same material as my notebook, but stiffened so that it keeps its shape. The Old One spends all her time tending it — polishing, restitching the joints, inscribing little marks on its surface.

Actually it is not quite a box, but more of a satchel, with a handle and also a longer strap for carrying from place to place when we have to move camp. I never even noticed it until we had been in winter quarters for quite a while, and even then I thought it was merely the Old One's notebook, the same as everyone else has, only somewhat larger.

And I had long before lost interest the others' notebooks — all they did was copy the same figures over and over, the way children do, and, like children, once a page was covered with squiggles, it was often left behind or trodden underfoot.

That's what finally brought the box to my attention, the fact that she protected it, always kept it with her, either on her lap or strapped to her side...