Soldier at the Door(224)
He saw colors he never noticed before, shades of gray, brown, green, white—all of them distinct and separate and more detailed than he ever imagined.
Until that day he never really noticed that the mountains weren’t all just one color. They were as varied and mottled as . . .
As . . .
A good comparison didn’t come to mind. There really wasn’t anything to compare them to. The mountains were their own thing.
And they would be ignored no longer.
---
At Edge’s Inn, Hycymum paused to look out of the kitchen door that abutted the alley, and noticed for the first time the white snow-capped peaks. Snow must come early up there at the top. She never realized before how the snow resembled whipped cream. It almost looked tasty. She turned to go back into the Inn, but found herself stopping to stare again at the mountains.
Why had she never before seen the cream?
---
Down in Idumea, High General Shin, accompanying his wife to the carriage, glanced to see why she stopped. Joriana looked towards the faint, hazy blue in the distance where her son and his family lived, and she sighed.
Relf looked north and thought about his grandchildren. Then . . .
“I never noticed that before,” he murmured.
“Noticed what?” his wife asked.
He shook his head in amazement. “You can see the mountains from here! That distant pale purple—”
“The jagged line on the horizon—yes, I see it! Those are the mountains!” Joriana exclaimed in wonder.
Together they stared in silence at the north. It was so obvious now.
“So why did we never see them before?” Relf whispered, almost reverently, almost nervously.
---
In the large orange and red stone Administration building, Chairman Mal, back on the job, shouted at two disappointing Administrators until he turned red in the face.
In the hallway Dr. Brisack stood ready with a bottle of heart tonic, because he heard Nicko’s frantic squeals of, “How can the last son of the king just vanish?! Look harder! I need Dormin!”
Dr. Brisack was also feeling some disappointment. The letter skimmers hadn’t seen anything come in from Mrs. Shin, and each one of them was watching for her distinctive handwriting in order to whisk her letter immediately to the Administrator’s desk. Brisack was beginning to suspect nothing would be coming, and that filled him with growing disillusionment. He thought there was a little bit more to her.
Down the hall, still cloistered in his office, Gadiman pored over pages, writing and writing and hoping no one would knock on his door.
No one ever did.
---
Back up in Edge, Shem Zenos, taking his midday meal break at the fort, looked down into his mug and turned it slowly. He glanced up at the sand clock above the door and smiled at the time. He nodded at nothing, stood up, and walked outside.
He glanced at the mountains, saw immediately what he was looking for, then he headed back to his bunk for a nap.
---
And down from the fort, Mahrree continued to stare at the mountains.
“What do you see?” came the panicked voice from over the fence.
Mahrree, startled, looked to her left to see a pair of anxious eyes peering over the wooden fence, mousy brown hair above them shaking slightly.
“Nothing, Mrs. Hersh. I was just noticing the mountains.”
“Why?” the woman in her late thirties exclaimed, standing a little taller now that there was no immediate danger about to come over the fence.
Mahrree blinked at that. “Why not? Look at them—I mean, really look at them. Fascinating! The crevices, the colors, the foliage—I never before noticed. So mysterious! So intrigue—”
That’s when she saw the look of astonishment on Mrs. Hersh’s peaked face. Mahrree glanced down to make sure she hadn’t suddenly transformed into a rabid wolf. Her neighbor seemed to think she had.
“Why are saying such things?” she hissed.
“Why not?”
“The mountains are . . . are . . . deformed! They’re not natural!” Mrs. Hersh gestured madly at the objects she dared not look at. “Land should be flat! I’m just glad my house faces away from that,” she spat with a grimace. “I keep telling my husband we need to leave, but he says, ‘Just ignore them.’ How long can we ignore them?! They’re hideous! Everyone knows that!”
Mahrree took an earnest step forward. “Who first told us they were deformed and hideous? I’ve never been able to find out! Don’t you ever wonder—I mean really wonder—that if everything we claim is true really isn’t simply someone else’s opinion? And we’ve repeated it so often that we all accept it’s true? But what if it’s not?”